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pope francis
Pope Francis Urges Genocide Probe of Israel's War on Gaza
The pontiff's call comes as the International Court of Justice is reviewing evidence in a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel.
Nov 17, 2024
In a new book set to be released this week, Pope Francis I endorsed a genocide investigation into Israel's war on Gaza—which has killed or maimed more than 150,000 Palestinians and forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened millions more over the past 13 months.
"In the Middle East, where the open doors of nations like Jordan or Lebanon continue to be a salvation for millions of people fleeing conflicts in the region: I am thinking above all of those who leave Gaza in the midst of the famine that has struck their Palestinian brothers and sisters given the difficulty of getting food and aid into their territory," the pontiff wrote in his latest book, which goes on sale in some countries on November 19.
"According to some experts, what is happening in Gaza has the characteristics of a genocide," the Pope added. "It should be carefully investigated to determine whether it fits into the technical definition formulated by jurists and international bodies."
The Pope's words echo last week's finding by a United Nations expert panel that Israel's annihilation of Gaza is "consistent with the characteristics of genocide."
The International Court of Justice—a U.N. organ—is currently weighing a South Africa-led genocide case against Israel backed by more than 30 nations and regional blocs as well as hundreds of groups and experts around the world.
Meanwhile, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as three former Hamas leaders assassinated by Israel, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination.
Many jurists, scholars, and other experts—including some of Israel's leading Holocaust historians—have called Israel's policies and actions in Gaza genocide. Early in the war, Raz Segal—an Israeli historian and professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in New Jersey—called Israel's Gaza onslaught "a textbook case of genocide."
Numerous world leaders and other international officials, artists, entertainers, and others—including half of Democratic voters in the United States surveyed in May—also agree that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Many Palestinian Christians have been killed, injured, or otherwise harmed by Israeli forces during the bombardment, invasion, and siege of Gaza. With just 800 to 1,000 people believed remaining in Gaza, members of the world's oldest Christian community warned early in the war that they were "under threat of extinction."
In their most infamous attack on Gaza Christians, Israeli forces bombed the 12th century Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, Gaza's oldest, in October 2023, killing 18 Palestinians including numerous children. Among the victims were two women and an infant related to former Republican U.S. Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan.
After an Israeli sniper fatally shot an elderly woman and her daughter on the grounds of a Catholic church in Gaza City last December, Pope Francis condemned what he called an act of "terrorism."
Amid the death and destruction wrought by Israel's assault on Gaza, last December's Christmas celebrations were canceled in Bethlehem, the purported birthplace of Jesus Christ.
"How can we celebrate when we feel this war—this genocide—that is taking place could resume at any moment?" asked Palestinian Lutheran pastor Munther Isaac at the time.
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Under Milei, Far-Right Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Recriminalize Abortion in Argentina
One leftist lawmaker said that "we see deputies from La Libertad Avanza desperate to once again use the patriarchal reaction as a unifying element" to distract from the nation's economic woes.
Feb 08, 2024
Members of Argentinian President Javier Milei's far-right ruling coalition this week introduced a bill to recriminalize abortion, a proposal subsequently disavowed by the libertarian leader's office—for now.
Five deputies from Milei's La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) coalition—with 27-year-old Santa Fe lawmaker Rocío Bonacci spearheading the effort—are sponsoring the bill to overturn Law 27610, which Argentina's National Congress approved in December 2020 at the culmination of a decadeslong fight by reproductive rights advocates.
"I defend life," Bonacci, said on social media. "No more, no less."
"They want to distract us by coming back to this concluded debate to avoid worrying about what's urgent: Hunger and unemployment."
A sixth coalition lawmaker, cosplay influencer Lilia Lemoine, is listed as a sponsor of the bill, but said she does not support the "really damaging" proposal at this time.
The draft legislation proposes prison sentences of 1-3 years for a "woman who causes her own abortion or consents to someone else causing it." Abortion providers could be imprisoned for 1-4 years if they "act with the consent of the woman" and 3-10 years if they perform the medical procedure without consent. The maximum prison term would be 15 years if the pregnant person dies from an abortion.
The bill does not contain any exception for rape; however, it gives judges the discretion to consider "the reasons that prompted her to commit the crime, her subsequent attitude, and the nature of the fact."
Milei spokesperson Manuel Adorni stressed during a Thursday morning press conference that Bonacci had introduced the legislation of her own accord and that the bill "is not part of the president's agenda."
Adorni said Milei is "focused on what is most urgent," which is "straightening out Argentina."
Critics contend the proposed legislation is an attempt to deflect attention from this week's failure of Milei's omnibus bill to deregulate much of Argentina's economy and declare a public emergency giving the president sweeping powers to dictate economic, security, tariff, energy, and administrative issues through the end of the year.
The bill—which was sent back to committee on Tuesday—was the catalyst for massive nationwide protests and a general strike in recent months.
"Days after the great political defeat of the Milei government in Congress... they want to distract us by coming back to this concluded debate to avoid worrying about what's urgent: Hunger and unemployment," the National Campaign for Legal, Safe, and Free Abortion said in a statement. "We've said it once before and we'll say it again—not one step backward on our rights."
Leftist lawmaker Myriam Bregman said on social media that "we see deputies from La Libertad Avanza desperate to once again use the patriarchal reaction as a unifying element" amid the nation's economic woes.
It is uncertain whether Milei—who has railed against the "radical feminist agenda" and the "bloody agenda of abortion"—would ultimately support recriminalizing abortion. Adorni said on Thursday that Bonacci's bill "will be debated" at "some point."
Milei is currently visiting Israel. In a show of support for that country's far-right government—which stands accused in the International Court of Justice of committing genocide in Gaza—he announced Tuesday that he would move Argentina's embassy to Jerusalem.
On Monday, Milei is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis at The Vatican. Although the two Argentinians have been at odds—Milei once called the Catholic leader an "imbecile"—both the president and the pontiff are staunchly opposed to abortion, with the latter equating the healthcare procedure to "hiring a hitman to solve a problem."
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Biden's Faith and Support for Genocide in Gaza
As a self-proclaimed observant, practicing Catholic, you have not only failed to heed Pope Francis' figurative encyclical regarding Gaza but are shipping billions of dollars of weapons into the arsenal of the Israeli government.
Dec 31, 2023
We and many other organizations and peaceful protesters in our country have worked in vain to persuade President Joe Biden to use his influence to have the Israeli regime agree to a ceasefire that would allow hundreds of humanitarian aid trucks daily into the devastated graveyard that is now the Gaza Strip. Biden regularly begs Israel to let in more trucks, paid for by the U.S. At the same time the Biden administration exercises veto power on the U.N. Security Council blocking a cease-fire, truce, or negotiations toward a permanent two-state resolution. A cease-fire would at least allow aid to reach the besieged.
According to Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, “[U]nless something changes, the world faces the prospect of almost a quarter of Gaza’s 2 million population—close to half a million human beings” can die within a year. (See, The Guardian, December 29, 2023).
We have appealed to Biden’s duty to apply vigorous diplomacy to this cascade of genocidal war crimes by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This means suspension of hostilities, and the immediate flow of critical food, water, medical, shelter, and other supplies for civilians, followed by serious negotiations toward a two-state solution. Instead, Antony Blinken, his secretary of state, behaves as a secretary of war shuttling between the U.S. and Israel.
We have appealed to Biden’s political sense and how he is losing the support of more Americans every day as the slaughters of children, women, the elderly and other innocents worsen.
None of these appeals has moved this co-belligerent in the White House. All that is left is to appeal to what he has said his practicing Catholicism means to him every day. The following letter addresses his conscience as a matter of his professed religious faith.
December 29, 2023
Honorable Joe Biden
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
Re: Your Catholic faith. Aiding and abetting Israeli government genocide in Gaza including bombing the Holy Family Catholic Church and Convent. Abuse of power is a cardinal sin.
Dear Mr. President:
You describe yourself as a “practicing Catholic.” During an interview with The Jesuit Review on September 21, 2015, you emphatically asserted that all faiths have an “obligation to fight against abuse of power” as a cardinal sin worse than all others that should be arrested and defeated. You added that “every human being is entitled to be treated with dignity.”
In late October, Pope Francis decried the Israeli government’s post-October 7, 2023, attack on Gaza in a phone conversation with Israeli President Isaac Herzog: “It is forbidden to respond to terror with terror.” On December 17, 2023, the pope deplored as “terrorism” the bombing and killings by the Israeli government of two Catholic women, an elderly mother, and her grown daughter, and the wounding of seven others who had taken refuge in the Holy Family Catholic Church and Convent.
The Israeli government’s defense minister has dehumanized 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza as “human animals” and pledged to treat them, accordingly, denying them the dignity to which you insist each person is entitled according to your Catholic gospel.
You have acted unswervingly in support of the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza, including a siege that according to the Israeli defense minister’s proclamation means “no electricity, no food, no fuel, no water.” Article II (c) of the Genocide Convention in 1949, born of the Holocaust, defines genocide as, “Deliberately inflicting on [a national, ethnical, racial, or religious] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”
To complement the physical destruction caused by the siege, the Israeli government has bombed and invaded Gaza, killing tens of thousands of civilians, and displaced virtually its entire population targeting hospitals, ambulances, journalists, water mains, houses, apartment buildings, schools, offices, marketplaces, United Nations marked schools, UNRWA personnel, places of worship, and crowded refugee camps, roads, generators and electric networks, and more.
This is genocide by any yardstick. Pope Francis has denounced the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza as “terrorism.” As a self-proclaimed observant, practicing Catholic, you have not only failed to heed Pope Francis’ figurative encyclical regarding Gaza but are shipping billions of dollars of weapons into the arsenal of the Israeli government to assist its Gaza terrorism, including attacking the Holy Family Catholic Church. In your many expressions of support for what Netanyahu is destroying in Gaza, you have not found any room to express condemnation of this Israeli government’s attack on this lone Catholic Church in Gaza.
You have made the U.S. government into a “co-belligerent” under international law and have given a greenlight “with powerful weaponry” to what Netanyahu is doing to Gaza, including enabling him to block most humanitarian aid from starving, sick, and mortally injured Palestinians, a majority of whom are women and children.
The Israeli government has no self-defense justification for the genocide. It targets Palestinian civilians throughout Gaza wherever they are gathered, fleeing, sheltering, starving, and dying.
Practicing Catholics are made of more holy and peaceful convictions.
King Henry VIII was excommunicated by Pope Paul III in 1538 for divorcing Catherine of Aragon, a far lesser sin by your standards than the United States’ and Israeli government’s continuing “abuse of power” in Gaza, i.e., terrorism, war crimes, and genocide, promoted by American weapons, intelligence, and repeated lone vetoes in the United Nations Security Council—a cardinal sins according to your own yardstick.
What do you think Pope Francis should communicate to you?
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein, Esq.
Ralph Nader, Esq.
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