التصنيف: estaql

Calls for a ceasefire in Gaza are growing by the day.

But with Palestinians enduring deaths, devastation and deprivation every day, what have they been offered?

A pause in Israeli attacks.

Daily four-hour windows said to be aimed at helping people move around or get to the south.

But that region is being bombed, too.

So, does the White House announcement of a daily pause offer any respite to Palestinians in the territory?

Or is it a way to divide the strip as part of Israel’s offensive strategy?

Presenter: Laura Kyle

Guests:
Omar Shakir – Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch

Trita Parsi – Executive vice president of Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a Washington-based think tank

Joseph Belliveau – Executive director of Doctors Without Borders in Canada

Donald Tusk, the opposition’s candidate for prime minister, said that the group is ‘ready to take responsibility’.

Poland’s opposition parties have signed a coalition deal, paving the way for them to form a new government after winning the majority of votes in elections last month. But they will have to wait.

Donald Tusk, the opposition’s candidate for prime minister, announced on Friday that a deal had been reached. The group includes various ideologies, but united around strengthening Poland’s ties to the European Union.

“We are ready to take responsibility for Poland in the coming years,” Tusk, a former prime minister and head of the liberal Civic Coalition (KO) told reporters.

The parties, which include Civic Coalition, the economically liberal Third Way, and the left-leaning New Left, garnered a collective majority of votes in the October 15 election.

But President Andrzej Duda has given the governing nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which took more votes than any single party in the elections, the first shot at forming a government.

That effort is widely expected to fail, and the opposition, calling themselves the “democratic opposition”, have pledged to strengthen democracy in Poland after PiS was accused of undermining the independence of the judiciary during its eight years in power.

A series of judicial changes, instituted in 2019, blocked Polish courts from applying EU laws in certain areas and barred courts from referring legal questions to the top EU court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

Those changes spurred the EU to freeze billions of euros in funds from the bloc’s budget apportioned for Warsaw, and the ECJ ruled in June that the changes violated the bloc’s standards on the rule of law.

The opposition parties have emphasised their desire to strengthen relations with Brussels to access those funds. The parties have also signed a series of pledges, saying that they will restore transparency to public finances and depoliticise state-owned firms.

Friday’s agreement also says that the parties will scrap a Constitutional Tribunal ruling from 2020 that instituted a near-total ban on abortion in Poland.

The country’s anti-abortion laws, some of the harshest in Europe, have provoked large-scale protests, including marches in June that kicked off after a woman who was five months pregnant died of sepsis.

There are few exceptions for abortion in Poland, even when the life of the mother is at risk.

“In our agreement, we found a common denominator for the issues we want to implement,” said Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, leader of the centre-right Polish Peasants’ Party (PSL).

“They concern: support for families, employees, entrepreneurs, the Polish countryside, education, healthcare and women’s rights.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is also a focus of the group, which has promised to bolster Poland’s position in groups such as the EU and NATO amid “the unprecedented threat to our security caused by Russian aggression against Ukraine”.

In just more than four weeks, Israel’s total siege and indiscriminate bombardment of the Gaza Strip killed more than 10,000 civilians, including some 4000 children, and caused global outrage.

People across the world, from the United Kingdom and France to Turkey and Indonesia, are regularly taking to the streets in large numbers to condemn Israel’s apparent war crimes and demand an immediate ceasefire to save lives.

Regrettably, these calls – including one from the UN secretary-general himself – appear to be falling on deaf ears. Israel is not only refusing to entertain the possibility of a ceasefire, but also continuing to target hospitals, mosques, churches, schools, UN-run facilities and other civilian infrastructure across the besieged Strip in direct violation of international humanitarian law.

The United States, meanwhile, is supporting this aggressive mass killing campaign unequivocally, and providing Israel with the funds, weapons and the political backing it needs to continue its assault on Gaza. All this despite knowing too well that the civilian casualties are piling up at an incredible rate.

The US is not alone in facilitating the conditions for Israel to break international law and commit war crimes with complete impunity. The UK, France, Germany and many other Western states are firmly rejecting the growing calls for a ceasefire, claiming Israel is “defending itself” and a ceasefire would only “help Hamas”. These governments are also trying to silence voices calling for a ceasefire within their countries, at times going as far as criminalising peaceful expressions of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Leading Western governments’ indifference to the immense suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and vocal support for Israel’s blatant violations of international law have exposed a deep moral crisis they are all suffering from – a crisis that raises important questions about the viability of the Western-led, rules-based world order.

Indeed, it is becoming impossible for Western powers to claim they stand for human rights and international law while failing to demand a ceasefire in a conflict that, in the words of the UN, turned Gaza into a “graveyard for children”. Their silence in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe and undeniable complicity in Israel’s war crimes in Gaza serves to encourage other actors to commit similar atrocities and expect impunity. Their support for Israel and refusal to demand a ceasefire to save innocent lives is a moral failing that will have grave consequences for the entire international community.

Today, this consequential moral failing is perhaps more visible in the UK than anywhere else.

On Saturday, November 11, the country will commemorate Armistice Day, marking the 105th anniversary of the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany. The day is meant to be an opportunity for Britons to pay their respects for fallen soldiers, reflect on the cruelty of war, and remember the importance of ending hostilities and saving lives.

Thousands of people in London will be marching on Armistice Day, like they did every Saturday since the beginning of this war, to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Armistice Day is, perhaps, the most appropriate day for such a protest, as a call for ceasefire fits perfectly with its spirit and purpose.

The UK’s leaders, however, did not see the coinciding of Armistice Day with a march demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza as an opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned from past wars, and reconsider their support for Israel’s assault on the besieged enclave. Rather, they doubled down on their morally indefensible position and even attempted to accuse protesters demanding a ceasefire in Gaza of not respecting the UK’s war dead and the values they fought for.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, for example, went as far as to claim that “Saturday’s planned protest is not just disrespectful but offends our heartfelt gratitude to the memory of those who gave so much so that we may live in freedom and peace today”.

But how could a protest calling for “ceasefire”, calling for an end to the killing of children, can be offensive to the memory of those who died in past wars? Or how could such an effort, on Armistice Day no less, be branded “a hate march”, as Home Secretary Suella Braverman shockingly tried to do?

British government’s passionate opposition to an Armistice Day march demanding a ceasefire in Gaza not only exposes its abandonment of some core British values, including freedom of speech, but also underlines the disconnect between the country’s rulers and people. Indeed, according to a recent poll conducted by YouGov, some 76 percent of British adults support a ceasefire in the Gaza war.

The UK’s leaders, like many of their Western allies, appear to have lost their moral compass and forgotten all the lessons learned from the devastating world wars of the last century. Their failure to speak against Israel’s war crimes, and support an immediate ceasefire in line with the British public’s wishes, is a moral failing that will have catastrophic consequences for us all.

This is why, this Armistice Day, we should all come together not only to remember the pain and sacrifices of the past wars, but also to communicate to our leaders yet again the importance and urgency of doing everything we can to put an end to the bloodshed in Palestine – for the sake of the millions of innocents suffering in Gaza, and all the rest of us.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Main opposition party calls it president’s ‘attempt to eliminate the constitutional order’.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has waded into a brewing judicial crisis, accusing the country’s highest court of making mistakes and defending an unprecedented criminal investigation against its judges.

The comments on Friday stoked a debate over the rule of law after the appeals Court of Cassation unexpectedly challenged the authority of the Constitutional Court this week, making a criminal complaint against judges of the Constitutional Court.

The dispute revolves around jailed lawyer Can Atalay, one of seven defendants sentenced last year to 18 years in prison as part of a trial that also saw the award-winning philanthropist Osman Kavala jailed for life.

The 47-year-old Atalay was allowed to run from jail in May’s general election and was elected to parliament as a member of the leftist Workers’ Party of Turkey (TIP).

The Constitutional Court ruled last month that the jailed parliamentarian should be released – a ruling the appeals court said was unconstitutional.

“Unfortunately, the Constitutional Court has made many mistakes in a row at this point, which seriously saddens us,” Erdogan told reporters on a flight back from Uzbekistan, according to a text published by his office on Friday.

“The Constitutional Court cannot and should not underestimate the step taken by the Court of Cassation on this matter,” he said.

Turkey’s bar association and the main opposition party have denounced the appeals court’s ruling as an “attempted coup”, and hundreds of members demonstrated, many of them lawyers in legal robes, chanting “justice” on the streets of the capital on Friday.

They marched more than 10km (6 miles) from the Ankara courthouse to the Ahlatlibel district, where the Constitutional Court and the Court of Cassation are located side by side.

“Our citizens need to understand that this struggle is not just a struggle of lawyers, it is a struggle for the constitution,” said the head of the Ankara Bar Association, Mustafa Koroglu.

Joining the march in front of the Constitutional Court building, the new leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Ozgur Ozel, said the latest judicial crisis was “an attempt by Erdogan to overhaul the constitutional order”.

“The president, who takes his power from the constitution, supports Court of Cassation’s actions ignoring the constitution. Constitutional Court rulings are binding for everybody, according to the constitution,” Ozel said, urging Erdogan to protect the constitution.

Erdogan told his ruling AK Party members to support the appeals court challenge, appearing to take aim at some in its ranks who had criticised the move.

‘Degradation of rule of law’

In comments made later at a ceremony in Ankara, Erdogan said the dispute between the two top courts showed the need for a new constitution, reflecting his longstanding position that parliament should take up the matter next year.

The latest crisis showed that Erdogan wants “more control over what happens in Turkey, including a judicial system that does what he wants, such as prosecuting and imprisoning his critics and opponents”, according to analyst Gareth Jenkins.

“His preference is to do things according to the constitution. That is why he has amended the current constitution in 2010 and 2017 and is now talking about a completely new one,” he added.

Legal experts said such a crisis between the country’s two most prominent courts was unprecedented and underlined concerns that the judiciary has been bent to Erdogan’s will.

It coincided with the European Commission’s release of an annual report on Turkey’s long-stalled European Union membership bid, in which it underlined “serious backsliding” on democratic standards, the rule of law and judicial independence.

The commission also said Turkey did not comply with the principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms in its “counterterrorism” operations.

On Thursday, the White House announced that Israel has agreed to daily four-hour pauses in fighting in northern Gaza to allow people to flee hostilities and for humanitarian aid to be let in.

Yet, within hours, Israel’s bombing campaign had targeted Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa, and Israeli tanks had surrounded four other hospitals in the northern part of the besieged enclave.

With more than 11,000 Palestinians killed and over 27,000 injured, the al-Shifa Hospital has received just two shipments of life-saving supplies since the conflict escalated. The facility is barely hanging on by a thread, with many others fettered shut due to the fighting and the Israeli siege on Gaza following Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7.

Meanwhile, Gaza is running short on water, many of its hospitals and other facilities are out of fuel, and a humanitarian crisis is deepening.

While the pauses could have offered some hope that hospitals might have been restocked, and other essential facilities could have received supplies, the attacks over the past 24 hours raise questions about Israel’s intent, and that of the US, said many experts. The pauses are also inadequate, they said.

Both the US and Israel have made it clear that there will be no ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

Unilateral move

Emanuela-Chiara Gillard, a senior fellow at the Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the University of Oxford and an associate fellow at Chatham House, welcomed the humanitarian pause announcement but said it has gaping holes.

“I think that any announcement to suspend hostilities temporarily is positive in view of the situation on the ground and the needs,” Gillard told Al Jazeera. “In the immediate short term, what is clearly needed is a temporary suspension of activities, to allow humanitarian actors to transit safely, to allow people to [receive] this humanitarian assistance.”

“The issue is that it is a unilateral rather than an agreed pause between Israel and Hamas and the other parties,” she added.

This raises the question of whether Hamas and other factions will respect the pause, as the Palestinian group has not committed to anything, Gillard said.

A third-party mediator should facilitate the agreement of pauses that would be respected by both sides, she added.

Gillard also said that Israel’s communication of the details of the pauses is of outright importance, otherwise civilians making use of them could land in harm’s way.

‘Pauses are not a solution’

Other analysts said that a humanitarian pause falls short of what is needed, and that Israel needed to cease hostilities entirely.

“Pauses are not a solution,” Abdel Hamid Siyam, professor of political science and Middle East studies at Rutgers University, told Al Jazeera, saying what is needed instead is a “ceasefire so that humanitarian aid can come in uninterrupted, that foreigners can leave the country, and maybe negotiations can take place”.

Siyam said that past directives by Israel have failed to protect civilians.

“If this is only a pause to allow people to move from the north to south, it did not work in the past, it will not work in the future,” he said. “In four hours, people cannot come. They don’t have cars, they don’t have fuel. It’s not going to work.”

He said that a ceasefire, however, may be on the cards soon.

“There is mounting pressure on Israel now to open up for a real ceasefire, a real truce for a day or two or three. I think that is coming in the next few days,” said Siyam.

Protecting Biden’s interests

Meanwhile, the US has its own interests in pushing its ally for the pause, said Sami Hamdi, the managing director at International Interest, a political risk firm focusing on the Middle East.

“The pause is designed to be a vehicle through which the US can continue to support Israel’s push to ethnically-cleanse the northern part of Gaza, but also be able to reframe and present that support to the raging global public as ‘humanitarian’,” Hamdi told Al Jazeera.

US President Joe Biden has come under pressure domestically, with resignations from his Department of State, and a letter from more than 500 former campaign staffers protesting against his refusal to call for a ceasefire.

What will particularly worry him, Hamdi said, are polls suggesting that he is now trailing former US President Donald Trump in several battleground states.

Rising public pressure might also make the current US position of rejecting a ceasefire untenable soon and Biden will be forced to intervene to stop Israel’s offensive, he said.

The delay in announcing the pause, however, also reflects growing tensions between Washington and Tel Aviv.

“Tel Aviv is concerned that the US push for a humanitarian pause is a ploy by which Biden hopes to lull Netanyahu into ceasefire talks, and has been adamant in demanding assurances that this is not the case,” said Hamdi.

And Palestinians will fare no better with the pause, he said, forced still to choose between leaving their lands for Israeli settlers, or to remain and die.

For some organisations on the ground, it is too early to tell whether the humanitarian pause will be helpful.

“We’ll see when –  and if – it’s implemented and then we will be able to comment,” Juliette Touma, UNRWA’s director of communications told Al Jazeera.

“We continue to call for a fully-fledged humanitarian ceasefire across the Gaza Strip for the protection of civilians wherever they are, inside the Gaza Strip and elsewhere, for the sake of civilians for the sake of humanity,” she added.