In this mailing: Majid Rafizadeh: Danger: Iran's Arms Embargo About to Expire Michel Calvo: Travesty of Justice at the International Criminal Court? Danger: Iran's Arms Embargo About to Expire by Majid Rafizadeh  •  June 17, 2020 at 5:00 am       Who will benefit from lifting the arms embargo? Russia and China. They would most likely be the preferred weapons exporters to Iran. With prospects for multi-billion dollar deals, Moscow and Beijing would doubtless be delighted to sell weapons to Iran. Tehran will likely utilize the sophisticated weaponry to advance its hegemonic ambitions in the region, increase its military adventurism in the Middle East, and ship arms to its proxies and militia groups to destabilize the region and trigger an arms race across the Middle East. Who will benefit from lifting the arms embargo from Iran? Russia and China. With prospects for multi-billion dollar deals, Moscow and Beijing would doubtless be delighted to sell weapons to Iran. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 14, 2019. (Photo by Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP via Getty Images) Among the many concessions that the Obama-Biden administration gave to the ruling mullahs of Iran, was one setting a date when Iran's arms embargo would be lifted. The Obama administration agreed to add a provision in the nuclear deal -- which, by the way, Iran never got around to signing -- allowing the lifting of an arms embargo. Now, again thanks to the Obama-Biden administration, the arms embargo is set to expire in October 2020. It is important to point out that the Obama administration erased years of efforts and significant political capital that the international community had invested to impose the arms embargo in the first place. From December 2006 to 2010, the five members of the United Nations Security Council finally agreed to pass series of resolutions (Resolution 1737, Resolution 1747, and Resolution 1929) imposing significant restrictions on Iran's arms activities. The UN Security Council resolution 1929 stated: Continue Reading Article Travesty of Justice at the International Criminal Court? Prosecutor Bensouda Should Be Disqualified. by Michel Calvo  •  June 17, 2020 at 4:00 am       The Prosecutor's Response seems to create new international law where non-binding resolutions can change legally binding agreements in order to prosecute Israeli leaders and Israeli Jews for war crimes.... The limitations of the Palestinian Authority's jurisdiction in the Oslo Accords do not permit transferring jurisdiction to the ICC. Those limitations cannot be changed or disregarded. There is no crime and no case for the Prosecutor to investigate those who returned to their ancestral land, who are the indigenous people. Judea and Samaria are not occupied territories. "Palestine", according to the International Court of Justice (ICL), is not a state. There is no occupation by Israel of the territory of another state. There was no "Palestinian" state before 1967. Israel liberated Judea Samaria from Jordan after a war of aggression, in which Jordan attacked Israel in 1967 – for the second time (the first time being in 1948). Jordan finally abandoned all claims to the territory in 1988. The Jews were expelled or killed during Jordan's 1948 aggression. Their houses were taken by Arabs...."Palestine" is the Jewish Home as codified in international law. It is not a terra nullius ["nobody's land"]. It belongs to the Jewish people. The "Arabs" of Judea and Samaria are the settlers, colonizers, who invaded the land. The Jews hold the right to that land from the Bible, the Qur'an, and from several international instruments: the Balfour Declaration (1917), the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), the British Mandate (1922), the San Remo Resolution (1920), and the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) created International law, recognized and re-established the historical indigenous rights of the Jews to their Land.... Moreover, the Jewish people is entitled to its land under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.... Contrary to the Jewish people being the indigenous people, the "Palestinian people" has been invented to oppose the Jewish people. The ICC cannot be a forum for the diversion of international law and for a travesty of justice.... The Response of the Prosecutor follows a political agenda and is based on law created by the Prosecutor to enable the prosecution of Israeli Jews/leaders for crimes they never committed. Ms. Fatou Bensouda's impartiality can reasonably be doubted and she should be disqualified pursuant to article 42-7 of the Rome Statute and Rule 34 (d) of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence. There is no crime and no case for the International Criminal Court Prosecutor to investigate those who returned to their ancestral land, who are the indigenous people. Judea and Samaria are not occupied territories. Pictured: The ICC in session, in The Hague, on July 8, 2019. (Photo by Eva Plevier/AFP via Getty Images) The International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor's Response to observations of more than 50 amici curiae, legal representatives of victims and States, is 60 pages long.[1] It makes an abstraction of history; misleadingly refers to Judea and Samaria as the "West Bank" of the Jordan River (which includes Israel), and falsely called "Occupied Palestinian Territories" that were liberated in 1967 from the Jordanian occupation. The Prosecutor's Response adopts the Muslim-Arab and pro-Arab-Muslim vision of the conflict. Continue Reading Article