hello and welcome to press tv spotlight, i'm marsia hashimi, thanks so much for being with us. the geneside by the zionis and us regimes in gaza continues, now during these of thestopian times we've seen the victims over 26,00 palestinians been killed being portrayed as the perpetrators of the violence and the israeli regim being portrayed as the victim. we've seen hezbullah and ansarlah labeled as terrorists when they are trying to stop the zinis onslot and god. and now unrah, institution which was created in 1948 after the first na of palestinians to provide assistance for the this place is being defunded in the middle of this genocide by the us, the uk, australia, germany and several other small european countries. well, this has happened one day after the international court of justice released its initial findings regarding israeli genocide as if to show the world once and for all that

there is no international law, might makes right? well, i'd like to welcome my guest to this program. craig murray, former british ambassador to uzbekistan out of edinburg, and of robert fatina, author and journalist out of kishner, ontario. well, thank you both. for being with me, i'd like to start it off with craig, how do you explain these countries defunding unrah now? well, i think in part um, it's a coordinated reaction to the uh international court of justice ruling, and it's important to note vedinit's findings of fact on the uh genocide, what it the icj said was plausibly. a genocide in in gaza, unra

was quoted quite extensively for giving facts on the ground, so obviously that gives them a motive to discret. under before future icj hearings and also of course it adds to the genocide, it increases the genocidal pressure and speeds up the genocide by potentially denying incredibly needed food, water and sustenance to the the people of gaza, well robert are these countries simply in line with israeli policy and... trying to make the palestinians especially in gaza as miserable as possible and and do they represent this sort of uh could we say a genocide front because they're totally supporting what the israelis are doing? yes they are supporting this genocide. each of these nations that is

now defunding uh is is part of genocide and history will judge them harshly. the problem is that the united states leads the way and despite its decreasing influence on the role stage, it does still have lot of influence, and by accepting this this accusation made by israel that there were some united nations people involved in what happened on october october 6th, the united states is simply accepting their word and cutting funding, making things worse for the people of palestine who are suffering horrifically, especially in the gaza strip right now, that's what we're talking about, excuse me, but they are suffering her. and these countries that are cutting funding to to un agencies that support the palestinians are adding to the suffering and adding and and just supporting the genocidal actions that israel has been taking now for months. well craig, allegedly there were 12 unremembers

that they are saying were involved in the october 7th attacks against the zinanis, mean why would the united? say it's just accept the word of the regime that's committing the genocide without any investigation and and uh even if the 12 people were actually involved, why would you stop a program for millions based on 12 individuals? mean, how can they even get away with trying to justify their actions? it's quite incredible really, i mean it doesn't stand up to scrutiny, they don't have to justify it. because there's no effective opposition, and there's great opposition among the people, and there's great opposition on the streets and among online media, but there's nobody seriously quizzing them in in the mainstream media, and the political parties uh, in almost all of

the west, the the main opposition parties are as bought and paid for by the zionist lobby as the governing parties, so in a sense they can they can do anything and not actually have. to justify it, but you're you're right, i mean this is absolutely crazy, the total number of unra employees is 30,000, in the gaza strip, it's about 14,000 uh, and this is 12 people, and these, as you say, allegation, i mean sadly, the un has already sacked these people to try to head off trouble, even though there's not been an investigation yet, and that's a contravention of their rights, um, but it's just absolutely. mad, would you close down the united states postal service, because dozen people in the us postal service have a criminal record, or it's obviously disproportionate, and it flies in the face of the international court of justice making plain that all parties to the genocide

convention, which includes all of the countries who have just cut aid, um, must do everything they can uh to prevent the genocide, including preventing the deterioration of the conditions of living, so this is a deliberate slap in the face to inter the international order and international law, right? we have seen a lot of uh of that during the last several months since october, as far as international law is concerned. um, robert, uh, at least 152 unr employees have been killed since october in gaza. um, why is it that we did not hear the united states uh really making a big deal about that? didn't see them adding - pressure on the israeli regime, making them to be responsible, excuse me, for not only killing on employees, but of course we have seen them actually attacking onron one schools, um, your take on that, it's complete hypocrisy,

imagine if russia had done something similar in ukraine, russia would probably be bombed by the united states at this point, the united states is not interested in international law, the united states government for decades has held the united nations in all its programs in contempt, using them only when it serves its own geopolitical goals and purposes, so the fact that over 150 un workers have been killed, that many uh un sponsored refugee centers have been bombed, despite the fact that israel knew the coordinates that they were, the the senators were very clearly marked, these are of course are war crimes and crimes against humanity, the united states isn't interested in that, the united states is only interested in supporting the apartthide regime of israel and keeping that as its uh kind of satellite nation in the middle east to control other countries there uh through the... military power and the ec the combined economic and and the combined economic power

of israel and united states. the idea of justice, international law, these sorts of things are not of concern to the united states when it concern when the palestinians are the ones who are suffering. well, let's talk about that, craig, you heard what robert said when concerning the palestinians and their suffering, the united states is not worried about international law, but it seems that for a long time in many places, united states was not worried about international law, but it was never so black and white as it is today uh with the situation that is this genocide going on in gaza. let's talk about that side of things and the effect on, if you want to say credibility, i'm not sure they have any left, but in general on the united states and these other western entities that's backing backing the closing or defunding of undra, tell me about the effects of that. "well, obviously there's a great deal of um diplomatic isolation of of

the western powers in the world and in the united nations. um, this feels like key moment in in history, if if if you like, the international court of justice case, um, seemed like an absolutely key test as to whether international law has any standing or not, well, whether all potence has now been abandoned. simply matter of mighty's right and of of dominance, which is very strange way for the united states to go, just as it's losing its position as the most dominant military power in the world to china, um, but this really does feel like a moment where the people can see through their rulers, where people are coming to understand particularly young people, that the entire narrative that they are told, is untrue, there's nobody has any power over the political class who will,

because the people don't want this, there's massive opposition particularly across europe, to what is happening, but but people are finding they have no leverage whatsoever on the actions of the the political class who govern them, um, so this is ke moment both in defining the sharpest objects in international relations between the nato powers if you like and everybody else in the world, and in defining the gap between the people of the western powers and their governments. yes, so robert, what about that, how important of a time, would you say it's a watershed moment, because as craig has said, uh, first of all, dealing with the, if you want to talk about the international order, and how the mask is being dropped and then also the relationship between these

governments and also their people, that more and more people are actually finally realizing that these so-called elected officials really do not represent our interests, yes that people are recognizing that they're elected officials and not elected representatives, and even the manner where they're elected in the united states, it's very difficult for a third party to gain any... traction because of all the money that is required to to run any kind of campaign, we're seeing more and more that people uh are people in the united states and other countries, instead of relying on the so-called mainstream media for the news, they're looking at social media, they're seeing the pictures of what's happening in gaza that may be uh may be filtered out or or cleansed in some way for the general public on mainstream media, but people on social media are seeing exactly what's happening. and it's shocking to them and they're they're that's why they're taking to the streets and

also they're starting to use or will be starting to use their power at the ballot box uh joe biden is not a popular president of the united states and his uh election is now in or his reelection is in jeepardy because some of the swing states that he relied on uh have uh large muslim and arab populations and those are the people who voted for him and supported him before there's where they're going to now, so there will be some accountability hopefully uh for for him for his crimes, although the alternative is just as bad, i donald trump was terrible president, would be terrible president. but what we're seeing is people are recognizing that the governments are run by lobby groups and the wealthy elite and that they the individual uh man or woman on the street has little if any power or influence in government policy. okay, i'm going to come back to that, but uh, craig, let's look at these countries that have uh basically

defunded now um andro, and do you think there's a possibility that these countries? could be charged with genocide? well, i think um, possibly not until after the uh international court of justice has made its final ruling in a in a couple of years time, um, i think that they're going to be charged with genocide anyway, um, because these countries have been supplying arms to israel, they've been supplying intelligence cooperation to israel, for example, "the united states, the united kingdom and australia have certainly all been giving military cooperation to israel to actively assist in the genocide, and remember when it comes to this crime of genocide, it's not just that the states are liable, the politicians who ordered this and the military who carried it out, everybody is individually liable in in in in genocide, we all know that

the international criminal court is a is a western pool, the international criminal'. court of course is not the same as the international court of justice where the genocide cases being heard, individual cases should be built before the international criminal court, and that's simply a tool of nato, so i don't expect anything to happen there unless things radically change, but most countries um have domestic legislation, atlawing participation in geneside, certainly both the uk and the us to, and following determination. by the icj, i think we may find politicians held individually liable. i i think that's one of the things that might be might be a game changer here, but sadly that's not going to kick in very quickly. well, crek, let me just stay with you, because you you talked about the courts and the possibility of what can happen, and of course that it's un supported or nato, the

other court, so is this the the what we're looking at basically um, the... collapse of the international um rules-based order in general as more and more people realize that so much of the jargon, the slogans was basically a farse, the protection of human rights, um, the importance of women's rights, the importance of children's rights, all of these rights that we have heard over and over again, especially from the main hegemon and the hegemonic front, tell me your thoughts on that, is this? a major moment for the international um liberal order? it definitely is a major moment, but it's hanging in the balance. um, must say that the the ruling by the international court of justice yesterday was much better than i than i expected. if you read the detail of the of the of the

ruling, it found as matter of fact, not as what the south african said, it's itself for quarters matter of fact that tens of thousands of people have been killed but the means of life have been removed and that it found as matter of fact that israeli ministers including the israeli president had made statements of genocidal intent all of which are clear points to the fact that eventually south africa will will win its case so the the icj the international court of justice is doing. its job and it issued an order calling on the israeli military to stop at the end of the day to interrupt you craig but at the end of the day i mean we saw the the first part of the ruling and as you said it was better than you thought because of course no one had dared up to now even trying to repriman the israeli regime but at the end the day as we're speaking right here right now real time palestinians in gaza are still

starving they're dying of thirst they're still freezing they're uh being bombed i mean at the... the day will it stop the palestinians from being killed? not immediately um and not perhaps for whatever the icj said the israelis were not going to stop the genocide um whether in the as things work through and work through the un general assembly and work through domestic legal systems in the next few months whether it stops uh the continuing genocide and whether? it stops the elimination of the palestinians of gaza is the test? i mean, the answer is, i do not know, the icj's done as much as the icj could do in the first two days. the signs are that the the imperial powers intend to ignore the icj, whether they continue to or not, or whether international law does manage to bite? okay, is the is the key question,

that's a key moment, but i can't tell you the answer as of today, right? well, robert, back to your point that you had made - earlier in talking about the political structures in these countries, i mean we see these countries that have back this genocide, that they have done everything they could to basically help uh the genocide alone. now of course the funding undra and you talked about the people though in these countries waking up to the reality. um, are we looking a transition in these countries that actually the people, you talked about donald trump and and and biden, that neither one of them actually represents what the people want. do you think that the people are reaching the point to understand that it's beyond a problem with if we're talking about the us democrats or republics, it's the... system that needs to be changed, your thoughts on that, that is going to be very challenging for people, they have an mythical idea of

wonderful democratic system that is just now broken and needs to be fixed, not that it needs to be discardding something new put in this place, which is actually what what needs to be done, but there's they're increasingly seeing that something is very wrong, this is there are people taking to the streets now would never have considered marching a demonstration. before who always basically without thinking about it supported israel, but now they're seeing things very very differently, so these are all very good signs, but that needs to be uh in united states and other countries, the people need to change their governments uh through through voting or some countries have dictatorships, they still have to to influence these governments to follow international law and justice if the... can see that what's happening to the palestinians is horrendous, is just the worst possible suffering imaginable, there's no reason why their elected officials can't see it, except

that they refuse to, therefore they have to replace those officials, uh, the idea of let me just jump in here, robert, sorry to interrupt you cuz you said that you know that they're not following international law, but but do you not think that basically what we are seeing was originally set up to do what it is doing, to have a certain... elite few uh basically control the rest, basically whatever they want, that's the direction that it would go and so so what's the direction, what's the answer? it's it's a very difficult question uh to answer, but as you said it was set up that the elites would run the show, look at the security council in the united states having veto power uh vetoing the united states actually vetoed ending a genocide and this is this is accepted by the world so... there needs to be an overhaul in the uh the united nations and its policies, as your other commentator mentioned, the international criminal court is simply a tool the west, uh, a tool of nato, these things

need to be changed, and these are these are major undertakings that aren't going to happen over night, but as we're talking about them, and as you point out before, we're looking for change, we're seeing the possibility of change the winds, but today the palestinians are suffering horrifically in gaza, and that isn't changing, and it doesn't appear that it's going to change anytime soon because of... the actions of israel, united states and some other major world powers. okay, and on that note appreciate both of you being with me on this spot like craig murray, for british, former british ambassador to uzbekistan out edinburg, robert fatina, author and journalist out of kishner, ontario, and thank you viewers for being with us on another spotlight, i'm marza hashimi, hope to see you right here next time, goodbye.

it's in the northern jordan valley, you think

life here would be? relatively simple and uncomplicated, the palestinians in area c, uh, the way that israel treats them is hostile population, it makes them their lives as difficult as possible, those palestinian bidwain families who live in in almost about 52 communities without any kind of service and... this is the goal, the immediate goal.

at least three american troops are killed and over two dozen injured in a drone attack a us space in northeast jordan near the syria border. the death told from these ready on slot in gaza surpasses 26,400 amid mass displacement of palestinians in the enclave. a senior un official says those countries that are passed funding for arnawa could be violating the genocide convention.