🇩🇪🇮🇱🇵🇸 How German foreign policy oriented itself to promoting feminism but quietly supports the mass murder of women in Gaza

Last year, Germany’s Foreign Office spelled out guidelines for a “feminist” foreign policy, focused on defending marginalized women. Today in Gaza, this same ministry is arming the deadliest war on women and girls this century.

The German Foreign Office first announced its guidelines for a “feminist foreign policy” back in March 2023, yet public debate over the meaning of this policy has never been more heated than in the past month. On October 21, the international research organization responsible for the development of the concept, the Center for Feminist Foreign Policy (CFFP), along with the human rights NGO HÁWAR.help, hosted a press conference on the topic “preventing femicides, legalizing abortions.” German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock, of the Green Party, took center stage at the conference, along with other high-profile women from the worlds of politics and culture.

These sorts of demands are the lowest common denominator of all feminist movements — and yet hostility was stirring both inside and outside the event, mainly due to Baerbock’s presence. Someone in the audience stood up in protest and shouted, “Stop the genocide of Palestinian women!” and was eventually removed by security. Outside the conference, women protested with signs reading, for example, “Women’s rights shouldn’t mean white privilege.”
The images and videos from the conference and the associated protests have trigged strong responses on social media: the founders of the CFFP were accused of “white feminism,” and prominent international feminists have since resigned from the organization’s advisory board.

This debate has brought to the surface an issue that has been simmering for some time: even though the German Foreign Office claims in its guidelines for a feminist foreign policy to “focus on the rights, representation and resources of women and marginalized groups,” in practice it undermines exactly those rights. In practice, feminist foreign policy is simply meant to give the German government a progressive veneer. The fact that ultimately there is nothing feminist about Baerbock’s policy is made perfectly clear by her policy toward Gaza.

Between August and October 2024, Germany approved more than €94 million worth of arms deliveries to Israel. The foreign minister’s near unconditional support for Israel, even when its army attacks schools and other civilian infrastructure, was made clear when she falsely claimed last month that “civilian sites could lose their protected status [under international law] if terrorists abuse this status.”

In Gaza, more than half a million women are affected by food insecurity, and 175,000 are exposed to life-threatening health risks. In no other conflict in the last two decades have as many women and girls been killed in just one year as in Gaza. If these facts aren’t clear enough, even the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) has recently begun taking legal action against German’s arms deliveries to Israel.

🔗 https://jacobin.com/2024/11/germany-feminist-foreign-policy-gaza

🇺🇸🇳🇴❌🇮🇷🇷🇺 — US embassy guard in Oslo, Norway arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia and Iran.

(Video apparently from London not Oslo but the report is confirmed)

🇮🇱❌🇵🇸🇺🇳 — Israeli Foreign Minister:

I say to those who call themselves judges in The Hague that the sword of David will not be sheathed and the bow of Jonathan will not be withdrawn

🇺🇸🇮🇱❌🇱🇧🇫🇷 — 📰Israeli Channel 11:

Israel tells US that they refuse France to play any role in implementing or supervising the agreement (with Lebanon) because of its hostile policy towards Israel.

This comes following the French's president statements of abiding by the ICC decision.

🇮🇱❌🇱🇧 — New GeoLocations confirm IDF advances in the Khiam area, Southern Lebanon.
According to new GeoLocations, the IDF took control of the southern part of Khiam, up to the Municipality building. Clashes continue in the area as the IDF tries to advance further.

⬛📈🇸🇴 — IS-Somali Province Doubles in Size from Foreign Fighters
The number of fighters influencing the IS branch in Somalia is growing rapidly, partly due to what the United Nations describes as an “influx of foreign fighters”.

📝A new report this week by the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia warns that fighters, including some from Middle Eastern countries, helped the Somali branch of the Islamic State, also known as IS in Somalia, double its size to between 600 and 700 fighters.

➡️The report said that foreign fighters “expanded and strengthened the organization's capabilities,” which strengthened the Islamic State's presence in the Puntland region of Somalia and also helped it seize territory from its main rival, the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab terrorist movement.

➡️Intelligence sources described the Islamic State advance in Somalia, especially in the Cal Mescad Mountains of Puntland, as a “radical change” and credited foreign fighters with changing the wealth of the Islamic State in Somalia.

➡️According to the UN report, the country's foreign fighters came from at least six countries: Syria, Yemen, Ethiopia, Sudan, Morocco and Tanzania. The report also noted that some captured foreign fighters reported working with trainers who came from parts of the Middle East.

➡️“Foreign fighters arrive in Puntland by sea and land routes,” the report said, according to the report, which is based on intelligence estimates from UN member states.

➡️According to the report, IS in Somalia is now led by former Momen deputy Abdul Rahman Issa, while Abdul Wali Waran Walak manages the organization's finances.

➡️The regulation's finances appear to be in good shape. The report explained: “Due to the relatively small size of the Islamic State in Somalia, the organization is able to support itself and generate additional revenues for its affiliated organizations through the Al-Karrar office.”

🔗link

🇮🇱❌🇱🇧 — Hezbollah media sources:

28 drones launched at Israeli enemy gatherings in the city of Khiyam, south of Lebanon, in the largest drone attack since the beginning of the confrontations

🇺🇸💰⬛❌🇸🇾 — American taxpayers unknowingly funded hundreds of thousands of meals that ended up with fighters linked to al Qaeda in Syria, according to federal prosecutors. Charges have been brought against an NGO employee accused of facilitating this.

Mahmoud Al Hafyan, who headed the Syrian branch of the nongovernmental organization, is alleged to have redirected up to $10 million worth of USAID-funded meals.

These meals were originally intended for Syrian refugees displaced by the ongoing civil war. However, U.S. investigators revealed in an unsealed indictment on Tuesday that Al Hafyan allowed fighters from the Al-Nusrah Front, a terrorist group tied to al Qaeda, to take the meals.

🔗 The Washington Times