Category World News

The occupied Palestinian territories are subject to a full arms embargo, according to Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the region, and withdraw international support for what she described as an “economy of genocide.”

In a speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Thursday, Albanese made the remarks as she presented her most recent report, which listed dozens of businesses she claimed were involved in Palestinian-related Israeli repression and violence.

She claimed that “the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory is apocalyptic.” One of the most atrocious genocides in recent memory is caused by Israel.

Nearly 57, 000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the conflict’s 22nd month began, according to the UN, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced frequently. Additionally, hundreds of thousands have been displaced, and hospitals and schools have been targeted.

Genocide is profitable for some, according to some.

The report, titled “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide,” described what it called “the corporate machinery supporting Israel’s settler-colonial project of displacement and displacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory.”

The report criticized businesses, including arms manufacturers, tech companies, heavy machinery manufacturers, and financial institutions, for their “complicity” in supporting Israel’s occupation of occupied territory, which allowed Palestinians to be watched and killed.

While political leaders had been avoiding their responsibilities, according to the report, “far too many corporate entities have profited from Israel’s economy of illegal occupation, apartheid, and now, genocide.”

It demanded that businesses held the international community accountable for their role in Israel’s abuses, and that they be held accountable for their actions in violation of international law.

According to Albanese, “every state and every corporation has a prima facie responsibility to completely abstain or end their relationships with this economic of occupation,” adding that if the corporation had done proper due diligence, it “would have completely and completely disengaged from its entanglement with the Israeli economy.”

According to Albanese, there are businesses and individuals who have profited from the violence, the killing, the maiming, the destruction in Gaza and other areas of the occupied Palestinian territory, speaking to reporters in Geneva after her speech.

She noted that, in stark contrast to the suffering suffered by Palestinians, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange increased by at least 20% in the past nearly 21 months of the conflict.

She said, “One person is enriched, one person is erased.”

“Genocide is obviously profitable for some,” he said.

The Israeli state’s military “backbone”

The military-industrial complex, according to the UN report, serves as Israel’s “economic backbone,” arguing that Israel’s prolonged occupation and repeated military operations had provided testing grounds for cutting-edge military technology, including AI-enabled targeting tools and the F-35 fighter jet program.

Albanese claimed that arms companies had made near-record profits by providing Israel with cutting-edge technology to devastate Gaza with 85 000 tonnes of explosives, which is six times the strength of Hiroshima.

Although Leonardo SpA is the Italian manufacturer Leonardo SpA, the F-35 program is led by Lockheed Martin in the United States, the rest of its components are produced abroad. Elbit Systems and IAI, both of which were involved in the development of drones, are also mentioned in the report.

Additionally, it recognized shipping companies like Denmark’s A P Moller–Maersk for “maintaining a steady flow of US-supplied military equipment” to Israel throughout its war on Gaza as well as Japan’s FANUC Corporation for providing robotic machinery for weapons production lines.

The tech industry was also highlighted in the report, which claimed tech giants like Microsoft, Alphabet, and Amazon had a significant impact on enabling Israel’s mass surveillance systems.

According to the report, US company Palantir Technologies has expanded its support to the Israeli military since the start of the conflict in Gaza, while IBM has also been in charge of training military and intelligence personnel and managing a central database holding Palestinians’ biometric data.

Additionally, it cited heavy machinery manufacturers like Caterpillar Inc. in the US, Hyundai Corp. in South Korea, and Volvo Group of Sweden for providing equipment related to the destruction of Palestinian property.

According to Albanese, an independent expert under the UN’s purview, “What I expose is not a list; it is a system,” and abuses must be addressed.

In her speech, she remarked, “Palestinians are brutalized and watched by weapons and data systems.”

“Colonies spread – financed by banks and insurers, fueled by fossil fuels, and regulated by tourism platforms, supermarket chains, and academic institutions.”

Israel: “groundless” report

Noel White, Ireland’s ambassador to the UN, stated that Albanese’s government was moving forward with legislation that would outlaw the import of goods from settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory. delegates in Geneva applauded Albanese’s speech.

According to the Reuters news agency, Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva did not respond to a request for comment on Albanese’s speech right away.

It called Albanese’s report “legally unsubstantiated, defamatory, and a flagrant abuse of her office” earlier this week.

Israel has disputed the international criminal court of justice’s (ICJ)-mandated accusations of genocide against Gaza, citing its right to self-defense following the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, for which numerous genocide experts have confirmed Israel is carrying out.

The far-right, nationalist Reform UK party would be Britain’s largest political party if a general election were held now, a major new poll shows, putting its founder, Nigel Farage, on a potential course to become the country’s next prime minister.

Reform would win 271 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, with the ruling Labour Party second at 178 seats, polling firm YouGov said on June 26. That would leave a hung parliament, with one party only able to form a government in coalition with another.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s popularity has tanked since last year’s landslide general election victory, owing to a challenging global backdrop, slow economic growth and a series of embarrassing policy U-turns on welfare reform.

Last week’s census was YouGov’s first “mega-poll” since Labour came to power. As well as showing the rapid rise in popularity of Reform and the reversal of favour for Labour, it also shows a collapse in support for the formerly ruling Conservative Party.

The Conservative Party, which suffered its worst ever general election loss last July, would win just 46 seats in an election, down from 120, leaving the party in fourth place behind the Liberal Democrats, YouGov said.

The Greens, meanwhile, would win 11 percent of the vote, picking up several new seats to hold seven altogether. In Scotland, the SNP would return to dominance, gaining 29 seats to win 38 overall.

The next election is not expected until 2029.

Why has Reform surged in popularity?

Founded as the Brexit Party in 2018 to advocate for a hard “no-deal Brexit” – the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union – and written off in its early years as a one-issue party solely concerned with immigration, Reform UK has emerged as a group that could seriously challenge the century-long dominance of Britain’s main political parties.

For his part, Farage has said that Reform’s political transformation is now complete. The party has offices in Westminster, close to the Houses of Parliament, and has attracted interest from new voters and wealthy donors alike.

To broaden its appeal, Reform dismissed members accused of racism and bullying and tried to distance the party from far-right movements in other European nations, such as France’s National Rally and Germany’s Alternative for Germany.

According to its latest party manifesto, Reform warned that net zero environmental policies were “crippling the [British] economy”. It promised to “scrap” green energy subsidies and start fast-tracking North Sea oil and gas licences.

Its main pledges remain centred around immigration, however. Reform has promised to stop small boats carrying undocumented migrants and refugees from crossing the English Channel and to freeze “non-essential” immigration. Most Brits now overwhelmingly believe that immigration is too high, according to research by YouGov.

At by-elections – votes held to fill vacancies in the House of Commons which arise between general elections – in May, Reform narrowly beat Labour in the seat of Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England, and secured a string of victories over the Conservatives in rural English counties.

Why has the Conservative Party fallen in popularity?

In part, because many of its members have defected to Reform.

Since last year’s punishing general election defeat for the Conservatives after 14 years in power, Reform has successfully poached at least 80 former candidates, donors and staff members from the traditional right-wing party, according to Reuters research.

One was Anne Marie Morris, who was reprimanded by then-Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017 for using a derogatory, racist term during a debate about Brexit. She is now set to head up Reform’s social care policy. Other high-profile Conservatives who have defected to Reform include Ann Widdecombe, Lee Anderson, Ross Thomson, Andrea Jenkyns and Marco Longhi.

Tory loyalists are taking note. The Conservative mayor of Tees Valley, Lord Houchen, recently told the BBC that his party would need to form a coalition with Reform at the next general election if it hopes to keep Labour out of government.

However, Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservatives, has ruled out a coalition with Farage’s party at the national level, arguing that Reform is seeking to destroy the Tories. A YouGov poll conducted in April showed that just 38 percent of Conservatives would be in favour of merging with Reform.

Why are people disaffected with Labour so soon after its election victory?

In addition to Reform’s recent wins, Farage has been buoyed by a challenging political and economic landscape inherited by Labour from the Conservatives. Starmer is grappling with a low-growth economy accompanied by pronounced fiscal constraints – a deficit of nearly 5 percent of gross domestic product and a debt ratio close to 100 percent. It is also charged with rescuing a failing National Health Service (NHS).

Meanwhile, United States President Donald Trump upended decades of global trade policy on April 2 – a date he refers to as “liberation day” – when he announced sweeping tariffs on the US’s trading partners, including the UK. Trump later paused those duties for 90 days, however, that deadline is due to run out next week.

Though the UK has since secured the first trade agreement with the US, it maintains a 10 percent tariff on most UK exports – something Starmer was forced to swallow to get a trade deal done. Other countries have until next week to strike similar deals. Trump’s stop-start tariff war, in turn, has slowed global growth.

Labour had already straitjacketed its investment plans before Trump assumed office, however. As a result of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s self-imposed fiscal rules, the Treasury had been considering spending cuts prior to its latest budget announcement in March.

Starmer unveiled sweeping welfare reforms, including tightening the eligibility for personal independence payments (PIP) – a type of disability and illness benefit – to get people back to work and save the government 5 billion to 6 billion pounds ($6.8bn to $8.2bn) per year.

On July 1, however, he drastically watered down the UK’s controversial welfare reform bill in an attempt to fend off a full-scale Labour rebellion in the House of Commons, leaving him with a multibillion-pound hole in the UK’s public finances and a bruised public image.

That came on top of another policy U-turn on June 9, when the government announced it had reversed a motion to scrap a winter fuel benefit for millions of pensioners following widespread criticism, including from its own MPs.

Weeks of ructions recently led John McDonnell, the former shadow treasury secretary, to write in The Guardian newspaper that “a party this dysfunctional and divided cannot escape the wrath of voters at the next election”.

Would Reform really come to power in the UK in a general election?

Reform UK’s surge in the polls stems from a deep disillusionment with Britain’s mainstream political parties, which have shared power for more than a century, experts say.

However, question marks remain over Reform’s ability to govern as its policies are lacking in detail, observers say. For instance, the party’s manifesto claims it would “pick up illegal migrants out of boats and take them back to France”. But it doesn’t explain how it would persuade France to accept them back.

Tony Travers, professor in the government department at the London School of Economics, said the efficacy of these policies is, therefore, “unknowable”.

“On the one hand, these ideas would rely on the consent of French authorities. On the other, they’re also conceding that some immigration is necessary,” Travers told Al Jazeera, referring to Reform’s proposal to make concessions for healthcare workers in its proposed ban on “non-essential” immigration.

“Until recently [May], Reform had the enormous advantage of not being tested in office. Looking ahead, they will be judged on how they’ve done in government,” he said.

“It’s much easier to be in opposition than in government,” as the “nightmare challenges facing Keir Starmer won’t go away”, he added.

“If Reform win the next general election, they will have to try and fix an ailing NHS, railways, prison and education systems, all with less money than they’d like.”

The UK government fought for the right to send Israeli military-related jet parts to them while UK rappers are facing criminal charges for chants at the Glastonbury festival. Soraya Lennie examines the reasons behind the UK’s priorities.