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Time’s Up for Netanyahu and Biden

The question for today is what the world will do to enable the Palestinian people to live in peace and security in a nation where their children enjoy the opportunities most Americans and Europeans take for granted.

By Dan Siegel ScheerPost 17 Nov 23  https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/17/times-up-for-netanyahu-and-biden/

We can tell the world is changing when tens of thousands of Texans rally in the capital of America’s most important red state to demand a ceasefire in Gaza and freedom for Palestine. No longer can the Israeli government enforce its deadly calculus of 10 (or 50? or 100?) Palestinian lives for each Israeli killed in its futile effort to suppress Palestine’s struggle for self-determination. No longer can an American President assume that the public will support propping up an Israeli government whose constant, murderous violations of international law bring us daily exposure to the violence and deprivation imposed on the Palestinian population.

The issues are no longer whether Israel should survive and whether Hamas’ murders must be condemned. Those are the easy questions. Countless millions of us have moved on. 

The question for today is what the world will do to enable the Palestinian people to live in peace and security in a nation where their children enjoy the opportunities most Americans and Europeans take for granted. No one suggests that this challenge can be easily resolved, but the first step is for the U.S. to stop supporting the most right-wing government in Israel’s history from imposing unlimited violence and deprivation on Gaza while accelerating violent settler expansion in the West Bank.

Israel’s strategies to ensure its survival and the means it chooses to defend itself should no longer enjoy unquestioned American support. Netanyahu’s government has exhausted its legitimate right to defend itself against the Hamas attack. It has already killed 11,000 Palestinians and provided no evidence that any of them were responsible for Hamas’ violence.

Israel’s air campaign against Gaza relies on the “emergency” American appropriation of $14 billion in military aid. American weapons have been designated for Israeli settlers stealing Palestinian land in the West Bank. U.S. officials know that Israel’s actions will not lead to peace. So do Israeli leaders, including many in the military. Netanyahu and his government survive because they have American support, including Jews who continue to maintain that criticism of the Israeli government is the equivalent of antisemitism. Many of us disagree. Recent polling demonstrates that the American public is evenly divided on support for the Israeli bombing of Gaza.

Organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace and J Street represent ever growing numbers of American Jews. We are no longer cowed from describing Israel’s actions against the people of Gaza as genocide or its policies in the West Bank as apartheid. We are no longer intimidated by an American Jewish establishment that wields specious and exaggerated accusations of antisemitism and harassment to silence critics of the Netanyahu government.

America’s Jewish establishment does its best to suppress the contentious history of Zionism within the Jewish community worldwide. My grandfather grew up in the late 1800s in a small town in Belarus and became a student and political activist in Minsk. The intellectual life of his community focused on the debate about whether socialism or Zionism best served Jews’ long term interests.

Much public debate focuses on “who started it?,” and the simplistic answer given by Israel’s defenders points to the Hamas attack of October 7 as justification for Israel’s excesses. But the war between Israel and Palestine did not begin on Oct.  7, or even in 1979 or 1967 or 1948, and it was not created in the Holocaust. It makes more sense to say that the roots of the current conflict go back to the Crusades, a campaign that began around 1095 when Europe’s Christian kings raised and sent armies to the Middle East to overthrow its Muslim leaders and take their land. As they marched across Europe, the Crusaders attacked Jewish communities, murdering their populations and stealing their wealth. Almost 1,000 years later the descendants of those Arab and Jewish people contend for the land conquered by the Crusaders.

History will not tell us which side has right on its side. The search for peace must be forward-looking and requires a commitment to the welfare of both the Palestinian and Israeli people. American officials are far from powerless to stop the Netanyahu government. The problem is that they refuse to do so. The current crisis has created a demand for leadership with a vision of a world at peace.

This is Joe Biden’s Lyndon Johnson moment, the time for him to follow LBJ’s 1968 decision to withdraw from the campaign for reelection. The issue is not that Biden is too old. His policies are too old. The American Empire is no more. We need leaders ready to engage the emerging multipolar world, who do not imagine that the U.S. is going to war over Taiwan, who welcome sharing power with the nations of Europe and the BRICS countries. The end of America’s uncritical support of the Israeli government can be the first step in creating leadership for a world at peace.

November 19, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Washington raises stakes on ‘losing hand’ in Ukraine – Jeffrey Sachs

Sachs noted that he and other observers predicted the Ukraine debacle in the early days of the conflict. “This one was not very hard to see,” he said. “Like you said, how can you beat Russia? It was very obvious. These people just are not very clever. Biden, Nuland, [National Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan, [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken – they’ve been at this since 2014.”


https://www.rt.com/news/587370-sachs-ukraine-losing-hand/ 17 Nov 23

Just three days after Russian forces launched a military offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky sought to resolve the conflict by pledging neutrality, Sachs said. However, he suggested that, when Zelensky reached a preliminary agreement with the Russians on a peace settlement a few weeks later, US President Joe Biden’s administration torpedoed the deal.

The leading American analyst has argued that Washington needs a new foreign policy after 15 years of failure in Eastern Europe

Washington has continually escalated a failed foreign policy in Eastern Europe since at least 2008, driving Ukraine to the brink of total destruction by failing to address Russia’s legitimate security concerns in the former Soviet republic, US public policy analyst Jeffrey Sachs has argued.

“The US has played a losing hand badly for 15 straight years,” Sachs said on Wednesday in an interview with independent journalist Glenn Greenwald. “This is really important to understand if one wants to learn a little bit about geopolitical poker, which is, we keep raising the stakes on a losing hand.”

Sachs, an award-winning economist who advised the Russian and Ukrainian governments following the Soviet Union’s breakup, detailed how at various points in the past two decades, Washington could have forestalled a military conflict without Kiev losing any territory. He pointed out that Moscow was demanding that NATO not expand onto its doorstep, which US officials refused to concede.

When Ukraine’s then-president, Viktor Yanukovych, chose neutrality over aligning with the West and agreed to extend the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s lease of its naval base in Crimea, that wasn’t good enough for US leaders, Sachs said. US State Department official Victoria Nuland “and friends” then helped overthrow Kiev’s democratically elected government in 2014, leading to Ukraine’s loss of Crimea, he said.

Even then, Russia wasn’t demanding more territory. Rather, Sachs said, Moscow wanted Ukraine to refrain from shelling ethnic Russians in the breakaway Donbass region and to grant them a degree of autonomy. Those terms were included in the Minsk II agreement, which was unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council, but US officials told Ukrainian leaders that they didn’t need to comply with the deal, the analyst said.

In December 2021, Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a security pact pledging no further expansion of NATO and negotiations on placement of US missile systems in Eastern Europe. The US reply came in January 2022.

“We don’t have to discuss any of that with you,” Sachs said, summing up Washington’s stance at the time. “That was the reply. We don’t have to discuss NATO with you. It’s none of your business.”

Just three days after Russian forces launched a military offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky sought to resolve the conflict by pledging neutrality, Sachs said. However, he suggested that, when Zelensky reached a preliminary agreement with the Russians on a peace settlement a few weeks later, US President Joe Biden’s administration torpedoed the deal.

Washington has since approved $113 billion in aid to Ukraine, essentially prolonging the fighting, the analyst argued. Earlier this year, the Biden administration goaded Kiev into a major counteroffensive against Russian forces that was “clearly an impossibility,” Sachs said.  

“They’ve raised the stakes for 15 years on a losing hand, and they can’t get it,” the economist said. “And this is our team. They failed.”

Sachs noted that he and other observers predicted the Ukraine debacle in the early days of the conflict. “This one was not very hard to see,” he said. “Like you said, how can you beat Russia? It was very obvious. These people just are not very clever. Biden, Nuland, [National Security Advisor Jake] Sullivan, [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken – they’ve been at this since 2014.”

Kiev’s much-anticipated offensive campaign, launched in the summer, has failed to achieve any significant victories or win back much territory. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, said in a recent interview that the fighting has reached “a stalemate.” 

The Economist reported this week that Western officials “increasingly think” that the conflict could last for another five years.

November 19, 2023 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Herzog: Israel will maintain ‘very strong force’ in Gaza, Translation: We’re not leaving. Ever.


James Shotter and Andrew England, Financial Times, Thu, 16 Nov 2023  https://www.sott.net/article/486055-Herzog-Israel-will-maintain-very-strong-force-in-Gaza-Translation-We-re-not-leaving-Ever

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has said that his country cannot leave a vacuum in Gaza and would have to maintain a “very strong force” in the coastal enclave for the near future to prevent Hamas re-emerging in the besieged strip.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Herzog said the government was discussing many ideas about how Gaza would be run once the war between Israel and Hamas ended, adding that he assumed the US and “our neighbours in the region” would have some involvement in the post-conflict order.

“If we pull back, then who will take over? We can’t leave a vacuum. We have to think about what will be the mechanism; there are many ideas that are thrown in the air,” Herzog said. “But no one will want to turn this place, Gaza, into a terror base again.”

Herzog’s comments come as international pressure mounts on Israel over the soaring death toll in Gaza and the deepening humanitarian crisis in the strip, which is home to 2.3mn people and has been controlled by Hamas since 2007.

Western officials are also concerned that Israel has no clear plan for what comes next in Gaza after vowing to eliminate Hamas, which is deeply embedded in Palestinian society and has political and military wings.

The Biden administration has said there might be a need for a transition period, but it has also warned Israel not to reoccupy the strip — from which it withdrew in 2005 — or to reduce the size of the territory with new security barriers or buffer zones.

Comment: Good luck with that. The Zionists are off the leash and they know it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has previously said Israel would maintain indefinite “overall security responsibility” over Gaza.

Herzog, who has no executive powers but is briefed on the war effort, said: “In order to prevent terror from coming up again, we have to have a very strong force to make sure that it’s committed enough and it [the attack] doesn’t happen [again].”

Herzog was speaking hours before Israeli forces launched a raid on al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, which is home to patients and thousands of Palestinians who have sought sanctuary from Israel’s bombardment.

The Israel Defense Forces described its raid on al-Shifa as a “precise and targeted operation” in a “specified area” of the hospital. The IDF accuses Hamas of using hospitals for military operations, and the White House on Tuesday supported Israel’s claims that Palestinian militants stored weapons in medical facilities.

Comment: Precise and targeted means we won’t drop a missile right on your head, but bomb you right up to the front door:

Hamas has denied these claims. A spokesman for the government in Gaza described the raid on al-Shifa as a war crime.

The UN has said that the health system in Gaza has collapsed, with all but one of the hospitals in northern Gaza no longer functioning.

Asked about Israel’s military operations around hospitals, Herzog said: “We are doing it in a very, very cautious way.”

He also insisted that Israel was seeking to protect civilians.

Israeli forces launched an air and land offensive on Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 attack killed about 1,200 people, according to Israeli officials, in its most ferocious ever assault on the strip.

More than 11,200 people have been killed in Israel’s bombardment, according to Palestinian health officials, and the UN says more than 1.5mn people have been displaced.

Israel has repeatedly ordered Palestinians to leave the densely populated north of Gaza, which is the focus of its military operations, and to move south.

“I care about the Palestinian deaths . . . it breaks my heart,” Herzog said. “But I always remember, I have first and foremost [to ensure] the security to defend our people.”

Even Israel’s staunchest allies have raised concerns about the death toll in Gaza, with US secretary of state Antony Blinken saying last week that “far too many Palestinians have been killed”.

This week, French President Emmanuel Macron told the BBC that Israel must “stop the bombing”.

Herzog said Israel respected its allies and listened to the US “very carefully”. But he added that “at the end of the day, we have a duty to protect our people”.

The president said “first and foremost” Israel wanted to secure the release of about 240 hostages that Hamas captured during its October 7 attack on southern Israel.

He said the international community understood that, and supported Israel’s right to defend itself. But he said: “How do I have the right to defend myself if I cannot eradicate the military capabilities of Hamas? It’s right there. It’s right there in the [Gaza] city.”

Qatar, which hosts Hamas’s political office, has been facilitating indirect talks between Israel and the militant group to secure a deal to release civilian hostages.

Herzog blamed Hamas for the lack of an agreement, saying “we haven’t even received one piece of information about our hostages”.

“So we have to fight and get them,” he said.

He said Israel, which has laid siege to Gaza and allowed only a limited amount of aid into the strip — triggering acute shortages of food, water and fuel — was working to allow more humanitarian assistance into the enclave.

Herzog added that the government was discussing “a major effort” with Cyprus to deliver aid via the sea, saying Cypriot officials would be visiting Israel on Thursday to follow up on the initiative.

“It’s under serious negotiations with the Cypriot government,” he said.

“It’s true there are areas in Gaza that are in a very dire situation. That’s because it’s a war zone,” he said. “But we are trying.”

November 19, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The US and China re-engage on arms control. What may come next

Bulletin, By Daryl G. Kimball | November 15, 2023

For more than six decades, the United States has been worried about China’s regional influence, military activities—and its nuclear potential. For instance, in 1958, US officials considered using nuclear weapons to thwart Chinese artillery strikes on islands controlled by Taiwan, according to a document leaked by Daniel Ellsberg in 2021. Now, as then, a nuclear conflict between the United States and China would be devastating for both sides and the world.

The United States has a decades-long experience of nuclear arms control and strategic stability talks with the Soviet Union, and later Russia. However, there has not been a sustained bilateral dialogue between Washington and Beijing on how to reduce the risk of conflict, nuclear escalation, and nuclear arms control and disarmament. Until recently, China had rebuffed US overtures for bilateral talks on nuclear risk reduction and arms control, and on other security issues.

Adding to the tensions, China has embarked since the early 2000s on a major buildup of its relatively smaller nuclear arsenal and has resisted calls for a global halt on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. In response, some current and former national security insiders, as well as many in Congress, suggest that the US arsenal “should be supplemented” to add more capability and flexibility to counter two “near-peer” nuclear adversaries. In other words, the potential for an unconstrained, three-way arms race is growing.

But things started to change on November 6 with the meeting in Washington between US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Mallory Stewart and China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Director-General of Arms Control Sun Xiaobo.

A modest yet important breakthrough. The US-Chinese discussion on arms control—the first of its kind since 2018—was described by the US side as a “candid and in-depth discussion on issues related to arms control and nonproliferation.” According to the State Department’s readout of the meeting, “the United States highlighted the need to promote stability, help avert an unconstrained arms race, and manage competition so that it does not veer into conflict.” The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s readout also said the “[t]he two sides had an in-depth, candid and constructive exchange of views” on nuclear weapons matters, as well as an exchange on “regular arms control.”

Several participants told me that the meeting was “wide-ranging” and “positive in tone,” but that it did not involve much substantive exchange of views on the issues, which is not surprising. Tangible progress will require time and sustained give-and-take from both sides.

The next step, ideally, will be for Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, who are set to meet this week, to direct their teams toward concrete nuclear risk reduction and arms control measures that enhance mutual security.

More nuclear capabilities imply more responsibilities.……………………………………………….

China’s arsenal is not only growing (it had less than 200 nuclear warheads in 2000), but it is also diversifying and modernizing. It is now well-documented that China has started to deploy new solid-fueled missiles that can be launched more quickly than its older liquid-fueled missiles. …………………………………………………………………………..

Of course, China’s nuclear arsenal is still modest by comparison to the US and Russian arsenals, each of which are about nine times larger than China’s. But China’s nuclear modernization efforts could have significant strategic implications that make it even more important for the “Big Three” (the United States, Russia, and China) to pursue meaningful progress on nuclear arms control to avoid a destabilizing and dangerous nuclear arms race.

Toward a more serious, sustained dialogue. In response to China’s nuclear buildup, US officials—Republicans and Democrats alike—have prioritized engagement with China in talks to identify measures to reduce nuclear risks and prevent destabilizing and costly strategic weapons competition………………………….

Sullivan’s June 2 address provides some important clues about the types of issues the US side likely raised in the arms control talks. Sullivan suggested that the United States and China, along with the other NPT nuclear-armed states, could engage in new nuclear arms control and risk reduction efforts such as establishing more robust crisis communications channels and “formalizing a missile launch notification regime” for all five permanent members of the UN Security Council—the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France. “It’s a small step that would help reduce the risk of misperception and miscalculation in times of crisis,” Sullivan added.

These suggestions don’t happen in a vacuum: The United States and Russia have a ballistic missile launch notification agreement already in place, and Russia and China have their own bilateral agreement too.

In his remarks, Sullivan also called for talks on “maintaining a ‘human-in-the-loop’ for command, control, and employment of nuclear weapons” to reduce the risk of miscalculation in a crisis. This would require that the US and China—and other nuclear-armed states—agree to pursue technical discussions designed to reach common understandings on how the use of artificial intelligence, particularly high-risk, cutting-edge deep learning models, can be banned or at least limited so the use of nuclear weapons is effectively kept under human control. This proposal seems to have reached the highest level with Presidents Biden and Xi reportedly discussing limits on the employment of artificial intelligence in the control and deployment of nuclear weapons.

In future meetings, US and Chinese diplomats should go one step further and set out a process for formulating a joint understanding that cyberwarfare capabilities will not be used to try to interfere with other states’ nuclear command and control systems, which could also severely alter decision-making in a crisis……………………………………………………..

From talks to concrete actions. Further down the road, an even more ambitious approach that might be considered in the multilateral, nuclear-five setting would be for Washington and Moscow to propose that China, France, and the United Kingdom freeze the size of their nuclear stockpiles so long as the United States and Russia maintain the current limits on their strategic arsenals—even after New START expires—and make good faith efforts to negotiate deeper verifiable reductions in their stockpiles…………………………………………………………………

With US-Russian relations at rock bottom, the Kremlin still wedging its war on Ukraine, and the last remaining treaty limiting US and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals set to expire in early 2026, the risk of nuclear escalation and a nuclear arms race with Russia is already too high. That makes it all the more important for Xi and Biden to direct their team to work harder and more steadily to reduce tensions and head off the possibility of a costly, dangerous, unconstrained three-way nuclear race that no one can win.

 https://thebulletin.org/2023/11/the-us-and-china-re-engage-on-arms-control-what-may-come-next/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=ThursdayNewsletter11162023&utm_content=NuclearRisk_USAndChina_11152023

November 19, 2023 Posted by | China, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Patrick Lawrence: ‘The Hinge of History’- Palestine and the New World Order

What we are seeing at the moment in Palestine is the end of settler colonialism. Settler colonialism is a phenomenon of the last two centuries or so, and it is always accompanied by genocide.

November 14, 2023, By Patrick Lawrence ,  https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/14/patrick-lawrence-the-hinge-of-history/—

Bombing hospitals was, just a few days ago, an undeclared red line the Israel Defense Forces dared not cross without provoking international disgust and condemnation. At writing, the IDF is bombing hospitals and, I read, its soldiers are shooting patients, invalids among them, as they attempt to evacuate buildings soon to be demolished. 

There is disgust and condemnation now, and they find expression not only on the streets of many cities but also in governing circles. Axios reported Monday that an internal State Department memo, signed by 100 officials at State and its aid agency, USAID, accuses President Biden of lying about Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and of complicity in war crimes. On Tuesday, The New York Times put the signatories of another letter to Biden at 400 representing 40 government departments and agencies, including the National Security Council — this in addition to an open letter to Secretary of State Blinken signed by more than 1,000 Agency for International Development employees. So far as I know, this measure of dissent in policy and governing circles is more or less unprecedented. 

Beyond our purple mountains and fruited plains, the Irish Dáil will vote this week on expelling the Israeli ambassador, throwing Israel out of a European Union trade accord for breaching its human-rights clauses, and—a Sinn Féin motion—referring Israel to the International Criminal Court. Emmanuel Macron came out last weekend calling for a ceasefire, the first Western leader to do so. Given Biden’s defiant refusal even to consider asking Israel to accept a ceasefire, the French president has implicitly issued a rejection of Israeli violence and the U.S. policy supporting it.

We cannot make too much of events such as these, but we must not make too little of them, either. These are signs on the surface of much deeper movements a few meters down in our civilization’s soil. Things are gradually coming apart in consequence of Israel’s savagery and America’s abetment of it, at home in the U.S., in the Atlantic world altogether and certainly between the West and the world beyond it. Now it is time to look forward to see what we can see of the world to come. 

Christopher Lydon, who produces Radio Open Source for WBUR in Boston, suggested over the weekend we have reached “a hinge in history—outcomes wildly uncertain.” He made this remark at the start of a long interview with Chas Freeman, the retired ambassador for whom I share with Lydon great admiration. Freeman agreed with the hinge-of-history thought. So do I. All is changing, changing utterly, if you will let me borrow and bend Yeats’s famous line.

Here is Chas on our moment:

This is clearly what Chancellor Scholz of Germany calls a Zeitenwende—that is, an epic-changing moment, a time of major change in a new direction in history. We’ve talked before about the fact that 500 years of global dominance by the Euro–American culture, the Atlantic culture, has come to an end. 

The only exception I can think of is New Zealand, where Māori power countered the British sufficiently to preserve their culture as a separate one….What we are seeing at the moment in Palestine is the end of settler colonialism. Settler colonialism is a phenomenon of the last two centuries or so, and it is always accompanied by genocide.

It may seem unlikely that the Palestinians will do as well resisting the hegemonic West as the Māori in the 19th century, although outcomes, as Chris Lydon says, are wildly uncertain. In any case, one does not want to see a separate, even segregated Palestinian entity emerge from the Israel–Palestine catastrophe so much as a single, secular nation in which cultures of all sorts are integrated and, more than tolerant, wholly accepting of one another. So I argued recently in this space. 

November 16, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international | 1 Comment

Biden and Xi will sign a deal to keep AI out of control systems for nuclear weapons: report

Tom Porter , Nov 13, 2023,  https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-xi-deal-ai-out-nuclear-weapons-systems-apec-report-2023-11

  • China’s President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden will meet this week. 
  • They’re expected to agree to limit the use of AI in nuclear weapons, a report said. 
  • The meeting comes amid increasing tensions between the US and China.

US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping are set to sign a deal limiting the use of artificial intelligence in nuclear weapon control systems, according to The South China Morning Post.

The leaders are due to meet Wednesday at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco against a backdrop of increasing tensions between the superpowers.

Among the top items on the agenda is the proliferation of AI in military technologies, two sources familiar with the planned discussions told The South China Morning Post.

Biden and Xi will pledge a deal limiting the use of AI in autonomous weaponry, such as drones, as well as the systems used for the control and deployment of nuclear warheads, the report said.

November 15, 2023 Posted by | politics international, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Collective calls on Pacific leaders to oppose Fukushima nuclear wastewater discharge

 https://news.cgtn.com/news/2023-11-12/Pacific-leaders-urged-to-oppose-Fukushima-nuclear-wastewater-discharge-1oG0b179xE4/index.html

The Pacific Collective on Nuclear Issues has denounced once again the dumping of radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, calling on Pacific leaders to suspend Japan’s status as a Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) dialogue partner.

The Collective, composed of civil society groups, non-governmental organizations and movements in the Pacific, issued a statement this week, during which the 52nd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting was held in the Cook Islands.

The statement condemned the Japanese government and the facility operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), for insisting on this flawed and dangerous course of action.

“The findings of the independent panel of scientific experts commissioned by the Pacific Islands Forum were unequivocal – the data provided so far, to support Japan’s claim that the treated wastewater is safe, is inconsistent, unsound and therefore far from reliable,” the statement said, adding that “if the Japanese government and TEPCO believe the radioactive wastewater is safe, they should be prepared to safely dispose of it within terrestrial Japan.”

The Collective also declared that such dumping into the Pacific Ocean is a direct violation of human rights.

Aside from being a brazen violation of international law, the Collective said, Japan’s behavior and handling of this matter is an affront to the very sovereignty of Pacific states and unbecoming of a dialogue partner of the PIF.

Founded in 1971, the PIF is the region’s premier political and economic policy organization which comprises 18 members.

The Collective called on the Pacific leaders to reaffirm the long-held position of the Pacific to keep their region nuclear-free and to review diplomatic relations with Japan at the next Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in 2024.

They also called on the international community not to turn a blind eye to the threat that dumping radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean poses to Pacific peoples, their livelihoods, safety, health and well-being.

Japan conducted the third round of release of nuclear-contaminated wastewater from the crippled Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant into the Pacific Ocean earlier this month, despite numerous and repeated objections by governments and communities, environmental groups, NGOs, and anti-nuclear movements in Japan and the Pacific

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Fukushima continuing, OCEANIA, oceans, politics international, wastes | Leave a comment

Biden Moves To Reduce U.S. Reliance On Russian Nuclear Supply Chain

The U.S. depends on Russian state-operated firm Rosatom for nearly 50% of
global uranium enrichment, essential for the nation’s nuclear energy
production. America’s reliance on Russian nuclear supply chains continues
despite sanctions, inadvertently funding Russia’s defense sector and
creating a critical vulnerability in energy security. The Biden
administration is seeking $2.16 billion to boost domestic uranium
enrichment capabilities, emphasizing the urgency to diminish dependence on
Russian nuclear fuel for national security and energy independence.

Oil Price 11th Nov 2023

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Biden-Moves-To-Reduce-US-Reliance-On-Russian-Nuclear-Supply-Chain.html

November 14, 2023 Posted by | politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Patrick Lawrence: Biden’s Frankenstein

SCHEERPOST, November 8, 2023

The new wave of violence in Israel and Gaza now enters its second month. More than 10,000 people have been killed, The Associated Press reports, 40 percent of them children. Where is this catastrophe going? What are the limits of Israel’s inhumanity? Does the Biden regime, in its unforgivable support and encouragement of this ethnic-cleansing operation, have another Frankenstein on its hands—a monster it cannot control?

The new wave of violence in Israel and Gaza now enters its second month. More than 10,000 people have been killed, The Associated Press reports, 40 percent of them children. Where is this catastrophe going? What are the limits of Israel’s inhumanity? Does the Biden regime, in its unforgivable support and encouragement of this ethnic-cleansing operation, have another Frankenstein on its hands—a monster it cannot control?

It starts to look as if Biden and his foreign policy people have lost what control they may have had over Bibi Netanyahu and the fanatical regime he directs. Last week Antony Blinken, on his second trip to Israel since the Hamas assault on southern Israel October 7, asked the Israeli prime minister to “pause”—we must not propose a ceasefire—Israel’s daily bombing campaign up and down the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu refused the American secretary of state more or less point blank. Ask yourself: Who was in charge of that meeting, who was running the show? I have to say, Blinken does come over as a diplomatic pipsqueak time and time again, as he did last summer in Beijing, when the Chinese leadership actually scolded him before sending him home with nothing but lectures to show for his effort. 

The Biden White House has been making sotto voce requests such as Blinken’s for the past couple of weeks, all to very little avail. Dim and wanting in all subtlety, even Biden, Blinken and the rest of the regime’s national security crew are now aware that Biden’s open-door, open-wallet support for Bibi’s frenzied violence against Palestinians has turned into a political disaster from which it will be difficult to recover. West Asian nations may not stand with Palestinians to the extent one would like to see, but the old client relationships with Washington appear to have been altered more or less permanently. 

It all looks so very bad. Last week the Latin Americans began recalling their ambassadors to Tel Aviv, Bolivia going so far as to sever relations, and bravo for the Bolivians. This week Jordan, Bahrain, Turkey, Chad and South Africa followed suit. The Israelis show no sign of giving a damn, but look at the names: America has traditionally counted these nations among its friends (or clients). Now they stand among those treating apartheid Israel as the pariah state it deserves to be called. Think about where this will leave Washington out in the middle distance. It will be another case of U.S. support for South Africa before the apartheid regime gave up the ghost in 1990, or for Rhodesia before it became Zimbabwe 10 years earlier. It will be embarrassing and costly. 

There are cracks in the façade at home, too. There are murmurs in Congress that the Israelis have gone too far, although very few have made the daring leap from ineffectually suggesting a “temporary pause” in the bombing to demanding a ceasefire. Unnamed officials now acknowledge that Israel’s hysterical violence has nothing to do with self-defense and everything to do with preserving the Israeli Defense Force’s reputation for merciless retribution. I read these sorts of admissions as indications of dissatisfaction and disapproval, if not disgust. 

…………………..There is an election now one year away, after all, and I am reading opinion surveys indicating the majority of Americans favor humanitarian aid to Gaza rather than military aid to Israel. I read that 300,000 people marched in Washington last weekend. The risk seems clear, then, that Biden’s Israel-über-alles policy—so devoid of imagination, so betraying of his limited intelligence—could jeopardize his chances next November 5. This is not, obviously, a candidate with room to spare for major policy errors, and fielding the Israel–Gaza crisis as Biden has is a very, very major error.

…………………………….Biden is stuck. This is the simple answer. He has—and far from alone is he in this—painted the U.S. into a corner with the Israelis. They know very well Israel is America’s true Frankenstein and that Washington cannot possibly cut the current.  Please tone down the violence against innocents, and here is $3.8 billion in annual military aid, and a new $14.3 billion atop it, so you can keep on going: How else are Bibi and his fanatic ministers supposed to read this if not as a license to continue bombing and starving Palestinians?

What we witness as the second month of this atrocity begins, and this is the (slightly) complicated read, is a two-sided, impossibly contradictory policy. The U.S. needs to control a political and public-relations disaster while supporting the savagery that produces the disaster. ………………………….

American policy toward Israel has nothing to do with protecting Israeli people, “honest brokering,” or any such notion. It has to do with maintaining the imperium’s presence in West Asia—this the objective since at least the 1967 war. In my read we can count this the first, second, third and only priority of the policy cliques in Washington. This is why it is fine that the post–1967 leadership in Tel Aviv has turned Israel into a garrison state just as Harold Lasswell memorably defined this in 1941. The Israelis are “specialists in violence,” precisely as Lasswell used this term. It is what the U.S. wants them to be. 

And depends on them to be. The rest—please pause, please use smaller bombs and so on—is merely to trifle pointlessly with a monstrous regime that needs to be unplugged altogether. https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/08/patrick-lawrence-bidens-frankenstein/ #Israel #Palestine

November 10, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Pacific Islands Forum – time to reinvigorate the Treaty of Rarotonga, the nuclear weapons-free pact ?

Pacific backs Australian climate policy: Albanese

St George and Sutherland Shire Leader, Australian Associated Press 9 Nov 23

“…………………………………………………………………………………………………. Joining climate as one of the top issues at the gathering are nuclear concerns, with Pacific leaders showing their resolve to keep the region nuclear-free.

The Pacific is stridently nuclear-free, a legacy of the region’s painful history with testing of nuclear weapons by the United States, United Kingdom and France.

Australia’s AUKUS deal to obtain nuclear-powered submarines raises concern among many, given the sensitivity of nuclear issues.

Leaders in Kiribati, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands and Fiji have previously expressed reservations on different fronts, including the extravagant cost, which exceeds the entire annual GDP of PIF members excepting Australia and New Zealand.

PIF chair and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown has suggested the time could have come to “reinvigorate” the Treaty of Rarotonga, the nuclear weapons-free pact signed during the Cold War.

Mr Albanese was less forthcoming on whether reform was needed, declining to respond to questions on whether he supported Mr Brown’s calls.

“We support the Treaty of Rarotonga. It is a good document. It has stood the test of time, all of the arrangements that have been in place, we’ve been consistent with that, and it retains our support,” he said.

The legacy of another nuclear incident – the 2011 Fukushima power plant disaster – also hangs over the Pacific.

Japan is releasing treated wastewater from the power plant, insisting it is safe to do so, with an International Atomic Energy Agency report as proof.

Australia and New Zealand accept those guarantees, but a growing number of Pacific nations hold concerns, including Polynesian and Melanesian blocs.

At the PIF summit, Fiji Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka is championing another initiative: declaring the Pacific an “ocean of peace”.

That proposal, the nuclear concerns and the Suva Agreement regional unity pact are late inclusions onto the agenda of the leaders retreat.  https://www.theleader.com.au/story/8417306/pacific-backs-australian-climate-policy-albanese/

#nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes #radioactive #Israel #Palestine

November 10, 2023 Posted by | OCEANIA, politics international | Leave a comment

European Commission to create SMR Industrial Alliance dedicated to small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs)

 In response to calls from the nuclear industry, research community and
nuclear safety regulators, the European Commission will establish an
Industrial Alliance dedicated to small modular reactors (SMRs) in early
2024, European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson has announced.

 World Nuclear News 7th Nov 2023

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/European-Commission-to-create-SMR-Industrial-Allia

November 10, 2023 Posted by | EUROPE, politics international | Leave a comment

Chris Hedges: Israel’s Endgame is ‘Destruction of the Idea of Palestine’

The arms manufacturers are thrilled. They’re making money in Ukraine, they’re making money with Israel, because remember, most of this money is going straight to Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, and that’s who’s making the money.

the Palestinians really don’t have many friends. Iran, Qatar, Hezbollah, Syria to a certain extent, but not… Am I, if I had to make an educated guess, I think Israel’s going to get away with it.

Pushing most of the Palestinians out of Gaza and turning most of Gaza into a moonscape, which is they’ve already done with the North.

 I know that’s what they want to do. I mean, that is without question. The question is whether they can be stopped, but I don’t see the forces that are going to stop them.

What Netanyahu’s government aims to achieve in Gaza today is something akin to the Armenian genocide.

SCHEERPOST, 8 Nov 23

One month since the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7, the Israeli military has slaughtered more than 10,000 Palestinians, including over 4,000 children. International condemnation is growing, with multiple governments withdrawing their ambassadors from Israel and organizations around the world calling for Israel’s leaders to be prosecuted for war crimes. In an Oct. 28 resignation letter, Craig Mokhiber, former Director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, noted that there is “no room for doubt or debate” that the Israeli government is intentionally perpetuating a genocide of the Palestinian people with the support of the US, EU, and other international actors. Drawing on his decades of experience as a war correspondent and years living in and reporting on Gaza, Chris Hedges joins The Marc Steiner Show to discuss Israel’s endgame: the full elimination and depopulation of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and eventually the West Bank.

TRANSCRIPT

Chris Hedges:

Well, most of the people in the Netanyahu government, including Netanyahu himself, have been quite clear for, often decades, what the end game is, and that’s the destruction of the state or even the idea of Palestine. And that will be accomplished through acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing. 

And I fully expect things to get worse in Gaza. I mean, they’re bombing the hospitals now. There’s not enough food or water. Israel is impervious to requests from Washington because of the Israel lobby. They have, traditionally Israel, because of the power of the Israel lobby, it doesn’t really matter what any administration wants. They humiliated Biden when he was Vice President and called for a moratorium on settlements, and then the day he was in Jerusalem, announced an expansion of settlements. They bypassed the White House to go speak, by Netanyahu, to go speak before Congress to denounce the Iran deal.

They know that, in essence, the Biden administration can’t touch the military aid and has no ability to really pressure the government to halt this massive bombing campaign. 

…………………the first two weeks, they damaged or destroyed 45% of the housing stock. They’ve dropped, I think, it was just in the first two weeks, 20,000 tons of bombs. I mean, this is a Stalin grad level. It’s as bad as Sarajevo was. It doesn’t come close.

Thousands of Palestinians are trapped under the rubble and they have surrounded the northern part. I mean, they will do it piecemeal. They learn that from the Americans, in Fallujah. You don’t essentially attack on a wide front. You break up your urban areas into sectors that you then dominate. So, they’ve cut off Gaza City from the South, which is Gaza’s largest city, about 700,000 people.

………. I think that it’s saturation bombing. I mean, they will keep the northern part of Gaza corded off, surrounded, but I expect them to kind of bomb their way to victory, or what they’re going to continue or call victory.

……..They don’t really want to start crawling through the rubble fighting Hamas fighters. The tunnels are an issue. We don’t know how big, but they’re big. But they need generators in order to pump down air into the tunnels.

……….I think most of the hostages are probably in the tunnels. This is also a very cynical decision on the part of the Netanyahu government. I don’t think many of those hostages are going to come back. I think they know that and they don’t care. So, they’ve cut off food. In essence, they’ve cut off water. I mean, the trucks that have come over through Rafan are, it’s negligible. It’s a very cynical kind of public relations ploy, but it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the tremendous suffering.

So, I expect that they will push what remains of the Gaza population over the border into the Sinai, into Egypt, and they will never come back. And there have been reports in the Egyptian press that the Americans have approached the CC government. The Egyptian economy is in a mess at over $160 billion in debt. And they will offer financial incentives, and probably if that doesn’t work though, use threats and to do Israel’s bidding. And in essence, Gaza as we know it, and I spent seven years covering Gaza, my office was right in the center of Gaza City, just won’t exist.

……………………………………………………………….. Marc Steiner:

So, I’m thinking about the American end in this, and I know it’s not going to happen, but it seems like the only way conceivably to stop Israel from doing what it’s doing at this moment would be the threat of a cutoff of aid. And when you see inside the Jewish world in America, in the United States, I see it all the time, is a growing body of Jews saying, ‘No, not in our name. We don’t agree,” And whether it’s marches or articles and organizations being developed. So, I mean, that seems to me the only way to stop the madness.

Chris Hedges:

Well, that would be the only way, even that might not work because Israel needs that aid to essentially replenish stockpiles. But they have a pretty robust arsenal. Well, those are the Jews that don’t count. I mean, J Street and Jewish voices for peace don’t count. I mean, for me, they count quite a bit. But I’m talking about in terms of the power structure, and it’s money. I mean, it’s APAC and these Sheldon Adelson type retrograde Jewish billionaires. By the way, they funded Netanyahu. I covered that campaign. Netanyahu was their baby. They created him and they bankrolled him against Rabin.


So, yes, I mean, I think ultimately that’s why I support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction movement, that it is about severing aid and imposing sanctions on Israel. That’s the only weapon we have. We’re very far from achieving that. Even most of the liberal groups don’t support BDS. And the Israel lobby is just so well-funded and so powerful, and they represent a political strain of a very right wing political strain within the American population that it does not, I would guess, represent the political leanings of probably most American Jews.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………for them, it’s the final solution, or their version of the final solution, which is, and they won’t stop. And once they finish with Gaza, they will turn on the West Bank. And they want to create, these are their own words, a kind of religiously pure state, which means the forced exile, ethnic cleansing, whatever you want to call it, of millions of Palestinians, including Christians. I mean, there’s a significant Christian population among the Palestinians. They think they’re going to finish with this problem once and for all.

………………………… the United States is actively backing and supporting the genocide with intelligence, with military support, vetoing, the calls for the ceasefire at the UN, etc. I mean, what you will, you will certainly create blow back probably in the form of terrorism. But once these people are pushed out of their land and permanently thrust into the diaspora, which I think is the plan……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

 Well, I mean, it’s not my job to sell hope. That’s not journalism, by the way.

It’s my job to assess the situation as clearly as I can.

………………………………………………….. Israel will become a fascistic state ruled by the ultra orthodox, kind of Jewish version of Iran.

……………………………..Netanyahu’s dismantling of the judiciary is, of course, a huge step in that. But people who speak out against the Netanyahu assault against democracy or the slaughter in Gaza are attacked as traitors and silenced. And I mean, there’s been a huge campaign preceding October 7th against Israeli human rights workers at B’Tselem.

……. And that will just now accelerate. There’ll be no room for dissent

Marc Steiner:……………………………………. And what’s happening in the Palestinian world, I think people don’t really grasp the intensity, the madness, the murder that’s taking place among Palestinians now…………………..

Chris Hedges:

Well, Israel’s cut off all the internet and cell phone service because when you carry out genocide, you block the ability of the victims to reach the outside world. That’s standard.

……….. it’s about the wholesale destruction of people, and all of the mechanisms by which you can destroy a people. The denial of food, the denial of water, the denial of safety, the ability to flee, fleeing to the south. They’re bombing the south. They’re bombing the supposedly corridors that they set up to go to the south. It’s indiscriminate, dropping 2,000 pound bombs on Jabalia, on refugee camps. Jabalia, I’ve been in, spent a lot of time in Jabalia. So, Gaza is one of the most densely packed spots on the planet, but Jabalia is the most densely packed spot in Gaza, and I think they bombed it three times. Nobody knows the number of dead because-

……… … thousands are under the rubble. So, that indiscriminate, they’re bombing hospitals. I mean, they say, “Well, they’re terrorist command centers, or Hamas command centers.” They’re bombing hospitals, they’ve cut off the fuel. The babies in incubators are dying. I mean, that’s genocide.

………………………… the wild card is whether it ignites a regional conflagration. So, that would begin in Lebanon with Hezbollah, but it wouldn’t begin unless Iran green-lighted it. I don’t think that Iran or Hezbollah wants to ignite a regional conflagration, but that’s the wild card. I mean, things can just go wrong. I’ve covered enough war that once you open that Pandora’s box and let all those evil spirits out, they control you. It doesn’t control… You don’t control it.

So yeah, things could go wrong that way. The arms manufacturers are thrilled. They’re making money in Ukraine, they’re making money with Israel, because remember, most of this money is going straight to Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, and that’s who’s making the money. So, I don’t… The Palestinians have always been friendless, powerless. And the Arab states are very duplicitous about their commitment, which is largely rhetorical, and they’re quite happy to sell the Palestinian’s outing. There’s a lot of animus towards, I mean, for instance, Egypt hates Hamas because Hamas was born out of the Muslim brotherhood, and they, CC with us and Israeli backing, seized power to essentially prevent a Muslim brotherhood government from running Egypt.

So, the Palestinians really don’t have many friends. Iran, Qatar, Hezbollah, Syria to a certain extent, but not… Am I, if I had to make an educated guess, I think Israel’s going to get away with it.

Pushing most of the Palestinians out of Gaza and turning most of Gaza into a moonscape, which is they’ve already done with the North.

I  know that’s what they want to do. I mean, that is without question. The question is whether they can be stopped, but I don’t see the forces that are going to stop them.

…………………..Marc Steiner:

Mainstream media is not really giving the people here [inaudible 00:25:15]…………………………………………………………………………………more https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/08/chris-hedges-israels-endgame-is-destruction-of-the-idea-of-palestine/ #Israel #Palestine

November 9, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

U.S., European officials broach topic of peace negotiations with Ukraine, sources say

The conversations have included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal with Russia.

nbc news, Nov. 4, 2023, By Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee and Kristen Welker

WASHINGTON — U.S. and European officials have begun quietly talking to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war, according to one current senior U.S. official and one former senior U.S. official familiar with the discussions.

The conversations have included very broad outlines of what Ukraine might need to give up to reach a deal, the officials said. Some of the talks, which officials described as delicate, took place last month during a meeting of representatives from more than 50 nations supporting Ukraine, including NATO members, known as the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, the officials said.

The discussions are an acknowledgment of the dynamics militarily on the ground in Ukraine and politically in the U.S. and Europe, officials said.

They began amid concerns among U.S. and European officials that the war has reached a stalemate and about the ability to continue providing aid to Ukraine, officials said. Biden administration officials also are worried that Ukraine is running out of forces, while Russia has a seemingly endless supply, officials said. Ukraine is also struggling with recruiting and has recently seen public protests about some of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s open-ended conscription requirements.

And there is unease in the U.S. government with how much less public attention the war in Ukraine has garnered since the Israel-Hamas war began nearly a month ago, the officials said. Officials fear that shift could make securing additional aid for Kyiv more difficult. 

Some U.S. military officials have privately begun using the term “stalemate” to describe the current battle in Ukraine, with some saying it may come down to which side can maintain a military force the longest. Neither side is making large strides on the battlefield, which some U.S. officials now describe as a war of inches. Officials also have privately said Ukraine likely only has until the end of the year or shortly thereafter before more urgent discussions about peace negotiations should begin. U.S. officials have shared their views on such a timeline with European allies, officials said…………………………………………………………………………………..

The Biden administration has spent $43.9 billion on security assistance for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, according to the Pentagon. A U.S. official says the administration has about $5 billion left to send to Ukraine before money runs out. There would be no aid left for Ukraine if the administration hadn’t said it found a $6.2 billion accounting error from months of over-valuing equipment sent to Kyiv.

Public support slipping

Progress in Ukraine’s counteroffensive has been very slow, and hope that Ukraine will make significant advances, including reaching the coast near Russia’s frontlines, is fading. A lack of significant progress on the battlefield in Ukraine does not help with trying to reverse the downward trend in public support for sending more aid, officials said.  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-european-officials-broach-topic-peace-negotiations-ukraine-sources-rcna123628 #Ukraine #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNuke

November 8, 2023 Posted by | politics international, Ukraine, USA | Leave a comment

Why France’s Emmanuel Macron is courting Central Asia

 French President Emmanuel Macron is in Central Asia, on a visit that
highlights the region’s increasing importance to Europe’s supply of nuclear
and fossil fuels. The trip is partly an attempt to drum up business and
foster links with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, but the key to understanding
the presidential visit dates back to July.

A military coup in the West
African country of Niger raised the prospect that supplies to France’s
vital nuclear industry might be in jeopardy. In reality, the fears were
overblown. Last year, Niger was only the second supplier of uranium to
France. The first was the Central Asian country of Kazakhstan.

 BBC 2nd Nov 2023

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-67283849

November 8, 2023 Posted by | France, politics international | Leave a comment

Showboating for War: Johnson and Morrison in Israel

November 7, 2023,  Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/showboating-for-war-johnson-and-morrison-in-israel/

Banished Prime Ministers are an irritation. They clog the airwaves of punditry with their views about how things were and how things should be. But even there, degrees of severity and competence should be observed. The more noble sorts would pursue the goals of peace, even as they bag large wads of cash in stating the obvious. With former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and his disgraced counterpart from the UK, Boris Johnson, the cash is being forked out for war.

That Israeli authorities thought it suitable to invite these two men to bolster their war against Hamas shows a degree of deep desperation. Johnson, a serial rule breaker when it came to his own government’s pandemic regulations, was forced to resign as PM by his own Conservative party in June this year. He proved to be persistently and pathologically mendacious, a ragtag mix of contemptuousness and buffoonery.

Only Australia’s own Morrison could have possibly kept up, secretly commandeering, without knowledge of his own Cabinet, up to five different ministries in addition to his own. Despite losing the May 2022 election to Labor’s Anthony Albanese, he remains a sitting federal member, when not avidly think-tanking for anti-China causes and the US imperium.

As Gaza City is being systematically liquidated, pulverised, demolished and destroyed by Israeli firepower, these two men have decided to cheer matters on with their equivalent of pompoms and drums. The Israeli Defence Force needs all the help it can get in destroying any vestige of Palestinian political power in the small settlement, and history lessons are not what interests them. While Johnson is infinitely more informed about history than Morrison, both were united in their cheap showboating exercise.

Their Israeli hosts, assured that they would never be questioned, took the men to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, the place where 100 residents met their fate at the hands of the al-Qassam Brigade, the military wing of Hamas, on October 7. Here was a chance to compress and cleanse history, to give it that ethical clarity Morrison and Johnson always resisted as prime ministers. It was Johnson’s wish that the world would be able to see what had taken place “so people could be under no illusion about the savagery, the sadism, the lack of humanity of Hamas terrorists.”

That word, again: humanity. The humanity exorcised from any assessment of Palestinian worth, sovereignty, liberty. A humanity reserved for a certain type of privileged victimhood, one rarified in the cool atmosphere of exceptionalism known as God’s chosen people drawn from a document part fiction, part history. It follows that the retaliatory steps taken in prosecuting any response will be justified. “Of course,” Johnson emphasises, “it is right for Israel to take the necessary steps… to stop that happening again.”

On Channel 12 news, Johnson stressed the need to keep the moral compass steady and free of any regard for the Palestinians or their cause: “[S]ince that appalling massacre of October 7, you’re seeing a kind of fog descend, a moral fog, and I just want to remind people of the absolute barbarism of what took place and to make it clear that Israel has the right to defend itself.” With emphasis, he stated that, “There can be no moral equivalence between the terrorism of Hamas and the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces.”

When given the chance to talk about pursuing a ceasefire in the name of ecumenical grace, Johnson was curt. Think of those 240 hostages held by Hamas. “[W]hen you have a crime of this scale, and when there’s the possibility of it happening again, I don’t think it’s the business of the world to tell Israel to stop.” Forget international law, humanitarian restraint on the use of force, proportionate response, and conduct might just find itself within the margins of the tolerable.

Morrison, for his part, saw the trip as “an opportunity to understand firsthand what is occurring on the ground, honour those who have been lost, show support for those who have suffered and are now engaged in this terrible conflict and discuss how to move forward.” He also argued against a ceasefire, as this would only “advantage Hamas to be able to strengthen their positions and make this war go on for even longer”.

As for the matter of making sure the attacks of October 7 are never repeated, the point is all too obvious. It will keep happening again with dreary, bloody predictability. If not next year, then the next decade. Or generation. Eliminating Hamas will simply be a bloody pruning exercise verging on genocide, allowing fresh vegetation to thrive. The forest of vengeance will continue to grow; the thousands of children who survive will never forgive the IDF for what they have done and continue to do. Each dead family brings with it a family of converts for the Palestinian cause. Israel’s publicity relations wonks would be best advised to pay Johnson and Morrison and wish them on their merry way. #Israel #Palestine

November 7, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international | Leave a comment

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