2026 July 27 « Antinuclear

Billions of dollars are failing to lift production of AUKUS submarines

Michael Koziol, SMH, July 24, 2026

Washington: Billions of dollars of additional funding for the US defence industrial base have not improved the production rate of Virginia-class submarines, a top Pentagon official says, casting further doubt on whether Australia will receive its AUKUS subs on schedule.

Austin Dahmer, a senior policy official at the US Department of Defence, told a hearing on Capitol Hill that while undersea forces were the decisive instrument in denying Chinese domination of the Pacific, they were also the forces the US was the least able to produce.

“Virginia-class boats have been delivering at roughly 1.1 to 1.2 a year since 2022, against a requirement of two to 2.33, counting AUKUS pillar one,” he said.

“Two per year is not now expected until roughly 2032 … The strategy is sound. Production capacity is the point of failure.”

The US Congress has approved billions in additional funding to build submarines, while Australia has tipped in at least $US2 billion ($2.84 billion) with another $US1 billion to come. But Dahmer said the extra money had not helped.

“I would underline that Congress has already appropriated [funds] substantially, and the rate has not moved,” he said. “Any recommendations that consist of more money without a mechanism to materially compress those timelines will not change the outlook.”

Dahmer is a deputy to Elbridge Colby, the undersecretary of defence for policy who has in the past expressed scepticism about AUKUS. He made the comments to the National Commission on the Future of the Navy on Wednesday (US time) during a hearing on ways to improve US sea power.

Afterwards, he told this masthead the navy was working hard to improve delivery of the Virginia-class submarines so that a future administration would be in the best possible position when it decides whether to transfer a vessel to Australia………………..

The comments underscore the practical hurdles facing AUKUS despite the political commitment from all three countries, and come as Australian Labor Party members prepare for a possibly fiery debate about the pact at their national conference in Adelaide.

Under the $368 billion-plus agreement, Australia is due to receive at least three nuclear-powered submarines from the US starting in 2032, before building a new class of the vessel, the SSN-AUKUS, with the UK.

The US has now clarified all three of the submarines it proposes to sell to Australia will already be in service, rather than new. But the president of the day must approve the transfer and be satisfied it does not degrade US war-fighting capability.

Arthur “Trip” Barber, a retired 40-year veteran of the US Navy and the Pentagon, who now sits on the National Commission on the Future of the Navy, said the fundamental problem was shipyard wages, and their inability to retain workers.

“We need to pay shipyard workers a compelling amount of money so they stay on the job,” he told this masthead……………….

A staunch AUKUS supporter who is now a defence lobbyist, Christopher Pyne told the inquiry he did not believe the project would be delivered on time nor on budget, but “they’ll give it a good go”.

Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles was contacted for comment. His office referred inquiries to the government’s Australian Submarine Agency………… https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/billions-of-dollars-are-failing-to-lift-production-of-aukus-submarines-20260723-p60hq7.html

July 27, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war | Leave a comment

Not Even Israelis Are Willing To Die For Israel

And Other Notes

Caitlin Johnstone, Jul 22, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/not-even-israelis-are-willing-to?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=207992457&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said during a conference on Tuesday that Israel “has no interest” in participating in the ongoing military exchanges between the US and Iran, asserting that “the current situation is the best one for us.”

While Smotrich is certainly correct that it is to Israel’s benefit to stand aside and let the Americans do all the fighting and dying in this conflict, this is a noteworthy admission about a war that the US State Department says the White House ordered “at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally.”

There are three groups of people who consistently say “I’m not fucking dying for Israel”:

1. US soldiers,

2. Americans at risk of being drafted into a large-scale war, and

3. Israelis.

You see this all the time. Back in March when the US was contemplating a ground invasion of Iran, the Israeli press were churning out reports assuring their audiences that government officials said the IDF would not be participating in any such operations. Israelis are happy for Americans to die for Israel, but they are unwilling to put their own lives on the line for the Zionist project.

You know who would lay down their lives for their homeland? The Palestinians.

The Palestinians have made it clear that they are willing to die for Palestine, while the Israelis have made it clear that they are unwilling to die for Israel. For the Israelis, Israel is merely a nice-to-have which they would happily give up if it became too dangerous.

For the Palestinians, that land is home.

The New Yorker has an article out titled “How Biden Enabled Israel’s Aggression Toward Gaza — and Iran,” with the subtitle “Top officials from the previous Administration now express regret over their failure to rein in Netanyahu.” It quotes Jake Sullivan saying “I will say straightforwardly — we should have put more pressure on Israel to take a different approach” on Gaza.

And to that I can only say, fuck you. Seriously, FUCK you.

You don’t get to do this now. You don’t get to turn around and go “Oopsie poopsie, we made a mistake!” This was YOUR genocide, motherfuckers. YOURS. You chose it. You own it. Forever. The stench of the rotting corpses in Gaza will sully your names for all time.

They always planned to do this. They backed a genocide knowing they could always try to spin it as a regrettable error in hindsight, and let their sad feelings of contrition wash their hands of their sins.

Fuck that bullshit. That’s not happening. We’ll never let them forget what they did and what they are.

That same New Yorker article says Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Biden administration to keep secret any small concessions he made in allowing aid into Gaza, saying the Israeli prime minister “feared a domestic backlash for not starving Gaza’s women, children, and other civilians.”

Think about how fucked up a society has to be for its politicians to fear domestic backlash for not starving civilians.

❖

The other day Fox News host Jesse Watters joked and laughed about how the US military’s new testosterone testing policy is going to lead to soldiers with overloaded testosterone levels sexually assaulting women.

“Yeah, I want these guys on it, but you know what’s gonna happen? The guys that don’t need it are gonna take it, to triple boost,” Watters said Thursday, chuckling. “And then they’re gonna get out there, and women on base, you guys better be careful. Port calls, women in Asia, you better be careful, because these guys are gonna be wild animals and you better watch out.”

Ho ho, ha ha, watch out ladies you’re gonna get raped by US soldiers just like untold millions of other women around the world throughout history, ha ha, wocka wocka, comedy laugh laugh.

The Murdoch press is cancer.

I saw a tweet from Zionist pundit Joe Walsh saying “If you hate the state of Israel, you hate Jews. If you are pledged to the destruction of the state of Israel, you hate Jews. If you do not believe the state of Israel has a right to exist, you hate Jews.”

If you keep feeding the public the lie that they need to choose between supporting genocide and hating Jews, people are going pick hate Jews, because they don’t want to support genocide. When that happens, the blame will rest on all these pricks who circulated this lie.

You don’t get to just pretend all this fretting about “antisemitism” is happening separately from the agenda to stomp out all criticism of Israel and its abuses. You don’t get to demand that I treat them as separate things. They’re inseparable agendas. I wish they weren’t, but they are.

If you come up to me babbling about how Jews are afraid and mistreated, then I’m going to automatically treat this as apologia for a genocidal apartheid state, because that’s the primary agenda that this rhetoric is being used to promote today. It’s not my fault that this is how I respond to allegations of antisemitism. It’s the fault of the people who have weaponized such allegations to promote genocide, apartheid, war, and tyranny.

If you want me to take allegations of “antisemitism” seriously, then you must first bring to an end the campaign to use that term as a cudgel to shut down pro-Palestine protests and silence Israel’s critics. That is what you’ll need to do before I will give you the benefit of the doubt and listen to you like you’re a good-faith actor. The information ecosystem is currently far too full of genocidal Zionists lying about their experiences, their feelings, their intentions, and what has happened to them for me to listen credulously to stories about discrimination against Jews in the year 2026.

It’s so surreal how we are still expected in mainstream western society to listen to concern trolling about “antisemitism” without immediately thinking about things like Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, war, and genocide. We’re expected to listen patiently to stories about how western Jews feel unsafe without ever looking at all those elephants in the room. It’s insulting. It’s degrading.

If the main reason antisemitism gets mentioned these days is because of opposition to Israel’s mass atrocities, then obviously I’m going to assume that’s the driving motivator behind your words when you mention it. Of course that’s going to be my default assumption. Obviously. Duh.

July 27, 2026 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

“Intolerable pressure”. Inside the Israel lobby campaign to coerce regulators on antisemitism

by Wendy Bacon and Stephanie Tran | Jul 17, 2026 , https://michaelwest.com.au/intolerable-pressure-inside-the-israel-lobby-campaign-to-coerce-regulators-on-antisemitism/

The health regulator AHPRA was “forced into a massive capitulation” to adopt the hardcore IHRA definition of antisemitism. Wendy Bacon and Stephanie Tran investigate.

A Zionist doctor has claimed that AHPRA CEO Justin Untersteiner “was forced into a massive capitulation with IHRA”.

The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority (AHPRA) recently introduced the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism which puts healthcare workers at risk for criticising Israel.

The Zionist doctor, Doron Samuell, alleges that he was part of a campaign that “exerted intolerable political pressure” on AHPRA to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

IHRA resisted for two years

AHPRA, which regulates the conduct of 900,000 Australian healthcare workers, had resisted pressure to adopt the IHRA definition for two years.

However, on June 17, the health regulator shifted its position unexpectedly and without consultation when CEO Justin Untersteiner issued a joint statement with the Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism, Jillian Segal announcing the adoption of the definition and that Segal’s guidance handbook would be used as a tool in handling complaints.

Thousands of health care workers, and many organisations including the Australian Nurses and Midwifery Federation, NSW Civil Liberties Council and Medical Association for Prevention of War have called for AHPRA to reverse its decision and continue to rely on its existing framework in dealing with complaints of racism including antisemitism.

In response, Israel’s Foreign Ministry pressured the Australian government to “confront antisemitism in healthcare” in a post on X on Sunday.

AHPRA subjected to “intolerable pressure” from Israel lobby

The ‘intolerable pressure’ claims were made by “Aba Shesh”, a social media pseudonym linked to the Facebook account used by Dr Doron Samuell, a member of the Australian Zionist Healthcare Alliance (AZHA).

Dr Samuell’s comments were made in response to a post on ‘Jews of Melbourne’ (JOM) Facebook page drawing members’ attention to a Civil Liberties Defence Centre (CLDC) webinar presented by its chairperson, lawyer Nick Hanna. The webinar was an educational briefing for healthcare workers on the implications of AHPRA’s adoption of the IHRA definition .

A member of the Jews Of Melbourne group predicted there would be

“lots of “antisemitism” at the webinar which members could monitor and report to AHPRA.”

In response, “Aba Shesh” described Untersteiner as an “unthinking bureaucrat” who “repeatedly minimised the problem until his hand was forced”.

Samuell lamented that Untersteiner “said the right things and even visited a shule but AHPRA sat on their hands, receiving vexatious complaints for two years until we exerted intolerable political pressure on them to act.”

Samuell stated that Untersteiner “was forced into a massive capitulation with IHRA”.

Last year, Samuell claimed he was responsible for the cancellation of a staff forum on Children and War at the Royal Children’s Hospital.

MWM sent detailed questions to Untersteiner and provided him with an opportunity to respond to the comments. Instead of specific answers, AHPRA provided us with a general statement. AHPRA’s full response is below.

MWM also contacted Samuell for comment, he did not provide a response.

Several healthcare professionals who opposed the change said they met with senior AHPRA officials, including Untersteiner, earlier this year to argue against adopting the IHRA definition.

One doctor, who requested anonymity because of concerns of professional repercussions, said senior leadership were presented with medical evidence of the genocide and concerns that the IHRA definition would be used to silence doctors.

“As well as presenting the overwhelming amount of medical evidence of genocide and the silencing of healthcare workers as an apparatus of genocide, we also focused on the concern of the IHRA definition being used to silence doctors who openly support human rights,” they said.

Jerusalem definition preferred

The doctor said they proposed the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism as an alternate definition.

“We provided an alternative definition on antisemitism, the Jerusalem definition, should it be necessary to single out one group for a separate definition on discrimination.”

The doctor said Untersteiner told them he had publicly rejected the IHRA definition and discussed pressure the regulator was facing from Israel lobby groups.

“Untersteiner said he has publicly rejected the IHRA definition but when pressed to provide this in writing later, AHPRA did not,” the doctor said.

“[Untersteiner] also expressed some of the personal stress he was under due to the Zionist groups and in particular from doctors like Doron Samuell. It appeared to be genuine and heartfelt.”

MWM put those claims to Untersteiner, who declined to comment.

The doctor expressed concern that AHPRA’s decision to adopt IHRA will encourage vexatious complaints against practitioners, an anxiety shared by thousands of other healthcare workers.

“AHPRA’s statement on the IHRA definition will embolden the Zionists to ramp up their vexatious complaint campaign,” they said.

Path to capitulation

Samuell told the Facebook group that “with my pressure, the Minister issued a directive for Justin to remedy the situation and gave him 6 months to do it” yet, “when he reported back 7+ months later, he was still refusing to define antisemitism”.

In September 2025, health ministers directed APHRA to provide a six monthly report on “Improving the health practitioner response to racism and discrimination, including antisemitism”. AHPRA established a Racism and Discrimination Committee to provide an action plan.

Minister for Health, Mark Butler did not respond to questions on the matter.

In February 2026, Untersteiner was pressured by Senator Andrew Bragg in Senate Estimates to adopt the IHRA definition.

“I’m wondering why you haven’t decided to adopt a clear definition of antisemitism. We’ve just had a religious massacre in Australia where antisemitism was a key driver. So I’m wondering why you haven’t adopted one,” Bragg asked.

In response, Untersteiner said the issue was a “live discussion” however, “the vast majority of practitioners do the right thing and they comply with our codes of conduct” and “in the very few cases where they don’t, we do believe that we’ve got the tools to be able to deal with that effectively.”

The Segal meetings

When pressed further to explain why he had not adopted the IHRA definition, Untersteiner said he had been meeting with Jillian Segal “on a regular basis”.

“I’ve been meeting with the special envoy on a regular basis. I think we’ve been able to work quite well together,” Untersteiner told the Committee.

On 13 April 2026, AHPRA’s Race and Discrimination Committee submitted its report responding to the Ministerial directive. In his posts, Samuell objected to the composition of the committee because it

“included a Jewish person who had been critical of Israel.”

The report stated that “the National Code of Conduct sets out clear expectations that registered health practitioners will deliver care that is culturally safe and free from discriminatory behaviours.” There was an action plan for strengthening AHPRA’s anti-racism approach but no mention of the IHRA definition.

On April 24, Special Envoy Segal released the Understanding Antisemitism in Australia handbook.

On May 1, the Health Ministers accepted AHPRA’s report and it was published on AHPRA’s website.

APHRA’s usual practice is to publish communiques on its Board meetings shortly after they occur. Communiques have not been published for the May and June meetings.

Call for Untersteiner sacking

AHPRA declined to supply us with copies of those communiques so it is unclear whether the Board approved the use of the IHRA definition in these meetings.

On May 6, Samuell expressed his frustration with AHPRA in a podcast episode published by “The Israel Connexion”.

During the interview, Samuell said that AZHA had called for Untersteiner’s sacking in its submission to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion.

“AHPRA has dropped the ball. Now we’re making a submission to the Royal Commission, calling on the Health Minister to sack Justin Untersteiner for the role that he has played in this,” he said.

“Antagonistic to Israel”

“We’ve outlined in our submission a large number of failures. For example, there are governance problems in AHPRA. There are board members in AHPRA who are on the public record as being antagonistic to Israel.” Samuell said.

“I know from their own staff, many of whom have been in private communications with me, that they are not taking this matter seriously at all. They’ve breached their social contract with us. [Untersteiner] is not the person that can fix this situation.”

Samuell told Israel Connexion that AZHA has encouraged “practitioners and patients in the health sector to make submissions to the Royal Commission into Antisemitism through [AZHA] website” and is “synthesising the submissions into a discussion paper for the Royal Commission” by applying the IHRA definition.

The result is a “whole of sector submission” developed by applying “social theories about what is going on and what should happen to remedy it.”

MWM is not asserting that any of the public allegations against AHPRA are true. In the absence of responses from AHRPA or Samuell on these matters, we are reporting them in the interests of transparency.

Zionist Healthcare Alliance attacks on AHPRA

Samuell is one of several Zionist health workers who represent the Australian Zionist Healthcare Alliance (AZHA).

The AZHA was launched in October last year. It describes itself as “Australia’s first dedicated Zionist healthcare advocacy organisation”

AZHA’s most vocal member is public affairs officer Sharon Stoliar who helped found AZHA last year.

Ten days after the IHRA definition announcement, on June 27, Stoliar was featured in a major report by The Australian titled “How did hospitals become the front line in the antisemitic onslaught?”.

The report accused AHPRA of ignoring an “unprecedented explosion of antisemitism” and said Australian health care workers were amplifying anti-Jewish hate speech” and deliberating neglecting or harming Jewish patients.

Royal Commission hearsay

Stoliar told The Australian that she hoped to give evidence at the Royal Commission.

Stoliar is quoted describing an incident in which a woman in a Sydney hospital was “left to lie in a pool of blood with no pain relief” while her baby screamed in its cot alongside hers.

She has also claimed that an antisemitic health care workers caused a Jewish person to have a ‘forced abortion’.

No evidence is provided to support these hearsay claims which Stoliar has repeated in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12.

The Australian article has taken on a life of its own being regurgitated in various forms in Australian and Israeli media. The Channel 12 broadcast was reposted on Facebook and Instagram by the Zionist Federation of Australia. Collectively these posts have triggered a large amount of hate against Australia health workers and precipitated the Israeli Ministry for Foreign Affairs tweet this week.

AHPRA’s response

Rather than responding to our questions, AHPRA supplied MWM with a statement similar to one it has sent to thousands of healthcare workers who signed letters expressing opposition to its adoption of the IHRA definition.

AHPRA appears keen to allay the concerns of its registered health care workers. It emphasises that ”there is no place for racism or discrimination in healthcare”, and that it will deal with complaints on an individual basis. An AHPRA spokesperson provided the following explanation for the sudden change:

Ahpra had initially not adopted the IHRA definition, as we felt there was insufficient clarity between legitimate commentary and debate regarding the policies and actions of the state of Israel and its elected leaders, and antisemitism. However, the Special Envoy on Antisemitism’s handbook is designed to support use of the definition by distinguishing ‘between antisemitism and legitimate political debate, including on the topic of Israel’.

It is on that basis that Ahpra will use the IHRA definition as a reference tool where relevant, supported by the ASECA handbook, when considering regulatory responses. As a reference tool, the definition is not legally binding. There are no changes to the National Codes or the guidance that supports them.

AHPRA’s explanation is surprising. The handbook itself exacerbates concerns with the IHRA definition. For example, Segal’s examples suggest that it is antisemitic to say that Israel is a ‘racist project’ or that Israel is ‘committing genocide’, views that are widely held by numerous international law experts and humanitarian organisations.

The Genocide continues

Daily, the genocide continues. Israel has murdered thousands of healthcare workers in Gaza and devastated its healthcare system.

Last week the UN Commission of Inquiry on Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel demanded that Israel release Gaza paediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya who has been imprisoned without charge and tortured by Israel for over 18 months.

Australian health care workers are mobilising and have formed a new national coalition. Yesterday, the Australian Healthcare Alliance 4 Palestine, encompassing hundreds of thousands of registered doctors, nurses and dentists, wrote a letter to AHPRA asking it to “provide full transparency regarding the governance, consultation and decision-making processes” that led to the decision to adopt the IHRA definition.

The Alliance said that health practitioners have “an ethical responsibility to advocate for our patients, our colleagues and the healthcare system” and called on AHPRA to rescind its decision.

Wendy Bacon

Wendy Bacon is an investigative journalist who was the Professor of Journalism at UTS. She worked for Fairfax, Channel Nine and SBS and has published in The Guardian, New Matilda, City Hub and Overland. She has a long history in promoting independent and alternative journalism.

She is a long-term supporter of a peaceful BDS and the Greens.

Stephanie Tran

Stephanie is a journalist with a background in both law and journalism. She has worked at The Guardian and as a paralegal, where she assisted Crikey’s defence team in the high-profile defamation case brought by Lachlan Murdoch. Her reporting has been recognised nationally, earning her the 2021 Democracy’s Watchdogs Award for Student Investigative Reporting and a nomination for the 2021 Walkley Student Journalist of the Year Award.