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The Journey Beyond Nukes Begins with an Apology

Robert C. Koehler 7 April 25 https://abombtribunal.campaignus.me/34/?q=YToxOntzOjEyOiJrZXl3b3JkX3R5cGUiO3M6MzoiYWxsIjt9&bmode=view&idx=158534555&t=board

When the powerful speak, mushroom clouds emerge – oh so easily. Power is about conquest; winning the war, getting what you want no matter the cost.

For instance, Israel should nuke Gaza. “Do whatever you have to do.” Thus declared Sen. Lindsey Graham last year in a Meet the Press interview, comparing the current genocide in Palestine to the U.S. decision to end World War II by A-bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “That was the right decision,” he said, spewing out the historical abstraction that still rules the world.

Nothing is more sacred than self-defense! And nothing is more necessary for that than nuclear weapons, at least for the countries that possess them. To think beyond this abstraction – to cry out against the pain of the victims and declare their use is potential human suicide – violates the political norm of the powerful and is easily categorized by the media, often sarcastically, as naïve.

And thus we’re stuck in a MAD world, apparently: a world under unending threat of mutually assured destruction. If you have a problem with that, you’re probably a weakling singing “Kumbaya.”

Or so the global war machine wants us to believe, reducing humanity’s anti-nuke – antiwar – sanity to a hollow hope.

It is in this context that I heard Sim Jintae and Han Jeong-Soon speak at a small event the other day in suburban Chicago, sponsored by an organization called – brace yourself – The International People’s Tribunal to hold the U.S. accountable for dropping A-bombs. The two speakers (via translator) are Korean victims of the bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima neaarly eight decades ago. Sim Jintae is a first-generation survivor: He was 2-years-old when the bomb was dropped. Han Jeong-Soon is a second-generation survivor – the child of survivors of the inferno, who has suffered throughout her life from the after-effects of the bombing. Their message: Nuclear war lasts forever!

Well, that’s part of their message. Note: The movement they represent is Korean. A little known fact about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is that thousands of Koreans were what you might call doubly victimized by the horror, This was during an era when Japan had colonial control over Korea, and some 100,000 Koreans had been forcibly moved to Japan to do wartime labor. Many of them, including Sim Jintae’s parents, had been working in a munitions factory in Hiroshima.

About 40,000 Koreans died in the bombings. Those who survived suffered the after-effects in silence . . . until they reclaimed one another and found a collective voice. This is the voice I heard last week at the event I attended, and it resonated as loud as – perhaps louder than – the pro-nuke media and their supplicants. Their collective voice emerges from reality, not abstraction. My God, I hope it’s louder than that Lindsey Graham, and so many other politicians.

Here is the voice of Han Jeong-Soon. Born in Korea fourteen years after the destruction of Hiroshima – her parents had also been forced laborers there, living a few kilometers from the epicenter of the bomb blast – she suffered all her life from birth defects: heart problems, chest pain, lung issues. She had multiple surgeries. She suffered on her own . . . until she saw a film about the bombing in 2004. Then:

“I realized my pain was not only my pain but other people’s pain,” she told us. She began organizing other second-generation survivors, and began telling the world: “My war has not ended. No war should be allowed or tolerated. No to all war.”

Is this the voice that will drown out the military-industrial complex? The People’s Tribunal is demanding, as the starting point of the human journey beyond war, for the United States to apologize for dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was an action that instantly expanded the scope of hell the human race could inflict on itself.

When I heard that word, “apologize,” in the context of first- and second-generation Korean A-bomb victims – victims who were denied necessary health care, by both Japan and the United States – what I heard was a soul scream: a demand that the perpetrator grasp and acknowledge the full extent of the harm it caused, and in so grasping, vow never to use such a monstrous weapon again . . . and, indeed, vow to transcend war itself.

The International People’s Tribunal put it this way:
“The A-Bomb Tribunal aims to establish the illegality of the U.S. atomic bombings in 1945 to secure the basis for condemning all nuclear threats and use as illegal today. The fact that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were illegal under the international laws in 1945 means that the use and threat of nuclear weapons today are also illegal.

“The A-Bomb Tribunal aims to overcome the nuclear deterrence theory that justifies the use and threat of nuclear weapons by nuclear-weapon states, and contribute to the realization of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and a nuclear-free world.”

Let us listen to those who have suffered the most. Let us hear the cry of their throbbing souls and begin to understand that the time has come for us to create a world beyond dominance and war. Indeed, let us begin listening to one another and, in so doing, learn that we all matter. This is the true nature of power.

April 14, 2025 Posted by | Religion and ethics, South Korea | Leave a comment

Netanyahu’s nuclear gamble: The risks of escalation with Iran

 https://www.dailysabah.com/opinion/op-ed/netanyahus-nuclear-gamble-the-risks-of-escalation-with-iran 27 Mar 25

While Netanyahu convinces the Israeli public and the U.S. administration to wage war on Iran, it cannot be known ‘for whom the bells will toll’ at the end of such an escalation.

n 1992, when he was a 42-year-old Knesset member, Benjamin Netanyahu raised concerns about Iran’s nuclear threat, stating, “Iran is close to producing a nuclear weapon within three to five years, and this threat needs to be uprooted by an international front led by the U.S.” In 1995, in his book, he discussed Iran’s nuclear threat and emphasized that it was a vital issue for Israel. A year later, he came to power for the first time.

The Israeli prime minister’s political career has been marked by security-focused rhetoric. In a country like Israel with high security concerns, this is not unusual, but what makes Netanyahu different is his constant focus on issues like Iran, Hamas and Palestine, and his personalization of the message that “only I can protect Israel.” So much so that rabbis like Nir Ben Artzi and Moshe Ben Tov preach, “Netanyahu must remain prime minister until the Messiah comes.”

Last year, Netanyahu’s posing with Lubavitch movement leader Rebbe Schneerson’s book in the Knesset and claims that Schneerson had prophesied 30 years ago that Netanyahu would “become Israel’s prime minister and transfer the duty to the Messiah” have added apocalyptic meanings to Israel’s war environment.

Factors such as Netanyahu’s brother being Israel’s national hero and his father being one of the important figures of Revisionist Zionism make the situation even more mystical. Revisionist Zionism essentially argues that Jewish rights can only be protected by force; that reconciliation with Arabs is impossible and that the Jewish state encompasses all the historical Eretz Yisrael territories. All these arguments align quite well with Netanyahu’s policies.

Throughout his 40-year political career, Netanyahu’s emphasis on “the last few years” for Iran to become a nuclear threat has led to criticism, especially from his political rivals, that he is exploiting this issue and using it to consolidate power. However, today, Netanyahu appears closer than ever to achieving this goal. Over the past 30 years, Netanyahu has faced three obstacles to his hawkish steps regarding Iran’s nuclear capacity: convincing the bureaucracy and domestic public opinion, convincing the U.S. and convincing the international community.

It is known that in 2010-2011, Netanyahu, together with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, ordered the military to prepare to strike Iran. The order to put the Israeli Air Force on alert for a long-range airstrike was made with a small group of advisors within the security bureaucracy. However, figures such as Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Mossad Chief Meir Dagan objected, characterizing such an operation as an “illegal war decision” before the necessary military preparations were completed. Netanyahu was forced to back down. It is also known that the U.S. repeatedly restrained Netanyahu.

Plans of a warmonger

Today, there is a broad consensus in Israel, both from the government and the opposition, that Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons is unacceptable. The rhetoric “we will strike alone if necessary” resonates with society, and the developments in October reinforced this determination. Netanyahu’s threat at the U.N., “If you strike us, we’ll strike you,” has gone beyond rhetoric and has been implemented. This has given Israelis the confidence that “we can defend ourselves, we can act preemptively if necessary.” A significant portion of public opinion polls and media support Israel taking unilateral action if diplomacy fails and Iran reaches the nuclear threshold. Especially after Iran’s direct attack, a psychology of “there’s nothing to fear anymore, if they did it, we can do it too” has emerged. All this indicates that Netanyahu has been highly successful in socializing the issue.

Another obstacle for Netanyahu was bureaucratic issues. As mentioned above, Netanyahu’s desired steps had been stuck in domestic politics and bureaucracy. Netanyahu, who was cornered before the Oct. 7 attacks, has used the attacks as a significant lever and has begun taking radical steps to leave his political legacy as the one who solved the “problems” of Gaza, Hamas, Hezbollah, (if possible) the West Bank and Iran. In this process, he has virtually crushed anyone who stood in his way without regard to domestic politics. His newly appointed Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, has declared 2025 a “year of war” and indicated that they will focus especially on Gaza and Iran. Zamir’s 2022 report for the Washington Institute, titled “Countering Iran’s Regional Strategy: A Long-Term, Comprehensive Approach,” is quite noteworthy. Every step Zamir proposed in this report has been taken after Oct. 7.

Lastly, Israel has significantly neutralized Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north. Both the Israeli Air Force and the U.S. Air Force are conducting “exercises” for long-distance attacks with their strikes on Yemen. The distance between Tel Aviv and Sanaa is 2,000 kilometers (just over 1,240 miles), while the distance between Tel Aviv and Tehran is 1,500 kilometers.

Strike before being struck

During President Donald Trump’s first term, the U.S. came to Netanyahu’s desired line, and radical steps such as withdrawing from the nuclear agreement, declaring Jerusalem as the capital, and the killings of Qasem Soleimani and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh were taken. The fundamental question is: What has changed from yesterday to today that would make Trump take a different step from his 2018-2020 line? In other words, Netanyahu’s thesis since 1992, “this can’t be done without the U.S.,” seems to be coming true. The U.S. administration is now openly threatening Iran with military intervention. Internal objections and opposition in Israel seem to be of no concern to the Netanyahu government. Therefore, Netanyahu faces the third and final obstacle: convincing the international community.

Netanyahu’s U.N. speeches were also aimed at convincing the international community that Iran would not comply with nuclear negotiations and that diplomacy was “not a path.” The revelation of nuclear documents smuggled from Iran in 2018 by himself and the emphasis that Iran was a “liar” who did not abandon its intentions despite the agreement are diplomatically significant.

From Israel’s perspective, it is necessary to be sure that Russia will not provide support to Iran at this point. Recent developments in Ukraine are likely to keep Russia away from Iran. The U.S. government may also be providing suggestions to Russia on this matter. The Iranian domestic public opinion does not trust the Russians on this issue. Especially the events in Karabakh and Syria have created great disappointment among Iranians.

As for the other actors, European countries do not appear to be able to actively get involved at this stage due to the security crisis they are in. Although China has been providing covert diplomatic and technological support to Iran against Israel for some time, it does not seem possible to expect it to directly enter the field militarily in such an intervention. Therefore, Iran presents an image that has lost its proxy forces in the region, largely lost its effectiveness in the field, and lacks popular support.

The Iranians are aware of the approaching threat. On the one hand, they are conducting tremendously flexible diplomacy. On the other hand, they complain about the threats made against them, saying, “There can be no negotiation with threats.” They express at every opportunity that they do not want war, but on the other hand, they conduct military exercises almost every week. They particularly focus on air defense and naval forces in these exercises. Commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) say they will not bow to threats and will give a clear response to any attack.

According to Zamir, Iran’s center of gravity is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He thinks that if the center of gravity is targeted, the regime will dissolve on its own. Indeed, the IRGC dominates almost every corner of the country and, although not openly stated, is at odds with civilian politics and institutions in the country. The dominant figure in the IRGC is Mojtaba Khamenei.

Triggering the unplanned

Israel’s first step will be covert activities, similar to Lebanon. At this point, it is very likely that assassinations and sabotage (especially targeting leading IRGC figures) will be seen very soon. Indeed, information in this direction is also reflected in open sources. Likewise, ethnic fault lines in many parts of Iran, such as Urmia, can break very violently. It is a known fact that Iran is concerned about pan-Turkist movements within it. So much so that the election engineering of Masoud Pezeshkian, who was vetoed in the parliamentary elections a week before the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s death, and frequent emphasis on the “Iranian Turkishness-Anatolian Turkishness” distinction through events such as the Chaldiran commemorations, are results of this concern.

Whatever happens, if popular movements follow the chaos created by the paralysis of the political mechanism (or vice versa), the regime in Iran may be seriously at risk. Because both in the 2009 protests and the Mahsa Amini protests, the influence of Khamenei and those under his command is known. With the elimination of this influence, the ground in Iran may completely change.

In conclusion, all experts agree that the Netanyahu government cannot end Iran’s nuclear capacity by striking nuclear facilities. However, the basic strategy is to completely paralyze Iran by directly targeting the regime and rendering all its activities, from ballistic missiles to nuclear, from proxy forces to drone work, dysfunctional.

However, this situation can open Pandora’s box. If things don’t go as planned and Iran enters a total war by mobilizing all its available means, it may not be able to deliver fatal blows to Israel, but it will cause tens of thousands of Israelis who already find Israel unsafe to leave their country, companies to withdraw their investments from Israel, and in the medium and long term, the establishment of a climate of insecurity. Therefore, Netanyahu is taking a huge gamble and paving the way for a path that could make Israel more insecure. Because the biggest risk is an uncalculated risk, these steps threaten the future of the region from beginning to end. As the famous poet John Donne said: “And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

March 28, 2025 Posted by | politics international, Religion and ethics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Chris Hedges: Trump’s Christian Fascists and the War on Palestine

the usual absurdity that the Hebrew Bible, written 4,000 years ago, can be used to draw contemporary national borders.

March 11, 2025, By Chris Hedges / ScheerPost

Christian Nationalists who form the bedrock of support for Donald Trump — 80 percent voted for Trump in the last election according to a voter survey by the Associated Press — have mounted a concerted campaign calling on the White House to back Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and Gaza.

This campaign includes visits to Israel by prominent leaders, including Ralph Reed, Tony Perkins and Mario Bramnick, petitioning the White House, lobbying Congress and calls for annexation at Christian conferences, including a resolution of support for Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank adopted at the most recent Conservative Political Action Conference. The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Convention in Dallas, in March, gathered over 200 signatures from pastors and right-wing religious leaders from across the United States calling for the annexation of “Judea and Samaria” — the purported biblical name for the West Bank —and declaring the two state solution “a failed experiment.”

American Christian Leaders for Israel, which says it represents a network of “over 3,000 organizational leaders from across the nation, including the National Religious Broadcasters,” endorsed the NRB resolution and sent it to Trump. Congresswoman Claudia Tenney and five other members of the congressional “Friends of Judea and Samaria Caucus,” sent a letter to Trump asking to “recognize the right of Israel” to declare sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories, arguing that it will advance “the Judeo-Christian heritage on which our nation was founded.”

Trump, who rescinded a Biden administration executive order that sanctioned Jewish colonists in the West Bank for human rights violations, promised, on Feb. 4, to make an announcement in the “next four weeks,” about possible annexation of the West Bank. This follows Trump’s call for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza and death threats to the Palestinians unless they release Israeli hostages. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,” Trump said of Gaza while speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One.

The agenda of Zionist extremists and Christian fascists, who hold senior positions throughout the Trump administration, have long converged. The language, iconography and symbolism used by the Christian and Jewish fascists is biblical. But the bonds are political, not religious.

I detail the history and ideology of our homegrown fascism and its kinship with Jewish fascism in my book, “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.”

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and a Baptist minister, has been nominated by Trump to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel. Huckabee has said there is “no such thing as a Palestinian” and asserted that Palestinian identity is “a political tool to try and force land away from Israel.” He proposes that any Palestinian state should be created outside of Israel in neighboring countries such as Egypt, Syria or Jordan. He dismisses the two-state solution as “irrational and unworkable.”

“I believe the scripture. Genesis 12: Those who bless Israel will be blessed; those who curse Israel will be cursed. I want to be on the blessing side, not the curse side,” Huckabee says.

John Ratcliffe, appointed by Trump to run the Central Intelligence Agency, advocates assisting Israel in what he described as its “foot-on-their-throat” approach against Iran.

Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — who argues that “Zionism and Americanism are the front-lines of Western civilization and freedom in our world today” — pedals the usual absurdity that the Hebrew Bible, written 4,000 years ago, can be used to draw contemporary national borders…………………………………………………………………………………….

Jewish supremacy, like the supremacy of the Christian fascists, is, these fanatics claim, sanctified by God. The slaughter of the Palestinians, who Benjamin Netanyahu compared to the biblical Amalekites, are the incarnate of evil and deserve to be massacred. Euro-Americans in the American colonies used the same biblical passage to justify the genocide of Native Americans. Violence and the threat of violence are the only forms of communication those inside the magical circle of Jewish nationalism or Christian nationalism speak…………………………………………………………………………….. more https://scheerpost.com/2025/03/11/chris-hedges-trumps-christian-fascists-and-the-war-on-palestine/

March 13, 2025 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Why is an ‘ethical’ investor funding arms companies?

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund holds shares in UK weapons firms that arm Israel, despite its ethical guidelines.

ANDREW FEINSTEIN and JACK CINAMON, 5 March 2025,  https://www.declassifieduk.org/why-is-an-ethical-investor-funding-arms-companies/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=Button&utm_campaign=ICYMI&utm_content=Button

Scandinavian countries are often held up as models for a better society. None more so than Norway, flush with North Sea oil wealth, which it can invest responsibly.

The money is put aside in a sovereign wealth fund, owned by the Norwegian government and managed by the country’s central bank, Norges Bank. It is the largest such fund in the world, worth £1.4 trillion.

Called the Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), or just the Oil Fund, it is supposed to adhere to ethical guidelines by excluding certain companies from its portfolio.

That’s if they are involved in serious violations of human rights – especially in conflicts – gross corruption, the production of nuclear weapons and more.

However, in outright contradiction to these guidelines, the GPFG invests billions of pounds in many of the world’s largest arms companies. In fact, it owns stakes in exactly half of the world’s top 100 arms companies, accumulating at almost £14 billion. 

This includes arms companies here in the UK that supply Israel – despite Norway recognising the state of Palestine as recently as May 2024 and excluding companies from the GPFG involved in activities violating international law.

So why is Norwegian money finding its way into Britain’s arms industry, which supplies Israel? 

Arming Israel

Among these investments is QinetiQ in which the GPFG holds over £46 million in shares. 

The British defence tech firm has collaborated with the Israeli military to develop the Watchkeeper drone system, a joint project with Israel’s Elbit Systems, a company dropped from the fund in 2009 for supplying surveillance systems for the separation barrier in the West Bank. 

Following sustained direct action from Palestine Action, Elbit Systems UK lost its largest-ever British arms contract, worth over £2.1bn, after the UK Ministry of Defence scrapped its Watchkeeper drone programme.

QinetiQ subsidiaries, such as QinetiQ Australia, are involved in the F-35 fighter jet program. Israel has used its fleet of these aircraft to pound Gaza.

Then there is the almost £35m invested in Babcock International, another UK company in Norway’s portfolio. It claims to not provide weapons to Israel, but with partnerships involving Israeli defence firms IAI, Elbit, and Rafael Systems, the line between ‘not involved’ and ‘indirectly arming’ becomes quite blurry. 

Babcock also sustains the entirety of the UK’s submarine fleet, including by delivering through-life support and life extension of the UK nuclear armed Vanguard class submarine.

Rolls-Royce and Leonardo

Norway’s largest UK arms investment, however, is in British engineering giant Rolls-Royce, where the fund holds around £1.07bn in shares, representing over 2% of the company.

Rolls-Royce is not just about luxury cars, it is a critical supplier on the F-35 program, powering Israeli military operations. Case in point: Rolls-Royce’s German subsidiary, MTU, produces the engines for Israel’s Merkava tanks and most of the Israeli Navy’s vessels.

Divesting from the UK defence sector is far from unlikely, as the Oil Fund previously decided to exclude BAE Systems, the UK’s largest arms company, from its portfolio in 2018 for its involvement in nuclear weapons production.

However, few investments in Norway’s portfolio illustrate its ethical blind spots as starkly as its stake in Anglo-Italian arms manufacturer Leonardo. Leonardo’s presence in the UK comes largely from its ownership of Leonardo UK, formerly AugustaWestland. 

Leonardo operates from several locations in the UK, and has deep collaborations with the UK MOD, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and MBDA UK, especially with reference to its joint venture program, the Tempest new-generation fighter jet, expected to enter service in 2035.

With around £165m invested; the company has become a focal point for divestment campaigns – and for good reason. 

Leonardo supplies weapons to Israel, including naval guns for Sa’ar 6 warships used in the bombardment and siege on Gaza, and it is a key player in the F-35 program. 

Ignorance or hypocrisy?

Despite a history of corruption – linked to bribery scandals in Indonesia and India – Leonardo remains on the GPFG portfolio, even managing to convince the Council of Ethics (the body tasked with reviewing investments) “that the risk of gross corruption in the company’s operations no longer is unacceptable” as they occupied an observation list for five years until being revoked from assessment in 2022. 

The company has recently been accused of providing the military junta in Myanmar with weapons in violation of a UN arms embargo. The company also contributes to nuclear weapons production through MBDA, a joint venture with BAE Systems and Airbus SE. Leonardo’s role in Israel’s military operations and its corruption scandals demand urgent re-evaluation by the Council on Ethics.

The fund clearly channels billions of pounds into corporations that fuel violence, sustain occupations, and profit from human suffering. These aren’t just financial decisions; they’re moral failings, directly contradicting the fund’s stated ethical guidelines. 

How does Norway square these investments with its loud-and-proud commitment to peace and human rights? Is this ignorance or hypocrisy? Norway must divest from UK arms companies, sending a powerful message: that peace and human rights are not negotiable, and profit should never come at the expense of human lives.

To see the full list of investments in the world’s top 100 arms companies click here.

Part of a more detailed blog published by Corruption Tracker

March 11, 2025 Posted by | business and costs, EUROPE, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Archbishop Gallagher: Nuclear weapons pose existential threat

As Pope Francis strongly affirms, Archbishop Gallagher insisted, it is necessary “to overcome the logic of confrontation and embrace instead the logic of encounter.”

The Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, expresses the Holy See’s “deep concern” over the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons, in his remarks to the High-Level Segment of the UN’s 2025 Session of the Conference on Disarmament.

By Deborah Castellano Lubov,  https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2025-02/gallagher-addresses-2025-session-of-conference-on-disarmament.html

“Immense military expenditures, that often go far beyond what is necessary to ensure legitimate defense, foment the vicious circle of an exhausting arms race that diverts vital resources away from poverty eradication, justice, education, and healthcare.”

Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States and International Organizations, stressed this on Wednesday in a statement to the UN’s High-Level Segment of the 2025 Session of the Conference on Disarmament taking place in Geneva on February 24-28.

Offering the participants the Pope’s cordial greetings, he said, “Today we stand at a turning point.”

“Together, as a family of nations,” he encouraged, “we can take just and courageous actions for a general, balanced, and complete disarmamentunder effective international control.”

Otherwise, he warned, the alternative “is the perpetuation of conflicts, violence, increasing inequalities, and environmental degradation, from which ultimately benefits no one but the arms lobby.”

‘Hostage to a stalemate’

Archbishop Gallagher said the Conference on Disarmament “has been held hostage to a stalemate” that has continued year after year “without the adoption of a proper negotiating mandate.”

The raison d’être of this body, he recalled, is to negotiate multilateral disarmament instruments and to deliver concrete results.

In this regard, he said, it must be recalled that all peoples of the world have a vital interest in the success of the disarmament negotiations.

Duty and right to participate in negotiations

“Consequently,” he underscored, “all States have the duty—as well as the right—to contribute and to participate in such negotiations.”

“Massive and competitive arms accumulation,” Archbishop Gallagher observed, “seems to contradict the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, in which States resolve “to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace.”

The Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States recalled Pope Francis’ recent appeal to “reduce military expenditures on weapons” and to “use at least a fixed percentage of the money earmarked for armaments to establish a global Fund to eradicate hunger and facilitate in the poorer countries educational activities aimed at promoting sustainable development and combating climate change.”

Before it is too late

As Pope Francis strongly affirms, Archbishop Gallagher insisted, it is necessary “to overcome the logic of confrontation and embrace instead the logic of encounter.”

Therefore, he said, the Holy See encourages the conference to adopt a renewed sense of urgency and commitment to reach concrete and lasting agreements for the sake of the common good, “before it may be too late.”

Archbishop Gallagher said the Holy See remains “deeply concerned” about the existential threat posed by nuclear weapons and their proliferation.

“Peace and international stability,” he observed, “are incompatible with attempts to build upon the fear of mutual destruction or the threat of total annihilation.”

Serious negotations required

He expressed concern over the “continuous expansion and modernization of nuclear arsenals, accompanied by escalating rhetoric and threats concerning their deployment.” The means to promote peace and stability today, he insisted, should not be of those that would reignite or fuel the dangerous pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“Moreover,” he appealed, “it is urgent that nuclear weapons states engage in serious negotiations to reduce and eventually eliminate their stockpiles in accordance with their obligations under Art. VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.”

Concerns for weaponization of artificial intelligence

He also discussed the weaponization of Artificial Intelligence (AI), observing “the ability to conduct military operations through remote control systems has led to a lessened perception of the devastation caused by those weapon systems and the burden of responsibility for their use, resulting in an even more cold and detached approach to the immense tragedy of war.”

In particular, Archbishop Gallagher reminded the participants that Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS), which are capable of identifying and striking targets without direct human intervention and control, “are a cause for grave ethical concern’ because they lack the ‘unique human capacity for moral judgment and ethical decision-making.”

February 27, 2025 Posted by | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Are Blinken and Biden’s Gaza genocide denials any different than Nazi WWII genocide denials?

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL , 12 Jan 25.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the NY Times he’s not worried about history judging him as a genocide enabler.

When asked he replied, “No. It’s not (genocide), first of all. Second, as to how the world sees it, I can’t fully answer to that.”

Blinken will deny to his death his $22 billion in weapons that Israel has used to utterly destroy sustainable life for 2,300,000 Palestinians in Gaza’s 139 square miles is genocide. But the entire world aside from the Biden administration is correct in viewing it as genocide

It isn’t that Blinken “Can’t answer to that” (the world viewing it as genocide). He simply won’t answer to what is the most monstrous crime a national leader can commit. From Day 1 in the genocide Israel embarked upon in response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, Blinken and his boss Biden have been calling the genocide their weapons enable ‘self-defense.’

Denying genocide is what the Nazi war criminals did to a man at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials after WWII.

There will be no war crime trials for Blinken and Biden for the genocide that could not take place their tens of billions in weapons, vetoes of ceasefire resolutions in the US Security Council, public support and their endless ‘self-defense’ refrain.

In a bitter irony for humanity, it was the US which helped establish the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998 to ferret out and prosecute war criminals. But with criminal US wars devastating Afghanistan and Iraq, the US has turned on the ICC in fear of becoming ICC war crime targets. The US has abstained from membership and has blasted the ICC indicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his Gaza genocide. President Biden called the indictment “outrageous” and declared “We will always stand with Israel.”

Is that any different from denying, even condoning WWII Nazi genocide?

Blinken and Biden, barreling toward historical infamy with their blank check enabling Israeli genocide in Gaza.

January 13, 2025 Posted by | Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

The Moral Bankruptcy of the West

 https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/the-moral-bankruptcy-of-the-west, 24 Dec 24

On 19 December 2024, Human Rights Watch issued a 179-page report detailing Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

On 5 December 2024, Amnesty International issued a 296-page report detailing Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

On 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

On 26 January 2024, the International Court of Justice found that a plausible case can be made that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Given the West’s presumed commitment to human rights and especially to preventing genocide, one would have expected countries like the United States, Britain, and Germany, to have stopped the Israeli genocide in its tracks.

Instead, the governments in those three countries, especially the United States, have supported Israel’s unimaginable behavior in Gaza at every turn. Indeed, those three countries are complicit in this genocide.

Moreover, almost all of the many human rights advocates in those countries, and in the West more generally, have stayed silent while Israel executed its genocide. The mainstream media has made hardly any effort to expose and challenge what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. Indeed some key outlets have staunchly supported Israel’s actions.

One wonders what people in the West who have either supported Israel’s genocide or remained silent tell themselves to justify their behavior and sleep at night.

History will not treat them kindly.

December 31, 2024 Posted by | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

What happened to integrity and honor in the age of Technocracy?

Charles Hugh Smith, oftwominds.com, Fri, 06 Dec 2024,  https://www.sott.net/article/496524-What-happened-to-integrity-and-honor-in-the-age-of-Technocracy

The hope here is that facing the reality of moral collapse frees us of the delusion that fiddling with technocratic financial abstractions and policy tweaks can reverse moral collapse.

Ours is a technocratic culture with a short attention span, and so problems and solutions are understood to be 1) technocratic and 2) instant. The problem is something that can be distilled down to a spreadsheet, formula, algorithm or legalistic policy, and the solution is some modification of spreadsheet, formula, algorithm or legalistic policy: all our problems will go away if we just end the Fed, switch to cryptocurrency, tweak some laws, get rid of the bankers, eliminate an agency, and so on.

These solutions will offer immediate relief. The problems will start melting away the minute we modify the spreadsheet, algorithm, financial settings or legal code.

But what if the problem is the collapse of integrity and honor, a moral rot that has consumed the foundations of our social order? If this is the root problem, then technocratic-financial solutions are the equivalent of excising a wart from the big toe and declaring that as a result of this procedure, the brain cancer has been cured.

What if the problem is that everything we’re cheering as Progress is actually the opposite–it’s Anti-Progress? What if all the technocratic “advances” that are constantly being hyped as wondrous are actually harming our physical and mental health?

So a product labeled as a “veggie snack” that’s nothing more than fat-soaked, sugary potato starch is lauded because it’s immensely profitable, a virtue gained by deceiving parents into thinking a “veggie snack” is a healthy snack.

That this is a culture in moral collapse is obvious, but we dare not admit it. That integrity and honor have decayed to the point of parody is equally obvious, but that too doesn’t register in a culture attuned to novelty, profit, gadgets, legalese, techno-fantasies and technocratic “solutions” to problems that aren’t even visible to technocrats.

Integrity and honor have, along with everything else, been commoditized into something we sell as a “product” or “enhancement.” Virtue-signaling has replaced actual integrity, and as the host of my latest podcast observed, the job of corporate CEOs is not to make quality products; their job is to elevate the corporation’s stock price by whatever means are available–including hollowing out quality, reliability and durability.

Seeking a Culture of Honor and Integrity with Emerson Fersch and Amy LeNoble (59 min)

In this state of moral collapse, we look to centralized authorities to solve all our problems. But the collapse of integrity and honor does not have a legal, financial or technocratic solution. We have to reverse that collapse ourselves rather than rely on centralized diktats from on high to fix what’s broken.

Before we get to the hope, let’s first review reality. Here is loneliness–soaring. – [excellent graphics here, on original]

And we all know how positive online interactions are for our collective mental health:

Every one of these graphics depicts a social order in collapse, yet this truth is greeted with silence or delusional misdirections and self-referential parodies being passed off as “solutions.”

Let’s say we want a lifestyle stripped of denial, moral rot, techno-fantasies and technocratic delusions, a lifestyle of responsibility, accountability, integrity and honor. Oops, sorry, that lifestyle is out of stock and we don’t anticipate any reordering.

The hope here is that facing the reality of moral collapse frees us of the delusion that fiddling with technocratic financial abstractions and policy tweaks can reverse moral collapse and Anti-Progress. We are then free to see the problem is spiritual and cultural, realms that we change in our own lives, not by waiting around for central authorities–the state, Big Tech, etc.–to fix for us.

We need a new way of living, not more gadgets and financial “innovations.” A restoration of basic integrity and honor cannot be achieved by technocratic “solutions”–policies, crypto, apps, algos, AI–for the belief that these are solutions has blinded us to the decay and collapse of the foundations of the social order.

Yes, it’s understandable that we all want a solution to the collapse of integrity and honor to be done for us by some new app or a new law, but that’s like thinking the wart on the big toe is the source of the brain cancer. Real social change comes from the ground up, not the top down. I explore these themes in my new book The Mythology of Progress, Anti-Progress and a Mythology for the 21st Century.
(free sample chapter)

New podcast:Seeking a Culture of Honor and Integrity with Emerson Fersch and Amy LeNoble (59 min)

December 9, 2024 Posted by | Religion and ethics, technology | Leave a comment

Christian Nationalism Marches on With ‘Bible-Infused’ Texas Curriculum

“What we’re seeing here in Texas with these lessons is a larger national push to promote the idea that American identity and Christian identity are woven together, are one in the same,” said one professor.

Jessica Corbett, Nov 22, 2024, Common Dreams

Parents, teachers, and other critics of Christian nationalism were outraged by a Texas board’s Friday vote to approve a “Bible-infused” curriculum for elementary school students—part of a broader right-wing push to force Christianity into public education.

“They chose politics over what’s best for students, promoting an evangelical Christian religious perspective and undermining the freedom of families to direct the religious education of their own children,” declared the Texas Freedom Network, accusing the State Board of Education (SBOE) of ignoring warnings from religious studies experts, national media attention, and overwhelming negative feedback from the people they’re elected to serve.”

Like a preliminary vote Tuesday, eight of the SBOE’s 15 members voted to approve Bluebonnet Learning, instructional materials proposed by the Texas Education Agency. Three Republicans joined all four Democrats in opposing the curriculum. The deciding vote in favor of it was cast by Leslie Recine, a Republican recently appointed by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott to temporarily fill a vacant seat.

“In a state as diverse as Texas, home to millions of people from countless faiths and beliefs, the Texas Republicans on the State Board of Education voted to incorporate Biblical teachings into the state curriculum—completely undermining religious freedom,” said Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa in a statement after the final vote.

“This move has ultimately violated parents’ rights to guide their children’s faith while presenting teachers with additional needless challenges,” Hinojosa argued. “Our public schools should be focused on equipping students with the education and skills they need to succeed beyond grade school whether it’s pursuing a higher education or entering the workforce. The teaching of religious doctrine should stay in our places of worship where it belongs.”

Although the curriculum isn’t required, The Texas Tribunereported, “the state will offer an incentive of $60 per student to districts that adopt the lessons, which could appeal to some as schools struggle financially after several years without a significant raise in state funding.”

“Christian nationalists have bought their way into every governing body of the state, including the SBOE. And they will not stop with inserting Biblical content in English textbooks.”

Bluebonnet Learning features lessons from Christianity in reading and language arts materials for kindergarten through fifth grade………………………

Zeph Capo, president of the Texas arm of the American Federation of Teachers, urged districts “to resist the dollars dangled before them and refuse to use Bluebonnet Learning materials,” arguing that they violate the code of ethics for the state’s educators and “the separation of church and state by infusing lessons with Bible-based references more appropriate for Sunday Schools than public schools.”…………………………………………………………………….

Noting the current “moment of profound political division,” the union leader added that the vote “is the latest evidence that Christian nationalists have bought their way into every governing body of the state, including the SBOE. And they will not stop with inserting Biblical content in English textbooks. We can anticipate what will come next, whether that’s the erasure of contributions of marginalized populations in social studies or the minimalization of climate change in science.

The curriculum push coincides with an SBOE effort to restrict library materials. The ACLU of Texas said on social media that “the same politicians censoring what students can read now want to impose state-sponsored religion onto our public schools.”

The Tribunereported Thursday that “10 members on the board responsible for determining what Texas’ 5.5 million public schoolchildren learn in the classroom voted to call on the Texas Legislature, which convenes in January, to pass a state law granting them authority to determine what books are appropriate for school-age children.

Earlier this week, Mark Chancey, a religious studies professor at Southern Methodist University, toldFox 4 that he supports teaching religion in public schools, but in a fair and unbiased way, and he doesn’t agree with the state proposal…………………………………………………………..

At the federal level, Trump—who is set to return to the White House in January—has advocated for dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. For now, he has named Linda McMahon, a former wrestling executive accused of enabling sexual abuse of children, as his pick for education secretary. https://www.commondreams.org/news/christianity-in-schools?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=08cb74510b-Weekend+Edition%3A+Sun.+11%2F24%2F24&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-3b949b3e19-600558179

November 27, 2024 Posted by | Education, Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Royal Navy chief apologises for ‘intolerable’ misogyny in Submarine Service

Ben Key confirms several personnel have been sacked, demoted or disciplined as a result of investigations

Guardian, Alexandra Topping, 5 Oct 24

The head of the Royal Navy has issued an unreserved apology for “intolerable” misogyny in the Submarine Service, after a series of investigations across the navy exposed sexual harassment, bullying and assault of women within its ranks.

First Sea Lord Adm Sir Ben Key said he was “truly sorry” to the women who had suffered “misogyny, bullying and other unacceptable behaviours” while serving their country. “We must be better than this and do better than we have,” he said.

The long-awaited findings from an investigation into sexual harassment and abuse onboard the UK’s nuclear-armed submarines come almost two years after a whistleblower described a “constant campaign of sexual bullying” during her time in the elite Submarine Service.

Three navy personnel have been sacked and a fourth disciplined as a result of the investigation into complaints brought by Sophie Brook, who became one of the first women to be allowed to serve in the Submarine Service in 2014 and made history when she became its first female warfare officer.

In October 2022 she spoke out about sustained and aggressive sexual harassment during her time in the navy, which she said resulted in her self-harming to the extent that on one occasion she required stitches.

Brook’s story, which was first published by the Daily Mail, led to a number of other women, who make up just over 10% of the service, to come forward. The Guardian understands that the navy has carried out 28 investigations into sexual misconduct and unacceptable behaviour in the past two years, resulting in 18 personnel being sacked, four demoted and six disciplined.

Brook said submariners had simulated sex acts on her, left naked pictures of models in her cabin and told her she was on a “crush death rape list” if the submarine got into trouble. She described one crew mate attempting to distract her from her duty on the submarine’s periscope by putting his penis in her pocket and being punched in the kidneys if she took her eyes off the mast………………………….


An investigation into her case included 71 allegations and found “evidence to prove misogyny, bullying or unacceptable behaviour had occurred among a range of ranks”.

A heavily redacted report published on Friday obscures the detailed conclusions for every allegation.

Allegations of misogyny included:……………………………… more https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/oct/04/royal-navy-chief-apologises-for-intolerable-misogyny-in-submarine-service

October 6, 2024 Posted by | Religion and ethics, UK | Leave a comment

Israel’s Ideology of Genocide Must be Confronted and Stopped

Jeffrey D. Sachs • September 30, 2024,  https://www.unz.com/article/israels-ideology-of-genocide-must-be-confronted-and-stopped/

Israel’s violent extremists now in control of its government believe that Israel has the Biblical license, indeed a religious mandate, to destroy the Palestinian people.

When Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the podium at the U.N. General Assembly last week, dozens of governments walked out of the chamber. The global opprobrium of Netanyahu and his government is due to Israel’s depraved violence against its Arab neighbors. Netanyahu purveys a fundamentalist ideology that has turned Israel into the most violent nation in the world.

Israel’s fundamentalist credo holds that Palestinians have no right whatsoever to their own nation. The Israeli Knesset recently passed a declaration rejecting a Palestinian State in what the Knesset calls The Land of Israel, meaning the land west of the Jordan River.

The Knesset of Israel firmly opposes the establishment of a Palestinian state west of Jordan. The establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of the Land of Israel will pose an existential danger to the State of Israel and its citizens, perpetuate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and destabilize the region.

To call the land west of the Jordan the “heart of the Land of Israel” is breathtaking. Israel is one part of the land west of the Jordan, not the entire land. The International Court of Justice has recently ruled that Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian lands (those outside of Israel’s borders as of June 4, 1967, before the June 1967 war) is plainly illegal. The U.N. General Assembly has recently voted overwhelmingly to back the ICJ ruling and called on Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories within one year.

There are many sources of this Israeli brazenness, the most important being the backing of Israel by U.S. military power.

It is worth recalling that when the British empire promised a Jewish homeland in Ottoman Palestine in 1917, the Palestinian Arabs constituted around 90% of the population. At the time of the 1947 U.N. partition plan, the Palestinian Arab population was approximately 67% of the population, though the partition plan proposed to give the Arabs only 44% of the land. Now Israel asserts the claim to 100% of the land.

Without the U.S. military backing, Israel could not possibly rule over an Apartheid regime in which Palestinian Arabs constitute nearly one half of the population yet hold none of the political power. Future generations will look back in amazement at the success of the Israel Lobby in manipulating the U.S. military to the severe detriment of U.S. national security and global peace.

Yet in addition to the U.S. military, there is another source of Israel’s profound injustice to the Palestinian people, and that is the religious fundamentalism purveyed fanatics such as the self-proclaimed fascist Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s Minister of Finance, and Minister of National Defense Itamar Ben-Gvir. These fanatics hold fast to the biblical Book of Joshua, according to which God promised the Israelites the land “from the Negev wilderness in the south to the Lebanon mountains in the north, from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.” (Joshua 1:4).


At the U.N. last week, Netanyahu once again staked Israel’s claim to the land on Biblical grounds: “When I spoke here last year, I said we face the same timeless choice that Moses put before the people of Israel thousands of years ago, as we were about to enter the Promised Land. Moses told us that our actions would determine whether we bequeath to future generations a blessing or a curse.”

What Netanyahu did not tell his fellow leaders (most of whom had in any event vacated the hall), was that Moses laid out a genocidal path to the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 31):

[The LORD] will destroy these nations before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua is the one who will cross ahead of you, just as the LORD has spoken. “The LORD will do to them just as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when He destroyed them. “The LORD will deliver them up before you, and you shall do to them according to all the commandments which I have commanded you.”

Israel’s violent extremists believe that Israel has the Biblical license, indeed a religious mandate, to destroy the Palestinian people. Their Biblical hero is Joshua, the Israelite commander who succeeded Moses, and who led the Israelites’ genocidal conquests. (Netanyahu has also referred to the Amalekites, another case of a God-ordained genocide of foes of the Israelites, in a clear “dog-whistle” to his fundamentalist followers.) Here is the Biblical account of Joshua’s conquest of Hebron (Joshua 10)

Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron, and they fought against it. They captured it and struck it and its king and all its cities and all the persons who were in it with the edge of the sword. He left no survivor, according to all that he had done to Eglon. And he utterly destroyed it and every person who was in it.

There is a deep irony to this genocidal account. It almost surely is not historically accurate. There is no evidence that the Jewish kingdoms arose from genocides. Most likely they arose from local Canaanite communities adopting early forms of Judaism. Jewish fundamentalists adhere to a 6th century BCE text that is most likely a mythical reconstruction of purported events several centuries earlier, and a form of political bravado that was common in ancient Near Eastern politics. The problem is 21st century Israeli politicians, illegal settlers, and other fundamentalists who propose to live by—and kill by—6th century BCE political propaganda.

Israel’s violent fundamentalists are some 2,600 years out of step with today’s acceptable forms of statecraft and international law. Israel is duty bound to the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions, not to the Book of Joshua. According to the recent ICJ ruling and UN General Assembly resolution backing it up, Israel must withdraw in the coming twelve months from the occupied Palestinian lands. According to international law, Israel’s borders are those of June 4, 1967, not the Euphrates to the Mediterranean Sea.

The ICJ ruling and U.N. General Assembly vote is not a ruling against the state of Israel per se. It is a ruling only against extremism, indeed against extremism and malevolence on both sides of the divide. There are two peoples, each with roughly half the overall population (and with no shortage of internal social, political, and ideological divisions within the two communities). International law calls for two states, living side by side, in peace.

The best solution, which we should strive for and hope for sooner rather than later, is that the two states, and the two peoples, get along, and actually draw strength from each other. Until then, however, the practical solution will be peacekeepers and fortified borders to protect each side from the animosity of the other, but with each having the chance to prosper. The utterly intolerable and illegal situation is the status quo, in which Israel rules brutally over the Palestinian people.

Hopefully, there will soon be a State of Palestine, sovereign and independent, whether the Knesset wants it or not. This is not Israel’s choice, but the mandate of the world community and of international law. The sooner the State of Palestine is welcomed as member state of the U.N., with the security of both Israel and Palestine backed by U.N. peacekeepers, the sooner will peace come to the region.

October 4, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Cardinal Parolin: ‘World threatened by irreversible nuclear destruction’

The Vatican Secretary of State reiterates the moral imperative of the total elimination of nuclear weapons and reaffirms the Holy See’s condemnation of the use or threat of use of such weapons.

By Lisa Zengarini,  https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2024-09/parolin-world-threatened-by-irreversible-nuclear-destruction.html

“The only way to avoid a nuclear war is the total elimination of nuclear weapons.” Cardinal Pietro Parolin strongly reaffirmed this point in a statement he addressed on 26 September at a High-Level UN Meeting in New York commemorating the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

Wars and arms race dangerously increasing risk of nuclear conflict

The Vatican Secretary of State grounded his speech on the current state of global affairs and the relentless arms race which is dramatically increasing the risk of nuclear conflict. He, again, decried that States are strengthening their nucleararsenals with resources that, as Pope Francis has emphasized several times, “could be more effectively used to address pressing development needs.”

This trend he said “underscores a troubling reliance by nuclear-weapons States on nuclear deterrence, rather than on fulfilling their obligation under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).”

Nuclear deterrence does’t work

Echoing Pope Francis’ tireless appeals on this crucial issue, Cardinal Parolin insisted on the need to “go beyond nuclear deterrence” thus reiterating the Holy See’s call on all States to accede to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).

States, he added, must also renew their commitment to other disarmament measures, such as the revitalization of bilateral arms control processes, the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the opening of negotiations on fissile material and negative security assurance treaties.

Holy See committed to building bridges of trust to free world from nuclear weapons

Concluding, Cardinal Parolin reaffirmed that the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons can only be achieved through discussions based on mutual trust. For its part, he said, the Holy See will continue to build bridges of dialogue with every State, “with the aim of safeguarding the common good rather than individual interests.”

October 1, 2024 Posted by | Religion and ethics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

New Book Explores the Intersection of God and Nuclear Weapons

By Global Security Institute, ,  https://gsinstitute.org/new-book-explores-the-intersection-of-god-and-nuclear-weapons/

Bishop William E. Swing, founder of the United Religions Initiative, has released a thought-provoking new book titled “God and Nuclear Weapons: Meditations at the End of the Atomic Age.”

This timely and relevant book delves into the complex relationship between belief in a life-creating God and the reality of a life-denying nuclear arsenal. While life teeters on the edge of extinction, this book offers the full biblical scope of hope in the face of extinction.

Bishop Swing’s book is organized around an on-going conversation with his friend, the former Secretary of State, George Shultz, who initially asked, “Bill, what do you think?” regarding nuclear weapons. This book is a posthumous answer. The author goes on at the end of each chapter to pass along the same question to the reader: “What do you think?” 

One Amazon reviewer describes the book as “a must-read for anyone grappling with the reality of nuclear weapons in our world today.” The book has received high praise for its thought-provoking and insightful approach to a complex and vital issue. Bishop Swing’s unique perspective as a religious leader and nuclear weapons abolitionist adds a valuable perspective to the ongoing conversation about nuclear weapons.

As the number of nuclear armed nations grows and the weapons are modernized with ever greater lethal strength, Bishop Swing asserts that this is the moment for “end-time thinking.” “God and Nuclear Weapons: Meditations at the End of the Atomic Age” is available now on Amazon and other major book retailers. For more information, please visit Voices for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons.

Bishop Swing’s book is about a property dispute between God and nuclear armed nations over nothing less than life on planet Earth. And where hope abides in the end! “God and Nuclear Weapons” is sure to spark thoughtful reflections which lead to actions. The book is available at Amazon.

Global Security Institute

The Global Security Institute is dedicated to strengthening international peace and security based on co-operation, diplomacy, shared interests, the rule of law and universal values. Our efforts are guided by the skills and commitment of our team of former heads of state, distinguished diplomats and politicians, celebrities, religious leaders, Nobel Peace Laureates, disarmament and legal experts, and concerned informed citizens. Our focus is on controlling and eliminating humanity’s greatest threat – nuclear weapons.

www.gsinstituite.org

September 24, 2024 Posted by | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Jewish Council disappointed at Australia’s UN abstention, calls for strong international action to prevent Israeli war crimes

By Jewish Council of Australia,   September, 19, 2024

The Jewish Council of Australia says it is deeply disappointed at Australia’s abstention from a critical United Nations General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories within 12 months. The resolution passed with 124 votes in favour, highlighting global frustration with Israel’s actions.

In a statement, the JCA said Australia’s abstention did not align with its commitments to international law and peace-building. While the Australian Government had indicated support for many aspects of the resolution, its failure to vote in favour was s a missed opportunity to show stronger, principled leadership, the Jewish group said.

“This vote comes at the same time as further apparent Israeli attacks on Lebanon, a day after the pager attacks,” a statement from the JCA said.

“The Jewish Council of Australia condemns these attacks. Their indiscriminate nature, killing dozens and injuring thousands of civilians, is an apparent war crime which underscores the urgent need for a collective international response to prevent Israel further breaching international law.

“We call on the government to join with other countries in condemning the killing of innocent civilians, and reiterate our calls for Australia to take material action by imposing sanctions and throwing its weight behind a global arms embargo.

JCA executive officer Sarah Schwartz said:

“We condemn the loss of any innocent life. Australia and the international community must take material steps to prevent, and ensure accountability for, the commission of war crimes. These indiscriminate attacks, which have killed innocent bystanders, are the behaviour of a rogue state and should be treated as such.”

JCA executive officer Dr Max Kaiser added:

“We urge the Australian government to join the vast majority of countries in the international community that are taking a firm stance. Australia can and should be doing more to hold Israel accountable for its unlawful presence in Palestinian territories. The time for decisive action is now.”

September 21, 2024 Posted by | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Richard Silverstein: Israel, ‘The Far Right Extremist State That I Can No Longer Identify With’

 SCHEERPOST, September 13, 2024

Israel and its lobby today try to conflate the state with Jews around the world, that it speaks for Jews and encompasses the entire diaspora. Richard Silverstein, author and journalist of the Tikun Olam blog, says that this couldn’t be further from the truth. As the genocide in Gaza rages on, along with the killing of Israeli citizens and the mass torture of Palestinians, the support for Israel among Jews, particularly the younger generation, will continue to falter as the state itself plunges deeper into despair.

Silverstein speaks to host Robert Scheer on this episode of the Scheer Intelligence podcast to detail his relationship with Israel and Zionism and how his views have evolved over time, ultimately leading to a complete disconnection from the state, especially in light of the ongoing genocide, and now calling himself an anti-Zionist.

Being raised Jewish and earning degrees from Jewish Theological Seminary and Columbia University, as well as studying Hebrew literature at the Hebrew University in Israel, Silverstein makes clear: “[F]or you and for me and for most American Jews, Judaism is not genocide in Gaza, is not $20 billion or $80 billion in arms being sent by the US to Israel to kill Palestinians. That’s not the kind of Judaism that I represent.”

Not only is the genocide a driving force behind the alienation of the Israel state but also the way it treats its own citizens, looking at them as expendable in its objective to kill Hamas operators. Silverstein refers to the Hannibal Directive, a procedure used by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to prevent the capture of soldiers by killing them and their captors. “[Y]ou now have a code that is expanded to also killing your own civilians. And that’s, I think, what is even more profoundly upsetting, disturbing about the way in which Hannibal is being used right now,” Silverstein tells Scheer.

orture and rape of Palestinian prisoners is also something that has emerged from Israel’s onslaught on Gaza and the West Bank, according to Silverstein. “We have Palestinians in Gaza who were swept up in detention raids and brought to concentration camps, really, in Israel, and there they’re tortured,” he states.

Silverstein insists that what is happening in Gaza does not represent Judaism worldwide like Israel claims, and that “American Judaism needs to stand on its own.” American Jews, Silverstein says, “really have to separate [themselves] from the hostility, the anger, the violence that Israel represents.”……………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://scheerpost.com/2024/09/13/richard-silverstein-israel-the-far-right-extremist-state-that-i-can-no-longer-identify-with/

September 15, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

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