Media Find Ways to Minimize Israel’s Murder of Paramedics
Belén Fernández, April 11, 2025, https://fair.org/home/media-find-ways-to-minimize-israels-murder-of-paramedics/
Israeli soldiers on March 23 massacred 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers near the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where Israel’s ongoing US-backed genocide has officially killed more than 50,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The slaughter took place before dawn, as a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck from the Palestinian Civil Defense service endeavored to respond to a lethal Israeli attack on another ambulance, which had itself been attempting to rescue victims of an Israeli airstrike.
Eight Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, six Civil Defense workers and one UN staff member were murdered by Israeli gunfire. Their mutilated bodies were bulldozed into a mass grave, their vehicles crushed and buried as well.
The initial Israeli narrative was that nine of the emergency responders were militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and that the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously…without headlights or emergency signals.”
As it turns out, however, all headlights and emergency signals were very much on—not that it’s fine to massacre people for driving with no lights, of course. When, after a week of negotiations with Israeli occupying forces, another convoy was finally permitted to access the mass grave and unearth the bodies, the mobile phone of massacre victim Rifat Radwan was found to contain footage of the lead-up to the assault, which shows the clearly marked rescue vehicles advancing with emergency lights on. A barrage of Israeli gunfire then persists for more than five minutes, as Radwan’s screen goes black and he bids farewell to his mother.
Following the release of the video footage, Israel conceded that perhaps its version of events had been partially “mistaken”—but only the claim about the headlights being off. The number of alleged “terrorists” on board was furthermore downgraded from nine to six, the other fatalities naturally being labeled human shields and therefore fundamentally the fault of Hamas.
Anyway, no one committing a genocide really cares about the precise identities of 15 people; mass indiscriminate killing is, after all, the whole point of the undertaking. Since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas on March 18, the United Nations calculates that more than 100 children per day have been killed or injured in Gaza.
Ludicrous headlines
Notwithstanding reality, the Western corporate media somehow could not bring itself to report this particular massacre of medics without beating around the bush. The New York Times (4/4/25), for example, ran the following ludicrous headline: “Video Shows Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Under Gunfire Barrage, With Ambulance Lights On.” There was no room, apparently, to mention the role of Israel in said gunfire barrage, although the syntax implies that the ambulance lights may have perpetrated the killing.
The article’s subheadline specifies that “the UN has said Israel killed the workers”—and yet the singular attribution of this opinion to the United Nations is entirely confounding, given that the very first paragraph of the article itself states that the video “shows that the ambulances and fire truck… were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire.”
For its part, NPR (4/5/25) went with its own similarly diplomatic headline: “Palestinian Medics Say a Video of Gaza Rescue Crews Under Fire Refutes Israeli Claims.” CNN (4/6/25) opted for: “Video Showing Final Moments of Gaza Emergency Workers Casts Doubt on Israeli Account of Killings.”
NBC News (4/7/25) reported that the Israeli military had “walked back its account of its killing of 15 paramedics and emergency workers in southern Gaza last month after video emerged that called into question its version of events”; the Washington Post (4/6/25) concurred that that Israel had “backtracked on its account…after phone video appeared to contradict its claims that their vehicles did not have emergency signals on.”
The Guardian (4/5/25), meanwhile, went as far as to assert that the cell phone footage, which “appears to contradict the version of events put forward” by the Israeli military, “appears to have been filmed from inside a moving vehicle” and features “a red fire engine and clearly marked ambulances driving at night, using headlights and flashing emergency lights.” Imagine if all news reports were written in such roundabout fashion, e.g., “State officials say that what appears to be a bridge collapsed on Thursday into what appears to be a river.”
April 11, 2025
Media Find Ways to Minimize Israel’s Murder of Paramedics
NBC (4/7/25) presented evidence that killed 15 aid workers and buried their bodies along with their vehicles as an IDF “mistake.”
Israeli soldiers on March 23 massacred 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers near the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where Israel’s ongoing US-backed genocide has officially killed more than 50,000 Palestinians since October 2023. The slaughter took place before dawn, as a convoy of ambulances and a fire truck from the Palestinian Civil Defense service endeavored to respond to a lethal Israeli attack on another ambulance, which had itself been attempting to rescue victims of an Israeli airstrike.
Eight Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, six Civil Defense workers and one UN staff member were murdered by Israeli gunfire. Their mutilated bodies were bulldozed into a mass grave, their vehicles crushed and buried as well.
The initial Israeli narrative was that nine of the emergency responders were militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and that the vehicles were “advancing suspiciously…without headlights or emergency signals.”
As it turns out, however, all headlights and emergency signals were very much on—not that it’s fine to massacre people for driving with no lights, of course. When, after a week of negotiations with Israeli occupying forces, another convoy was finally permitted to access the mass grave and unearth the bodies, the mobile phone of massacre victim Rifat Radwan was found to contain footage of the lead-up to the assault, which shows the clearly marked rescue vehicles advancing with emergency lights on. A barrage of Israeli gunfire then persists for more than five minutes, as Radwan’s screen goes black and he bids farewell to his mother.
Following the release of the video footage, Israel conceded that perhaps its version of events had been partially “mistaken”—but only the claim about the headlights being off. The number of alleged “terrorists” on board was furthermore downgraded from nine to six, the other fatalities naturally being labeled human shields and therefore fundamentally the fault of Hamas.
Anyway, no one committing a genocide really cares about the precise identities of 15 people; mass indiscriminate killing is, after all, the whole point of the undertaking. Since Israel broke the ceasefire with Hamas on March 18, the United Nations calculates that more than 100 children per day have been killed or injured in Gaza.
Ludicrous headlines
The New York Times‘ lead (4/4/25) says the aid workers were killed “when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire”—but the headline omits Israel altogether, and the subhead treats Israel’s responsibility as a UN accusation.
Notwithstanding reality, the Western corporate media somehow could not bring itself to report this particular massacre of medics without beating around the bush. The New York Times (4/4/25), for example, ran the following ludicrous headline: “Video Shows Aid Workers Killed in Gaza Under Gunfire Barrage, With Ambulance Lights On.” There was no room, apparently, to mention the role of Israel in said gunfire barrage, although the syntax implies that the ambulance lights may have perpetrated the killing.
The article’s subheadline specifies that “the UN has said Israel killed the workers”—and yet the singular attribution of this opinion to the United Nations is entirely confounding, given that the very first paragraph of the article itself states that the video “shows that the ambulances and fire truck… were clearly marked and had their emergency signal lights on when Israeli troops hit them with a barrage of gunfire.”
For its part, NPR (4/5/25) went with its own similarly diplomatic headline: “Palestinian Medics Say a Video of Gaza Rescue Crews Under Fire Refutes Israeli Claims.” CNN (4/6/25) opted for: “Video Showing Final Moments of Gaza Emergency Workers Casts Doubt on Israeli Account of Killings.”
NBC News (4/7/25) reported that the Israeli military had “walked back its account of its killing of 15 paramedics and emergency workers in southern Gaza last month after video emerged that called into question its version of events”; the Washington Post (4/6/25) concurred that that Israel had “backtracked on its account…after phone video appeared to contradict its claims that their vehicles did not have emergency signals on.”
The Guardian (4/5/25), meanwhile, went as far as to assert that the cell phone footage, which “appears to contradict the version of events put forward” by the Israeli military, “appears to have been filmed from inside a moving vehicle” and features “a red fire engine and clearly marked ambulances driving at night, using headlights and flashing emergency lights.” Imagine if all news reports were written in such roundabout fashion, e.g., “State officials say that what appears to be a bridge collapsed on Thursday into what appears to be a river.”
The New York Times on April 7 produced its own follow-up headline, “Video Shows Search for Missing Gaza Paramedics Before Israelis Shoot Rescuers”—thanks to which readers were presumably too busy trying to parse the grammar to think about anything else.
‘Not seen as fully human’
In the case of Israel, corporate media have institutionalized the practice of dancing around the straightforward statement of fact, which is why we never see headlines like “Israel Massacres 15 Palestinian Medics in Rafah,” or, obviously, any acknowledgement that Israel is currently perpetrating a genocide in Gaza (FAIR.org, 12/12/24). Thanks in large part to Israel’s oh-so-special relationship with the US, which happily bankrolls its crimes against humanity, the media have long grotesquely skewed reporting in Israel’s favor in order to validate the whole arrangement.
As Palestinian political analyst and playwright Ahmed Najar writes in a recent op-ed for Al Jazeera (4/6/25), the slaughter of the 15 medics and rescuers in Gaza matters because “their story is not just about one atrocity.” It’s about an entire system
in which Palestinians are presumed guilty. A system in which hospitals must prove they are hospitals, schools must prove they are schools and children must prove they are not human shields.
A system in which, “when Palestinians die, their families have to prove they weren’t terrorists first.” Najar concludes: “When Palestinians are not seen as fully human, then their killers are not seen as fully responsible.”
Western media insistence on giving ample space to Israel’s patently absurd arguments naturally doesn’t help matters—as when the Associated Press (4/6/25) allows an anonymous Israeli military official to contend that there was “no mistreatment” in the killing of the 15 medics. How could there ever be “mistreatment” in a genocide?
In its dispatch on how Israel “walked back” its account of the killing, NBC (4/7/25) quoted the Israeli military as saying that soldiers weren’t trying to “hide anything” by burying the 15 corpses, which is kind of like allowing someone caught holding up a bank with an AK-47 the opportunity to state that they weren’t trying to “steal anything.” From a journalistic standpoint, it makes no sense to grant credibility to a clearly disingenuous narrative. From a propaganda perspective, unfortunately, it does.
‘Good reason to be anxious’
In the end, the slaughter of these 15 men should come as no surprise; as of January, Israel had already killed more than 1,000 health workers in Gaza in a little over a year, while engaging in repeated attacks on hospitals and an obscene decimation of medical infrastructure. On April 1, the UN reported that 408 aid workers had also been killed since October 2023, including 280 UN staff.
Killing medical personnel and emergency responders has long been Israel’s modus operandi. Recall Razan al-Najjar, the 21-year-old Palestinian nurse fatally shot by an Israeli sniper in Gaza in 2018, when Israel claimed that unarmed Palestinian protesters were conducting “kite and balloon terrorism.”
Or recall Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which kicked off in Gaza in December 2008 and killed 1,400 Palestinians over a span of 22 days, among them 300 children. The brief assault left 16 medics dead and damaged more than half of Gaza’s hospitals. The Guardian (3/24/09) quoted the Israeli army as reasoning that “medics who operate in the area take the risk upon themselves”—to hell with the Geneva Conventions.
To be sure, war crimes are all in a day’s work for Israel—and covering them up is, it seems, all in a day’s work for the corporate media. In a dispatch about how Israel “acknowledged flaws” in its “mistaken” account of its killing of the rescue workers, the New York Times‘ Isabel Kershner (4/6/25) cited Israeli military affairs analyst Amos Harel on how the Israeli soldiers who did the killing “had ‘good reason to be anxious,’ and that it would be wrong to assume immediately that the case was one of ‘murder in cold blood.’”
Naturally, it would be inhumane to assume that any aspect of genocide might transpire in cold blood. And as Israel continues its quest to normalize total depravity, Western journalism is becoming ever more cold-blooded, too.
Canada supplied uranium for atomic bombs in WWII — 80 years later, the cleanup continues
Gordon Edwards, 6 Apr 25
Atomic Reaction is a documentary feature film dealing with the radioactive history and contamination of the town of Port Hope Ontario, located on the North shore of Lake Ontario just east of Toronto.
Here is a YouTube of the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jC1DPOYoQ0
Canada played a key role in chemically refining uranium from Canada and the Congo for use in the first two atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Canada then became the largest supplier and exporter of uranium in the world, in the post-war period, most of it sold for tens of thousands of nuclear warheads during the Cold War, until the sale of Canadian uranium for nuclear weapons was ended by Prime Miniister Pearson in 1965.
In the process, the town of Port Hope (where all this refining took place until 1980) became thoroughly contaminated with radioactive wastes that were carelessly discarded and dispersed all about town – dumped into the harbour and into open ravines about town, used in roadways and mingled with the sandy beach, and used in huge quantities as construction material and as fill for up to a thousand buildings – homes, schools, offices, throughout town – requiring a massive radioactive cleanup costing over two billion dollars, resulting in two surface mounds of about a million tons each which will remain highly radiotoxic for many thousands of years to come. The cleanup is stlll ongoing today.
A similarly sized mound of radioactive waste is currently planned for the cleanup of the Chalk River Laboratories, created near the end of World War 2 as a secret site for producing plutonium for the US bomb program among other things. Canada sold plutonium to the US military for weapons purposes.
For 20 years after the end of World War 2. The Chalk River megadump has been approved by Canada’s Nuclear regulator, but two of three court challenges have been successful in delaying the implementation pending legally required consultations with the Algonquin peoples on whose traditional land the megadump would be located, and pending the careful evaluation of alternative sites or waste management options that will not destroy the habitat of several endangered species.
The US hypocrisy about Israel’s nuclear weapons must stop
What stands out from the television series is the grip Israel has had over US policy regarding Israel’s nuclear weapons.
a secret federal bulletin that threatens disciplinary actions for any US official who publicly acknowledges Israel’s nuclear weapons.
The existence of these weapons may have started as a deterrent against another Holocaust but has now morphed into an instrument of an aggressive and expansionist Israel.
By Victor Gilinsky, Leonard Weiss | March 21, 2025, https://thebulletin.org/2025/03/the-us-hypocrisy-about-israels-nuclear-weapons-must-stop/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Israel%20s%20nuclear%20weapons&utm_campaign=20250324%20Monday%20Newsletter
An extraordinary three-part series on Israeli television, The Atom and Me, lays out how the country got its nuclear weapons. It takes for granted what anyone who pays attention has known for years. But the series goes well beyond a general discussion about Israel’s nuclear weapons. It shows the country’s single-minded determination to get the bomb no matter what it took, including stealing nuclear explosives and bomb components from the United States and violating a major nuclear arms control treaty to which Israel is a party—and lying about it.
As the Trump administration is in serious discussion about joining Israel in attacks on Iran to stop it from getting nuclear weapons, it is useful to shed illusions about Israel’s modus operandi.
US officials stay mute. A thread running through the three episodes is a continuing conversation, before he died in 2018, with Benjamin Blumberg, the head of Lakam, the Israeli scientific intelligence agency responsible for the nuclear missions that led to the Israeli bomb, some so secret they were kept from the Mossad. (Mossad is the Israeli agency that handles foreign intelligence collection and covert action.) Blumberg was in failing health and agreed to talk so long as the interview was not aired until after his death.
That conversation is mixed with archival material and recent interviews. The significance of the series lies not in showing what was not previously known—although there are details in that category—but in the admissions on Israeli public television, with the approval of the Israeli censors, about events that have been denied by Israel’s supporters in the United States, including the US government.
Several events discussed in the television series deal directly with the United States: the theft in the 1960s of bomb quantities of uranium 235 from the NUMEC facility in Pennsylvania, where the leaders of the Israeli team that spirited Eichmann out of Argentina appeared inexplicably in 1968 with false identities; the illicit purchase of hundreds of high-speed switches (krytrons) for triggering nuclear weapons, and spiriting them out of the country in the 1980s by Israeli spy and arms dealer, and by then Hollywood producer, Arnon Milchan; and, most significantly at this point, Israel’s 1979 nuclear test in the seas off South Africa of what appears to be the initial fission stage for a thermonuclear weapon. The nuclear test violated the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty to which Israel is a party.
What stands out from the television series is the grip Israel has had over US policy regarding Israel’s nuclear weapons.
Not since John Kennedy has any US president tried to rein in Israel’s nuclear program. His successor, Lyndon Johnson, did not challenge the Israelis on nuclear issues (and covered up Israel’s attempt during the 1967 six-day war to sink the US spy ship Liberty). Such has been Israel’s political clout in the United States.
No one was ever charged in the disappearance of nuclear material from NUMEC. When the issue of Israel’s involvement arose again in 1976, President Gerald Ford’s attorney general suggested to the president the possibility of charging US officials, presumably in the Atomic Energy Commission, with failing to report a felony. But it was too late. Ford lost the election to Jimmy Carter, who let the matter drop. Milchan was never charged for the filching of krytrons even though he later bragged about his arms dealing and spying for Israel. And Carter—and every US president after him—took no enforcement action in response to the illegal 1979 nuclear test.
The United States’ indulgence of Israeli nuclear weapons has not escaped international attention, and the evident hypocrisy has undermined US nonproliferation policy. The US government’s public position continues to be that it does not know anything about Israeli nuclear weapons, and this will apparently continue until Israel releases the United States’ gag. This policy is allegedly enforced by a secret federal bulletin that threatens disciplinary actions for any US official who publicly acknowledges Israel’s nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, Israel brags about its nukes. Ironically, the Israelis feel free to allude to their nuclear weapons whenever they find it useful. The best example is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2016 speech on receipt of the Rahav, the latest submarine supplied by Germany. The Times of Israel, using the standard “according to foreign reports,” described the submarine as “capable of delivering a nuclear payload.” In his speech, Netanyahu said, “Above all else, our submarine fleet acts as a deterrent to our enemies … They need to know that Israel can attack, with great might, anyone who tries to harm it.” How else, other than with nuclear weapons, can a submarine be a deterrent? The submarines’ long-range cruise missiles could not only hit Iran’s capital, Tehran, Israel’s main security concern, they could also hit any European capital.
Those submarine-based cruise missiles—if they exist—might be tipped with thermonuclear warheads, which are also carried on planes and ground-based rockets. Light-weight thermonuclear weapons allow flexibility in delivery, but the two-stage designs are highly sophisticated. The Israelis logically decided that they had to conduct at least one low-yield fission test—even though they had promised not to do this—to be sure their first stage produced the radiation that would initiate the thermonuclear fuel in the second stage.
In the last episode of the Israeli television series, journalist Meir Doron, who has written on Israel’s security secrets, says: “After the nuclear test, for the first time, the heads of the Israeli nuclear program, Blumberg, Shimon Peres, and all the people from the reactor, could sleep soundly at night. They knew that what they’re building works.”
While Israel did not sign the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it signed and ratified the 1963 Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which obligates parties not to explode a nuclear device in the atmosphere or oceans. Such a test also triggers a nonproliferation provision of US law, the 1977 Glenn Amendment (Sec.102 (B) to the Arms Export Control Act), that imposes severe sanctions on any country (other than the five approved in the NPT) that explodes a nuclear device after 1977. Upon learning of such an explosion, the president is supposed to impose the wide-ranging sanctions “forthwith.” That, of course, did not happen.
The nuclear explosion’s characteristic two-hump signal was detected by a US satellite on September 22, 1979, and US intelligence agencies were convinced Israel was the culprit. President Carter did not want to risk his ongoing Middle East policy efforts by blaming Israel. The White House asked a group of scientists whether the detected light flash could somehow have been unconnected with a nuclear explosion. The scientists came up with some ideas that gave the president a public out. At the same time, the White House kept classified Navy reports on ocean sound waves from the explosion that supported the satellite data. And Carter wrote in his diary: “We have a growing belief among our scientists that the Israelis did indeed conduct a nuclear test explosion in the ocean near the southern end of Africa.” All this was essentially a cover-up.
The Glenn Amendment allows the president to delay sanctions on national security grounds or waive them entirely with the help of congressional action. The law does not allow the president to ignore it. But that is exactly what all of them have done.
The price of silence. The US government’s silence on Israel’s nuclear weapons has meant silence about them in discussions on Iran’s nuclear program. Public debate is an essential part of US policy development and, in the case of Iran, is hobbled by an inability to have an honest appraisal of the nature and purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons.
The existence of these weapons may have started as a deterrent against another Holocaust but has now morphed into an instrument of an aggressive and expansionist Israel.
The inability to have honest public discussion allows for the pretense by Israel and its supporters that it faces an existential threat from Iran, which is ready to drop a nuclear bomb on Tel Aviv as soon as it gets one. Various aspects of the Iran issue are hidden by an inability to weigh all the elements of policy needed to arrive at an intelligent US policy.
The US government’s silence has also taught the press to avoid the issue. The last time a White House correspondent asked about Israeli nuclear weapons, even then indirectly, was when Helen Thomas asked President Obama in 2009 whether he knew of any nuclear weapons in the Middle East. She got a chilly non-response—Obama said he was not going to speculate.
An exception to the general lack of press interest in the issue is a 2018 New Yorker report by Adam Entous, revealing how US presidents have signed secret letters to the Israelis promising to do nothing to interfere with Israel’s nuclear weapons or acknowledge their existence.
Israel claims this US obligation flows from a “deal” made by Nixon and Golda Meir in their 1969 meeting during the 15 minutes when they were alone. William Quandt, Kissinger’s aide at the time, says in the third episode, “There is no documentary record on the American side to this day. No one else was in the room.” Nor has any Israeli record appeared. Without any record, there can be no enduring obligation.
So why did US presidents go along with the Israeli version of the US obligation, including denying any knowledge about Israeli nuclear weapons, long after it ceased to be in the United States’s interest to do so? Entous reported that when Trump first entered office in 2017 his staff was confronted by Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer (a former American who switched allegiance to Israel). He is said to have acted “like he owned the place,” but it worked. He got his way.
The single-mindedness of the Israeli establishment—that what it thinks is best for Israel overrides all other considerations—is caught at the end of the third television episode. The conversation with Benjamin Blumberg turns to Israel’s more-than-amicable relations with apartheid-era South Africa, from which it got uranium to fuel the Dimona reactor and later permission to conduct the 1979 nuclear test, and to which Israel provided tritium to upgrade South Africa’s nuclear weapons. He is asked, was not South Africa an oppressive racist regime? “All true,” said Blumberg, “but what do I care. I wanted what was best for Israel.” It’s time to realize that what is “best for Israel” is not necessarily good for the United States.
Editor’s note: Victor Gilinsky was a commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission at the time of the events in question. Leonard Weiss was a long-term aide to Senator Glenn and the author of the first version of the Glenn Amendment. They both appear in the mentioned Israeli TV series.
Book- Before Our Very Eyes, Fake Wars and Big Lies: From 9/11 to Donald Trump
Before Our Very Eyes, Fake Wars and Big Lies: From 9/11 to Donald Trump. March 2025
World-famous political analyst and editor Thierry Meyssan draws on his last 10 years in the thick of the action in Syria and Libya, where he served personally as an adviser to those governments. In “Before Our Very Eyes,” he shares the inside story of the 21st century regime change wars.
He lays bare the “Arab Spring,” the “revolutions” against Gaddafi and Assad, and the rapid rise of the jihadist monster ISIS, as masked operations of the US empire, “leading from behind.”
In “Before Our Very Eyes” he chronicles the onslaught against Syria and Libya, from the viewpoints of three camps: the foolish ambitions of the French neocolonialists, the fanaticism of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the lust for world domination of the Anglo-Zionist-American Empire.
We see how the Anglo-American axis (the US, UK, and Israel discreetly behind the scenes) deployed their iron grip on the world’s money and media to propagate a fake scenario of human rights violations. This was the cover story for the real scheme — to utterly disable the Muslim world by bringing it under the sword of fanatics like the Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda and ISIS. Vassal regimes like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and the Emirates were assigned to do the heavy lifting.
For public relations purposes, the US pretended to fight half-heartedly against ISIS – which in fact it had intentionally created in Iraq, to divide and conquer the insurgency. The US then covertly ferried the terrorists into Libya and Syria. It continues to prop up ISIS by devious means. Thus the wars on Libya and Syria were based on treachery and fakery from start to finish – but the suffering of millions of innocent victims is all too real. A most murderous masquerade!
Memoirs of Mohamed ElBaradei: “The Age of Deception”
MEHR 17th March 2025 TEHRAN, Mar. 15 (MNA) – Firouzeh Doroshti has translated the memoirs of Mohamed ElBaradei, who served as the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in the book titled ‘The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times.
The book “The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times” which includes the memoirs of Mohamed ElBaradei from his three terms as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has been translated by Firouzeh Doroshti and is now available in bookstores across the country.
This book takes a scrutinizing approach to nuclear diplomacy in a tumultuous phase of modern history.
The book “The Age of Deception” is viewed as a crucial resource for gaining insight into the complicated nature of nuclear diplomacy. ……
Mohammad ElBaradei, an Egyptian-born Lawyer, was the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1997 to 2009.
A Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and the longest-serving Director General, who got the honour of becoming Director General Emeritus of the agency towards the end of his service.
The book is a compelling account of chronological events and challenges faced by the IAEA during his tenure.
The book covers three decades of his work on cases including Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Iran, and Pakistan, and exposes double standards adopted by the U.S. and other Western nations.
It sheds light on the behind-the-scenes workings of international organizations and the challenges of maintaining neutrality in a politically charged environment.
The book shows how ElBaradei felt that different standards were being applied to different countries’ nuclear programs.
Arguments in his book revolve around the three underlying principles of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
These essential facets of the treaty include the pledge by the (non–nuclear) members not to try and obtain or develop nuclear weapons, a sincere effort on the part of all members to lead the world towards complete disarmament, and thirdly to facilitate the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes in all member countries with particular consideration for the needs of developing countries.
Reported by Tohid Mahmoudpour https://en.mehrnews.com/news/229527/Memoirs-of-Mohamed-ElBaradei-The-Age-of-Deception
British journalists are celebrating the lack of opposition to war in parliament.
US Rep. Eric Swalwell let the cat out of the bag when he admitted on CNN that Ukraine was the “greatest return on investment for any military expenditure ever” because it bled the Russian economy and military and didn’t cost a single American life.
We are told this is healthy, but it’s anything but…
Ricky Hale and Council Estate Media, Mar 06, 2025, [Excellent tweet excerpts , references and graphics] https://www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/british-journalists-are-celebrating?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1336368&post_id=158430860&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
We are seeing consent for World War III being manufactured before our eyes, and even if you think war is unavoidable, even if you’re convinced that Russia is so dangerous, war is the only way to stop it from conquering Europe, you should listen to anti-war voices.
Now more than ever, you should listen to the other side of the argument because if we’re right, it could help avert nuclear catastrophe, and if we’re wrong, well, war happens anyway. The approach of the warmongers guarantees war whereas the approach of the peacemakers is the only way to avoid war. Shouldn’t we at least give peace a try?
We have violated peace agreement after peace agreement with Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union, and make no mistake, those violations were not moments of recklessness, they were deliberate provocations. We were seeing what we could get away with.
I’ve seen viral memes bragging about how we expanded NATO to Russia’s doorstep and broke red line after red line and Putin didn’t retaliate so we should bring Ukraine into NATO. This overlooks that NATO expansion was one of the key factors that led to war.
After 30-odd years of inaction from Russia, our encroachment eventually provoked a massive retaliation. So here’s a thought, could we just make a peace deal and honour it and see what happens? Could we try that? What’s the worst that could happen? The deal fails and we end up fighting Russia? We’re fighting Russia anyway!
While Sir Keir Starmer is doing his war is peace thing, mainstream media propagandists are falling over themselves to cheer him on. One of the worst culprits yesterday was Lewis Goodall who couldn’t hide his delight that anti-war voices are being ignored.
For those who don’t know, Goodall is one of the hosts of the News Agents, which I’m told is the number one podcast in the UK. Prior to that, Goodall was political correspondent at Sky News and policy editor of BBC Newsnight. Goodall came out with one of the worst political takes I’ve seen in quite some time, a take that received a huge online backlash.
Goodall was celebrating that there is almost no divergence of thought in our politics on a matter as serious as war. He was celebrating the groupthink and lack of dissenting voices as healthy. He seemed to think only other countries have tyrants while our tyrant has actively participated in the Gaza genocide and stamped out dissent at home.
Goodall’s simplistic takes on Russia and Ukraine explain why he was so successful in the mainstream media: he blindly parrots establishment narratives with no attempt at nuance. If someone like him ever attempted nuance, they would never make it into those positions. Only loyal servants of the empire rise to prominence in the mainstream media, and those who dissent are rarely given the platform to speak.
One of the absurd aspects of Goodall’s post is that clearly not everyone wants to see peace. Sir Keir Starmer could have simply issued a statement pushing for a peace deal, yet he chose to invoke the Iraq war, talk of boots on the ground, and planes in the air, and use the most provocative language possible. Starmer and European leaders were openly hostile to peace negotiations from the start and we’re now pretending they want peace?
Starmer’s supporters say a peace deal would mean the “capitulation” of Ukraine and then they demand the capitulation of Russia! They argue that it’s perfectly reasonable to put boots on the ground in Ukraine, but NATO encroaching on Moscow’s doorstep was precisely why the war started!
A neoliberal’s idea of peace is demanding that Russia surrenders to NATO. They are not remotely interested in compromise because if they wanted a settlement, they would have honoured the Minsk Agreements.
There is no way Starmer’s advisors would not have told him boots on the ground would mean war with Russia. This was not a clumsy use of words, it was a deliberate provocation. The only question is does he intend to go through with it? War with Russia isn’t realistic at present because we don’t have the numbers or the equipment to put up any serious fight.
It is for this reason I don’t expect World War III to happen in the immediate future. As I said in my last article, I think Europe’s neoliberals might wait until the end of Trump’s term and hope for an anti-Russia president. Hopefully, things will have fizzled out by then, but for now, the ruling class does not want us talking World War III down. They want us ready to be their foot soldiers in case they decide to do something crazy.
Have you noticed how we’re not seeing a word of caution from mainstream journalists, not even a “maybe World War III is not such a good idea” or “perhaps our approach is not the best way to avoid it”? There is no caution, simply the narrative that Starmer is looking statesman-like and anyone outside the groupthink is basically a traitor. How is this healthy?
Not only did we see Starmer invoking the illegal invasion of Iraq that killed over a million people, we saw a Tory MP invoking World War 1.
We are not supposed to hear the counter-arguments to Starmer’s position because those arguments would make the public think twice. People have to be convinced there is no alternative to war with Russia before they will go along with it. They have to be convinced that Russia is a supreme evil and Ukraine is noble and pure. This explains the following response from Lewis Goodall: [on original]
This dumbing down of the conversation is very deliberate. Lewis Goodall is far too intelligent to think this is all there is to it, but he talks this way anyway. Putin is ready to negotiate a settlement and it is European leaders who are unwilling. Zelensky knows that if he agrees to peace, the neo-Nazis will probably hang him from a tree.
US Rep. Eric Swalwell let the cat out of the bag when he admitted on CNN that Ukraine was the “greatest return on investment for any military expenditure ever” because it bled the Russian economy and military and didn’t cost a single American life. Who cares that hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have died? If this was simply a fight for Ukrainian liberation, Swalwell would not have used this framing. Make no mistake, this was always about leading Russia into a trap and Ukrainians were simply our pawns.
John Pilger wrote for the Guardian in 2014 about how our backing of neo-Nazis in Ukraine was leading to war with Russia. Many western officials echoed the sentiments. If anyone echoes those sentiments today, they will be dismissed as a Putin puppet, sacked from their jobs and driven out of public life.
We are not allowed to talk about how concerned the media used to be that we were arming and training the Ukrainian far right. We are not allowed to talk about how they pressured Zelensky into taking a more hostile stance towards Russia. We are not allowed to talk about the things the media used to talk about like the neo-Nazi problem in the Ukrainian military, or the fact Ukraine is Europe’s most corrupt country, or how Kyiv bombed eastern Ukraine for eight years and received widespread criticism for all of these things. We are now told Ukraine is a beacon of “liberal democracy” and ironically it is.
None of this is to say that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was deserved: provoked and deserved are two very different things. The Ukrainian people don’t deserve to be caught in the middle of a conflict between two superpowers that we have deliberately kept going.
We are not allowed any dissenting opinions on war, any acknowledgement of where we might have gone wrong, or any criticism of Ukraine or Zelensky. If you think that NATO and Ukraine and Zelensky have been perfect all the way, you are not a thinking adult. Real life doesn’t work like that and aside from anything else, NATO’s track record of intervention is abysmal. There is no reason to think another intervention would be any better.
If you can’t accept that NATO has been imperfect (to say the least), you must ask why debate is shut down and why those who attempt debate are labelled as Putin puppets and worse. What does the establishment have to fear from debate if it has the correct arguments?
I’m old enough enough to remember when politicians pretended to respect the importance of debate, when it was acknowledged that it was essential to the healthy functioning of society, but propagandists like Goodall are now telling us that lack of debate is actually healthy!
History tells us that whenever there is a lack of debate in our politics, whenever the parties agree on something, it rarely ends well for the working class and often a lot of people end up dying. Everyone should understand that the people who committed a genocide are demanding your blind obedience on their other war. Does this sound like a good idea to you?
Film Review- Special Operation: The Invasion of Chornobyl
Sebastian Zaval, February 17, 2025,
https://loudandclearreviews.com/special-operation-film-review/
Oleksiy Radynski’s Special Operation (Spetsialna Operatsiia) is a chilling experiment in documentary narrative that tries to speak for itself.
Based on 1000 hours of real-life CCTV footage, Oleksiy Radynski’s Special Operation (Spetsialna Operatsiia) manages to show us things “as they were” when Russian troops occupied Ukraine’s Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant on February 24, 2022.
Just like most documentaries, Special Operation includes a narrative and a point of view, but Radynski’s movie also does make a point of trying to remain as neutral as possible, allowing the viewer to be a spectator of all the things these soldiers and their superiors did during their five weeks stuck at the plant. The result is a fascinating experiment in documentary narrative that’s hard to watch at moments.
Now, the movie tries to be a sort of summary of all that happened when the Russian troops occupied the place, showing the viewer pretty much everything they did. We see as they arrive with tanks and weapons, trying to look as intimidating as possible. But most fascinatingly, we see them as people, not as particularly tough-looking goons. One of the aims of Special Operation is to show the viewer that these Russian invaders weren’t as efficient or intelligent as they were supposed to be, and looked rather lost most of the time.
It’s an interesting prospect, then, having the opportunity to watch the humanisation of an invading force. It’s not the sort of humanisation that turns these soldiers into three-dimensional figures with which one can empathise, but rather the kind that turns them into bumbling, clueless criminals. Special Operation shows the people who were supposed to be smart and powerful as vulnerable; as a force that arrived in a place without knowing what to do or how to do it. The fact that Radynski managed to get 1000 hours of footage of everything they did should tell us all about their efficiency; apparently, they weren’t even able to turn off or destroy most of the CCTV cameras at the plant.
Now, the fact that Special Operation is told exclusively through CCTV footage is quite fascinating. The viewer gets a birds-eye view of everything: the entrance to the plant, the exteriors, even the hallways and rooms. We see the Russian soldiers from afar, but at times, also closely, which means we see their faces and for a bit, even their bodies. Watching Special Operation almost feels like an out-of-body experience, as if we were passively watching something prohibited and dark, without being able to do anything about it.
Additionally, since CCTV cameras usually don’t record sound, Radynski collaborated with top Lithuanian-based sound artist Vladimir Golovnitski, who designed the film’s soundscape. This results in a completely plausible experience, in which the viewer never really notices the sound design – which is, of course, the whole point of Golovnitski’s work. There are footsteps and unintelligible conversations and even explosions in the background, outside the frame. Thus, the movie manages to create quite an oppressive atmosphere without ever feeling manipulative, complementing the realistic visual style and editing with an equally realistic soundscape.
Barely an hour long, Special Operation is short enough to not end up testing the viewer’s patience, but long enough to feel like a precise and largely neutral account of what happened in Chornobyl in 2022. It obviously has an anti-Russian invasion point of view, but it doesn’t try to convey it in an obvious or artless way, instead letting the real-life footage speak for itself as the viewer sees everything the invaders did for five weeks. Special Operation is not a movie for everyone, and it does demand quite a bit of patience and critical analysis from the viewer, but those who give it a chance will find themselves glued to the screen, considering the actions of these war criminals at the site of the worst nuclear disaster in history.
‘Acres of Clams’- New documentary tells story of the Clamshell Alliance
“Acres of Clams” can be viewed, free of charge, on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPuE9oKh6-I&t=198s.
by Anne Alpert, InDepthNH.org
For two weeks in the spring of 1977, New Hampshire was at the center of national attention. No, it had nothing to do with the first-in-the-nation primary. The matter that grabbed headlines was the arrest of 1415 people who had peacefully taken over the construction site of a proposed nuclear power plant in Seabrook. After being taken away on buses and National Guard trucks and processed at the Portsmouth Armory, the protesters were delivered to four other armories, where, refusing to pay bail, they engaged in a battle of wills with the stubbornly pro-nuclear governor, Meldrim Thomson.
The group behind the protest was a ragtag New England-wide coalition that called itself the Clamshell Alliance, members of which called themselves “Clams.” How it was able to take on a governor and a powerful industry through nonviolent protest, music, and well-deployed humor is the story told in “Acres of Clams,” a new documentary written, produced and narrated by Eric Wolfe.
“You might find this story hard to believe. Hell, I was there, and I hardly believe it myself,” Wolfe says at the outset. He weaves his story from personal memories, archival photos and footage, and a series of oral history videos captured by Steve Thornton at Clamshell reunions held a few decades later. …………………………………………………..
The Clams were deadly serious about the importance of stopping the spread of technology which would threaten to spew radiation across a heavily populated region. But Clamshell was also a good-natured movement, which Wolfe points out stood in marked contrast to angry anti-war protests in which he had participated just a few years earlier.
…………………………………………………………… But this was not a group of terrorists. All of them had been trained in nonviolence and agreed to what were called, “the guidelines,” in essence a code of discipline for participants, including no use of illegal drugs, no weapons, no running, no dogs, and no damage to the property at the construction site. Everyone knew they would probably get arrested.
………………………………………………………………………….“Acres of Clams” is not a documentary about nuclear power, still a controversial way to generate electricity, and one which the Clams I know still passionately oppose. If you’re interested in up-to-date information on why nukes aren’t the answer to climate catastrophe any more than they were the answer to oil imports in the 1970s, check out Beyond Nuclear, a group co-founded by Paul Gunter, who never stopped fighting nukes. And check out ClamshellAlliance.com, a relatively new website created to keep the group’s legacy alive and foster ongoing activism. What Wolfe set out to do, and succeeded, was to tell the story of a movement that flourished for several years and made history.
……………………………………… I think Wolfe has done a great job showing that disciplined nonviolence, humor, cultural expression, smart political judgment, good timing, and a certain amount of luck could produce what might appear to be magic: a grassroots social movement that can take on and defeat a multi-billion-dollar industry backed by the state and federal governments. And that’s a story that’s not just about nuclear dangers.
“Acres of Clams” can be viewed, free of charge, on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPuE9oKh6-I&t=198s.
Arnie Alpert spent decades as a community organizer/educator in NH movements for social justice and peace. Officially retired since 2020, he keeps his hands (and feet) in the activist world while writing about past and present social movements.
Told you so: Financial Times follows NFLAs lead on Sizewell C cost estimate.
16 Jan 25 – https://www.nuclearpolicy.info/news/told-you-so-ft-follows-nflas-lead-on-sizewell-c-cost-estimate/
It is always nice when a media cornerstone of the finance world follows your lead in doing its sums – but that is what the Financial Times did yesterday in publishing an article indicating that the estimated cost of completing the new nuclear plant at Sizewell C will be £40 billion, something the NFLAs have been saying for ages.
One rule in nuclear is that the construction cost for new plants will always be far higher than the first estimate. And there has been no better example of this truism than that of Sizewell C’s sister plant, Hinkley Point C in Somerset, where an initial estimate of £18 billion for completion has now doubled to £34 billion (at 2015 prices).
It was hardly surprising that the FT reported that the final bill is more likely to be nearer £40 billion after speaking to ‘people close to negotiations over flagship energy scheme’; which are understood to be ‘one senior government figure and two well-placed industry sources.’ This figure is double that made in 2020 reflecting the recent surge in construction costs, and the inevitable delays and cost overruns will inevitably add to the eventual total.
The Sizewell C site presents its own costly challenges, namely a need for considerable expenditure on coastal defences as the East Coast will be increasingly subject to inundation and storm surges because of climate change and the need to provide in this water-stressed region for the provision of potable water with the likely installation of a dedicated desalination plant.
The British Government has already spent, or pledged, up to £8 billion in public funds to carry out preparatory groundwork around the site. Although private investors are being sought to finance the cost of construction, under the Regulated Asset Base being adopted by the British Government for the construction of any new nuclear plants, British electricity customers will ultimately have to bear the cost as the developer will be reimbursed these construction costs in stages through applying a nuclear levy to bills.
However, the Final Investment Decision to give the project the go-ahead has yet to be made. This is only expected in the late Spring after the completion of a Spending Review of overall government spending so there is still time for the Chancellor Rachel Reeves to stop it.
Local campaign group Stop Sizewell C is asking supporters to sign a petition to do so. The link to the petition is https://action.stopsizewellc.org/save-billions-cancel-sizewellc
Stop Sizewell C’s message to the Chancellor, via the Treasury, is: “As you carry out your multi-year spending review, I am reminded of your statement to Parliament during your mini-budget last year – “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it”. I appreciate that you face many difficult choices, but with the Financial Times reporting that Sizewell C will cost at least £40 billion, I urge you not to throw more taxpayers’ money at this expensive, risky project that will raise energy bills during its lengthy and unpredictable construction. For alternative strategies that will help meet the UK’s 2030 target and create many thousands of jobs, I urge you to focus on renewables and energy efficiency.”
The NFLAs endorse this petition as it mirrors our position.
At present, the British Government is the majority stakeholder, but long-term only wishes to retain 20% as Ministers intend to offload much of their stake to private investors. So far however, no one is definitively biting, with mixed messages about interest from Centrica, British Gas’s parent, and Gulf States’ sovereignty funds.
As a second whammy to government hopes that more private sector partners will become involved, yesterday, the French State Auditor, the Cour des Comptes, criticised the expenditure already made by French state owned EDF on Hinkley Point C in a published report which suggested this could compromise investment in domestic nuclear power expansion plans and that “EDF should not take a final investment decision on Sizewell C before achieving a significant reduction in its financial exposure to Hinkley Point C.”
Stop Sizewell C is asking supporters to write to prospective investors asking them not to do so. The relevant links to take this action are shown below:
Amber Infrastructure: action.stopsizewellc.org/amber
Equitix: action.stopsizewellc.org/equitix
Schroders Greencoat: action.stopsizewellc.org/greencoat
Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation: action.stopsizewellc.org/emirates
Centrica: action.stopsizewellc.org/centrica
The NFLAs has previously written to these prospective investors and endorse this action.
Finally Stop Sizewell C is petitioning the new Office of Value for Money’s independent Chair, David Goldstone, to call in the Sizewell C project for urgent scrutiny. Initial feedback from the Treasury indicated that Sizewell C would be examined, but more recent correspondence with officials has been less committal.
Supporters are asked to follow the NFLA’s example and sign the petition at https://action.stopsizewellc.org/valueformoney
Ends://..For further information, please contact NFLA Secretary Richard Outram by email to richard.outram@manchester.gov.uk
‘National scandal’: The BBC’s Gaza cover-up
Britain’s ‘public service broadcaster’ is keeping the public in the dark about UK support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, new research finds.
MARK CURTIS, DECLASSIFIED.UK, 15 January 2025
- Declassified researched the BBC’s online coverage of 16 aspects of UK policy towards Israel and the pro-Israel lobby.
- “It is high time for the corporation to be truly held to account and be reformed in the public interest”, leading media professor says.
The BBC is failing to report the various ways in which the UK government has supported Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, Declassified’s new analysis finds.
Our research into the BBC’s written outputs since October 2023 finds the corporation has mainly not reported at all the major ways the UK government has been working with Israel.
It found that the BBC has reported just four times in 15 months that the Royal Air Force (RAF) has been conducting surveillance flights over Gaza.
Only one BBC report on the subject has been written since December 2023, despite the fact that hundreds of such spy missions have been conducted, almost daily, in aid of Israeli intelligence.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) says these flights are solely to aid the rescue of hostages held by Hamas. Only one BBC online report mentions the UK may be providing targeting information to Israel or flying weapons to the country.
None of the articles otherwise raise concerns about the UK being willing to collaborate militarily with Israel at a time it is devastating Gaza.
Omitting the news
When Israel’s chief of staff, General Herzi Halevi, was allowed to attend a British military meeting in London last November, this also went unreported by the BBC in its written outputs.
Halevi’s visit was highly controversial, given he has led Israeli military operations throughout its destruction of Gaza. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant are wanted for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
Our research also finds that the BBC has never reported that the British military has been training Israeli armed forces personnel in the UK during the Gaza war. ……………………………………………………………………………………….
Arms exports
In sharp contrast to other UK government policies concerning Israel, the BBC has published many articles mentioning British arms exports to Israel.
In these reports, the BBC has occasionally cited concerns by human rights groups and MPs about the possible use by Israel of these arms, at the same time as citing pro-Israel figures.
However, article headlines have rarely been critical of these weapons sales.
………………………………………. many headlines are conciliatory towards Israel. These include:
‘Deputy PM: It’s still legal for the UK to sell arms to Israel’
‘UK defends partial Israel arms ban as Netanyahu calls it “shameful”’
‘UK ban on selling arms to Israel would benefit Hamas, says Cameron’
‘Boris Johnson: Shameful to call for UK to end arms sales to Israel’
There are no headlines about the possible use of UK arms by Israel in Gaza, or any directly reflecting the repeated calls by groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, to halt all UK arms exports and military assistance to Israel.
The prominent legal action against the government for arming Israel brought by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), the Global Legal Action Network and Al-Haq, has been ignored by the BBC. Declassified could find no BBC written coverage of this at all.
The most prominent group challenging British arms exports, the Campaign Against Arms Trade, has been mentioned six times on the BBC website in 15 months.
Declassified has uncovered three other disturbing aspects of Britain’s arming of Israel, none of which appears to have been covered by the BBC.
Voluntary censorship
Neither has the BBC covered the possible role of UK spy agency GCHQ or the army’s special forces, the SAS, in facilitating Israeli military operations.
These are live issues given that GCHQ operates an extensive intelligence operation on Cyprus, from where the RAF planes are flown over Gaza.
GCHQ is known to have aided past Israeli combat operations in Gaza. Yet Declassified could find no reports on the BBC website mentioning GCHQ in the context of Gaza.
Reporting on the SAS was subject by the government to a D-Notice – a voluntary gagging order not to publish ‘sensitive’ information concerning ‘national security’- in October 2023.
It followed reporting by the Mail that an SAS team was positioned on Cyprus, reportedly to help rescue British hostages held by Hamas.
Since then, it appears the entire UK national media, including the BBC, has complied with this. The BBC has no articles covering or speculating on an SAS role in Israel or Gaza.
Unreported collusion
There are other ways in which the British government is in effect colluding with Israel which have gone unreported by the BBC.
Perhaps incredibly, the BBC has not reported in its written outputs since October 2023 that the UK is engaged in negotiations with Israel to secure a free trade agreement.
Conservative and Labour ministers have since 2022 held five rounds of talks with the Israeli government, whose economy minister, Nir Barkat, is an outspoken supporter of its attacks on Palestinians.
Jonathan Reynolds, the current trade minister pursuing the prospective new deal, is a recipient of funding from Britain’s Israel lobby.
Neither has the BBC reported on the arrests by the UK authorities of pro-Palestinian journalists in Britain. ……………………..
Lobby, what lobby?
Neither has any effort been made by BBC journalists to highlight the influence in the UK parliament exercised by the Israel lobby, notably Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) and Labour Friends of Israel (LFI).
This is a major gap in reporting since these are among the largest lobbying forces in British politics, funding dozens of MPs to go on “fact-finding” visits to Israel………………………………………………………
‘National scandal’
Des Freedman, professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London, said: “The BBC is clearly utterly failing to inform the public about how the UK military and government is complicit in the horrors of Gaza. This is a national scandal, showing how far away the corporation is from being a public service broadcaster.”
He added: “The BBC’s failure to accurately report on Israel’s genocide in Gaza is as much to do with what it refuses to report as with what it does report. It is high time for the corporation to be truly held to account and be reformed in the public interest”…………………………………………… more https://www.declassifieduk.org/national-scandal-the-bbcs-gaza-cover-up/
CBS’ 60 Minutes Exposes the Biden Administration’s Complicity in Gaza Genocide, Interviews the Whistleblowers
Here is the segment on YouTube:
Biden policy on Israel-Gaza sparks warnings, dissent, resignations | 60 Minutes
Juan Cole, 01/13/2025 Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) https://www.juancole.com/2025/01/administrations-complicity-whistleblowers.html
– The amazingly brave Cecilia Vega at CBS’ 60 Minutes did a groundbreaking segment on Sunday in which she interviewed US government officials involved with the Israeli war on Gaza, who resigned in protest either explicitly or implicitly. She also screened the sort of horrific footage of the aftermath of Israeli attacks in Gaza, with the gory parts left in. Here is the transcript.
American television news has almost completely ignored Israeli (and US) war crimes in Gaza, which have been taking place daily, but are not apparently deemed “news” at CNN, MSNBC, Fox, CBS, ABC, etc.
Here let me just excerpt some statements by the former US government officials:
Hala Rharrit was an American diplomat working on human rights: “What is happening in Gaza would not be able to happen without U.S. arms. That’s without a doubt.”
“I would show the complicity that was indisputable. Fragments of U.S. bombs next to massacres of– of ch– mostly children. And that’s the devastation. It’s been overwhelmingly children.” (Emphasis added.)
“I would show images of children that were starved to death. In one incident, I was basically berated, “Don’t put that image in there. We don’t wanna see it. We don’t wanna see that the children are starving to death.”
Hala Rharrit: The level of anger throughout the Arab world, and I– I’ll say beyond the Arab world– is palpable. Protests began erupting in the Arab world, which I was also documenting, with people burning American flags. This is very significant because we worked so hard after the war on terror to strengthen ties with the Arab world.
[Cecilia Vega: You believe that this has put a target on America’s back, you’ve said.]
Hala Rharrit: 100%.
Hala Rharrit: Yes. I don’t say them lightly. And I say it as someone that myself has survived two terrorist attacks. My first assignment was in the U.S. Embassy in Yemen. I survived a mortar attack. I say it as someone who has worked intensely on these issues and has intensely monitored the region for two decades.
After three months of the Gaza War in 2023, she was told her reports were no longer needed.
Josh Paul spent 11 years as a director in the State Department’s Bureau of Political – Military Affairs.
Josh Paul: Most of the bombs come from America. Most of the technology comes from America. And all of the fighter jets, all of Israel’s fixed-wing fleet– comes from America.
Josh Paul: There is a linkage between every single bomb that is dropped in Gaza and the U.S. because every single bomb that is dropped is dropped from an American-made plane.
Josh Paul: After October 7th, there was no space for debate or discussion. I was part of email chains where there were very clear directions saying, “Here are the latest requests from Israel. These need to be approved by 3:00 p.m.”
Josh Paul: “This came from the president, from the secretary and from those around them.”
Josh Paul: I would argue exactly the opposite. I think the moment of October 7th was a moment of incredible worldwide solidarity with Israel. And had Israel leveraged that moment to press for a real, just and lasting peace, I think we would be in a very different place now in which Israel would not be facing this increasing isolation around the world and in which its hostages would be free.
Andrew Miller was the deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli-Palestinian affairs.
Andrew Miller: The Israelis were using those bombs in some instances to target one or two individuals in densely packed areas. And in enough instances, we saw that was in question, how Israel was using it. And those weapons were suspended.
Andrew Miller: There were conversations from the earliest days about U.S. desires and expectations for what Israel would do. But they weren’t defined as a red line.
Andrew Miller: I’m unaware of any red lines being imposed beyond the normal language about complying with international law, international humanitarian law, the law of armed conflict.
Andrew Miller: I believe the message that Prime Minister Netanyahu received is that he was the one in the driver’s seat, and he was controlling this, and U.S. support was going to be there, and he could take it for granted.
Andrew Miller: There is a danger– that if the U.S. was not providing support to Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran would see that as an opportunity to go after Israel. However, we could have said, we are taking this step because we believe this class of weapons– is being used inappropriately. But if you use this moment to accelerate your attacks against Israel, then we are going to immediately lift our prohibition.
Andrew Miller: Yes. I think it’s fair to say Israel does get the benefit of the doubt. There is a deference to Israeli accounts of what’s taken place.
Here is the segment on YouTube:
Biden policy on Israel-Gaza sparks warnings, dissent, resignations | 60 Minutes
Amazon Is Censoring My Most Recent Magazine Issue
Caitlin Johnstone Jan 14, 2025
Without explanation Amazon has blocked and unpublished my last issue of JOHNSTONE magazine which features my painting of Luigi Mangione on the cover. The link to order it is now dead. When I asked for an explanation or appeal they just sent a template response referring me back to their publishing rules.
So that’s annoying. The pay-what-you-want ebook of the issue is still available for anyone who wants it.
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In her bid to secure her confirmation as Trump’s next Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard is now pledging to support Section 702 of the FISA Act. This notorious law allows for the warrantless surveillance of Americans, and in congress Gabbard had previously fought to repeal it.
This is how the national security state works. You don’t change the machine, the machine changes you. Anyone who starts off opposing the imperial status quo of authoritarianism, warmongering and corruption either finds themselves excluded from the halls of power or adapts new positions in favor of the status quo.
The Australian political-media class has been rending its garments over a ridiculously fake incident of antisemitic graffiti at a synagogue in Sydney, which features both swastikas and the words “Free Palestine” right next to each other.
It’s weird how few people I see calling this what it so obviously is. Apparently we’re all supposed to take very seriously the idea that either (A) Nazis are spray painting the words “Free Palestine” next to their swastikas, or (B) that supporters of Palestinian rights are spray painting Nazi symbols next to their pro-Palestinian slogans. Apparently we’re all truly expected to pretend we don’t know some Israel supporter did this themselves to provide political cover for the genocide in Gaza.
It is always okay to express skepticism about dubious incidents of “antisemitism” in today’s political environment. Israel’s supporters are shitty, evil people who support genocide, and faking antisemitic incidents is a standard hasbara tactic with a well-documented history…………………………………… https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/amazon-is-censoring-my-most-recent?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=154758013&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
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BBC staffers reveal editor’s ‘entire job’ to whitewash Israeli war crimes
News editor Raffi Berg reportedly controls online coverage of genocide in Gaza to ensure Israeli crimes are ‘watered down’ or ignored
News Desk, DEC 28, 2024, https://thecradle.co/articles/bbc-staffers-reveal-editors-entire-job-to-whitewash-israeli-war-crimes
BBC editor Raffi Berg has almost complete control of the British broadcaster’s online coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and is ensuring that all events are reported with a pro-Israel bias, according to a new report published on 28 December by Drop Site News.
“This guy’s entire job is to water down everything that’s too critical of Israel,” one former BBC journalist said.
Drop Site News spoke to 13 current and former staffers who stated that the BBC’s coverage consistently devalues Palestinian life, ignores Israeli atrocities, and creates a false equivalence in an entirely unbalanced conflict.
Another BBC journalist said Berg plays a key role in a broader BBC culture of “systematic Israeli propaganda.”
“How much power he has is wild,” said another journalist.
There was an extreme fear at the BBC, that if you ever wanted to do anything about Israel or Palestine, editors would say: ‘If you want to pitch something, you have to go through Raffi and get his signoff,” another journalist explained.
In one case, Berg downplayed Amnesty International’s accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Berg chose a headline that stated, “Israel rejects ‘fabricated’ claims of genocide,” to describe the Amnesty report and failed to post the story for 12 hours after it was written to suppress its online reach.
The journalists interviewed by Drop Site also noted that the Amnesty report was not covered on the BBC’s flagship news programs—BBC One’s News At One, News At Six, or News At Ten or its flagship current affairs program, BBC Two’s Newsnight.
“Anyone who writes on Gaza or Israel is asked: ‘Has it gone to edpol [editorial policy], lawyers, and has it gone to Raffi?'” another journalist said.
Raffi Berg, who wrote a book praising clandestine Mossad operations, wields great power to influence perceptions of Israel’s war on Gaza because the BBC news website is the most-visited news site on the internet, with over 1.1 billion visits in May alone.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed over 45,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children, and flattened large swathes of the besieged enclave.
The pro-Israel bias imposed by Berg is evident in the language used to cover the war.
While stories “prominently” used words like “massacre,” “slaughter,” and “atrocities” to refer to Hamas, they “hardly, if at all,” used them “in reference to actions by Israel,” wrote Rami Ruhayem, a Beirut-based BBC Arabic correspondent.
In another case, the BBC published a story with a headline that hid Israel’s responsibility for killing an entire family in a missile strike.
“Israel Gaza: Father loses 11 family members in one blast,” the headline stated.
Drop Site notes that when the BBC does mention Israel as the perpetrator, it uses the caveat “reportedly.”
The BBC also uses euphemisms preferred by the Israeli army to hide its soldiers’ war crimes. For example, the BBC describes the forcible transfer or ethnic cleansing of Palestinian civilians as “evacuations.”
In one case, the BBC described Israel’s total siege on Gaza with a headline stating, “Israel aims to cut Gaza ties after war with Hamas.”
Defense minister Yoav Gallant’s public vow to impose a “full siege” on Gaza while calling Palestinians “human animals” received just one mention in any BBC online content.
The journalists speaking with Drop Site said they made specific requests to BBC management to balance its coverage, but their requests have been ignored.
“Many of us have raised concerns that Raffi has the power to reframe every story, and we are ignored,” one journalist said.
“Almost every correspondent you know has an issue with him,” one stated. “He has been named in multiple meetings, but [BBC management] just ignore it.”
The journalist said they demanded that stories should “emphasize that Israel had not granted the BBC access to Gaza, that the network should end the practice of presenting the official Israeli versions of events as fact, and that the BBC should do more to offer context about Israeli occupation and the fact that Gaza is overwhelmingly populated by descendants of refugees forcibly driven from their homes beginning in 1948.”
Examining Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario.
Aileen Mejia explores the power of grassroots action, the flaws of nuclear deterrence, and the vital role of local movements in Scotland in shaping a world free from nuclear weapons
secure scotland, Dec 31, 2024
Annie Jacobsen’s chilling, well researched book
Nuclear War: A Scenario explores what a nuclear strike on the United States
may entail. By presenting a hypothetical, yet deeply plausible series of
events, Jacobsen explores the fragility of global security and the
devastating consequences of failing to prioritize de-escalation and
disarmament.
The book highlights issues that are extremely pertinent to the
grassroots groups in Scotland that relentlessly advocate for nuclear
disarmament and the application of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear
Weapons, including Secure Scotland and the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament (SCND), which are part of the International Campaign to Abolish
Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). https://substack.com/home/post/p-153802524
The legal decision on the Murdoch media – what does it mean for us?
NOEL WAUCHOPE, DEC 13, 2024, https://theaimn.com/the-legal-decision-on-the-murdoch-media-what-does-it-mean-for-us/
There is nothing either good or bad, but only thinking makes it so.
Shakespeare’s profound idea applies to that recent legal case, about the Murdoch Family Trust, in the Probate Court in Nevada.
The 93 year-old Rupert Murdoch sought to change the existing “irrevocable trust” which is to govern the arrangements of his media empire, after his death. The issue was that the trust should be in “the best interests” of the Murdoch children.
Rupert Murdoch argued that after his death, his children would benefit best if control of his media empire were to be changed from the existing trust arrangement which gives control to four of his children – Lachlan, Elizabeth, James and Prudence. Murdoch wanted that changed to control by only eldest son Lachlan. The other three disagreed, and took the case to court.
Rupert Murdoch’s given reason was that the whole media enterprise would thus be more profitable, – so all four children would get more money. That way, Elizabeth, James, and Prudence would not have control, but would be richer, and this would be “in their best interest”. Under the present unchanged “irrevocable” trust arrangement, they would share the control with Lachlan, but they would be less rich.
Many commentators are arguing that Rupert Murdoch’s real goal is power and influence – so that is why he wanted the very right-wing Lachlan to be in charge of the media show. Perhaps this is true.
The case was heard in a secret court, but the core of Rupert Murdoch’s argument was that the children’s monetary gain was in their best interest, rather than them having any control of the media and its content.
Apparently the three did not think so, and neither did Commissioner Edmund J Gorman, who ruled in the children’s favour, concluding that Murdoch and his son Lachlan, had acted in “bad faith”, in a “carefully crafted charade”.
Lachlan shares the same right-wing views as his father does, even more so,- while Elizabeth, James and Prudence are reported as having more moderate views. Murdoch has controlling interests in Fox News and News Corp , the Wall Street Journal, in the UK the Times and the Sun, the Australian and others. Apparently it is assumed by all, that the media empire will continue its current record profits only under Lachlan’s leadership. In 2023–24 the Fox Corporation’s net income was US$1.5 billion (A$2.35 billion).
This case raises the question – what is the purpose of the news media ?
According to the Murdoch argument, the purpose is to enrich the owners of the media. That would include all the shareholders, too, I guess. The means by which this is done is to provide entertainment and information to the public. And this is central to Rupert Murdoch’s stated argument.
Some people, including many journalists, and perhaps the Murdoch children, might see the informational role of the news media as its main purpose, with excessive profitability as a secondary concern.
Apparently Elizabeth, James and Prudence preferred to have some control in the media empire, even if that meant less money for them. They thought that “having a say” in the business was in their best interest. It is possible that they might take some pride in news journalism that would be more accurate and balanced than the Murdoch media is now.
Only thinking makes it so
The best example of “Murdoch media thinking” -is in its coverage of climate change. For decades, the Murdoch view was pretty much climate denialism – climate concern seen as a “cult of the elite” and the “effects of global warming have so far proved largely benign”. But more recently, this view was moderated, towards concern that some action should be taken to limit global warming – coinciding with the new right-wing push for nuclear power as the solution to climate change.
In the USA, Murdoch media has a powerful influence, supported by the big corporations, and the right wing in general, and by the Trump publicity machine, but it does have some competition from other right wing outlets like Breitbart and the Daily Wire, and in talk radio, and blogs. It has lost some influence in the UK, following its phone hacking scandal in 2011.
That Murdoch interpretation contradicts the view of thousands of scientists, yet is welcomed by the fossil fuel industries, the nuclear industry, and the right-wing governments that they support. Similarly, the Murdoch media’s view on international politics generally favours military action that the USA supports – on Ukraine’s side, by Israel, and now in Syria. All this is seen to be good – by the USA weapons manufacturers and salesmen, US and UK politicians, and presumably by the public.
In the USA, Murdoch media has a powerful influence, supported by the big corporations, and the right wing in general, and by the Trump publicity machine, but it does have some competition from other right wing outlets like Breitbart and the Daily Wire, and in talk radio, and blogs. It has lost some influence in the UK, following its phone hacking scandal in 2011.
In Australia, Murdoch media is far more pervasive, and has been described as a virtual monopoly – with the only national newspaper, newspapers in each state, (often the only newspaper), and News Corp controls radio and television in Australia through a number of assets.
So – what now, after this remarkable probate court decision?
Commissioner Gorman’s recommendation could still be rejected by a district judge. Murdoch’s lawyers can appeal the decision. Even if the decision is finally upheld, it will be a complicated process to rearrange the control of the media in the event of Rupert Murdoch’s death – and that might not happen for a decade or more. News Corp has a dual-class share structure which gives the family 41% of company votes, despite having just 14% of an overall stake in the company. Shareholders might change this arrangement.
In the meantime – fertile ground for endless speculation on what it all might mean – for the share price, for the future direction of the media, for the Murdoch family relationships.
Only thinking makes it so
Some see this legal decision as such a blow to the Murdoch empire – leading to its fatal collapse. And that thought can be viewed as a bad outcome. Even if Rupert Murdoch overturns the decision on appeal, it might have dealt a big blow to the empire.
Some welcome it, visualising a change in direction, with a more progressive media, directed by the three siblings with their more moderate opinions. For Australians who don’t like Donald Trump, and fear a Peter Dutton election win in 2025, well, it really doesn’t matter much. For the foreseeable future, the political right wing is still hanging on to its grip on news and information across this continent, thanks to the Murdoch empire.
1 This Month
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com/
12 February – Webinar The Big Push: New Nuclear Projects in Canada
Thursday, February 12, 7 pm Eastern | 2nd of 4 sessions in the 2026 Nuclear Waste Online webinar series
Join a webinar on the push for new nuclear generation in Canada. Go to Northwatch.org to register or use the registration link https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ZfWOf1GITqSRIZX8CB-A9w
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