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What Netanyahu’s firing of Yoav Gallant means for Gaza, Israel’s regional war, and the US-Israel relationship

Benjamin Netanyahu’s firing of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has removed the one minor restraint on expanding Israel’s regional war against Iran and the axis of resistance. International pressure to stop Israel is needed now more than ever.

Mondoweiss, By Mitchell Plitnick  November 5, 2024 

In a move that has been brewing for many months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fired his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. He will be replaced as Minister of Defense by Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz, who will, in turn, be replaced as Foreign Minister by Gideon Sa’ar.

While Gallant has been on Netanyahu’s “hit list” for a long time, he has been reluctant to replace the Defense Minister while Israel is involved in so many significant military operations. So, why did he do it now?

Domestic considerations

Netanyahu’s decision has nothing to do with military concerns, but with domestic politics. His coalition is currently being rocked by controversy over a bill strongly supported by the United Torah Judaism party that would allow ultra-orthodox (referred to as Haredi) men who refuse to serve in the Israeli military to continue to receive childcare benefits. The underlying purpose of the bill is to get around new laws requiring that Haredim, who have long been exempt from compulsory military service, serve like other citizens.

Katz was transparently appointed so Netanyahu would effectively have full control over the Defense Ministry, while Gallant’s firing was retribution and a very loud warning to anyone from his governing coalition who might consider going against him on crucial legislation. ……………………………………………………………………………………..

What it means in the region

With Gallant out of the picture, and Netanyahu now surrounded by his people, the imperative for major international pressure is even more intense. Gallant, who has no problem slaughtering innocent Palestinians by the tens of thousands, still saw matters through a security lens, albeit a vicious and brutal one. 

……………………………………………… Netanyahu will have successfully removed a “renegade” in Gallant and will face even less restraint than he did before, hard as that it is to imagine.

What it means in Washington

Yoav Gallant was the main point of communication between Joe Biden’s administration and the Netanyahu government. …………………………………………………………..

……..With Gallant gone, Netanyahu will be even less concerned about Biden’s feeble words of sympathy

…………………………………………………………………Netanyahu has routinely found ways to resolve issues like this over the past fifteen years. And if he does, it is likely that he will have further insulated himself from any possibility of American pressure to curb his aggression in Gaza, Lebanon, and beyond. https://mondoweiss.net/2024/11/what-netanyahus-firing-of-yoav-gallant-means-for-gaza-israels-regional-war-and-the-us-israel-relationship/

November 8, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

Trump has a strategic plan for the country: Gearing up for nuclear war.

The erosion of the arms control and non-proliferation regime is not a defect of the proposals; it is one of its central goals.

By Joe Cirincione | July 2, 2024,  https://thebulletin.org/2024/07/trump-has-a-strategic-plan-for-the-country-gearing-up-for-nuclear-war/

President Joe Biden has a terrible nuclear policy. A re-elected President Donald Trump’s would be much worse.

Biden has authorized the largest nuclear weapons budgets since the Cold War, delayed then squandered his chance to contain Iran’s nuclear program, and apparently has no policy for containing North Korea’s missiles and weapons. But a re-elected Trump would put nuclear weapons programs on steroids, trash what remains of the global arms control regime, and likely trigger new nuclear weapons programs in more other nations than we have seen at any time since the early 1960s.

Trump’s nuclear policy is all spelled out in a new conservative manifesto by Project 2025, a coalition of over 100 far-right groups led by the Heritage Foundation, which is widely seen as the template for a possible Trump 2.0 administration. If readers of the Bulletin have heard of Project 2025, chances are that they did not go through its 900-page book “Mandate for Leadership.” They should. This policy agenda, dubbed the “Conservative Promise,” is a blueprint for the most dramatic take-over and transformation of the US democracy in history.

The Project 2025 coalition members are staffed by over 200 former officials of the first Trump administration. These sophisticated Trump-movement MAGA operatives now know how to work the levers of government and have learned from what they see as their main mistake during Trump’s first term: leaving the “deep state” intact. These conservatives proudly served Donald Trump through his administration and attempted insurrection. They are now ready to help him complete the job and their plan is here for everyone willing to see.

“Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained and prepared conservatives to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State,” writes Paul Dans, a former chief of staff of the Office of Personnel Management during the Trump administration and now the director of Project 2025, in his foreword to the report. Russ Vought, the chief of staff of the Office of Management and Budget under Trump and now the president of the conservative think tank Center for Renewing America, agrees: “We have to be thinking mechanically about how to take these institutions over.” Vought vows to be “ready on Day One of the next transition,” adding, “Whatever is necessary to seize control of the administrative state is really our task.”

In the nuclear realm, “seizing control” would mean implementing the most dramatic build up of nuclear weapons since the start of the Reagan administration, some four decades ago. If this hawkish political coalition gets its way in November, the scope, pace, and cost of US nuclear weapons programs would increase all at once. Their plan, which seeks to significantly increase budgets and deployments of nuclear weapons and related programs and destroy the remaining arms control agreements, would dramatically increase the risks of nuclear confrontation as a result.

Nuclear proposals. The nuclear proposals are a key part of the Project 2025 coalition’s recommendations to reshape the Defense Department. This chapter is led by Christopher Miller, a former US Army special forces colonel who served as Trump’s last defense secretary. As Michael Hirsch reports in Politico, the agenda “is far more ambitious than anything Ronald Reagan dreamed up.” (In 1980, President Reagan ordered a massive nuclear buildup, which scholars now consider to have greatly escalated the Cold War.)

In condensed and translated form, Project 2025 proposes that a second Trump administration:

  • Prioritize nuclear weapons programs over other security programs.
  • Accelerate the development and production of all nuclear weapons programs.
  • Reject any congressional efforts to find more cost-effective alternatives to current plans.
  • Increase funding for the development and production of new and modernized nuclear warheads, including the B61-12, W80-4, W87-1 Mod, and W88 Alt 370.
  • Develop a new nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile, even though neither the administration nor the Navy has requested such a weapon, and the Navy has not fielded this type of weapon since they were retired by President George H.W. Bush in 1991.
  • Increase the number of nuclear weapons above current treaty limits and program goals, including buying more intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) than currently planned.
  • Expand the capabilities of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons production complex, including vastly increasing budgets, shedding non-nuclear weapons programs at the national laboratories (such as those devoted to the climate crisis) and accelerating production of the plutonium pits that are the cores of nuclear weapons.
  • Prepare to test new nuclear weapons, even though the United States has signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that prohibits such tests and has not tested a full-scale nuclear device since 1992.
  • Reject current arms control treaties that the coalition considers being “contrary to the goal of bolstering nuclear deterrence” and “prepare to compete in order to secure US interests should arms control efforts continue to fail.”
  • Dramatically expand the current national missile defense programs, including deploying as-yet-unproven directed energy and space-based weapons, or as the report puts it: “Abandon the existing policy of not defending the homeland against Russian and Chinese ballistic missiles.”
  • Invest in a sweeping, untested “cruise missile defense of the homeland.”
  • Accelerate all missile defense programs, national and regional.

These proposals would add unnecessary new weapons to an already expansive nuclear arsenal. If implemented, these new and expanded programs would accelerate the nuclear arms race the United States is already engaged in and encourage the expansion—or initiation—of new nuclear weapons programs in other nations around the globe.

It is not as if the United States needs to spend more on nuclear weapons.

At $70 billion, President Joe Biden’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget request is already the most the country will have spent on nuclear weapons since the Cold War. Under Trump and now Biden, the United States has engaged in a sweeping replacement of nearly all existing nuclear weapons systems, including a new generation of strategic bombers (the B-21), strategic missile submarines (the Columbia class), intercontinental ballistic missiles (the Sentinel), several new warhead programs, and the development of new nuclear weapons, including smaller, “more usable” nuclear warheads and air-launched cruise missiles.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the currently planned nuclear weapons programs will cost $750 billion over the next decade (2023-2032). And the costs will rise every year: Biden’s requested $70 billion for the next budget is a 22 percent increase from last year. The total cost of the programs will approach $2 trillion. And there is more. The Biden administration also requested $30 billion for Fiscal Year 2025 for missile defense programs, much of which will be devoted to weapons designed to intercept long-range, nuclear-armed missiles.

The policy recommendations made by the Project 2025 coalition would substantially increase these costs. Unlike other generalized calls for more weapons, these conservative authors have developed a detailed plan for how to implement their apocalyptic vision and minimize any opposition. It is a far more specific plan than any before it, and more developed than anything groups trying to save what remains of the global arms control regime have even attempted.

Implementation plan. In March, the Heritage Foundation detailed the steps necessary to implement these proposals in asking the president to “revitalize the US strategic arsenal.” The authors propose that the next US president—meaning Donald Trump, but never mentioning him—immediately upon assuming office:

  • Make a major speech soon after inauguration to “make the case to the American people that nuclear weapons are the ultimate guarantor of their freedom and prosperity.”
  • Direct the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is charged with producing all nuclear weapons fissile materials and the manufacture of all warheads, to provide monthly briefings in the Oval Office and to submit its budgets separately from the Energy Department, within which department the agency resides.
  • Direct the Office of Management and Budget to submit to Congress a supplemental budget request to accelerate key NNSA projects and Defense Department nuclear weapons delivery systems (missiles, bombers, and submarines).
  • Increase the number of deployed nuclear warheads by directing the placement of multiple warheads on each of the currently deployed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles. (Each missile in the current fleet of 400 ICBMs holds one warhead. Under this plan, the next president would order each missile to deploy multiple warheads by 2026. The new, replacement ICBM, the Sentinel, would also be fielded with multiple warheads.)
  • Direct the production and deployment of new nuclear weapon types, including the sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) and putting nuclear warheads on Army ground-launched missiles. (Both capabilities were eliminated by President George H.W. Bush in 1991.)
  • Add nuclear capabilities to several hypersonic systems currently under development as non-nuclear missiles.
  • Direct the Air Force to examine a road-mobile version of the Sentinel ICBM. (President Reagan investigated such a program in the early 1980s and found it to be highly controversial, expensive, and impractical.)
  • Direct the expansion and enhancement of US nuclear weapons capability across the globe, including by pre-positioning nuclear bombs and aircraft in Europe and Asia. (The United States currently deploys 100 nuclear bombs abroad at five bases in NATO Europe.)
  • Direct the NNSA to “transition to a wartime footing,” including the expansion and construction of facilities to produce plutonium and plutonium cores for nuclear weapons.

Implications for national security. Should these recommendations be implemented, they will result in a sharp decline in the security of Americans and a dramatic increase in the risk of regional and global conflicts. At the very least, the proposed programs will explode the national debt. With the defense budget already at $850 billion for Fiscal Year 2025 and the budget for nuclear weapons and related programs at over $100 billion, these new projects could add hundreds of billions of dollars to weapons development, production, and deployment costs. The Heritage Foundation estimates that these additional programs will cost “tens of billions,” but this is a gross underestimate.

The existing US strategic arsenal already exceeds what is required for any conceivable nuclear mission. The United States currently maintains a stockpile of some 3,708 nuclear warheads for delivery by missiles and aircraft. Of those, approximately 1,770 warheads are deployed, ready for use within minutes of an order to launch. The rest of the operational stockpile (1,938 warheads) is held in reserve for potential use. In addition, the United States has approximately 1,336 retired, intact warheads in storage awaiting dismantlement. The explosive yields of most of these weapons are 10 to 30 times greater than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

To put the power of this arsenal in perspective, one city destroyed by just one nuclear weapon would be a level of destruction not seen since World War II. Ten weapons burning 10 cities would be a catastrophe unprecedented in human history. One hundred such weapons would destroy not only the targeted nation but likely unleash a nuclear winter and subsequent famine that could destroy virtually all human civilizations—even those far from the conflict.

Increasing the US arsenal at the scale recommended by the Project 2025 would likely compel rival nations—including Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea—to increase their defense budgets, warfighting plans, and nuclear weapons developments and deployments to match what they will see as an increasing threat from the United States. Allied nations will also be caught up in the competition, fueling an already existing nuclear arms race: Japan, South Korea, and even Germany could be pushed over the nuclear line.

This would be the unintended consequence of an unleashed nuclear modernization. While each nuclear-armed state sees its programs as defensive, their adversaries see them as offensive programs striving for a military advantage. Each move engenders a countermove; each nation believes it is responding to the other. That’s how the security dilemma has spiraled since World War II. But the Project 2025’s recommendations go one step further: They are based on the belief that the United States would win any arms contest through superior technology, resources, and political will.

In 2019, former President Trump’s arms control negotiator Marshall Billingslea said: “We know how to win these races and we know how to spend the adversary into oblivion. If we have to, we will.”

But such programs would further weaken nuclear guardrails that are already gutted by the withdrawals from major arms control agreements—including most significantly, Trump’s withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that reduced, contained, and controlled the Iranian nuclear program and his withdrawal again from Reagan’s Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement that eliminated most nuclear weapons deployed by the United States and Russia in Europe.

The erosion of the arms control and non-proliferation regime is not a defect of the proposals; it is one of its central goals. The Project 2025 authors believe that arms control has failed, and that treaties negotiated with both allies and rivals weaken Americans, rather than are protecting them. These views are not shared by most US allies. Those allied nations committed to restraining or eliminating nuclear risks will, therefore, increasingly doubt US leadership in international relations, weakening the alliance system so essential to US national security since the end of World War II.

Importantly, these proposed programs and activities will almost certainly have the United States abandon its commitment not to test nuclear weapons under the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Should the United States conduct new nuclear tests, other nations will almost immediately follow suit, adding more fuel to the nuclear fire.

Taken together, the policies and programs advocated by the Project 2025’s self-proclaimed “mandate for leadership” would push the United States onto the precipice of an expensive, dangerous, and destabilizing nuclear confrontation—something not seen since the darkest days of the Cold War.

November 7, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

After election, will progressives acknowledge and oppose US genocide in Gaza?

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 4 Nov 24

During the current US election cycle, many progressives have recoiled from addressing the 13 month long US enabled Israeli genocide in Gaza.

They are singularly focused on pushing Kamala Harris to victory, saving democracy from the unhinged authoritarian Trump. As a result they’ve banished the word much less the reality of the genocide which the US enables.

That is deplorable. Every day dozens, hundreds, possibly a thousand Palestinian civilians die in the worst genocide this century. All financed, publicly supported and weaponized by their beloved Biden/Harris administration.

When the genocide in Gaza is brought up for discussion, too many progressives are ‘hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.’

When asked to push back against US weaponizing, publicly supporting, financing the genocide, progressives come up with the darnedest excuses

‘There is no genocide in Gaza, just a defensive war against Hamas.’

‘Don’t dare say anything that will jeopardize Harris’ chances.’

‘The destruction in Gaza will be much worse under Trump.’

‘The United States has no influence on the government of Israel.’

‘President Biden and Vice President Harris are working night and day to achieve ceasefire in Gaza.’

‘People have been fighting each other there for thousands of years and nothing will change that.’

Maybe these otherwise fine progressives will open their eyes and souls to ongoing destruction of Gaza once the election ends and decide to resist it passionately.

Alas, with both candidates locked in ironclad support for sending endless billions for Israel to ‘finish the job’, they just might shrug and continue ignoring the most greatest moral dilemma of their lifetime.

November 6, 2024 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, politics, USA | Leave a comment

Launch of papers on UK’s unachievable nuclear programme

Launch of papers on unachievable nuclear programme

Today, Friday 1 November we are launching two papers:

In our view, these papers irrefutably demonstrate why the government’s proposed vast expansion of nuclear power in the UK is unnecessary, unjustifiable but also impossible.

We believe it is imperative that government reviews and reconsiders its nuclear policy and recognises that it cannot proceed.

The longer paper provides our considered and detailed analysis which reveals that nuclear is too costly, takes too long, is technologically challenged and leaves an expensive and unmanageable burden of wastes for future generations. More than that, there are no suitable sites for new power plants and those that are supposedly ‘potentially suitable’ will all be vulnerable to the impending ravages of Climate Change during their lifetimes.

The shorter paper (which is available for publication) presents our arguments concisely, presenting a fundamental challenge to current orthodoxy on the case for nuclear. At a time of pressure on public spending, nuclear does not represent good value for money, nor is it attractive against other more pressing social welfare priorities.

Biographical Notes:

Andrew Blowers, OBE, Emeritus Professor of Social Sciences, Open University. Former member of Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM) and Radioactive Waste Management Advisory Committee (RWMAC); author The Legacy of Nuclear Power.

Stephen Thomas, Emeritus Professor of Energy Policy, University of Greenwich. Editor-in-Chief of the journal Energy Policy.

November 4, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

Biden’s Destructive Legacy

by Daniel Larison , ,  https://original.antiwar.com/Daniel_Larison/2024/10/31/bidens-destructive-legacy/

As President Biden’s term approaches its end, the US and several parts of the rest of the world are significantly worse off than they were when he took office. While the president is frequently lauded by members of the foreign policy establishment as a successful foreign policy leader, his tenure has been marked for the most part by deepening US involvement in foreign conflicts that show no signs of ending anytime soon. US policies under Biden have served only to stoke destabilizing conflict, and the president has shown no inclination to bring any of the wars currently backed by Washington to an end. Biden’s presidency showed the world just how extensive the rot in US foreign policy is, and most other nations will not soon forget what restored American “leadership” wrought.

Biden ran on the promise of ending America’s forever wars, but after the withdrawal from Afghanistan he then spent most of his presidency going out of his way to involve US in conflicts where no vital American interests were at stake. The risk of great power conflict has also risen under Biden as he has pursued a China policy of containment and rivalry that the US can ill afford while US-Russian relations have sunk to new lows over Ukraine. In the Middle East, Biden has enabled Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, backed their invasion of Lebanon, and supported their attacks on Iran. He has helped Israel sow chaos across the region, and he committed the US to a new open-ended and illegal war in Yemen. The president’s extreme ideological attachment to Israel led him to pursue an indefensible policy of unconditional support that has fueled the slaughter of civilians and created one of the worst man-made famines in modern times.

The president’s aversion to serious diplomatic engagement meant that the US continued the disastrous economic wars against Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea that Trump had been waging. Biden’s refusal to reenter the nuclear deal with Iran ensured that there would be no progress in negotiations with Tehran. The administration’s efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza have been a face-saving exercise so that the US could claim to be doing something to end the war while it continued arming Netanyahu’s government to the teeth. The US hasn’t so much as pretended to be interested in a ceasefire in Ukraine. On almost every front, the Biden administration’s answer has been more militarism.

The Biden administration has brought the US close to direct conflict with Iran thanks to Washington’s backing for Israel. It is still possible that the US and Iran might be at war in the next few months. It would be bad enough to get into an unnecessary war to support a non-ally, but to do it when the client is also massacring and starving civilians is inexcusable. US backing for the wars in Gaza and Lebanon is a strategic and moral debacle, and Biden shouldn’t be let off the hook for putting the US in this position. Even if the US and Iran avoid war again, it is a measure of how dangerous administration policy has been that it was ever this close to happening.

There is never any real accountability in Washington for the outrages and crimes committed by our leaders. It is doubtful that officials in the Biden administration will face legal or personal consequences for their role in these horrors. Regardless, Americans should remember that Biden and his administration were willing accomplices to mass starvation and genocide. Their complicity should never be forgotten, and they deserve all the opprobrium that the world has to offer.

The result of Biden’s decisions is that our already heavily militarized foreign policy has become even worse than it was before. The administration’s limited diplomatic efforts have been consumed by the president’s obsession with giving Saudi Arabia a security guarantee. Biden has done extensive damage to the reputation and interests of the United States, and he will likely be remembered as one of the two worst foreign policy presidents of the last fifty years along with George W. Bush. Biden’s foreign policy legacy is mostly one of fanning the flames of war and the destruction of innocent lives.

Daniel Larison is a columnist for Responsible Statecraft. He is contributing editor at Antiwar.com and former senior editor at The American Conservative magazine. He has a Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. Follow him on Twitter @DanielLarison and at his blog, Eunomia, here.

November 4, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA | Leave a comment

Will Susan Holt’s new government continue New Brunswick’s nuclear fantasies?

despite the governments’ support, after more than six years of trying, the companies have been unable to entice private investors.

Keeping the Point Lepreau and SMR fantasies alive will require considerable effort from the new government. Susan Holt’s handling of the nuclear file will be an early test—both of her leadership and her commitment to wishful thinking.

BY SUSAN O’DONNELL | October 31, 2024, The Hill Times https://www.hilltimes.com/story/2024/10/31/will-susan-holts-new-government-continue-new-brunswicks-nuclear-fantasies/439671/

Successive New Brunswick governments have been bewitched by two nuclear fantasies: first, that its beleaguered public utility NB Power can connect two experimental reactors to the electricity grid, and second, that the small province can successfully run a nuclear power reactor.

Both fantasies will confront Susan Holt early in her new Liberal government’s tenure. Will she break the spell and end the province’s nuclear delusions? Nuclear energy was not raised during the recent election campaign, but a 2023 CBC interview with Holt offers clues.

The biggest fantasy is connecting two experimental “small modular nuclear reactors” (SMRs) to New Brunswick’s electricity grid. In 2018, Holt was a business adviser to then-premier Brian Gallant when his Liberal government invited two nuclear start-up companies from the U.K. and the U.S. to set up shop in the province and promote their SMR designs, although it’s unknown if she was involved in that decision. 

The Gallant government had chosen two “advanced” reactor designs—molten salt and sodium-cooled— that have never operated successfully in a commercial setting. The government gave each company a $5-million incentive and support to apply for federal funding to develop their designs. A recent expert report from the U.S. Academies of Sciences predicted that such designs would have difficulty reaching commercial viability by 2050.

During the subsequent reign of PC premier Blaine Higgs, the province gave $25-million more to the start-ups and the federal government added grants totalling $57.5-million. Both governments also invested in building an SMR business supply chain in New Brunswick and encouraged some First Nations to support the projects.

The Higgs government further supported its plan to have the experimental designs built and connected to the grid by 2035 by passing legislation forcing NB Power to buy electricity, at any price, from SMRs if they are ever built and actually work.

However, despite the governments’ support, after more than six years of trying, the companies have been unable to entice private investors. Each company claims to need $500-million to develop its reactor design to the point of applying for a licence to build one. Where this money will come from is an open question. 

This summer, the CEO of one SMR company, ARC Clean Technology, left suddenly and some staff at the Saint John office received layoff notices. The second company, Moltex, was notably absent from an Atlantic energy symposium in Fredericton this September. Until Moltex secures matching funds for its three-year-old $50.5-million federal grant, further federal funding is unlikely. 

In her CBC interview last year, Holt said SMRs must be part of the energy transition, but: “I don’t think it needs the province to subsidize the businesses … buying power produced by an SMR is different than putting money into a company building SMR technology.”

The second fantasy—the Point Lepreau nuclear reactor on the Bay of Fundy—has been offline for repairs since April. Cost overruns for its original build and refurbishment represent two-thirds of NB Power’s $5.4-billion debt and crippling (94 per cent) debt-to-equity ratio. The reactor’s poor performance is the main reason the utility loses money almost every year.

Around the globe, it is hard to find an electrical grid as small as NB Power’s with a nuclear reactor. The province’s oversize nuclear ambitions were identified early. In 1972, a federal Department of Finance official warned against subsidizing a power reactor for a utility with “barely enough cash flow to finance its present debt,” calling New Brunswick’s nuclear plans “the equivalent of a Volkswagen family acquiring a Cadillac as a second car.”

New Brunswick lacks even the internal capacity to operate its reactor. When the plant re-opened in 2012 after refurbishment, NB Power first contracted a management team from Ontario Power Generation (OPG) and later hired a manager living in Maine who billed the utility for travel expenses in addition to his salary which reached $1.3-million despite no improvement in the reactor’s performance. In 2023, NB Power ditched the American, and contracted OPG management again.

In her 2023 CBC interview, Holt’s statement that the province’s energy strategy needs to include “wind energy, solar energy, SMR energy, hydro energy, nuclear energy” suggests that her government will continue to support the Point Lepreau plant. However, new developments may give her pause to reconsider.

A recent expert report linked the poor performance of NB Power’s nuclear reactor to the utility’s failure since refurbishment to spend enough on maintenance. If this trend continues, “It is likely that performance could drop even further in the late 2030s into the 2040s.”

The plant’s shutdown for maintenance and upgrades on April 6 this year was originally planned for three months, but the work uncovered serious problems with the main generator. In July, NB Power suggested the plant would re-open in early September and then in August, pushed that date to mid-November.

Energy watchdogs expect the Lepreau plant to remain off-line longer than November due to the serious nature of the generator malfunction. NB Power will be looking to the new government to reassure the public that the utility has its nuclear operations under control. New Brunswickers are facing a 19.4 per cent increase in electricity rates, due in large part to the poor performance of its nuclear reactor, although Holt has already promised to eliminate the 10 per cent PST on NB Power bills to ease the pain.

Holt plans to re-convene the New Brunswick Legislature before the end of November. At that point the Point Lepreau reactor will likely still be mothballed, and the two SMR start-ups will be on life support.

Keeping the Point Lepreau and SMR fantasies alive will require considerable effort from the new government. Holt’s handling of the nuclear file will be an early test—both of her leadership and her commitment to wishful thinking.

Dr. Susan O’Donnell is adjunct research professor and primary investigator of the CEDAR project in the Environment and Society program at St. Thomas University in Fredericton.

November 3, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Canada, politics | Leave a comment

TODAY. Canadians are waking up to the nuclear scam. Why are the media and other nations pretending that nuclear is just dandy?

I do read quite a few criticisms of the nuclear industry, from various non-profit groups. But lately, there’s a whole heap of them from Canada. And the unnerving thing is that these pesky Canadians are giving “chapter and verse” – facts and figures on how bad things really are, for the nuclear industry.

Of course, the Canadian, and indeed, the global nuclear lobby too, are pretending not to notice this. (But they must be a tad worried, lest too many intelligent people in other countries catch on to this annoying attention to detail)

Susan O’Donnell writes about New Brunswick’s nuclear fantasies – the history of successive governments pouring tax-payers’ money into “advanced” reactor designs that are known by reputable scientists to be commercially unviable. -The Higgs government passing legislation forcing NB Power to buy electricity, at any price, from SMRs if they are ever built and actually work.

The companies involved have been unable to entice private investors, and are unlikely to get federal funding. NB Power’s $5.4-billion debt is mainly due to the poor performance of its Point Lepreau nuclear reactor. New Brunswickers are facing a 19.4 per cent increase in electricity rates. “Keeping the Point Lepreau and SMR fantasies alive will require considerable effort from the new government. “

Another recent example – from the Seniors for Climate Action Now! (SCAN):

They point out :

  • the scandal-ridden nuclear history. 
  • the revolving door between government officials and nuclear industry well-paid jobs.  
  • the government/industry nuclear pitch to NATO-  “Ontario is selling itself as the nuclear North Star to guide the direction of American power”. 
  • the failure of theNuScale SMR project.  
  • OPG’s lengthy submission on small nuclear reactors is full of the things that could go wrong.
  •  the over $40billion cost of refurbishing old end-of-life reactors. 
  • New nuclear reactors at over $60billion

They raise such awkward questions about “Ontario’s journey to becoming an energy superpower”

But then, I forgot that this comes from Seniors. And I’ve just remembered that the nuclear industry is all about the young cool and trendy.

There are so many views from Canadians exploding the nuclear propaganda. And they’re not all old fogeys.

November 2, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, Canada, Christina's notes, politics | Leave a comment

Race to build Britain’s first mini-nukes delayed again in Budget

‘Tortuously slow’ decision-making blamed for decision to push back development of small modular reactors.

Matt Oliver,  Telegraph 31st Oct 2024 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/31/race-to-build-britains-first-mini-nukes-delayed-again-reeve/

Ministers have delayed the competition to build Britain’s first
mini-nuclear power plants, amid “tortuously slow” decision-making in
Whitehall. The contest to develop small modular reactors (SMRs) was
whittled down to four contenders last month, with two winners originally
expected to be chosen by late this year or early 2025.

That already represented a significant delay on timelines originally set out when six
vendors were shortlisted a year ago. However, the Government has now pushed
back the selection of winners even further, with a decision not expected
until the spring.

The two-sentence update was snuck out in Budget documents
published alongside a speech by Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, on
Wednesday. On Thursday, Great British Nuclear (GBN) confirmed the new
timetable and said it would provide further updates “in due course”. It
is understood the delay is largely down to a slower-than-expected pace of
decision-making in Whitehall, as well as fears that the process risks being
challenged by judicial review if it is not robust enough.

November 2, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

Settlers prepare for ’resettlement in Gaza’

Voltaire Network | 25 October 2024,  https://www.voltairenet.org/article221426.html
 Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir took part in a two-day meeting on Israel’s southern border entitled “Preparing for our resettlement in Gaza” on the occasion of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. He said: “What we have learned this year is that everything depends on us. We are the owners of this land. Yes, we have experienced a terrible catastrophe. But we must understand that a year later, so many Israelis have changed their mentality. They have changed their mindset. They understand that acting as the rightful owners of this land brings results.

Referring to the Palestinian prisoners, he went on: “We took their jelly sandwiches. We took their chocolate. We took their televisions. We took their ping-pong tables and practice time. You should see them crying and weeping in their cells. This is our proof: when we decide we can, we do succeed.”

“We will encourage the voluntary transfer of all citizens of Gaza. We will offer them the opportunity to move to other countries because this land belongs to us,” he concluded.

• Spokesperson for the “Mothers’ Parade” Sima Hasson said “I’m going to say something that not everyone here is ready to say, but I am, and I know many of you are, ready to say it: “Conquer, expel and resettle”. I’m not just talking about an area of Gaza. I’m not just talking about northern Gaza. I mean every area of land. This is the only way to prevent our boys from constantly going to war. To all those in Europe who have an opinion about what is going on here, I say: do not meddle. Your entire continent is invaded by radical Islam!”

 Pasionaria of the settler movement Daniella Weiss said: “We came here with a clear objective: to occupy the entire Gaza Strip… Every inch from north to south. We are thousands of people and we are ready to go to Gaza. October 7 changed history. As a result of the brutal massacre, the Arabs of Gaza have lost their rights to be here forever, they will not stay here.

• Minister of the Negev, Galilee and National Resilience Yitzhak Wasserlauf said: “For 2,000 years, we dreamed of returning to our Jewish homeland. I know that those who disagree with us call it messianism. I call it Zionism. We are true Zionists. We love our land, we love our people, and we value life. And we have a responsibility to create a safe, Jewish nation on the land God has given us.

• Minister of Social Equality and the Advancement of Women May Golan said: “We will hit them where it hurts: their land. Whoever uses his plot of land to plan another holocaust will receive from us, with God’s help, another Nakba [catastrophe].

 In February 2024, the settler movement had already organized a “Conference for Israel’s victory – settlements bring security: return to the Gaza Strip and northern Samaria” in Jerusalem in which they threatened the United States and the United Kingdom with resurrecting the Stern terrorist group [1].

This is the editorial from our paywalled “Voltaire, international newsletter”, n°105. For more information, do not hesitate to subscribe: 500€ per year.

Translation
Gregor Fröhlich

October 31, 2024 Posted by | Gaza, Israel, politics, psychology and culture | Leave a comment

Sizewell C nuclear project proceeds by stealth – vast sums of public money spent, with no public disclosure about its true cost

1 The Autumn Budget includes a £14.1bn settlement for DESNZ in 2025/26,
which includes £2.7 bn for Sizewell C. This amounts to half the £5.5bn,
two year subsidy scheme published in August. The Chancellor chose not to
mention Sizewell C or nuclear energy in her speech to the House of Commons.

Stop Sizewell C said: “For a government that criticised the opposition
for playing fast and loose with the nation’s finances, the Chancellor is
surprisingly happy to do the same, allocating another £2.7 billion of
taxpayers’ money on risky, expensive Sizewell C, without making any
guarantee of a Final Investment Decision being taken.

Including £2.5 billion already spent, this means £5.2 billion of our money will be spent
on a project that cannot even help Labour achieve its energy mission, and
is looking increasingly toxic to private investors.”

The Chancellor also announced that David Goldstone has been appointed as the independent Chair of the “Office of Value for Money” within the Treasury. “Stop
Sizewell C urges David Goldstone to call in Sizewell C for immediate
scrutiny, as the project is currently proceeding by stealth. Despite almost
no public disclosure about its true cost or transparency about value for
money, vast sums of public money have already been spent on Sizewell C,
with the potential for billions more to be poured down the drain.”

 Stop Sizewell C 30th Oct 2024

https://stopsizewellc.org/

October 31, 2024 Posted by | business and costs, politics, UK | Leave a comment

South Bruce voters narrowly approve being host to nuclear waste

Scott Dunn Oct 29, 2024 , Horeline Beacon

Teeswater is near one of the two proposed sites for an underground storage facility for the country’s highly radioactive nuclear fuel.

By a thin majority, the answer in South Bruce was yes. Bruce declaring South Bruce to be a willing host for the Nuclear Waste Management Organization’s proposed Deep Geological Repository (DGR)? resulted in 51.2 per cent, or 1,604, of voters saying yes, and 48.8 per cent, or 1,526, saying no, according to unofficial results posted by the municipality Monday night. Eight electors declined their ballot.

Voter turnout was 3,138 of 4,525 electors, or 69.3 per cent. Since turnout was above 50 per cent, the results are binding on municipal council…………………

Teeswater’s residents were divided by the prospect of burying spent nuclear fuel in a deep, underground vault, people said in interviews outside the community’s post office earlier Monday.

 Nuclear Waste Management Organization has secured  land for a possible DGR site northwest of Teeswater, part of South Bruce. If the area is selected, the NWMO would build and manage the bunker to be some 650 metres underground.

 But first NWMO needed to confirm if the community was a willing host. A referendum was chosen as the way to do that, and voting is to end at 8 p.m. today. It would take 50 per cent plus one of eligible voters to signal willingness, as long as at least 50 per cent of South Bruce voters cast ballots. Otherwise the decision was council’s to make.

……………………………….. there’s the risk of a leak, and the implicit requirement to trust officials who say the job can be done safely. Still others said they think government has already decided it will build the nuclear storage facility in South Bruce……………………………………………………………………………… more https://www.shorelinebeacon.com/news/local-news/update-south-bruce-voters-narrowly-approve-being-host-to-nuclear-waste

October 31, 2024 Posted by | Canada, politics, wastes | Leave a comment

Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLAs) believe budget is opportunity to lobby Ministers to ditch Sizewell C

NFLAs believe budget is opportunity to lobby Ministers to ditch Sizewell C

Chancellor Rachel Reeves will be unveiling the contents of her red box when making her Autumn Statement on Wednesday and the UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities believes this offers an opportunity to lobby Labour to ditch Sizewell C – if opponents act now.

Though intended to be constructed by French owned nuclear operator EDF Energy, the outgoing Conservative Government squandered £2.5 billion of taxpayers money on preparatory work, and in August 2024, Labour compounded the calumny by announcing a new subsidy scheme that could make up to a further £5.5 billion in public money available to support this unwanted white elephant. Consequently, the project is now 76%-owned by the British Government at a time when Ministers and their advisors still desperately chase private sector investors to back this Suffolk turkey.

There are still many unknowns about the eventual overall cost of Sizewell C. In contrast to the amazing reductions achieved in recent years in the cost of generating electricity through renewables, the delivery cost of nuclear continues to rise. Given that Sizewell C’s predecessor, the identical Hinkley Point C, is being delivered hugely over budget with some estimates that the cost in real terms will be up to £46 billion, it is wholly incredible that this project can be delivered for the £20 billion that Ministers claim.

And Sizewell C presents additional costly challenges. As a consequence of climate change, the coastal location will be increasingly threatened by inundation from an encroaching sea, requiring significant expenditure on coastal defences. Further Suffolk is ‘water stressed’ meaning that there will be increasing competition for fresh water from inhabitants or commercial operators, and Sizewell C has still to secure a guaranteed sustainable potable water supply for its planned 60 years of operation.

Given the circumstances it is unsurprising that few players amongst the financial markets have expressed any interest in taking a stake in the Sizewell doonboggle, and there is still considerable uncertainty when, or even if, the Financial Investment Decision will be made.

Sizewell C also represents a double whammy for electricity consumers. As taxpayers, we are expected to front up to £8 billion in funding, incidentally almost the same in total that Labour has dedicated to Great Britain Energy over the entirely of its five year term in office, but as electricity consumers we will also be expected to reimburse the construction costs through the imposition of an additional levy on bills, derisking the project for the profit-focussed operator. Unsurprisingly, the NFLA Secretary has described this Regulated Asset Base (RAB) model as the ROB for it represents daylight robbery.

The Labour Government has announced that they will establish a new ‘Office of Value for Money’ within the Treasury and the appointment of a Chair is expected imminently. Stop Sizewell C has launched a petition calling for that office holder to prioritise an examination of the financial liability that is Sizewell C.

Although initial feedback from the Treasury to campaigners had indicated that Sizewell C would definitely be examined by the new office holder, officials in recent correspondence have been more ambivalent and a recent written answer by Nuclear Minister Lord Hunt to a House of Lords parliamentary question was opaque and non-committal.

Stop Sizewell C are also asking supporters of their campaign to join them in writing to the Chancellor, Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Energy to cancel Sizewell C.

The NFLAs would urge opponents of Sizewell C to sign the petition:

October 30, 2024 Posted by | politics, UK | Leave a comment

South Bruce Municipality narrowly votes to host underground nuclear waste disposal site

Matthew McClearn, October 28, 2024, Globe and Mail,

Residents in Ontario’s Municipality of South Bruce narrowly voted in favor of hosting a nuclear waste disposal site in a referendum completed on Monday.

Unofficial results published Monday evening by Simply Voting, an online voting platform, reported that of the 3,130 votes case, 51.2% voted in favor, while 48.8% were opposed.

The Nuclear Waste Management Organization (NWMO), a non-profit organization representing major nuclear power generation utilities, has been hunting since 2010 for a site to store spent fuel from nuclear power reactors. Known as a deep geological repository, or DGR, the facility would be built more than half a kilometer underground, at an estimated cost of $26 billion.

South Bruce, located more than 120 kilometres north of London and home to about 6,200 residents, is a rural, largely agricultural area of less than 500 square kilometers. It includes a few small communities including Mildmay, Formosa, Culross and Teeswater. The NWMO has secured more than 1,500 acres of land north of Teeswater for the project.

From the outset, the NWMO said it would build the facility only “in an area with informed and willing hosts,” which meant one municipality and one Indigenous group. South Bruce is one of two finalists to host the DGR, down from an original list of 22 communities that expressed interest. The NWMO said it will announce its final selection by Dec. 31st.

Under a hosting agreement the municipality signed earlier this year, South Bruce stands to receive $418-million over nearly a century and a half if selected. The municipality agreed not to do anything to oppose or halt the project, and at the NWMO’s request will communicate its support. The NWMO can modify the project in several respects, including changing the sorts of waste it will store there. The facility would be constructed between 2036 and 2042, ns would then receive, process and store nuclear waste for another half-century.

South Bruce’s byelection, which began last week, asked residents to vote by phone or Internet on whether they were in favor of hosting the DGR. Simply Voting reported turnout of 69.3%, substantially above the 50% minimum required to make the outcome binding under Ontario’s Municipal Elections Act.

The other community in the running is Ignace, Ont., a town of 1,200 more than 200 kilometres northwest of Thunder Bay. Its council voted to accept the DGR in July, and would receive $170-million under its own hosting agreement. (The move was supported by 77% of registered voters who participated in a non-binding online poll.) That location, known as the Revell site, is about 40 km west of the town.

The NWMO also seeks approval from two Indigenous communities: The Saugeen Ojibway Nation for the South Bruce site, and the Wabigoon Lake Ojibway Nation for the Revell site. Neither First Nation has yet signaled consent, but the NWMO spokesperson Craig MacBride said the organization is “in active discussions” with both.

“The NWMO still anticipates selecting a site by the end of this year,” he wrote in an e-mailed response to questions.

As of June 2023, Canada had accumulated 3.3 million spent fuel bundles, each the size of a fire log. They’re currently stored at nuclear power plants in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick, and roughly 90,000 new ones are added each year. Upon removal from a reactor, they’re highly radioactive and must be stored in pools of water for about a decade; afterward, they’re moved to storage containers made from reinforced concrete and lined with half-inch steel plate.

The South Bruce referendum follows a campaign that lasted a dozen years and produced rifts within the community.

Protect Our Waterways, a local group opposed to the DGR from the outset, had demanded a referendum. Some DGR supporters opposed putting the matter to a public vote, preferring to leave the decision to elected officials. Municipal officials pointed to the area’s declining economy and population, and emphasized the benefits brought by the NWMO’s spending. Supporters and opponents often accused each other of producing misinformation………………………………………………………….. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-south-bruce-municipality-narrowly-votes-to-host-underground-nuclear/#:~:text=Its%20council%20voted%20to%20accept,km%20west%20of%20the%20town.

October 30, 2024 Posted by | Canada, politics | Leave a comment

Slovenia’s referendum on new nuclear cancelled

WNN, Friday, 25 October 2024


The nationwide referendum due to be held in Slovenia on 24 November about proposed new nuclear power units has been called off and may now be staged later in the project process, in 2028, instead.

The decision by Slovenia’s parliament to cancel the vote – just days after the elected members had voted for it to happen – followed challenges to the wording and allegations that it was not being properly conducted………………..

Prime Minister Robert Golob has committed to hold a referendum on the project before it goes ahead, with a number of key studies and documents to be published beforehand to “enable citizens to make an informed decision”. The current timetable for the project is for a final investment decision to be taken in 2028, with construction beginning in 2032.

Among a raft of reviews and documents published over the past few months, was an economic review of the estimated cost of the project which put the cost, depending on the power-generating capacity selected, at EUR9.5 billion to EUR15.4 billion (USD10.3 billion to USD16.7 billion).

The opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) -… – said it now opposed the referendum because, they say, Energy Minister Bojan Kumer had requested, and not published, an analysis of the costs if there was no nuclear energy and up to 100% renewable energy instead.

SDS MP Zvone Černač said if media reports were 
true “and Minister Kumer hid the study from the public for two months, he should resign”. Černač
 accused the minister of using the “rhetoric of renewable energy activists” and said that in the current circumstances carrying out a referendum “would be irresponsible”……………………… https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/slovenias-referendum-on-new-nuclear-cancelled

October 28, 2024 Posted by | politics | Leave a comment

Crippling The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA): The Knesset’s Collective Punishment of Palestinians

UN Secretary-General Guterres was aghast at the two bills. “It would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people.”

October 26, 2024, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/crippling-unrwa-the-knessets-collective-punishment-of-palestinians/—

The man has a cheek. Having lectured Iranians and Lebanese about what (and who) is good for them in terms of rulers and rule (we already know what he thinks of the Palestinians), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been keeping busy on further depriving access and assistance to those in Gaza and the West Bank. This comes in draft legislation that would prevent the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) from pursuing its valuable functions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

The campaign against UNRWA by the Israeli state has been relentless and pathological. Even before last year’s October 7 attacks by Hamas, much was made of the fact that the body seemed intent on keeping the horrors of the 1948 displacements current. Victimhood, complained the amnesiac enforcers of the Israeli state, was being encouraged by treating the descendants of displaced Palestinians as refugees. Nasty memories were being kept alive.

Since then, Israel has been further libelling and blackening the organisation as a terrorist frontbest abolished. (Labels are effortlessly swapped – “Hamas supporter”; “activist”; “terrorist”.) Initially came that infamous dossier pointing the finger at 12 individuals said to be Hamas participants in the October 7 attacks. With swiftness, the UN commenced internal investigations. Some individuals were sacked on suspicion of being linked to the attacks. Unfortunately, some US$450 million worth of donor funding from sixteen countries was suspended.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini was always at pains to explain that he had “never been informed” nor received evidence substantiating Israel’s accusations. It was also all the more curious given that staff lists for the agency were provided to both Israeli and Palestinian authorities in advance. At no point had he ever “received the slightest concern about the staff that we have been employing.”

In April, Lazzarini told the UN Security Council that “an insidious campaign to end UNRWA’s operations is under way, with serious implications for peace and security.” Repeatedly, requests by the agency to deliver aid to northern Gaza had been refused, staff barred from coordinating meetings between humanitarian actors and Israel, and UNRWA premises and staff targeted.

Israel’s campaign to dissuade donor states from restoring funding proved a mixed one. Even the United Kingdom, long sympathetic to Israel’s accusations, announced in July that funding would be restored. In the view of UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, UNRWA had taken steps to ensure that it was meeting “the highest standards of neutrality.”

In August, the findings of a review of the allegations by former French foreign minister Catherine Colonna, instigated at the request of the UN Secretary-General António Guterres,were released. It confirmed UNRWA’s role as “irreplaceable and indispensable” in the absence of a political solution between Israel and the Palestinians, a “pivotal” body that provided “life-saving humanitarian aid and essential social services, particularly in health and education, to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank.”

In identifying eight areas for immediate improvement on the subject of neutrality (for instance, engaging donors, neutrality of staff, installations, education and staff unions), it was noted that “Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence” that the agency’s employees had been “members of terrorist organizations.”

On October 24, UNRWA confirmed that one of its staffers killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza,Muhammad Abu Attawi, had been in the agency’s employ since July 2022 while serving as a Nukhba commander in Hamas’s Bureij Battalion. Attawi is alleged to have participated in the killing and kidnapping of Israelis from a roadside bomb shelter near Kibbutz Re’im in October last year. His name had featured in a July letter from Israel to the agency listing 100 names allegedly connected with terrorist groups. But no action was taken against Attawi as the Israelis failed to supply UNRWA with evidence. Lazzarini’s letter urging, in the words of Juliette Touma, the agency’s director of communications, “to cooperate … by providing more information so he could take action” did not receive “any response”.

Having been foiled on various fronts in its quest to terminate UNRWA’s viable existence, Israeli lawmakers are now taking the legislative route to entrench the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Two bills are in train in the Knesset. The first, sponsored by such figures as Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky and Likud lawmaker Dan Illouz, would bar state authorities from having contact with UNRWA. The second, sponsored by Likud MK Boaz Bismuth, would critically prevent the agency from operating in Israeli territory through revoking a 1967 exchange of notes justifying such activities.

Even proclaimed moderates – the term is relative – such as former defence minister Benny Gantz support the measures, accusing the UN body of making “itself an inseparable component of Hamas’s mechanism – and now is the time to detach ourselves entirely from it.” It did not improve the lot of refugees, but merely perpetuated “their victimisation.” Evidently for Gantz, Israel had no central role in creating Palestinian victims in the first place.

By barring cooperation between any Israeli authorities and UNRWA, work in Gaza and the West Bank would become effectively impossible, largely because Jerusalem would no longer issue entrance permits to the territories or permit any coordination with the Israeli DefenseForces.

UN Secretary-General Guterres was aghast at the two bills. “It would effectively end coordination to protect UN convoys, offices and shelters serving hundreds of thousands of people.” Ambassadors from 123 UN member states have echoed the same views, while the Biden administration has, impotently, warned that the proposed “restrictions would devastate the humanitarian response in Gaza at this critical moment” while also denying educational and social services to Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

In their October 23 statement, the Nordic countries also expressed concern that UNRWA’s mandate “to carry out […] direct relief and works programmes” for millions of Palestinian refugees as determined by UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) would be jettisoned. “In the midst of an ongoing catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza, a halt to any of the organisation’s activities would have devastating consequences for the hundreds of thousands of civilians served by UNRWA.”

The statement goes on to make a warning. To impair the refugee agency would create a vacuum that “may well destabilise the situation in [Gaza, and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem], in Israel and in the region as a whole, and may fundamentally jeopardize the prospects of a two-state solution.”

These are concerns that hardly matter before the rationale of murderous collective punishment, one used against a people seen more as mute serfs and submissive animals than sovereign beings entitled to rights and protections. Israel’s efforts to malign and cripple UNRWA remains a vital part of that agenda. In that organisation exists a repository of deep and troubling memories the forces of oppression long to erase.

October 27, 2024 Posted by | Israel, politics | Leave a comment

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