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The End of DOE’s Flagship Small Modular Nuclear Reactor (SMR) — A Cautionary Tale

10 years is a long time for investors; and it doesn’t sit well in the context of climate change, which requires solutions now. Since 2011, Congress has appropriated some $6.6 billion for SMRs, out of which DOE has “obligated” some $3 billion, including $583 million for NuScale — more than for any other SMR project. (The other two lead developers, TerraPower and X-energy, have received DOE obligations of $318 million and $242 million, respectively, so far). Yet not one megawatt of commercial carbon-free energy has resulted from this spending.

SMR Craze Continues

Decarbonization goals aren’t being served by wasteful spending on nuclear projects that don’t or won’t deliver the carbon-free power that’s needed. Yet the SMR craze continues both in the US and elsewhere

Fri, Nov 17, 2023, Stephanie Cooke, Washington,  https://www.energyintel.com/0000018b-cf50-dbb5-a5ef-df7378750000

The collapse of the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) flagship small modular reactor (SMR) project should serve as a cautionary tale to SMR developers everywhere. When the agency first announced funding for NuScale Power’s SMR project in 2013, then Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said it represented “a new generation of safe, reliable, low-carbon nuclear energy technology” that would “provide a strong opportunity for America to lead this emerging global industry.” Yet despite years of trying, NuScale failed to deliver. DOE has so far spent some $3 billion on SMRs, according to a department spokesperson, and this is not its first failed SMR project — a Babcock & Wilcox “mPower” design that received the agency’s first SMR funding in 2012 and was regarded as the industry leader in SMRs collapsed in 2017. The question now is whether or when DOE and its multitude of congressional supporters will finally wise up and end the nuclear bonanza?

NuScale and its primary customer, Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS), a nonprofit electricity wholesaler with 50 utility members across seven Western states, couldn’t generate enough interest among the utilities to keep the project going. Under power purchase agreements, individual utility subscribers were obligated to help pay project development costs, which continued to rise, based on their level of offtake. Off-ramps were provided at specific dates with the caveat that any subscriber choosing to take one would have to bear the brunt of its costs to date. Eight subscribers chose to do that in 2020, with a very large offtaker following suit in 2021.

In mid-2021, the target price of power from the proposed 462-megawatt plant, consisting of six 77 MW reactor modules, stood at $58 per megawatt hour; it then rose to $89/MWh, a 53% increase. The project, planned for a DOE site in Idaho, survived despite a sea of local opposition, including from the Utah Taxpayers Association, but it never recovered from the mass exit. The remaining subscribers faced an off-ramp early next year; by deciding to unanimously exit they could avoid bearing costs to date, and instead receive compensation. That’s what they decided to do.

Downward Spiral

The collapse announced on Nov. 8 followed a scathing financial report on NuScale’s prospects by a European short-seller, Iceberg Research, on Oct. 19. That report sent NuScale’s share price into a tailspin, and may have accelerated the decision by the remaining subscribers to leave, which led to another downward spiral. But there were “many reports, articles and opinion pieces published regionally and nationally that raised well-researched questions and doubts about the project’s necessity and financial viability and led potential new subscribers and investors to hesitate,” points out Scott Williams, who spearheaded environmental group Heal Utah’s opposition to the project.

However, the Iceberg report cast a pall over the small community of niche investors in new nuclear. X-energy, one of DOE’s two lead “advanced” reactor developers, cited “challenging market conditions” following the Iceberg report for its decision to pull out of an attempted public offering. The company had planned to follow NuScale’s example and merge with a “blank check” special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to gain access to stock market investors. The SPAC process has the advantage of allowing a small relatively unknown company to widen its investor base without the regulatory scrutiny involved in a conventional initial public offering.

When Fluor signed the merger deal for the NuScale SPAC in December 2021, the company’s executive chairman, Alan Boeckmann, predicted it would “bolster and accelerate the path to commercialization and deployment of NuScale Power’s unique small modular nuclear reactor technology.” But Fluor itself was under pressure from the market to sell down its majority holding in NuScale — which stands at roughly 55% — something it has been notably unsuccessful in doing. “This is the next step in Fluor’s plan, first outlined 10 years ago, to work closely with NuScale Power, Congress and the Department of Energy to commercialize this unique carbon-free energy technology,” Boeckmann noted.

Decarbonization Goals

10 years is a long time for investors; and it doesn’t sit well in the context of climate change, which requires solutions now. Since 2011, Congress has appropriated some $6.6 billion for SMRs, out of which DOE has “obligated” some $3 billion, including $583 million for NuScale — more than for any other SMR project. (The other two lead developers, TerraPower and X-energy, have received DOE obligations of $318 million and $242 million, respectively, so far). Yet not one megawatt of commercial carbon-free energy has resulted from this spending.

Meanwhile developers have been allowed to chase a rainbow of reactor designs, using different types of coolants and fuels, that date back to the mid-20th century. And as one long-time expert put it, “It’s hard to believe that these more exotic designs will be any cheaper” than the conventional light-water design NuScale was pursuing. A DOE report in March effectively admitted that only large reactors (1 gigawatt or more) deployed en masse have a chance at making an impact on decarbonization, and that “waiting until the mid-2030s to deploy at scale could lead to missing decarbonization targets and/or significant supply chain overbuild.”

The report also noted that “the nuclear industry today is at a commercial stalemate between potential customers and investments in the nuclear industrial base needed for deployment — putting decarbonization goals at risk.”

SMR Craze Continues

Decarbonization goals aren’t being served by wasteful spending on nuclear projects that don’t or won’t deliver the carbon-free power that’s needed. Yet the SMR craze continues both in the US and elsewhere. “I see a clear window of opportunity opening up,” EU Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson told a European SMR “partnership event” in Bratislava on Nov. 6, two days before NuScale’s announcement. “I am confident that the EU can have a leadership role in achieving technological maturity for SMRs,” Simson added. “The first SMRs must be connected to the European electricity grid within a decade at the latest. This must be our goal.” The day after NuScale’s announcement, on Nov. 9, officials from the US State Department, also in Bratislava, and Slovakia’s Ministry of Economy launched the “Phoenix Project” aimed at replacing aging coal plans with SMRs.

So, what next for DOE’s SMR effort? Should it find another US developer to lead the way and hope for ‘third time lucky’? Or redefine its program in order to justify more foolish spending? Some guess the Canadians might steal the lead on SMRs, a prospect that is loaded with irony, since the project everyone is watching involves a Babcock & Wilcox spinoff called BWX Technologies and a design inspired by a conventional boiling water reactor design that was never built.

More importantly, will Congress wake up and hear the music? The UAMPS subscribers to the NuScale project trusted in NuScale to deliver, and at a reasonable cost, until they no longer did, and wisely chose the off-ramp. Congress should follow suit and stop funding a dead-end enterprise.

November 19, 2023 Posted by | climate change, USA | 1 Comment

Smearing Photojournalists as Hamas Collaborators – Gets Them Added to a Hit List

Israel’s killings of journalists in Gaza, combined with legal attempts to silence media critics within Israel, are a threat to the public’s ability to know about the nature of the ongoing violence, which is financed with US tax dollars.

ARI PAUL 17 Nov 23,  https://fair.org/home/smearing-photojournalists-as-hamas-collaborators-gets-them-added-to-a-hit-list/

During Israeli military offensives in the Occupied Territories, it is common for the Israeli government and its supporters to claim media are biased in favor the Palestinians, often by invoking that there is “no moral equivalence” between the Israeli government and Palestinian militant organizations like Hamas (American Jewish Committee, 10/17/23). Akin to Alex Jones falsely smearing grieving parents of school shooting victims as “crisis actors,” pro-Israel advocates sometimes dismiss media images of Palestinian suffering as staged fakery they call “Pallywood” (France24, 10/27/23).

Now Israeli government officials are accusing major news media of coordinating with Hamas, essentially painting Palestinian stringers as terrorist operatives. At least one Israeli official threatened to “eliminate” anyone involved in the October 7 attacks, and indicated that some journalists were included included on that list.

The pro-Israel media advocacy organization HonestReporting (11/8/23) raised questions about the presence of AP, Reuters, New York Times and CNN photographers near the sites Hamas attacked in southern Israel on October 7:

“What were they doing there so early on what would ordinarily have been a quiet Saturday morning? Was it coordinated with Hamas? Did the respectable wire services, which published their photos, approve of their presence inside enemy territory, together with the terrorist infiltrators? Did the photojournalists who freelance for other media, like CNN and the New York Times, notify these outlets?”

‘No different than terrorists’

Israeli officials are taking the group’s words seriously, going hard against these news agencies and individual Palestinian stringers. These accusations were featured throughout the corporate media.

The Financial Times (11/10/23) reported that Benny Gantz, who has held numerous Israeli military and ministerial roles, said “journalists found to have known about the massacre, and [who] still chose to stand as idle bystanders while children were slaughtered, are no different than terrorists and should be treated as such.” Knesset member Danny Danon (Twitter, 11/9/23), Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, said that Israel would “eliminate all participants of the October 7 massacre,” adding that “the ‘photojournalists’ who took part in recording the assault will be added to that list.” Prime Minister Benjamin

Netanyahu called these journalists “accomplices in crimes against humanity” (New York Post, 11/9/23).

Politico (11/9/23) reported that Israel’s “Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi accused the foreign media of employing contributors who were tipped off on the Hamas attacks.” It added that Nitzan Chen, director of Israel’s government press office, had asked the four media outlets “for clarifications regarding the behavior” of their photographers.

‘Mobilized by Hamas’

The affair was covered in many other outlets, including the New York Times (11/9/23), The Hill (11/9/23), Newsweek (11/9/23) and the Daily Beast (11/9/23). The Jerusalem Post (11/10/23) took the government and watchdog’s allegations as fact and said in an editorial:

“These so-called photojournalists made no effort to stop or distance themselves from the barbaric events. On the contrary: They were mobilized by the Hamas terrorists to glorify their acts, help promote their terrorism and spread fear among their enemies—Israel and the West. In this way, too, Hamas recalls ISIS, which deliberately recorded its beheadings and other barbaric murders.”

In a statement, Reuters (11/9/23) “categorically denies that it had prior knowledge of the attack or that we embedded journalists with Hamas on October 7.” Al Jazeera (11/9/23) reported that “AP also rejected allegations that its newsroom had prior knowledge of the attacks”; the agency said in a statement that the

“first pictures AP received from any freelancer show they were taken more than an hour after the attacks began…. No AP staff were at the border at the time of the attacks, nor did any AP staffer cross the border at any time.”

Neither HonestReporting nor Israeli officials raising a stink about this have provided any evidence of unethical behavior by these media outlets or their stringers (Reuters, 11/11/23). HonestReporting has shrouded its rhetoric with the disclaimer of “just asking questions.” The AP (11/9/23) reported that “Gil Hoffman, executive director of HonestReporting and a former reporter for the Jerusalem Post, admitted…the group had no evidence to back up” its suggestion that the photographers had “prior coordination with the terrorists.” Hoffman “said he was satisfied with subsequent explanations from several of these journalists that they did not know.”

Nevertheless, CNN and the AP stopped working with Hassan Eslaiah, one of the freelancers mentioned in the HonestReporting report, who in fact “got extra emphasis in the HonestReporting story, which resurfaced a several-years-old photo of him posing with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar,” according to the Washington Post (11/9/23).

Deadly time for journalists

Any journalist who read HonestReporting’s questions had to smirk a bit. Journalists all over the world are tipped off by all sorts of sources to get somewhere at a certain time, with the undetailed promise of some hot footage. This is just the nature of the job, and doesn’t mean that a journalist’s relationship with a source is the same as working together on a common message.

have already written at FAIR (10/19/23) that Israel’s killings of journalists in Gaza, combined with legal attempts to silence media critics within Israel, are a threat to the public’s ability to know about the nature of the ongoing violence, which is financed with US tax dollars. The Committee to Protect Journalists (11/15/23) said that 42 journalists have been killed in the month since fighting broke out, making that period “the deadliest for journalists since it began gathering data in 1992” (UPI, 11/8/23).

Now Israeli officials have insinuated that if you are too physically close to a Palestinian fighter and get a good photo in the process, their government may consider you an enemy combatant. That is another chilling escalation of a troubling trend in Israel’s relationship with the press.

Information stranglehold

It’s all part of the Israeli government’s attempt to keep a tight stranglehold on information coming out in the press. Recently, the government used the tried and true method of embedding journalists within military units; in exchange for on-the-ground access, the military gets to review the footage journalists’ obtain (New Arab, 11/8/23). Israel also moved to criminalize the “consumption of terrorist materials” (Al Jazeera, 11/8/23) and to shut down media deemed a threat to national security (International Federation of Journalists, 10/20/23). NBC (11/11/23) reported that the Israeli government has “cracked down on broadcasts, reports and social media posts that” are deemed “a threat to national security or in support of terror organizations since Hamas’ October 7 assault.”

As the Israeli publication +972 (9/18/23) pointed out, before the outbreak of the current war, Israeli government censorship had actually declined, but it still found that in 2022, the

Israeli military censor blocked the publication of 159 articles across various Israeli media outlets, and censored parts of a further 990. In all, the military prevented information from being made public an average of three times a day—on top of the chilling effect that the very existence of censorship imposes on independent journalism that seeks to uncover government failings.

While Israel likes to think of itself as a bastion of Western enlightenment in a sea of backward nations, this anti-media trend in the country makes it more like its neighbors than its supporters would like to believe.

In the case of the death of famous British correspondent Marie Colvin, a judge ruled that she was intentionally targeted by the Assad regime for giving a voice to opposition factions (BBC, 1/31/19). Egypt frequently detains journalists for the supposed crime of collaboration with subversive organizations and foreign powers (Reporters Without Borders, 6/30/23). The rate of the Turkish government’s jailing of journalists has accelerated (Voice of America, 12/15/22), and last year the government “detained 11 journalists affiliated with pro-Kurdish media for their alleged links to Kurdish militants” (AP, 10/25/22).

This is the club Israel belongs to. And such hostility toward the free press makes it harder for journalists to deliver clear, fair reporting about the Middle East conflict. And that’s the point. The insinuation that media organizations who report freely on the Israel/Palestine conflict are anti-Zionist agents is meant to keep the situation shrouded in haze.

November 19, 2023 Posted by | Israel, media | 1 Comment

How a hasbara group’s sham investigation put Gaza journalists in the firing line

Honest Reporting’s claims against Palestinian photographers were echoed by Israeli leaders and media. But they’re factually and journalistically unfounded.

+972 Magazine, ByOren Ziv, November 13, 2023

On Nov. 8, Honest Reporting, an organization that claims to monitor “anti-Israel” bias in the media, published an “investigation” accusing Palestinian photojournalists in the Gaza Strip of having advance knowledge about Hamas’ lethal October 7 attack on southern Israel. ……………………..

The report quickly gained traction, with Israel’s Foreign Ministry and the Government Press Office both sharing the report on their official X pages (the former has since deleted the post). Israeli leaders rushed to put out their own condemnations of the journalists, equating them with those responsible for the massacres…………………………………..

However, even a cursory examination of the investigation’s claims revealed major discrepancies……………………………………

Indeed, the allegations against the Palestinian journalists appear to be completely baseless. Gil Hoffman, Honest Reporting’s director and a former longtime correspondent at the Jerusalem Post, admitted as much two days after the report’s publication, in response to refutations issued by the four outlets implicated by the claims: Associated Press, Reuters, CNN, and The New York Times.

…………………………………………………………………….. Claims debunked

In order to properly respond to the dangerous claims made by Honest Reporting, it is necessary to understand how both photo agencies and international media outlets work with photographers. 

 First, these organizations usually use staff photographers, independent photographers, and/or photographers who either approach agencies and outlets to sell their photos or are contacted by these bodies to buy their work.

On October 7, there were no international photographers in Gaza (who would require permits from the Israeli authorities to enter the Strip), and since Hamas’ attack and the start of Israel’s intensified siege and bombardment, none have been able to enter. Therefore, for the purpose of covering the events of that day, the media relied on their permanent local Palestinian staff as well as additional Palestinian photographers.

The Israeli media, which parroted Honest Reporting’s allegations unquestioningly, claimed that the Palestinian photographers “documented the massacre.” This is false: while one journalist photographed a mob attacking the body of a dead soldier that had been removed from an Israeli tank along the Gaza fence, none of them documented killing. The photographs mentioned in the report went online in real time, with full credit to the photographers, and Israeli media outlets themselves used these photos extensively. Some of them have become iconic, such as the image of a commandeered tank that was set on fire next to the Gaza fence.

Nonetheless, the international outlets mentioned in the report took Honest Reporting’s claims seriously, and conducted their own investigations. CNN, The New York Times, AP, and Reuters all looked into the allegations and offered responses. AP, for example, emphasized that it did not know in advance about the attack, and that the initial photographs — taken by freelancers — were taken more than an hour after the attack began. The other outlets published similar clarifying statements.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Even after Honest Reporting admitted they had no proof that the photographers were complicit in the attack, most of the Israeli media that reported on the initial findings did not bother to publish anything about the organization’s sudden change in tune. The claim that Palestinian journalists were responsible for Hamas’ war crimes has already taken root and become just one more example in the wave of attacks by the Israeli public against Palestinian journalists.

A flawed logic

Like photojournalists all over the world, the Gaza-based photographers arrived to fulfill their journalistic duty and document a difficult, painful, and cruel event, of which they did not know all the details at the time………………………………………………………………………

The Palestinian photographers set out to document an event that took place near their homes. That same morning, Israeli photojournalists — myself included — set out to document the events in the south. We filmed the wounded, the bodies lying on the ground, and the gun battles at the Sderot police station between Palestinian fighters and Israeli security forces. Does this mean we had a hand in the events or could have helped? Of course not. 

………………………………………………………… It is difficult to accept that an unfounded investigation was accepted by large parts of the Israeli media as fact, went viral on social media, was quoted without reservation, and strengthened the incitement against those who are trying in impossible conditions to document the reality on the ground. Israel has killed at least 39 journalists in Gaza since the war began. The accusations made by Honest Reporting serve to legitimize their deaths and the bloodletting of others.

Had the organization bothered to contact the various media outlets for a response before publishing their claims, the damage could have been avoided. But as Hoffman told AP, Honest Reporting doesn’t “claim to be a news organization,” and thus, it seems, the traditional journalistic standards of asking for comment before publication does not apply to them. Honest Reporting is a right-wing, hasbara organization with a clear agenda, and should be treated as such by all who interact with it.

A version of this article was first published in  Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.  https://www.972mag.com/honest-reporting-gaza-journalists/

November 19, 2023 Posted by | Israel, media, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

Exposure to CT Radiation and Risk of Blood Cancers in Young Patients

By The ASCO Post Staff, 11/14/2023 

Investigators may have uncovered an association between exposure to computed tomography (CT) radiation in young patients and an increased risk of hematologic malignancies, according to a recent study published by Bosch de Basea Gomez et al in Nature Medicine. These recent findings highlighted the significance of continuing to apply strict radiologic protection measures in young patients.  

Background

Currently, more than 1 million young patients in Europe undergo CT scans each year. The impact of these scans in patient management—including diagnostic efficacy, treatment planning, and disease follow-up—is generally considered positive. However, the extensive use of this procedure in recent decades has raised concerns in the medical and scientific community about the potential cancer risks associated with exposure to ionizing radiation, particularly in young patients.

“The exposure associated with CT scans is considered low (< 100 mGy), but it is still higher than for other diagnostic procedures,” explained senior study author Elisabeth Cardis, PhD, Head of the Radiation Group at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health.

Previous studies have suggested that young patients exposed to CT scans may have an increased risk of developing cancer, but these studies faced several methodologic limitations.

Study Methods and Results

In the recent multinational EPI-CT study, the investigators—including clinicians, epidemiologists, and dosimetrists from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom—analyzed the data of 984,174 patients who underwent at least one CT scan prior to age 22 to address the limitations of the previous research.

The dose of radiation delivered to the bone marrow was estimated for each of the patients. By linking this information to national cancer registries, the investigators were able to identify those who developed hematologic malignancies after an average follow-up of 7.8 years. However, for those who had CT scans in the early years of the technology, the investigators were able to monitor cancer incidence for more than 20 years after their first scan.

The investigators determined there was a clear correlation between the total radiation doses to the bone marrow from CT scans and the risk of developing both myeloid and lymphoid malignancies. A dose of 100 mGy multiplied the risk of developing a hematologic malginancy by a factor of about three. The investigators suggested that a typical scan today (with an average dose of about 8 mGy) may increase the risk of developing hematologic malignancies by about 16%………………………………………………. more https://ascopost.com/news/november-2023/exposure-to-ct-radiation-and-risk-of-blood-cancers-in-young-patients/

November 19, 2023 Posted by | EUROPE, radiation | Leave a comment

CND mounts legal challenge against US nuclear weapons storage at RAF Lakenheath

 https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2023/11/15/raf-lakenheath-cnd-legal-challenge/

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) is legally challenging development works at RAF Lakenheath which it believes are to prepare for stationing nuclear weapons by the US Air Force (USAF).

CND: challenging RAF Lakenheath’s expansion

CND claims the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and West Suffolk Council (West Suffolk) have failed to assess the environmental impact of potentially facilitating the weapons at the Suffolk airbase and has called on the MoD to halt development works at RAF Lakenheath while the necessary screening is carried out.

In letters to the MoD and West Suffolk, CND says that under the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2017 the development does not have permitted development rights which would allow it to go ahead.

CND points out that works at RAF Lakenheath – rapid airfield damage repair facilities (RADR), a child development centre and a 144-bed dormitory – should have been considered as one whole project for planning purposes. Planning Practice Guidance states: “an application should not be considered in isolation if, in reality, it is an integral part of a more substantial development”.

Separate environmental impact screening assessments have been carried out for the child development centre and the RADR, but none has been done for the 144-bed dormitory, which the MoD has indicated that it believes has permitted development rights. CND says there has been no screening of the dormitory plan by West Suffolk to show it would have no significant environmental impact, and without that screening it cannot have permitted development rights.

One whole project’

In its legal letter to the MoD, CND explains that the development works for the dormitory should not be considered as one of several small projects but as part of one whole project with a major environmental impact that should be assessed as a whole.

t says any assessment must include not only the construction of the buildings comprising the various developments, but also the effects of the use of those buildings, that is the effects of stationing nuclear weapons at RAF Lakenheath.

It says CND does not need to rehearse the potential risks which stationing weapons at RAF Lakenheath entails at a local, national and international level. Those risks extend not only to the risk of weapons being negligently maintained or handled by USAF personnel, but also security risks if malicious actors break into the airbase or the weapons cause the UK to become a target for a nuclear attack.

Ignoring the risks

CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said:

USAF has ploughed ahead with construction at the airbase by purportedly relying on planning rights that assume that the development won’t have significant environmental effects. But in doing that they’ve completely ignored the risks that stationing nuclear weapons would entail and therefore might arguably be operating unlawfully in breach of planning control.

CND is represented by planning law specialist, solicitor Ricardo Gama at law firm Leigh Day.

Gama said:

CND wants to make sure that the development at RAF Lakenheath, and the wider question of whether nuclear weapons should be stationed on UK soil, if that is what the USAF is planning, doesn’t slip under the radar without proper public scrutiny. The planning process is one way for members of the public to make representations on these controversial plans.

November 19, 2023 Posted by | Legal, UK | Leave a comment

Time’s Up for Netanyahu and Biden

The question for today is what the world will do to enable the Palestinian people to live in peace and security in a nation where their children enjoy the opportunities most Americans and Europeans take for granted.

By Dan Siegel ScheerPost 17 Nov 23  https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/17/times-up-for-netanyahu-and-biden/

We can tell the world is changing when tens of thousands of Texans rally in the capital of America’s most important red state to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and freedom for Palestine. No longer can the Israeli government enforce its deadly calculus of 10 (or 50? or 100?) Palestinian lives for each Israeli killed in its futile effort to suppress Palestine’s struggle for self-determination. No longer can an American President assume that the public will support propping up an Israeli government whose constant, murderous violations of international law bring us daily exposure to the violence and deprivation imposed on the Palestinian population.

The issues are no longer whether Israel should survive and whether Hamas’ murders must be condemned. Those are the easy questions. Countless millions of us have moved on. 

The question for today is what the world will do to enable the Palestinian people to live in peace and security in a nation where their children enjoy the opportunities most Americans and Europeans take for granted. No one suggests that this challenge can be easily resolved, but the first step is for the U.S. to stop supporting the most right-wing government in Israel’s history from imposing unlimited violence and deprivation on Gaza while accelerating violent settler expansion in the West Bank.

Israel’s strategies to ensure its survival and the means it chooses to defend itself should no longer enjoy unquestioned American support. Netanyahu’s government has exhausted its legitimate right to defend itself against the Hamas attack. It has already killed 11,000 Palestinians and provided no evidence that any of them were responsible for Hamas’ violence.

Israel’s air campaign against Gaza relies on the “emergency” American appropriation of $14 billion in military aid. American weapons have been designated for Israeli settlers stealing Palestinian land in the West Bank. U.S. officials know that Israel’s actions will not lead to peace. So do Israeli leaders, including many in the military. Netanyahu and his government survive because they have American support, including Jews who continue to maintain that criticism of the Israeli government is the equivalent of antisemitism. Many of us disagree. Recent polling demonstrates that the American public is evenly divided on support for the Israeli bombing of Gaza.

Organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and J Street represent ever growing numbers of American Jews. We are no longer cowed from describing Israel’s actions against the people of Gaza as genocide or its policies in the West Bank as apartheid. We are no longer intimidated by an American Jewish establishment that wields specious and exaggerated accusations of antisemitism and harassment to silence critics of the Netanyahu government.

America’s Jewish establishment does its best to suppress the contentious history of Zionism within the Jewish community worldwide. My grandfather grew up in the late 1800s in a small town in Belarus and became a student and political activist in Minsk. The intellectual life of his community focused on the debate about whether socialism or Zionism best served Jews’ long term interests.

Much public debate focuses on “who started it?,” and the simplistic answer given by Israel’s defenders points to the Hamas attack of October 7 as justification for Israel’s excesses. But the war between Israel and Palestine did not begin on Oct.  7, or even in 1979 or 1967 or 1948, and it was not created in the Holocaust. It makes more sense to say that the roots of the current conflict go back to the Crusades, a campaign that began around 1095 when Europe’s Christian kings raised and sent armies to the Middle East to overthrow its Muslim leaders and take their land. As they marched across Europe, the Crusaders attacked Jewish communities, murdering their populations and stealing their wealth. Almost 1,000 years later the descendants of those Arab and Jewish people contend for the land conquered by the Crusaders.

History will not tell us which side has right on its side. The search for peace must be forward-looking and requires a commitment to the welfare of both the Palestinian and Israeli people. American officials are far from powerless to stop the Netanyahu government. The problem is that they refuse to do so. The current crisis has created a demand for leadership with a vision of a world at peace.

This is Joe Biden’s Lyndon Johnson moment, the time for him to follow LBJ’s 1968 decision to withdraw from the campaign for reelection. The issue is not that Biden is too old. His policies are too old. The American Empire is no more. We need leaders ready to engage the emerging multipolar world, who do not imagine that the U.S. is going to war over Taiwan, who welcome sharing power with the nations of Europe and the BRICS countries. The end of America’s uncritical support of the Israeli government can be the first step in creating leadership for a world at peace.

November 19, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Washington raises stakes on ‘losing hand’ in Ukraine – Jeffrey Sachs

Sachs noted that he and other observers predicted the Ukraine debacle in the early days of the conflict. “This one was not very hard to see,” he said. “Like you said, how can you beat Russia? It was very obvious. These people just are not very clever. Biden, Nuland, [National Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan, [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken – they’ve been at this since 2014.”


https://www.rt.com/news/587370-sachs-ukraine-losing-hand/ 17 Nov 23

Just three days after Russian forces launched a military offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky sought to resolve the conflict by pledging neutrality, Sachs said. However, he suggested that, when Zelensky reached a preliminary agreement with the Russians on a peace settlement a few weeks later, US President Joe Biden’s administration torpedoed the deal.

The leading American analyst has argued that Washington needs a new foreign policy after 15 years of failure in Eastern Europe

Washington has continually escalated a failed foreign policy in Eastern Europe since at least 2008, driving Ukraine to the brink of total destruction by failing to address Russia’s legitimate security concerns in the former Soviet republic, US public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs has argued.

“The US has played a losing hand badly for 15 straight years,” Sachs said on Wednesday in an interview with independent journalist Glenn Greenwald. “This is really important to understand if one wants to learn a little bit about geopolitical poker, which is, we keep raising the stakes on a losing hand.”

Sachs, an award-winning economist who advised the Russian and Ukrainian governments following the Soviet Union’s breakup, detailed how at various points in the past two decades, Washington could have forestalled a military conflict without Kiev losing any territory. He pointed out that Moscow was demanding that NATO not expand onto its doorstep, which US officials refused to concede.

When Ukraine’s then-president, Viktor Yanukovych, chose neutrality over aligning with the West and agreed to extend the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s lease of its naval base in Crimea, that wasn’t good enough for US leaders, Sachs said. US State Department official Victoria Nuland “and friends” then helped overthrow Kiev’s democratically elected government in 2014, leading to Ukraine’s loss of Crimea, he said.

Even then, Russia wasn’t demanding more territory. Rather, Sachs said, Moscow wanted Ukraine to refrain from shelling ethnic Russians in the breakaway Donbass region and to grant them a degree of autonomy. Those terms were included in the Minsk II agreement, which was unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council, but US officials told Ukrainian leaders that they didn’t need to comply with the deal, the analyst said.

In December 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a security pact pledging no further expansion of NATO and negotiations on placement of US missile systems in Eastern Europe. The US reply came in January 2022.

“We don’t have to discuss any of that with you,” Sachs said, summing up Washington’s stance at the time. “That was the reply. We don’t have to discuss NATO with you. It’s none of your business.”

Just three days after Russian forces launched a military offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky sought to resolve the conflict by pledging neutrality, Sachs said. However, he suggested that, when Zelensky reached a preliminary agreement with the Russians on a peace settlement a few weeks later, US President Joe Biden’s administration torpedoed the deal.

Washington has since approved $113 billion in aid to Ukraine, essentially prolonging the fighting, the analyst argued. Earlier this year, the Biden administration goaded Kiev into a major counteroffensive against Russian forces that was “clearly an impossibility,” Sachs said.  

“They’ve raised the stakes for 15 years on a losing hand, and they can’t get it,” the economist said. “And this is our team. They failed.”

Sachs noted that he and other observers predicted the Ukraine debacle in the early days of the conflict. “This one was not very hard to see,” he said. “Like you said, how can you beat Russia? It was very obvious. These people just are not very clever. Biden, Nuland, [National Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan, [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken – they’ve been at this since 2014.”

Kiev’s much-anticipated offensive campaign, launched in the summer, has failed to achieve any significant victories or win back much territory. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, said in a recent interview that the fighting has reached “a stalemate.” 

The Economist reported this week that Western officials “increasingly think” that the conflict could last for another five years.

November 19, 2023 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Israel demolishes Gaza parliament (VIDEO)

Rt.com 17 Nov 23

IDF troops posed inside the Palestinian Legislative Council before blowing it up

Israeli troops destroyed the Palestinian parliament building in Gaza on Wednesday, describing the act as part of the war against Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Arabic-language spokesman, Ofir Gendelman, posted a minute-long video of the demolition on X (formerly Twitter). It showed the heavily damaged building exploding in a pillar of smoke and dust, as Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops in nearby trenches laughed and cheered.

“Today, our ground forces blew up the headquarters of the Hamas Legislative Council in the Gaza Strip as part of destroying the Hamas regime of oppression and terrorism,” wrote Gendelman.

The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) building was located on Omar al-Mukhtar Street in central Gaza City.

On Monday, soldiers of the IDF’s Golani Brigade posed inside with Israeli flags, “after conquering the area,” according to the Israeli news outlet i24NEWS.

The PLC has been largely inactive since 2007, when Hamas took power in Gaza and split from the Fatah movement in the West Bank……………………………more https://www.rt.com/news/587354-israel-demolishes-gaza-parliament/

November 19, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Herzog: Israel will maintain ‘very strong force’ in Gaza, Translation: We’re not leaving. Ever.


James Shotter and Andrew England, Financial Times, Thu, 16 Nov 2023  https://www.sott.net/article/486055-Herzog-Israel-will-maintain-very-strong-force-in-Gaza-Translation-We-re-not-leaving-Ever

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has said that his country cannot leave a vacuum in Gaza and would have to maintain a “very strong force” in the coastal enclave for the near future to prevent Hamas re-emerging in the besieged strip.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Herzog said the government was discussing many ideas about how Gaza would be run once the war between Israel and Hamas ended, adding that he assumed the US and “our neighbours in the region” would have some involvement in the post-conflict order.

“If we pull back, then who will take over? We can’t leave a vacuum. We have to think about what will be the mechanism; there are many ideas that are thrown in the air,” Herzog said. “But no one will want to turn this place, Gaza, into a terror base again.”

Herzog’s comments come as international pressure mounts on Israel over the soaring death toll in Gaza and the deepening humanitarian crisis in the strip, which is home to 2.3mn people and has been controlled by Hamas since 2007.

Western officials are also concerned that Israel has no clear plan for what comes next in Gaza after vowing to eliminate Hamas, which is deeply embedded in Palestinian society and has political and military wings.

The Biden administration has said there might be a need for a transition period, but it has also warned Israel not to reoccupy the strip — from which it withdrew in 2005 — or to reduce the size of the territory with new security barriers or buffer zones.

Comment: Good luck with that. The Zionists are off the leash and they know it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously said Israel would maintain indefinite “overall security responsibility” over Gaza.

Herzog, who has no executive powers but is briefed on the war effort, said: “In order to prevent terror from coming up again, we have to have a very strong force to make sure that it’s committed enough and it [the attack] doesn’t happen [again].”

Herzog was speaking hours before Israeli forces launched a raid on al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, which is home to patients and thousands of Palestinians who have sought sanctuary from Israel’s bombardment.

The Israel Defense Forces described its raid on al-Shifa as a “precise and targeted operation” in a “specified area” of the hospital. The IDF accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military operations, and the White House on Tuesday supported Israel’s claims that Palestinian militants stored weapons in medical facilities.

Comment: Precise and targeted means we won’t drop a missile right on your head, but bomb you right up to the front door:

Hamas has denied these claims. A spokesman for the government in Gaza described the raid on al-Shifa as a war crime.

The UN has said that the health system in Gaza has collapsed, with all but one of the hospitals in northern Gaza no longer functioning.

Asked about Israel’s military operations around hospitals, Herzog said: “We are doing it in a very, very cautious way.”

He also insisted that Israel was seeking to protect civilians.

Israeli forces launched an air and land offensive on Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 attack killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, in its most ferocious ever assault on the strip.

More than 11,200 people have been killed in Israel’s bombardment, according to Palestinian health officials, and the UN says more than 1.5mn people have been displaced.

Israel has repeatedly ordered Palestinians to leave the densely populated north of Gaza, which is the focus of its military operations, and to move south.

“I care about the Palestinian deaths . . . it breaks my heart,” Herzog said. “But I always remember, I have first and foremost [to ensure] the security to defend our people.”

Even Israel’s staunchest allies have raised concerns about the death toll in Gaza, with US secretary of state Antony Blinken saying last week that “far too many Palestinians have been killed”.

This week, French President Emmanuel Macron told the BBC that Israel must “stop the bombing”.

Herzog said Israel respected its allies and listened to the US “very carefully”. But he added that “at the end of the day, we have a duty to protect our people”.

The president said “first and foremost” Israel wanted to secure the release of about 240 hostages that Hamas captured during its October 7 attack on southern Israel.

He said the international community understood that, and supported Israel’s right to defend itself. But he said: “How do I have the right to defend myself if I cannot eradicate the military capabilities of Hamas? It’s right there. It’s right there in the [Gaza] city.”

Qatar, which hosts Hamas’s political office, has been facilitating indirect talks between Israel and the militant group to secure a deal to release civilian hostages.

Herzog blamed Hamas for the lack of an agreement, saying “we haven’t even received one piece of information about our hostages”.

“So we have to fight and get them,” he said.

He said Israel, which has laid siege to Gaza and allowed only a limited amount of aid into the strip — triggering acute shortages of food, water and fuel — was working to allow more humanitarian assistance into the enclave.

Herzog added that the government was discussing “a major effort” with Cyprus to deliver aid via the sea, saying Cypriot officials would be visiting Israel on Thursday to follow up on the initiative.

“It’s under serious negotiations with the Cypriot government,” he said.

“It’s true there are areas in Gaza that are in a very dire situation. That’s because it’s a war zone,” he said. “But we are trying.”

November 19, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Biden and Israel Refuse to Provide Proof of Hamas Base at Gaza Hospital

my comment:

Even if there were Hamas base, Hamas officials, underneath the hospital – that does not justify the mass killing of children women, men in the hospital

Neither Israel nor the U.S. have put forth concrete evidence that Hamas set up its headquarters under al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest medical facility.

By Jake Johnson / Common Dreams https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/16/biden-refuses-to-provide-proof-of-hamas-base-at-gaza-hospital/—

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday repeated the Israeli government’s claim that Hamas located its headquarters under Gaza’s largest hospital but refused to provide any evidence when pressed by a reporter amid Israel’s raid of the facility, which drew international alarmand condemnation.

During a press conference in California, Biden said that “you have a circumstance where the first war crime is being committed by Hamas by having their headquarters, their military hidden under a hospital.”

“And that’s a fact,” the president added. “That’s what’s happened.”

But at the end of the press conference, Biden declined when asked to detail the evidence the U.S. has seen showing that Hamas has a command center beneath al-Shifa, which is been under assault by Israeli forces for weeks.

“No, I can’t tell you,” Biden replied. “I won’t tell you.”

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote in response to Biden’s remarks that “a U.S. official tells me that the ‘U.S. intel’ is simply based on what Israel has provided, i.e. ISRAELI intel.”

“This may be why a dissent cable accused Biden of misleading the American public,” Parsi added, referring to an internal memo signed by dozens of U.S. foreign service officials.

Gaza health officials have repeatedly denied that Hamas has a command center inside or beneath al-Shifa, where thousands of patients, medical workers, and displaced people remain. Israel has used the claim to justify its attacks on the hospitals, which human rights groups have called a war crime.

Following its initial raid on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released photos and video footage purporting to show Hamas weapons and combat equipment at al-Shifa, but Israel has yet to provide any evidence of a secret Hamas base or tunnels under the hospital.

As The Washington Postreported, Israel said “no further evidence of Hamas activities in the hospital was scheduled to be made public for now” following the Wednesday release of the photos and video footage.

“Israel had hoped the controversial raid would turn up firm evidence of substantial militant activity in al-Shifa, a European diplomat told the Poston Thursday,” the newspaper added. “But the absence of clear proof to date has already led Western allies, including the United States, to increase pressure on Israel to accept a pause in fighting, said the diplomat.”

On Thursday, Israeli troops raided al-Shifa from the south, according to Al Jazeera, destroying a wall and interrogating the hospital’s workers.

Mohammed Zaqout, the director-general of Gaza’s hospitals, told Al Jazeera that “there is no member of Hamas in al-Shifa Hospital.”

“There is no military activity in al-Shifa,” Zaqout added. “All that happened is around the hospital but inside the hospital, all of the people are civilians.”

An IDF spokesperson claimed Wednesday that Hamas “knew we were coming” and “tried to hide evidence of their war crimes,” but analysts have expressed growing skepticism about the government’s insistence that Hamas used al-Shifa as a major command center.

“Did 200 Hamas forces, who IDF intelligence claims were present at Shifa Hospital after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, vanish out of thin air?” Yonah Jeremy Bob, the Jerusalem Post‘s senior military correspondent, asked Wednesday.

“All of the following could change radically if the IDF finds a larger smoking gun overnight Wednesday or on Thursday, but at press time, the IDF had presented a much weaker case to the world about Hamas’ presence at the hospital than expected,” he added. “The IDF announced zero arrests and even foreign media only mentioned two arrests, with five Hamas terrorists being killed just outside the hospital, but none inside—not even a single gunfight.”

November 19, 2023 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

The US and China re-engage on arms control. What may come next

Bulletin, By Daryl G. Kimball | November 15, 2023

For more than six decades, the United States has been worried about China’s regional influence, military activities—and its nuclear potential. For instance, in 1958, US officials considered using nuclear weapons to thwart Chinese artillery strikes on islands controlled by Taiwan, according to a document leaked by Daniel Ellsberg in 2021. Now, as then, a nuclear conflict between the United States and China would be devastating for both sides and the world.

The United States has a decades-long experience of nuclear arms control and strategic stability talks with the Soviet Union, and later Russia. However, there has not been a sustained bilateral dialogue between Washington and Beijing on how to reduce the risk of conflict, nuclear escalation, and nuclear arms control and disarmament. Until recently, China had rebuffed US overtures for bilateral talks on nuclear risk reduction and arms control, and on other security issues.

Adding to the tensions, China has embarked since the early 2000s on a major buildup of its relatively smaller nuclear arsenal and has resisted calls for a global halt on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. In response, some current and former national security insiders, as well as many in Congress, suggest that the US arsenal “should be supplemented” to add more capability and flexibility to counter two “near-peer” nuclear adversaries. In other words, the potential for an unconstrained, three-way arms race is growing.

But things started to change on November 6 with the meeting in Washington between US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Mallory Stewart and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director-General of Arms Control Sun Xiaobo.

A modest yet important breakthrough. The US-Chinese discussion on arms control—the first of its kind since 2018—was described by the US side as a “candid and in-depth discussion on issues related to arms control and nonproliferation.” According to the State Department’s readout of the meeting, “the United States highlighted the need to promote stability, help avert an unconstrained arms race, and manage competition so that it does not veer into conflict.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s readout also said the “[t]he two sides had an in-depth, candid and constructive exchange of views” on nuclear weapons matters, as well as an exchange on “regular arms control.”

Several participants told me that the meeting was “wide-ranging” and “positive in tone,” but that it did not involve much substantive exchange of views on the issues, which is not surprising. Tangible progress will require time and sustained give-and-take from both sides.

The next step, ideally, will be for Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, who are set to meet this week, to direct their teams toward concrete nuclear risk reduction and arms control measures that enhance mutual security.

More nuclear capabilities imply more responsibilities.……………………………………………….

China’s arsenal is not only growing (it had less than 200 nuclear warheads in 2000), but it is also diversifying and modernizing. It is now well-documented that China has started to deploy new solid-fueled missiles that can be launched more quickly than its older liquid-fueled missiles. …………………………………………………………………………..

Of course, China’s nuclear arsenal is still modest by comparison to the US and Russian arsenals, each of which are about nine times larger than China’s. But China’s nuclear modernization efforts could have significant strategic implications that make it even more important for the “Big Three” (the United States, Russia, and China) to pursue meaningful progress on nuclear arms control to avoid a destabilizing and dangerous nuclear arms race.

Toward a more serious, sustained dialogue. In response to China’s nuclear buildup, US officials—Republicans and Democrats alike—have prioritized engagement with China in talks to identify measures to reduce nuclear risks and prevent destabilizing and costly strategic weapons competition………………………….

Sullivan’s June 2 address provides some important clues about the types of issues the US side likely raised in the arms control talks. Sullivan suggested that the United States and China, along with the other NPT nuclear-armed states, could engage in new nuclear arms control and risk reduction efforts such as establishing more robust crisis communications channels and “formalizing a missile launch notification regime” for all five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France. “It’s a small step that would help reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation in times of crisis,” Sullivan added.

These suggestions don’t happen in a vacuum: The United States and Russia have a ballistic missile launch notification agreement already in place, and Russia and China have their own bilateral agreement too.

In his remarks, Sullivan also called for talks on “maintaining a ‘human-in-the-loop’ for command, control, and employment of nuclear weapons” to reduce the risk of miscalculation in a crisis. This would require that the US and China—and other nuclear-armed states—agree to pursue technical discussions designed to reach common understandings on how the use of artificial intelligence, particularly high-risk, cutting-edge deep learning models, can be banned or at least limited so the use of nuclear weapons is effectively kept under human control. This proposal seems to have reached the highest level with Presidents Biden and Xi reportedly discussing limits on the employment of artificial intelligence in the control and deployment of nuclear weapons.

In future meetings, US and Chinese diplomats should go one step further and set out a process for formulating a joint understanding that cyberwarfare capabilities will not be used to try to interfere with other states’ nuclear command and control systems, which could also severely alter decision-making in a crisis……………………………………………………..

From talks to concrete actions. Further down the road, an even more ambitious approach that might be considered in the multilateral, nuclear-five setting would be for Washington and Moscow to propose that China, France, and the United Kingdom freeze the size of their nuclear stockpiles so long as the United States and Russia maintain the current limits on their strategic arsenals—even after New START expires—and make good faith efforts to negotiate deeper verifiable reductions in their stockpiles…………………………………………………………………

With US-Russian relations at rock bottom, the Kremlin still wedging its war on Ukraine, and the last remaining treaty limiting US and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals set to expire in early 2026, the risk of nuclear escalation and a nuclear arms race with Russia is already too high. That makes it all the more important for Xi and Biden to direct their team to work harder and more steadily to reduce tensions and head off the possibility of a costly, dangerous, unconstrained three-way nuclear race that no one can win.

 https://thebulletin.org/2023/11/the-us-and-china-re-engage-on-arms-control-what-may-come-next/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter11162023&utm_content=NuclearRisk_USAndChina_11152023

November 19, 2023 Posted by | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment