Dr Pangloss would be in his element. In today’s world, Pangloss would surely be paid a fortune, one that would minimise the fat salaries of Nuclear Publicist Raphael Grossi, and his cronies.
The earthquake in Japan is a timely case in point.
It demonstrates the safety of nuclear technology.
Or does it?
We get the comforting headlines in the corporate media. - “nuclear power plants largely undamaged following quake”“No Irregularities Identified At West Coast Nuclear Power Plants, Says Regulator”
Grossi’s been remarkably quiet about all this. Being the devious slimy propagandist that he is, Grossi knows that the full story may not be so comforting. He really needs a Dr Pangloss to tutor him on this one.
At first, the news of a radioactive spill at at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station was unavailable – labelled “Forbidden”. And no wonder, as this, the world’s biggest NPP, has a chequered safety history, and is about to be restarted! It has 7 reactors, and is situated all too close to the earthquake fault line.
But then, the nuclear lobby rallied – and added ” No Damage or Leak” to the headline, and made it public.
So – the timing of the earthquake was unfortunate for its owner – Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), (especially as TEPCO is still afflicted with the legal and other effects of its Fukushima nuclear catastrophe).
But hey – the nuclear lobby to the rescue! Never mind that the earthquake made radioactive water from Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s fuel pools spill over.
They will push ahead with restarting this globally iconic nuclear plant – regardless of its recent problem, and regardless of its problematic history:
Earlier, it was said that there was no significant change in water levels while monitoring the gauge at Shika nuclear plant.
The water levels rose at Japan nuclear plant— Shika after Monday’s tsunami.
The broadcaster NHK quoting the operator of the nuclear power plant in quake-hit Ishikawa Prefecture said water levels rose by about three meters at the site following tsunami triggered by the magnitude 7.6 earthquake in central Japan.
The plant is located in the prefecture’s Noto region, the report mentioned.
A major tsunami warning was temporarily issued for the area following the quake, which struck around 4:10 p.m. on Monday, the report mentioned.
It also stated the waves later reached multiple locations along the Sea of Japan coast.
Staff at Hokuriku Electric Power Company checked a water level gauge near a seawater intake. They found out the level had been three meters higher than usual between 5:45 p.m. and 6 p.m. on Monday,” it said.
Earlier, it was said that there was no significant change in water levels while monitoring the gauge at the plant.
It was also said a four-meter high seawall installed to protect the No.1 reactor was tilting by several centimeters when its workers took a second look at the plant premises, the report mentioned.
The report mentioned some systems at the plant are not functioning after pipes of transformers used to supply outside electricity to the reactors sustained damage in the earthquake. The rupture led to oil leaks, it said.
The operator says the plant is using other means to supply power to critical equipment, the report said.
The report said the recovery work started on Tuesday and is proceeding quickly. That work includes retrieving the leaked oil, it said.
Both the No.1 and No.2 reactors at the plant were taken offline long before the earthquake, the report said.
Radioactive water from the fuel pools of two reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant in Japan’s Niigata prefecture spilled over after a magnitude 7.6 earthquake and multiple aftershocks rocked the country on New Year’s Day.
However, Tokyo Electric Power Company, which owns and operates the plant, said the reactors were offline before the quake hit and no abnormalities in operation had been detected……………………………………………………………………………………………
TEPCO said that about 10 liters of water containing radioactive materials spilled from the fuel pool of the No 2 reactor and about 4 liters from the fuel pool of the No 7 reactor at around 6:45 pm on Monday.
After the 2011 earthquake triggered a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi plant, Japan introduced a maximum operating life of 60 years for its nuclear reactors. However, the limit was scrapped in May as the nation shifted its policy to promote nuclear energy, aiming for an early restart of nuclear power plants, The Yomiuri Shimbun reported. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202401/03/WS65949a3ba3105f21a507a34e.html
THE UK Government must “urgently” make a statement to parliament on whether Scots living near its nuclear bases remain safe after alarm bells were rung over “rotting” infrastructure, the SNP have said.
It comes after Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, claimed there was a top-level cover-up of the poor state of the UK’s nuclear provision. Cummings said that in 2022 Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had approached him for help with the next General Election campaign, and he had asked for several conditions in return.
One of these, he said, was addressing the “fundamentally critical” issue of “the scandal of nuclear weapons infrastructure which is a dangerous disaster and a budget nightmare of hard-to-believe and highly classified proportions, and which has forced large secret cannibalisation of other national security budgets”.
Writing on social media, Cummings added that it was a “fact that our nuclear weapons infrastructure is dangerously rotting and is tens of billions secretly in the hole, with huge knock-on effects beyond its destructive effects on MoD [Ministry of Defence] which has got *even worse*”. HM Naval Base, Clyde, at Faslane on the west coast of Scotland is home to the UK’s nuclear submarines. The nearby Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport is responsible for storing, processing, maintaining and issuing key elements of the UK’s Trident nuclear missile system.
Radioactive Waste Management said attackers have leveraged LinkedIn in a spear phishing campaign
Radioactive Waste Management (RWM), which is planning a huge underground nuclear waste store in the north of England, has been targeted by cyber criminals via LinkedIn, according to The Guardian.
Accounts for RWM filed at Companies House show that the organization has been targeted by cyber criminals using various methods, including the use of popular social network platforms to dupe staff.
RWM, which is part of Nuclear Waste Services (NWS), revealed that attacks have escalated in recent months, raising concerns over the risk of hackers gaining access to highly sensitive materials.
NWS chief executive, Corhyn Parr, said the government-backed organization has experienced “instances of potential exploitation of ownership change through specific attack vectors, predominantly LinkedIn targeting”…………………………………………………………………………..
The incident highlights a growing problem. Last month, for example, the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and international partners warned that Russia-based hacking group Star Blizzard was using spear phishing techniques via email and social media to target defense and governmental organizations.
LinkedIn has been the method of choice in previous attacks on industry and infrastructure, according to Adam Pilton, cyber security consultant at CyberSmart.
Water from the fuel pools at the top floors of the No. 7 and No. 2 reactors at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture spilled over due to strong earthquakes, Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. announced Monday. No damage or leaks were confirmed.
According to TEPCO, when the company checked the fuel pools of reactors No. 1 through No. 7 at around 6:45 p.m., it found that water containing radioactive materials spilled from the pools. About 10 liters spilled from the No. 2 reactor and about 4 liters from the No. 7 reactor. TEPCO is measuring the radiation levels.
A partial outage at Sweden’s Forsmark 2 nuclear reactor was extended by three weeks until Jan. 24 while repairs are made to a generator, the operator said in a market message posted via Nordic power exchange Nord Pool on Wednesday.
Forsmark Block 2 will operate at just 490 megawatt (MW) of its total 1,121 MW capacity, the note said.
The outage coincides with a winter cold snap that has sent Nordic temperatures to their lowest levels in decades, boosting demand for electricity in heating. (Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Nora Buli)
Naomi Ito, Research Assistant at the Fukushima Medical University, tells us how the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident impacted and continues to impact local residents
The health effects on local residents following a nuclear power plant accident are diverse, not only because of radiation exposure but also because of changes in lifestyle and social environment. It has also been indicated that various environmental changes that could emerge during the restoration process may affect residents in various ways over a long time.
What is the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident?
On March 11, 2011, the Great East Japan Earthquake struck Japan with a magnitude of 9.0. Within an hour, a tsunami hit the shore. Three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP, operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company) lost power. The reactors could not be cooled, and core meltdowns occurred, which resulted in an explosion due to hydrogen being generated at high temperatures. As a result, radioactive materials were released and scattered northwest from the power plant.
The Japanese Government declared a nuclear emergency and ordered residents within a 30km radius of the reactor to evacuate. In the Fukushima prefecture, more than 160,000 residents were forced to evacuate immediately due to the earthquake, tsunami, and explosion at the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. Subsequently, the evacuation order was gradually lifted. While some residents have returned under the national repatriation policy, many others have decided to continue living in the places they evacuated to.
Health Indicators Worsening
It has been reported that in areas where evacuation orders were issued after the nuclear power plant accident, the number of residents who are overweight has increased. Health indicators such as BMI, high blood pressure, and hyperglycaemia have generally deteriorated. Living in an evacuation site involves major changes in the social environment, which worsens various health parameters. At the same time, there was also an extremely high level of depression among residents who continued to evacuate and a sharp increase in the number of people using nursing care. Various health measures have been taken to address these problems.
What is happening in the area after the evacuation order was lifted has been a concern. The evacuation order for most of Katsurao Village, which initially had one thousand four hundred people, was lifted in 2016 (Figure 1). Seven years have passed since then, but the number of people who have returned to the village has yet to reach 30%, and the aging rate of those who have returned to the village is nearly 60%.
Urgent Long-Term Care Issues
Evacuated residents who remain outside the village are more likely to fall under the category of frailty regarding motor function than those who have returned. Early preventive intervention for residents would be important in the event of a disaster where long-term evacuations are expected (Figure 2).
Intention to Return and Health Issues
The number of residents in the village has remained constant at around four hundred for the past few years, and it is unlikely that many more will return. We found that there are a certain number of people who want to go back but are not able to do so. By interviewing them, we learned that they are staying at their evacuation destinations since they need medical treatments and/or nursing care or they started receiving new services there. We believe that intention to return and health issues are closely related. Enhancement of clinics and visiting services in the village, and improved access to medical institutions, are essential for rebuilding the lives of returning residents. (1)
Dual Life After Disaster
After the evacuation order was lifted, a fairly large number of people kept houses in their evacuation destination and the original one in the village, moving back and forth. Unlike natural disasters such as typhoons and tsunamis, this ‘double-base living (or dual life?)’ is considered a unique phenomenon of nuclear disasters, where the original houses remain intact. Still, there is a fear of invisible radiation. Above all, the prolonged evacuation has drastically changed people’s lives. The challenge would be how to respond to the health needs of people living new lifestyles. (2)
References
Ito, N.; Moriyama, N.; Furuyama, A.; Saito, H.; Sawano, T.; Amir, I.; Sato, M.; Kobashi, Y.; Zhao, T.; Yamamoto, C.; et al. Why Do They Not Come Home? Three Cases of Fukushima Nuclear Accident Evacuees. International journal of environmental research and public health 2023, 20.
Ito, N.; Amir, I.; Saito, H.; Moriyama, N.; Furuyama, A.; Singh, P.; Montesino, S.; Yamamoto, C.; Sato, M.; Abe, T.; et al. Multisite Lifestyle for Older People after the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster. Geriatrics (Basel, Switzerland) 2023, 8.
The Russian peninsula will become the conflict’s “center of gravity,” the Ukrainian leader told The Economist
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has predicted that his country’s armed forces will “isolate” Crimea in 2024. The region, which joined Russia in 2014 following a bloody nationalist coup in Kiev, hosts Moscow’s Black Sea fleet.
Kiev will seek to cut off access to the peninsula by destroying the Kerch bridge, which connects it to the Russian mainland, Zelensky claimed. For this purpose, he once again demanded German-made long-range Taurus cruise missiles, which Berlin has so far refused to supply even after France and the UK provided Kiev with Storm Shadow missiles.
Zelensky blamed information leaks for the failure of Kiev’s much-hyped summer counteroffensive against Russia, but nevertheless shared new insights into the military’s top priorities for 2024, saying in an interview with The Economist that isolating Crimea is “extremely important.”
The Ukrainian president reiterated his ambitious goal of eventually restoring the country’s 1991 borders, but stopped short of making any promises or setting timelines. The immediate goal, he said, will be “to defend the east” and protect Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.
“Russia has to know that for us this is a military object,” he said.
According to President Vladimir Putin, Russian forces now hold the strategic initiative in the Ukraine conflict, while Kiev has largely been driven by political goals, with their efforts aimed at showing “their true masters at least some results.”
Zelensky also complained that the “mobilization of Ukrainian society and of the world” was much lower now than at the beginning of the conflict, admitting that any military success will depend on assistance from the West.
“Giving us money or giving us weapons, you support yourself. You save your children, not ours,” he claimed.
Kiev announced a general mobilization in February 2022, barring most men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country, but the campaign has been marred by corruption and draft dodging. Following Ukraine’s disappointing summer counteroffensive, which according to Moscow cost Kiev nearly 160,000 troops, Zelensky recently announced a plan to raise 500,000 more soldiers to replace battlefield losses.
“Mobilization is not just a matter of soldiers going to the front. It is about all of us. It is the mobilization of all efforts,” he told The Economist. “Let’s be honest, we have switched to domestic politics… If we continue to focus on domestic politics, we need to call elections. Change the law, the constitution. But forget about counteroffensive actions and de-occupation.”
Their courage radiates hope in our shared humanity – one that Israel has completely abandoned through its relentless, horrific genocide. With 2023 coming to a close in the most dark and heavy way, the one constant we must hold on to is hope – not giving up is the best gift we can give our Palestinian sisters and brothers. In keeping with this spirit, here are 10 things fueling our determination to continue fighting for peace and justice in 2024:
Palestinians Are the Ones Liberating Us: Nothing has been more inspiring than the bravery of Palestinians facing unimaginable horrors under Israel’s genocidal occupation, with the knowledge that each moment could be their last. When most would give up, their incredible endurance and selflessness is a beacon of hope for all those resisting injustice around the world. Palestinian journalists and doctors have been tragically and mercilessly murdered by Israel, but those who persist are awakening us from our complacency. Not only are they exposing the horrific truth about the deadly occupation of Palestine; but they are also showing that true freedom lies in resistance, and that it is all of us who need liberation from the trappings of a morally bankrupt, capitalist, white supremacist world.
24/7 Worldwide Demands for a Ceasefire: Record-breaking rallies, marches and actions in most of the world’s cities, with over 300,000 people marching in Washington DC for Palestine show the people of the world stand with Palestine. Since Israel’s assault began over two months ago, not a single day has gone by without a protest, march, rally or action demanding a ceasefire. With congressional phone lines clogged with calls for a cease-fire, CODEPINK has been in the halls of Congress with rabbis, doctors, teachers, lawyers and mothers from day one, staging sit-ins, die-ins, hunger strikes, and more. We even managed to confront Genocide Enabler-in-Chief Joe Biden not once but twice this year.
The Kids Are Alright: At almost every defining moment in 2023, young people have been leading the way, showing older generations they will not put up with any more bullsh*t. More than 140 Congressional interns and fellows —in a shining example of bold leadership—have written an open letter accusing Congress of suppressing and ignoring the overwhelming number of constituents calling for a permanent cease-fire in Gaza. “It is genocide,” their letter reads. “There is a clear disconnect between what the American public wants and what their representatives are doing.” Similarly, countless high school and college students across the country are bravely pushing their communities to end complicity in Israel’s genocide, despite threats of surveilance, suspension and expulsion.
Traditional News Declines as Digital Activism Becomes the New News Medium: When traditional news becomes a mouthpiece for genocide, it’s no surprise that viewership will fall. The latest Pew Research reports a third of US young adults get their news on TikTok, where sky-rocketing pro-Palestine hashtags are proving that it’s not only the young people’s platform of choice for news but also for global solidarity. According to TikTok’s official blog, this trend continues across platforms. Instagram reported 5.7M total posts tagged #FreePalestine compared to 214K total posts tagged #standwithIsrael. Similarly, public Facebook data showed 11M total posts tagged #FreePalestine compared to 278K total posts tagged #standwithIsrael……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………more https://www.codepink.org/hopefor2024?recruiter_id=981106
NATO to buy 1,000 Patriot missiles to enhance Allies’ air defences
NATO 3 Jan 24
NATO’s Support and Procurement Agency will support a coalition of Allies, including Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Spain to procure up to 1,000 Patriot missiles to strengthen their air defences amid Russia’s war against Ukraine. The contract will expand the European production of the missiles, enhancing supply and ensuring the replenishment of Allied stockpiles….
The $5.5 billion contract has been awarded to COMLOG, a joint venture between the US company Raytheon and German company MBDA, located in Schrobenhausen, Germany. The large volume of the order will support the set up of a production facility for Patriot missiles in Germany. ……….. https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_221626.htm
Citing “the urgency of Israel’s defensive needs,” the Biden administration on Friday said it would bypass Congress for the second time this month to approve an immediate arms sale to the key Middle East ally as it continues to wage a genocidal war against Gaza.
The Associated Pressreported that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken notified lawmakers of the new emergency determination involving the sale of $147.5 million in equipment including fuses, charges, and primers for 155mm artillery shells that Israel has already purchased from the United States.
The unguided explosive rounds—which Israel is using in heavily populated urban areas—have a “kill radius” of about 50 meters, with shrapnel able to inflict lethal wounds on people hundreds of meters away.
“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to ensure Israel is able to defend itself against the threats it faces,” the State Department explained.
The move follows a similar State Department determination on December 9, which expedited 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), whose troops have killed and maimed more than 80,000 Palestinians—mostly women, children, and elders—during 84 days of near-relentless attacks on Gaza.
Some of the deadliest Israeli attacks of the war have been carried out with U.S. weapons, including an October 31 airstrike with 2,000-pound bombs on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp. More than 120 civilians were killed.
The State Department also said that “we continue to strongly emphasize to the government of Israel that they must not only comply with international humanitarian law, but also take every feasible step to prevent harm to civilians.”
Critics pushed back against that language, with Ibrahim Zabad, a professor of international relations at St. Bonaventure University in upstate New York, asserting on social media that the State Department’s move to bypass Congress “shows the U.S. administration wholeheartedly supports the mass slaughter of Palestinians, their ethnic cleansing, and the demolition of Gaza.”
British journalist Andy Worthington, known for his work chronicling the cases of Guantánamo Bay detainees, asked: “Do they think not enough Palestinian children are being orphaned or killed in Gaza?”
Eli Clifton, a senior researcher at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, noted Blinken’s lamentation Thursday that 2023 “has been an extraordinarily dangerous year for press around the world.” Blinken’s statement did not mention the scores of journalists killed—sometimes allegedly on purpose—by Israeli troops during the war.
The U.S. already gives Israel almost $4 billion in nearly unconditional military aid each year. Since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks and Israel’s retaliatory onslaught, U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly affirmed his “unwavering” support for Israel. His administration has blockedmultiple global cease-fire efforts at the United Nations while seeking an additional $14.3 billion in armed assistance for Israel.
While Biden recently decried Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza, he has refused to acknowledge what many international experts have called Israel’s genocide against the people of the besieged strip. Some activists have dubbed him “Genocide Joe.”
On Friday, South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Hundreds of rights groups and a handful of progressives in the U.S. Congress have implored the Biden administration to suspend military aid to Israel, while others including Democratic lawmakers have called for conditions to be placed on such assistance.
Earlier this month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led a letter urging Biden to boost oversight of how American arms are used against Palestinian civilians. The letter specifically mentions 155mm artillery shells.
“The IDF has previously used these shells to hit populated areas including neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, shelters, and safe zones, causing a staggering number of civilian deaths,” the senators noted.
According to a Quinnipiac University poll published on December 20, less than half of registered U.S. voters support sending military aid to Israel—an approximately 10-point decrease from the previous month.
All eyes are currently riveted on Israel’s ground war in Gaza, but it’s not too soon to consider what is all too likely once the dust settles — a U.S.-brokered deal to normalize Israeli-Saudi relations. Before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, President Joe Biden had already offered Riyadh a formal defense commitment and civil nuclear energy cooperation including enriching uranium — a process that can bring a state within weeks of acquiring a bomb. American, Israeli, and Saudi officials are still interested in sealing a deal.
This should cause pause. As Eric Gomez and I note in a piece for The Hill, “Improving Saudi-Israeli ties shouldn’t breed nuclear bombs,” Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) has repeatedly threatened to build nuclear bombs to counter Iran. If Tehran and Riyadh build the bomb, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Turkey and Egypt — all of which have nuclear technology thanks to cooperation agreements with the U.S. — will want nuclear weapons of their own.
At a minimum, this recommends weighing any U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal more seriously than current U.S. law allows — i.e., with little more than a presidential announcement. Instead, Congress should treat it as deliberately as it would any bilateral trade agreement — i.e., with majority approvals in both houses. This, in turn, would entail hiving off a U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal from whatever Israeli-Saudi normalization package the White House might recommend and considering it separately.
If there’s one thing Blinken and his cohorts understand, it’s that you’re not supposed to describe the evil things you want to do in evil-sounding language. You’ve got to tapdance gracefully around the actual depravity you intend to inflict, uttering flowery prose about humanitarian concerns and compassion for both sides to keep everyone dazzled and hypnotized while the killing machines are quietly rolled out in the background. You’ve got to be eloquent and elusive about your murderousness.
“The United States rejects recent statements from Israeli Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir advocating for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza. This rhetoric is inflammatory and irresponsible. We have been told repeatedly and consistently by the Government of Israel, including by the Prime Minister, that such statements do not reflect the policy of the Israeli government. They should stop immediately.
“We have been clear, consistent, and unequivocal that Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian land, with Hamas no longer in control of its future and with no terror groups able to threaten Israel. That is the future we seek, in the interests of Israelis and Palestinians, the surrounding region, and the world.”
The offending statements by Ben Gvir and Smotrich promoted the idea of “encouraging” Palestinians to flee Gaza en masse, absurdly referring to this hypothetical outcome as “voluntary migration” despite the fact that Israel has been doing everything in its power to make living in Gaza impossible.
You will note, probably without surprise, that the statement contains nothing but empty scolding. No mention is made of the faintest possibility of any consequence of any kind being brought to bear should Israeli officials continue to openly advocate for eliminating the Palestinian population of Gaza and replacing it with Jewish settlements. This is because the US has no intention of actually doing anything to hinder Israel’s ethnic cleansing agendas.
And make no mistake, that absolutely is Israel’s agenda. The State Department can claim all it wants that “such statements do not reflect the policy of the Israeli government” and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has assured Washington that there are no plans to resettle Palestinians outside of Gaza, but Netanyahu himself has been publicly contradicting this claim with increasing brazenness.
Just last week at a Likud party meeting Netanyahu explicitly said that his government is working on finding countries who would be willing to “absorb” Palestinian refugees from Gaza, claiming that the world is “already discussing the possibilities of voluntary immigration.”
Indeed, it’s fair to say that the extreme-right ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich are not actually saying anything on this front that is significantly different from what Netanyahu himself has been saying. Bibi’s just a bit more polite about it, with Ben Gvir openly thumbing his nose at the State Department’s remarks saying “we aren’t another star on the American flag” and “facilitating the relocation of hundreds of thousands from Gaza will allow those in the Israeli Gaza border communities to return home and live securely while safeguarding the IDF soldiers.”
In fact, one could easily argue that Netanyahu as well as Ben Gvir and Smotrich have been entirely in alignment with the State Department’s own language on this subject. The idea of “voluntary immigration” does not contradict the position asserted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the US vision for Gaza involves “no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza — not now, not after the war.”
Notice Blinken’s careful insertion of the word “forcible” there. His wording makes it clear that the US would only object if Palestinians were actually forced onto ships or marched across the Egyptian border at gunpoint, as middle east analyst Mouin Rabbani recently observed on Twitter:
“Alarm bells should have started ringing in early November when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other Western politicians began insisting there could be ‘no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza’. Rather than rejecting any mass removal of Palestinians, Blinken and colleagues objected only to optically challenging expulsions at gunpoint. The option of ‘voluntary’ displacement by leaving residents of the Gaza Strip with no choice but departure was pointedly left open.”
So contrary to its self-righteous moral posturing, the State Department is not actually upset with Ben Gvir and Smotrich for advocating the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. They’re just upset they said the quiet part out loud.
If there’s one thing Blinken and his cohorts understand, it’s that you’re not supposed to describe the evil things you want to do in evil-sounding language. You’ve got to tapdance gracefully around the actual depravity you intend to inflict, uttering flowery prose about humanitarian concerns and compassion for both sides to keep everyone dazzled and hypnotized while the killing machines are quietly rolled out in the background. You’ve got to be eloquent and elusive about your murderousness. Like Obama.
The US war machine is every bit as depraved as the state of Israel, and the Biden administration is just as culpable for the horrors being unleashed in Gaza as Netanyahu and his goons. Ignore their words and watch their actions. Don’t let them dazzle you with their feigned concern for human rights.
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