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Israel Makes Its Most Explicit Statement Of Genocidal Intent Yet

Caitlin Johnstone, Mar 20, 2025, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/israel-makes-its-most-explicit-statement?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=159470039&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=357cr&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has published an explicit statement of genocidal intent toward the people of Gaza, threatening civilians in the enclave with collective punishment in the form of “total devastation” if they do not find a way to overthrow Hamas and free all Israeli hostages.

Katz’s statement reads as follows:

“Evacuation of the population from combat zones will soon resume. If all Israeli hostages are not released and Hamas is not kicked out of Gaza, Israel will act with force you have not known before.

“Residents of Gaza, this is your final warning. The first Sinwar destroyed Gaza, and the second Sinwar will bring upon it total ruin. The Israeli Air Force’s attack against Hamas terrorists was only the first step. What follows will be far harsher, and you will bear the full cost.

“Take the advice of the U.S. President: return the hostages and kick out Hamas, and new options will open up for you — including relocation to other parts of the world for those who choose. The alternative is destruction and total devastation.”

When Katz says “Take the advice of the US president,” he is referring to a statement made by President Trump earlier this month which made essentially the same threat addressed “to the People of Gaza,” saying, “A beautiful Future awaits, but not if you hold Hostages. If you do, you are DEAD! Make a SMART decision. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW, OR THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY LATER!”

When I criticized the US president for these remarks which explicitly threaten Gaza’s civilians, I got a deluge of Trump supporters telling me he wasn’t really talking about “the people of Gaza” as he said, but was rather speaking only about the ones who are actively holding hostages. Katz’s statement makes it abundantly clear that they were wrong, and that those of us who called a spade a spade at the time were correct.

The Israeli defense minister is simply following Trump’s position and reiterating what everyone who isn’t a blinkered partisan hack knew Trump was saying two weeks ago. He is doing this in exactly the same way Benjamin Netanyahu followed Trump’s position on ethnically cleansing Gaza last month by enthusiastically endorsing the plan Trump put forward to permanently remove all Palestinians from the enclave. Trump puts forward the plan, and Israeli officials put it into action.

So you’ve got both the US and Israeli governments openly threatening the entire population of the Gaza strip with the war crime of collective punishment if they don’t somehow kick Hamas out of Gaza, and additionally announcing the intent to inflict “total devastation” upon that population if they do not.

This is about as explicit an admission of genocidal intent as you can possibly come up with.

In its genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, South African prosecutors compiled a mountain of evidence of Israeli officials announcing the intent to commit genocide in Gaza, such as Netanyahu describing Gaza’s population as “Amalek” in reference to a Bible story about a people who were completely annihilated on the orders of God, or former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant describing Palestinians in Gaza as “human animals” while declaring a “total siege” on the enclave.

Al Jazeera’s Raz Segal and Penny Green wrote the following regarding the ICJ case last year:

“The crime of genocide has two elements — intention and execution — both of which have to be proven when accusations are made… Intention is usually harder to prove when accusations of genocide are made; the petitioner has to be able to prove “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such,” in the language of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. But in Israel’s case, intention too has been laid bare by an ample amount of evidence — as the South African legal team pointed out.”

And Katz’s statement is probably the most clear and explicit admission yet. It’s hard to imagine a clearer declaration of genocidal intent than delivering a video statement addressed to a civilian population threatening them with “total devastation” if they don’t do as they’re told.

We may be sure that these statements by Katz and Trump have been added to files held by those who hope to successfully prosecute these monsters for war crimes one day. We may also be sure that they will be recorded in what will eventually be seen as one of the darker chapters in our civilization’s history.

March 23, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Israel | 1 Comment

Radiation exposure victims fight for compensation as nuclear weapons funding soars

Bulletin, By Chloe Shrager | March 19, 2025

Nine months have passed since the law that compensates US victims of radiation exposure expired in June, and yet another opportunity to reinstate it fell to the wayside last week.

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), enacted in 1990, provided pay-outs to people unwittingly exposed to radioactive substances from the Manhattan Project and Cold War efforts. For decades, people living downwind from the Nevada Test Site, nuclear weapons site workers and uranium miners relied on the money they received from RECA to pay their medical bills for rare cancers and diseases contracted from their radiation exposure.

But even so, activist groups across the US homeland and territories argue that the law was woefully inadequate. “When you talk about nuclear justice, we have not had it. We haven’t seen it,” Mary Dickson, a Utah downwinder and thyroid cancer survivor, said in a recent interview.

After the House shot down an attempt to push an expanded version of the compensation act through Congress last year, a bipartisan group of senators reintroduced a RECA reauthorization and expansion bill in January. The effort is led by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, who recently spoke on the proposed bill in an interview with the Bulletin.

“This is not a partisan issue,” Luján said. “This is for the American people, and especially those who live downwind of this testing and those uranium mine workers who are sacrificing their lives and their careers for national security purposes.”

The hope was to slip the amended act into the Trump Administration’s first stopgap budget bill, due no later than the end-of-day last Friday to avoid a government shutdown. But that hope evaporated when instead of proposing an omnibus bill overhauling previous budget priorities—as was expected of the new administration—the House introduced a continuing resolution that largely carried on Biden administration funding levels without mention of the new RECA bill. The continuing resolution does, however, increase defense budget spending by $6 billion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. The human cost of nuclear security. Congress passed a GOP budget bill on Friday to avoid a government shutdown and fund the government through September. While the bill does not fund RECA’s reauthorization, it does earmark at least $21.7 billion for “defense nuclear nonproliferation” and “weapons activities” under the National Nuclear Security Administration for the next six months. Funding under these categories can be used for anything from continued domestic uranium enrichment to warhead modernization and assembly. These defense budget proposals come during an estimated $1.7 trillion, 30-year overhaul of the United States’ nuclear arsenal that will rebuild each leg of the nuclear triad and its accompanying infrastructure.

These investments were approved. Legislation to continue to compensate those poisoned by nuclear weapons activities were not.

“They’re investing all this money to build up our arsenal and develop new weapons. So when they say there’s not enough money to take care of the people those weapons have harmed in the past… I just think part of that cost has got to be taking care of the people they harm,” Dickson said.  https://thebulletin.org/2025/03/radiation-exposure-victims-fight-for-compensation-as-nuclear-weapons-funding-soars/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Plans%20to%20colonize%20Mars%20threaten%20Earth&utm_campaign=20250320%20Thursday%20Newsletter

March 23, 2025 Posted by | health, USA | Leave a comment

 Trump: best protection for Ukraine’s nuclear power is US takeover.

 President Trump has told President Zelensky that an American takeover of
nuclear power in Ukraine would offer the “best protection” for the
­country’s infrastructure. The White House said Trump had “moved
beyond” the minerals deal for American companies to extract oil, gas and
rare metals that had been proposed as a way to protect Ukraine from future
Russian aggression. That deal was suspended after ­Zelensky’s disastrous
meeting last month with Trump and JD Vance, the vice-president, in the Oval
Office. It envisaged US control over natural resources and infrastructure
such as ports, but did not mention nuclear power.

 Times 19th March 2025 https://www.thetimes.com/world/russia-ukraine-war/article/trump-best-protection-for-ukraines-nuclear-power-is-us-takeover-9l0xsxqjj

March 23, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

UK nuclear deterrent could do ‘untold damage’, Healey warns

John Healey said the UK should not ‘fight shy’ of the fact it has such weapons, which are the ‘ultimate guarantor’ to any hostile state if it attacks.

The Standard 20th March 2025

Britain could do “untold damage” to adversaries with its nuclear deterrent, the Defence Secretary has said as military officials discussed plans to safeguard any ceasefire for Ukraine.

John Healey said the UK should not “fight shy” of the fact it has such weapons, which he described as the “ultimate guarantor” in a stark warning to Moscow

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warned Moscow would face “severe consequences” if it breached any peace deal with Kyiv amid fragile diplomatic efforts to secure a truce to end the war.

Sir Keir and Mr Healey met defence officials from 31 allied countries at the Northwood military headquarters in London on Thursday to firm up proposals for a so-called coalition of the willing to help enforce any agreement.

Mr Healey also laid the keel for Dreadnought, the first submarine being built to replace the Vanguard-class nuclear-armed submarines, in a ceremony in Barrow-in-Furness watched by Sir Keir Starmer.

In an interview with The Times newspaper afterwards, he said: “Our nuclear deterrent is there as a deterrent. It is the ultimate guarantor to any would-be adversary. We have the power to do untold damage to them if they attack us.”

He added: “We should not fight shy of the fact we are a nuclear power, that we do have an independent nuclear deterrent.”

The Prime Minister said the military planning involved offering support to Ukraine by air, sea and land if a deal were reached.

But he ruled out redeploying UK troops from countries such as Estonia to commit to Kyiv, saying: “There’s no pulling back from our commitments to other countries.

“The mood in the room – because this came up in the private briefing I had – was that this actually will help reinforce what we’re doing in Nato in other countries, so they see it as an opportunity rather than a question of moving troops around.”

Thursday’s gathering of defence allies marked a turning point in which the “political intention” among western allies to provide safeguards for Ukraine’s future becomes “reality” with discussions of how best to deter future Russian aggression.

Sir Keir said: “It is vitally important we do that work because we know one thing for certain, which is a deal without anything behind it is something that Putin will breach. “We know that because it happened before. I’m absolutely clear in my mind it will happen again.”

He added: “The point of the security arrangements is to make it clear to Russia there will be severe consequences if they are to breach any deal.

“That’s why we need a forward-leaning European element, which is what I’ve been working on intensely – obviously with the French – that brings these allied countries together, and beyond.”

Calls this week between US President Donald Trump, Mr Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have failed to produce the 30-day ceasefire envisaged by the White House……………………………………………. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/john-healey-keir-starmer-volodymyr-zelensky-ukraine-donald-trump-b1218001.html

March 23, 2025 Posted by | UK, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Restarts Large-Scale Bombing of Gaza, Over 400 Killed

Many of the dead are children as Israel is hitting homes and tents sheltering displaced Palestinians

by Dave DeCamp March 18, 2025, https://news.antiwar.com/2025/03/17/israel-restarts-large-scale-bombing-of-gaza-over-100-killed/

The Israeli military on Tuesday morning began launching large-scale airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip, marking the full-scale resumption of Israel’s genocidal war.

Around 1:00 pm Gaza time, Al Jazeera reported that 404 Palestinians had been killed and 562 had been wounded by Israeli strikes on homes and tents sheltering displaced Palestinians across the Strip.

Pictures and videos from Gaza that have surfaced online show there is a large number of child casualties. “Israeli bombardment has returned to Gaza, bringing massacres with it once again,” Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif wrote on X. “The bodies of children, killed in their sleep, lay scattered in the aftermath.”

The massive attack came about two weeks after Israel imposed a total blockade on aid and all other goods entering Gaza at the end of the first phase of the ceasefire deal. Israel violated the agreement by imposing the blockade, refusing to engage in negotiations on the second phase, and killing Palestinians throughout the truce.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Tuesday morning that he instructed the Israeli military to escalate in Gaza in response to Hamas rejecting US and Israeli terms for an extended temporary ceasefire. Hamas wanted Israel to stick to the deal it agreed to in January, which would have involved a permanent truce and full Israeli withdrawal.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz have instructed the IDF to take strong action against the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu’s office said. “This follows Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators.”

The statement added that Israel will “from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength. The operational plan was presented by the IDF over the weekend and approved by the political leadership.”

Hamas told Reuters that Israel had chosen to end the ceasefire unilaterally and that Israel’s attacks expose the remaining Israeli hostages to an “unknown fate.”

The White House confirmed that President Trump was notified before Israel launched the massive bombing. “The Trump administration and the White House were consulted by the Israelis on their attacks in Gaza tonight,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.

Leavitt repeated Trump’s threat that “all hell would break loose” in Gaza. Trump previously threatened that the “people of Gaza” would be “dead” if the hostages weren’t immediately freed.

Since President Trump came into office, he has provided a massive amount of military aid to Israel, approving over $12 billion in arms deals and supplying Israel with 2,000-pound bombs. The Trump administration did not pressure Israel to implement the ceasefire deal reached in January.

March 23, 2025 Posted by | Atrocities, Gaza, Israel | Leave a comment

SCOTUS Ruling Could Shape the Future of Nuclear Waste Storage.

Samuel Lawrence Foundation, 20 Mar 25

The U.S. Supreme Court is currently reviewing a case that could have major implications for how nuclear waste is stored across the country—including the 3.6 million pounds of radioactive waste at San Onofre. At the center of the case is whether the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has the authority to license private interim storage facilities, such as the one proposed in Andrews County, Texas, which would hold high-level nuclear waste away from reactor sites. Texas has challenged this decision, arguing that the NRC is overstepping its legal bounds and that waste management should remain under federal oversight.

This case matters to us because San Onofre’s waste remains in thin-walled metal canisters near a rising ocean, with no long-term plan for safe containment. If the Supreme Court rules against private storage, it could limit future options for moving this waste to a safer location. Meanwhile, if the Court upholds the NRC’s authority, it could pave the way for private companies to take a larger role in nuclear waste management—raising serious questions about safety, oversight, and accountability. As we continue to fight for a real solution for San Onofre, this decision will play a critical role in shaping what’s possible. Stay tuned for more updates as this case unfolds.

March 23, 2025 Posted by | Legal, USA, wastes | Leave a comment

Labour ‘utterly wrong’ to double down on costly and immoral nuclear weapons, Scottish Greens say

Chris Jarvis  Bright Green 19th March 2025, https://bright-green.org/2025/03/19/labour-utterly-wrong-to-double-down-on-costly-and-immoral-nuclear-weapons-scottish-greens-say/

Scottish Labour is utterly wrong to be doubling down in its support for costly and immoral nuclear weapons that tie us even closer to the extremist Trump administration, the Scottish Greens Co-leader Patrick Harvie has said.

Harvie’s comments followed Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar’s support for Trident at last week’s First Minister’s Questions in Holyrood.

Harvie said: “Nuclear weapons have always been a moral abomination. It is utterly wrong for Labour to be doubling down in their support.

“But now, even those who have supported Trident in the past must surely realise that the US is not a reliable ally, and it is simply unsafe to continue nuclear cooperation with them.

“We urgently need to move away from the extremist Trump administration, but maintaining these weapons of mass destruction would leave us tied to him and his dangerous foreign policy.

“Nuclear weapons are incapable of discriminating between military and civilian targets. Their use would cause mass murder and environmental damage on a scale never seen before.

“They are an extortionate and destructive money pit that has already soaked up hundreds of billions of pounds that could have been spent addressing the genuine security needs we have, or, better still, on tackling the cost of living crisis that is plunging thousands of families into totally avoidable poverty.”

March 23, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

One Trident sub could ‘incinerate 40 Russian cities’: Why Putin should fear Britain’s nuclear arsenal

One Trident sub could ‘incinerate 40 Russian cities’: Why Putin should
fear Britain’s nuclear arsenal. Royal Navy submarines have suffered a few
mishaps recently, but the country’s Trident programme shows we’re still
a potent threat.

 Telegraph 20th March 2025 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/20/trident-sub-putin-should-fear-britain-nuclear-arsenal/

March 23, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

BAE: Barrow MP hits out at planned nuclear protest

 The MP for Barrow and Furness has hit back at plans for an anti-nuclear
protest outside BAE Systems this weekend. The Cumbria and Lancashire
district of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) will begin their
national ‘Peace Not Weapons’ tour on Saturday, March 22. This will involve
leafletting across Barrow’s town centre, with the main rally coming
together on the High Level Bridge over the Devonshire Dock. Michelle
Scrogham, however, has voiced her opposition to the demonstration,
particularly given the global climate.

 NW Evening Mail 19th March 2025, https://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/25016245.michelle-scrogham-utterly-barrow-nuclear-protest/

March 23, 2025 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Mars Attacks: How Elon Musk’s plans to colonize Mars threaten Earth

By Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith, 20 Mar 25

“If the world’s most powerful nation, helped along by history’s most powerful rocket company, were to scrap international space law, it would have consequences that may echo for centuries,” writes Kelly Weinersmith, adjunct faculty member at Rice University, and Zach Weinersmith, creator of popular webcomic Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

This fully-illustrated comic exploring the implications of space colonization, adapted from the Weinersmiths’ Hugo Award-winning A City on Mars. Read more.

March 23, 2025 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Nuclear power is such a mess – Zaporizhzhia plant as the shining example

 https://theaimn.net/nuclear-power-is-such-a-mess-zaporizhzhia-plant-as-the-shining-example/ 23 Mar 25


You do wonder how the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) can tell us with a straight face, that nuclear power is safe !

Nobody talks about Chernobyl any more (melted down 1986), Fukushima (melted down 2011). They’re ancient history. No, not really. The cleanup in each case is really only just beginning.

The Chernobyl ‘sarcophagus’ – still contains the molten core of the reactor and an estimated 200 tonnes of highly radioactive material. The stability of the structure has developed into one of the major risk factors at the site. Fukushima – Experts say the hard work and huge challenges of decommissioning the plant are just beginning. There are estimations that the work could take more than a century.

But – let’s look at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine. With 6 reactors (all shut down) it’s the largest nuclear power station in Europe. It’s a messy nuclear plant, in that it was originally set up to use Russian nuclear technology and fuel,  enriched uranium (U-235). Then later the Ukrainians gradually changed the fuel type to American Westinghouse. By 2024, this fuel type at Zaporizhzhia was expiring. Now under the Russians’ control, they could not now access this fuel, if Russia did seek to restart the reactors.

Suddenly, the status and future of the Zaporizhzhia plant has become a very timely question. With the ceasefire negotiations going on, have President Trump and President Putin been discussing this? Nobody is letting on. The White House and the US State Department are keeping mum.  Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky are reported to have discussed “American ownership” of the Zaporizhzhia plant, with Zelensky insisting that it could function only under Ukrainian ownership. Russia has been reported as planning to make those reactors functional again.

That critical question comes to mind – What’s In It For Whom?

Is it the glory? The pride of ownership? A wonderful economic opportunity? That last one is dubious. Ownership in wartime is fraught with danger. The IAEA repeatedly warns of the danger of a military strike on the plant, including on its hazardous spent fuel pools. With cessation of fighting, it’s still dangerous. To reactivate it would take years. It’s not just the confusion of using American or Russian fuel, (both in supplies now out of date.)

What about the water? Even now, as the reactors are in cold shutdown, they still need continuous supplies of water  to reduce the residual heat from the shutdown reactors, to cool the spent fuel, and to cool the emergency diesel generators if the plant loses off-site power.

But if the Zaporizhzhia nuclear station were to be brought back into operation, it would require massive amounts of water. The destruction of the Kakhovka dam in 2023 has left Zaporizhzhia without that essential supply. It’s estimated that to restore the plant the plant to function would take several years. Shut for three years, and constantly in military danger, the plant had safety problems, including fires, even before the war began.

These questions of fuel and water are the obvious practical ones. But dig deeper into this Zaporizhzhia nuclear station problem and we find almost insuperable problems of logistics, legal and regulatory requirements, costs, and the conflicting ambitions and abilities and hostilities of the men in leadership in Ukraine, Russia, and USA. And for now, ​the plant is on the front line, in territory controlled by Russia.

Voldymyr Zelensky – always the shining hero, knows the right solution. The nuclear station can belong only to Ukraine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umwwpybIW3k

The Zelensky simple solution assumes that in a ceasefire, or negotiated end to the war, the plant, along with all the now Russian- occupied territories, will be returned to Ukraine ownership, (and that the USA will pay up for the plant’s necessary repairs and modernisation). And Ukraine will prosper, selling the electricity to Europe. These are big assumptions, considering that Russia now controls 20% of Ukrainian territory and now has the advantage in the war.

For Russia, that Zelensky scenario has zero appeal, and you wonder why anyone would expect Russia to simply capitulate to Zelensky’s wishes. For Russia, at present, keeping the nuclear station in their own hands is the safest option, defending it against Ukrainian attacks. But, even if the Zaporizhzhia plant becomes permanently owned by Russia, there are still risks of Ukrainian sabotage, and there will be the costly and difficult process of trying to restart the reactors, and what to do with the hazardous old nuclear fuel.

For the USA, ownership of the plant would have its attractions: it would benefit Westinghouse, expanding its market for nuclear technology. But all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants are owned by Energoatom, and Ukrainian law prohibits their privatization. There would certainly be resistance in Ukraine to this American takeover. Complicated legal and financial gymnastics would go on. Perhaps Trump would see the American ownership as part of the war debt that he intends to get from Ukraine; he estimates that debt as over $300billion, although others differ about that amount. Whatever the involvement of the USA in the future management of these nuclear reactors, the USA will face the same daunting problems in trying to operate them. Nobody seems to know what is the extent of repairs needed. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear station continues to be in a state of peril, as Raphael Grossi of the IAEA constantly reminds us, (in between his promotion of new nuclear power)

This huge nuclear station is indeed a test case for the whole industry. While the much-hyped small nuclear reactors are turning out to be unaffordable and impractical mythical beasts, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and others are going all-out for new big nuclear reactors. But this Ukraine situation demonstrates the dangers of big nuclear reactors.. Not only do they have the well-known hazards of accident risk, health and environmental hazards, toxic wastes problem, but also those complicated problems of military attack, international political relations, and that always supreme consideration – who will pay?

March 23, 2025 Posted by | Christina's notes, Ukraine | Leave a comment