As a secular Jew raised in a fiercely anti-Zionist family, I grew up viewing the State of Israel as an unfortunate fait accompli and accepting that the two-state solution was probably the best that could be hoped for.
Since then, I have come to the conclusion that the creation of a Jewish state was a catastrophic mistake and that Zionist Israel has relinquished its right to exist.
What good could possibly have come from a project that handed a group of Jewish Europeans a land that for countless centuries was inhabited by Arab Palestinians?
Not only did Palestinians have no say in the creation of a Jewish state on their homeland, but just at the time when other developing countries around the world were finally breaking free from the yoke of colonial rule Palestinians, like Native Americans and Australia’s First Nations people before them, became the victims of European settler colonialism — this time endorsed by a U.N. resolution that neither the Palestinians nor any of the Arab states agreed to or voted for.
The driving force behind both the 1917 Balfour Declaration that called for a Jewish homeland in the British Mandate of Palestine and the 1948 U.N. Partition Plan that established a Jewish State, was Zionism, a religious, political and cultural movement that began in the late 19th century to claim Palestine as the God-given homeland of the Jewish people.
Contrary to official mythology, however, the Zionist fervour was not shared by the majority of Jews.
The socialist Jewish Labour Bund in Eastern Europe, for instance, believed that Jewish culture should be preserved right at home in the shtetls (villages) as opposed to running off to Palestine and thought that the notion of Jews colonising Palestine was farcical. They even wrote a mocking Yiddish song for the Zionists – “Oy, Ir Narishe Tsionistn” (“You Foolish Little Zionist”).
Meanwhile Jews, Christians and Muslims had been living aside each other in historic Palestine in relative peace for centuries. It was only after the rapid influx of European Jewish refugees fleeing the pogroms in Eastern Europe following World War I, and in the wake of the Holocaust, that the conflicts in Palestine escalated and the bloodshed on both sides began.
By the time of the U.N. partition plan, Israeli Defence Force brigades had already launched a bloody campaign of burning villages and killing men, women and children to drive Palestinians off their land. In all, 750,000 Palestinians were expelled into refugee camps in neighbouring Arab countries.
This was the beginning of the Nakba (the catastrophe) that continues today – most strikingly in Gaza — as Zionist zealots insist Israel has a rightful claim to all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
In their view, all of Palestine belongs to Jews because in the words of Likud Party Knesset Member Danny Danon, the Bible is “our deed to the land.”
For Zionists like Danon, expelling Palestinians is an existential necessity, a view that echoed in 1956 by Moshe Dayan, military commander of the Jerusalem Front in 1948, who proclaimed:
“We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and the cannon we cannot plant a tree and build a home… This is the fate of our generation, and the choice of our life – to be prepared and armed, strong and tough – or otherwise, the sword will slip from our fist, and our life will be snuffed out.
What cause have we to complain about their fierce hatred to us? For eight years now, they sit in their refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived.
Let us not be afraid to see the hatred that accompanies and consumes the lives of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who sit all around us and wait for the moment when their hands will be able to reach our blood.”
Next Uprising Would Dwarf Oct.7
As Dayan knew then, Israel would never be safe. In Gaza now, Israel is creating the next generation of Palestinian resistance fighters who have witnessed their families slaughtered, guaranteeing that the next uprising will dwarf the Hamas invasion of Oct. 7.
Whatever legitimacy Israel might have claimed as a haven for Jewish refugees who were abandoned in the West after the Holocaust, their right to a state of their own has long since been forfeited.
Both the 1917 Balfour Declaration that promised Jews a homeland in the British Mandate of Palestine and the 1948 U.N. partition plan creating the State of Israel stipulated that the rights of Palestinians had to be safeguarded and, following the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 of that year specifically said the refugees’ had the right to return “at the earliest practicable date.”
On all counts, Israel has completely failed to live up to its obligations to protect the most basic rights of the Palestinian people.
Today, Palestinians living inside Israel remain second-class citizens without equal rights to own property or even use their own language. On the West Bank, Palestinians are dispossessed and murdered daily by Jewish settlers with the backing of the IDF.
In Gaza, even before Israel’s invasion following Oct. 7, Palestinians have lived under a brutal state of siege in an open air prison. The millions of Palestinians who were exiled into refugee camps in neighbouring Arab states are still denied the right to return.
Indeed, the Zionists have brought to Palestine the very scourge they fled in Europe — murdering, expelling and ethnically cleansing an entire population, mirroring the behaviour of their Nazi oppressors.
In the documentary film Tantura about the 1948 massacre of almost 300 Palestinians in the Palestinian village of Tantura, former Israeli soldiers, now in their 90s, retell the story of the slaughter unashamedly.
One brigade member laughs as he recalls, “Of course we killed them, without remorse… If you killed, you did a good thing.” An old woman says matter-of-factly, “Let them remember (what we did to them) like we remember what happened in Europe (the Holocaust). If they did it, we can also.”
Yet, despite the evidence of Israeli war crimes, Zionists have continued to deny Israel’s atrocities while claiming their own superiority. Professor emeritus at Haifa University, Ilan Pappe, says of the mindset:
“I think the self-image of Israel as a moral society is something I haven’t seen anywhere else in the world. We are the ‘Chosen People’ (in the Old Testament Jews were chosen by God as his special people). This is part of the Israeli self-identification…(But) basically, the project of Zionism has a problem… You cannot create a safe haven by creating a catastrophe for other people.”
Today, complicit Western leaders and their media proxies wring their hands about the regrettable loss of civilian lives in Gaza while hypocritically calling for a two-state solution they know is virtually impossible since Israel has reduced the amount of Palestinian land from 45 percent at the time of partition to 15 percent today.
Craig Mokhiber, who recently resigned as New York director for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights over the U.N.’s failure to act on war crimes in Gaza, said in his resignation letter:
“The mantra of the ‘two-state solution’ has become an open joke in the corridors of the U.N., both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people.”
Writing On Wall For Two-State Solution
After 75 years of Israel’s colonial oppression of the Palestinian people, it has become glaringly obvious that any notion of a two-state solution has become little more than a fig leaf for Israel’s apartheid regime and the only way forward is one secular democratic state that safeguards the fundamental rights and equality for all of its citizens.
Obviously, it won’t happen overnight or without conflict – Israel will aggressively defend its perceived right to exist as a Jewish state with the massive backing of the Western powers. Palestinians will never abandon their yearning for a homeland as it was before the arrival of European Jewish settlers — but the writing is on the wall.
Almost two decades ago the late Palestinian-American academic Edward Said wrote that:
“The beginning (of one democratic state) is to develop something entirely missing from both Israeli and Palestinian realities today: the idea and practice of citizenship, not of ethnic or racial community, as the main vehicle of coexistence.”
More recently, Palestinian academic and physician Ghada Karmi has cautioned:
“The U.N. that made Israel and must now unmake it, not by expulsion and displacement as in 1948, but by converting its bleak legacy into a future of hope for both peoples in one state.”
But if the U.N. fails to act, Karmi sees a more apocalyptic path to the end of the Zionist state. In her recent book One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine, she writes:
“Israel will fiercely reject the shared state, but will be powerless to prevent it from happening. … It will not happen solely as a result of a one-state campaign and solidarity movements. … but rather through people’s natural resistance to relentless oppression leading to the ultimate overthrow of the oppressors.”
If that can happen without cataclysmic global repercussions, possibly bringing the U.S. and Europe to the brink of the next world war, perhaps a new secular democratic state for both Jews and Palestinians will evolve from the struggle.
In any event, it is time to acknowledge that the Zionist project has been a spectacular failure and the status quo can no longer be maintained. Israel has become a pariah state in the eyes of most of the world and the winds of change are now howling across the region.
Stefan Moore is an American-Australian documentary filmmaker. His documentaries have received four Emmys and other awards. In the U.S., he was co-director of TVG Productions in New York, a series producer at WNET and a producer for the prime time CBS News magazine program 48 HOURS. In the U.K. he worked as a series producer at the BBC, and in Australia he was an executive producer for Film Australia and the ABC.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has released a new report revealing that 50% more renewable capacity was added globally in 2023 than in 2022, but financing remains an issue.
Crucially, the standout figure from this year’s document is that global annual renewable capacity additions increased to 510GW in 2023. This represents the fastest growth rate that has been witnessed in the past two decades.
Now this should serve as huge praise to all throughout the global renewable value chain who have worked tirelessly to bolster the energy transition and maintain the Paris Agreement’s legislation to keep global warming increase well below 2°C with a target to limit it to 1.5°C.
Turning our attention to GB, the nation has seen its renewable capacity bolstered significantly over the past year and saw various wind generation records broken. The result saw low-carbon energy sources contribute 51% of the electricity used by Britain with fossil fuels having made up 33% of GBs electricity mix across 2023. Carbon Brief attributed the decline of fossil fuels to two factors: renewables increasing sixfold (by 113TWh) from 2008, and reduced electricity demand, which decreased by 21% (83TWh) since 2008.
Of the renewable energy sources added, solar PV accounted for three-quarters of additions worldwide with China being where the largest growth occurred. For readers wanting to learn more about solar across 2023, our sister site PV-Tech provided its own analysis to the IEA report.
China also saw huge growth in its wind sector with additions having risen by 66% year-on-year. This staggering total has seen the nation become the largest developer of wind in the world, something that could come as a blow to the UK with its offshore wind pipeline having dropped below China over the course of 2023……………………………………..
The need to support emerging and developing economies
Another crucial aspect of the IEA report is its view into the global race to net zero. As referenced by the organisation, G20 countries account for almost 90% of global renewable power capacity today meaning that much must be done to support emerging and developing economies and countries as they transition away fossil fuels……………………..
An eye to the future
The IEA referenced various major milestones that could be achieved by 2028. Firstly, should the current trajectory continue at its rate, the globe could well bring online more renewable capacity between 2023 and 2028 than has been installed since the first commercial renewable power plant was built more than 100 years ago.
Indeed, this showcases the opportunity and collective movement to ensure net zero targets are met. However, this may not be enough. As mentioned previously, more time and resources must be allocated to support developing countries in their own net zero journeys to ensure that the Paris Agreement targets are met and maintained.
Other key milestones include:
In 2024, wind and solar PV together generate more electricity than hydropower.
In 2025, renewables surpass coal to become the largest source of electricity generation.
Wind and solar PV each surpass nuclear electricity generation in 2025 and 2026 respectively.
In 2028, renewable energy sources account for over 42% of global electricity generation, with the share of wind and solar PV doubling to 25%.
The “rules-based international order” allowed NATO powers to knowingly provoke a world-threatening proxy war in Ukraine.
The “rules-based international order” allowed western powers and their regional partners to plunge Syria into a horrific civil war by flooding the nation with heavily armed fascistic extremist factions.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the US to invade and occupy a vast stretch of Syrian territory in order to control the nation’s natural resources and prevent reconstruction.
The “rules-based international order” allowed the invasion of Afghanistan and a decades-long occupation sustained by lies and corruption.
The “rules-based international order” allowed the imprisonment of Julian Assange for journalistic activities exposing US war crimes.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the planet to be circled by hundreds of US military bases, including in places where the people who live there vehemently oppose their presence like Okinawa, Iraq and Syria.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the US and its allies to kill huge numbers of civilians with siege warfare tactics in nations like Yemen, Iraq and Venezuela.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed China to be surrounded by a rapidly increasing amount of US military bases and war machinery in preparation for a future conflict of unimaginable horror.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the US to plunge the world into a new cold war with rapidly-escalating brinkmanship against nuclear-armed Russia and China.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed unfathomable amounts of government malfeasance to be hidden behind an increasingly opaque wall of government secrecy.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the interests of ordinary human beings to be subordinated and subjected to the interests of billionaire corporations and sociopathic government agencies.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed the destruction of our ecosystem for the enrichment of powerful plutocrats.
The “rules-based international order” has allowed our planet to be dominated by an empire of extreme murderousness and depravity at the cost of nonstop bloodshed and ever-increasing tyranny.
If the “rules-based international order” has allowed all these things to happen, what kind of “rules” are we talking about exactly? And what kind of “order” do they sustain?
If this is what the “rules-based international order” looks like, would we not, perhaps, be better off without it?
Get Your Armies Off Our Bodies is the inaugural series of Peace Pod.
Wage Peace is beyond proud to present our latest creation: a podcast featuring the stories, passions and insights of some of our most treasured collaborators. Tune in, subscribe and immerse yourself in the journeys of artists, activists and academics campaigning for peace on the stolen lands of this continent and further afield.
Peace Pod features some of the foremost academics, journalists and activists for peace on this continent, such as Michelle Fahey, Mujib Abid, Izzy Brown, Ned Hargreaves and Aunty Sue Coleman Haseldine, along with international luminaries such as Anthony Feinstein and Matthew Hoh.
Dr Miriam Torzillo has put together high quality teaching resources for students in years 10-12. Dr Torzillo has included a guide to curriculum placement:
Curriculum Areas
General Capabilities
Australian Cross Curriculum Priorities and
Key Concepts
The Teachers Resource sits with the Podcast here, in one easily accessible page
There is a huge resurgence in interest in the role of the weapons companies because of the genocide in Palestine. Young people are trying to make sense of militarism and peace. The podcast introduces militarism against First Nations people in both Australia and West Papua and the way STEM is being used by weapons corporations to reproduce militarism in the classroom.
NEW concerns have been raised about the safety of Britain’s nuclear fleet – with two submarines still in action previously predicted to have been out of commission by this year. Former top government adviser Dominic Cummings (below) sparked interest in the state of Britain’s nuclear fleet at the beginning of this month when he revealed he had attempted to secure assurances the Government would address the “horror show” of the arsenal in return for his help in Rishi Sunak’s election campaign.
Comment. As the UK fumbles its way through its “Civil Nuclear Roadmap” folly, the Rolls Royce lobby paints Hinkley and Sizewell projects as obsolete trash, and touts Rolls Royce’s non existent small reactors as Britain’s energy salvation .
Jeremy Warner: Outsourcing Britain’s nuclear renewal is insanity. Rolls-Royce’s modular reactors are an obvious way to break free of EDF’s grip.
Here we go again. Einstein’s definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different outcomes. You would think that the Government had learned its lesson on nuclear renewal after the debacle of Hinkley Point C. Clearly not.
Having already made the same mistake once, by pledging a replica of the ruinously costly Hinkley at Sizewell on the Suffolk coast, ministers are doubling down and promising a third such monstrosity somewhere else.
According to the Government’s “Nuclear Roadmap”, published last week, another of these leviathans in an as yet unspecified location is to be given the go-ahead later this year. On the most recent estimates, Hinkley Point C is expected to cost at least 80pc more than its original budget and is years behind schedule. Some fear that it won’t be until the early 2030s before the reactors are fully operational, such have been the technical and safety complications encountered in the construction phase.
Ministers have also had to agree to punishingly expensive output prices to persuade the main developer, France’s state-controlled EDF, to build in the first place, committing consumers to high electricity costs for decades to come. So much for the promise once made by the ever courteous Vincent de Rivaz, the one-time boss of EDF in Britain, that Hinkley Point would be cooking our Christmas lunches by 2017.
Even allowing for the learning process – theoretically, later projects to the same design should cost less, with past mistakes taken on board – it beggars belief that the Government should attempt to repeat such a tried and demonstrably poor value for money technology.
Given the experience of Hinkley Point C, why are we still pursuing the hugely costly, largely obsolete technology of EDF’s gigawatt stations when there are perfectly viable, but smaller, homegrown alternatives just waiting for the opportunity to fill the gap? If we are to spend £28bn a year of taxpayers’ money on going green, as promised by Labour, we should at least be confident that a large part of the wider economic benefit is reserved for UK supply chains, and is not instead squandered on supporting jobs abroad in France, China, Denmark and the US.
“The defense of nuclear power as a low-carbon energy weakens the European Union’s action against climate change”.
The Renewable Energies for All association denounces, in a column in “Le Monde”, the deleterious effects of the inclusion of nuclear power in the French and European objectives for the deployment of renewable solutions.
Seeking to relaunch nuclear power whatever the cost, France is not only missing a historic opportunity for a rapid and less costly transition to renewable energies and decarbonization.
It weakens the climate ambition of theEuropean Union (EU). The reintegration of current nuclear production in Europe – 6% of its final energy – into the objective of 42.5% renewable energies set by the RED III directive [Renewable Energy Directive III] would create an accounting artifice and lead to vagueness strategic in a field which nevertheless needs a long-term vision.
Nuclear. It’s all over the UK media – enthusiasm for Civil Nuclear Roadmap – methinks the ladies and gentlemen do protest too much. Meanwhile – back at the Israel-Palestine-Lebanon-USA-Iran ranch – it’s all getting perilous – while I try to keep that stuff out of this newsletter
MEDIA. Nuclear technology: the shady beginnings and the uncertain future. Book (fiction): The Secret of the Three Bullets- How New Nuclear Weapons Are Back on Battlefields
OPPOSITION to NUCLEAR . No to nuclear power: stop the expansion. Will Sizewell nuclear project go ahead? Campaigners question the timetable and the funding.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is expected to make rescinding the nuclear power prohibition a 2025 election policy. One expert wonders whether he can do basic sums.
It’s now more expensive than renewables, Australia has a decades-long ban on it, and its key international example touted by the Coalition was scrapped, but that hasn’t stopped growing cries from conservatives about nuclear power entering the energy mix on the nation’s path to net zero by 2050.
Opposition Leader Peter Dutton is reportedly preparing to make nuclear a key part of his energy policy for the next federal election, telling the Institute of Public Affairs: “The only feasible and proven technology, which can firm up renewables and help us achieve the goals of clean, cost effective and consistent power is next generation nuclear technologies.”
Dutton has tasked the opposition’s climate change and energy spokesperson Ted O’Brien with an internal investigation into a domestic nuclear energy industry in Australia. An enthused O’Brien has since returned from a tour of the US and Canada’s nuclear reactors last year, including the site of the BWRX-300 build in Ontario and Pittsburgh’s Generation IV nuclear battery, called the eVinci.
O’Brien is interested in small nuclear reactors, or SMRs — structures that would be manufactured in a factory, shipped out and assembled on-site in a dreamlike bid to drive down the cost and time delays of larger reactors.
“Environmental advocates, industry, private equity, centre-left and centre-right think-tanks, members of Congress — all told us that near 100% renewables was neither practical nor affordable, and that we needed nuclear in our energy mix,” O’Brien wrote in The Australian last year.
Several conservative figures have called for nuclear power to enter the energy conversation, including former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello, Nationals senator Matt Canavan, Nationals leader David Littleproud, and Liberal Democratic MP David Limbrick. Meanwhile, Climate and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has flat-out called the idea “dumb”.
In November, however, conservative SMR dreams were dashed here and abroad when a US developer binned a project widely touted as kicking off the new nuclear era. NuScale Power said it had failed to attract enough utility customers for the controversial power source to proceed — but it had also nearly doubled in cost (from US$8 billion to US$14 billion), suffered a five-year time delay, and revealed its power generation capacity had been slashed by a third.
Even so, Australian National University Honorary Associate Professor Tony Irwin told Crikey there was “still time” for nuclear to contribute to Australia’s pursuit of net zero, requiring “politicians with a long-term vision” to recognise what some COP28 nations called “the key role of nuclear energy in limiting temperature rise”.
Griffith University Emeritus Professor of Science, Technology and Society Ian Lowe called this bullshit.
“Nobody who can read joined-up writing and do take-away sums thinks nuclear power has any role in slowing Australia’s release of greenhouse gases,” the environmental scientist told Crikey.
A CSIRO report released last month found likewise, concluding nuclear power did not offer an “economically competitive solution”, and that SMRs would be “too late to make a significant contribution to achieving net zero emissions” because of both legal and commercial viability hurdles.
Lowe also noted the 2006 Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review (UMPNER) report had found nuclear energy would need very generous public subsidies to compete with renewables, which have backslid in price enormously in the 18 years since the review’s release.
The UMPNER was chaired by then head of the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANTSO) Dr Ziggy Switkowski — a spokesperson for the government organisation told Crikey it’s following the nuclear debate though officially “agnostic” on nuclear energy.
Lowe also noted that the Coalition’s bleating about the nation rescinding the nuclear ban and embracing the controversial power source from the opposition has interesting timing considering the nine years it spent in government.
“Of course, they did nothing to promote that technology in their decade in office and are now predictably evasive about where a nuclear power station would be located and how it would be funded,” Lowe said.
Labor MP Josh Wilson went harder, telling Crikey that Dutton’s growing support for nuclear energy in the face of cheaper and cleaner renewables showed the opposition leader is unfit to lead the country.
“By giving in to the climate deniers and nuclear cheerleaders in his own show, Dutton shows his preparedness to consign the Australian community to an expensive, disaster-prone, and dangerous future for the sake of protecting his own position,” Wilson said.
There was even less of a debate about the legality or wisdom of the Yemen strikes in Australia. Scandalously, and with a good deal of cowardice, the government preferred a deafening silence for hours in the aftermath of the operation. The only source confirming that personnel of the Australian Defence Forces were involved came from Biden, the commander-in-chief of another country. There had been no airing of the possibility of such involvement. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had, in not sending a warship from the Royal Australian Navy to join Operation Prosperity Guardian, previously insisted that diplomacy might be a better course of action. Evidently, that man is up for turning at a moment’s notice.
Another feature of the strikes is the absence of a Security Council resolution from the United Nations, technically the sole body in the international system able to authorise the use of force under the UN Charter. A White House statementon January 11 attributes authority to the strikes much the same way the administration of George W. Bush did in justifying the warrantless, and illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003. (Ditto those on his same, limited bandwidth, Tony Blair of the UK and John Howard of Australia.)
What a show. As US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was promoting a message of calm restraint and firm control in limiting the toxic fallout of Israel’s horrific campaign in Gaza, a decision was made by his government, the United Kingdom and a few other reticent collaborators to strike targets in Yemen, including the capital Sana’a. These were done, purportedly, as retribution for attacks on international commercial shipping in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
The wording in a White House media release mentions the operation’s purpose and the relevant participants. “In response to continued illegal, dangerous, and destabilizing Houthi attacks against vessels, including commercial shipping, transiting the Red Sea, the armed forces of the United States and the United Kingdom, with support from the Netherlands, Canada, Bahrain, and Australia, conducted joint strikes in accordance with the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense.”
US Air Forces Central Command further revealedthat the “multinational action targeted radar systems, defense systems, and storage and launch sites for one way attack unmanned aerial systems, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.”
The rationale by the Houthis is that they are targeting shipping with a direct or ancillary Israeli connection, hoping to niggle them over the barbarities taking place in Gaza. As the Israeli Defence Forces are getting away with, quite literally, bloody murder, the task has fallen to other forces to draw attention to that fact. Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdusalam’s postwas adamant that “there was no threat to international navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas, and the targeting was and will continue to affect Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine.”
But that narrative has been less attractive to the supposedly law-minded types in Washington and London, always mindful that commerce trumps all. Preference has been given to such shibboleths as freedom of navigation, the interests of international shipping, all code for the protection of large shipping interests. No mention is made of the justification advanced by the Houthi rebels and the Palestinian plight, a topic currently featuring before the International Court of Justice in the Hague.
Another feature of the strikes is the absence of a Security Council resolution from the United Nations, technically the sole body in the international system able to authorise the use of force under the UN Charter. A White House statementon January 11 attributes authority to the strikes much the same way the administration of George W. Bush did in justifying the warrantless, and illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003. (Ditto those on his same, limited bandwidth, Tony Blair of the UK and John Howard of Australia.) On that occasion, the disappointment and frustrations of weapons inspectors and rebukes from the UN about the conduct of Saddam Hussein, became vulnerable to hideous manipulation by the warring parties.
On this occasion, a “broad consensus as expressed by 44 countries around the world on December 19, 2023” and “the statement by the UN Security Council on December 1, 2023, condemning Houthi attacks against merchant and commercial vessels transiting the Red Sea” is meant to add ballast. Lip service is paid to the self-defence provisions of the UN Charter.
In aseparate statement, Biden justified the attack on Houthi positions as necessary punishment for “unprecedented Houthi attacks against international maritime vessels in the Red Sea – including the use of anti-ship ballistic missiles for the first time in history.” He also made much of the US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian, “a coalition of more than 20 nations committed to defending international shipping and deterring Houthi attacks in the Red Sea.” No mention of the Israeli dimension here, at all.
In addition to the pregnant questions on the legality of such strikes in international law, the attacks, at least as far as US execution was concerned, was far from satisfactory to some members of Congress. Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashita Tlaibwas irkedthat US lawmakers had not been consulted. “The American people are tired of endless war.” Californian Rep. Barbara Lee warnedthat, “Violence only begets more violence. We need a ceasefire now to prevent deadly, costly, catastrophic escalation of violence in the region.”
A number of Republicans also registered their approval of the stance taken by another Californian Democrat, Rep. Ro Khanna, who expressedwith certitude the view that Biden had “to come to Congress before launching a strike against the Houthis in Yemen and involving us in another middle eastern conflict.” Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah wasin full agreement, as was West Virginia Republican Rep. Thomas Massie. “Only Congress has the power to declare war,” Massie affirmed.
Unfortunately for these devotees of Article I of the US Constitution, which vests Congress approval powers for making war, the War Powers Act, passed by Congress in November 1973, merely requires the president to inform Congress within 48 hours of military action, and the termination of such action within 60 days of commencement in the absence of a formal declaration of war by Congress or authorisation of military conflict. These days, clipping the wings of the executive when it comes to engaging in conflict is nigh impossible.
There was even less of a debate about the legality or wisdom of the Yemen strikes in Australia. Scandalously, and with a good deal of cowardice, the government preferred a deafening silence for hours in the aftermath of the operation. The only source confirming that personnel of the Australian Defence Forces were involved came from Biden, the commander-in-chief of another country. There had been no airing of the possibility of such involvement. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese had, in not sending a warship from the Royal Australian Navy to join Operation Prosperity Guardian, previously insisted that diplomacy might be a better course of action. Evidently, that man is up for turning at a moment’s notice.
In a brief statementmade at 4.38 pm on of January 12 (there was no press conference in sight, no opportunity to inquire), Albanese declared with poor conviction that, “Australia alongside other countries has supported the United States and the United Kingdom to conduct strikes to deal with this threat to global rules and commercial shipping.” He had waited for the best part of a day to confirm it to the citizenry of his country. He had done so without consulting Parliament.
Striking the Houthis would seem, on virtually all counts, to be a signal failure. Benjamin H. Friedman of Defense Priorities sees error piled upon error: “The strikes on the Houthis will not work. They are very unlikely to stop Houthi attacks on shipping. The strikes’ probable failure will invite escalation to more violent means that may also fail.” The result: policymakers will be left “looking feckless and thus tempted to up the ante to more pointless war to solve a problem better left to diplomatic means.” Best forget any assuring notions of taking the sting out of the expanding hostilities. All roads to a widening war continue to lead to Israel.
A ruling by the International Court of Justice in favor of South Africa, which has accused Israel of genocide, could mean saving thousands of lives in Gaza. The alternative, however, could be devastating and further embolden Israeli violence.
South Africa and Israel will be appearing before the International Court of Justice, on Thursday, January 11, where the court will begin hearing arguments on whether Israel is committing the crime of Genocide.
The highly anticipated public hearings, which will last for two days, are based on an 84-page appeal submitted by South Africa in December to the ICJ, the top judicial body of the United Nations. In the appeal, South Africa argues that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza is “genocidal in character” and that through both action and intent to commit genocide, Israel has violated the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Both Israel and South Africa are parties to the convention, which came into being on the heels of World War II and the Holocaust. All signatories of the treaty are obligated not to commit genocide, to ensure that it is prevented, and to seek that the crime be prosecuted.
South Africa’s appeal to the ICJ, however, is not just about charging Israel with the crime of genocide – a lengthy process that could take the court months or years. It’s also seeking a more immediate solution by requesting the court institute provisional measures to immediately halt Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Essentially, South Africa wants two things: to stop the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza now and for Israel to be charged with the crime of genocide in the long term. A condensed breakdown and explanation of the 84-page brief can be found here.
Expectedly, Israel has outright denied any accusations of genocide, lambasting the South African appeal as antisemtic “blood libel”. The U.S. has also rebuked South Africa’s appeal, called it “meritless” and “completely without any basis in fact.”
Nevertheless, Israel is pressing forward, sending a carefully crafted legal team to The Hague in the Netherlands to defend Israel’s position that it is not committing genocide in Gaza.
The much-talked about public proceedings, which will take place over the course of two days on Thursday and Friday, January 11th and 12th, are being welcomed by both Palestinians, as well as a number of countries around the world, who have thus far failed to bring about a ceasefire, primarily due to the U.S. veto of UN resolutions calling for a halt to the violence.
Despite the international buzz and anticipation, many in Palestine and around the world remain skeptical as to how much weight an ICJ ruling against Israel could hold due to a long history of Israeli impunity on the global stage and Israel’s well-documented disregard for international law and human rights norms.
Still, many Palestinian international law experts and human rights groups say the ICJ proceedings are significant and could hold serious consequences not only for Israel and Palestine but for the world.
Among them is Dr. Munir Nuseibah, a Palestinian professor of International law at Al-Quds University and the Director of the Al-Quds Human Rights Clinic. Mondoweiss spoke to Dr. Nuseibah about the significance of this case, why people should pay attention to it, and what implications it holds.
Why does this case matter?
The case filed by South Africa is important for a number of reasons. First, Dr. Nuseibah notes, the fact that it was filed at the ICJ in and of itself is significant, being that the court is the highest judicial body that settles disputes between states.
“This is quite significant because it’s… based on an agreement, or treaty that is binding to both South Africa and Israel,” he said, referring to the 1948 Genocide Convention.
“This is important in the history of the Palestinian cause, since we haven’t had an opportunity to get a binding international decision on any of the important questions that we have been dealing with, including for example, the issue of the Palestinian refugees, the [Israeli] occupation, etc,” Dr. Nuseibah continued.
The last time the ICJ made a decision in relation to Palestine was a 2004 advisory opinion that found Israel’s separation wall, which at that stage was still early on in its construction, violated international law and should be torn down.
However, because that decision was a non-binding advisory opinion, Israel was not obligated to stop construction or take down the wall. Instead, Israel continued constructing the wall, which today spans across hundreds of kilometers, cutting off Palestinians from their land and swallowing up swaths of Palestinian territory.
This case, Dr. Nuseibah says, would be different, as the resulting decision from this week’s proceedings would be binding, and if the court rules in favor of South Africa, it would mean that under international law, Israel would be obligated to end its military campaign in Gaza in the short term, and in the long term, potentially provide material reparations to the victims of its genocide.
The case is also significant as a symbolic measure as well. That, in the face of an ongoing genocide, which has been well documented by Palestinians and international human rights organizations alike, the world must intervene to stop it.
“If there is no serious intervention, and if the United Nations, the world, and what we call the international community is going to continue to be silenced and made inactive, and in a certain way deactivated and demobilized, this horror will continue,” Dr. Nusaibah said, not just in Palestine but around the world.
“To not only be accused of genocide, but to be charged by the court, and to be seen as a country guilty of genocide is very important,” he said. “In my opinion, everything that happens in the International Court of Justice now, is likely to influence thousands of lives in the future.
So whatever these judges will decide will actually be a question of life and death for many, many Palestinians.”
What will South Africa be arguing on Thursday?
The crux of South Africa’s argument is that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that it is violating its obligations under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, which defines the crime as “acts intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group.”
South Africa’s argument hinges on proving that Israel is not only committing acts of genocide in Gaza but that there is a clear intent on Israel’s part to commit genocide – the latter being a significant focus of the 84-page brief, which listed off an array of quotes from Israeli politicians, officials, and public figures using genocidal language when speaking about Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
“[South Africa’s] first argument will involve the speeches and quotes basically from Israeli officials who have been using genocidal language from the very first day actually, from October 7th,” Dr. Nuseibah said.
“In criminal law it’s not enough to do something, but you have to intend to do something. And one of the signs of intent, are the things you say. So these quotes from Israeli officials will be used to show that Israel has been calling for genocide,” he continued.
And, of course, South Africa will be providing evidence of what it says are clear genocidal acts carried out by Israel in Gaza, such as “bombing civilians, heavily targeting homes, targeting hospitals, targeting cultural centers, targeting universities, schools, etc,” Dr. Nuseibah detailed.
“So all of these targets that the Israeli army has destroyed over the past months, and of course the civilian casualties, the human beings who have been murdered or injured or made disabled, [Israel] using hunger as a weapon, etc. – all of that will be a very important part of the facts South Africa will present,” he said, adding that the denial of fuel and electricity, the siege on 2 million civilians, and the forcible displacement of Palestinians in Gaza is also “an important element of genocide and especially in this case.”
What will Israel’s legal defense look like?
While there are 84 pages to give us an insight into South Africa’s case, it’s not as apparent what exactly Israel’s defense will consist of.
If the past few months have been any indication, however, during which Israel has denied any wrongdoing in Gaza, justified it as self-defense, and has actually accused Hamas of genocide for its October 7th attack – some assumptions can be made as to how Israel will approach it’s defense.
First, Israel’s primary strategy, Dr. Nuseibah says, will be to “deny, deny, deny.”
“Israel will deny everything that South Africa claims,” Dr. Nuseibah said. “It will deny that it has starved people, or that it is trying to starve people. It will deny that it is not allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza, by showing examples where it actually did allow some trucks to enter,” he continued, noting that what little humanitarian aid has been allowed into Gaza has been critically insufficient to address the needs of the more than 2 million people trapped in the strip.
“It [Israel] will talk about any attempts they made in any of their operations to ‘reduce civilian casualties’, whether by warning civilians in certain places,” Dr. Nuseibah said, referring to Israel’s practice of dropping leaflets to notify civilians that their area is going to be attacked, or by providing QR codes and maps of “safe zones” and “combat zones” in Gaza – all practices that have been widely criticized both as insufficient to save civilian lives, and as a PR move by Israel to save face in front of the international community.
At the time of publication, 96 days after Israel began its bombardment on Gaza, more than 23,000 Palestinians have been killed, the vast majority of them civilians.
“So, Israel’s strategy will be to deny everything, because there is nothing else they can do or say,” Dr. Nuseibah said. “It is a longtime strategy and practice of Israel that we are used to. Israel always denies its crimes. Even until today, Israel denies the Nakba, that is the official position of Israel, to deny it.”
While Israel has focused much of its propaganda campaign on accusing Hamas, and supporters of the Palestinian cause in general, of carrying out or advocating for the genocide of Israelis and Jewish people, Dr. Nuseibah said he doubts that will be a feature of Israel’s arguments at the ICJ.
“I doubt that they will do this or bring this up, because if they do, then they would have to present evidence. They would have to allow an open investigation into what happened on October 7th,” Dr. Nuseibah said, noting that Israel has historically prevented access to independent investigators seeking to probe potential crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territory.
How will this impact Palestinian lives right now?
While the deliberations on whether Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza or not could take years, South Africa’s case is expected to yield a much more immediate and time-sensitive result.
As part of its appeal to the court, South Africa is seeking an emergency interim decision by the court, or “provisional measures,” to order the Israeli military to cease its campaign in Gaza immediately, stop the displacement of Palestinians, and allow for the entry of adequate humanitarian aid into Gaza. The court could make that decision in as little as a few days or weeks.
These provisional measures, Dr. Nuseibah says, are some of the most critical elements to the case and have the biggest potential to change the course of the unfolding genocide in Gaza.
“This is very time sensitive. Every day that we lose, we are losing more lives. We are losing more casualties. There are more homes that are demolished. There are more days that children are not going to school,” he continued.”There is a lot of loss every single day of civilian life, and there is no human being in Gaza who is not heavily influenced by what is happening.”
“All of the provisional requests that South Africa has made are there to save lives immediately. And I do expect that the court will take these measures. History has shown that the ICJ has given these provisional measures in similar situations, even with less casualties and less risk,” Dr. Nuseibah said.
“So I do expect that the court will decide provisional measures, which would mean a ceasefire, which is the most important thing right now, as well as stopping the displacement, allowing for the entry of aid, and stopping the continuous demolition of Gaza.”
Israel has ignored international law before, what will be different this time?
China can’t scale its nuclear program at all. It peaked in 2018 with 7 reactors with a capacity of 8.2 GW. For the five years since then then it’s been averaging 2.3 GW of new nuclear capacity, and last year only added 1.2 GW between a new GW scale reactor and a 200 MW small modular nuclear reactor.
Since 2014 I’ve been tracking the natural experiment in China regarding the ability to scale nuclear generation vs renewables. My hypothesis was that the modularity and manufacturability of wind and solar especially meant that it would be much easier for them to scale up to massive sizes.
That hypothesis was strongly confirmed when I first published the results in 2019, and again in 2021 and 2022 when I updated them. In what is becoming a dog bites man annual article, here are the 2023 results. Once again, China’s nuclear program barely added any capacity, only 1.2 GW, while wind and solar between them added about 278 GW. Even with the capacity factor difference, the nuclear additions only mean about 7 TWh of new low carbon generation per year, while wind and solar between them will contributed about 427 TWh annually, over 60 times as much low carbon electricity.
As a note, there were no new hydroelectric dams commissioned in China, so that continued acceleration of deployment is solely due to wind and solar. That’s going to change when the absurdly massive Tibetan Yarlung Tsangpo river dam is commissioned, likely in the mid 2030s. That dam will generate three times the energy annually as the Three Gorges Dam, making it by far the biggest dam in the world by every measure.
A few points. First, what’s a natural experiment? It’s something which is occurring outside of a laboratory or research setting in the real world that coincidentally controls for a bunch of variables so that you can make a useful comparison. An often referenced example was of a specific region where half was without electricity for a few months. Researchers posited that the blackout region would have seen more pregnancies starting in that period, and sure enough, that’s what they found.
So why is China a natural experiment for scalability of wind and solar? Well, it controls for a bunch of variables. Both programs were national strategic energy programs run top down. I started the comparison in 2010 because the nuclear program had been running for about 15 years by then and the renewables program for five years, so both were mature enough to have worked out the growing pains.
One of the things that western nuclear proponents claim is that governments have over-regulated nuclear compared to wind and solar, and China’s regulatory regime for nuclear is clearly not the USA’s or the UK’s. They claim that fears of radiation have created massive and unfair headwinds, and China has a very different balancing act on public health and public health perceptions than the west. They claim that environmentalists have stopped nuclear development in the west, and while there are vastly more protests in China than most westerners realize, governmental strategic programs are much less susceptible to public hostility. And finally, western nuclear proponents complain that NIMBYs block nuclear expansion, and public sentiment and NIMBYism is much less powerful in China with its Confucian, much more top down governance system.
China’s central government has a 30 year track record of building massive infrastructure programs, so it’s not like it is missing any skills there. China has a nuclear weapons program, so the alignment of commercial nuclear generation with military strategic aims is in hand too. China has a strong willingness to finance strategic infrastructure with long-running state debt, so there are no headwinds there either.
Yet China can’t scale its nuclear program at all. It peaked in 2018 with 7 reactors with a capacity of 8.2 GW. For the five years since then then it’s been averaging 2.3 GW of new nuclear capacity, and last year only added 1.2 GW between a new GW scale reactor and a 200 MW small modular nuclear reactor.
So what’s going on? As I noted late in 2023, nuclear energy and free market capitalism aren’t compatible, but China isn’t capitalist, according to a lot of westerners. But it very definitely is a market and export capitalist economy, albeit with more state intervention and ownership, and the nuclear program is suffering as a result. That lone small modular reactor is a clear signal of that.
The World Court will hear the case on Jan. 11 and 12 at The Hague.
Notable quotes from Jan. 11 hearing
From South African attorney Tembeka Ngcukaitobi:
“There is an extraordinary feature in this case: that Israel’s political leaders, military commanders, and persons holding official positions have systematically and in explicit terms declared their genocidal intent… And these statements are then repeated by soldiers on the ground in Gaza as they engage in the destruction of Palestinians and the physical infrastructure of Gaza.”
“What state would admit to a genocidal intent? Yet the distinctive feature of this case has not been the silence as such but the reiteration and repetition of genocidal speech throughout every sphere of state in Israel.”
“We remind the court of the identity and authority of the genocidal inciters: the prime minister, the president the minister of defense, the minister of national security, the minister of energy and infrastructure, members of the Knesset, senior army officials, and foot soldiers… The evidence of genocidal intent is not only chilling, it is also overwhelming and incontrovertible.”
“Israel has subjected Gaza to what has been described as one of the heaviest conventional bombing campaigns in the history of modern warfare. Palestinians in Gaza are being killed by Israeli weaponry and bombs from air, land and sea. They are also at immediate risk of death by starvation, dehydration and disease as a result of the ongoing siege by Israel, the destruction of Palestinian towns, the insufficient aid being allowed through to the Palestinian population, and the impossibility of distributing this limited aid while bombs fall. This conduct renders essentials to life unobtainable.“
“…the level of Israel’s killing is so extensive that nowhere is safe in Gaza. … Palestinians in Gaza are subjected to relentless bombing wherever they go. They are killed in their homes, in places where they seek shelter, in hospitals, in schools, in mosques, in churches, and as they try to find food and water for their families. They have been killed if they failed to evacuate. In the places to which they have fled, and even while they attempted to flee along, Israeli declared safe routes.”
“Israel has killed an unparalleled and unprecedented number of civilians with the full knowledge of how many civilian lives each bomb will take.“
When Rishi Sunak rose to the political throne in Britain, I thought: ”Well, of the stupid Tories, at least he’s probably less stupid than the rest of them”
Well, now I wonder. With an election due by early 2025, surely Sunak and co. are not planning upon political suicide?
So I can only conclude that Sunak is as thick as a brick.
He’s launched the Civil Nuclear Roadmap for UK to increase nuclear generation by up to four times to 24GW by 2050. The Prime Minister said: “Nuclear is the perfect antidote to the energy challenges facing Britain – it’s green, cheaper in the long term and will ensure the UK’s energy security for the long-term.” “This is the right long-term decision and is the next step in our commitment to nuclear power”
The UK intends to build up to eight new reactors, and will invest up to £300 million into producing the HALEU fuel required for new high-tech reactors, and which currently is only commercially produced in Russia.
And there’ll be a fleet of “small modular reactors” to be .built across Britain.
Sounds great, don’t it?
BUT:
Large nuclear reactors. The cost of Hinkley Point C has spiralled to £33bn, a 30 per cent increase from 2015 when it forecast the cost at £25-£26bn. Sizewell C has not yet received a final investment decision.
Six reactors on three sites have been shut down since 2021 and will be need expensive dismantlement
Most of the UK’s 9 functioning nuclear reactors are nearing the end of their operating lives, although 2 of them Heysham 1 and Hartlepool are to be extended.
Small Nuclear Reactors. Regulation and planning rules will be loosened . A developer-led approach will replace previous rules. Rather than ministers specifying sites, developers will be asked to identify locations for small nuclear reactors .
Nuclear plants will be ruled out in line with “population density” and “proximity to military activities” . But apart from those considerations, “All other criteria willbe discretionary, including size, flood risk, proximity to civil airports, the natural beauty, ecological importance or cultural heritage of the site. ”
Divorced from reality? Does Rishi Sunak not know what happened to the USA’s one and only small nuclear reactor project – the rapid decline and fall of the NuScale enterprise?
The mainstream media faithfully touts Rishi Sunak’s nuclear plans. But investors and the general public are not that gullible.
I think it more likely that the Nuclear Roadmap will prove the antidote to a Tory government for 2025
Comment. As Marles yet again spouts the “global rules-based order”, we wonder where is Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, and why was Parliament not consulted?
Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles confirms Australian personnel contributed to strikes in Yemen.
ABC News, 12 Jan 24
Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles says Australian personnel had been present in “operational headquarters” but said he could not elaborate further on the precise nature of their participation.
Key points:
A US official said strikes against the Iran-backed group were carried out by aircraft, ships and a submarine
It comes as the United Nations Security Council demands an immediate halt to the shipping disruptions
The US Central Command said Houthi rebels have launched their 27th attack since November 19
Mr Marles said Australia’s participation was “completely consistent” with the national interest. “Australia must stand up for freedom of navigation,” Mr Marles said, accusing the Houthis of “disruption of the rules-based order.”
The US and Britain have started launching strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen.
Houthi official Abdul Qader al-Mortada said raids were conducted in several Yemeni cities, including the capital Sana’a, in the early hours of Friday.
Two Hodieda residents told Associated Press they heard five strong explosions.
Hodieda lies on the Red Sea and is the largest port city controlled by the Houthis.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they will continue targeting Israel-linked ships in the Red Sea despite overnight air strikes by the US and Britain, their spokesman said on Friday.
“We affirm that there is absolutely no justification for this aggression against Yemen, as there was no threat to international navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas, and the targeting was and will continue to affect Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine,” Yemen’s Houthis spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
On Friday, Iran said it condemns the US-Britain attack on Houthis in Yemen warning that it will fuel “insecurity and instability” in the region, Iranian state media reported.
“We strongly condemn the military attacks carried out this morning by the United States and the United Kingdom on several cities in Yemen,” said Nasser Kannani, spokesperson at Iran’s foreign ministry.
“These attacks are a clear violation of Yemen’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a breach of international laws,” he added…………………………………………
US President Joe Biden said Australia, Canada, Bahrain and the Netherlands provided support for the operation………………………………………..
The strikes would mark the first counterattack launched against the Iran-backed group, since it began Red Sea attacks in November last year.
A joint statement by Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, United Kingdom and the US said the UN resolution, in addition to Houthi ignoring calls to end the shipping attacks, had led to these “precision strikes”……………………………..
Scotland’s first minister Humza Yousaf, whose parents-in-law escaped Gaza in early November, warned the UK “does not have a good record of military intervention in the Middle East”, demanding MPs have a briefing. ………………………………………………………………………………….
The Iran-backed group says it is conducting attacks in support of Palestinian militant group Hamas in its fight against Israel………………………………………………………….
Before the resolution on Thursday, United States deputy ambassador Robert Wood said “freedom of commercial activity on the seas is critically important to commerce and to national security of a number of states”.
Wider fallout on the horizon
Nearly 10 per cent of global oil trade and an estimated $US1 trillion ($1.5 trillion) in goods pass through the Red Sea route annually.
Antinuclear 