TODAY. Netanyahu’s Israel breathes new life into the modern Nazi movement.
Isn’t it beaut! There’s a particular type of young man who feel the need to hate and be violent. Waiting for such men is the ever-simmering philosophy of Nazism, with its no.1 principle of anti-semitism.
Now at last, after such a long drought of support for Nazism, along come Hamas and the Netanyatu regime in Israel, providing a convenient reason for Nazis to spread hatred of Jews.
The picture above shows a a very recent march of neo-Nazis in Bendigo, a country town in Australia. Nazi symbolism, including the Nazi salute, are banned there by law. But they can still get their message across with their black outfits, nearly-Nazi symbolism, and hate speech.
Not all that surprising to find a little sprouting of Nazism in Australia, seeing that many Nazi war criminals and collaborators fled to Australia at the end of World War 2. Those philosophies of anti-semitism have deep roots in European history, and still influence the thinking of some groups in Australia, and in other lands that received the Nazi fugitives.
We don’t get to hear much about the Jewish Voice For Peace, and the many intelligent and compassionate Jews who reject what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians, (as well as rejecting the atrocities done by Hamas) .
No – it’s so much easier to blame all Jews for the genocide in Gaza - Gaza as the modern-day horror - the new Auschwitz being perpretated by Jews.
This whole continuing catastrophe is a bonus to extreme right-wing and anti-semitic groups. Not being Jewish myself, I can hardly imagine what it must feel like, to see these hatreds rising up again, and know those fears of persecution still have some basis in reality.
Thankfully, there are many Jews and non-Jews who see the whole picture, and reject the cruelty being inflicted on the Palestinians.
My hope is that sanity will prevail, and world leaders will listen. All that the USA has to do is to stop Biden’s hypocrisy, stop providing the weaponry to Israel, reject Netanyahu, and start working with peace-makers. There must be a way for fairness and decency for the people of Palestine and the people of Israel.
Meanwhile, the Western world must stop its pretending that the genocide of Gaza is OK, and start noticing the fodder that this is providing to reinvigorate Nazism.
Nuclear waste. Fifty years of searching, still nowhere to dump it.
by Rex Patrick | Dec 15, 2023, https://michaelwest.com.au/nuclear-waste-fifty-years-of-searching-still-nowhere-to-dump-it/—
The Department of Defence has engaged a former Defence Deputy Secretary as a highly paid consultant to find a place on Defence land to store submarine nuclear waste. Rex Patrick takes a look at a search for the impossible.
In his role as a Defence Department Deputy Secretary, he was tasked with finding a place on the same lands to store low-level nuclear waste, and he couldn’t find any, so why would he have more luck as a consultant? Was he not paid enough?
Assuming the US Congress shortly approves the transfer of Virginia Class submarines from the US Navy to the Royal Australian Navy, Australia won’t get its first nuclear submarine until sometime around 2033. According to evidence provided to the Australian Senate by our Defence Department, the first nuclear-powered submarine will be second-hand and have a remaining reactor life of 20 years.
That means the first Australian reactor will be decommissioned around 2053; 30 years from today.
One might think that three decades is plenty of time to sort this problem out. But if past experience is anything to go by, the search for a suitable high-level nuclear waste site is already running late.
Australia has been searching for a site for a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility (NRWMF) site since the 1970s;
and after 50 years, it still hasn’t found a spot on which to safely establish such a repository.
In 2012, the Parliament tried to kick the whole low-level waste site selection process along by passing the National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012. Since July 2014, the Commonwealth has spent approximately $109 million (ex GST) trying to find a site, only to have the Federal Court, in July this year, set aside the Minister’s decision to locate the NRWMF at Kimba in South Australia.
Low-level radioactive material remains scattered at more than 100 sites across the country, with many of the sites not constructed for long-term waste management.
It’s a half-century-long saga of public policy and administrative failure with no resolution in sight.
The search for a high-level waste site
In March this year, Deputy Prime Minister Marles (please don’t call him Defence Minister – he likes the DPM title better) announced that the Albanese Government were looking at a Defence site for the storage of AUKUS waste.
What wasn’t detailed then, and is only public now through Freedom of Information, is that in February this year, the Government set up an integrated site review team, led by former Deputy Defence Secretary Steve Grzeskowiak.
The Review team includes Defence representatives from the Australian Submarine Agency, Security and Estate Group and Joint Logistics Command. It will be supported by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency and Geoscience Australia.
For his work in leading the Review, Grzeskowiak’s company SG Advice Pty Ltd has been awarded a $396,000 contract that commenced on 27 February 2023 and runs through to 31 December 2023.
It is not clear why Defence does not have this capability within its own organisations (as you will see shortly, it has done these activities internally in the past).
So, the outcomes of the review are expected around now.
No room at Woomera
The Defence Department manages a vast and complex Defence Estate of over 2.8 million hectares. It’s claimed to be the largest landholding in the Commonwealth with 70 major bases, 100 plus training ranges, and more than 1000 leased or owned properties.
Yet when the Morrison Government were looking for a site for low-level waste, Defence was adamant that the Defence Estate was not the right place. According to Defence, not a single hectare was suitable or available for such a facility.
Back in February 2020, with the Government knowing it had botched the NRWMF site selection process, further legislation, the National Radioactive Waste Management Amendment (Site Specification, Community Fund and Other Measures) Bill 2020, was introduced into Parliament.
The dominant purpose of the Bill was to have the Parliament select Kimba as the NRWMF site because if the Parliament selected the site, the Courts couldn’t intervene. The Senate wasn’t buying into it – it didn’t want to be the fix-it place for the then Government’s screw-ups. It wasn’t going to take away the rights of indigenous to appeal the site decision to the Federal Court.
During the Senate Inquiry into the Bill, when Defence was asked if there was a suitable place on Defence land for a site, for example, the vast Woomera missile test range, they gave evidence that they had no land whatsoever on which to locate a low-level waste site:
“In May 2017, the then Department of Industry, Innovation and Science sought Defence’s advice to determine if a suitable location for the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility could be found within the Defence estate.
“The request identified four Defence owned sites, which comprise a collection of separate parcels of land as potential locations for the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility. Two of those sites lie within the Woomera Prohibited Area. One site lies outside of but in proximity to the Woomera Prohibited Area. Based on the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science’s site selection criteria, the Defence assessment determined that the siting of the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility at any of the four sites identified in the request could not be achieved.”
In short, Defence couldn’t find anywhere in the 122,188 square kilometres of the Woomera Prohibited Area, an area twice the size of Tasmania, to put a low-level waste facility.
If at first you don’t succeed …
The origin of Defence’s position was a study carried out in 2017. The results of the study, which looked at four sites in detail, were communicated by letter stating:
“My department has also undertaken a review of 223 additional Defence-owned sites (not identified in the report, in consultation with key stakeholders at Defence, to ascertain whether any other sites could be considered for the NRWMF. The outcome of the review and broad consultation is that there are no Defence-owned land sites, (greater than 100 hectares) that would be suitable for this purpose.”
The letter was signed off by the then Deputy Secretary of Estates and Infrastructure, Steve Grzeskowiak.
That’s the same bloke who Defence has now to find a location on Defence sites for high level nuclear waste.
In 2017 Grzeskowiak was adamant there were no suitable Defence sites for hosting nuclear waste, but is now being paid a $396K to come up with a different view.
If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again, or so the saying goes.
Maybe it’s all okay though. Defence might have suddenly become warm to the idea that they can host a facility, and a well-paid independent contractor might just be the person to come up with the answer they want.
Former secretaries never retire, they just go on contract
But how did Defence find their retired Deputy Secretary to give a sole source contract to?
It was easier than you could imagine.
It turns out Grzeskowiak was already working for Defence. He retired from the Department in August 2021, but a year later, he picked up not one but two lucrative sole-sourced contracts; one for professional services at $230K and another for ‘External Member’ services at $341K. Those contracts will keep him on Defence’s books until the middle of 2024.
With the addition of the nuclear waste site review contract, SG Advice, with Grzeskowiak the sole owner, has picked up a total of $967K worth of consultancy work from the Department he so recently ‘retired’ from.
No one in the Senior Executive Service ever really retires (Kathryn Campbell and Mike Pezzullo might be the rare exceptions), they just go on contract. Ka-Ching!
Flirting With Nuclear Energy Down Under
December 15, 2023, by: Dr Binoy Kampmark, https://theaimn.com/flirting-with-nuclear-energy-down-under/
It was a policy that was bound to send a shiver through the policymaking community. The issue of nuclear energy in Australia has always been a contentious one. Currently, the country hosts a modest nuclear industry, centred on the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), nuclear medicine and laboratory products. But even this has created headaches in terms of long-term storage of waste, plagued by successful legal challenges from communities and First Nation groups. The advent of AUKUS, with its inane yet provocative promise of nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy, adds yet another, complicating dimension to this fact. Without a clear idea of a site, a vital part of the nuclear dilemma remains unresolved.
Broadly speaking, the nuclear issue, in manifold manifestations, has never entirely disappeared from the periphery of Australian policy. The fact that Australia became a primary testing ground for Britain’s nuclear weapons program was hardly something that would have left Canberra uninterested in acquiring some nuclear option. Options were considered, be they in the realm of a future weapons capability, or energy generation.
In a June 29, 1961 letter from Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies to his counterpart in the UK, Harold Macmillan, concerns over the impediments imposed by a potential treaty that would impose limitations on countries the subject of nuclear testing were candidly expressed. Were that treaty to go ahead, it “could prove a serious limitation on the range of decisions open to a future Australian Government in that it could effectively preclude or at least impose a very substantial handicap on Australia’s acquisition of nuclear weapons.”
Menzies put forth a suggestion that was ultimately never pursued – at least officially. An arrangement deemed “more practical,” suggested the Australian PM, might involve “the supply of ready-made weapons” at the conclusion of such a treaty.
A sore point here were efforts by the Soviets to insist that countries such as Australia be banned from pursuing their own nuclear program. Menzies therefore wished Macmillan “to accord full recognition of the potentially serious security situation in which Australia could find herself placed as a result of having accommodated United Kingdom testing.”
Australia eventually abandoned its nuclear weapons ambitions with the ratification of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in February 1970, preferring, instead, the nuclear umbrella of extended deterrence offered by the United States. (The nature of that deterrence has always seemed spectacularly hollow.) Domestically, nuclear technology would be sparingly embraced. Nuclear power stations, however, were banned in every state and territory, a policy left unchallenged by a number of parliamentary inquiries.
The quest of meeting emissions reduction targets during the transition to the goal of net zero was bound to refocus interest on the nuclear power issue. The Liberal-National opposition is keen to put the issue of nuclear power back on the books. It is a dream that may never see the light of day, given, according to the chief government scientific body, the CSIRO, its uncompetitive nature and the absence of “the relevant frameworks in place for its consideration and operation within the timeframe required.”
Australian politicians have often faced, even when flirting with the proposition of adopting nuclear power, firm rebuke. South Australian Premier Malinauskas gave us one example in initially expressing the view late last year that “the ideological opposition that exists in some quarters to nuclear power is ill-founded.” It did not take him long to tell the ABC’s 7.30 program that he did not wish “to suggest that nuclear should be part of the mix in our nation.” Australia had to “acknowledge that nuclear power would make energy more expensive in our nation & [we should] put it to one side, rather than having a culture war about nuclear power.”
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has been by far the boldest, pitching for a gentler exit from the fossil-fuel powered nirvana Australia has occupied for decades. Australia, he is adamant, should join “the international nuclear energy renaissance.” Of particular interest to him is the use of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which might be purposefully built on coal generator cites as part of the general energy package alongside renewables. SMRs, as Joanne Liou of the International Atomic Energy Agency explains, “are advanced nuclear reactors that have a power capacity of up to 300 Mw(e) per unit, which is about one-third of the generating capacity of traditional nuclear power reactors.”
The heralded advantages of such devices, at least as advertised by its misguided proponents, lie in their size – being small and modular, ease of manufacture, shipping and installation. They also offer, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, “savings in cost and construction time, and they can be deployed incrementally to match increasing energy demand.”
For all these benefits, the cold reality of SMR designs is how far they have yet to go before becoming viable. Four SMRs are currently in operation, though these, according to Friends of the Earth Australia’s lead national nuclear campaigner, Jim Green, hardly meet the “modular definition” in terms of serial factory production of components relevant to such devices.
Russia and China, despite hosting such microreactors, have faced considerable problems with cost blowouts and delays, the very things that SMRs are meant to avoid. Oregon-based NuScale has tried to convince and gull potential patrons that its small reactor projects will take off, though the audience for its chief executive John Hopkins is primarily limited to the Coalition and NewsCorp stable. The company’s own cost estimates for energy generation, despite heavy government subsidies, have not made SMR adoption in the United States, let alone Australia, viable.
In his second budget reply speech in May, Dutton showed little sign of being briefed on these problems, stating that “any sensible government [in the 21st century] must consider small modular nuclear as part of the energy mix.” Labor’s policies on climate change had resulted in placing Australia “on the wrong energy path.”
Such views have not impressed the Albanese Government. Energy Minister Chris Bowen insists that counterfeit claims are being peddled on the issue of the role played by nuclear energy in Canada along with false distinctions between the costs of nuclear power and renewable energy.
“If they are serious about proposing a nuclear solution for Australia, the simplistic bumper stickers and populist echo chamber has to come to an end. Show the Australian people your verified nuclear costings and your detailed plans about where the nuclear power plants will go.”
Such verification will be a tall order indeed. As the CSIRO concedes, “Without more real-world data for SMRs demonstrating that nuclear can be economically viable, the debate will likely continue to be dominated by opinion and conflicting social values rather than a discussion on the underlying assumptions.”
COP 28 and the nuclear energy numbers racket
By Sharon Squassoni | December 13, 2023, https://thebulletin.org/2023/12/the-nuclear-energy-numbers-racket/
Nuclear energy made a big splash at the COP28 climate meeting in Dubai with a declaration by 22 countries calling for a tripling of nuclear energy by 2050. It seems like an impressive and urgent call to arms. On closer inspection, however, the numbers don’t work out. Even at best, a shift to invest more heavily in nuclear energy over the next two decades could actually worsen the climate crisis, as cheaper, quicker alternatives are ignored for more expensive, slow-to-deploy nuclear options.
Here’s what the numbers say:
22: That 22 countries signed the declaration may seem like a lot of support, but 31 countries (plus Taiwan) currently produce nuclear energy. Notably missing from the declaration are Russia and the People’s Republic of China. Russia is the world’s leading exporter of nuclear power plants and has the fourth largest nuclear energy capacity globally; China has built the most nuclear power plants of any country in the last two decades and ranks third globally in capacity. Thirteen other countries that have key nuclear programs are also missing from the declaration: five in Europe (Armenia, Belarus, Belgium, Switzerland and Spain), two in South Asia (India and Pakistan) three in the Americas (Argentina, Brazil and Mexico), South Africa (the only nuclear energy producer in Africa), and Iran.
5: Five of the countries signing the declaration do not have nuclear power—Mongolia, Morocco, Ghana, Moldova, and Poland. Only Poland’s electricity grid can support three or four large nuclear reactors—the rest would have to invest billions of dollars first to expand their grids or rely on smaller reactors that would not overwhelm grid capacity. Poland wants to replace its smaller coal plants with almost 80 small modular reactors (SMRs), but these “paper reactors” are largely just plans and not yet proven technology. One American vendor, NuScale, recently scrapped a six-unit project when cost estimates rose exponentially. In any event, none of these five countries is likely to make a significant contribution toward tripling nuclear energy in the next 20 years.
17: The 17 remaining signatories to the nuclear energy declaration represent a little more than half of all countries with nuclear energy, raising the issue of how much support there really is for tripling nuclear energy by 2050.
3x: The idea of tripling nuclear energy to meet climate change requirements is not new. In fact, it was one of eight climate stabilization “wedges” laid out in Science magazine in 2004 in a now-famous article by Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala of Princeton University. A stabilization wedge would avoid one billion tons of carbon emissions per year by 2055. In the case of nuclear energy, this would require building 700 large nuclear reactors over the course of 50 years. (In 2022, there were 416 reactors operating around the world, with 374 gigawatts-electric of capacity). In 2005, to reach the one-billion-ton goal of emissions reduction would have meant building 14 reactors per year, assuming all existing reactors continued operating. (In fact, the build rate needed to be 23 per year to replace aging reactors that would need to be retired.) Given the stagnation of the nuclear power industry since then, the build rate now to reach wedge level would need to be 40 per year.
10: Average annual number of connections of nuclear power plants to the electricity grid, per year, over the entire history of nuclear energy. Between 2011 and 2021, however, the average annual number of nuclear power reactors connected to the grid was 5.
42 GWe: New nuclear energy capacity added from 2000 to 2020.
605 GWe: New wind capacity added from 2000 to 2020.
578 GWe: New solar capacity added from 2000 to 2020. Growth in renewables has vastly outpaced that of nuclear energy in recent years.
10: Average annual number of connections of nuclear power plants to the electricity grid, per year, over the entire history of nuclear energy. Between 2011 and 2021, however, the average annual number of nuclear power reactors connected to the grid was 5.
42 GWe: New nuclear energy capacity added from 2000 to 2020.
605 GWe: New wind capacity added from 2000 to 2020.
578 GWe: New solar capacity added from 2000 to 2020. Growth in renewables has vastly outpaced that of nuclear energy in recent years.
15 trillion: In US dollars, the cost to build enough NuScale reactors (9,738 77 megawatt-electric reactors) to triple nuclear energy capacity, assuming existing reactors continue to operate. There are less expensive SMRs, perhaps, but none further along in the US licensing process.
13: An unlucky number in some cultures, but this was the time from design to projected operation of the NuScale VOYGR plant. Nuclear power plants have to be “done right,” and cutting corners to speed deployment is in no one’s interests. The design-and-build phase for a country’s first nuclear reactor, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, is 15 years. If the great expansion of nuclear energy is supposed to occur in more than the 22 countries that signed the declaration, this lead-time cannot be ignored.
The climate crisis is real, but nuclear energy will continue to be the most expensive and slowest option to reach net zero emissions, no matter how you cook the numbers.
400,000 Ukrainians Killed In Action Explains A Whole Lot
U.S. intelligence contacts have expressed shock as to just how far from reality the narrative being pushed by the Biden administration is from what’s happening in Ukraine and its real war losses.
BY TYLER DURDEN, FRIDAY, DEC 15, 2023
Authored by Mike Fredenburg via The Epoch Times,
How many casualties has Ukraine suffered?
How many causalities has Russia suffered?
Answering these questions is critical to determining the best and most moral path forward for Ukraine and the United States.
Estimates of Ukrainians killed in action (KIA) range from a low of just over 30,000 to a high of over 400,000.
Obviously, these two estimates can’t be reconciled. And it really, really matters to the people of Ukraine which one is closer to the truth. While 30,000 deaths is tragic, anything approaching 400,000 KIA and the accompanying hundreds of thousands of causalities is a humanitarian catastrophe that makes talks of continuing offensive operations next year, or even believing in a stalemate, wishful thinking that will result in even more fruitless Ukrainian deaths.
Unsurprisingly, since the war began, the United States and its allies have unswervingly pushed the narrative that Russia is incurring far more casualties than Ukraine. This casualty narrative was critical to maintaining any plausibility that Ukraine could defeat a country that has four to five times more men of military age and that was recently rated as having the world’s most powerful military. Hence, given the need to maintain the plausibility of a Ukrainian victory, it isn’t surprising that NATO intelligence asserted that the battle of Bakhmut saw Russia losing at least five soldiers KIA for every one of Ukraine’s.
However, since the fall of Bakhmut to Russia, the failure of the much-hyped Ukrainian counteroffensive, and signs that Ukraine’s military is nearing collapse, we’re no longer hearing about five-to-one casualty rates. Still, the most recent estimates from United States and British officials claim that Russia has suffered 120,000 KIA while Ukraine has suffered “only” 70,000 KIA (more than the United States suffered in over 10 years of the Vietnam War).
But not everyone agrees with U.S./British casualty estimates for an army that started the war by mobilizing early 1 million men in arms and, over the course of the war, mobilized another estimated 1 million. Among the growing number of those who don’t agree is the former director of the Joint Operations Center at Supreme Headquarters Europe and one of the key leaders in achieving the legendary victory in the mass tank battle of 73 Easting, retired U.S. Army Col. Douglas Macgregor.
In a recent interview with myself, Col. Macgregor agreed that while estimates putting Russian KIA at as high as 50,000 to 60,000 are defensible, most estimates for Ukrainian KIAs are not.
In what many will undoubtedly find shocking given the countless stories disparaging Russia’s military skills and capabilities while uncritically fawning over Ukraine’s military prowess, Col. Macgregor puts Ukrainian KIA at over 400,000 out of the 2 million Ukraine has mobilized.
Col. Macgregor arrived at this shocking number using a wide variety of sources, including contacts within U.S. intelligence and contacts on the ground in Ukraine and Poland who have intimate knowledge of what’s really happening in Ukraine.
In particular, he noted that his U.S. intelligence contacts have expressed shock as to just how far from reality the narrative being pushed by the Biden administration is from what’s happening in Ukraine and its real war losses.
Likewise, Col. Macgregor’s Ukraine contacts relayed to him accounts of thousands of wounded Ukrainians being left to die on the battlefield, growing numbers of Ukrainian commanders and troops refusing orders to conduct suicide attacks against heavily fortified Russian positions, Ukrainian soldiers surrendering en masse to Russia, hospitals overflowing with Ukrainian wounded, and many other accounts that testify to horrendous casualty rates that contradict the narrative pushed by Western media.
Additionally, Col. Macgregor’s contacts have analyzed satellite imagery showing a massive expansion of Ukrainian cemeteries and countless tens of thousands of fresh graves. Other open-source intelligence analysis has also documented in detail Ukraine’s massive expansion of cemeteries that will soon allow Ukraine to reportedly bury 1.5 million more people. And a Russian analyst using death notices and other open-source intelligence has come up with Ukrainian KIA estimates of over 300,000.
But for Col. Macgregor, it’s the totality of the reports he has seen, his understanding of historical casualty rates, his personal military experience, and information from his sources that has brought him to the conclusion that Ukraine’s KIA is a magnitude greater than what’s commonly being reported.
These numbers, coupled with the fact the war could have been avoided had President Volodymyr Zelenskyy been knowledgeable and wise enough to understand that U.S./NATO promises of victory were completely unrealistic and couldn’t be relied upon, have led Col. Macgregor, who has fond memories of growing up in a Ukrainian immigrant neighborhood, to believe that the war is an absolute disaster for Ukraine that could have and should have been avoided.
“In humanitarian terms, this tragedy has resulted in the Ukrainian nation being destroyed in a war that never needed to be fought,” Col. Macgregor said…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Given the strong evidence that Ukraine is suffering country-destroying casualties, talk of a stalemate, much less of successful offensive territory-gaining operations, is more about face-saving than any realistic chance of Ukraine avoiding losing.
Hence, the only moral path forward for the United States is to tell President Zelenskyy it’s well past the time to sue for peace and that he must accept neutrality and the loss of the regions that seceded from Ukraine in 2014.
This is a bitter pill to swallow for Ukrainian nationalists and those in the United States who hoped Ukraine would do far more damage to Russia, but the alternative is accelerating Ukraine’s diminishing chances of remaining a viable nation-state, a whole lot more fruitless Ukrainian deaths, and peace terms substantially worse than those that can be negotiated today. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/400000-ukrainians-killed-action-explains-whole-lot
Staying in Gaza as an act of love: Stories from the Catholics who risk their lives to serve
“These are our people and we will not abandon them.” Selfless acts like these have earned the small Christian communities in Gaza the respect of all those living in Gaza.
Jeffery Abood December 15, 2023, https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2023/12/15/gaza-israel-catholic-churches-246728?pnespid=t7VpGntebvMdwqbN9jG9FpKNvhOyTJJuMvXjkPUztB1mpgpXs8W0TdlrA_YDiged3nSYb4fJyw
Tens of thousands of Gazans are pressed against the border with Egypt at Rafah. Told that this was a safe place for them to flee, they are still under attack. Almost the entire population has been displaced by the fighting—1.9 million people, according to latest United Nations figures. Gazan health authorities say that more than 18,000 people have been killed since the fighting began; about 70 percent of the casualties are women and children. More than 49,000 people have been wounded.
How can we recover a sense of their individual sacredness that might lead to a stronger demand for an end to this violence and suffering? Perhaps if more people had the opportunity, as I have, to visit Gaza and meet with the Gazan people, they would have a different perspective about the violence raining down on the innocent people living in Gaza.
Media headlines often invoke only negative images whenever Gaza is mentioned. Yet just beneath these headlines, like a seed waiting to sprout, are inspiring examples of love and faith in humanity. It is vital we recognize and build on these, as love stands as the only force capable of ultimately ending the violence.
Gazans are incredibly warm and loving. My visits to Gaza reminded me of growing up in a Lebanese household and the warm hospitality for which Middle Easterners are famous. Family has always been at the center of their lives.
In fact, these robust and loving family connections are one of the main reasons Gazans have been able to endure 17 years of a brutal military blockade. Another reason is their deep faith. The sacred beliefs of both Muslims and Christians living together in Gaza provide a stable bedrock upon which they all depend.
Some recent instances of people embodying both this love and faith can be seen amid the ongoing bombing campaign in Gaza.
A common assumption is that people only remain in Gaza, and especially in the north, because they have no other choice. Yet, despite the very real dangers to themselves because they are remaining in an active war zone, some make the conscious decision to stay as an act of love.
Holy Family Parish in Gaza City is situated on a campus that houses the church, a school, three convents and a home for severely disabled children. Every few years, amid periodic bombing, the various religious orders living and working in Gaza receive evacuation orders.
Yet, despite many having the passports that would allow them to leave, the women religious in Gaza, many of whom come from abroad, choose not to. Instead, according to Father Mario Da Silva, a priest once assigned to the parish, they say, “These are our people and we will not abandon them.” Selfless acts like these have earned the small Christian communities in Gaza the respect of all those living in Gaza.
During the bombing in 2014, the Sisters at Holy Family faced a harrowing situation where they had to carry all the disabled children under their care (about 60) into the church’s courtyard. Their hope was that Israeli warplanes would notice them and refrain from dropping their bombs. The tactic proved successful then. However, a few weeks ago, the warplanes not only inflicted damage on Holy Family but also bombed nearby St. Porphyrius Church, killing or maiming nearly 100 people sheltering there.
In an interview with the Catholic news site Crux, Father Francis Xavier Rayappangari, commissary of the Holy Land in India, said he had recently spoken with the sisters at Holy Family.
“In the convent, there are three sisters and 60 residents, including handicapped and mentally challenged children and bedridden older people, who have no food, water, medicine, electricity or gas. Communication from outside is cut off, and the entire area is surrounded by the [Israeli] army.”
Regarding the current situation of the nuns, he further relayed, “Sometimes some generous and courageous people [in the neighborhood] bring something for them to eat. Whatever they receive from outside, the sisters first serve the residents. If there is anything left, they eat. Most of the time it is just one meal a day.… One day they had just one loaf of bread shared among the three…. The other day it was just an orange, and the three sisters shared it among them.”
In the Kuwaiti Hospital—similar to all Gaza hospitals, including Al-Ahli, the Anglican hospital—there were also Israeli military orders to evacuate. Many hospital directors, doctors and staff, most of whom are Muslim, have publicly stated that they refuse to abandon their patients, who due to their fragile medical status cannot be evacuated. They have chosen rather to put their own lives at a very real risk and stay.
In a separate interview, one doctor at the hospital stated, “Where should we evacuate these children? They are attached to ventilators. They are completely dependent on them and it is impossible to move them. If you want to kill us, kill us while we continue working here. We will not leave.”
The hospitals as well as the churches report receiving small amounts of aid from local residents, both Muslim and Christian, who contribute whatever food and basic supplies they can spare for patients or others seeking refuge. These acts are amazing examples of generosity from people who are in just as precarious a position. More than that, they are examples of bravery, as the simple act of crossing the street to deliver this aid can result, as it has with many others, in being killed by Israeli snipers.
In a recent email, a parishioner from Holy Family expressing his unshakable faith said, “I wish this would end very soon, because we are drained [from] seeing the suffering of all these innocent people, who are living with us in an open-air prison. We see cruel fire falling from the sky and can have no hope. We only know God will listen to all our prayers.”
Currently, the sisters of the various communities, as well as a priest from the Institute of the Incarnate Word, are caring for 700 displaced people, including 100 children and another 70 disabled children and adults with various neurologic and birth disorders at Holy Family.
Sister Nabila Saleh, the principal of the Rosary Sisters School in Gaza, told Aid to the Church in Need that it would be logistically impossible to move the elderly, children, sick and those with disabilities. She explained: “We will not go and leave our people. We are here to accompany them; we cannot possibly abandon them.”
So, despite the order for all civilians in Gaza City to evacuate to the south of the Strip, she stressed her decision to remain with the community in the parish “until the end,” knowing full well what that could mean.
In focusing only on the negative images depicted by the media about Gaza, we miss these beautiful and inspiring acts of love. We see people’s decisions to stay for others even when they are faced with their own likely deaths. This kind of dedication is only possible when the seeds of faith sprout out of a resilient love for both God and for others.
In failing to see that, we also fail to see the presence of the only force more powerful than any bomb, the only force that can and will ultimately win over hate and violence: love. In honor of that truly sacrificial love, it is crucial for us, as advocates of justice and peace, to actively pursue a genuine pro-life stance, and work for an immediate ceasefire before these beacons of faith, love and light are snuffed out.
Jeffery Abood is a member of the leadership council of Churches for Middle East Peace. He can be reached at jabood@att.net.
Sad Clown with the Circus Closed Down*: Zelenskiy’s Demise
When it comes to love for the limelight and delusions of grandeur, Zelenskiy outstrips most politicians and not least of all Putin. Almost all politicians are egoistic, but Zelenskiy is narcissistic.
Zelenskiy’s inexperience and ego likely played pivotal roles in his disastrous decision-making.
Zelenskiy himself remained mired in personal corruption as the Pandora Papers demonstrated
Zelenskiy’s failures also have made him eminently expendable
by GORDONHAHN , December 11, 2023, https://gordonhahn.com/2023/12/11/sad-clown-with-the-circus-closed-down-zelenskiys-demise/—
Introduction
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zeleneksiy appears to be at the end of the line politically and perhaps biologically. Portraying himself as a fighter for peace, anti-corruption, and full democratization when he ran for and won the presidency in 2019, he proceeded to lead the country into war, further corruption, and de-republicanization (authoritarianization).
On both a personal and global level this is high tragedy. A superb comedian and actor stars in a television fictional series as the president of Ukraine, rises in popularity, wins the country’s presidency on a peace platform, and leads the country into a catastrophic, easily avoidable war that threatens the survival of his country and himself.
The unreality of Ukraine refracts in our century of simulacra and disinformation through this icon moved from the television screen to real life politics, and the tragedy of it all is sold as a heroic triumph on the road to universal democracy, peace, and brotherhood.
In the real world, however, there is a rub. The country is historically divided along every conceivable line (ethnic, linguistic, cultural, political, ideological, economic, and social), an almost accidental state cobbled together by communists but claimed by hapless republicans and determined ultra-nationalists. Thus, Zelenskiy becomes president of a fundamentally divided country further riven by schism as a result of two ‘revolutions’ – really revolts – and a civil war compounded by foreign (Russian) intervention.
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Zelenskiy’s emergence and victory are as surreal as the Maidan regime of which he assumed leadership.
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of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 