Many people told them so — told them, meaning told the United States and Israel and even the overeager Palestinian leadership, that the Oslo agreement in1993 wasn’t fair, that it made too many demands of the Palestinians and virtually no enforceable demands of Israel; that the United States, no honest broker or neutral mediator, was looking out only for Israel’s interests and cared nothing for Palestinian concerns; that the peace process breakdown at Camp David in 2000 was not the fault of the Palestinians but was the responsibility of President Clinton and his “Israeli lawyer” advisers for representing only Israel’s needs; that while Clinton demanded Palestinian concessions, he was winking at Israel’s steady expansion of settlements and land grabs in Palestinian territory; that Clinton’s two successors did the same.
Many analysts told them that hopes for a genuine two-state solution died in the 1990s — indeed, were never realistic — because Israel, with U.S. knowledge and support, was swallowing Palestine, eating the pizza they were supposed to be negotiating over, as many Palestinians have said. But no one in power in the United States or the international community or in the media listened.
Someone may have to start listening. This U.S. complicity in Israeli expansionism, and the desperate acquiescence of the Palestinian leadership in Israeli demands for its surrender, have now been exposed in the massive document leak by al-Jazeera. Dubbed the Palestine Papers, the collection of almost 1,700 documents was obtained from unknown, possibly Palestinian, sources and covers a decade of “peace process” maneuvering. So far, there is only silence from the Obama administration, which is implicated in the documents along with the Bush and Clinton administrations. But reaction around the world is voluble and hard to ignore.
Palestinians, the documents show, offered compromises that verge on total capitulation. At a time in 2008 when talks with then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were coming to a head and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was pushing hard, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and his colleagues offered Israel the 1967 borders, the Palestinians’ right of return, and Israeli settlements on a silver platter. The Palestinians would have agreed to let Israel keep all settlements in East Jerusalem except Har Homa; allowed Israel to annex more settlements in the West Bank (altogether totaling over 400,000 settlers); agreed to an inequitable territorial swap in return for giving Israel prime West Bank real estate, and settled for the return of only 5,000 Palestinian refugees (out of more than four million) over a five-year period. And still Israel rejected the package of compromises, which they said “does not meet our demands” — presumably because their principal desire is that the Palestinians simply disappear.
The Palestinian eagerness to offer Israel such massive compromises has been the most prominent story from the Palestine Papers thus far, but the story of the pressure one U.S. administration after another has exerted on Palestinian negotiators to make these concessions and accommodate all Israel’s demands shows U.S. conduct throughout almost two decades of negotiations to be perhaps the most cynical, and indeed the most shameful, of the three parties.
United States negotiators, from Bill Clinton’s team, through Rice, to Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell today, have consistently treated the Palestinian leadership with humiliating derision. In the fall of 2009, Hillary Clinton asked Erekat why the Palestinians were, as she remarked snidely, “always in a chapter of a Greek tragedy.” Mitchell treated Erekat with similar contempt. During a meeting in 2008, Rice dismissed a Palestinian request for compensation for refugees forced to flee their homes in 1948 — a demand that goes to the heart of Palestinian grievances — with the remark that “bad things happen to people all around the world all the time.”
Policymakers clearly couldn’t be bothered. Scat, these Americans said to the pesky Palestinians in effect; we’re not interested in your silly grievances. In a blunt commentary on al-Jazeera, former CIA officer Robert Grenier has written that his reaction to what the Palestine Papers reveal about U.S. conduct is “one of shame.” The U.S., he says, has always followed a path of political expediency, “at the cost of decency, justice and our clear, long-term interests. More pointedly, the Palestine papers reveal us to have . . . demanded and encouraged the Palestinian participants to take disproportionate risks for a negotiated settlement, and then to have refused to extend ourselves to help them achieve it, leaving them exposed and vulnerable.” The papers “further document an American legacy of ignominy in Palestine.”
Shameful indeed. A London Guardian editorial captures the essence of U.S. policy as it has been pursued since the first days of the Obama administration and indeed since the first days of Israel 63 years ago: the Americans’ neutrality, the Guardian writes pointedly, “consists of bullying the weak and holding the hand of the strong.”
It may be too much to hope for serious change in this U.S. policy anytime soon, but the Palestine Papers revelations may at least open discussion on the wisdom of continuing to pursue a policy that virtually everyone throughout the world recognize as a “legacy of ignominy.”
Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and the author of several books on the Palestinian situation, including Palestine in Pieces, co-authored with her late husband Bill Christison. She can be reached atkb.christison@earthlink.net.
Jennifer Rubin has spent much time advocating for escalating U.S. measures on Iran. At Commentary, she called a U.S. attack on the Islamic Republic the “best of the disagreeable options.” Now, at the Washington Post, Rubin seems to have softened this view, calling for “more fruitful actions.”
But Rubin’s reporting on Iran issues often reflects the same sort of sloppy disregard for facts we saw in the run-up to the Iraq War: Neoconservative pundits and journalists pass speculation off as fact, ignoring context and mitigating factors that might cast doubt on their pronouncements.
Take, for example, Rubin’s Dec. 27 story about “the unchecked Iranian menace.” She draws all kinds of conclusions from a post by Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard. (The link to Hayes’s piece in Rubin’s post takes one to the login page for the Post’s content management system.) Hayes’s post is itself based on an article from the Long War Journal, a project of the neoconservative think tank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
The LWJ piece said that a Taliban member captured by ISAF (international forces in Afghanistan) was also a member of Iran’s elite Qods Force, a branch of the Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards. But the article had been updated from the original version (before either Hayes or Rubin picked it up).
The older version (reprinted here), as the newer one acknowledges, said that the claim about the Qods Force came from ISAF. The updated version noted that ISAF has since retracted the claim (here is the ISAF press release), but that an unnamed “senior U.S. intelligence official” corroborated the earlier version of events.
The story that the Taliban fighter was a member of the Qods force may well be true. (On the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television channel on Dec. 27, a London-based expert on Arab-Iranian relations said the fighter was indeed a Qods member.) But LWJ, to its credit, noted the ISAF retraction. Steven Hayes, writing at the Standard, did the same, albeit in a back-handed way:
Interestingly, ISAF officially confirmed the dual role of the captured operative, but later reversed itself. But Long War Journal’s Bill Roggio has a source that stands by the original claim.
Let’s hope we’re not muzzling the military now, too.
Then Jennifer Rubin picked up Hayes and… nada on the ISAF retraction.
Honest journalists feel the need to include critical context in their stories, even if that context can cast doubt on their report. While backed up by other sources, that’s exactly what this ISAF retraction did to the Taliban-Qods story — official Western military pronouncements tend to carry that kind of weight.
But Rubin, when it comes to Iran, seems incapable of honesty, let alone acknowledging facts that might cast doubt on her narrative of an ‘evil’ Iran. The fact that a writer at the ideological Weekly Standard felt the need to include the context that Rubin chose to leave out does not bode well for journalistic standards at the Washington Post.
“Marijuana’s Role in the Tucson Shooting” was the extremely misleading headline on an article by Joe Califano that the Huffington Post ran Jan. 21. Why is that supposedly liberal site disseminating propaganda by a leading Drug Warrior? There is no evidence that marijuana had any “role” in the Tucson shooting. Readers who only glance at the story will assume otherwise.
Califano begins by blowing politic kisses towards Barack Obama and John Boehner. Then he changes tone to sneer at “the thousands of pundits, left and right, arguing about the meaning of the tragedy in Arizona,” who missed a lesson “as important as any other lesson to come out of this tragedy. It’s about the relationship of marijuana use to psychotic illness.”
After another shot at commentators preoccupied with laws that allow automatic weapons and super-size ammo clips, Califano makes his pitch: “I haven’t seen press reports or talking heads discuss their concern about how easy it has been for this mentally ill young man to get marijuana. And there has been no mention of the potential of marijuana to spark latent psychosis and exacerbate schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.”
Califano cites a study in … the Lancet and two other studies suggesting that using cannabis leads to psychotic breaks. Califano does not allow that these studies are considered inconclusive at best by many psychiatrists, including Lester Grinspoon, whose textbook on Schizophrenia has been the standard text.
Califano quotes reports that Loughner once used marijuana; but he ignores other reports that Loughner quit three years ago and that his drug of choice was Salvia Divinorum. Califano wants the question settled: “If the police have any of the hair shaved from Loughner’s head, they can easily find out if marijuana was in his system at the time of the shooting. They may even be able to do so from hair that grows back in.”
It seems like an easy test to rig if one were so inclined. And we know Joe Califano of old, he has few qualms about manipulating the facts. The following is from O’Shaughnessy’s report on the Prop 215 campaign (the ballot initiative by which California voters legalized the medical use of marijuana on November 4, 1996):
In the final weeks of the campaign some leading drug warriors from Back East -stunned that the people of California were on the verge of rejecting a lifetime of their propaganda-decided to step in. Joseph Califano, president of the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, flew out to Los Angeles on Tuesday, Oct. 28 to warn Californians that they did not understand the open-endedness of Prop 215. Califano had hired two pollsters to query 800 residents over the weekend. He must have been very confident of the outcome because arrangements for his press conference were made before the questions had been asked. “It was a push-pull,” explains Paul Maslin, a San Francisco pollster. This is a type of survey in which the questioner, after getting an initial response, provides additional information and then asks again, evoking a changed response. Califano announced at his press conference that 46 percent of the respondents supported Prop 215 when first asked, but only 36 percent after its inherent looseness had been pointed out to them. Califano’s goal in commissioning the poll, according to Maslin was to make voters think that the “no” side still had a realistic chance on Election Day and to minimize any bandwagon effect that would magnify the “yes” vote.
Flash-forward to the Huffington Post, Jan. 21. Califano concludes:
“we should be asking this question: Is Jared Loughner an individual whose psychosis was prompted or exacerbated by the use of marijuana? Whether or not he is, it is important for the press and parents to see this horrendous incident not only as a teaching moment about the easy availability and dangerous potential of automatic weapons, but also as a teaching moment about the easy availability and dangerous potential of marijuana to spark and exacerbate psychosis and schizophrenia in individuals with latent mental illnesses.
“The missing story line in existing news reports and television chatter shows is about the terrible trinity of easy availability of guns, easy availability of marijuana and mental illness. The question for all of us, especially parents of teenagers, to ask is this: Is the media’s failure to acknowledge this tragic trinity due to its tendency to overlook or underplay the dangers of marijuana use?
“Joseph A. Califano, Jr., Founder and Chair of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, was Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Carter Administration, and served from 1965 to 1969 as chief domestic affairs assistant to president Lyndon B. Johnson.”
The British government is complicit in torturing political prisoners detained and jailed in the occupied West Bank by the Palestinian Authority (PA), a senior British officer said.
The officer, James MacInnis is charged with training the PA’s top security officials as part of a plan to provide assistance and financial support to PA agents in arresting and torturing members of the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas.
MacInnin admitted to the British role in torturing Palestinian prisoners after an Arab organization for human rights in London revealed that the PA has been torturing prisoners affiliated with Hamas for years.
Torture techniques used in PA prisons included shabh (hanging) of all kinds, beatings with cables, pulling out nails, suspension from the ceiling, flogging, kicking, cursing, electric shocks, sexual harassment and the threat of rape, according to the report.
At least six Palestinians have died under torture in PA prisons and many former detainees have permanent physical disabilities, the report found.
The human rights organization said that it has documented such “crimes” for three years, from October 2007 to October 2010.
During that period, the report said, PA security forces in the West Bank detained 8, 640 Palestinians at a rate of eight arrests per day.
“Every one of those detainees has been subject to humiliating and degrading treatment, and stayed in cells for more than 10 days,” the report said. “The analysis shows that an astonishing 95 percent of the detainees were subjected to severe torture, others feeling the detrimental effects on their health for varying periods.”
The report also found that 77 percent of those who had been detained by the PA security forces had been arrested in the past by Israel.
Representatives of the organization met with victims, or their relatives, and distributed a questionnaire, in secret, to detainees who were held in PA prisons.
“Men and women from all sectors of Palestinian society have been subject to arrest and torture,” the report noted. “These include students, workers, teachers, doctors, engineers, university professors and lawyers.”
Last week, NBC News surprised everyone by featuring an interview conducted in Pakistan with Mohammed Saad Iqbal Madni, a former Guantánamo prisoner — and an innocent man seized in Indonesia in January 2002, at a time when the Bush administration was out of control, kidnapping men around the world and subjecting them to “extraordinary rendition” and torture in foreign prisons on the the merest suspicion that they were connected to terrorist activities.
Madni, an Islamic scholar, was rendered to Egypt and tortured because, on a trip to Indonesia to sort out his late father’s affairs, he was recorded by Indonesian intelligence with a group of young Indonesian Islamists who were under surveillance, and who, in their conversation, discussed the shoe bomber Richard Reid, who had been captured the month before. When the information was passed to US intelligence and he was picked up, the prevailing opinion about him based on interviews after his capture — that he was nothing more than a “blowhard,” who “wanted us to believe he was more important than he was,” and that he would be held for a few days, “then booted out of jail,” as a US intelligence official told Ray Bonner of the New York Times in 2005 — was ignored, and someone higher up the chain of command ordered his rendition to Egypt. … Full article
We had joy, we had fun, we had Seasons of the Sun.
But the mountains we climbed were but whimsies of our minds.
That song (apologies to Terry Jacks) could well be the theme for the official climate Team as they hike to the airy peak of Mt. Hansen on the supposed 0.8ºC warming since 1880, only to look out at the bleak prospect, for them, of level ground, and the possibility of some cooling over the coming decades.
This is the third of my Tale of the Global Warming Tiger series where I allocate the supposed 0.8ºC warming since 1880 to: (1) Data Bias, (2) Natural Cycles, the subject of this posting, and (3) AGW, which will be the subject of a subsequent posting. Click Tiger’s Tale and Tail :^) to see my allocation and read the original story.
NATURAL PROCESSES AND CYCLES
This posting is about how natural processes and cycles have dominated the global warming experienced since 1880. The base chart for the above graphic is the NASA GISS Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index that indicates the official climate Team estimate of about 0.8ºC net warming, the majority of which they allocate to human activities. In contrast, according to my annotations, the actual net warming is closer to 0.5ºC (0.8ºC – 0.3ºC Data Bias), and most of that, 0.4ºC, is due to natural cycles and processes over which humans have no control or effect.
The violet curve in the graphic is my estimate of the effect of natural cycles from 1880 to the present. There are many natural processes that affect the surface temperature of the Earth, but nearly all of them gain their energy from the Sun which is why I call them Normal Seasons of the Sun. In the following three sections, they are divided into three groups, according to their time scales and effects.
GRADUAL PROCESSES AND CYCLES LESS IMPORTANT ON HUMAN TIME SCALES
Biological life is thought to have existed on Earth for about 3.5 billion years. Over that enormous time period, natural processes and cycles have affected the evolution of life. Absent those processes, we would not be here, or at least not in our current condition. However, some of these processes and cycles operate ponderously slowly, to the point they are barely noticed on the time scale of an individual human life or even on the time scale of ten lives. Therefore, they are of virtually no concern:
(a) Brightening Sun The Sun is about 4.5 billion years old, and about halfway through what is called the main sequence evolution for a star of its type. It has been getting brighter, but very slowly and nearly imperceptibly. In about 5 billion years, the Sun will become a Red Giant, and life as we know it on Earth will no longer be possible. However, the rate of brightening is so small that we may ignore it.
(b) Milankovitch Cycles. The Earth’s orbit around the Sun is affected by slow, cyclic variations in eccentricity (100,000 years), axial tilt (41,000 years), and precesssion (21,000 years). Changes in the Earth’s orbit do not affect the quantity of average yearly solar radiation, but the distribution between equatorial regions and polar regions is affected. This may be the cause of the approximately 100,000 year cycle of ice age glaciations. However, the contribution of these effects over a period as short as that from 1880 to the present is so small we may ignore it.
(c) Heat from Earth’s Core. About 0.01% of the energy responsible for heating the surface of the Earth is due to energy from the decay of radioactive materials in the Earth’s core. This source has a half life measured in billions of years. This is such a tiny fraction of the Earth’s heat budget that we may ignore it.
PROCESSES AND CYCLES OF IMPORTANCE ON HUMAN TIME SCALES
(d) Normal Seasons of the Sun. The nominal 11-year Solar Cycles, during which Sunspot counts vary from low numbers to a peak and then down again, may be as short as 9 years or as long as 14. Magnetic polarity changes for every pair of cycles, so there is an 18 to 28 year magnetic cycle. Often there are series of three or more cycles, spanning periods of 30 to 150 or more years where solar activity may be very low (below 50 spots per month) and series of similar lengths where activity may be very high (above 100 spots per month).
Low Sunspot series are historically associated with decades of unusually cold climate and vice-versa for high Sunspot series. Total Solar Irradiation (TSI) does not change much during a single Sunspot cycle, but, over a series of high (or low) cycles, it may change enough to result in an increase (or decrease) of 0.1ºC. This TSI effect of Solar Cycles accounts for about a quarter of the of 0.4ºC I have allocated for natural cycles.
(e) Henrick Svensmark’s Global Cosmic Ray (GCR) Theory. GCRs have a positive role in the formation of clouds. Low-lying daytime clouds tend to cool the surface of the Earth. Therefore, all else being equal, the more GCRs, the more clouds, and the cooler the surface of the Earth. Increased solar magnetic activity, which coincides with higher Sunspot numbers, may divert some portion of GCRs from reaching the Earth, thereby reducing cloud formation and thus lessening their cooling effects.
Via this mechanism, a series of high Sunspot cycles may indirectly cause surface temperatures to rise, and a series of low cycles may cause them to fall, which is consistent with the historical record. Svensmark’s theory, if correct, could account for some of the 0.4ºC I have allocated to natural cycles and processes.
(f) Multi-Decadal Ocean Oscillations. There are a number of ocean oscillations, with periods of from less than a decade to multiple decades, that affect sea surface temperatures and therefore have climate impacts worldwide. These include the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and others. The ENSO, for example, has a warm phase, called El Niño, Spanish for “the boy”, and a cool phase, called La Niña, “the girl”. The El Niño that started in 1998 caused global warming of 0.1ºC to 0.4ºC for a couple years.
While the net effect of any cycle on temperature anomalies is zero, they have significant effects during their high and low durations. Given the existence of several, somewhat independent ocean oscillations, their high and low times may tend to reinforce or cancel each other out, and that may explain multi-decadal episodes of positive and negative anomalies. There may be some correlation of these cycles with solar activity, which is, of course, the main source of their energy. Thus, ocean cycles could account for some of the 0.4ºC I have allocated to natural cycles and processes.
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE FEEDBACKS OF IMPORTANCE ON HUMAN TIME SCALES
(g) ATMOSPHERIC GASES (net positive feedback). Long-wave radiation from the Earth extends from about 4 to 25 microns, with maximum energy around 10 microns. See the absorption spectrum for “greenhouse” gases. Note that the absorption spectra for water vapor (H2O) in the range of interest extends from about 5 to 8 microns and from around 12 to 25 microns. Note also that the absorption spectra for other atmospheric gases, such as methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (NO2), and oxygen/ozone (O2/O3), partially overlap H2O such that the atmosphere absorbs (and re-emits) nearly 100% of 4 to 25 micron radiation, except for two nearly transparent windows in the 8 to 9 and 10 to 12 micron regions.
Nearly all the carbon gases in the atmosphere are from natural sources, mostly respiration and digestive gasses of living animals and the decay of dead plants and animals. (The small proportion of carbon gases due to human activity, mainly burning of previously sequestered coal, oil, and natural gas, will be discussed in a future topic here on WUWT. For the purposes of this posting, only natural carbon gases are considered.)
When an atmospheric gas absorbs longwave radiation in its spectrum, that radiative energy is re-emitted in a broader spectrum and in all directions, about half towards the Earth and the other half out towards space.
When atmospheric CO2 absorbs 4 to 5 micron radiation from the Earth, or CH4 absorbs 7 to 8 micron radiation, and that energy is re-emitted, some will fall into the nearly transparent windows and head out to space nearly unimpeded. About half of the remaining energy will be re-emitted back towards the Earth’s surface and will add to warming.
The same is true for H2O, NO2, O2, and O3. Thus, increases in any of these gases will tend to increase warming of the Earth, all else being equal. That means, should the surface of the Earth experience a temperature increase, due to natural solar effects or any other cause, and if that increases emission of carbon gases from equatorial and summer temperate oceans, and reduces absorption of carbon gases by the polar and the winter temperate oceans, that will consititute a positive feedback. The inverse is also true. Should surface temperatures decrease, and if this reduces the amount of CO2, CH4, or H2O gases in the atmosphere, that will reduce the “greenhouse” effect, and tend to further cool the surface. Thus carbon gases and water vapor represent a positive feedback to surface warming.
(h) CLOUDS (net negative feedback). Short-wave radiation from the Sun extends from about 0.2 microns (ultraviolet light) to 2 microns (near infrared light), with maximum energy around 0.5 microns (green light in the visible spectrum). Moderate warming of the surface has a net effect of increasing the extent of cloud cover. Daytime clouds reflect much of the short-wave radiation back out to space, which is a powerful negative feedback. However, both day- and nightime clouds also absorb long-wave radiation from the Earth and re-emit about half of it back down, further warming the surface, a positive feedback. There is disagreement over whether the net effect of clouds is warming or cooling. Most of the official climate Team models assume the net effect is positive, others, including me, assume it nets out as negative.
(i) SURFACE ICE (net positive feedback). Ice, having a high albedo (reflective quality of white or light-colored surfaces), reflects much of the short-wave radiation from the Sun back out to space, which has a cooling effect. Warming of the Earth’s surface may thin and ultimately melt the ice and expose the underlying sea water or land. Water and land are less reflective. Thus, warming that causes melting has a net positive feedback.
(j) THUNDERSTORMS, HURRICANES, ETC. (net negative feedback). These tend to mix the atmosphere and, since the surface is generally warmer than the lower air masses, storms and other disturbances of the atmosphere tend to be a cooling influence. Thunderstorms, in particular, tend to lift warmer air from the surface to higher elevations where the heat energy may more readily radiate out to space.
Thus, if warming of the surface causes more water vapor in the atmosphere, and if this causes more thunderstorms and hurricanes, or makes them more intense, they have a negative feedback effect.
(k) PRECIPITATION (net negative feedback). Water vapor in the atmosphere cools by radiation of its heat energy in all directions, including out to space. The vapor condenses, forming liquid (rain) and solid (snow) water precipitates. Since the radiating tends to take place high in the atmosphere, where the heat energy may more readily radiate out to space, this precipitation constitutes a net cooling effect. Rain and snow tend to be cooler than the surface, and that is also a net cooling effect. Thus, if warming of the surface causes more water vapor in the atmosphere, and if this causes more precipitation, that is a negative feedback effect.
(l) VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS. These spew hot gases, liquids, and solids from the bowels of the Earth onto the surface and into the atmosphere. In the short-term, this tends to heat the surface. However, the aerosols from the volcano, basically sulphur and other mineral compounds, are driven high into the air and tend to remain for years, which tends to reflect Sunlight back into space, which, in the longer-term, tends to cool the surface. The net effect is cooling. For example, the eruption at Mt. Pinatubo in 1991 cooled global temperatures 0.1ºC to 0.3ºC for a few years thereafter.
CONCLUSIONS AND REQUESTS
I believe I have hit on and briefly described all the major natural processes and cycles that affect average global temperatures. However, if readers have additional information or corrections to what I said about any of them, or if there are some I missed, I would appreciate detailed comments to improve my summary.
It seems to me that my estimate of 0.4ºC for Normal Seasons of the Sun is fully justified, but I am open to hearing the opinions of WUWT readers who may think I have over- (or under-) estimated this component of the supposed 0.8ºC rise in global temperatures since 1880.
In my first and second postings in this Tale of the Global Warming Tiger series, I asked for comments on my allocations: to: (1) Data Bias 0.3ºC, (2) Natural Cycles 0.4ºC, and (3) AGW 0.1ºC.
Quite a few readers were kind enough to comment, either expressing general agreement or offering their own estimates.
Some commenters claim that the actual Data Bias is larger than my estimate of 0.3ºC. Some think Data Bias may be responsible for the entire amount of the supposed 0.8ºC rise in global temperatures since 1880, meaning that net warming over that period is ZERO. I accept that Data Bias may be 50% more (or less) than my estimate, which would put it between 0.15ºC and 0.45ºC, but I doubt it could be as large as 0.8ºC.
Other commenters claim that AGW is ZERO. In other words, they believe that rising CO2 and land use changes due to human activities have no effect on temperatures or climate. They believe the lack of effect is due to the negative feedback from cloud albedo and other natural negative feedback processes. I agree clouds have a net negative feedback (most official models assume a net positive feedback) but I do not believe this cancels out all the effects of CO2 on the Earth’s surface absorption of Solar radiation nor of albedo changes due to land use. I accept that AGW may be 50% less (or more) than my estimate, which would put it between 0.05ºC and 0.2ºC, but I doubt it could be as large as 0.8ºC.
What do you think? I have been keeping a spreadsheet record of reader’s opinions, which I appreciate and value greatly, along with their screen names, and I plan to report the results later in this series.
This is what you may look forward to:
Some People Claim There’s a Human to Blame – Yes, human actions, mainly burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use, are responsible for some small amount of Global Warming.
Is the Global Warming Tiger a Pussy Cat? – If, as many of us expect, natural processes lead to stabilization of global temperatures over the coming decades, and perhaps a bit of cooling, we will realize the whole Global Warming uproar was like the boy who saw a pussy cat and cried tiger.
No commission of inquiry can authorize the collective punishment of a civilian population by restricting its movement and access, as Israel did in its closure of Gaza, of which the maritime closure was an integral part. Gisha notes that a primary goal of the restrictions, as declared by Israel, was to paralyze the economy in Gaza and prevent its residents from leading normal lives. International law forbids using civilians to advance “strategic” goals, under circumstances in which Israel controls their ability to transfer goods. Although some of the restrictions were removed following the flotilla incident, Israel continues to restrict the movement of persons, the entrance of building materials and the transfer of goods for sale outside Gaza – with no valid security justification.
International law permits restricting movement for purposes of security, so long as Israel protects the rights of residents in Gaza to engage in normal life. However, imposing a closure for purposes of punishment is forbidden, as the International Committee of the Red Cross stated in reference to the maritime incident. According to official documents obtained by Gisha under the Freedom of Information Act, Israel prevented the passage of civilian goods such as spices, raw materials and consumer items and even set limitations for the amount of food it would permit residents of Gaza to purchase. We disagree with the Commission’s conclusion that the restrictions were justified for military or “strategic” reasons. It is unclear how preventing the transfer into Gaza of industrial margarine, paper, and coriander contributed to a legitimate military goal.
So long as Israel controls central elements of life in Gaza, including movement via the crossings, it must take responsibility for the effects of its control on the 1.5 million human beings living in the Gaza Strip. Gisha expresses hope that Israel will cancel the many remaining restrictions that are not related to concrete security risks and will allow the free movement of people and goods into and out of Gaza, subject only to individual security checks.
For a position paper on the maritime closure and the Turkel Commission, click here.
For a position paper on the continuing restrictions on access into and out of Gaza, click here.
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — An Israeli organization has compiled many statements by Israeli soldiers confessing to war crimes against unarmed Palestinians in a book that will be released soon and sold in Europe.
The NGO Breaking the Silence will release this month details of torture and murder incidents committed by 180 soldiers from 2000 to 2009.
Testimonies, tapes and images have already been in circulation, but the soldiers who testified will for the first time ever reveal their identities and faces.
Breaking the Silence founder Yehuda Shaul, who is an ex-soldier, said he aimed to launch debate in Israel about the country’s army.
“[The Israeli army] is corrupting the youth,” Shaul said.
The book, containing first time ever released details, is expected to spark controversy in Israel and the world over.
Breaking the Silence has a membership of 700 former soldiers and activists.
Update: a nearly final electronic version can befound online.
What our Foreign Office minister said on his recent visit to Israel and occupied Palestine shows more clearly than ever why the struggle in the Holy Land extends all the way to our own front door here in the UK.
The new minister in charge of Middle East affairs, Alistair Burt, was there to reward the sterling work of the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister, Salam Fayyad, and his boss, Mahmoud Abbas, with a gift of GBP 17 million. This largesse no doubt made the British government feel better about doing naff-all to right the catalogue of wrongs going back to 1917.
The official reason was that Burt is impressed by the dynamic duo’s progress towards creating an independent, viable Palestinian state “living in peace with a secure Israel”.
Their only real achievement, however, is the way they have turned the occupied territories into a police state of the most sinister kind, with torture, rape and other extreme forms of cruelty a regular feature of the prisons they run.
This bonus from the British taxpayer is supposed to pay for schooling for over 4,400 children, fund 340 teachers and help 15,000 people continue to receive clean water, says Burt.
More likely it’s a sweetener to get the Palestinian leaders back to the negotiation table. Burt seems desperately keen for that to happen, though God knows why.
It is critical that both sides find a way to return to talks. The current impasse is of great concern and I urge all parties to take immediate steps to secure a lasting peace…
We firmly believe that this should see a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders and with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is the solution which offers the best prospect of a just and sustainable peace.
I also hold firmly the view that settlement construction is illegal, wrong and should stop. It blights the lives of Palestinians and is an obstacle to peace.
Talk is easy when you have no intention of following it up with action. Mr Burt is not about to transform himself into a man of action for peace. Why not? Because he’s an Israel lobby stooge. He used to be (and maybe still is, for all I know) an officer of that infamous bunch of Israel-firsters, the Conservative Friends of Israel.
The Foreign Office is stuffed with them, all appointed by our new prime minister, David “I’m-a-Zionist” Cameron. This misguided individual is famously quoted on the Friends of Israel website as saying: “The friendship … will deepen, because the ties between this party and Israel are unbreakable. And in me, you have a prime minister whose belief in Israel is indestructible.”
It is a disgrace that the Conservatives, who were not given a clear mandate to govern, nevertheless vomit their infatuation with the thuggish Israeli regime all over their much more level-headed coalition partners (the Liberal Democrats), the whole British nation and the Arab world.
Go to the UK’s Israel embassy website where Burt “answers your questions” and see the way he tells everyone how “clear” or “firm” the UK government position is on this and that. When challenged to say what exactly he is doing to uphold the official position or enforce official policy, he sidesteps every time.
Burt’s indoctrination
In a speech to the Board of Deputies of British Jews in London last year, Burt told his audience he had worked from the age of 15 for an MP who was a president of the Board and founder of the Conservative Friends of Israel, and how this “had a lasting effect upon me, and on my interests in Parliament”.
He said: “Israel is an important strategic partner and friend for the UK and we share a number of important shared objectives across a broad range of policy areas.”
Offhand, can anybody think of a single objective they would wish to share with those people?
On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said that “without an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis then peace in the Middle East is unobtainable”.
He added, apparently oblivious to the irony of his remarks:
Those who are enemies of peace will continue to use the conflict for their own purposes… We cannot allow those who want to pursue a violent agenda to succeed…As a friend to both sides, we are committed to a two-state solution and we will continue to support the efforts of the US to broker a peace deal between both sides.
And as an honest broker, the UK government does not believe that economic sanctions or embargoes on Israel [are] the way to engage or to influence it.
The “friend to both sides” and “honest broker” he refers to has been happy to use economic sanctions to collectively punish the Gazans, who are no threat to us, and thinks nothing of threatening the Iranians, who are no threat to us. Why so queasy about doing the same to Israel, which is a threat to everyone? All else has failed. Could it be that Mr Burt is actually no more interested in peace than the Israelis?
“And I know some of you here are concerned about Universal Jurisdiction… We have prioritized resolving this and look to see legislation introduced to Parliament…”
His eagerness to sabotage the Geneva Convention’s principle of Universal Jurisdiction so that suspected Israeli war criminals can walk the streets of London without fear of arrest, reflects his party’s eagerness to appease the whining of the psychopaths.
Needless to say the Jewish Chronicle was ecstatic about Burt’s appointment as a Foreign Office minister, which it said sent
as clear a message as possible about the direction of the new government in the region. Mr Burt is listed as an officer in the parliamentary group of Conservative Friends of Israel and has been passionate in campaigning for visiting rights to Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier held hostage by Hamas for the past four years… The appointment of Mr Burt and Mr [David] Lidington will be seen as an attempt to distance the Foreign Office from its Arabist, “Camel Corps” reputation.
The Jewish Chronicle continued: “Mr Burt will have to work hard within the Arab world to build credibility and prove that he is an honest broker. He will not be helped by his commitment to the Evangelical Christian movement.”
Burt’s deep concern for Shalit, whose capture and detention he calls “outrageous” while ignoring the thousands of Palestinian civilians (including women and children) abducted and left to rot in Israeli jails without trial, wins him no credibility.
At the Jerusalem Post they were rubbing their hands in glee. The director of the Conservative Friends of Israel called Burt’s appointment excellent news. “I have travelled to Israel with Alistair on numerous occasions. He has an excellent knowledge and understanding of the complex issues of the region and is well-placed to approach the brief with the balance and fairness it requires.”
London Muslim, on his blog, confessed he had been
under the impression that one of the qualities needed to be a minister in the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office] was that you championed Britain rather than a foreign government that practises apartheid and fakes British passports before carrying out assassinations. My impression was also that when MPs take the oath … they swear allegiance to Liz [Queen Elizabeth] and her heirs, not Israel.
“Burt is a Christian Evangelical who like many of his eschatology ilk, particularly in America, will be hoping for Armageddon in the Middle East.
Yes, let’s hang on to that bleak thought.
Britain’s Israel-firsters ditch law and justice for lopsided “negotiation”
Stopping off in Jordan, Burt announced that Britain would not recognize a Palestinian state unless it emerged from a peace deal with Israel. London could “not recognize a state that does not have a capital, and doesn’t have borders.”
London recognizes Israel. Where does Burt suppose Israel’s borders are? And is Israel sitting inside them? Where does he think Israel’s capital is? And where does Israel claim it to be? In other words, is Israel where Israel is supposed to be, within internationally defined borders? If not, how could he possibly recognize it let alone align himself with it?
Burt had talked the previous day about a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In the space of a few short hours he seemed to have completely lost the plot.
Burt said:
We are looking forward to recognizing a Palestinian state at the end of the negotiations on settlements because our position is again very straightforward: We wish to see a two-state solution, a secure and recognized Israel side by side with a viable Palestine, Jerusalem as a joint capital and agreed borders.
Negotiations about illegal settlements? Since when did Her Majesty’s Government negotiate over criminal acts and crimes against humanity? Unless of course Alistair Burt is now answering to Queen Hillary Clinton, who has rejected in advance an anticipated Palestinian resolution in the UN condemning unlawful Israeli settlement building. Queen Hillary says the issue of illegal squats can be resolved through “negotiations” between Palestinians and Israelis and to hell with international law. Mr Burt obliges by chiming sweetly with this conspiracy. “That’s where we want to get to. When we get there, that of course will imply recognition of a state of Palestine.”
Many people are betting that, compared to the borders already defined by law and UN resolution, any “negotiated” solution will be worth diddly-squat.
As for a unilateral declaration of independence by the Palestinians, he said it would mean ambiguity on crucial issues like the capital of the state, its borders and the fate of refugees.
Again, Mr Burt hasn’t been paying attention. These things were ruled on long ago. But instead of enforcing international law and upholding justice, as he should, he cooperates with the most dishonest peace brokers on the planet to revive discredited, lopsided talks between dispossessed victim and criminal occupier. Where’s the honour in that?
Aiming to grab Gaza’s gas too
And talking of boundary recognition, where does Mr Burt suppose the Palestinian state’s offshore boundaries are? Huge reserves of marine gas and oil have been found in the Levantine Basin, which comprises Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and their territorial waters.
In a report by Manlio Dinucci the Israeli government with Washington’s backing considers it is entitled to all the energy reserves.
A coastal state may exploit offshore gas and oil reserves within a zone extending 200 nautical miles (370 kilometres) from the shore, so the Palestinian Authority also has a claim. According to the map drawn up by the US Geological Survey, the major portion of the gas deposits (around 60 per cent) lie in the waters and territory belonging to Gaza, so we can expect the US-Israeli “Axis of Greed” to ruthlessly exploit the Palestinians’ disunity and deprive them of their natural resource, just like they’ve stolen their water.
If the Israelis plan to grab the lot “with Washington’s backing”, is London signed up to this act of grand larceny too?
The question for many years has been: will Gaza ever get a whiff of its own gas? What does Mr Burt, wearing the British government’s “honest broker” hat, say?
In recent months, seven South American nations have recognized Palestine “as a free, independent and sovereign state.”
Last week, following similar statements by representatives of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile, the Foreign Ministry of Guyana declared that its decision to recognize Palestine was based on “Guyana’s long-standing and unwavering solidarity with, and commitment to, the just and legitimate aspirations of the people of Palestine for the exercise of their right to self-determination and to achieve a homeland of their own, independent, free, prosperous and at peace.” Paraguay and Peru are expected to recognize a Palestinian state in coming weeks.
During his first official visit to Palestine a few days ago, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reaffirmed Moscow’s commitment to an independent Palestinian state. “We have supported the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital since the last century, and we still support it,” Medvedev said, speaking in the West Bank town of Jericho.
In response to these recent developments, Ha’aretz reports that “a British Foreign Office minister said Thursday that only direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations can achieve peace, adding that the U.K would not recognize a unilaterally declared Palestinian state.” Parliamentary Under Secretary of State Alistair Burt, while in Jordan today, said that London could not “recognize a state that does not have a capital, and doesn’t have borders.”
The irony here is striking considering Israel has no internationally recognized capital and no internationally recognized borders.
When Israel unilaterally declared independence in mid-1948, a temporary capital was set up in Tel Aviv. The April 3, 1949 armistice agreement signed between Israel and Jordan on established geographical demarcation lines which divided Jerusalem into sectors each under Israel and Jordan control with a no-man’s-land between them. On December 9, 1949, the United Nations General Assembly upheld this demarcation status. Nevertheless, in defiance of the international community, Israel soon announced that Jerusalem was its official capital. Neither the United States nor Britain, along with the majority of the rest of the world, accepted this transfer and, to this day, do not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
In 1980, 13 years after Israel claimed to “annex” the whole of occupied Jerusalem into Israeli territory, the Israeli government passed the so-called “Jerusalem Law” which held that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel” and that “Jerusalem is the seat of the President of the State, the Knesset, the Government and the Supreme Court.”
Following this pronouncement, a number of governments, including France and Germany, issued statements condemning the measure and, in response, the government of the Netherlands moved its Consulate General from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution (UNSC Res. 478), for which the U.K. voted in favor, stating that “the enactment of the ‘basic law’ by Israel constitutes a violation of international law.” The resolution also denied acceptance of Israel’s decision and called upon all UN member states “hat have established diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such mission from the Holy City.”
To this day, the United Kingdom does not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, maintains that Israel has no sovereignty over Jerusalem, and retains its Embassy in Tel Aviv. In fact, there are currently no international embassies in Jerusalem (though, interestingly, both Bolivia and Paraguay have their embassies in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion).
Furthermore, Israel, in its eternal effort to expand its territory through illegal annexation, colonization, military conquest, and land theft, has no recognizedborders. In 1937, over a decade before becoming Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion stated that a Jewish state could first be established in part of Palestine in order to set the stage for further expansion. “We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today,” he said, “but the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them.” The next year, he declared, “[I am] satisfied with part of the country, but on the basis of the assumption that after we build up a strong force following the establishment of the state – we will abolish the partition of the country and we will expand to the whole Land of Israel.”
Even now, more than 70 years later, Israel’s current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, refuses to talk about establishing internationally recognized borders for the state of Israel.
Similarly, responding to his country’s recent recognition of Palestine, Gabriel Zaliasnik, president of Chile’s Jewish community, claimed he was “satisfied” with the wording of the proclamation because it did not refer to borders. “Israelis and Palestinians will eventually define all the core issues like borders,” he said. “For the Jewish people, Jerusalem and borders of the state of Israel can not be provided to third parties.”
The British government even withheld formal, de jure recognition of the state of Israel for nearly two years after its creation. On April 27, 1950, the Parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord William Henderson, legally recognized Israel in spite of the undetermined status of Jerusalem and the temporary nature of Israel’s borders, which are mentioned specifically in the statement of recognition.
Nevertheless, all these years later, despite having neither a capital nor borders, the British government still recognizes Israel as a sovereign, free, and independent state. In a blatant case of double standards, it now refuses to do so with regard to Palestine.
It appears that the shameful and duplicitous legacy of the Balfour Declaration has yet to let go its grip on the British Foreign Office.
TEL AVIV — The Israeli military announced late Wednesday evening that the soldier who killed a civilian in his Hebron home would not be discharged, while a second officer who joined in the killing would have his military career “terminated.”
The investigation looked into the death of the death of a civilian during an arrest raid in Hebron targeting Hamas men released from PA custody the day before, where Israeli forces shot and killed a 66-year-old man in his bed, in what appeared to be a case of mistaken identity.
Investigating officer GOC Central Command, Major General Avi Mizrahi was said in a statement to have absolved the officer who started shooting at the sleeping Omer Salim Al-Qawasmi.
The statement said “a suspicious movement [..] caused the soldier to feel that his life was threatened.”
According to the statement, the soldiers fear was excused, “especially having known about the actions of Wael Bitar, a senior Hamas operative who was the main suspect of the arrest operation.”
Al-Bitar, who was detained in June 2008 by what witnesses at the time said were Israeli forces. The arrest followed a violent standoff as Israeli soldiers surrounded and demolished Al-Bitar’s home, after demanding he give up a man who was staying in the building and stood accused of assisting a resistance fighter. The home was demolished around Al-Bitar, and the alleged fighter he was harboring killed in the demolitions. Later reports said Al-Bitar was detained by PA intelligence officials.
Israeli military officials said Al-Bitar assisted in the planning of a 2008 attack that killed one Israeli woman, and was behind the planning of several attacks that were thwarted.
A second soldier, who was also said to have fired on the sleeping man, was found by the inquiry to have “acted unprofessionaly.”
The unidentified officer, “who, having watched the first soldier firing at Qawasme, began firing at him as well.”
According to the military statement the investigating officer concluded that “while the second soldier did feel threatened, he acted unprofessionaly [… and] ordered that the soldier’s military term be terminated.”
It was not clear whether the soldier was honorably or dishonorably discharged.
Mizrahi was said to have “concluded that this firing was executed in accordance with IDF rules of engagement,” though the statement said the death of Al-Qawasmi was “regrettable.”
According to a security source, the officers were part of the “‘Duvdevan’ counter-terrorism elite unit” which was “called in for an arrest operation in the city of Hebron.”
The source described the unit as “a professional, elite unit specializing in close combat, camouflage and assimilation into hostile territory.”
Al-Qawasmi was shot 13 times in the face, neck at torso as he slept.
American tech giant Google has faced regulatory scrutiny on numerous occasions amid accusations of antitrust violations. Google’s relationship with the CIA, ranging from early financial support to collaborative efforts have been decried as undermining privacy rights and free speech in the digital landscape.
Google’s creation played a crucial role in the US intelligence community’s scheme to attain global dominance by controlling information. … continue
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