WAS RUSSIA’S SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION “UNPROVOKED”?
AI is a tool that many use to research the historical facts behind contentious issues. What does it say about Russia’s claims it was endlessly provoked into its conflict with the Ukrainian regime?
Aearnur, Jan 03, 2026, https://aearnur.substack.com/p/was-russias-special-military-operation?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=312403&post_id=183250361&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
AI Overview.
Archival material declassified by the US National Security Archive and other Western institutions has established that multiple Western leaders gave Mikhail Gorbachev a “cascade of assurances” in 1990 and 1991 that NATO would not expand eastward beyond a reunified Germany.
The declassified records, which include contemporaneous memoranda of conversation (memcons) and telegrams (telcons), show that these discussions were not limited to East Germany but addressed Central and Eastern European security as a whole.
Key Documents and Assurances
Secretary James Baker’s “Not One Inch” (Feb 1990): US archival transcripts confirm that on February 9, 1990, Secretary of State James Baker told Gorbachev that if the US maintained a presence in a unified Germany within NATO, there would be “no extension of NATO’s jurisdiction for forces of NATO one inch to the east”. Baker repeated this formula three times during the meeting.
The Bush-Gorbachev Malta Summit (Dec 1989): Records show President George H.W. Bush assured Gorbachev that the US would not seek “unilateral advantage” from the rapid changes in Eastern Europe.
Chancellor Helmut Kohl (Feb 1990): Declassified West German records show Chancellor Kohl told Gorbachev on February 10, 1990, that “NATO should not enlarge the sphere of its activity”.
British and French Leaders: Declassified documents show British Prime Minister John Major told Soviet Defense Minister Yazov in March 1991 that he did not foresee circumstances where Eastern European countries would join NATO. French President François Mitterrand also expressed support for dismantling military blocs and ensuring Soviet security.
AI Overview.
The original stated purpose of the Minsk process (Minsk I in 2014 and Minsk II in 2015) was to secure an immediate ceasefire and provide a roadmap for a permanent political resolution to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
According to the official 12-point and 13-point “packages of measures,” the primary goals included:
Military De-escalation: An unconditional ceasefire, withdrawal of heavy weaponry to create a security zone, and the pullout of all foreign armed formations and mercenaries.
Political Reintegration: Decentralization of power in Ukraine through constitutional reform, granting a “special status” to the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and holding local elections under Ukrainian law.
Sovereignty Restoration: The return of full control over the state border to the Ukrainian government, contingent upon the completion of the political settlement.
The Russian Understanding of the Process
For Russia, the Minsk process was understood as a vehicle to achieve several strategic objectives that differed from Ukraine’s interpretation of sovereignty:
Institutional Influence (the “Trojan Horse”): Russia understood “special status” as granting the Donbas regions comprehensive autonomy, including their own legal systems and the right to cross-border cooperation with Russia. This was intended to give these regions a de facto veto over Ukraine’s national foreign policy, specifically to prevent Ukraine fromjoining NATO or the EU.
Legitimacy for Proxies: Russia insisted on the inclusion of the self-proclaimed “People’s Republics” (DPR/LPR) in the negotiations. Moscow viewed this as a step toward their formal recognition and a way to frame the conflict as a “civil war” rather than a Russo-Ukrainian war.
Sequencing of Control: A fundamental part of Russia’s understanding was that political concessions (elections and autonomy) must occur before Ukraine regained control of its border with Russia, effectively securing the separatist enclaves while they were still under Russian influence.
“Freezing” the Conflict: Western analysts noted that for Russia, the accords served to consolidate control over captured territories and “freeze” the conflict at a level that favored Moscow’s interests while avoiding further international sanctions.
Following the 2022 invasion, Russian officials asserted that the true purpose of the West was to use the accords as a “ruse” to buy time for Ukraine to rearm, while they maintain their original stated goal was a genuine political settlement for the Donbas.
AI Overview.
In a series of interviews following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel clarified that the primary purpose of the
Minsk Accords (2014–2015) was to buy time for Ukraine to strengthen itself against future Russian aggression.
In a December 2022 interview with The Kyiv Independent, former French President François Hollande stated that the Minsk Accords were successful in providing Ukraine with the “precious time” needed to strengthen its military.
His comments corroborated earlier revelations by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, confirming that the agreements served as a temporary respite to prevent further Russian territorial gains while the Ukrainian army underwent a total transformation.
Key Revelations by Hollande
Buying Time for Rearmament: Hollande agreed with Merkel’s assessment that the primary merit of the Minsk agreements was giving the Ukrainian army the opportunity to become “completely different” from what it was in 2014. He noted that by 2022, the army was better trained and equipped, which he directly attributed to the diplomatic respite provided by the accords.
In 2022 and 2023, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko made several public statements revealing that the primary purpose of the Minsk Accords from his perspective was to buy time for Ukraine to rebuild its military and avoid a total collapse of the state.
His detailed revelations include:
Read more: WAS RUSSIA’S SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION “UNPROVOKED”?Buying Time for Rearmament: Poroshenko stated that when he signed the agreements in 2014 and 2015, Ukraine effectively “did not have armed forces at all”. He revealed that the truce provided a “precious” window of several years to invite NATO instructors, purchase weapons, and transform the Ukrainian military into a modern fighting force capable of resisting a large-scale invasion.
Strategic Deception: Poroshenko described the agreements as a “forced position” but a “success for diplomats”. He admitted that the goal was to “buy time” and “slow down Russia’s advance” while stalling on the most unacceptable political obligations of the deal, such as granting constitutional autonomy to the Donbas republics.
Preventing Immediate Defeat: He recalled that the 2015 Minsk II agreement was signed under extreme duress, specifically when thousands of Ukrainian soldiers were surrounded by regular Russian forces at the battle of Debaltseve. The primary goal at that moment was to stop the Russian offensive and prevent the “annihilation” of his forces.
International Legitimacy: Poroshenko revealed that another goal of the accords was to demonstrate to the world that Russia was the aggressor. By signing a peace plan, Ukraine gained the international solidarity needed to implement and maintain Western sanctions against Russia for its non-compliance with the deal.
These admissions, similar to those made by Angela Merkel and François Hollande, have been used by the Russian government to argue that the West and Ukraine negotiated the peace process in bad faith to prepare for eventual war.
AI Overview.
As of January 2, 2026, Russia continues to frame its invasion of Ukraine as a defensive and corrective measure necessitated by Western aggression and humanitarian crises. These justifications have evolved throughout the conflict, combining long-standing grievances with recent allegations of “state terrorism” by the Ukrainian government.
1. Security Architecture and NATO Expansion
Russia’s primary long-term justification is the perceived threat from NATO’s eastward expansion.
“Red Lines” and Broken Promises: Russian officials cite declassified 1990 archival records as proof that Western leaders promised NATO would not move “one inch eastward.” Russia argues that by 2021, Ukraine’s “de facto” integration into NATO through military training and infrastructure had reached an existential threat level.
The 2021 Security Proposals: In December 2021, Russia requested formal treaties with NATO and the US to halt expansion and return to 1997 troop positions. The Kremlin justifies the 2022 invasion as a result of the West’s dismissal of these proposals.
Buffer Zones (2026 Update): In early 2026, the Kremlin emphasized the need for an expanded “buffer zone” in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions to protect Russian territory from cross-border shelling and drone strikes.
2. Humanitarian Protection and “Genocide”
Russia claims its intervention was a legal necessity to protect ethnic Russians and Russian speakers.
Protecting the Donbas: Putin asserted that the 2022 “Special Military Operation” was launched to end eight years of “humiliation and genocide” by the “Kyiv regime” against people in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
Independence Recognition: Russia argues that because it recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics as independent states just before the invasion, its military action was a lawful request for assistance under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
3. “Denazification” and “Demilitarization”
The Kremlin uses these terms to frame the Ukrainian government as illegitimate and a threat to European peace.
Regime Change: Russia claims the 2014 Euromaidan revolution was a Western-backed “unconstitutional coup” that installed a “neo-Nazi” leadership.
Sovereignty Denial: Putin has repeatedly claimed that Ukraine is an “artificial state” created by the Soviet Union and that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people,” suggesting the current government is a foreign-imposed anomaly.
4. Recent Allegations of “State Terrorism” (Late 2025–2026)
Since December 2025, Russia has introduced new justifications to harden its stance in potential peace talks:
Attack on Putin’s Residence: In late December 2025, Russia accused Ukraine of launching a drone strike targeting President Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov characterized this as “state terrorism,” using it to justify retaliatory strikes and a “more rigorous” negotiating position.
For official updates and historical documents, the National Security Archive provides records of 1990 assurances, while current statements are often published by the Russian Foreign Ministry.
AI Overview.
In January and February 2022, the Donbas region in south-eastern Ukraine experienced a massive and rapid escalation in shelling and ceasefire violations. Reports from the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) indicated that after a period of relatively low activity in early January, violations surged by over 340% in the week leading up to the full-scale Russian invasion on February 24.
Chris Hedges: Decline and Fall
We live in an eerily similar historical moment. Britain, within 12 years of Kipling’s lament, was plunged into the collective suicide of World War I, a conflict that took the lives of over a million British and Commonwealth troops and doomed the British Empire.
Donald Trump boasts that he will be the “fertilization president.” American couples — meaning white couples — will be given incentives by his administration to have more children to counter declining birth rates.
December 29, 2025 , By Chris Hedges , ScheerPost, https://scheerpost.com/2025/12/29/chris-hedges-decline-and-fall/
At the start of the 20th century, the British Empire was, like our own, in terminal decline. Sixty percent of Englishmen were physically unfit for military service, as are 77 percent of American youth. The Liberal Party, like the Democratic Party, while it acknowledged the need for reform, did little to address the economic and social inequalities that saw the working class condemned to live in substandard housing, breathe polluted air, be denied basic sanitation and health care and forced to work in punishing and poorly paid jobs.
The Tory government, in response, formed an Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical Deterioration to examine the “deterioration of certain classes of the population,” meaning, of course, the urban poor. It became known as the report on “the degeneracy of our race.” Analogies were swiftly drawn, with much accuracy, with the decadence and degeneracy of the late Roman Empire.
Rudyard Kipling, who romanticized and mythologized the British Empire and its military, in his 1902 poem “The Islanders,” warned the British that they had grown complacent and flaccid from hubris, indolence and privilege. They were unprepared to sustain the Empire. He despaired of the loss of martial spirit by the “sons of the sheltered city — unmade, unhandled, unmeet,” and called for mandatory conscription. He excoriated the British military for its increasing reliance on mercenaries and colonial troops, “the men who could shoot and ride,” just as mercenaries and militias increasingly augment American forces overseas.
Kipling damned the British public for its preoccupation with “trinkets” and spectator sports, including “the flannel fools at the wicket or the muddied oafs at the goals,” athletes whom he believed should have been fighting in the war in South Africa. He foresaw in the succession of British military disasters during the South African Boer War, which had recently ended, the impending loss of British global dominance, much as the two decades of military fiascos in the Middle East have eroded U.S. hegemony.
The preoccupation with physical decline, also interpreted as moral decline, is what led Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to decry “fat generals,” and order women in the military to meet the “highest male standards” for physical fitness. It is what is behind his “Warrior Ethos Tasking,” plans to enhance physical fitness, grooming standards and military readiness.
We live in an eerily similar historical moment. Britain, within 12 years of Kipling’s lament, was plunged into the collective suicide of World War I, a conflict that took the lives of over a million British and Commonwealth troops and doomed the British Empire.
H.G. Wells, who anticipated trench warfare, tanks and machine guns, was one of the very few to see where Britain was headed. In 1908, he wrote “The War in the Air.” He warned that future wars would not be limited to antagonistic nation-states but would become global. These wars, as was true in the 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia, the Spanish Civil War and World War II, would carry out the indiscriminate aerial bombardment of civilians. He also foresaw in “The World Set Free,” the dropping of atomic bombs.
Nearly one third of the population in Edwardian England endured abject poverty. The cause, as Seebohm Rowntree noted in his study of the slums, was not, as conservatives claimed, alcoholism, laziness, a lack of initiative or responsibility by the poor, but because “the wages paid for unskilled labour in York are insufficient to provide food, shelter, and clothing adequate to maintain a family of moderate size in a state of bare physical efficiency.”
The U.S. has one of the highest rates of poverty among Western industrialized nations, estimated by many economists at far above the official figure of 10.6 percent. In real terms, some 41 percent of Americans are poor or low-income, with 67 percent living paycheck to paycheck.
British eugenicists from the Galton Laboratory for National Eugenics — which was funded by Sir Francis Galton, who coined the term “eugenics” — advocated “positive eugenics,” the “improvement” of the race by encouraging those deemed superior — always white members of the middle and upper classes — to have large families. “Negative eugenics” was advocated to limit the number of children born to those deemed “unfit.” This would be achieved through sterilization and the separation of genders.
Winston Churchill, who was home secretary in the liberal government of H.H. Asquith in 1910-11, backed the forced sterilization of the “feeble minded,” calling them a “national and race danger” and “the source from which the stream of madness is fed.”
The Trump White House, led by Stephen Miller, is intent on carrying out a similar culling of American society. Those endowed with “negative” hereditary traits — based usually on race — are condemned as human contaminants that an army of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are terrorizing, incarcerating and purging from society.
Miller, in emails leaked in 2019, lauds the 1973 novel “The Camp of the Saints,” written by Jean Raspail. It chronicles a flotilla of South Asian people who invade France and destroy Western civilization. The immigrants, who the Trump administration are now hunting down, are described as “kinky-haired, swarthy-skinned, long-despised phantoms” and “teeming ants toiling for the white man’s comfort.” The South Asian mobs are “grotesque little beggars from the streets of Calcutta,” led by a feces-eating “gigantic Hindu” known as “the turd eater.”
This, in its most scurrilous form, is the thesis of the “Great Replacement” theory, the belief that the white races in Europe and North America are being “replaced” by “lesser breeds of the earth.”
Donald Trump boasts that he will be the “fertilization president.” American couples — meaning white couples — will be given incentives by his administration to have more children to counter declining birth rates. In the vernacular of the right wing, those who promote this updated version of “positive eugenics” are known as “pronatalists.” The Trump administration will also reduce refugees admitted to the United States next year to the token level of 7,500, with most of these spots filled by white South Africans.
Trump’s allies in Big Tech are busy creating the fertility infrastructure to conceive children with “positive” hereditary traits. Sam Altman, who has been awarded a one-year military contract worth $200 million from the Trump administration, has invested in technology to allow parents to gene edit their children before conception to produce “designer babies.”
Peter Thiel, the co-founder of Palantir, which is facilitating the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, has backed an embryo screening company called Orchid Health. Orchid promises to help parents design “healthy” children through embryo testing and selection technology. Elon Musk, a fervent pronatalist and believer in the Great Replacement theory, is reportedly a client of the startup. The goal is to empower parents to screen embryos for IQ and select “their children’s intelligence before birth,” as the Wall Street Journal notes.
We are making the same self-defeating mistakes made by the British political class that oversaw the decline of the British Empire and orchestrated the suicidal folly of World War I. We blame the poor for their own impoverishment. We believe in the superiority of the white race over other races, crushing the plethora of voices, cultures and experiences that create a dynamic society. We seek to counter injustices, along with economic and social inequality, with hypermasculinity, militarism and force, which accelerates the internal decay and propels us toward a disastrous global war, perhaps, in our case, with China.
Wells scoffed at the idiocy of an entitled ruling class that was unable to analyze or address the social problems it had created. He excoriated the British political elite for its ignorance and ineptitude. They had vulgarized democracy, he wrote, with their racism, hypernationalism and simplistic cliché-ridden public discourse, stoked by a sensationalist tabloid press.
When a crisis came, Wells warned, these mandarins, like our own, would set the funeral pyre of empire alight.
Trump Praises Putin, Promises Peace—Kyiv Still Under Fire
As Russian missiles continued to strike Ukrainian cities, the contrast between diplomatic rhetoric and battlefield reality remained stark. While Trump projected confidence that peace may be within reach, Kyiv once again faced burning apartments, shattered infrastructure, and a winter night without heat—underscoring how far any deal may still be from the ground truth of the war.
December 29, 2025, By Joshua Scheer, https://scheerpost.com/2025/12/29/trump-praises-putin-promises-peace-kyiv-still-under-fire/
Trump’s Peace Optimism Collides With Russia’s Intensifying Assault on Kyiv
Another morning has arrived with no peace between Ukraine and Russia, despite President Trump repeatedly suggesting that an agreement is either incredibly close—or may never happen at all.
It is a familiar refrain, delivered as Russian forces continue to bombard Kyiv and while President Vladimir Putin remains absent from the negotiations. Yet Trump has positioned himself as vouching for Putin, a stance that produced an awkward moment during his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
According to The Daily Beast, Trump told reporters, “Russia wants to see Ukraine succeed,” prompting Zelenskyy to visibly raise an eyebrow. Trump then added, “It sounds a little strange,” as Zelenskyy grinned, nodded, and replied dryly, “Yeah.”
The exchange followed comments Trump made Sunday, when he said he had told Zelenskyy that “President Putin was very generous in his feeling toward Ukraine succeeding.”
Yet as of yesterday at least two people were killed in Kyiv during a 10-hour Russian aerial assault that unfolded as diplomatic optimism surrounding a potential U.S.-brokered peace deal briefly surged. Forty-four others—including two children—were injured, according to Ukrainian officials, while hundreds of thousands of residents were left without heat or electricity amid near-freezing temperatures.
With Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying Russia launched nearly 500 drones overnight—many of them Iranian-designed Shahed drones—along with around 40 missiles, including hypersonic Kinzhals. The primary targets were Kyiv’s energy facilities and civilian infrastructure.
“Regrettably, there have been hits, and ordinary residential buildings have been damaged,” Zelenskyy said in a statement posted on X. Rescuers were still searching for at least one person believed to be trapped under rubble. In several districts of the capital and surrounding region, electricity and heating remained unavailable as emergency crews worked under ongoing air-raid alerts.
Zelenskyy framed the assault as Russia’s answer to recent international peace overtures.
“There have been many questions over the past few days—so where is Russia’s response to the proposals to end the war offered by the United States and the world?” he said. “Russian representatives engage in lengthy talks, but in reality, Kinzhals and ‘Shaheds’ speak for them.”
The Ukrainian president accused Russian President Vladimir Putin and his inner circle of having no genuine interest in ending the war, arguing that Moscow is instead using diplomacy as cover while escalating attacks designed to inflict maximum suffering.
“If Russia turns even the Christmas and New Year period into a time of destroyed homes and ruined power plants, then this sick activity can only be responded to with truly strong steps,” Zelenskyy said, calling on the United States, Europe, and allies to intensify pressure and accelerate air-defense support.
Yet just hours later, Zelenskyy struck a noticeably different tone following meetings with U.S. President Donald Trump, thanking him and his team for what he described as constructive negotiations.
“I thank President Trump and his team for the negotiations,” Zelenskyy wrote. “Together, we must—and can—implement our vision for the sequencing of steps toward peace.”
Also saying “Thank you to President Trump for the wonderful meeting. We had a meaningful discussion on all issues and highly appreciate the progress achieved by the Ukrainian and American teams over the past weeks. Special thanks to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for their engagement and full commitment to the cause, as well as to our team, primarily Rustem Umerov and Andriy Hnatov.”
Trump, speaking after meetings at Mar-a-Lago, offered an upbeat assessment of the talks, saying a deal was “maybe very close.” He said he had spoken with Putin for more than two hours prior to meeting Zelenskyy and claimed the Russian leader expressed a strong desire to reach an agreement.
“He told me very strongly,” Trump said of Putin. “I believe him.”
However, the optimism appeared premature. Reports indicated that a joint U.S.-Ukraine framework remained incomplete, with Russia rejecting several core proposals. Trump himself acknowledged lingering obstacles, echoing familiar language he has used throughout the conflict.
“There are one or two very thorny issues,” Trump said. “Very tough issues. But I think we’re doing very well.”
He added that clarity would emerge soon—another timeline critics say has repeatedly failed to materialize.
“In a few weeks, we’ll know one way or another,” Trump said. “It’s possible it doesn’t happen.”
One of the most contentious unresolved issues remains the territory. Asked directly what stood in the way of an agreement, Trump pointed to land occupied by Russian forces. With CNBC reporting,
“Some of that land has been taken,” he said. “Some of that land is maybe up for grabs, but it may be taken over the next period of a number of months, and you are better off making a deal now.”
That issue is one Zelenskyy has consistently refused to bend on, often stating that he has no authority to do so under Ukraine’s constitution. The Ukrainian president has repeatedly ruled out surrendering territory, saying he has “no right” to give up land under either Ukrainian or international law. Kyiv has instead said it is prepared to propose alternative arrangements.
Zelenskyy’s stance comes as Ukraine continues to grapple with internal challenges, including ongoing corruption concerns, even as the war drags on with no clear end in sight. While territorial concessions remain a red line, Zelenskyy has previously floated ideas aimed at reducing hostilities without formally ceding land.
As part of his current peace plan,Zelenskyy has suggested the creation of a demilitarized free economic zone in contested areas. Speaking to reporters earlier this week, he said such a zone could require the withdrawal of heavy forces by an agreed distance.
“If we establish a free economic zone here, and it envisages a virtually demilitarized zone—meaning heavy forces are removed from this area—and the distance, for example, is 40 kilometers, it could be five, 10, or 40 kilometers,” Zelenskyy said. “Then if these two cities, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, are our free economic zone, the Russians would have to pull back their troops accordingly.”
Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said he requested security guarantees lasting up to 50 years, describing discussions on that front as “100% agreed.” Trump offered a more cautious assessment, suggesting the guarantees were still under negotiation.
As Russian missiles continued to strike Ukrainian cities, the contrast between diplomatic rhetoric and battlefield reality remained stark. While Trump projected confidence that peace may be within reach, Kyiv once again faced burning apartments, shattered infrastructure, and a winter night without heat—underscoring how far any deal may still be from the ground truth of the war.
So much for a president who boasted about ending wars—specifically claiming he would end the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours, before taking office, or on “day one.” When President Donald Trump was reminded of those promises in an April interview with Time magazine, he said the remark was never meant to be taken literally. And CNN found 53 other times that president stated this as a fact.
“Well, I said that figuratively, and I said that as an exaggeration, because to make a point,” Trump said, according to Time’s transcript. He added that the comment was “said in jest,” while maintaining that the war would still ultimately be ended. Heres hoping that the war will end soon, but with the three leaders seemingly entrenched in their positions, that hope may prove fleeting.
Here is the wrap-up from the two leaders, with Donald Trump praising those in the audience possible war criminal Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio, who is leading the neocon push back into “forever wars” and supporting Trump’s aggressive foreign policy. The same man Rubio once called a “peacemaker” is now actively bombing nine countries. I wrote about this the other day. Here is their press conference—believe what you want—but with this president, the approach can change day to day. At least, for now, the war has not gone nuclear.
Why talk of a Japanese nuclear option is resurfacing – and why it alarms critics
Conservatives are calling for a rethink of nuclear taboos, while critics warn of risks to the global non-proliferation regime
Julian Ryall, SCMP,3 Jan 2026
An editorial in the Sankei Shimbun has reopened a long-taboo debate in Japan over whether the country should even discuss acquiring nuclear weapons, after off-the-record remarks by a senior security official arguing the country should have them sparked domestic and regional backlash.
The conservative daily argued that growing threats from Japan’s neighbours mean no option for protecting the public should be beyond discussion, a stance that has drawn praise from some on the right and alarm from critics who warn that even signalling such intent could destabilise the global non-proliferation system.
The editorial, published on Monday, was accompanied by a graphic comparing regional nuclear forces, stating that Russia has an estimated 5,580 nuclear warheads, North Korea around 50 and China about 500, with the latter figure projected to rise to more than 1,000 by 2030.
It appeared 10 days after the senior national security official in the Prime Minister’s Office said – in an off-the-record remark reported by Japanese media during a background briefing – that he personally believed Japan should possess nuclear weapons.
The remarks prompted a fierce reaction at home and abroad, including from Beijing, where Guo Jiakun, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, told reporters the situation was a “serious issue that exposes the dangerous attempts by some in Japan to breach international law and possess nuclear weapons”.
“China and the rest of the international community must stay on high alert and express grave concern,” he added.
Japan has for decades adhered to its three non-nuclear principles – not possessing, producing or permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons – while relying on the United States for extended deterrence and is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which commits non-nuclear states to forgo developing or acquiring nuclear arms.
The Sankei editorial urged Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi not to “give in” to calls for the aide to be dismissed, arguing that doing so would “stifle free debate on how best to protect the Japanese people”.
It dismissed objections from China and North Korea as “ludicrous” and “hypocritical”, noting that both possessed nuclear weapons and were strengthening their arsenals.
“For Japan, the point of the debate is how to safeguard the public, not merely whether or not to actually possess nuclear weapons,” it added. “From that standpoint, making it taboo to merely mention the nuclear weapons option is the worst possible stance to adopt.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3338570/why-talk-japanese-nuclear-option-resurfacing-and-why-it-alarms-critics
The Pro-Israel Propaganda Complex
The Zionist PR machine is an enterprise to behold. It is probably historically unprecedented in the breadth and density of its lobbying and propaganda entities.
If Israel is so innately good, why does it need so many resources to proselytise it, to defend it and to dissimulate about its character?
3 January 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Dr Evan Jones. https://theaimn.net/the-pro-israel-propaganda-complex/
Caitlin Johnstone’s customary finger on the Zionist pulse is how I was first exposed to the telling presentation by Sarah Hurwitz to the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly on 16 November 2025. Hurwitz was a senior adviser in the Obama administration (from which she was appointed as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council).
Says Hurwitz, young people no longer read but are hooked on social media. There, with respect to Gaza, they confront a ‘wall of carnage’. Hurwitz laments that: “So I want to give data and information and facts and arguments, and they are just seeing in their minds: carnage. And I sound obscene.” (Grown up) rationality has seemingly succumbed to (teenage) unprocessed sense impressions.
More, Holocaust education has been turned against us because our own young kin are applying the role of the evil oppressor, (Jewish) god forbid, to Israel itself.
British philosophy academic Lorna Finlayson (New Left Review’s Side Car) chimes in with respect to the Hurwitz performance:
“The true meaning of the Holocaust, we might infer, is not that it was bad because the strong were hurting the weak, but because Jews were the victims. When the victims are Black or Palestinian, it’s different.”
Peculiar that Hurwitz imagines that ‘the data and information and facts and arguments’ at her command contradict the youngster’s visualising the ‘wall of carnage’. The ‘data and information and facts and arguments’ that I am familiar with are consistent with the visuals.Finlayson concurs:
“The trouble for Hurwitz, however, is that if the pictures aren’t on her side, the ‘facts’ and ‘data’ are even less so. The more we see of them, the worse Israel looks.”
Dead children, medicos, journalists, aid workers – an impressive and mounting tally. Ah, and the infrastructure! The landscape obliterated. Bradford University’s Paul Rogers, interviewed in April 2025, estimated that 70,000 tonnes of explosives had been dropped on Gaza to that date.
Hurwitz waxes mystical:
“The problem is, we’re not just a religion … We’re a nation. Civilization. Tribe. Peoplehood. But most of all we’re a family. … The seven million people in Israel, they are not my co-religionists, they are my siblings.”
‘The seven million people in Israel’ – what? Hurwitz is referring to Jewish people in Israeland, presumably, Jewish settlers who don’t live in Israel (add Russian ersatz Jews assimilated to up the numbers). Hurwitz conflates the local Jewish population and the state of Israel. The others don’t exist.
Civilisation I don’t think so. ‘Tribe’ is correct – this is tribalism writ large. Yet the bad eggs, the founders and successive leaders of apartheid Israel, are dictating to the tribe the terms in their entirety on which tribalism will prevail. For Hurwitz – Israel is us, period. Being Jewish, you’re in the tribe on Israel’s terms – period. What do you think, at some expense, we send you to Jewish day school and Hebrew school for?
Finlayson again:
“The problem [for Hurwitz] with Palestinian children is not that they are evil [as perthe claims of Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant] but that they are a PR challenge.”
How in the world could the bloodthirsty Zionist enterprise, acting with impunity, face a PR challenge?
The Zionist PR machine is an enterprise to behold. It is probably historically unprecedented in the breadth and density of its lobbying and propaganda entities. The character of the matrix is well captured in a review of American academic Harriet Malinowitz’s recent book Selling Israel: Zionism, Propaganda, and the Uses of Hasbara, from whence this Malinowitz summary is extracted:
“[The hasbara, which can be] bluntly described as propaganda, but in fact comprises a huge network of government ministries, nongovernmental organizations, nonprofit agencies and charities, campus organizations, volunteer groups, watchdog bodies, professional associations, media networks, fundraising operations, and educational programs that aim to fortify a Zionist-defined notion of Jewishness in persons within Israel, the United States, and other countries.”
Quite. And that’s just for Jewry itself, to keep it on the straight and narrow. The network addressed to the non-compliance and ignorance of non-Jews is something else.
Attached below is a list, inevitably incomplete, of organisations that one has been able to compile from public sources. It is a scrappy matrix, even anarchic but layered, influenced by national Jewish communities’ size and history, and by individual initiatives. It is complemented by Israeli state authority initiatives.
In total, the resources devoted to selling Israel and warding off and attacking its detractors have been and are formidable. Do Zionists have time in their life for anything else?
There’s an anomaly here. If Israel is so innately good, why does it need so many resources to proselytise it, to defend it and to dissimulate about its character?
The juggernaut has evidently had impressive results, of which the following samples.
The US Congress is a Zionist-occupied entity. The mass murderer Benjamin Netanyahu is invited into the hallowed premises (Joint: 10 July 1996, 24 May 2011, 3 March 2015, 25 July 2024; House: 12 September 2002), debauches it with his mendacity and is met with standing ovations.
The EU-Israel Association Agreement ‘entered into force’ in June 2000. The Agreement accords Israel considerable privileges. The background is here. The 154 page document is here. Of integral relevance is Article 2:
“Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.”
Israel is an apartheid state by construction, so how could this trade Agreement ever get on the drawing board, leave alone come to fruition?
Israel remains ensconced in global sporting entities, as exemplified with soccer. There is currently pressure on UEFA and FIFA to exclude Israel but the governing bodies have resisted to date. Russia has been sanctioned. Israel remains in the bosom of global sport.
Ditto culture. Eurovision’s sponsor, the European Broadcasting Union, is also under pressure to exclude Israel but has ignored it (this is ‘a non-political event’). Russia is immediately expelled in 2022. Israel remains in Eurovision. Israel has won Eurovision four times, with more recent questions arising of dubious voting integrity and the transparent ‘soft power’ leverage by Israel of the platform to detract from the ongoing genocide.
Perusing the list, one can observe select categories.
1. Some early organisations began as charities to support Jewish communities in need. Amongst these, there has been a general trend to turn towards support for the state of Israel – sometimes auxiliary, sometimes central. Some latter–day organisations are formally Jewish community support-oriented but add Israel to their charter.
2. Some organisations stand out with respect to the influence of their operations. Uniquely there is the Jewish Agency for Israel, in Mandatory Palestine, which, with the Jewish National Council, were the nuclei for the state of Israel after 1948.
Singularly important are the dominant organisations in particular countries, not least AIPAC in the US, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and CRIF in France.
The power of AIPAC puts it in a league of its own. AIPAC exerts an enormous influence on the US Congress, not least through funding for and against sitting members and candidates, and fostering Israel junkets. AIPAC funding contributed to the defeat of long-serving Illinois Representative Paul Findley in 1982. Findley’s contemporary and fellow activist Pete McCloskey, California Representative (1967-83) was perennially under attack from the Zionist lobby. AIPAC and other Jewish organisations’ funding facilitated the defeat of long-time Georgia Representative Cynthia McKinney and Alabama Representative Earl Hilliard, both in 2002 primaries. AIPAC funding defeated Maryland Congresswoman Donna Edwards, seeking re-election to a seat she previously held, in 2022. AIPAC funding defeated Missouri Representative Cori Bush and New York Representative Jaamal Bowman, both in primaries in 2024. Apparently AIPAC ‘invested’ $45 million in the November 2024 elections, half of which went to defeating Bush and Bowman. AIPAC conferences present a ghoulish spectacle in which Congress and government members bow down before AIPAC’s commitment to the imperatives of a foreign rogue state. (More details regarding the US Israel lobby are outlinedin Serge Halimi’s ‘Is the United States’ patience with Israel running out?’, Le Monde Diplomatique, December 2025.)
3. A discernible category covers Christian Zionist organisations and Jewish organisations seeking amity with and support from Christian groups, not least Evangelicals. Christians United for Israel (US) is clearly the most significant of this grouping, with CUFI claiming over 10 million members. Israel and Zionism evidently value this alliance in terms of the numerical ‘heft’ that it brings.
Israeli academic Tom Ziv performed a quantitative analysis of the size of evangelical Christian Zionist populations in 18 Latin American countries (‘Evangelicalism and Support for Israel in Latin America’, Politics & Religion, 2022). He found a link between the size of such groups and the country’s support for Israel as reflected in UN votes, with such groups evidently having a direct impact on their country’s foreign policy. Being a ‘true’ value-free academic, he declines to articulate the ‘policy implications’, although the Israeli authorities would be thoroughly aware of the implications for hasbara PR funding.
As mainstream protestant churches were reducing their support for Israel (tangibly in divesting denomination-related investments from Israel-related corporations and activities), so also there had been some small shift against whole-hearted support for Israel amongst young evangelicals. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………https://theaimn.net/the-pro-israel-propaganda-complex/
Patrick Lawrence: New Year’s Notes on Purported Leaders.
The power Bibi exerts in Washington and most of the European capitals transcends geography by a long way.
Caitlin Johnstone put it best in her Dec. 28 newsletter. “They’ve stopped making up pretend nonsense about nuclear weapons,” she wrote, “and now they’re just going, ‘We need to attack Iran because Iran is rebuilding its ability to stop us from attacking it.’”
December 31, 2025, Patrick Lawrence, Consortium News, https://consortiumnews.com/2025/12/31/patrick-lawrence-new-years-notes-on-purported-leaders/
It is no use hoping for any alteration in the collective West’s course so long as today’s “purported leaders” remain in office.
“Heaven is high and the emperor is far away.” So did Chinese peasants celebrate their distance from the Forbidden City over many centuries now past. I imagine a similar sentiment may prevail in the hyper-centralized People’s Republic.
When power is to one or another degree autocratic, power is best when power is distant. So it was for me, if briefly, as 2025 drew to a close.
I spent the Christmas holidays, courtesy of my kindly mother-in-law, in the Pacific Northwest and was blessedly far from post-democratic power in any of its manifestations.
The nearest elected official purporting to competence was Kim Lund, the mayor of Bellingham, Washington, whose purview extends to one of those downtown revitalization plans you often come across in our deindustrialized republic.
It seemed an occasion to view from afar those major figures who, for better or worse but decidedly the latter in almost all cases, now determine the destiny of what we call, a little quaintly at this point, the Western world.
I had never previously considered these people as if they make a single group, a motley (very) crew. And it has been an interesting exercise by way of some year-end conclusions.
Here in no particular order are a few of my “takeaways,” as headline writers at the mainstream dailies so tiresomely put it.
One, the distance between the Western powers’ purported leaders and their citizens is more or less complete. Power now operates in supreme sequestration.
Two, wars, a genocide, drone invasions, assassinations, deportation gangs, censorship, sanctions, eroded civil liberties, lawlessness: There is no assuming post-democratic electorates favor any of this over peace and a moral order.
No, people are better understood as resigned to impotence—stunned into silence as power is no longer answerable and they, those now ruled rather than governed, have no connection to their rulers.
We are all Ming Dynasty peasants now, to put his point another way.
“Two, wars, a genocide, drone invasions, assassinations, deportation gangs, censorship, sanctions, eroded civil liberties, lawlessness: There is no assuming post-democratic electorates favor any of this over peace and a moral order.”
Two, it is no use hoping for any alteration in the collective West’s course so long as this crowd of self-interested second-raters remains in office. These people have condemned us, while acting in our names, to regimes of wanton brutality.
Three and more significantly and imposingly, it follows that the systems and political processes that thrust them into positions far beyond their capacities have to be dismantled or otherwise radically reformed before there is a chance of restoring ourselves to any kind of just, humane order.
Four and reading out of Nos. 1, 2, and 3, post-democratic disempowerment and the West’s sponsorship of rampant disorder burdens citizens with great responsibilities.
Chas Freeman, the emeritus ambassador and energetic commentator, surprised me this past autumn by stating during a podcast that we—we Americans—have entered a pre-revolutionary period in American history. I will let Chas’s remark stand as an explanation of what I mean by responsibilities. The future is up to us, to put this point another way.
Finally, there are a few exceptions to this assessment of the West’s purported leaders, and we must look to them for slim rays of light—suggestions of what is still possible when people of integrity serve in high office genuinely in the names of those who put them there.
It is time to face these truths—long past time, indeed. The year to come will bear this out. The collapse of democratic processes and the prevalence of what looks like indifference but is better understood as resignation—these have landed the Western world with a mob of “leaders” who are clinically neurotic, narcissistic, sociopathic, megalomaniacal, operating well beyond their competence—or some or all of these in combination.
Only 20 years ago it was a not-done to speak or write of the West’s decline. One was a “declinist”—remember that word?—and this left one somewhat in the desert. Now that our late-imperial decline is beyond denying, who would have guessed that it would prove so shabby, so undignified, so embarrassing in its way—and, of course, so careless of human life and law.
Have you ever studied a photograph of Bibi Netanyahu—the features, I mean? I never miss a chance, so fascinating do I find his visage, and I urge this if you have not taken a close look. As any good psychiatrist or clinical psychologist will tell you, this is the face of a psychotic as defined in the good old DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The Israeli prime minister’s record is well-enough known. A 76–year-old with a tenuous relationship with reality, I mean to say, is now the most powerful person in West Asia—and at this point well beyond.
But Netanyahu is not a Western leader, you say. Oh, no you don’t: The power Bibi exerts in Washington and most of the European capitals transcends geography by a long way. He takes a prominent place in this pencil-sketched group portrait. At writing, Netanyahu has just finished his fifth visit to President Trump during this, the Trumpster’s first year back in office. Think of it: A psychotic and an emotionally-arrested narcissist who seems to have something to prove to somebody, probably his father, spent the Monday of Christmas Week planning another military operation against the Islamic Republic — this one to destroy its missile program and air defenses.
Caitlin Johnstone put it best in her Dec. 28 newsletter. “They’ve stopped making up pretend nonsense about nuclear weapons,” she wrote, “and now they’re just going, ‘We need to attack Iran because Iran is rebuilding its ability to stop us from attacking it.’”
There are also Netanyahu’s various predicaments at home to consider. He is on trial on multiple corruption charges, he faces elections in 2026 he is likely to lose, and he is cravenly beholden to the Zionist fanatics with whom he has stocked his cabinet. Does this mean Itamar Ben–Givr, Bezalel Smotrich, et al. have an indirect but powerful influence in global politics? I propose we skip the question, as I cannot bear to risk the answer.
During my Christmas idyll among the firs and soaring cedars of the Pacific Northwest, the others who came to mind were those across the Atlantic who account for what we call Core Europe. Kier Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz — the British prime minister, the French president, the German chancellor: I would write these guys off as palookas except that palookas are oafish louts who never get anywhere in life.
These three are oafish and loutish in their way but have got way too far. Since Merz’s election last spring they have formed a sort of triumvirate that more or less dictates Europe’s collective direction. Russophobes all — Merz the worst of them — they’ve got Britain and the Continent all stirred up about a purely imaginary Russian invasion while burdening their populations with generations’ worth of debt to keep the criminal regime in Kiev going in a war Ukraine lost (by my reckoning) more than a year ago.
Yet worse, across much of Europe, and certainly in the U.K., any expression of support for the Palestinian people is now effectively criminalized. As someone remarked on “X” the other day, you get arrested and jailed in Britain for denouncing Israel’s genocide in Gaza while the Starmer regime gives red-carpet welcomes to Israeli officials directly responsible for it.
What is our word for these people? To study them together, it seems to me it must be feckless or immature — juvenile, maybe, or underdeveloped. Accustomed to sheltering under the umbrella of American hegemony, they prove incapable of thinking or acting responsibly and so seek a new refuge in the citadel of “centrist” ideology, which is not the center of anything unless it is liberal authoritarianism.
A clinically disturbed prime minister, a solipsistic president bought by the Zionist lobbies, three Europeans without a leadership bone in their bodies: I refer repeatedly to these as the West’s “purported leaders” because they do not lead anything. Let me call them “PLs” for the rest of this commentary.
The PLs of our time are entirely comfortable in their sequestration from their citizens, as this leaves them free to act entirely in their own interests. And self-interest is fine if that is the god one wants to serve, but not when a grotesquely violent world order is the price of it. I celebrated last October, when the Irish elected Catherine Connolly their president by a very wide margin. It is a ceremonial post, O.K., but Connolly’s principled politics, notably but not only on Israeli terror and the Palestine question, stand for Ireland’s.
To bring this point home but briefly, the Irish now plan to turn the former Israeli Embassy, empty since its Zionist ambassador was hounded out of Dublin this past year, into a museum dedicated to Palestinian art and artifacts. Is this splendid or what? There is no beating the Irish gift for mixing irony, humor and politics. They have been at it for some centuries, after all.
I saw a map of Netanyahu’s flight path on “X” just before he departed for Mar-a–Lago over the weekend. His plane flew over Greece and Italy before turning sharply northward toward France so as to avoid Spanish airspace. This reminded me, although one needs no reminding, of the principled position the government of Pedro Sánchez has taken on Israel and its crimes.
Spain’s Socialist premier seems to miss no chance to denounce the Zionist regime. “Those responsible for this genocide will be held accountable,” Sánchez said in a speech this past year. And: “We do not do business with a genocidal state, we do not.”
To wit, the Spanish parliament imposed a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel last summer and immediately began to enforce it. In the autumn Banco Sabadell, an old-line Barcelona institution, began freezing the accounts of Israelis.
There are other such honorable cases, although they may not be so forthright as the Irish and Spanish. Their righteousness is important in itself, of course, but also for what it shows the rest of us.
The PLs will be the end of the West’s story only if Westerners acquiesce to them. Resignation is not native to the late-imperial Western consciousness: It is conditioned. And there is a point to overcoming it.
Nuclear news at the start of 2026
Best wishes for 2026. I know that I should start with something positive. And there are positive things happening, and millions of people working on them. As Anne Frank said so long ago “I believe that people are really good at heart”
Nevertheless, I feel like sounding a note of warning.The mainstream news is barely to be trusted. Journalists are self-censoring so as to hang on to their jobs. “Social media” is all too often anti-social, and is not fact-checked.
Now, going back to my original purpose – the nuclear-free movement,I now feel impelled to start 2026 with this advice:Be especially sceptical of any information derived from the nuclear industry. At best, even where it’s factual, still take it with a big grain of salt.
Some bits of good news – The renewables juggernaut thundered on. Scientists treated the ‘untreatable’.
Uganda rapidly got on top of an Ebola outbreak – all stories from – https://www.positive.news/society/what-went-right-in-2025-the-good-news-that-mattered/
TOP STORIES. Exposing the World Nuclear Association’s Bullshit.What Lies Ahead for Ukraine’s Contested Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant?
Palestine Before Nationalism: What Was Lost – and Why It Matters Now. UN Security Council Abandoned Palestinians- Humanity Must Refuse to Follow Suit. Israel Bans Dozens of Aid Groups from Operating in Gaza, Including Doctors Without Borders. Israel’s Ceasefire Violations in Gaza Continue to Pile Up –
AUSTRALIA.
Israel Bans Aid Groups and Puts Targets on Australian Backs | The West Report –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9mjGsCU6QU How Zionists are weaponising the courts to silence critics | The West Report – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_175A8ws4ak In Australia it is taboo to speak up for Palestinians, Australia being the only Western country that has no free speech, no Bill of Rights. The Embedded Alliance – Australia, The Retreat from Sovereignty, and the Machinery of External Control. A Statement of Omission.
NUCLEAR-RELATED ITEMS
| ATROCITIES. As Israel bans aid orgs in Gaza, notorious mercenary firm seeks “Targeter”. |
| ECONOMICS. Mini nuclear reactors are already losing their glow. Investors Beware: 2 Nuclear Energy Stocks That May Be Radioactive to Your Portfolio |
| EMPLOYMENT. Fears raised that specialist Vulcan MoD work could shift to Sellafield |
| ENERGY. AI Did Not Demand Centralised Power: Vested Interests Did. |
| ETHICS and RELIGION. Israel And Its Supporters Deliberately Foment Hate And Division In Our Society. The Pro-Israel Propaganda Complex. Catholic diocese urges prayer, public witness against proposed nuclear plant in northern Philippines. |
| HISTORY. When the USSR and China saved humanity: How they won the World Anti-Fascist War. Chris Hedges: Decline and Fall. |
| LEGAL. Pike County mom sues revived nuclear plant, alleging radiation led to daughter’s death. |
| POLITICS. U.S. Plans Largest Nuclear Power Program Since the 1970s . Donald Trump’s first step to becoming a would-be autocrat –hijacking a party. Secretary of State Rubio Believes U.S. Recovered Alien Tech And Gave It To Private Military Contractors. Palestinian factions have come together to thwart Israeli plans in Gaza, for now. Energy bills to rise on New Year’s Day ‘to fund nuclear in England’. Dungeness power station tipped for nuclear return as government ‘aware’ of interest. |
| POLITICS INTERNATIONAL and DIPLOMACY. Russia-US nuclear pact set to end in 2026 and we won’t see another. Poor, beleaguered Venezuela, with new pals China and Russia, may be demolishing two century old US Monroe Doctrine. Trump reaffirms his support for another strike on Iran after meeting with Netanyahu. Trump’s team no longer trusts Netanyahu – Axios. Netanyahu to Press for ‘Another Round of War With Iran’ in Meeting With Trump This Week. Netanyahu Is Visiting Trump For The FIFTH Time This Year, And Other Notes. ‘Pay price for wrongdoing’: China Sanctions 20 US defence firms after Trump approves Taiwan arms sale. Trump, Zelenskyy make ‘95% progress’, but ‘thorny issues’ remain – 5 key points. The West is spending big on nuclear plants again – and taking taxpayers along for the ride– ALSO AT https://nuclear-news.net/2025/12/31/1-b1-the-west-is-spending-big-on-nuclear-plants-again-and-taking-taxpayers-along-for-the-ride/ Patrick Lawrence: New Year’s Notes on Purported Leaders. |
| PLUTONIUM. Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety (CCNS) Nuclear Literacy Program to Educate Nuevomexicano Communities on the LANL Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement for Plutonium Pit Production. |
| SAFETY. Safety fears as Japan prepares to restart nuclear plant ‘built on tofu’. Trump regulators ripped |
| TECHNOLOGY. The AI Arms Race Is Cracking Open the Nuclear Fuel Cycle. Electric Vehicles and Nuclear Power Are Fighting Over One Obscure Mineral. |
| WASTES. How are geological repository projects progressing (pronuke bias) |
| WAR and CONFLICT. Russia Hands US Evidence That It Says Confirms Ukraine Targeted Putin’s Residence in Drone Attack. Trump Praises Putin, Promises Peace—Kyiv Still Under Fire. CIA, with Trump’s blessing, is using Ukrainians to sabotage Russia’s energy infrastructure and oil tankers – NYT. WAS RUSSIA’S SPECIAL MILITARY OPERATION “UNPROVOKED”? |
| WEAPONS and WEAPONS SALES. Russia claims to have moved nuclear-capable missile system into Belarus. Russia ‘Confidently Advancing’ In Ukraine, Over 30 Settlements Captured In December. Ukraine Takes Part in NATO War Games, Further Integrating Into Collective Defense Architecture. Pentagon In Panic: China Just Delivered The Final Blow– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEa9E9vhQ0U.The Trillion Dollar War Machine (w/ William D. Hartung) T he Chris Hedges Report. Why talk of a Japanese nuclear option is resurfacing – and why it alarms critics |
Palestine Before Nationalism: What Was Lost – and Why It Matters Now
Zionism transformed Jewish identity from a plural, diasporic, and ethical tradition into a political nationality defined by territory, demography, and security doctrine. Dissent increasingly became framed as disloyalty. Equality became a threat.
2 January 2026 Lachlan McKenzie , https://theaimn.net/pa
Before Palestine became a battlefield of competing nationalisms, it was something far less dramatic and far more instructive: a plural society. Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived across the country under the governance of the Ottoman Empire – not as equals in the modern democratic sense, but as communities governed by a legal order that prioritised coexistence over domination.
That historical reality matters today, because it challenges a central myth: that Zionism arrived to redeem a land defined by religious hostility or demographic absence. Neither was true.
A plural society, not a vacuum
In the late nineteenth century, Palestine was overwhelmingly Arab in language and culture, religiously mixed, and socially interconnected. Jewish communities – often called the Old Yishuv – were long-established, Arabic-speaking, and locally embedded. Christian Palestinians maintained churches, schools, and civic institutions dating back centuries. Identity was local and communal, not nationalist.
This was not an idyllic society. Ottoman Palestine was hierarchical and imperfect. But it was not organised around ethnic replacement, nor did it pursue a political project of removing one people to secure the sovereignty of another.
Were Ottoman laws fair?
By contemporary standards, Ottoman governance was not democratic or fully equal. Yet by the standards of its time, it was comparatively tolerant and functional.
Under the Ottoman millet system, non-Muslims were recognised as protected communities (dhimmi), permitted to practise their religion, manage communal affairs, and hold property. Jews expelled from Christian Europe repeatedly sought refuge in Ottoman lands, including Palestine.¹
In the nineteenth century, the empire initiated the Tanzimat Reforms, which aimed – however unevenly – to equalise subjects before the law regardless of religion.² These reforms reduced religious hierarchy rather than intensifying it.
Crucially, Ottoman law did not pursue demographic engineering. It governed diversity; it did not attempt to erase it.
Zionism as rupture, not return
Political Zionism emerged not from Palestinian Jewish life but from nineteenth-century Europe, shaped by ethnic nationalism and colonial settlement logic. Its leaders were explicit about the central obstacle they faced: Palestine was already inhabited.
Rather than abandoning the project, early Zionists debated how to overcome that reality. Theodor Herzl wrote privately of removing the indigenous population through economic exclusion.³ Zionist institutions adopted policies of land acquisition coupled with tenant removal, “Hebrew labour only”, and the construction of a separate economy.⁴
Demographic dominance was understood as a prerequisite for sovereignty. Mass immigration would create irreversible “facts on the ground,” after which political recognition could follow.
“Transfer” and force
By the 1930s, leading Zionists discussed population removal – often termed “transfer” – as necessary. David Ben-Gurion acknowledged that a Jewish state could not be realised without displacement, writing that compulsory transfer could provide “something which we never had.”⁵
Ze’ev Jabotinsky was even more candid. In his 1923 essay The Iron Wall, he argued that indigenous peoples never consent to colonisation, and that Jewish sovereignty would require overwhelming force until resistance was broken.⁶ This was not a religious argument; it was a settler-colonial one.
Palestinian Jewish opposition – erased from memory
These developments were not universally welcomed by Jews in Palestine. Many Palestinian Jews opposed Zionism, fearing it would shatter coexistence, recast Jews as settlers, and provoke conflict with Muslim and Christian neighbours. Their objections were pragmatic and prescient. They understood that they – not European ideologues – would live with the consequences.
Zionism’s eventual dominance owed less to universal Jewish consent than to imperial sponsorship, particularly British support following the 1917 Balfour Declaration, and to the catastrophic narrowing of perceived alternatives after the Holocaust.
What was lost
Zionism transformed Jewish identity from a plural, diasporic, and ethical tradition into a political nationality defined by territory, demography, and security doctrine. Dissent increasingly became framed as disloyalty. Equality became a threat.
The tragedy is not that Ottoman Palestine was perfect. It is that a plural society governed by law – however flawed – was dismantled and replaced by a project that required dominance to succeed.
That is the historical rupture. And it is why the conflict is modern, political, and structural – not ancient or inevitable.
A society that already contained Jews, Christians, and Muslims was remade into a battlefield by a European nationalist project that could not tolerate equality.
Understanding that history does not deny Jewish suffering. It honours it – by insisting that persecution should never be answered with its reproduction.
Footnotes and Primary Sources……………..
UN Security Council Abandoned Palestinians. Humanity Must Refuse to Follow Suit.
As the new year approaches, Palestinians face new forms of colonization and new challenges to our rights and survival.
By Michel Moushabeck , Truthout January 1, 2026
Today we have a so-called ceasefire that is killing Palestinians on a daily basis. When it comes to Israel, the word “ceasefire” simply means that Palestinians are not allowed to retaliate against Israeli airstrikes, shelling, artillery, bombs, house demolitions, or suicide drones. In reality, Israel can fire all it wants and has been doing so since the minute the agreement took effect. According to President Donald Trump, “nothing is going to jeopardize” the ceasefire in Gaza.
The ceasefire, hailed as a success by the U.S. and the Western world, has done little to end the siege of Gaza and the deepening starvation and malnutrition of Palestinians, especially the children. And it is unlikely to usher in a pathway to freedom, equality, or self-determination for the Palestinian people in the foreseeable future.
The “ceasefire” is nothing but a cover for Israel’s genocidal practices, supported by the U.S. and Western nations, and disguised by mainstream media. It is a deceptive appearance and a ploy that deflects criticism, allows the continued supply of U.S. weapons to Israel, shields the Israeli regime from accountability,
disappears the Gaza genocide from the news, and enables Israel to continue the extermination and displacement of Palestinians.
Can We Stop Pretending There Is a Functioning “Ceasefire” in Gaza?
Since October 10, 2025, the day the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and the Israeli government went into effect, the Israeli military has killed nearly 400 Palestinians and injured over 1,000, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Under the ceasefire agreement, Israel is required to allow 600 trucks of aid and other goods into Gaza every day, but UN data show that Israel continues to block food aid, medical supplies, and tents in violation of the agreement.
Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said in a statement on November 27: “The ceasefire risks creating a dangerous illusion that life in Gaza is returning to normal … the world must not be fooled. Israel’s genocide is not over.”
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the total death toll of Palestinians since October 7, 2023, is now 70,100, with 171,151 injured and many more buried under the rubble. The Israeli bombardment resulted in an estimated 50 million tons of rubble.
What the statistics don’t reflect are the number of people in Gaza that were killed by Israel not through bombs and airstrikes, but through indirect means: Palestinians killed because of lack of shelter after Israel destroyed their homes; because of the destruction of their water supplies and desalination plants, electricity supplies, and sanitation systems; because of the flattening of clinics and hospitals; and because of starvation and diseases.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said shelter materials for 1.3 million people and about 5,000 trucks of emergency supplies remain stalled outside Gaza as Israel continues to block all UNRWA-associated goods from entering.
The Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, who have endured 77 years of brutal Israeli military occupation and a system of apartheid that denies them their rights, are left with no choice other than to continue their struggle for liberation and against erasure and ethnic cleansing — including their right to armed resistance as recognized under international law.
UN Security Council Loses Sight of Its Mission and Betrays the Palestinians
On November 17, 2025, in an unexpected and disgraceful vote of 13-0 that is counter to the UN’s raison d’être — with two abstentions from Russia and China — the UN Security Council (UNSC) adopted Resolution 2803, which embraces Trump’s — or is it Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s? — “20-point peace plan,” effectively normalizing genocide, rewarding U.S. complicity, and establishing new colonial rule over the lives of 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza. It grants full control over Gaza to a U.S.-led “Board of Peace,” headed by Trump himself, that will oversee the administration and reconstruction of the Strip and establishes an “International Stabilization Force” in charge of security and disarming the resistance — not a UN peacekeeping force that will protect Palestinians.
Palestinians who have endured two years of genocide — and the total destruction of their homes and livelihoods — were not part of the negotiations and had no say in this matter. The plan — hatched by the Trump-Netanyahu team and legitimized by the UNSC — includes no mention of the genocide and does not call for accountability for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed over the last two years. This plan, which whitewashes the genocide, will never be forgotten or forgiven by any Palestinian. It denies Palestinians their humanity, their right to self-determination, and does nothing to address their grievances or root causes of their struggle. It will simply prolong the illegal occupation and will not advance peace or stability in the region in any meaningful way.
Israel views the inclusion of language in the resolution about a “pathway to Palestinian statehood” as nonbinding. In fact, the day after the UNSC vote, Netanyahu publicly stated his strong opposition to a Palestinian state. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….https://truthout.org/articles/un-security-council-abandoned-palestinians-humanity-must-refuse-to-follow-suit/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=db602f5be8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_01_01_06_24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-db602f5be8-650192793
Catholic diocese urges prayer, public witness against proposed nuclear plant in northern Philippines.
A northern Philippine diocese has urged Catholics to gather for prayer and public witness as it reiterates its opposition to a proposed nuclear power plant in Labrador town, Pangasinan province.
Jan 02, 2026, By Mark Saludes, Herald Malaysia Online,
In a video message circulated ahead of the gathering, Fr. Ed Inacay of the Diocese of Alaminos called on residents to take part in a Holy Mass on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, at 8 a.m. at St. Isidore Parish, to be presided over by Bishop Napoleon Sipalay Jr.
The priest said the Mass is linked to the Church’s discernment on the proposed nuclear facility and reflects the diocese’s opposition to the project.
“It is good that we reflect on this and pray over this plan, and I encourage you to join our bishops, especially here in our diocese, our beloved bishop, where the Diocese of Alaminos does not agree with the construction of a nuclear power plant here in our town of Labrador,” he said.
Caritas Philippines expressed support for the Diocese of Alaminos and urged the public to “demand an energy policy that prioritizes human safety, ecological integrity, and the constitutional right to a balanced and healthy environment.”
In a video message released on Jan. 2, Caritas Philippines president Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos, warned that nuclear energy “remains a perilous energy source that poses long-term risks to our communities and our ‘common home.’”…………………..
In December 2025, Catholic dioceses across the country expressed collective opposition to the proposed construction of a nuclear power plant in Western Pangasinan, citing moral responsibility, environmental risk, and the protection of life as central concerns.
In a pastoral letter, the bishops, particularly those of the Metropolitan See of Lingayen-Dagupan, said the proposal came as communities were still recovering from Typhoon Uwan, which left the province under a state of calamity and affected more than 233,000 people.
The bishops said the Philippines’ vulnerability to earthquakes and typhoons, its location along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” and the lack of a secure, long-term solution for radioactive waste make nuclear facilities an “unacceptable risk,” especially in disaster-prone areas.
They warned that nuclear energy carries “irreversible, long-term risks” that outweigh projected benefits and said radioactive waste, which remains deadly for thousands of years, would impose a burden on future generations.
Drawing from the experiences of bishops in Japan after the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the prelates said nuclear power generation is fundamentally incompatible with a vision of society that respects all life.
Echoing Pope Francis, the bishops stressed prudence, human safety, and environmental protection over immediate economic gains, urging government officials and the public to pursue renewable energy paths that safeguard communities, ecosystems, and the common good.—licas.news https://www.heraldmalaysia.com/news/catholic-diocese-urges-prayer-public-witness-against-proposed-nuclear-plant-in-northern-philippines/86844/2
Trump reaffirms his support for another strike on Iran after meeting with Netanyahu
On Monday, Donald Trump reaffirmed his support for another strike on Iran after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But analysts say Netanyahu’s designs go far beyond Iran.
Mondoweiss, By Michael Arria December 30, 2025
In comments to reporters after his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Donald Trump reiterated his support for another strike on Iran.
“I hope they’re not trying to build up again, because if they are, we’re going to have no choice but very quickly, to eradicate that build up,” said Trump, referring to the alleged expansion of Iran’s ballistic missile program.
“We’ll knock them down,” he added. “We’ll knock the hell out of them.”
Netanyahu has consistently pushed for a wider war on Iran, and was expected to make the case for further attacks during his Mar-a-Lago visit.
Trump’s comments prompted an immediate response from Iranian officials.
In an article in The Guardian, Iranian foreign minister Seyed Araghchi called on the Trump administration to defy Israel on the issue.
“The US administration now faces a dilemma: it can continue writing blank cheques for Israel with American taxpayer dollars and credibility, or be part of a tectonic change for the better,” he wrote. “For decades, Western policy towards our region has been mostly shaped by myths originating from Israel.”
“The response of the Islamic Republic of Iran to any oppressive aggression will be harsh and regrettable,” tweeted Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
In a post on the meeting, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft Vice President Trita Parsi wrote that an attack on Iran could easily lead to retaliatory strikes.
“Tehran has gone to great lengths to avoid a military confrontation with Washington, but just because it has shown restraint in the past does not mean that it can afford to do so in this scenario,” wrote Parsi. “Indeed, given that Iran will be totally exposed without its missiles, it will likely reckon that it has no choice but to strike directly at U.S. targets.”
“Even if Trump opts to ‘only’ support Israel defensively in yet another Israeli choice of war — which is the position Biden took — it nevertheless incentivizes Israel to restart war, as the U.S. is lessening the cost for Israel to do so,” he continued……………………………………………………. https://mondoweiss.net/2025/12/trump-reaffirms-his-support-for-another-strike-on-iran-after-meeting-with-netanyahu/
Poor, beleaguered Venezuela, with new pals China and Russia, may be demolishing two century old US Monroe Doctrine.
Walt Zlotow West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, 31 December 2, https://theaimn.net/beleaguered-venezuela/
Over the past several months the US has committed mass murder of unknown souls on small boats off Venezuela, seized a Venezuelan oil tanker, and massed a huge force of 10,000 troops, aircraft and world’s largest aircraft carrier nearby Venezuela. All this designed to dislodge hated Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro to allow America’s takeover of Venezuelan oil resources.
And they are vast, among the world’s largest at over 300 billion barrels. They also pose a major threat to US world energy and political dominance. Venezuela supplies over 80% of China’s energy needs, all of which is paid for in Yuan, not US dollars. China has made major investments in the Venezuelan economy to further their energy interdependence.
Russia too has become a significant military, economic and political partner of Venezuela to counter 2 decades of US intimidation, now turned violent, to oust the socialist governments of first Hugo Chavez and now successor Maduro.
Neither China nor Russia will sit back as Trump seeks his illegal, immoral and criminal takeover of Venezuela and its vast resources. Both are pouring in military and intelligence resources to keep US boat bombings and tanker seizers from devolving into outright invasion.
President Trump keeps ratcheting up the military pressure but so far avoided outright invasion. What is Trump waiting for when his intimidation force squanders over $8 million per day and Maduro has clearly signaled he’s going nowhere but to the Venezuelan war room? Due to Chinese and Russian help, Venezuela will be no pushover. While the US brings vast military firepower to any intervention, US cannon fodder may end up arriving at Arlington by the planeload. Even the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier might be joining those small fishing boats down to Davy Jones Locker. With just 15% of Americans supporting invasion, domestic opposition to Trump’s folly will be ferocious.
The rest of Latin America, indeed the world, watches as the US has boxed itself into an untenable corner. Engage in all out war and it’s likely to end disastrously even in victory. Turning around the Trump armada will signal to Latin America that the Monroe Doctrine is dead, allowing more countries to pivot from US military and economic intimidation to countries like China, Russia and others who treat them as decent political, economic partners.
Time for the US to retire the Monroe Doctrine, end senseless economic sanctions that simply turn the world against America, and become an honest, reliable partner in world affairs. Alas, Trump and his neoconservative war council appear oblivious how they are accelerating America’s world dominance decline.
Electric Vehicles and Nuclear Power Are Fighting Over One Obscure Mineral
Oil Price, By Michael Kern – Dec 31, 2025,
- The market for ultra-high-purity (UHP) graphite, essential for EV anodes and nuclear reactors, is projected to hit $1.43 billion by 2030, masking structural friction in the global energy transition.
- The vast majority (86% in 2024) of UHP graphite is synthetic, requiring a massive industrial footprint of fossil fuel feedstock and staggering amounts of electricity for high-heat graphitization furnaces.
- Two massive, well-funded industries—transportation and power generation (SMRs/nuclear)—are competing for the same narrow, geopolitically sensitive supply of high-purity carbon, which is primarily controlled by Asia Pacific’s refining capacity.
The energy transition is often sold as a story of ethereal “green” progress, but if you look at the balance sheets of the companies actually building it, the story is written in soot and high-voltage electricity. While the financial press spends its time obsessing over the price of lithium or the latest solid-state battery breakthrough, a much more grounded, and expensive, reality is setting in.
We are entering the era of the engineered anode.
New data suggests the market for ultra-high-purity (UHP) graphite is on a trajectory to hit $1.43 billion by 2030. On the surface, a 10.5% compound annual growth rate looks like a healthy, if predictable, industrial expansion. But for those of us who track the friction between a digital climate pledge and the physical hardware required to meet it, that number masks a massive structural shift in how we power the world… and who holds the keys…………………………………………………………………………………………
The Nuclear Renaissance’s Dirty Secret
There is a quieter, more desperate buyer entering the UHP market: the nuclear sector.
As we move toward Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and high-temperature gas-cooled reactors, the demand for “nuclear-grade” pyrolytic graphite is set to lead the market in growth. This material is produced via chemical vapor deposition (CVD)—an even more complex and expensive process than standard synthetic graphitization.
In a nuclear core, graphite is a structural necessity that must survive extreme radiation and heat without absorbing neutrons.
The report highlights that this “unrivaled ability” makes it indispensable. But here is the friction point: the standards for nuclear-grade purity are even higher than battery-grade.
We are effectively seeing two massive, well-funded industries—Transportation and Power Generation—fighting over the same narrow pipe of high-purity carbon…
It is a zero-sum game played with atoms………………………………………………………………………………….. https://oilprice.com/Metals/Commodities/Electric-Vehicles-and-Nuclear-Power-Are-Fighting-Over-One-Obscure-Mineral.html
Energy bills to rise on New Year’s Day ‘to fund nuclear in England’
31st December 2025, By Xander Elliards, Content editor
ENERGY bills are set for a slight rise on New Year’s Day as the price cap
increase comes into effect. The 0.2% uplift to Ofgem’s energy price cap
will see an average overall bill of £1758 a year for the average household in England, Wales and Scotland remaining on a standard variable tariff, up
from the current £1755.
While only a small increase, it is £190 higher
than the £1568 average bill in place in July 2024 – when Labour came to
power pledging to cut costs by £300 a year. Regulator Ofgem said
Thursday’s increase in the cap, which was announced in November, was
being driven by the funding of nuclear power projects and discounts to some
households’ winter bills. This included funding the Government’s
Sizewell C nuclear power plant in Suffolk – with an average of £1 added
to each household’s energy bills per month for the duration of the £38
billion construction.
The National 31st Dec 2025,
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25732168.energy-bills-rise-new-years-day-to-fund-nuclear-england/
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