July 19, 2024 (EIRNS)\u2014Only seconds after Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened the 59th consecutive online meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) today, the meeting was subject to an extended disruption, which attack underscores the growing strategic importance of the weekly IPC sessions. About 30 minutes later, the meeting resumed with tighter security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Note that flights were grounded all over the world today, ostensibly due to a collapse of Microsoft systems, initially attributed to a CrowdStrike update, which disrupted emergency services, hospitals, banks, airlines, trains, media and banks as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The International Assassination Bureau<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The July 13 attempt on the life of former U.S. President and Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump was an early topic of discussion. Helga Zepp-LaRouche reminded the participants that if Trump had not moved his head a fraction of an inch and avoided death, the effect on the domestic situation would have been dramatic. Trump has expressed his desire to end all wars on the planet, and even if there is only a slight chance that he intends to do that after being elected, that chance for peace would have been eliminated. Prof.\u00a0Cliff Kiracofe, from the Washington Institute for Peace and Development, added that \u201cWe have in our history other assassination attempts against U.S. Presidents.\u201d In the cases of Lincoln and McKinley, the objective was to break up economic development. Trump has occasionally made statements that hearken back to the economic development policies of McKinley and Henry Clay; a successful assassination could possibly have blocked a new industrial policy for the United States. Later, during the discussion, LaRouche activist Kynan Thistlethwaite brought to people\u2019s attention The LaRouche Organization\u2019s report, \u201cStop NATO\u2019s World War: Dismantle the International Assassination Bureau<\/a>,\u201d released in February 2023. Zepp-LaRouche responded by listing many of the political, financial and civil rights leaders who have been killed since the 1960s, saying that the common denominator is that these were individuals who were crucial for their nations. Kiracofe added that the list should include the pro-peace politicians in Japan who were killed in 1930s, making a world war inevitable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Diplomacy Versus Violence<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll the people who are reasonable think that you have to go to diplomacy,\u201d said Zepp-LaRouche, but the leaders of the EU are charging headlong in the opposite direction. She commented on the unfortunate reelection of Ursula von der Leyen to a second term as president of the EU Commission, saying that her speech was \u201cso bellicose \u2026 unquestioned commitment to the policies of the Israeli government, not the Israeli people.\u201d Von der Leyen actually called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u2019s diplomacy \u201cappeasement,\u201d and called for a strategic defeat of Russia. Zepp-LaRouche further mentioned the \u201chair-raising warmongering\u201d of new EU foreign policy chief (and an EU Commission vice president) Kaja Kallas, who will replace Josep Borrell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jonathan Kuttab, Executive Director of Friends of Sabeel North America\u2014A Christian Voice for Palestine<\/a>, and Co-Founder of Non-Violence International, joined as a featured speaker for today\u2019s meeting. He began his remarks saying, \u201cI\u2019m willing to say that there are those who have a vested interest in violence\u2026. I can talk about grave violations of international law \u2026 war crimes, genocide \u2026 but I\u2019m not going to do that.\u201d He continued: \u201cWe absolutely, desperately need to seek other methods for conflict resolution \u2026 we need to stop the demonization of each other \u2026 every liberation movement has been called a terrorist organization\u2026.\u201d He advocated dialogue with all parties, Hamas included, saying, \u201cWe need to start the process \u2026 we are willing to break the taboos, we are willing to initiate contacts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He described that in the late 1980s and early 1990s, peace activists in Israel, the U.S., and elsewhere conducted a serious campaign to urge politicians to talk to Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO changed its charter, renounced violence, accepted the principles of compromise, and accepted conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Is there any reason a similar process should not be started with Hamas?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zepp-LaRouche thanked him and introduced him briefly to the Oasis Plan of Lyndon LaRouche<\/a>, which is \u201cmaking big steps forward.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What Has Become of International Law?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Richard A. Falk is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor\u2019s Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Not able to attend in person, he provided a video in which he reminded viewers that the Likud\/religious party coalition which came to power in 2023 has been characterized as \u201cthe most extreme in the history of Israel,\u201d with the \u201crather transparent intention of completing the Zionist project of Greater Israel,\u201d including the annexation of the West Bank. The most extreme government figures were given jurisdiction over the occupied territories; settlers were given a green light to terrorize the Palestinians. The events of October 7 provided the pretext for genocide, and diverted attention from the West Bank, which was the core of the coalition strategy. Falk described this as the second phase of the death of the two-state solution, phase one being the settlements policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n During the discussion, an activist reported on the July 19 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel\u2019s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is unlawful and should come to an end \u201cas rapidly as possible.\u201d Kiracofe pointed out that this decision addresses what has been exactly the principal legal issue since 1948, when the U.S. intervened to block a one-state solution, a democratic republic where Arabs and Jews would have equal rights, in favor of partition. Did the UN have legal authority to cause partition? The ICJ has been prevented from addressing this until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n