The Sunday Subject – September 22, 2024
The UN General Assembly called on Israel to end its “unlawful presence” in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
The General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that calls on Israel to withdraw from Palestine, dismantle all settlementment activity, return seized property, and pay reparations. It also urges countries to impose arms embargoes on Israel, restrict trade in products from settlements, and impose travel bans and asset freezes against “natural and legal persons” maintaining Israel’s occupation. The proposal passed with 124 votes; only 14 countries, including America, voted against it.
Dozens were killed and thousands injured when thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded in Lebanon.
Israel is assumed to be behind the attacks. The pagers and walkie-talkies were used by members of Hizbullah to communicate. It is believed that Israeli agents planted explosive substances inside the devices before they were imported into Lebanon. The attack comes as Israel expanded its war aims to include the safe return of 60,000 evacuees, displaced by Hizbullah rockets, to the North.
President Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer held talks in attempt to find a way to allow Ukraine to use Western missiles against targets inside Russia.
The talks were inconclusive; the Biden administration merely confirmed that the policy of restricting Western-supplied long-range systems to targets within Ukraine had not changed. Putin has said that permitting Ukraine to fire Western weapons at Russia would be a direct act of war. According to international law, the right of self-defense allows strikes on positions from which the aggressor’s attacks are launched or enabled — currently Ukraine is limited to using its own domestically-produced drones and missiles to strike back at Russia, which do not have long-range capabilities.
