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Washington is the problem, not the solution, so why is Abbas seeking new ‘powerful’ sponsors?

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | July 25, 2022

To describe US President Joe Biden’s recent visit to Israel and Palestine as a “failure” in terms of activating the dormant “peace process” is to use a misnomer. For this statement to be accurate, Washington would have had to indicate that it had even a nominal desire to push for negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership.

Political and diplomatic platitudes aside, the current US administration has done the exact opposite, as indicated by Biden’s words and actions. Alleging that the US commitment to a two-state solution “has not changed”, Biden dismissed his administration’s interest in trying to achieve such a goal by declaring that the “ground is not ripe” for negotiations.

Given that the Palestinian Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas has repeatedly announced its readiness to return to negotiations, one can only assume that the process is being stalled due to Israel’s intransigence. Indeed, none of Israel’s top leaders or major parties champion negotiations — the so-called peace process — as a strategic objective.

However, Israel is not the only one to blame. The Americans have also made it clear that they have moved on from that political sham altogether, one which they invented and then sustained for decades. In fact, the final nail in the “negotiated solution” coffin was hammered in by the Donald Trump administration, which has simply backed every Israeli claim and shunned all legitimate Palestinian demands.

The Biden administration has been blamed habitually by Palestinians, Arabs and progressive voices within the Democratic Party for failing to reverse Trump’s prejudiced moves in favour of Israel: moving the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, for example; shutting down the US Consulate in East Jerusalem; and accepting the unfounded Israeli claims regarding its jurisdiction over illegal Jewish settlements built on occupied Palestinian land. The list goes on.

Even if one assumes that the Biden administration is capable of reversing some or all of Trump’s unlawful actions, what good would that be in the greater scheme of things? Washington was, and remains, Israel’s greatest benefactor, funding its military occupation of Palestine with an annual gift of $4 billion, in addition to many other schemes, including a massive and growing budget allocated just for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system.

As horrific as Trump’s years were in terms of undermining a just resolution to the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Biden’s policies are but a continuation of an existing pro-Israel American legacy that surpasses that of Trump by decades.

For Israel, the “peace process” has served its purpose, which explains the infamous declaration by the CEO of the Jewish settlement council, Yesha, in the occupied West Bank in 2018: “I don’t want to brag that we’ve won… Others would say it appears that we’re winning.”

However, Israel’s supposed “victory” following three decades of a fraudulent “peace process” cannot be credited to Trump alone. Biden and other top US officials have also been quite useful. While it is understood widely that US politicians support Israel out of self-interest — they need, for example, to appease the influential pro-Israel lobby in Washington — Biden’s support for Israel has an ideological foundation. The US president was less than bashful when he repeated his famous statement at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on 13 July: “You need not be a Jew to be Zionist.”

Consequently, it may appear puzzling to hear Palestinian officials call on the US — and Biden specifically — to put pressure on Tel Aviv to end its 55-year occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Mohannad Al-Aklouk, the Palestinian representative at the Arab League, is just one who has repeated the same clichéd and unrealistic language of expecting the US to “exert practical pressure on Israel”, “set the stage for a fair political process based on international law”, and “meet its role as a fair sponsor of the peace process”. Strangely, Al-Aklouk truly believes that Washington, with its dismal track record of pro-Israel bias, can be the saviour of the Palestinians.

Another Palestinian official told the New Arab that PA President Abbas was “disappointed with the results of Biden’s visit” as, apparently, the Palestinian leader “expected that the US president would make progress in the peace process.” The same source added that Abbas’s authority is holding meetings with representatives from “powerful countries” to replace the US as sponsors of the negotiations.

Abbas’s political stance is confusing. The “peace process” is, after all, an American invention. It was a unique, self-serving style of diplomacy that was formulated to ensure Israel’s priorities remain centre stage of US foreign policy in the Middle East. In the Palestinian case, the “peace process” served only to entrench Israel’s colonisation of Palestine, while degrading, or completely sidelining, legitimate Palestinian demands. This “process” was also constructed with the aim of marginalising international law as a political and legal frame of reference for the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Instead of questioning the entire “peace process” apparatus and apologising for the strategic blunder of pursuing American mirages at the expense of Palestinian rights, the Palestinian Authority is still clutching desperately to the same old fantasy, even when the US and Israel have long abandoned the political farce that they created.

Even if China, Russia or India, for example, would agree to be the new sponsors of the “peace process”, there is no reason for Tel Aviv to engage in future negotiations when it is able to achieve its colonial objectives with full support from the US. Moreover, none of these countries have, for now, much leverage over Israel, and so are unable to sustain any kind of meaningful pressure on Tel Aviv to respect international law.

Yet, the PA is still holding on, simply because the “peace process” has proved to be greatly beneficial in terms of funds, power and prestige enjoyed by a small but powerful class of Palestinians that was formulated largely after the Oslo Accords in 1993.

It is time for Palestinians to stop investing their political capital in the Biden or any other administration. What they need is not a new “powerful” sponsor of the “peace process”, but a grassroots-based struggle for freedom and liberation starting at home, one that galvanises the energies of the Palestinian people themselves. Alas, this new paradigm cannot be achieved when the priorities of the Palestinian leadership remain fixated on the financial handouts and political validation of Washington and its Western allies.

July 25, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

Iran nuclear chief: IAEA cameras will remain turned off until JCPOA fully restored

Press TV – July 25, 2022

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) says monitoring cameras installed by the UN nuclear agency at the Iranian nuclear sites will remain turned off until the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is fully restored.

Mohammad Eslami made the remarks on Monday in reaction to recent remarks by Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi.

Eslami said the conclusion of the JCPOA was the final outcome of numerous rounds of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

“However, the West continues to level accusations against Iran on the basis of stolen and alleged documents. The Islamic Republic of Iran agreed to the JCPOA to dispel doubts and build confidence. Iran accepted to restrict its [nuclear] activities to pave the way for confidence building. However, they (the other parties to the deal) did not abide by their commitments,” he said.

“The [IAEA] cameras [which were installed] under the JCPOA were meant to put an end to those [Western] accusations. If those accusations are going to remain in place, there is no more need for the existence of JCPOA cameras,” Iran’s nuclear chief said.

Esalmi added that the IAEA “has removed and sealed the cameras, which are being kept at the [nuclear] facilities [of Iran] until they return to this accord.”

Grossi said in June that Iran has informed the United Nations nuclear watchdog that it is removing 27 surveillance cameras at its nuclear facilities following the Western-drafted anti-Tehran resolution by the agency’s Board of Governors.

“What we have been informed is that 27 cameras… are being removed in Iran,” the IAEA chief said.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Eslami also criticized certain allegations against Iran’s nuclear program, emphasizing that “Tehran has never engaged in any covert and enrichment activities outside the framework [of the JCPOA] and without coordination with the IAEA.”

Iran’s measures to produce heavy water or develop other sections of the country’s nuclear industry infrastructure have been carried out in coordination with the IAEA and are currently under the agency’s supervision, Eslami said.

“No one should have the wrong impression that the IAEA does not currently supervise Iran’s nuclear activities. The IAEA is … conducting its supervision according to the Safeguards Agreement,” the Iranian nuclear chief pointed out.

He added that Iran has turned off the cameras that were not operating based on the Safeguards Agreement, but were related to the JCPOA.

He, however, said Tehran will make new decisions if the parties to the deal return to their obligations as per the JCPOA and Iran is assured that the West would not carry out any mischievous act any more.

During an interview with Spain’s El Pais on Friday, the IAEA chief claimed that Iran’s nuclear program “is advancing at a gallop and we have very little visibility.”

Iran’s nuclear program “has grown enormously, far beyond what it was in 2015. It is a growth that is not only quantitative but qualitative, also with the levels of enrichment.”

“This does not imply that Iran is making a nuclear weapon, but no country that does not have warlike projects enriches at that level, at 60 percent,” Grossi said.

Earlier on Monday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani also reacted to Grossi’s remarks, saying, “The Islamic Republic of Iran is a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and for many years, especially during recent years, has allowed the agency’s inspectors … to visit [Iran’s nuclear] facilities.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Grossi has time and again taken an unprofessional and unfair approach vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear program, especially in recent months. His views are not helpful and constructive. He is interested in raising an issue about Iran’s nuclear issues now and then.,” he said.

Kan’ani added, “We believe that the IAEA director general should adopt a constructive and interactive approach in response to Iran’s constructive cooperation with the agency. We do not view Grossi’s remarks as technical and professional and we advise him to observe the principle of neutrality and fairness and to avoid politically-motivated statements.”

July 25, 2022 Posted by | Aletho News | | Leave a comment

New EU Tranche Allocated to Ukraine Brings Total Military Assistance to $2.5Bln

Samizdat – 25.07.2022

The European Union has agreed to disburse an additional 500 million euros ($512 million) under the European Peace Facility mechanism to fund the military needs of Ukraine, thus bringing the total amount of EU military aid to Kiev to 2.5 billion euros, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday.

“EU Member States agreed to mobilise a 5th tranche of military assistance of €500 million, making this a total of €2.5 billion of military equipment to the Ukrainian Armed Forces,” Borrell said in a statement.

The new tranche is designed to help enhance the military capabilities of Ukrainian forces and will be split in two parts: 490 million euros in lethal military equipment and 10 million euros in protective gear, fuel and equipment, as requested by Kiev, the statement noted.

On February 24, Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine after the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk appealed for help in defending themselves against Ukrainian forces. In response, the West launched comprehensive sanctions against Russia and boosted military assistance for Ukraine, including lethal weapons.

July 25, 2022 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Russia accuses Ukrainian troops of war crimes

Samizdat | July 25, 2022

Preliminary probes have found that more than 200 members of the Ukrainian military have been involved in “crimes against the peace and security of mankind,” the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee said on Monday.

A total of 92 commanders and subordinates have already been charged with the offenses, he revealed.

More than 1,300 criminal cases, involving over 400 individuals, have been launched over violations committed by the Ukrainian side since the start of Russia’s military operation on February 24, Alexander Bastrykin told newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

According to the Investigative Committee chief, it had already been established that more than 220 suspects, “including representatives of the high command of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and commanders of military units which fired at civilians, had been involved in crimes against the peace and security of mankind, which don’t have a statute of limitations.”

Charges have been filed against 92 Ukrainian commanders and subordinates to date, with 96 suspects being placed on the wanted list, he added.

“There can be no justification for the use of force by the Ukrainian nationalists,” Bastrykin insisted. “They are intensively shelling the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. They brutally and cynically target peaceful citizens, civilian infrastructure, including children’s institutions.”

He also accused the Ukrainian forces of having struck their own territory “in order to blame the Russian military for this.”

During the conflict, Moscow has insisted that its troops never target civilians, only striking Ukrainian forces and military infrastructure.

More than 7,000 civilian facilities have been destroyed in attacks by the Ukrainian side, including homes, schools and kindergartens, with over 91,000 people being designated as victims, the Investigative Committee chief said.

Сriminal cases have also been launched against citizens of the UK, the US, Canada, Georgia and the Netherlands for their involvement in the conflict as mercenaries, while Ukrainian nationalist units have been accused of torturing Russian POWs, attacking Russian embassies in foreign countries, and other acts, he said.

“It’s paramount to keep objectively informing the international community about what has been happening [in Ukraine] in recent months,” Bastrykin insisted.

July 25, 2022 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

VACCINE PITCH MEETING

July 20, 2022

All the arguments you need to take the covid bioweapon injection explained clearly and persuasively.

Moonbase Commander can be found here.

July 25, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | , | Leave a comment

The Bab al Hawa Deception

Syria Support Movement | July 17, 2022

On July 12, the UN Security Council extended the authorization for humanitarian aid to cross through Bab al Hawa on the Turkey-Syria border for another six months. The US and allies had wanted a one-year extension, but Russia vetoed it. The US, UK and France abstained on the six-month approval, while all others supported it.

There is much misinformation and deceit about the Bab al Hawa crossing in Idlib province, Syria. First, Western media rarely mention that after the aid crosses the border, it is effectively controlled by Syria’s version of Al Qaeda, Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS). Second, they fail to explain that HTS hoards much of the aid for its fighters. When Aleppo was liberated by the Syrian Army, reporters found large stashes of medicines and food in their headquarters that were set aside for the use of the militia. Third, HTS makes millions of dollars by taxing the aid that it distributes to the rest of the population under its control.

In May 2018, HTS was added to the US State Department’s list as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). HTS’s 15000 fighters are able to manipulate the numbers by including their names and the names of their accompanying families as civilians, thus receiving huge amounts of aid from UN agencies such as the World Food Program. It is rarely mentioned that thousands of these civilians are not Syrian. They are Uyghurs and Turkmen supporters of Al Qaeda, from Turkey, China and elsewhere.

The Bab al Hawa crossing is also an entry point for weapons and sectarian fighters smuggled in with the copious aid. This is not new. In 2014, legendary journalist Serena Shim reported how she witnessed fighters and weapons entering Syria using World Food Organization trucks at Bab al Hawa. She was killed in Turkey two days after her report.

It is claimed over 4 million persons are in Idlib. That is a huge exaggeration. Before the conflict began in 2011 there were 1.5 million. When sectarian militants seized control, many civilians fled for Aleppo or Latakia. Even including fighters coming from other areas, the population is much LESS than before the conflict. The number of civilians in Idlib is grossly inflated for political and economic reasons.

The media also fail to mention that the aid across Bab al Hawa serves only the Al Qaeda-controlled area (the northern green section of the map) and not the rest of Syria. While western states send massive amounts of aid to this minority, the vast majority of Syrians suffer with little aid. Moreover, they are under the extreme US “Caesar” sanctions designed by the US to crush the economy by outlawing the Syrian Central Bank, make it impossible for Syrians to rebuild infrastructure, and punish Syrians and anyone who would trade or assist them.

Russian, Chinese and other representatives on the UN Security Council have pointed out that aid to Syria should be going through the UN recognized government in Damascus. Aid to civilians in Idlib should be distributed via the Syrian Red Crescent or a comparable neutral organization.

Providing aid through Bab al Hawa via hostile Turkey to an officially designated terrorist organization should be prohibited. It is a clear violation of Syrian sovereignty. In December 2022, when the authorization again comes to a UN Security Council vote, the crossing may finally be shut down. At that point, the legitimate aid to civilians in Idlib province can be delivered from within Syria as it should be.

July 24, 2022 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , | Leave a comment

Get Ready For The 100 Year Long Climate “Emergency”

By Francis Menton | Manhattan Contrarian | July 22, 2022

On March 13, 2020, then President Trump declared a “national emergency” due to the newly-arising outbreak of the Covid-19 virus. Three days later, on March 16, Trump set forth a program of “15 Days to Slow the Spread.” The program included strong recommendations for anyone who felt sick, or had tested positive for the disease, to stay at home during the two-week emergency window.

Here we are now some two years and four months later. The supposed Covid-19 15 day “emergency” has been repeatedly extended, first by Trump through the last ten months of his term, and then for the additional 18 months since January 2021 by President Biden. It’s been two-plus long years of lockdowns, work from home, business closures, school closures, mask mandates, vaccine mandates, and on and on, with little to no evidence that any of it ever did any good.

On Monday July 18 (2022) President Biden extended the Covid-19 “emergency” for yet another 90 days to mid-October. You might think that the whole concept of an “emergency” has lost all meaning if it can somehow persist for more than two and a half years, well past the point where normal people have stopped paying any attention to it whatsoever. “Emergency” used to mean something immediate, like a hurricane or a tornado wrecking a town, or someone having a heart attack, or a shooter actively firing. By any reasonable view of the word “emergency,” things connected with Covid-19 that might have fallen under that term ended months if not years ago. But for a bureaucracy, what the term “emergency” means is the opportunity to issue orders that you could not otherwise issue, and pass out money that you could not otherwise pass out. Now that you have gotten a taste of the heady drug of “emergency” powers, why would you ever give them up if you could avoid it? Years later, it’s still an “emergency” if the bureaucrats want it to be. Or at least, that’s their view.

Which brings us to the so-called “climate emergency.” Since the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA on June 30, the bureaucracies in the “climate” space, together with all the environmental activists, have been thrown into a tizzy. The Supreme Court just declared that the bureaucracies have no power to fundamentally transform the use of energy in the economy without a clear direction from Congress, which on the climate issue cannot be found in existing statutes. And it has become clear that no further such statutory direction is likely to emerge from Congress before the mid-term elections in November. After November, changes in the make-up of Congress will probably make further such legislation even less likely, if not completely off the table for years if not decades. So what is a self-respecting climate alarmist to do?

To those over there on the left, the answer seems obvious: Demand declaration of a “climate emergency.” With that declaration, the statutory gap could perhaps be filled by another whole category of laws providing special powers in the event of a declaration of “emergency.” The calls for President Biden to make such a declaration have been everywhere since the Supreme Court’s decision at the end of June. In the politician category, a collection of Democratic Senators (Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, Alex Padilla of California, Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Bernie Sanders of Vermont) sent a strong letter to Biden on July 20 making the demand:

Declaring the climate crisis a national emergency under the NEA would unlock powers to rebuild a better economy with significant, concrete actions. . . . Under the NEA, you could redirect spending to build out renewable energy systems on military bases, implement large-scale clean transportation solutions and finance distributed energy projects to boost climate resiliency. All of these actions would employ Americans in new and emerging industries while securing American leadership in global markets.

Environmental groups were out even ahead of the Senators with the same demand. Here is Greenpeace on July 8:

Congress and the Courts are failing to protect our communities from the climate crisis and it’s time for President Biden to be the leader we need. By declaring a climate emergency, President Biden unlocks an expanded set of powers under the National Emergencies Act and other federal laws.

There are many, many more examples of the same demand from all the usual suspects.

Indeed, there was lots of talk that Biden was going to make the big declaration on Wednesday, when he went to Massachusetts to give a speech at a closed coal-fired power plant. He somehow stopped just short of the formal “emergency” declaration, but took the occasion to emit the usual clichés about the impending climate apocalypse, including liberal use of the term “emergency” itself. Excerpt:

“Climate change is literally an existential threat to our nation and to the world,” Mr. Biden said. . . . “This is an emergency, an emergency, and I will look at it that way.”

It’s entirely possible that the climate “emergency” declaration could issue literally any day now.

What would declaration of an “emergency” mean? The idea is that there are plenty of existing statutes out there granting the Executive powers of various sorts in the event of such an “emergency,” provided that there had been a formal declaration of it. Thus arguably there would be a way around the lack of clear statutory authority that sank the EPA’s power plant regulations in the West Virginia case. The Nation on July 21 gives a rundown of some of the powers that the Executive could purport to exercise in the event of such a declaration with respect to the climate:

[S]uch a declaration would enable the Biden administration to access funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program for combating the impacts of heat waves, extreme weather events, and natural disasters and could enable faster implementation of critical mitigation strategies. An official climate emergency announcement could also allow the Biden administration to curtail crude oil exports and stop offshore drilling through laws and exemptions related to national security and energy development. The Biden administration could access financial support for clean energy infrastructure through FEMA and the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, and it could cut energy costs for families by supporting domestic offshore wind projects, helping to facilitate an affordable clean energy transition.

Here’s the problem. There is no sense in which the climate is an “emergency” within the ordinary meaning of that word in the English language. Predictions by climate models of a few degrees of temperature rise over the next century are the opposite of an “emergency.” Indeed, the statutes granting various “emergency” powers to the Executive all deal with the question of time periods too short to give the Congress time to enact legislation appropriate to the situation at hand. That circumstance is the opposite of what we have with the climate.

But if you are on the left, or a climate activist, this situation is just too important to wait for Congressional action that may never come. An “emergency” must be declared, to last for — how long? A hundred years? During which time, the bureaucrats can issue whatever orders they want, and spend whatever funds they want, all in the name of saving the planet. None of which will or can have any effect on the 85% (and growing) of world carbon emissions that come from outside the U.S. and which the U.S. government cannot affect in any way.

It’s all a huge insult to the intelligence of the American people. I doubt that the courts will be fooled, most particularly the Supreme Court.

July 24, 2022 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

An idea about stopping this mess

By Meryl Nass | July 24, 2022

Let’s create a pledge, and ask everyone who agrees to sign it. We have a nearly identical pledge that citizens then ask ALL candidates for elected office to sign, or we note that they refused.

The concept is to get millions of signatures against all the emergency rules and mandated vaccines that have destroyed economies, jobs, kept people from home and work, mandated useless masks and 6 foot distancing, initiated vaccine passports and numerous other restrictions, and have maintained the emergency way beyond any rational need.

If enough people sign, the candidates will be forced to sign or be publicly exposed as in favor of the emergency regs and mandatory shots, possibly forever… basically in favor of the Great Reset.

Here is an initial version of the sort of pledge I envision:

  1. I support laws to revoke all emergency laws, declarations, rules and regulations immediately (examples include: PREP Act, Bioshield Act, PAHPRA, Emergency State Health Power Acts, International Health Regulations of the WHO that transfer authority for pandemic management and/or declare public health emergencies).
  2. If I am a candidate, I pledge to introduce and support such legislation as my highest priority.
  3. I support laws explicitly protecting bodily autonomy and preventing the imposition of vaccine or other medical mandates.
  4. If I am a candidate, I pledge to support such legislation as my next higest priority.

Who agrees? Who has a better idea? Who can help craft the best language? Who will collect signatures?

Meryl

July 24, 2022 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , , , | Leave a comment

Israel warns Moscow about ‘consequences’ amid Jewish Agency row

Samizdat | July 24, 2022

The anticipated closure of The Jewish Agency in Russia will have a serious impact on Russia-Israel relations, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid warned on Sunday. The quasi-governmental organization, which promotes the repatriation of Jews to Israel, has been targeted by Russia’s Justice ministry over alleged violations of local law.

“Prime Minister Lapid said in the meeting that ties with Russia are important to Israel. The Jewish community in Russia is large and important and comes up in every diplomatic discussion with the administration in Moscow,” the PM’s office said in a statement.

“Closing the Jewish Agency’s offices would be a grave event, which will have consequences on those ties.”

Earlier this week, a Moscow court said it had received a formal request from the Justice Ministry to liquidate the Russian branch of the agency.

While the exact nature of the allegations the agency faces has not been made public, Israeli media reported the organization had earlier this month received a warning from the ministry over a breach of laws related to data storage and protection. The pretrial hearing on the case, which may result in a ban on the agency, is scheduled for Thursday.

Responding to the situation around the organization, Israel expressed readiness to immediately dispatch a diplomatic delegation to Russia to “to ensure the continuation” of the group’s activities in the country. The readiness for talks was reiterated on Sunday, with the PM’s office confirming the delegation would be ready to set out for Moscow as soon as “it receives Russian approval for the talks.”

The Jewish Agency, founded in late 1920, first assisted in “repatriating” Jews to Palestinian lands, and to the state of Israel later on. In Russia, the organization maintains a large network, with its officers and partners operating in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major cities across the country.

July 24, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | Leave a comment

Israeli Soldiers Kill Two Palestinians, Injure Nineteen, In Nablus

IMEMC | JULY 24, 2022

Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinians and injured nineteen, including one who suffered a serious gunshot wound to the head, in the Old City of Nablus, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank on Sunday at dawn.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has confirmed that the soldiers killed Abboud Sobeh, 29, and Mohammad al-Azizi, 22, in the al-Yasmina neighborhood in Nablus’s Old City.

The PRCS added that the soldiers shot nineteen other Palestinians, including ten who were shot with live fire, among them one who was shot in the head and is in critical condition.

The incidents took place after undercover Israeli soldiers infiltrated Nablus before many armored military vehicles invaded it from several directions, resulting in exchanges of fire between the invading soldiers and Palestinian resistance fighters.

The soldiers surrounded a home where several Palestinian resistance fighters were located and exchanged fire with them for several hours before the army fired a few missiles at the property, killing the two young men, while the five others managed to escape unharmed.

The missiles caused excessive damage to the home and several surrounding homes, buildings, and mangled cars parked on the sides of the street.

The soldiers withdrew from Nablus a few hours after killing the two Palestinians and wounding twelve, leaving massive destruction to homes and buildings.

Nablus Abu Rudeina, the spokesperson of the Palestinian President, denounced the invasion, the killing of the two Palestinians, and the injuring of the twelve and said that Israel is only interested in escalation and more violence.

July 24, 2022 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Net Zero Policies Will Turn Europe Into a “Trivial and Incapable” Backwater

BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC |  JULY 24, 2022

The social and economic destructive power of the political Net Zero agenda across the European Union, and by extension the U.K., is laid bare in a damning new report from the Global Warming Policy Foundation. In a long and detailed presentation, energy writer John Constable warns that the European Green Deal seems all but certain to break Europe’s economic and socio-political power – “rendering it a trivial and incapable backwater, reliant on – and subservient to – superior powers”.

It is easy to read into the report that “superior powers” include countries that supply Europe with vital oil and gas and make the industrial goods required to enjoy current lifestyles. If they wish, European consumers and politicians can continue to indulge in monumental green virtue signalling, print money until kingdom come and even consider resurrecting old economic and social disasters like pointless Covid restrictions. The TalkTV host Julia Hartley-Brewer often notes that Net Zero is “borderline insanity”. The use of the word “borderline” seems superfluous.

The collapse in competitive manufacturing capacity is nowhere more evident than in the renewable sector itself, says Constable.

It is clear that renewable energy equipment manufacturing has no future in the EU, and indeed manufacturing of any kind exposed to international competition will struggle to survive, except in niche areas.

The all but total collapse of the Spanish solar industry within eight years is highlighted. Constable describes it as “extraordinary” and in large part explained by the curtailment of subsidies. Overall, he says, “subsidised deployment in Europe has failed to give European industries a secure position in the world markets for renewable energy equipment. The field is now dominated by China”.

Again, it might be noted that if you can’t even pay companies to produce hardware under local economic conditions, Boris Johnson’s promise – backed it seems by almost all politicians – to bring plentiful green jobs in the U.K. across the ‘Red Wall’ is just windy rhetoric.

News of an impending Net Zero calamity is rarely far from the headlines. Tata Steel has been trying to obtain subsidies approaching £1.5bn from the U.K. Government to pay decarbonising costs and keep Port Talbot steelworks operational. “The new Prime Minister is unlikely to be willing to hand over subsidies on this scale, not least because every other industry hit by demands for decarbonisation would insist on handouts too,” said Dr. Benny Peiser, Director of Net Zero Watch. “It is becoming more evident by the day that the Climate Change Committee misled Parliament over the true cost of Net Zero,” he added.

The lack of Net Zero discussion in the current Tory leadership battle is interesting. Savvy politicians are starting to become aware of the disaster that is hurtling towards society as it seeks to quickly remove the cheapest and most efficient fuel it has from the energy mix and replace it with intermittent sources – described by Constable as “thermodynamically incompetent”. On the other hand, large swathes of the population have become convinced that the climate is breaking down, as evidenced by the hysteria that surrounded the recent brief heatwave. The science is ‘settled’, although a more realistic interpretation is that green activists and financiers have pursued a ruthless 30-year campaign to outlaw the scientific method from atmospheric climate science.

Constable argues that a change of course is inevitable to undo the “deeply embedded” harm of nearly 30 years. Moving towards “fundamentally cheaper energy” will require substantial reductions in European living standards. “Explaining this to the European people will form the greatest political challenge of the next 50 years,” he says.

In his wider report, Constable attempts to demonstrate that the enthusiastic adoption of the green agenda in the 1990s and early 2000s “has effectively produced gradual industrial and economic disarmament”. The ‘”resultant enfeeblement” compared to Europe’s competitors will make arresting the decline difficult: “Recovering the situation entirely may be impossible.” The author lists numerous body blows to overall competitiveness. Electricity prices to industry in the EU between 2008-2018 have been about 30% above those in the G20, an organisation that includes China, India and Russia. Gas price were 20-30% higher. Electricity prices were 80% and 30% higher respectively for industry and households,  and this would have hit competitiveness hard and placed heavy energy costs on some of those least able to afford them. Petrol prices were approximately 30-50% higher, and diesel 10-40%, figures again that were guaranteed to destroy competitiveness outside the EU’s protective internal single market.

Meanwhile, energy consumption in the EU has been falling and is now said to be at levels last seen in the early 1990s. Such a deep and sustained decline is said to be unprecedented in the modern era. In the U.K., electricity consumption is reported to have fallen back to levels not seen since 1970. Energy efficiency, of course, plays a part, but Constable notes the effect of “price rationing and demand destruction”. The report labels Europe’s “green experiment” as a “costly failure”, noting that “carbon dioxide abatement costs in the EU are on average several times greater than even high-end estimates of the social cost of carbon”. This is said to indicate that the economic harm of the EU’s mitigation policies “is greater than the climate change it aims to prevent”.

Politicians – and green activist commentators – often blame inflation, high energy prices and food shortages on recent events such as Russia’s war in Ukraine. But Constable argues that the Ukrainian war, while bringing the failures of climate policies into sharper focus, does not mean that the harm is of recent origin. “On the contrary,” he argues, “the environmental policies have been damaging to the EU’s interests, and advantageous to those of its rivals, from the very beginning.”

July 24, 2022 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | Leave a comment

Wrong, Legacy Media, Climate Change Is Not Causing Summer Heatwaves in the U.S. and Europe

By Anthony Watts | ClimateRealism | July 22, 2022

This past week, both the U.S. and Europe have had significant localized heatwaves. The one in Europe is particularly bothersome for the media, since the area is not prepared for temperatures that exceed 100°F like areas in the in the United States in places like California, Texas, and Oklahoma, where air conditioners are the norm, regularly experience. The mainstream media has uniformly blamed the heatwaves on human caused climate change. This attribution is wrong.

The headlines have been truly apoplectic, and absolutely wrong. For example:

With Record-Breaking Heat, Europe Glimpses Its Climate Future [Scientific American]

Climate change is killing people’: Europe’s extreme heatwave continues [EuroNews]

‘Climate change affects everyone’: Europe battles wildfires in intense heat [Reuters]

And in the United States, the media hype is just as wild and just as false:

Record-breaking heat waves in US and Europe prove climate change is already here, experts say [Yahoo News]

The climate crisis is driving heat waves and wildfires. Here’s how [CNN]

How the heat dome in Texas is related to climate change [Yahoo News]

Every summer in the Northern Hemisphere, it gets hot; that’s what summers do. Also, every year, a localized heatwave occurs somewhere in the world.

The error that is common to all of these news articles is the fact that weather is not climate.

Weather is an event that might last for minutes to a few days. A heatwave is a weather event that is typically linked to large scale weather patterns, such as a high-pressure cell which can create heat-domes in the summer. Climate is an average of weather over a thirty-year period as defined by the World Meteorological Organization. Note my highlights:

Each of these stories trying to link climate change to the heat wave does so without any proof whatsoever. They are nothing more than speculative fearmongering.

And, it isn’t limited to print and Internet media, the TV stations are overhyping it as well to make it seem like a crisis with the use of color. Figure 1 is a comparison of TV graphics on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in Summer 2012, versus Summer 2022.

Figure 1: Comparison of TV weather Maps from the BBC in summer 2012, left, and summer 2022 right. Source: BBC

Note that in 2012, some of the temperatures were actually higher, and they didn’t need to fill in areas with red to make it look worse than it actually is.

Another thing that you won’t find reported in the BBC on in the newspapers/Internet media is the fact that while record heat was going on in Western Europe, Eastern Europe was experiencing well below average temperatures. Figure 2 below shows the juxtaposition of heat in the UK and Europe compared to the below normal temperatures in Eastern Europe, which the press has ignored.

Figure 2: Surface Temperature map for UK and Europe on July 19, 2022. Image from ECMWF output via WeatherBell Inc.

That dramatic regional temperature difference seen in Figure 2 is a sure sign of this being a weather pattern, and not global scale climate change aka global warming as the media would have you believe. The same applies to the heat wave in the U.S. as seen in Figure 3. It is regional in its scope, not global.

Figure 3: Maximum Temperature for the Contiguous United States July 21, 2022. Source NOAA

As reported in Climate at a Glance: U.S. Heatwaves,

… in recent decades in the United States, heat waves have been far less frequent and severe than they were in the 1930s.

The all-time high temperature records set in most states occurred in the first half of the twentieth century.

The heat wave of 1936 was far deadlier. To their credit, The Washington Post got it right in this report:

The killer U.S. heat wave of 1936 spread as far north as Canada, led to the heat-related deaths of an estimated 5,000 people, sent thermometers to a record 121 degrees Fahrenheit in Steele, N.D., and made that July the warmest month ever recorded in the United States.

But the real issue is that extended high temperatures like the U.S. and Europe have experienced this month have happened before climate change became the universal go-to for blame. It only takes a small amount of research to discover these facts.

A search of the term heatwaves, on Wikipedia, for instance, finds that a heatwave and drought in 1540 in Europe lasted for 11 months, and that a heatwave in 1757 was the hottest in the past 500 years until 2003. Also, Netweather Community TV, called the 1906 heatwave in the U.K during August and September, “one of the most exceptional heatwaves to ever occurred in the UK.” A 1911 heatwave in France contributed to more than 41,000 premature deaths. More recently, in Europe, there was a massive months-long heat wave in 1976. This came at a time when the Earth was experiencing a 30 year cooling trend, that led many scientists to warn the next ice age was looming. Wikipedia’s entry on the 1976 event reports:

The summer of 1976 was considered to be the hottest summer in Europe, and especially the United Kingdom, during the 20th century. A large high-pressure area dominated most of Europe for all of the summer months. The pressure system moved into place in late May 1976 and remained until the first traces of rain were recorded on 27 August.

. . .

For the entire period much of Europe was bathed in continual sunshine with the United Kingdom seeing an average of more than 14 hours of sunshine per day. 1976 was dubbed “the year of the ladybird” in that country due to the rise in the mass numbers of the insect brought on by the long hot period. In the United Kingdom, the summer coincided with a 16-week dry spell, the longest recorded over England and Wales since 1727.

That high pressure pattern is almost identical to what has been seen in UK and Europe today. The difference is that the media today immediately goes to blame climate change rather than weather patterns, and in the case of this article in The New York Times, they even try to convince you that comparisons between the hot summers of 1976 and 2022 are somehow “misleading.”

“Yet the comparison to 1976 is misleading. The highest recorded temperature then was 35.9 degrees Celsius, whereas on Tuesday it surpassed 40 degrees.”

The BBC reported:

“Thermometers hit 40.3C at Coningsby in Lincolnshire, while 33 other locations went past the UK’s previous highest temperature of 38.7C, set in 2019.”

Figure 4. Graph of Temperature at RAF Base Coningsby for July 19th, 2022 showing a max temp of 104°F, Source: WeatherUndergroud.com

What the BBC and the NYT don’t tell you is that the 40 degree Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) was set at a Royal Air Force (RAF) base next to the heat absorbing sea of runway asphalt and tarmac. Figure 4 shows the temperature hour-by-hour that day and where it was recorded.

By contrast, the BBC reports “… the [previous] highest temperature ever recorded in the United Kingdom was 101.7 degrees, observed in Cambridge [at Cambridge University Botanic Garden] in July 2019.“

A botanical garden is an entirely different environment than an RAF air base.  The latter would be expected to be much warmer due to the lack of shade, the heat absorbing materials present, and the hot air expelled from jet engines. So, the “misleading” claim of the NYT is really about the lack of solid journalism in reporting the environment under which these temperatures were recorded.

It is well-known that the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect can contribute to warmer high temperatures, and given the UK went from 56 million people in 1976 to 67 million in 2020, it isn’t the least bit surprising that the UHI increased as infrastructure to support that 11 million extra people was added to that island nation.

The final word comes from meteorologist Cliff Mass, PhD, who did a thorough analysis of the short-lived heatwave event and writes (emphasis his):

The truth and overwhelming scientific evidence provide a different story: the recent European heatwave is mainly the result of natural processes but was enhanced modestly by human-caused global warming.

The situation is very much like the [Pacific] Northwest heatwave of last summer; with many of the same elements.

…

The bottom line is that the recent European heat wave was caused by an amplification of the northern hemisphere wave pattern, with global warming contributing perhaps 5-10% of the warmth. Natural variability of the atmosphere was the proximate cause of the warmth and does not represent an existential threat to the population of Europe.

Clearly, there’s no cause for alarm, no matter what the media says. But the media won’t tell you any of that, because it ruins their narrative of being able to blame the heatwave on climate change, while hoping you don’t notice their distortion of the truth about ordinary weather events we see every summer.

July 24, 2022 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | Leave a comment

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