Britain is doubling down on backing Israeli apartheid through a new trade agreement and the import of goods made in illegal Israeli settlements. The UK has chosen to be an active supporter of the brutal oppression of Palestinians.

This month marks the fifty-fifth anniversary of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, making it one of the longest military occupations in recent history. It has inflicted horrendous injustices on the Palestinian people.

The United Kingdom’s approach to the occupation has been disingenuous. On one hand, it has claimed it sought to uphold international law by noting the illegality of Israel’s network of settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. On the other, it has done nothing to deter Israel from expanding them. Even worse, the UK has effectively incentivized their economic growth by failing to ban the trade in Israeli settlement goods.

Now the UK’s commitment to international law is about to be tested again as it enters into negotiations with Israel on a Free Trade Agreement to “upgrade” an existing Trade and Partnership Deal.

The UK’s current trade arrangement with Israel is a post-Brexit continuity agreement replicating the terms of the EU trade agreement that covered the UK before withdrawal from the EU.

This may all sound fairly straightforward. After all, an EU template already exists. However, Department of International Trade (DIT) civil servants tempted to copy and paste much of the EU text should think twice. As Amnesty has explained in a recent briefing to the DIT, the existing EU-Israel Association Agreement has proved entirely unable to reliably demarcate goods according to place of origin. This is a World Trade Organization (WTO) requirement, to ensure transparency and consistency in the application of trade agreements. It is also essential to avoid preferential treatment being granted to goods sourced from Israel’s illegal settlements.

The territorial application of the agreement has become a litmus test of the UK’s resolve to oppose Israel’s plans to annex the territories it occupies. If the UK gets this wrong, Israel will be able to continue to pass off goods produced within its sprawling network of illegal settlements located on stolen Palestinian land as “Place of origin: Israel.” This would incentivize Israel’s policy of settlement expansion, which it has pursued relentlessly for fifty-five years in tandem with the dispossession of Palestinians and the fragmentation of their lands. This is not only a form of creeping annexation, but is increasingly viewed in terms of apartheid.

Under the flawed EU rules, the current technical arrangement to exclude products originating in Israeli settlements from preferential market access relies on importers themselves checking postcodes listed on Israeli proofs of origin, and then relying on those importers not to claim trade preferences when postcodes indicate goods originate from Israel’s settlements. This has created an enforcement gap, because customs authorities remain largely unaware of the volumes and characteristics of goods that come from the settlements and for which preferential treatment has been wrongly claimed and granted.

In this way, international commerce has been allowed to underpin military occupation. Despite their illegality under international law, Israeli settlements in the West Bank continue to produce a wide range of industrial goods, many manufactured in purpose-built industrial districts. These goods, which are exported to Israel and to the rest of the world, include plastic and metal products, textiles, carpets, cosmetics, and processed food and wine. Add to this a range of rural products from the settlements — olives, dates, grapes, avocados, and citrus fruit — and a whole product range is being built from land that has been illegally appropriated.

Israel’s settlements are founded in dispossession, discrimination, and violence, but they’re also driven by business interests. Commercial activities are essential to virtually every aspect of the maintenance, development, and expansion of the settlements. They benefit from Israel’s unlawful confiscation of Palestinian land and other resources. They benefit from Israel’s discriminatory policies on planning and zoning, financial incentives, and access to utilities and infrastructure. Indeed, they benefit from an entire discriminatory system which Amnesty and others have shown amounts to state-organized apartheid.

Here is where Brexit rhetoric about “going above and beyond” EU rules could actually make a difference.

The UK needs to significantly improve on the current EU-Israel arrangements, plugging the gaps that allow settlement goods to come with phony “Made in Israel” labels.

First, British bureaucrats need to ensure the UK-Israel deal contains three key things: first, a clear, explicit, and unambiguous statement emphasizing the UK’s non-recognition of the Occupied Palestinian Territories as being part of the state of Israel.

Second, a definition of territorial scope that explicitly and unequivocally excludes products and services from Israeli settlements from the scope of the agreement, while not undermining any separate trade agreement reached with the Palestinian Authority.

And third, a mutually-agreed arrangement whereby so-called “preferential rules of origin” clearly prevent products originating in the settlements from being designated as originating in Israel.

READ MORE:

https://jacobin.com/2022/06/uk-israel-trade-palestine-apartheid

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“Uyghurs, History of a Sacrificed People” is the title of Laurence Defranoux’s book (Éditions Tallandier, 2022 and 2025), which aims to corroborate and establish once and for all the Western narrative of the “Uyghur genocide” perpetrated by the “Chinese communist regime.”

Uighurs: The Sacrificed Truths of Laurence Defranoux (III). The Manipulators' Toolbox

BY Albert ETTINGER

The advertising modus operandi: emotions to prevent reflection

Laurence Defranoux’s book is, for the most part, a load of nonsense that appeals neither to the reader’s reason nor to their common sense. Instead of verifiable (and therefore refutable) evidence, it relies on the strong emotions aroused by an avalanche of unsourced and unquestioned “testimonies,” outrageous and often vague language, and the evocation of preconceived ideas, apprehensions, and anxiety-inducing images rooted in the reader’s subconscious.

What exactly does the title's assertion that the "Uyghur people" were "sacrificed" mean? As part of what ritual, to atone for whose sins? When, in the preface, Glucksmann speaks of the "night in which a people, its culture, and its history were destined to disappear," does this mean that there are no more Uyghurs in Xinjiang? Not even those seen in this video recently posted on YouTube by a young Chinese-speaking American woman who accompanied her Uyghur fiancé there to meet his family? (1)

When Glucksmann deplores the "deportation of the Uyghur people," does the reality on the ground correspond to this deception? Were the Uyghurs "deported" collectively (to where?) or are they "missing"?

The chapter titles and subtitles speak for themselves. They suggest to us that China is a terrible “dystopia”: “Under Mao, the reign of terror”, “Military invasion and dispossession”, “A land of gulags and famine”, “Mosques transformed into pigsty”, “‘We said that the Uyghurs counted less than the pandas’”, “Order to shoot any suspect”, “The long arm of the Chinese police around the earth”, “The Ghulja massacre”, “The infernal chain”, “Kindergartens and gang rape”, “Diverting rivers to develop polluting industries”, “The ‘people’s war’ is declared”, “‘Show no mercy’”, “Uyghurs, guinea pigs in a dystopia”, “Spies under the covers”, “Institutionalized sexual violence”, “Welcome to the hell of the camps”, “The torture chamber is in the basement”, “Serial rapes in the ‘black rooms’”, “Babies and children locked up too,” “A gigantic open-air prison.”

A sham trial

The accusations against Chinese policy in Xinjiang have never been brought before the United Nations International Court of Justice. They have not even been "addressed by the International Criminal Court in The Hague," despite being founded and controlled by the West, "or by the United Nations in New York." Instead, they were presented in 2021 "in a medium-sized auditorium in London." (2)

It is no coincidence that Defranoux explicitly refers to this sham trial that took place in the former capital of the British Empire. She asserts, already in her "prologue," that "all the evidence" of Chinese guilt "is there." The Uyghur Tribunal, an independent citizens' tribunal headed by Sir Geoffrey Nice, former lead prosecutor in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, gathered and studied hundreds of thousands (sic!) of pages of evidence (sic!) and heard more than 500 witnesses. (3)

It is also no coincidence that this self-proclaimed "people's tribunal" (4) (the corresponding German term would be "Volksgerichtshof" ...) had as its judge and figurehead a prosecutor. The latter had already proven himself in a political trial against the former leader of Serbia, previously attacked and bombed by NATO on the basis of a hoax, the "Potkova Plan," invented from scratch to "prove that the Serbs had planned the 'ethnic cleansing' of Kosovo." » (5)

For Laurence Defranoux's disdain for universally recognized legal principles (independence and impartiality of judges, presumption of innocence, duty to investigate both sides, respect for the rights of the defense) fully echoes that demonstrated by the London "court of opinion" (6). Independence and impartiality? No, this sham "tribunal" was "created from a private initiative" (?) and "entirely financed by donations," the origins of which are easy to imagine. Moreover, according to her own statements, it had "no legitimacy in international law." Investigations for both sides? No, all "the witnesses who appeared (...) are individuals who managed to flee China," the organizers admit. (7) Rights of the defense and presumption of innocence? No, no defense lawyer represented the accused, and the "tribunal" was created expressly to "investigate the policy that the Chinese regime (sic!) has been pursuing for years against citizens of the Uighur minority." (8)

Lying "Witnesses"

A key witness to the London farce was a woman named Tursunay Ziyawudun, who "currently resides in the United States" (9) thanks to "the support of the Uyghur Human Rights Project." "'I have no words to describe the inhuman cruelty of the violence,' she testified, adding: 'I was raped by three of them at once. I remember it very clearly. I can neither cry nor die; I have to watch them pay for this. I am already a walking corpse; my soul and heart are dead.'" (10) 

Her hardcore account is obviously echoed by Defranoux, who recounts it as follows: "After midnight, women were selected from my cell and taken to a 'black room,' where there were no cameras." She herself was tortured and raped three times by several men, "always masked" and "wearing civilian clothes," who savagely bit her all over her body." (11)

Yet, interviewed in February 2020 by Buzzfeed News, she told a completely different story. (12) She then confided to London-based journalist Megha Rajagopalan that in 2017, in Xinjiang, "the police" had taken her "first to a place they called a 'vocational training school.'" "To be honest, it wasn't that bad," she said. "We had our phones. We ate our meals in the canteens. Apart from being forced to stay there, everything else was fine." In the evenings, instructors taught the detainees traditional Chinese dances in the building's courtyard, she said. Sometimes there were lectures—an imam working for the state would come and talk about the importance of avoiding “extreme” practices. “Ziyawudun was released from this facility a few weeks later.” However, on “March 9, 2018, the police came for her again” to take her to what looked like a prison: “each room had a heavy metal door at the front. There was a shared bathroom down the hall, and bathroom breaks were limited to three minutes. ... Occasionally, detainees were taken to an interrogation room to be questioned about their past.”

“Apart from interrogations, daily life in the camp ranged from mind-numbingly boring to terrifying and bizarre. Many days, detainees were forced to sit on plastic stools (...) to watch endless state television programs praising Chinese President Xi Jinping.” »

“The real torture,” she discovered, “was taking place in silence, in the minds of the detainees. “I wasn’t beaten or mistreated,” she says. “The hardest part was mental. It’s something I can’t explain—you suffer mentally. Being kept in one place and forced to stay there for no reason.” (13)

“Tortured,” “raped,” and “bitten savagely”? Or “forced to watch state television” and “forced to stay in one place”? In Defranoux’s eyes, pinpointing these kinds of inconsistencies and contradictions amounts to a kind of crime of lèse-majesté: “Camp survivors who testify about torture and rape are mocked and their morality called into question,” she fumes. (14)

Tursunay Ziyawudun's ten-year passport, issued on March 13, 2019. At that time, according to her, she was under house arrest. The Chinese likely wanted to allow her to travel abroad legally so she could tell her stories of rape and torture.

"A veritable industry of lies"

Defranoux pretends to ignore that the "question of the truth or lies of a testimony (...) is as old as the law." At least, this is what an article in a specialized journal reminds us, citing, among other things, "pathological lying, mythomania" and "methods for uncovering lies and fabrications" as topics of study and debate. (15)

Had the journalist never been aware of a basic principle taught to journalism students, namely that "testimonies can be influenced by a variety of factors" and that, to "determine their reliability, it is essential to consider," among other things,

– "personal bias: Pre-existing perceptions and opinions can alter how a witness interprets an event."

– "social pressure: Witnesses may feel pressured to align their account with popular expectations or assertions." (16)

It is worth recalling in this context that the New York Times revealed, in an article dated February 22, 2014, the existence of a veritable "industry of lies" (17) that has developed in the United States around Chinese immigration. Alleging persecution and mistreatment by the communist authorities can significantly advance the case of an applicant seeking a residence permit. The NYT article reveals how migrants are taught to invent horror stories that are, generally, impossible to verify. The article concludes that "most asylum claims were at least partially false, ranging from fabricated accounts of persecution to forged supporting documents and fabricated testimonies." (18)

Anonymous and Pseudonymous Informants

Defranoux knows very well that named "victims" who, moreover, make multiple public statements, such as Tursunay Ziyawudun, Sayragul Sauytbay, or Gulbahar Haitiwaji, are at great risk of discrediting themselves. This is why, in the mainstream Western media, their "testimonies" are always reproduced verbatim. They are never interviewed, their affiliations or backgrounds are never investigated, and their motivations are never questioned. Because all this would risk revealing the inconsistencies in their story and their hidden motives, motives that could be political, selfish (a US green card, for example), or financial.

All this explains why Defranoux, in order to blacken China, likes to cite a host of "witnesses" who remain in the shadows. Throughout the pages, she thus parades a large number of anonymous "witnesses": "...a Uighur tells me about it", "...they say", "...a former civil servant from Xinjiang confides in me", "a passing foreigner tells me about it", "a young motorist from Ghulja, interviewed clandestinely, confides to Libération", "one of my interlocutors deplores", "a young girl who arrived in France very recently describes me", "an interlocutor tells me", "one of my interlocutors considers that", "imams who live in Turkey say", "an old Uighur gentleman whom I interview tells me about", "an 81-year-old Uighur tells me about it", "a Chinese teacher tells me about it", "according to a Uighur activist", etc. (19). To these anonymous witnesses must be added the "witnesses" who appear only under assumed names since their "first names have been changed," as Defranoux indicates in a footnote ("Aladdin tells me," Aynur, who came to study in France, explains to me," "Alya," "Guzel tells me," "Fariza tells me," "Mariam," "Suriye tells me"...) and those whose stories, although their names are given, remain unverifiable, at least for the reader ("Zuhulmar Isaq tells," "Anar Sabit says"). (20)

These allegations, which come from who knows where, are unverifiable, compiled by a journalist who makes no secret of her anti-Chinese bias (a euphemism!), who shows little concern for historical truth, and who, in what can be verified, demonstrates incredible deceit—can they be considered anything other than gossip and rumor?

A perfect example of Laurence Defranoux's approach is the short passage where she writes: "One of my interlocutors [anonymous], who suffered assaults at home from her 'Chinese cousin' [unsourced allegation], considers that 'the Chinese government encourages the rape of Uighur women and teenage girls' [second baseless allegation]. Many photos or videos are circulating on social media where a Han man is seen forcibly kissing a Turkic woman [third unsourced allegation]." (21) At least this last accusation, Defranoux could have easily supported by providing the web address of some of these "photos" or "videos" - which she did not do. Could this be another of her outright lies? Like this other grotesque accusation she makes against the Chinese Communist Party: "In the eyes of the Party, a Turkic woman refusing to sleep with a non-Muslim is considered religious extremism, and therefore terrorism." (22)

(to be continued)

Albert ETTINGER

https://www.legrandsoir.info/ouighours-les-verites-sacrifiees-de-laurence-defranoux-iii-la-boite-a-outils-des-manipulateurs.html

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.