CaractacusPotts

The ICJ decision gave new strength to South Africa’s groundbreaking accomplishment — demolishing the taboo against holding Israel accountable for its crimes. As South Africa’s foreign ministry put it, ​“Today marks a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people.”

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/14137121

The ICJ decision gave new strength to South Africa’s groundbreaking accomplishment — demolishing the taboo against holding Israel accountable for its crimes. As South Africa’s foreign ministry put it, ​“Today marks a decisive victory for the international rule of law and a significant milestone in the search for justice for the Palestinian people.”

Not all that long ago, attacking another country’s territory was still seen as a big deal. It was, in legal terms, an ‘act of war’, liable to have unpleasant and potentially unlimited consequences including full-scale war. Very powerful countries occasionally made small, one-off attacks on very weak ones to ‘discipline’ them, but even that was relatively rare.

We have changed all that now. Launching a few cruise or ballistic missiles at another country as an expression of displeasure has become as routine in the Middle East as penalty shots on goal are in sports. Here are the latest examples.

A group of Muslim leaders in swing states are rightly using their electoral power with the #AbandonBiden campaign. They are not so frightened of a Trump presidency that they have allowed themselves to vote for the man who through his proxy Israel has killed some 24,000 people in Gaza and despite phony claims of “working behind the scenes” shows no inclination to change policy and save lives.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/14097254

Smith’s execution by “nitrogen hypoxia” took around 22 minutes, according to media witnesses, who were led into a viewing room at the William C Holman correctional facility in Atmore shortly before 8 pm local time.

After the nitrogen gas began flowing, Smith convulsed on the gurney for several minutes. The state had previously said the nitrogen gas would cause Smith to lose consciousness in seconds and die within minutes, according to the Associated Press.

“I’ve been to four previous executions and I’ve never seen a condemned inmate thrash in the way that Kenneth Smith reacted to the nitrogen gas,” Lee Hedgepeth, a journalist who witnessed the execution, told the BBC’s Newsday programme.