The Cardiff Bay Tidal Lagoon – can it power 1.3 million Welsh homes?
By Roger Andrews | Energy Matters | October 10, 2017
“Cardiff Tidal Lagoon is now being developed as the first full-scale lagoon in our programme. With a potential installed capacity of around 3GW, this project could provide enough green, clean home-grown power for every home in Wales.” Mark Shorrock, Chief Executive, Tidal Lagoon Power.
In this post we investigate this claim. The results, as usual, are predictable.
The Cardiff Bay tidal project sneaked in under my radar. In fact I didn’t even know about it until I came across the article recently featured in Blowout Week 196. It has yet to get the go-ahead from the government (and may never get it), but planning is obviously well along, with the project reportedly in its “twelfth design iteration”. In addition, a lengthy environmental impact scoping report has been completed and the project has just received approval to connect to the national grid. According to the schedule the project will generate its first power in 2022.
And Cardiff Bay is big. It will have a nominal capacity of around 3GW – the official number is 3.24GW – and is estimated to cost around £8 billion. Production will be approximately 5.5TWh per year (giving a capacity factor of around 20%). The lagoon covers 70 sq km and is enclosed by a sea wall 20.5 kilometers long. In short, it’s Swansea Bay times ten. Figure 1 shows the project layout. The lagoon takes up half the width of the Bristol Channel:
Figure 1: Cardiff Bay lagoon showing sea wall location and turbine inlets/outlets (red). From Tidal Power’s environmental scoping report
I’m not going into technical details here because these have already been dissected by Euan Mearns and myself in previous posts on the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon project here and here. Instead I will concentrate on Mr. Shorrock’s claim that the project could “power … every home in Wales.”
The thing to remember about tidal power is that while it’s 100% predictable it’s also non-dispatchable, meaning that we can predict exactly when we won’t be able to dispatch it. And the reason it’s non-dispatchable is that the tide in the UK comes in and goes out twice a day and the lagoon generates power when the tide is ebbing or flowing, but no power at all when the tide turns. The result is four daily power spikes, separated by periods of zero generation, that bear no relation to fluctuations in demand. Figure 1 shows broadly what these spikes will look like. (No values are given on the Y-scale because the plot is purely illustrative. Values will come shortly):
Figure 2: Illustrative plot of daily tidal lagoon generation.
Another problem is the large difference in generation between spring and neap tides. Figure 3 shows Cardiff tide heights for October 2017. As discussed in the Swansea Bay post generation is a function of somewhere between the square and cube of the tide range, and as a result the Cardiff lagoon, were it in operation, would generate roughly ten times as much electricity per day during the spring tides around the 8th and 21st as it would during the neap tides around the 1st, 15th and 29th:
Figure 3: Cardiff tides, October 2017, data from Cardiff BSAC
Now we will turn to Welsh homes. According to the Census Bureau there are 1.3 million of them, and according to Energy UK the average UK household consumed 3,938 kWh of electricity in 2015, the last year for which I can find data. Assuming that Welsh households are average consumers then 1.3 million of them will consume 1.3 million times 3,938 kWh = 5.07Twh/year. This is less than the 5.5TWh Cardiff Bay is expected to generate. So far so good.
Now let us further assume that Cardiff Bay goes ahead and that its generation is evenly spread out between the 1.3 million Welsh households. Each household consumes 3,938kWh/year, representing an average load throughout the year of 0.45kW. But what does the household’s daily load curve look like? For want of better information I’ve assumed it’s the same as the total UK load curve, and after appropriate scaling I came up with the three load curves shown in Figure 4:
Figure 4: Daily load curves for the average Welsh household. Based on a graphic from energymag
Then I divided Cardiff tidal lagoon generation by 1.3 million households and superimposed it on the Figure 4 curves. The results for neap tides and spring tides are shown in Figures 5 and 6:
Figure 5: Comparison of Cardiff lagoon tidal generation (blue) with daily load curves for the average Welsh household, neap tides
Figure 6: Comparison of Cardiff lagoon tidal generation (blue) with daily load curves for the average Welsh household, spring tides. Tidal generation tops out around 2.3kW
What’s a Welsh homeowner to do about this? He or she has two options. Either fill a boxcar with storage batteries or believe Mr. Charles Hendry’s reassurance that National Grid can somehow smooth out these wild fluctuations:
There is an inevitable question about how the system could accommodate very significant volumes of power generation from tidal lagoons that may be predictable but not necessarily when demand is greatest. National Grid have been reassuring in their evidence to us that such power could be accommodated and managed, and as we move towards ‘smarter’ ways of managing energy demand, consumers will be more able to use power more cheaply when it is most plentiful.
Better get your washing done quickly, Mrs. Davies.
UNHRC Yemen Inquiry is Doomed to Fail Magnanimously
By Salman Rafi Sheikh | New Eastern Outlook | 09.10.2017
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) seems to have finally awakened up to the brazen human rights violations that the Saudia led Arab coalition forces have been blamed to have committed in the conflict in Yemen that has been going on for more than two years now, and has consumed thousands of lives, and destroyed the country, its polity and economy alike. While UNHRC has resolved to find out the atrocities that have been committed, the question that remains unanswered is if this ‘fact-finding’ mission would lead to an end of the war, let alone punish the antagonists?A compromise has been achieved from the very beginning, which will allow the House of Saud to not only to manipulate or dispute the results, but also escape any consequences whatsoever. As a matter of fact, Saudi Arabia was able to steer things to a course of its own advantage by simply altering the original resolution adopted by the Council, making the UNHRC look like a meaningless and worthless house of cards.
Let’s consider what the original resolution had called for and what is actually going to happen now. The original resolution had called for the establishment of an independent inquiry commission. However, thanks to Saudi Arabia’s intense lobbying and coercive diplomacy, the amended version is now restricted only to sending some “eminent experts”. According to reports, Riyadh had threatened to restrict and even cut trade and diplomatic ties with the council members which had backed the much more robust version. The House of Saud also publicly appreciated the UK, US and France for their cooperation in securing a compromise on resolution. The three countries also support Saudi Arabia’s deadly military aggression against the impoverished Yemen. The UK and the US had no reason to criminalize Saudi Arabia not only because they are allies but also because the US is itself a party to destroying Yemen.
This is evident from the way the US president Donald Trump has almost doubled the number of covert US airstrikes in Yemen. According to the data compiled by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the US has carried out about 100 strikes in Yemen in 2017. While the official narrative is that these strikes target Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), there are evidences that suggest that the US has been equally targeting the Houthis as well. Nothing perhaps could illustrate this ‘US vs Houthis’ phenomenon more than the fact that a US drone was attacked and shot down by the Houthis in western Yemen as recently as October 2, 2017. While the US officials said that the matter was under investigation, the Houthi-controled Defense Ministry announced that it had downed an American drone in the outskirts of Yemen’s capital Sanaa, thus rejecting the US claim that it was mainly involved in non-combatant missions in the aid of the Arab coalition.
On the other hand, what really explains the reason for the Trump administration’s decision to increase drone attacks is the policy of isolating and defeating Iran that the US and Saudi Arabia are following. Interestingly enough, perusal of this policy has caused political tension in the UK as well, where the parliament’s joint committee on human rights has raised strong concerns about the UK’s involvement in the US targeted killing programme, noting that the UK’s intelligence agencies work “hand in glove” with the US.
Given the extent of co-operation between the West and its key ally in the Middle East, an independent inquiry into war atrocities committed by the self-declared regional hegemon is unlikely to take place ever, let alone punish the wrongdoers. Besides the current UNHRC debacle, this is also evident from the way the House of Saud was able, back in July 2016, to turn upside down a UN report that had blacklisted the country after it found out that the Kingdom was responsible for 60 percent of the 785 deaths of children in Yemen in 2015. A few days later, however, the world body announced that the Riyadh regime would be scratched off the list, pending a joint review with the Arab kingdom. Sounds like really independent and impartial!
Once again Riyadh has been able to manipulate inquiry into atrocities by radically altering the resolution that had called for an independent inquiry. Could there be a greater irony than the fact that the new resolution that decided to set up a committee of experts had been set up by Riyadh itself? How can an accused set up, or even influence, a committee to investigate into his own crimes? Can such a body be expected to be impartial and truly reveal what the Arab coalition has done in Yemen?
Answers to all of these questions have, unfortunately, to be in the negative. It is not that we are expressing pessimism, there are certainly concrete basis for what we have said. Besides the above given arguments with regard to the co-operation between the US, the UK and Saudi Arabia, the fact remains that not even the EU, the so-called champion of human rights, is able to leave a decisive impact on the situation and turn things against Saudia. For instance, the European human rights organisation had to face a lot of ridicule when, despite its earlier statement that had confirmed that airstrikes carried out by the Arab coalition in the past two months had killed 39 civilians, including 26 children, the resolution was amended and the bid for constituting an independent inquiry was replaced by a committee of “experts.” Not only were their reports and arguments not accepted, but their demand that the matter be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) was squarely rejected, thanks again to the Saudi lobbying and the help it received from its key allies in the West i.e., the US and UK and France and the way it coerced countries into backing down on this demand.
According to a Reuters report, in a letter seen by one of the diplomats, Saudi Arabia – the world’s biggest oil exporter – had warned some states of possible consequences should they support the Dutch resolution, submitted jointly with Canada, calling for a full commission. This lobbying was the perfectly echoed by French diplomatic source who was reported to have said that “there is room to satisfy everybody.”
It appears that no other party is more satisfied now than the House of Saud, the principal accused in the scene. The accused stands vindicated as it is well “satisfied” with the way things have ended in the UNHRC session and the way things will proceed in the future. It is possible that by the time the committee of experts is constituted, does its investigation and submits its report in a year from now on, the Arab coalition, which believes that airstrikes killing civilians are legally justifiable, might end up killing thousands of innocent people. Who will then the UNHRC blame for the loss?
Al Jazeera ‘vindicated’, as Ofcom rejects all complaints about ‘The Lobby’
MEMO | October 9, 2017
Al Jazeera has declared itself “vindicated”, after British regulatory body Ofcom rejected all complaints made against the channel’s undercover series ‘The Lobby’, broadcast in January.
The four-episode investigation looked at efforts by the Israeli embassy in London and a number of pro-Israel lobby groups to influence British political debate, including by smearing critics of Israeli policies and supporters of Palestinian rights.
After ‘The Lobby’ was broadcast, Ofcom received a number of complaints, some of which prompted investigations. The results of these rulings were published today in the body’s regular bulletin.
In its lengthy rulings, Ofcom notes that the complaints received “raised a range of issues about the programme including that they were anti-Semitic and were not duly impartial”. Other complaints “considered that the programme was materially misleading”.
According to Ofcom, this latter allegation was dismissed without further investigation, following information received from Al Jazeera. With respect to the other complaints, Ofcom found Al Jazeera not in breach of the obligation to “due impartiality”, and similarly rejected claims of antisemitism.
“We considered that the allegations in the programme were not made on the grounds that any of the particular individuals concerned were Jewish and noted that no claims were made relating to their faith”, Ofcom states. “We did not consider that the programme portrayed any negative stereotypes of Jewish people as controlling or seeking to control the media or governments”.
It continues: “Rather, it was our view that these individuals featured in the programme in the context of its investigation into the alleged activities of a foreign state (the State of Israel acting through its UK Embassy) and their association with it”.
“We also noted that a number of the organisations featured in the programme, such as Labour Friends of Israel and Conservative Friends of Israel, are not defined by any adherence to Judaism or having a predominantly Jewish membership”.
In what some will see as an ironic twist, Ofcom made reference to a controversial definition of antisemitism that Israel advocacy groups have used in seeking to undermine Palestine solidarity activism and attack critics of Israel.
Citing this definition, Ofcom rejected claims that “critical analysis of the actions of a foreign state constituted anti-Semitism”, since “the overall focus of the programme was to examine whether the State of Israel was acting in a manner that would be expected of other democratic nations”.
Ofcom also rejected complaints made by three individuals who featured in the documentary: Ella Rose, Jewish Labour Movement director; Russell Langer, now at the Jewish Leadership Council, and Luke Akehurst, head of BICOM’s ‘We Believe in Israel’ project and a Labour Party activist.
Ofcom rejected Rose’s claim that she had been “treated unjustly or unfairly in the programme as broadcast”. Ofcom said it did not accept Rose’s claim that to reject her complaint “risks creating a precedent for the infringement of the privacy of any Jewish person involved in public life”.
Each privacy complaint we receive is considered on its facts, and must always be assessed in light of the particular circumstances of each case”
Ofcom similarly failed to uphold a complaint made of “unjust or unfair treatment and unwarranted infringement of privacy” made by Kingsley Napley LLP on behalf of Russell Langer, and a separate complaint on the same grounds by Kingsley Napley LLP on behalf of Luke Akehurst.
Responding to the published rulings, a statement by Al Jazeera said: “This goes to show that no matter what Al Jazeera’s critics say, its journalism meets and exceeds the highest standards of objectivity and balance. We feel vindicated by the rulings and evermore committed to exposing human rights violations by anyone—regardless of geography, religion, or the power of their lobbies”.
‘The Lobby’, made by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit, made news in Britain and around the world, in particular for its covert footage of Shai Masot, the Israeli Embassy’s then Senior Political Officer, in discussion with a British civil servant plotting to “take down” government minister Sir Alan Duncan.
Masot was subsequently returned to Israel, and Ambassador Mark Regev formally apologised.
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The Lobby P2: The Training Session
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The Lobby P3: An Anti-Semitic Trope
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The Lobby P4: The Takedown
UK Condemns Boris Johnson’s Joke But Refuses to Admit It Helped Destroy Libya
Sputnik – 06.10.2017
Alexander Mercouris, editor-in-chief of The Duran, told Radio Sputnik that he found UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s joke about “clearing away dead bodies” in Libya “outrageous,” given that the UK played a large role in destroying the North African state.
Speaking about Libya’s tourism potential at a Conservative Party conference fringe meeting, the UK’s chief diplomat said that the war-torn city of Sirte could become the new Dubai, adding that “the only thing they have to do is clear the dead bodies away.”
The members of Libya’s House of Representatives based in Tobruk on Thursday demanded Johnson’s apology for the remark.
Mercouris told Sputnik in an interview that he expected the people of Libya to be shocked and infuriated by Johnson’s “extremely crude” comments, given that he made a joke about a city that the British destroyed in a country the British played a large role in smashing.
”If we take Sirte, the city which he was referring to, it was incredibly heavily bombed by the [Royal] Air Force amongst others during the Libyan intervention that took place in 2011, which Britain played a very large role in instigating,” he said. “It was Muammar Qaddafi’s hometown, and he was murdered in the most appalling fashion not far from there.”
Mercouris added that although Johnson is under fire for his remarks in his home country as well — with some British politicians calling for him to be sacked — most critics fail to note the UK’s role in destroying Libya in the first place.
In a similar fashion, he noted, members of Johnson’s party always talk about the threat of terrorism in Europe without ever bringing up the foreign policy choices that the UK government has made, which created the conditions for terrorist groups to thrive in North Africa and for Libya becoming a major recruiting ground for militant fighters.
“This comes back to Boris Johnson’s comments,” Mercouris said. “He has been strongly criticized within Britain for making them, but always that criticism stops at the point of admitting any British responsibility for the disaster that is Libya today. And of course that responsibility is enormous.”
Libya has been in a state of turmoil since 2011 when a civil war began in the country and its longtime leader Gaddafi was overthrown. In December 2015, Libya’s rival governments — the Council of Deputies based in Tobruk and the Tripoli-based General National Congress — agreed to create the Government of National Accord, to form the Presidency Council and to end the political impasse.
‘British police must arrest Ehud Barak’
MEMO | October 4, 2017
The London based Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR) in the UK has stated that London has become a safe haven for war criminals visiting the city.
According to the AOHR these individuals come to the city because law enforcement has failed to take any measures to arrest them.
The organisation added that Britain is one of the countries that adopts clear laws regarding global jurisdiction that allow the police to arrest the perpetrators of certain crimes, if they are on British soil, regardless of the suspect’s nationality and where the crime was committed.
The AOHR stated that these laws are not enforced when it comes to Israelis who have committed war crimes documented on a global level. These suspects are regularly given special diplomatic immunity on the grounds that they’re on an official visit.
The organisation noted that former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak was seen walking around London last night with his wife, despite the fact police have files and documentation proving he has committed war crimes against Palestinians.
Barak was Israel’s Minister of Defence during the attack on the Mavi Marmara convoy.
NGOs have previously tried to have an arrest warrant issued for Barak for his role in the 2008 Gaza War but have had requests rejected in court.
The AOHR urged the war crimes team of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command (SO15) to do its duty, arrest Barak, and prohibit him from leaving the country.
The main reason international jurisdiction exists is to eliminate the phenomenon of impunity granted to criminals who have committed such dangerous crimes.
[Photo credit – Ynhockey/Wikipedia]
The Skewed Depiction of Colonialism in “Victoria and Abdul”
By Kate Harveston | American Herald Tribune | October 3, 2017
Some will tell you that we should no longer be obligated to bear the sins of our nation’s past, playing the masochistic martyr and ignoring any spatiotemporal context. However, what they don’t understand is that it’s less about bearing responsibility for something in the past and more about being balanced when portraying it and bringing it back to life. The real issue comes into play when a past contentious issue is exploited and monetized with bias. Colonialism in today’s supposedly civilized society is a caricature of inequality and what progressive culture is against.
The movie Victoria and Abdul was recently released. In it, Stephen Frears tells the story of Queen Victoria, who is played by Dame Judi Dench, and her unlikely friendship with Abdul, who is played by Ali Fazal. What follows is an intentionally romanticized version of an otherwise unsettling story within tragic circumstances.
The Matter of the Movie
Queen Victoria is introduced to Abdul, an Indian servant who is shipped from India without any choice, to gift the queen with a coin. The queen is characterized as an exceptionally enlightened monarch and, ironically, almost as an egalitarian. In one scene, she accuses her court of being racialists, therefore doubtlessly endearing the character to a 21st-century audience.
Abdul, on the other hand, has barely any character at all. He’s objectified as a mere prop to only reflect the wonder of the queen and the glory of the Empress of India. Treated as some sort of bright and sparkly new toy or exotic pet, Abdul is portrayed as eternally grateful for having been brought to England for the great privilege of being part of this glorious people.
What is even more peculiar is that Frears’ Abdul seems to absolve any wrongdoing by the Queen — even when his fellow Indian servant dies as an ill-treated slave to the British. This all culminates in the final shot which epitomizes everything absolutely ill-considered and just frankly wrong about the film. It shows Abdul, having returned to India, kissing the feet of Queen Victoria’s statue in front of the Taj Mahal.
The overriding issue with period dramas such as Victoria and Abdul is that they romanticize colonialism and sell it to the masses as light entertainment. This is a direct insult against the historic abuse and injustices that colonized countries faced at the hands of the ruling empire of the time. Unfortunately, it’s not only the media. Even the royals, to this day, should be more cautious of how they represent their past link with India.
The Darker Reality
The reality was that the Victorian era was accountable for horrific atrocities in India, both on a humanitarian and an economic level. Shashi Tharoor has been particularly vocal about how Britain furthered its own industrial revolution by decimating India’s accrued share of the world economy. The nature of this profiteering had appalling and disastrous consequences.
Through Britain’s exploitation of India’s agricultural products like grain, the Indian people found themselves in unimaginable poverty — an epidemic of poverty in which 20 million people are thought to have died. The Great Famine and the Indian Famine, however, are rarely talked about.
Furthermore, the evils that India suffered under the British Raj were not only confined to tragedies that resulted from consequences of otherwise economically motivated actions, but also through direct aggression and violence driven by racism. The Amritsar massacre in 1919 saw a major murder spree of peaceful, nonviolent protestors. Over 1,000 Indians perished by gunfire at the hands of the British army.
How, then, can the film and television world and British media in general so easily gloss over such unimaginable injustices with nostalgia, romanticism and even comedy? Well, the problem goes slightly deeper than just monetization. Even though Frears knew what he was doing and will doubtless enjoy a profit from appealing to the audience via this whitewashed and jewel-encrusted version of colonialism, far too few people will even identify a problem with it. This is due to Britain’s own brand of causal propaganda.
British history — where Britain institutionalized pain and suffering of seemingly lesser peoples — has barely been featured in the country’s history books. It wasn’t only injustices in India that have been ignored in both media as well as education. Britain invented the world’s first concentration camps in South Africa, where Boer settlers were incarcerated, raped and worked to death. When referring to the deaths of over 25,000 Boer women and children, Lloyd George, future Prime Minister of Great Britain, said, “We are simply ranging the deepest passions of the human heart against British rule in Africa.” However, today’s generation only hears of how Britain stood against the Afrikaners during Apartheid.
Given that it’s now 2017, and that Britain is one of the forerunners in the international fight against illiberal governing, surely admitting your own nation’s past and bearing your mistakes by way of example is the more inclusive route to encouraging true democracies. In that way, producers, writers and directors of British film and television have a real responsibility here, and need to examine the racist injustices Britain has built itself upon. The victims of the past, current and future would be less offended, and healing and peace processes could begin to be brokered.
British Labour is also a victim of the Zionist lobby
British Prime minister Theresa May (L) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) on the steps of No.10 Downing street, London, UK on Feb. 6, 2017. ( Kate Green – Anadolu )
By Hanin Zoabi | Arab48 | September 29, 2017
It seems that the international meetings I am participating in for the 30th time and the ninth series of lectures in Britain specifically are taking up the lion’s share of my visits. This is due to the fact that solidarity campaigns with the Palestinian people in Britain are considered to be the strongest and most active in the world. Time after time, we try to expand the discourse related to solidarity with the Palestinians in order for it to go beyond confronting the occupation and blockade, i.e. “bad Israel” and to including the concept of “good Israel” that Israel is trying to convince the world exists. Does “good Israel” really exist? Could the “Zionist dream” with its ideal conditions and without being subject to resistance from the victim or any international opposition, constitute a normal human life?
The answer to this question is not derived from the reality of the conflict, but the reality of the state, i.e. the routine practices of the Zionist project, not only from its bloody crimes. The basic routine produced by this project is the Jewish State itself, as well as its institutions, its legal system, and the values it produces and raises its generations with on a daily basis. This is the routine that embodies the “Zionist dream”, and this routine is what produces one violation after another and one crime after another.
This is the main claim we can present to the international solidarity movements, and by doing so we can confirm that the problem is with the dream (the Jewish state) and that the crimes committed by this state are the same tools it uses to define itself as a Jewish state. This also confirms that the state cannot exist, even within its basic daily routine, without committing ethnic cleansing, uprooting and the physical and symbolic liquidation of the Palestinian presence, i.e. the crimes are not outside of the Israeli routine, but rather are what form the routing within the system itself. It translates the plans for uprooting, liquidation and ethnic cleansing into legal tools and local administration systems.
We cannot continue to talk about a solution that is merely a “Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel”, a motto even some of our own central political forces still promote. Those who want to combat Israel’s crimes cannot be satisfied with removing Israel from the West Bank and Gaza Strip alone. They must remove Zionism from the legal and political system of the state, because the plans for uprooting, displacement and liquidation are plans that govern Israel’s relationship with the Palestinian presence in all its forms. Citizenship was never protection for the Palestinians from Zionism and its plans, but it has always been a tool of control and a means to implement its plans against us.
As for the “diplomatic” significance of this claim, along with its political significance, it refutes Israel’s defence discourse to the Europeans, which is based on Israel’s spilt personality. There is good/real Israel, which, if left alone by the world, would prove its moral superiority, and there is Israel that is dragged into war, which if forced, possibly, may commit some unintentional or forced violations but only in self-defence.
The importance of stating that liquidations, displacement and cleansing are crimes established in Israel’s routine and are at the core of the Zionist project, is that it refutes Israel’s claims of moral superiority and legitimacy which it is trying to rely on.
If Israel can silence the world with claims of “Islamic terrorism” in Gaza or “defence of its democracy” in the West Bank, then what will its answer be if asked about the reason for prohibiting Arabs from living in over 500 towns, the law of Jewish neighbourhoods receiving larger budgets, the Prawer Plan, the citizenship law, the law to withdraw parliamentary representation, the law prohibiting the commemoration of the Nakba, the law to reduce the sound of the call to prayer, or the law restricting participation in political parties? What will Israel say about physical, political and symbolic liquidation laws? Especially since its typical answer of “self-defence” won’t hold up here. What will it say if the claims of “some violations it was forced to commit” in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were legitimate in order to protect Israel, the democratic state that promotes the West’s democratic values are not accepted?
What would happen if we reveal that the “good” that Israel willingly chooses is no less evil than the evil that it is forced to commit in the West Bank and Gaza?
Such exposure is exactly what Israel fears. It is afraid that the world will discover that the “perfect” Jewish state has committed crimes that are no less of a crime than the war crimes it “forcibly” committed because people have not yet understood the pureness and morality of what Israel wants. They fear that the world will realise the problem isn’t only the brutal crimes but also lies in the daily routine. They are afraid the world will realise that the main problem is not in the missiles and siege that will end if the Palestinians surrender, nor is it in the confiscation of the land, which will stop if the Palestinians voluntarily surrender their land, but the problem is what Israel wants, even if we do not resist. The problem is the laws, culture and intellect that considers your existence terrorism.
Perhaps it is because of Israel’s fear of this that the Zionist lobby is forced to tighten its control in order keep up with the growing solidarity with the Palestinians that not only stems from the ugliness of Israel’s crimes but from a deeper understanding of the concept of the Jewish state itself.
Confronting the nature of the Jewish state requires the Europeans to first liberate themselves from the continuous oppression and extortion that they are constantly subjected to, that undeniably succeeds in controlling the political scene they are living in. It isn’t only the Palestinians who have lost control of their reality, but the Brits as well, or more accurately, those who want to express their views on the Palestinian cause freely. Although they are in remission, their inability to express their opinions freely enough regarding the Palestinian cause indicates their sense of losing control or helplessness. If an embassy and lobby are controlling the freedom of thousands in a certain country, it is not a typical scene and cause for surprise, followed by resentment and anger.
Perhaps the anger felt by dozens of these activists at the fact that a foreign lobby is controlling them is greater than the anger provoked by the violation of Palestinians’ freedom and dignity by the Zionist project, not because the latter’s suffering is less, as the suffering of Palestinians is too deep to compare, but because of Zionism’s success in oppressing British citizens. This gives it more confidence and reassurance in oppressing the Palestinians; is it possible for Israel to succeed in Britain but fail with the Palestinians?
The answer is yes, it is possible for Israel to succeed in suppressing the freedom of expression of activists in solidarity with Palestine who are from strong and sovereign nations and fail with the victim. This is because it has already taken over all means of its victims’ material and symbolic life, leaving them with very little to lose. Sometimes, strength is one’s weakness, while confinement within narrow limits means you will only lose narrowness.
In the past two years, the British have voiced their resentment, their fear of the Zionist lobby and, most importantly, its success in silencing them more than ever. The Zionist lobby has intensified its campaigns, relations and means of pressure, this time in coordination with the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Israeli ambassador in London. Everyone will attest to his unprecedented means of intimidation, which no other ambassador has ever used. This is despite the fact that the British, and other countries’ laws do not permit local lobbies to receive guidance, instructions or funding from any foreign embassy in the country in which it operates, as this constitutes an interference in the internal affairs of the state, which is prohibited by the norms and rules of international diplomacy.
Al Jazeera’s investigation revealed how the Zionist lobby infiltrated and penetrated not only the corridors of British politics, but also the corridors of the personal life of British officials. They even went as far as trying fabricate a scandal for one of the conservative ministers as punishment for his rejection of settlements. Despite the discovery of such actions and plots, no punishment or measure have been taken in accordance with the diplomatic standards.
The peak Zionist lobby’s success is embodied by the British government’s adoption of the new definition of anti-Semitism, which considers any unconventional criticism against Israel anti-Semitic. This new change must not be underestimated. This change occurred in late 2016 when British Prime Minister Theresa May promised to issue a government resolution to adopt a definition recently formulated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, known as the IHRA, which stated that “anti-Semitism could include criticism of Israel as a Jewish state”. This means anyone who dares to criticise Israel will “put themselves at risk” of being labelled as anti-Semitic.
Not only did the Zionist lobby succeed in making Theresa May adopt this definition, but the harshest blow came in the form of Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn, known for his unprecedented support in the British political arena for the legitimate rights of the Palestinians and his full awareness of the essence of the Zionist project, agreeing to adopt this new definition of anti-Semitism.
Hence, it seems that the Zionist lobby in Britain pre-empted the “benefits” the Palestinians would gain from electing their “friend” Corbyn as head of the Labour party by adding new restrictions to the British political scene. They have made the Zionist definition of anti-Semitism most in control of the limits of what is permissible and prohibited in terms of supporting Palestinians and opposing colonialism, settlement, apartheid and Israeli oppression in the British political scene.
This may suggest that supporting Zionism is a condition for the freedom of expression in Britain (similar procedures and laws were approved recently in other European countries including France and Spain), in a clear example of McCarthyism that puts anyone who criticises Israel on a blacklist.
Dozens of members of the Labour party have revealed their membership has been frozen for months after the Zionist lobby filed complaints against them, accusing them of anti-Semitism. They all noted that the number of those who believe they were punished for this accusation by freezing their membership reached thousands, while others said the number is tens of thousands of people. In some cases, people’s memberships were frozen without their knowledge, and without any formal procedure or without allowing them to air their side of the story.
Some of us overlook the fact that the efforts to eliminate thousands of Labour party activists is not only a personal attack on these individuals, but also reflect attempts by the Zionist lobby to manipulate the internal influence of the Labour party, known for its member’s support for Corbyn’s left-wing pro-Palestinian positions, but not known to support the official bodies in the party and the senior officials who are known for their hostility toward Corbyn and their relentless fight against his influence. This indicates some mechanisms of the Zionist lobby in combatting Corbyn and influencing the internal elections of the British parties.
These new developments are what allow us to confirm that there are motives for the Brits’ solidarity with the Palestinian that go beyond their support for their just cause. They are also standing in solidarity against the Zionist lobby’s attempts at political intimidation and with their right to think, express and speak freely in their country. The Zionist lobby’s success in oppressing the freedom of expression of other nations would be the greatest indicator of the credibility of the Palestinians’ claims, not to mention the fact that the Zionist lobby is forced to exaggerate its means of pressure and repression in an attempt to keep up with the increased solidarity with the Palestinians.
In the past two years, Britain has been criticising the Zionist lobby, not in defence of the Palestinians’ rights but in defence of the British people’s rights. Petitions signed by 200 lawyers and academics confirmed that the restrictions imposed by British policy against the international boycott of Israel, in addition to the government’s adoption of the Zionist definition of anti-Semitism are a violation of human rights in Britain.
The suppression against British citizens by foreign parties in their own country does not stop at the suppression of freedom of expression. Just as the Palestinians experience this, the Zionist lobby in all European countries threaten those who rent out their halls for conferences and forums organised by solidarity campaigns. The surrender of many is not because they are afraid of punishment, but most of the time it is to reduce harassment and headache they are subjected to. Other fears faced by the British people causing them to surrender to the pressure of the lobby are related to their fear of losing sources of funding or defamation in the media and social networking sites under the control and influence of the Zionist lobby.
Despite all this, I must note that although the Palestinian cause has lost some of its international political presence due to the Arab revolutions and their consequences, as well as the fact that the cause has been liquidated as a liberation cause and is being dealt with as a diplomatic issue by the PA, it has not lost its moral presence globally, and is still a symbol of justice and the fight against domination.
The Palestinians still do not require much effort to convince any European of the justice of their cause, and the Zionist lobby is still forced to redouble its efforts, funds and intimidation to keep pace with the popular support given instinctively to the Palestinians without much effort. However, this requires us to focus our efforts and to emphasise that the definition, principles and laws of the Jewish state itself eliminate any possibility of the existence of an “innocent Israel” and that Israel’s daily practices represented by its legal, political and educational system should be subject to international scrutiny and accountability, and not only its crimes in the West Bank and Gaza. The former carries as much crime as the latter. The second thing we must emphasise is the extent to which Zionism has become an international movement against freedom in the world.
Translation by MEMO
Israeli embassy accused of pressuring UK university to censor free speech
MEMO | September 29, 2017
A UK university has been accused by students of bowing to Israeli pressure and censoring free speech following revelations of a meeting between university officials and the Israeli ambassador days before an event during Israel Apartheid Week.
Email correspondence obtained through a freedom of information request, seen by MEMO, reveals details of a meeting between Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev and senior staff at the University of Manchester (UoM) prior to an event during Israel Apartheid Week last March.
The documents were obtained from UoM after the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – the body regulating data protection in the UK – found UoM to be in breach of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by not disclosing information requested by a student activist over its relations with controversial Israeli institutions.
Manchester University student, Huda Ammori, lodged the complaint against UoM after an unsuccessful bid to obtain details about the nature of the university’s relations with Israeli organisations. In August, the ICO stepped in and instructed UoM to provide a response to the request within 35 days, in accordance with its obligations under the FOIA.
In one correspondence obtained by Ammori, the Israeli embassy thanked Dr Tim Westlake, director of student experience at UoM, for “hosting” the Israeli ambassador and “discussing openly some of the difficult issues that [we] face”. The embassy also discussed ways to “increase take up of the Erasmus Programme”, which is a European Union student exchange programme.
The email correspondence includes details of the meeting between UoM and the Israeli embassy, in particular, their concerns over two events organised by the university’s Action Palestine and BDS societies, during Israeli Apartheid Week. In its email the embassy said: “These are just two events of many that they are running in their so called and offensively titled ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’.”
Israeli embassy staff accused the speakers, including Holocaust survivor and historian Marika Sherwood, of anti-Semitism. They said that the speakers had “cross[ed] the line into hate speech” and that their talk was not “legitimate criticism” of Israel. The officials were especially keen to stress their disapproval of the talk by Sherwood, which was going to compare her experience as a child surviving Nazi brutality and the injustices committed by the Israelis against the Palestinians.
In her response to the accusations, Sherwood told MEMO:
I am not an anti-Semitic Jew! I am an anti-Israeli Jew! The two are not the same. And yes, to me the way Israelis behave towards the Palestinians, whose land/property they have claimed/confiscated/overtaken is as the Nazis behaved towards me and my fellow Jews in Hungary WWII.
“We cant all go back to where our ancestors lived thousands, even hundreds, of years ago,” Sherwood reasoned. “Can you imagine all the Brits who settled in the Americas, in Australia, NZ, South Africa, coming back to claim the UK?”
Organisers, unaware that senior UoM officials had met with the Israeli embassy days before the event, were pressured to meet a number of demands before the university granted permission to hold the event: Academics chosen to chair the meetings were replaced by university appointees, publicity was limited to students and staff, the organisers were told talks would be recorded and the title of Sherwood’s talk had to be changed because “of its unduly provocative nature”.
MEMO contacted UoM over the allegation that they censored free speech, their reasons for putting pressure on the students and if it was in the habit of senior staff to host foreign embassy delegations to discuss internal university matters.
In response, UoM spokesperson said: “Events held on campus are reviewed under the University’s Code of Practice on Freedom of Speech if they concern potentially controversial topics and whenever they involve external speakers. This includes events organised through and in the University of Manchester Students’ Union. In deciding whether or not an event should go ahead, the University pays due regard to all relevant legislation, including the Equality Act 2010.”
“However, such legislation does not act to prohibit completely the expression of controversial views. In this case the University allowed the events to proceed in line with the requirements of the Act and our commitment to principles of freedom of speech and expression.”
While the university refuses to admit any outside coercion, the Israeli embassy has previously been found to have exerted undue influence on British institutions. Earlier this year an Al Jazeera documentary made the sensational revelation concerning a senior Israeli diplomat, Shai Masot, who was captured on video conspiring to “take down” certain UK government ministers such as Sir Alan Duncan for speaking out against Israeli policy and sympathising with the plight of the Palestinians.
The scoop also revealed that the Israeli embassy was providing covert assistance to supposedly independent groups within the Labour party; jobs at the embassy were being offered to groom young Labour activists; and how concerned the embassy was with removing not just Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, but also Crispin Blunt MP, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee (both of whom are Conservative MPs), as well as Jeremy Corbyn MP, the leader of the Labour party.
Read also: Manchester University must reveal its relations with Israeli institutions
Corbyn criticizes UK foreign policy, Israel oppression, Trump
Press TV – September 27, 2017
British Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn has slammed London’s foreign policy, asserting that “terrorism is thriving in a world our governments have helped to shape.”
“The targeting of our democracy, of teenage girls at a pop concert, of people enjoying a night out, worshipers outside a mosque, commuters going to work — all of these are horrific crimes…But we also know that terrorism is thriving in a world our governments have helped to shape, with its failed states, military interventions and occupations where millions are forced to flee conflict or hunger,” Corbyn said at the party’s annual conference in Brighton on Wednesday.
Military solutions to the threats of terrorism in Europe were another area of Corbyn’s speech.
“We have to do better and swap the knee-jerk response of another bombing campaign for long-term help to solve conflicts rather than fuel them,” Corbyn said.
Corbyn also hinted at the double standards of British foreign policy in the Middle East region, criticizing arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
“Democracy and human rights are not an optional extra to be deployed selectively. So we cannot be silent at the cruel Saudi war in Yemen while continuing to supply arms to Saudi Arabia, or the crushing of democracy in Egypt or Bahrain, or the tragic loss of life in Congo.”
The Labour leader addressed the brutal suppression of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and demanded that Aung San Suu Kyi end the violence against the Rohingya and allow the UN and international aid agencies into Rakhine state. “The Rohingya have suffered for too long,” Corbyn emphasized.
Corbyn criticized Israel’s 50-year oppression of Palestinians and called for an end to the “oppression of the Palestinian people, the 50-year occupation and illegal settlement expansion.”
On Donald Trump
US President Donald Trump’s speech at the UN and his policies were another area that Corbyn critically addressed.
Corbyn said Trump’s UN speech was “devoid of concern for human rights or universal values” and “was not the speech of a world leader.”
Pointing to the historical relationship between the UK and the US, Corbyn said, “If the special relationship means anything, it must mean that we can say to Washington: that way is the wrong way.”
As a veteran peace activist, Corbyn has long been critical of London’s involvement in US-led wars across the world its support of Israel in its unending oppression against Palestinians.
Corbyn has stood up for Palestine and Palestinian rights and has been a strong advocate against Britain’s foreign wars in the Middle East.
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A decade of lies: The US-funded biolab denial saga
RT | May 15, 2026
Russia’s allegations that the US funded clandestine biological laboratories near its borders – claims denied until recently by Washington – have remained a persistent flashpoint in the steadily deteriorating relationship between Russia and the West for nearly a decade.
The biolabs affair was revealed in a 2017 exposé by RT that questioned a shady US military tender seeking the genetic material of living Russians. Over the years, Moscow has raised allegations against Washington of conducting clandestine bio-research, including potential WMD development and illicit human testing, in a network of labs located across multiple nations, the bulk of which operated in Ukraine. The claims were met with a blanket denial in the West, which repeatedly dismissed them as “Russian propaganda.”
This abruptly changed the past week when US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said that her department had identified more than 120 US-funded biological laboratories in 30 countries, with over a third of them located in Ukraine. The agency is now working to “identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain, and what ‘research’ is being conducted to end dangerous gain-of-function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and the world,” according to Gabbard.
RT looks back at the timeline of the biolabs saga and the US denial of its existence until now. … continue
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