Only seconds after Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened the 59th consecutive online meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) today, the meeting was subject to an extended disruption, which attack underscores the growing strategic importance of the weekly IPC sessions. About 30 minutes later, the meeting resumed with tighter security.
Note that flights were grounded all over the world today, ostensibly due to a collapse of Microsoft systems, initially attributed to a CrowdStrike update, which disrupted emergency services, hospitals, banks, airlines, trains, media and banks as well.
The International Assassination Bureau
The July 13 attempt on the life of former U.S. President and Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump was an early topic of discussion. Helga Zepp-LaRouche reminded the participants that if Trump had not moved his head a fraction of an inch and avoided death, the effect on the domestic situation would have been dramatic. Trump has expressed his desire to end all wars on the planet, and even if there is only a slight chance that he intends to do that after being elected, that chance for peace would have been eliminated. Prof. Cliff Kiracofe, from the Washington Institute for Peace and Development, added that “We have in our history other assassination attempts against U.S. Presidents.” In the cases of Lincoln and McKinley, the objective was to break up economic development. Trump has occasionally made statements that hearken back to the economic development policies of McKinley and Henry Clay; a successful assassination could possibly have blocked a new industrial policy for the United States. Later, during the discussion, LaRouche activist Kynan Thistlethwaite brought to people’s attention The LaRouche Organization’s report, “Stop NATO’s World War: Dismantle the International Assassination Bureau,” released in February 2023. Zepp-LaRouche responded by listing many of the political, financial and civil rights leaders who have been killed since the 1960s, saying that the common denominator is that these were individuals who were crucial for their nations. Kiracofe added that the list should include the pro-peace politicians in Japan who were killed in 1930s, making a world war inevitable.
Diplomacy Versus Violence
“All the people who are reasonable think that you have to go to diplomacy,” said Zepp-LaRouche, but the leaders of the EU are charging headlong in the opposite direction. She commented on the unfortunate reelection of Ursula von der Leyen to a second term as president of the EU Commission, saying that her speech was “so bellicose … unquestioned commitment to the policies of the Israeli government, not the Israeli people.” Von der Leyen actually called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s diplomacy “appeasement,” and called for a strategic defeat of Russia. Zepp-LaRouche further mentioned the “hair-raising warmongering” of new EU foreign policy chief (and an EU Commission vice president) Kaja Kallas, who will replace Josep Borrell.
Jonathan Kuttab, Executive Director of Friends of Sabeel North America—A Christian Voice for Palestine, and Co-Founder of Non-Violence International, joined as a featured speaker for today’s meeting. He began his remarks saying, “I’m willing to say that there are those who have a vested interest in violence…. I can talk about grave violations of international law … war crimes, genocide … but I’m not going to do that.” He continued: “We absolutely, desperately need to seek other methods for conflict resolution … we need to stop the demonization of each other … every liberation movement has been called a terrorist organization….” He advocated dialogue with all parties, Hamas included, saying, “We need to start the process … we are willing to break the taboos, we are willing to initiate contacts.”
He described that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, peace activists in Israel, the U.S., and elsewhere conducted a serious campaign to urge politicians to talk to Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO changed its charter, renounced violence, accepted the principles of compromise, and accepted conditions.
Is there any reason a similar process should not be started with Hamas?
Zepp-LaRouche thanked him and introduced him briefly to the Oasis Plan of Lyndon LaRouche, which is “making big steps forward.”
What Has Become of International Law?
Richard A. Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Not able to attend in person, he provided a video in which he reminded viewers that the Likud/religious party coalition which came to power in 2023 has been characterized as “the most extreme in the history of Israel,” with the “rather transparent intention of completing the Zionist project of Greater Israel,” including the annexation of the West Bank. The most extreme government figures were given jurisdiction over the occupied territories; settlers were given a green light to terrorize the Palestinians. The events of October 7 provided the pretext for genocide, and diverted attention from the West Bank, which was the core of the coalition strategy. Falk described this as the second phase of the death of the two-state solution, phase one being the settlements policy.
During the discussion, an activist reported on the July 19 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful and should come to an end “as rapidly as possible.” Kiracofe pointed out that this decision addresses what has been exactly the principal legal issue since 1948, when the U.S. intervened to block a one-state solution, a democratic republic where Arabs and Jews would have equal rights, in favor of partition. Did the UN have legal authority to cause partition? The ICJ has been prevented from addressing this until now.
Elena Radu, a Romanian lawyer, is President of the Coalition for the Defense of the Rule of Law. She is leading a campaign to make null and void the treaty made by Romania’s President with Ukraine, which could put Romania at war in 24 hours. The Romanian Constitution does not authorize a President to enter into such agreements, only Parliament may do so. One Member of Parliament has initiated an action to nullify the treaty, and 26 other MPs support it. Two other Romanians on the IPC call also spoke out on the war danger, and other participants urged the IPC to support this action against the treaty. Zepp-LaRouche called for publication of their demands.
In concluding remarks, Zepp-LaRouche reiterated her call for a “Council of Reason.” She returned to the image of Trump averting death by a tiny movement of his head, finding in it a metaphor for the precarious world situation: “This is the condition of all humanity, and if you assume that, then you get off your couch.” In response to a question from a Canadian professor on the question of pessimism, she said, “I’m not exactly euphoric about the world situation … why am I nevertheless an optimist?” She reminded participants that Gottfried Leibniz said that “the universe is made in such a way that a great evil always evokes a greater good.” That greater good is within reach; colonialism started around 1500, and now it is ending, with China playing a critical role. The end of 500 years of evil exploitation opens up the possibility of the New Paradigm toward which many of us have dedicated our lives. Averting another world war is not just a desperate act of self-preservation, it is the key to the success of that new paradigm.