Dr. King’s Words on Vietnam Still Ring True for Gaza

by Andrew Moss Posted onMay 23, 2024

As Israeli troops continue their assault in Rafah, increasing the death toll and displacing – yet again – hundreds of thousands of Gazans, there’s much to be learned from recalling Dr. Martin Luther King’s visionary words on Vietnam 57 years ago. Breaking his silence on a war that by then had claimed over 20,000 American and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese lives, King declared that the war in Vietnam was swallowing “men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube.” It was blocking, he said, whatever progress the nation had been making toward economic and racial justice.

Moreover, any hopes for a genuine multiracial democracy were being cruelly undercut by a war that drew disproportionately on poor American youth. Noting how the conflict brought young black and white men together in a “brutal solidarity” to burn villages, King remarked on the “cruel irony” that those same young men would, in a segregated America, “hardly live on the same block in Chicago.” With a precise historical analysis showing how America supported French efforts to recolonize Vietnam, then backed South Vietnamese puppet regimes that “were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support,” King made clear the impossibility of compartmentalizing the fundamental values informing domestic and foreign policies.

In a word, King demonstrated that you can’t advance democracy at home when you suppress it abroad. That vision rings as true today for Gaza as it did for Vietnam in 1967.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently opposed a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, blocking a path to self-determination for the Palestinian people that would also help establish a durable foundation for peace. Since Hamas’ brutal, horrific attack against Israel last October 7, Netanyahu has doubled down on opposing such a settlement, while at the same time failing to lay out a post-conflict plan for governance in Gaza. His failure in this regard has prompted senior Israeli military and political leaders to rail openly about the costs of such inaction: continued casualties on both sides from a seemingly endless war.

Over a number of years, Netanyahu’s government encouraged the funding by Qatar of millions of dollars monthly to Hamas, despite the latter’s unmitigated hostility to Israel’s very existence. Though Netanyahu claimed that the support was intended for humanitarian purposes, both critics and right-wing allies indicate that the support was intended to help maintain divisions between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, weakening Palestinian leadership and bolstering the claim that Israel had no viable negotiating partner for a two-state settlement. The policy was premised on the flawed assumption that Hamas had neither the capacity nor the intent to launch a major assault like that of October 7.

Add to these facts the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem (700,000 settlers living there today, contrary to international law), a fuller picture emerges of policies that continue to exacerbate tensions and undermine possibilities for any kind of peaceful settlement.

Once Israel began its counteroffensive in the wake of October 7, the Biden administration found increasing tension between its unwavering support for the state of Israel and growing apprehensions about the Netanyahu government’s conduct of the war. Early on, Biden administration officials became aware that Israel was bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were military targets. And despite U.S. admonitions in the ensuing weeks about insufficiently protecting civilians, the Biden administration continued to provide arms, approving and delivering 100 foreign military sales to Israel (“thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid”).

To compound matters, the State Department released a report earlier this month acknowledging that U.S. weapons supplied to Israel have been used by “Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its [International Law] obligations.” Nevertheless, the report asserts that the U.S. will continue to provide military aid as it sees fit.

In taking such positions, the Biden administration has, over the course of the past seven months, failed to confront and pressure the right-wing Netanyahu government in ways that could point to profoundly different alternatives for the Middle East.

As recent polling suggests, this failure may pose critical challenges to Mr. Biden’s candidacy in the coming 2024 presidential election. But more than any poll or punditry, it’s Dr. King’s words, and the implications of those words, that loom over the events of this troubled year. The suppression of human rights might be ignored, euphemized, or wished away – but only at our greatest peril.

Andrew Moss, syndicated by PeaceVoice, writes on labor, nonviolence, and culture from Los Angeles. He is an emeritus professor (Nonviolence Studies, English) from the California State University.

Jewish Students Opposing Gaza Genocide, a Powerful Counter to Antisemitism

Biden, Megadonors, and Media stir antisemitism by equating Israel with Jewry

by John V. Walsh Posted onMay 23, 2024

The many Jewish students in the campus encampments, along with other Jews protesting the Gaza phase of the Palestinian Genocide, deserve the highest praise for many reasons.  One reason is that by their deeds they are countering what might otherwise turn into a wave of antisemitism.

The portrait of the encampments in much of the mass media and at Congressional hearings is a seething cauldron of anti-Jewish hatred and bigotry.  Joe Biden has joined the chorus, labelling the students’ actions to oppose Israel’s genocide as “antisemitic protests”! This charge is false amounting to a smear of the protests and an easy way to dismiss the them.  And it is dangerous because it de-legitimizes a movement that may help to stop a genocide.  But it is dangerous in another respect, for it increases the possibility of a real wave of antisemitic backlash.

Let’s begin with the slaughter of Gazans which is simply the latest phase of a long slow genocide of the Palestinian people which began with the Nakba of 1948, the forced expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes accompanied by a campaign of terror and atrocities.   The Nakba and the ethnic  cleansing of Palestinians from historic Palestine, aka Greater Israel, over the following 76 years, have largely been hidden from view.  In contrast, as has been widely remarked, the present massacre in Gaza is highly visible over alternative media on the internet.  The more than 35, 000 deaths, the majority of them women and children, and the bombed-out, smoking rubble that once was cities, schools, mosques, churches, hospitals and homes and even cemeteries are there for all the world to see.

The Biden administration has provided the weaponry for this genocide.  And since US taxpayers are footing the bill for the bombs, US citizens have the right and responsibility to raise their voices in opposition.  And the students have led the way in doing just that.

Those who oppose the protests, whether Congresspersons, pundits, AIPAC or Joe Biden tell us that the protests are antisemitic.  What is their justification for this label?  Because, they say, Israel and Jewry are one and the same, and to condemn Israel’s policies and actions is to condemn all Jews.   Declaring that anti-Zionism amounts to antisemitism is another way of saying the same thing.  But this equation of Jews and Israel is not only false,  it will come back to bite.  Why? Because the acceptance of this false equation can easily lead to blaming all Jews for the atrocities committed by the state of Israel.  And this in turn can generate a great deal of hatred of Jews in the world.  Have those who equate Jewry and Israel understood this?  Do they care that their view can lead to a wave of antisemitism?  Do those in Congress who spout this view in public hearings know the consequences of what they are doing?  Does Genocide Joe have a clue about it?

Jewish organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow and others are participants in the protests and are often among the leaders.  Senior US government officials from the Interior Department and the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency who are Jewish have resigned in protest over the Biden administration’s support of Israel’s genocide.  And both cited their Jewish heritage as reasons for so doing.  And there are certainly many more who feel the same way but, for any number of reasons, do not resign. In the face of this, how is it possible to say that opposition to the Biden administration’s policies is antisemitic?

When we see the Zionist government of Israel carry out genocide in full view of the entire world, we must conclude that the government of Israel cares less about Jews than it does about the Zionist project.  And that may well be the most decisive refutation of the equation between Israel and Jewry.

Finally, those who cry antisemitism when there is none  and use the charge for their immediate political purposes, cheapen the suffering caused by real antisemitism.   And like the boy that cries wolf, they render warnings of the real thing impotent when it comes along.

Author: John V. Walsh

John V. Walsh writes about issues of war, peace, empire, and health care for Antiwar.com, Consortium News, DissidentVoice.org, The Unz Review, and other outlets. Now living in the East Bay, he was until recently Professor of Physiology and Cellular Neuroscience at a Massachusetts Medical School. John V. Walsh can be reached at john.endwar@gmail.com View all posts by John V. Walsh

 

The Rages of Equivalence: The ICC Prosecutor, Israel and Hamas

by Binoy Kampmark / May 21st, 2024

The legal world was abuzz.  The diplomatic channels of various countries raged and fizzed.  It had been rumoured that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with his cabinet colleagues, had been bracing themselves for a stinging intervention from the International Criminal Court, a body they give no credence or respect to.

Then came the words from the Prosecutor of the ICC, Karim A.A. Khan on May 20, announcing that arrest warrants were being sought in the context of the Israel-Hamas War, benignly described as the “Situation in Palestine”, under the Rome Statute.  “On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my Office, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin NETANYAHU, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yoav GALLANT, the Minister of Defence of Israel, bear criminal responsibility for […] war crimes and crimes against humanity on the territory of the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 8 October 2023”.

Hamas figures responsible for the attacks of October 7 against Israel also feature.  They include the essential triumvirate: Hamas chief, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Al-Masri, the commander-in-chief of Al-Qassam Brigades, and Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas Political Bureau.  All “bear responsibility for […] war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Israel and the State of Palestine (on the Gaza Strip) from at least 7 October 2023”.

On Israel’s part, Khan’s office points the accusing finger at such alleged war crimes as starvation, the wilful causing of “great suffering, or serious injury to body or health”, including cruel treatment, wilful killing or murder, the intentional direction of attacks against a civilian population, extermination, persecution and other inhumane acts falling within the Rome Statute “as crimes against humanity”.

The ICC prosecutor’s assessment follows the now increasingly common claim that Israel’s military effort, prosecuted in the cause of self-defence, is not what it claims to be.  Far from being paragons of proportionate warfare and humanitarian grace in war, Israel’s army and security forces are part of a program that has seen needless killing and suffering.  The crimes against humanity alleged “were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy.”

Khan acknowledges Israel’s innate right and marrow to self-defence.  He does not consider it estranged from the objects of international humanitarian law.  To divorce them would merely enliven barbarism.  The means Israel chose to achieve its military aims in Gaza, “namely, intentionally causing death, starvation, great suffering, and serious body or health of the civilian population – are criminal.”

On the part of Hamas, the prosecutor cites extermination, murder, the taking of hostages, the use of rape and sexual violence, the resort to torture, cruel treatment and “[o]utrages upon personal dignity” as crimes worthy of investigation.  Khan finds that the accused individuals “planned and instigated the commission of crimes” on October 7 and had “through their own actions, including visits to hostages shortly after their kidnapping, acknowledged their responsibility for their crimes.”

When law intrudes into the violence of war and conflict, the participants and instigators are rarely satisfied.  The matter becomes even more testy when international tribunals feature.  Concerns about power, bias, and an inappropriate coupling (or decoupling) of potential culprits abound.

No doubt anticipating the fulminating response, Khan convened a panel of experts in international law to advise him whether his applications for arrest warrants met the threshold requirements of Article 58 of the Rome Statute.  It would be hard to dismiss the weighty credentials of a group made up of such figures as Lord Justice Fulford, Judge Theodor Meron and Baroness Helena Kennedy.

None of this mattered in the catatonic rage arising from pairing the warring parties in the same effort.  The response reads like a decrypting key to hate and exceptionalism.  All wage war justly; all wage war righteously.  According to Netanyahu, Israel had suffered a “hit job”, with Khan “creating a false symmetry between the democratically elected leaders of Israel and the terrorist chieftains”.  The subtext is clear: democracies, at least those declaring themselves as such, are beyond reproach when fighting designated savages.

On the side of the Middle East’s only nuclear power (officially undeclared) came the erroneous argument that lumping Hamas officials with Israeli cabinet members was tantamount to equivalence.  “The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous,” declared US President Joe Biden.  “And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas.”  Ditto the Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who thought the pairing “non-comprehensible”.

The prosecutor implied no such thing, focusing on the profile of each of the individuals.  The allegations regarding Netanyahu and Gallant, for instance, keenly focus on starvation as a means of waging war, including broader applications of collective punishment against Gaza’s civilian population.  For the leaders of Hamas, the interest is on allegations of murder, sexual violence, extermination, torture, hostage taking and incidents of captivity.

The trope of faultless democracy at war against terrorism is a common one.  The George W. Bush administration made incessant use of it in justifying illegal renditions and torture during the scandalously named Global War on Terror.  Memoranda from the White House and the US Justice Department gave nodding approval to such measures, arguing that “illegal combatants” deserved no human rights protections, notably under the Geneva Conventions.

Unfortunately, many a just cause sprouts from crime, and the protagonists can always claim to be on the right side of history when the world takes notice of a plight.  Only at the conclusion of the peace accords can stock be taken, the egregiousness of it all accounted for.  Along the way, the law looks increasingly shabby, suffering in sulky silence.  These applications for arrest warrants are merely a modest measure to, pardon the pun, arrest that tendency.  It is now up to the pre-trial chamber of the ICC to take the next step.FacebookTwitter

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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

Ongoing Colonization

by Visualizing Palestine / May 22nd, 2024

On May 15, we will commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Nakba amid another catastrophe. Since 1948, Palestinians have suffered a profound and enduring trauma, as families were forcibly uprooted from their ancestral lands by Zionist militias, villages were destroyed, and communities were torn apart to create the settler colonial state of Israel. The Nakba represents not only a historical event but an ongoing reality, as it laid the foundation for the continued colonization and occupation of Palestinian land and violent dispossession of the Palestinian people. This series captures how the genocide and mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza is an extension of the 1948 Nakba.

Yes, Foreign Agents Try to Shape Your Opinion about Israel

by Yves Engler / May 22nd, 2024

The merging of Zionist propaganda and anti-China hysteria should embarrass its proponents, but apparently there’s a market for this conspiratorial drivel in the “post-truth” era promoted by the far right. They want us to believe the paid foreign agents we should be concerned about are students in $40 tents calling for university divestment, not those working for a foreign-focused lobby with billions of dollars.

Last week National Post columnist John Ivison claimed the Chinese Communist Party was funding the popular uprising against Canada’s role in enabling Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Of course he supplied absolutely no evidence. The front-page article headlined “Chinese links to protests fit pattern” began: “the public inquiry into foreign interference in Canada has already established that China tried to meddle in the last two general election campaigns. But, if a new report into the funding of the anti-Israel movement in North America is to be believed, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is also linked to the protests that are disrupting cities and campuses across the continent.” Notice the hedging? If it “is to be believed”. In other words, there is absolutely no evidence that he is willing to cite.

On X, I responded, “A well-financed foreign focused lobby has employed every tactic short of assassination to scuttle a popular uprising against genocide in Gaza and Johnny boy claims those who don’t want Canada to enable the slaughter are a Chinese Communist Party front. You are beyond ridiculous.”

Ivison retorted, “What’s wrong, Yves? Are your paymasters unhappy at any scrutiny of their funding of Canada’s legion of useful idiots?” CBC and Globe and Mail commentator Andrew Coyne and former Toronto Sun editor Lorrie Goldstein retweeted Ivison’s idiocy to which I responded: “You haven’t a scintilla of evidence I’ve been funded by any foreign, corporate or wealthy interest. You on other hand are paid by a paper set up by Conrad Black and currently owned by a US hedge fund. Are you ashamed of promoting genocide and being such a sycophant of power?”

Since campaigning against Canada’s role in overthrowing Haiti’s elected government 20 years ago, I’ve repeatedly been accused of receiving money from Haitian, Venezuelan, Russian, Iranian and Chinese officials. It’s common to claim that internationalists and anti-imperialists are funded by foreign enemies. In a bid to delegitimize the anti-genocide movement, especially the student divestment encampments, there’s been a burst of these claims recently. In “Hidden hand funds Jew-hating protests, rallies, encampments”, Warren Kinsella makes a mockery of himself. The Toronto Sun commentary concluded, “The rest of us know the truth: the Jew-hating protests, rallies and encampments we are seeing are funded, in whole or in part, by outside interests who do not wish to reveal themselves. They are the hidden hand. But the rest of us will not rest until the hidden hand is exposed.”

The imaginary “hidden hand” versus documented apartheid lobby truth. It’s easy to trace at least part of the mammoth sums the apartheid lobby has used to shape Canadian opinion since all taxpayers subsidize the registered “charities” behind their propaganda. Montreal’s Jewish federation has $2 billion in assets. The other federations have hundreds of millions of dollars more. (The federations receive tens of millions of dollars in government grants and tens of millions more in subsidy through tax receipts they offer to donors).

The federations fund a bevy of genocidal organizations and their official advocacy arm is the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. CIJA has a slew of ties to Israel with its top lobbyist, David Cooper, a long-time press officer at the Israeli Embassy. The Jewish Federations of Canada (JFC) and its United Israel Appeal (UIA) calls “the government of Israel” one of its “key strategic partners … that act as agents in the delivery of programs in Israel.” Between 1991 and 2022 UIA received over $1.5 billion in donations, which largely came from the federations.

At a broader level, Canada’s Jewish Federations have long been formally tied to the Jewish Agency for Israel (Jewish Agency for Palestine until 1948). Its website notes, “Canadian Federations are engaged in unique alliances with the Jewish Agency for Israel” and “founded in 1929, the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) is a primary agent for JFC-UIA in carrying out our mandate.”

The Jewish Agency for Israel effectively became Israel’s government in 1948 with long-time head David Ben-Gurion its first prime minister. Israel’s first foreign minister and second prime minister, Moshe Sharett, subsequently led the Jewish Agency while current Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, stepped down as head of the Jewish Agency to take that position. Today the Jewish Agency for Israel is a parastatal organization that seeks to further Judaize Israel, especially far-flung areas.

No corporate media ever discusses the federations’ formal ties to Israel. Nor do we hear about the huge sums spent on pro-apartheid campaigning in Canada.

But we know one thing for certain: The paid foreign agents for Israel and its genocide aren’t sleeping in $40 tents.Facebook

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Yves Engler is the author of 12 books. His latest book is Stand on Guard for Whom?: A People's History of the Canadian Military . Read other articles by Yves.

A Misplaced Purity: Democracies and Crimes Against International Law

by Binoy Kampmark / May 22nd, 2024

The application for arrest warrants by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim A.A. Khan in the Israel-Hamas War gives us a chance to revisit a recurring theme in the commission of crimes in international humanitarian law.  Certain states, so this logic goes, either commit no crimes, or, if they do, have good reasons for doing so, be they self-defence against a monstrous enemy, or as part of a broader civilisational mission.

In this context, the application for warrants regarding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, merits particular interest.  Those regarding the Hamas trio of its leader Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Al-Masri, the commander-in-chief of Al-Qassam Brigades, and the organisation’s political bureau head Ismail Haniyeh, would have left most Western governments untroubled.

From Khan’s perspective, the warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant will focus on policies of starvation, the intentional causing of “great suffering, or serious injury to body or health”, including cruel treatment, wilful killing or murder, intentional attacks on the Palestinian population, including extermination, persecution and other inhumane acts falling within the Rome Statute “as crimes against humanity”.

The ICC prosecutor’s assessment follows the now increasingly common claim that Israel’s military effort, prosecuted in the cause of self-defence in the aftermath of the October 7 attacks by Hamas, is not what it claims to be.  Far from being paragons of proportionate warfare and humanitarian grace in war, Israel’s army and security forces are part of a program that has seen needless killing and suffering.  The crimes against humanity alleged “were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy.”

The reaction from the Israeli side was always expected.  Netanyahu accused the prosecutor of “creating a false symmetry between the democratically elected leaders of Israel and the terrorist chieftains”.  He rejected “with disgust the comparison of the prosecutor in The Hague between democratic Israel and the mass murderers of Hamas”.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog also found “any attempt to draw parallels between these atrocious terrorists and a democratically elected government of Israel – working to fulfil its duty to defend and protect its citizens in adherence to the principles of international law […] outrageous and cannot be accepted by anyone.”

Israel’s staunchest ally, sponsor and likewise self-declared democracy (it is, in fact, a republic created by those suspicious of that system of government), was also there to hold the fort against such legal efforts.  US President Joe Biden’s statement on the matter was short and brusque: “The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders is outrageous.  And let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas.”

The democracy-as-purity theme, one used as a seeming exculpation of all conduct in war, surfaced in the May 21 exchange between Senator James Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.  Was the secretary, inquired Risch, amenable to supporting legislation to combat the ICC “sticking its nose in the business of countries that have an independent, legitimate, democratic judicial system”?  (No consideration was given to the sustained efforts by the Netanyahu government to erode judicial independence in passing legislation to curb the discretion of courts to strike down government decisions.)

The response from Blinken was agreeable to such an aim.  There was “no question we have to look at the appropriate steps to take to deal with, again, what is a profoundly wrong-headed decision.”  As things stand, a bill is already warming the lawmaking benches with a clear target.  Sponsored by Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act would obligate the President to block the entry of ICC officials to the US, revoke any current US visas such officials hold, and prohibit any property transactions taking place in the US.  To avoid such measures, the court must cease all cases against “protected persons of the United States and its allies”.

The Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer similarly saw the prosecutor’s efforts as a pairing of incongruous parties. “The fact however that the leader of the terrorist organisation Hamas whose declared goal is the extinction of the State of Israel is being mentioned at the same time as the democratically elected representatives of that very State is non-comprehensible.”

From the outset, such statements do two things.  The first is to conjure up a false distinction – that of equivalence – something absent in the prosecutor’s application.  The acts alleged are relevant to each specified party and are specific to them.  The second is a corollary: that democracies do not break international law and certainly not when it comes to war crimes and crimes against humanity, most notably when committed against a certain type of foe.  The more savage the enemy, the greater the latitude in excusing vengeful violence.  That remains, essentially, the cornerstone of Israel’s defence argument at the International Court of Justice.

Such arguments echo an old trope.  The two administrations of George W. Bush spilled much ink in justifying the torture, enforced disappearance and renditions of terror suspects to third countries during its declared Global War on Terror.  Lawyers in both the White House and Justice Department gave their professional blessing, adopting an expansive definition of executive power in defiance of international laws and protections.  Such sacred documents as the Geneva Conventions could be defied when facing Islamist terrorism.

Lurking beneath such justifications is the snobbery of exceptionalism, the conceit of power.  Civilised liberal democracies, when battling the forces of a named barbarism, are to be treated as special cases in the world of international humanitarian law.  The ICC prosecutor begs to differ.FacebookTwitter

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Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com. Read other articles by Binoy.

U$ Veterans For Peace Memorial Day Statement May 2024

Remember: All living things are victims of war

by Mike Ferner / May 23rd, 2024

Memorial Day is a day for remembering the victims of war.

Members of Veterans For Peace remember America’s war dead not just once a year, but every day of our lives, with the solemnity they deserve, not the crass commercialism Memorial Day has become.

We remember the war dead and the far greater number of wounded with missing limbs and the even greater number living with invisible, lifelong devils and injuries in their heads.

We remember the lost contributions they could have made to society that they literally bottled up or destroyed in the epidemic of suicide rampant among veterans.

We remember the domestic violence caused by their devils. We remember their children whose lives were more painful and less joyful than they could have been because of those devils. We remember the way the pain echoes through generations, refreshed by each new war. We remember how our communities and our nation are so much less than they should be because of this underserved burden.

We remember all those that our sociopathic, delusional leaders told us were “the enemy.” We remember the multitudes of women, children, the old and the sick they obscenely wrote off as “collateral damage.”

We remember our innumerable brothers and sisters of Mother Earth who were killed and wounded: the birds, the four-legged, our family in the seas, the trees and life-giving plants destroyed without thought, the crops and animals that sustain human life.

We remember the billions of people who go without clean water, education and health care because war has stolen the money.

This year we also remember the few winners in what Marine Corps General Smedley Butler called the racket of war, the elite who delight in telling their puppets in government to order up another one. And we remember the winners’ mantra, “Even losing wars make money.”

We remember all the losers of that racket, too; we remember each one. We do not remember some and ignore others. Nor do we glorify warriors or war because there is no glory in war. On Memorial Day we remember all the folly and all the costs of war.

We remember what Jeanette Rankin, the first woman in Congress, said as she voted against declaring war in 1917, “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”FacebookTwitter

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Mike Ferner is Special Projects Manager for Veterans for Peace. He can be reached at mike@veteransforpeace.org. Read other articles by Mike.

 

Belarus ratifies updates to nuclear power plant agreement with Russia

23 May 2024

The Belarus council of ministers has ratified protocol amendments which allow extension of the warranty period from those in the original 2011 intergovernmental agreement with Russia for the construction of the country's nuclear power plant.

The Belarusian nuclear power plant, built at Ostrovets (Image: Rosatom)

According to the official Belta news agency, the ratification is of the amendments which were agreed between the two countries in November 2023.

It says: "According to the protocol, the two-year warranty period for the operation of the equipment established by the agreement can be extended for a longer period. Certain equipment may have a longer warranty period. In addition, the agreement contains a provision that the procedure for setting the price of nuclear fuel and the terms of its supply are agreed upon by the Russian and Belarusian competent authorities."

The Belarus nuclear power plant has two VVER-1200 reactors and is located in Ostrovet in the Grodno region. A general contract for the construction was signed in 2011, with first concrete in November 2013. Construction of unit 2 began in May 2014. The first power unit was connected to the grid in November 2020, with the second unit put into commercial operation in November 2023. The amendment to the original agreement was part of measures to resolve issues relating to the project taking longer than original envisaged.

In January this year, Belarus and Russia signed a memorandum of understanding to deepen cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear technology, with a multipurpose nuclear research reactor one of the possible results.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

 

Large-scale nuclear included in Australian cost report

22 May 2024

Large-scale nuclear has been included for the first time in national science agency CSIRO's annual GenCost report, which has included small modular reactors (SMRs) since its inception in 2018.

(Image: CSIRO)

GenCost is described by CSIRO as a leading economic report for business leaders and decision-makers planning reliable and affordable energy solutions to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Published in collaboration with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO), the report offers "accurate, policy and technology-neutral cost estimates for new electricity generation, storage, and hydrogen technologies, through to 2050."

The decision to include large-scale nuclear in GenCost 2023-24 was prompted by increased stakeholder interest in nuclear following updated costings for SMRs in the 2023-24 consultation draft, the organisation said.

The report based its cost estimates for large-scale nuclear on South Korea’s nuclear programme, as the best representation of a continuous building programme consistent with other technologies in the report, and adjusting for differences between South Korean and Australian deployment costs. It calculated an expected capital cost of a large-scale nuclear plant in 2023 of AUD9217 per kW (USD6215 per kW) - but added that this capital cost could only be achieved if Australia were to commit to a continuous building programme and only after an initial higher cost unit is constructed.

With no local development pipleline for large-scale nuclear, and taking into account additional legal, safety and security requirements, and stakeholder evidence, the report estimated a development timeline of at least 15 years, with deployment from 2040 at the earliest.

The report found the estimated electricity cost range for large-scale nuclear under current capital costs and a continuous building programme to be AUD163 per MWh to AUD264 per MWh, which it said is expected to fall by 2040 to AUD141 per MWh to AUD232 per MWh.

New large‐scale nuclear costs are "significantly lower" than for SMRs - which have been significantly increased in the latest version of the report to reflect more recent data based on Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems' Carbon Free Power Project in the USA, which was cancelled in November 2023.

The report's comparison of levelised costs of electricity (Image: CSIRO)

The report found the levelised costs of electricity - the total unit costs a generator must recover over its economic life to meet all its costs including a return on investment - used to summarise the relative competitiveness of different generation options were lowest for variable renewables (solar photovoltaic and wind). "If we exclude high emission generation options, the next most competitive generation technologies are solar thermal, gas with carbon capture and storage, large-scale nuclear and coal with carbon capture and storage," it noted.

CSIRO Chief Energy Economist Paul Graham, lead author of the report, said GenCost is "flexible to adjusting assumptions, scope and methodology" in response to feedback received during the formal consultation period and throughout the year. “For example, our approach to the inclusion of large-scale nuclear technology provides a logical, transparent and policy-neutral method of costing a potential deployment scenario in Australia," he said.

GenCost 2023-24 can be downloaded here.

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Nucleareurope calls for expansion of EU hydrogen output

H2 MADE WITH NUCLEAR POWER IS CALLED PINK HYDROGEN

22 May 2024

Nuclear trade body Nucleareurope has highlighted the benefits of European-based hydrogen production from nuclear energy in a new position paper.

(Image: Pixabay)

Nucleareurope noted a recent survey by McKinsey found that intensive gas buyers expect to reduce their gas demand in the future, largely by switching to hydrogen or synthetic gases produced via hydrogen.

"For the time being, the European Commission's focus is primarily on hydrogen produced exclusively from renewables, with a significant share of this hydrogen being imported from third countries, notably from the global south," the position paper says. "This will result in an important increase in energy demand due to transportation and losses while potentially exploiting countries where energy poverty is high and affecting Europe's energy sovereignty by creating a dependency on imported renewable hydrogen."

The European Commission's REPowerEU plan - adopted in May 2022 to rapidly reduce EU dependence on Russian fossil fuels - foresaw 10 million tonnes of domestic hydrogen production complemented with 6-10 million tonnes of imported hydrogen by 2030. However, following the communication in February this year on the 2040 climate targets, this plan has been downsized to 3 million tonnes, "perhaps to align it with the realistic forecasts of domestic production via renewables," Nucleareurope said.

"This is where other low-carbon energy sources, such as nuclear, could fill the gap and help meet the original ambitions, as the main target remains unchanged: net-zero by 2050," it added.

According to Nucleareurope, the main advantage of hydrogen production via nuclear is that the load factor of the installed electrolysers will be maximised with baseload production - possibility to reach 8000 hours per year with nuclear and improve the lifetime and payback of the installation.

One existing nuclear power plant with a capacity of 1000 MWe and a capacity factor of over 90%, coupled with 1000 MW of electrolysers, could produce about 0.16 million tonnes of low-carbon hydrogen per year, providing an uninterrupted supply to end-users, it noted. This output could increase further by up to 20% if coupled with high-temperature electrolysers capable of using nuclear steam.

In order to support the deployment of domestic hydrogen production, Nucleareurope recommends that the EU focus on: encouraging a diversified approach to hydrogen production that recognises the potential of all net-zero technologies; emphasising the importance of energy sovereignty in the context of hydrogen production; developing policies to support the growth of domestic hydrogen industries, recognising their role in reindustrialisation and job creation; advocating for strategic investments in infrastructure that support domestic hydrogen production, storage and distribution; and allocating resources for research and development initiatives focused on improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of hydrogen production technologies, including nuclear-based methods.

"Domestic production of hydrogen can help solve some of the challenges which the EU is facing in terms of energy security, environmental sustainability, and economic competitiveness" said Nucleareurope Director General Yves Desbazeille. "Reimagining how hydrogen, a versatile and clean energy carrier, can play an important leading role in transforming the energy system is key in this respect."

Researched and written by World Nuclear News