Joe Biden

Fossil Fuel Giants to Lavish Shareholders With Record Paydays as Climate Crisis Deepens

Spread the love

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Greenpeace activists display a billboard during a protest outside Shell headquarters on July 27, 2023 in London.  (Photo: Handout/Chris J. Ratcliffe for Greenpeace via Getty Images)

“The global energy crisis has been a giant cash grab for fossil fuel firms,” said one campaigner. “And instead of investing their record profits in clean energy, these companies are doubling down on oil, gas, and shareholder payouts.”

The year 2023 was marked by weather events that made it increasingly clear that the Earth has entered what United Nations Secretary General António Guterres called the “era of global boiling,” with wildfires and prolonged heatwaves impacting millions of people and scientists confirming their suffering was the direct result of fossil fuel extraction and planetary heating.

But for the world’s five largest oil giants, the year marked record profits and the approval of several major new fossil fuel projects, allowing the companies to lavish their shareholders with payouts that are expected to exceed $100 billion—signaling that executives have little anxiety that demand for their products will fall, said one economist.

The companies—BP, Shell, Chevron,ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies—spent $104 billion on shareholder payouts in 2022, and are expected to reward investors with even more in buybacks and dividends for 2023, The Guardian reported.

Shell announced plans in November to pay investors at least $23 billion—more than six times the amount it planned to spend on renewable energy projects—while BP promised shareholders a 10% raise in dividends and Chevron could exceed the $75 billion stock buyback it announced early last year.

Alice Harrison, a campaigner for Global Witness, noted that fossil fuel shareholders will be enjoying their paydays as households across Europe struggle with fuel poverty and the world faces the rising threat of climate disasters brought on by the industry.

“The global energy crisis has been a giant cash grab for fossil fuel firms,” Harrison told The Guardian. “And instead of investing their record profits in clean energy, these companies are doubling down on oil, gas, and shareholder payouts. Yet again millions of families won’t be able to afford to heat their homes this winter, and countries around the world will continue to suffer the extreme weather events of climate collapse. This is the fossil fuel economy, and it’s rigged in favor of the rich.”

In 2023 campaigners intensified their demands for accountability from the oil, gas, and coal industries, and as of last month had successfully pressured more than 1,600 universities, pension funds, and other institutions to divest from fossil fuels. In the U.S., provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act, which has been touted as the “largest investment in climate and energy in American history,” went into effect.

But Dieter Helm, a professor of economic policy at the University of Oxford, The Guardian that if the industry were truly fearful of policymakers phasing out fossil fuel extraction and expediting a transition to renewable sources, they would be spending far less on new projects and shareholder payouts.

“For this to be the case you would have to believe that the energy transition is happening, and that demand for fossil fuels is going to fall,” Helm told The Guardian.

In 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden infuriated climate campaigners by approving the Willow oil drilling project in Alaska, which could lead to roughly 280 million metric tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions. His administration also included in a debt limit deal language that would expedite the approval of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which could emit the equivalent of more than 89 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, while the U.K. government greenlit a massive oil drilling field in the North Sea and French company TotalEnergies continued to construct the 900-mile-long East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which would transport up to 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

“These companies are investing a huge amount in new projects, and they’re handing out bigger dividends because they are confident that they’re going to make big returns,” Helm said. “And when we look at the state of our current climate progress, who’s to say they’re wrong?”

Climate campaigner Vanessa Nakate pointed out that the shareholder paydays are expected following a deal on a loss and damage fund at the 28th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, aimed at helping developing countries to fight the climate emergency. That fund was hailed as “historic” and included a commitment of $700 million from wealthy countries—a sum that is expected to be dwarfed by fossil fuel investors’ profits.

“They have picked people’s pockets, fueled inflation and pollution, and deepened poverty,” U.K. House of Lords member and Tax Justice Network co-founder Prem Sikka said of the oil giants. “Governments do nothing to end their monopolistic control. Need to break-up this cartel.”

Original article by JULIA CONLEY republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingFossil Fuel Giants to Lavish Shareholders With Record Paydays as Climate Crisis Deepens

Once Again, Biden Bypasses Congress to Approve Arms Sale to Israel

Spread the love

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

An IDF soldier readies a 155mm artillery shell for loading in a howitzer. An Israeli soldier carries a 155mm artillery shell near a self-propelled howitzer deployed at a position near the border with Lebanon in the upper Galilee region of northern Israel on October 18, 2023. (Photo: Jalaa Marey/AFP via Getty Images)

“When Israel runs out of rockets to murder children with they simply hold their hand out to daddy for more,” said one critic.

Citing “the urgency of Israel’s defensive needs,” the Biden administration on Friday said it would bypass Congress for the second time this month to approve an immediate arms sale to the key Middle East ally as it continues to wage a genocidal war against Gaza.

The Associated Press reported that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken notified lawmakers of the new emergency determination involving the sale of $147.5 million in equipment including fuses, charges, and primers for 155mm artillery shells that Israel has already purchased from the United States.

The unguided explosive rounds—which Israel is using in heavily populated urban areas—have a “kill radius” of about 50 meters, with shrapnel able to inflict lethal wounds on people hundreds of meters away.

“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to U.S. national interests to ensure Israel is able to defend itself against the threats it faces,” the State Department explained.

https://twitter.com/lilleyjuice/status/1740847948513341840?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1740847948513341840%7Ctwgr%5E620949b4d025f371f31e65cfbf2c06e20e06b8be%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fu-s-aid-to-israel-2666833315

The move follows a similar State Department determination on December 9, which expedited 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), whose troops have killed and maimed more than 80,000 Palestinians—mostly women, children, and elders—during 84 days of near-relentless attacks on Gaza.

Some of the deadliest Israeli attacks of the war have been carried out with U.S. weapons, including an October 31 airstrike with 2,000-pound bombs on the densely populated Jabalia refugee camp. More than 120 civilians were killed.

The State Department also said that “we continue to strongly emphasize to the government of Israel that they must not only comply with international humanitarian law, but also take every feasible step to prevent harm to civilians.”

“The U.S. administration wholeheartedly supports the mass slaughter of Palestinians.”

Critics pushed back against that language, with Ibrahim Zabad, a professor of international relations at St. Bonaventure University in upstate New York, asserting on social media that the State Department’s move to bypass Congress “shows the U.S. administration wholeheartedly supports the mass slaughter of Palestinians, their ethnic cleansing, and the demolition of Gaza.”

British journalist Andy Worthington, known for his work chronicling the cases of Guantánamo Bay detainees, asked: “Do they think not enough Palestinian children are being orphaned or killed in Gaza?”

Eli Clifton, a senior researcher at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, noted Blinken’s lamentation Thursday that 2023 “has been an extraordinarily dangerous year for press around the world.” Blinken’s statement did not mention the scores of journalists killed—sometimes allegedly on purpose—by Israeli troops during the war.

The U.S. already gives Israel almost $4 billion in nearly unconditional military aid each year. Since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks and Israel’s retaliatory onslaught, U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly affirmed his “unwavering” support for Israel. His administration has blocked multiple global cease-fire efforts at the United Nations while seeking an additional $14.3 billion in armed assistance for Israel.

The United States has given Israel more than $150 billion in inflation-adjusted aid since the nation was founded in 1948 following a yearslong campaign of terrorism and ethnic cleansing.

While Biden recently decried Israel’s “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza, he has refused to acknowledge what many international experts have called Israel’s genocide against the people of the besieged strip. Some activists have dubbed him “Genocide Joe.”

On Friday, South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Hundreds of rights groups and a handful of progressives in the U.S. Congress have implored the Biden administration to suspend military aid to Israel, while others including Democratic lawmakers have called for conditions to be placed on such assistance.

Earlier this month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) led a letter urging Biden to boost oversight of how American arms are used against Palestinian civilians. The letter specifically mentions 155mm artillery shells.

“The IDF has previously used these shells to hit populated areas including neighborhoods, hospitals, schools, shelters, and safe zones, causing a staggering number of civilian deaths,” the senators noted.

According to a Quinnipiac University poll published on December 20, less than half of registered U.S. voters support sending military aid to Israel—an approximately 10-point decrease from the previous month.

Original article by BRETT WILKINS republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingOnce Again, Biden Bypasses Congress to Approve Arms Sale to Israel

Pressure rises for Biden to drop military aid to Israel

Spread the love

Original article republished from Peoples Dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

After over two months of genocide, support for the US’s usual policy of unconditional aid to the Zionist state is dwindling

Image from demonstration outside of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s house on Christmas morning, protesting US policy in Israel

Since October 7, Biden has added to Israel’s massive US-made military arsenal and sent more weapons to Israel as it carries out its genocide in the Gaza Strip, even bypassing Congressional review to do so. After nearly three months of war, however, support for the US’s usual policy of unconditional aid to the Zionist state is dwindling.

Some of the most bloody attacks against Palestinian civilians have been made possible with US-made bombs, such as the attack that leveled an apartment block in the Jabalya refugee camp, killing over 100 people.

Many of the atrocities perpetrated by Israel with US-made weaponry and funded by US money have been broadcast internationally across communications channels for even the people of the US to see. As a result, mass protests have erupted in the streets for months, often disrupting major commercial centers and events throughout the busy holiday season. 

A recent poll shows that popular support for US aid to Israel has dropped since November. According to a poll from Quinnipiac University released on December 20, less than half (45%) of registered voters support sending “military aid to Israel for their efforts in the war.” This is a significant drop from the results of Quinnipiac’s previous poll from a month ago, in which 54% of voters expressed their support for military aid to Israel. A comparison of the two polls reveals that support for aid to Israel has dropped among voters in both the Republican and Democratic parties. In the November poll, 71% of Republicans and 45% Democratic voters said they were in favor of further military aid to Israel. Those numbers dropped in December, with 65% of Republicans and only 36% of Democrats supporting more US aid to Israel.

The dwindling support for US support to the Zionist state follows the trends of other polls in the growing popularity of the Palestinian cause, such as an early December Date for Progress poll which found that 61% of voters support calls for a permanent ceasefire—including nearly half, 49%, of Republicans. 

Pressure for the Biden administration to shift its policies on Israel has also been coming from within Congress itself—not even necessarily from the most progressive elements of the legislature. Six members of security-oriented committees of the House of Representatives, including the Intelligence, Armed Services or Foreign Affairs committees, none of whom are known progressives, penned a letter to Biden on December 18, calling on the President to “use all of our nation’s leverage to shift the Israeli military’s strategy.” 

“The mounting civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis are unacceptable and not in line with American interests,” the letter reads. The representatives also reference the history of “America’s war on terror” as a warning for the future, stating, “We know from personal and often painful experience that you can’t destroy a terror ideology with military force alone. And it can, in fact, make it worse.”

Several prominent humanitarian organizations, including Human Rights Watch, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders USA, Oxfam America, and Amnesty International, have also penned a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, urging him to halt military aid to Israel. The organizations urge the Pentagon to “withhold U.S. assistance, in accordance with U.S. law and policy, that would facilitate violations of international humanitarian law.” 

Biden himself has not responded to any of the outside pressures against his Israel policy, and has only dug his heels in. As his administration told CNN earlier this month, the US has no plans to place conditions on Israel aid as it carries out genocide in Gaza.

Original article republished from Peoples Dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Continue ReadingPressure rises for Biden to drop military aid to Israel

UN Condemns Israel’s ‘Unlawful Killings’ and Settler Violence in West Bank

Spread the love

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A Palestinian child stands next to a damaged building following a three-day Israeli army raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on December 14, 2023.  (Photo: Zain Jaafar/AFP via Getty Images)

The U.N. high commissioner for human rights called surging settler attacks on Palestinians “very disturbing.”

A United Nations report released Thursday warned that conditions in the occupied West Bank have worsened rapidly since October, with Israeli settlers and soldiers ramping up violent attacks on the Palestinian population and subjecting people across the territory to frequent abuse, movement restrictions, arbitrary detention, and “unlawful killings.”

The report by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights found that since October 7, settler attacks—including shootings and the burning of homes—have surged to an average of six per day, up from three per day previously. The report notes that in many cases, the settlers were “accompanied” by Israeli forces, wearing Israeli military uniforms, and carrying weapons supplied by the army.

Between October 7 and December 27, Israeli forces and settlers killed at least 300 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to the U.N. Israeli soldiers arrested more than 4,700 Palestinians during that period, holding many of them in so-called administrative detention without charge or trial.

Palestinian detainees have faced grotesque abuse and torture at the hands of Israeli soldiers, who have raided West Bank homes and refugee camps with increased frequency in recent weeks. Six Palestinian men died in Israeli detention between October 7 and November 20, the U.N. found. One of the men was reportedly insulin-dependent; he, along with others detained at the same time, was physically assaulted by Israeli soldiers.

The new report notes that members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have filmed and photographed themselves “abusing, degrading, and humiliating Palestinians apprehended in the West Bank, including pictures of detainees stripped naked or half-naked, blindfolded and handcuffed, and screaming in pain while physically abused and humiliated including by being forced to pose with the Israeli flag, sing songs in Hebrew or forced to dance with soldiers.”

“In one of the videos, a Palestinian man, subsequently identified through monitoring as having been arrested on 31 October, is seen kneeling, blindfolded, and with hands tied behind his back, being kicked several times in the stomach by a soldier who spits on him and insults him,” the report continues. “On 1 November, IDF reportedly stated they would investigate the abuses and that one reserve soldier had been dismissed from reserve service.”

“The intensity of the violence and repression is something that has not been seen in years.”

Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement Thursday that “the violations documented in this report repeat the pattern and nature of violations reported in the past in the context of the longstanding Israeli occupation of the West Bank.”

“However,” Türk added, “the intensity of the violence and repression is something that has not been seen in years.”

Since October 7—when Hamas launched a deadly attack on southern Israel and the IDF responded with a catastrophic bombing campaign—violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank has surged. Israeli officials have tallied at least 120 hate crimes committed in the occupied West Bank, but no charges have been brought in any of the cases, the U.N. said.

The report observed that Israeli settlers—with the support of the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—are “taking advantage of a generally permissive environment to accelerate displacement of Palestinians from their land, raising concerns of forcible transfer seeking to create facts on the ground making the existence of a viable Palestinian state almost impossible.”

“According to Israeli organizations monitoring settlement expansion, settlers have built at least four new outposts since 7 October and at least nine new roads leading to settlements, marking a growth in illegal construction by settlers unprecedented since the second Intifada,” the U.N. report says.

Türk called settlers’ “dehumanization” of Palestinians “very disturbing” and said the attacks and illegal settlement expansions “must cease immediately.”

“Israeli authorities should strongly censure and prevent settler violence and prosecute both its instigators and perpetrators,” said Türk.

The U.N.’s findings were published as Al Jazeera reported that Israeli forces have “launched their most intense raids yet on cities in the occupied West Bank as they pressed on with one of the largest incursions in the territory since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October.”

“At least one person was killed after Israeli troops launched a coordinated overnight assault on 10 cities including Hebron, Halhul, Nablus, Jenin, Tulkarem, el-Bireh, Jericho, and notably the center of Ramallah, which is the administrative headquarters of the Palestinian Authority,” the outlet reported. “Israeli forces used tear gas and stun grenades to clear a street and then blocked off the area, before using a ‘controlled explosion’ to enter a money exchange shop. The soldiers seized documents and arrested business owners.”

An Al Jazeera correspondent said that Israeli soldiers seized around $2.5 million in the raids.

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingUN Condemns Israel’s ‘Unlawful Killings’ and Settler Violence in West Bank

Stunning Atrocities in Gaza Funded by US Taxpayers

Spread the love

Original article by RALPH NADER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Children crying following the Israeli bombing of Khan Yunis, Gaza on October 15, 2023.  (Photo by Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)

Congress is poised to send $14.3 billion to Israeli militarism—a “genocide tax” on U.S. taxpayers—without public hearings. What can be done to stop this madness?

The unstoppable Israeli U.S. armed military juggernaut continues its genocidal destruction of Gaza’s Palestinians. The onslaught includes blocking the provision of “food, water, medicine, electricity and fuel,” openly genocidal orders decreed by Netanyahu and his extreme, blood-thirsty ministers.

The stunning atrocities going on day after day is being recorded by U.S. drones over Gaza and by brave Palestinian journalists directly targeted by the Israeli army. Over 66 journalists and larger numbers of their families have been slain. Israel has excluded foreign and Israeli journalists for years from Gaza.

This no-holds-barred ferocity came out of the Israeli government’s slumber on October 7th which allowed a few thousand Hamas and other fighters to take their smuggled hand-held weapons and attack soldiers and civilians before being destroyed or driven back to Gaza.

Seventy-five years of Israel military violence against defenseless Palestinians and fifty-six years of violently and illegally occupying their remaining slice of the original Palestine provides some background for Israel’s Founder, David Ben-Gurion’s candid statement: “We have taken their country.” (See, his full statement here).

The overwhelming military superiority of Israel – a nuclear armed nation – in the Middle East has produced a more aggressive Israeli government. Being more secure than ever before doesn’t seem to temper the expansionist missions of right-wing Israeli colonies in the West Bank.

Presently, the narrow Netanyahu majority in the Parliament believes that “nothing can stop us.” Presently, they are right.

Joe Biden and Congress are vigorously enabling the annihilations. The UN is frozen by the Joe Biden administration’s vetoes in the Security Council against ending the carnage in Gaza. The Arab nations either lay in ruins – Syria, Iraq – or are too weak to cause Israeli generals any worry. The rich Arab nations in the Gulf want to do business with prosperous Israel and, other than Qatar, care little about their Palestinian brethren.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are no obstacle. Israel, along with Russia and the U.S. do not belong to the International Criminal Court. The Palestinian Authority is a party, but the practical difficulties of investigating Israeli war crimes in Gaza and apprehending the accused are insurmountable. The ICJ’s jurisdiction requires a country to bring Israel before the Court for war crimes or genocide. In any event, the Court’s lead-footed procedures trespass on eternity. So much for international law and the Geneva Conventions. Netanyahu rejects the moral authority of seventeen Israeli human rights groups, including Rabbis and reservist soldiers. Their open letter to President Biden in the December 13, 2023 issue of the New York Times on “The Humanitarian Catastrophe in the Gaza Strip” was ignored by the media despite the truth and courage it embodied.

In the U.S., protests and demonstrations are everywhere. Many are organized by Jewish human rights groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, Standing Together, Veterans for Peace and various student organizations. Everywhere Biden travels there are people from all backgrounds protesting.

A few days ago, the first protests by labor union members occurred in Oakland, California. Union activists could turn their attention to why, for years, union leaders put billions of dollars into riskier lower-interest Israeli bonds rather than U.S. Treasuries or bond funds investing in America. Like U.S. weapon deliveries, purchases of Israeli bonds by states, cities and unions have surged since October 7th.

Pope Francis, informed of the Israeli attack on the only Catholic Church and Convent in Gaza, which housed people with disabilities, killing and injuring Christians sheltering there, sorrowfully said: “Some would say, ‘It is war. It is terrorism.’ Yes, it is war. It is terrorism.”

In 2015, over 400 Rabbis from Israel, the USA and Canada called on Prime Minister Netanyahu to stop the practice of demolishing hundreds of Palestinian homes as being contrary to international law and Jewish tradition. Their successors Rabbis for Human Rights are being ignored by the regime.

The Head of the U.S. Bishops Conference and the National Council of Churches, representing millions of parishioners, condemned the bombings but received little coverage.

There is only one institution that could stop Netanyahu’s mass military massacres of the Palestinian people. That is the U.S. Congress. As long as over 90% of the politicians there automatically support AIPAC, the Israeli Government Can Do No Wrong Lobby, even a peace-loving Joe Biden cannot deter Netanyahu. Bibi (his nickname) could simply say to a hypothetically transformed Biden “Joe, take it up with OUR Congress.”

How has AIPAC achieved such domination on Capitol Hill? By years of relentless lobbying and the smear of “anti-semitism” to anyone defying them. AIPAC and its chapters don’t bother with marches or demonstrations. They personally focus on the legislator – one by one. Carrots or sticks. Praise, PAC money and junkets are the Carrots. The Sticks are smears and money for selected primary challengers in their Districts or States. Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN) called AIPAC “a Hate Group.”

There are about 300,000 citizens spending significant time back in the states working Congress in AIPAC’s favor. They know the doctors, lawyers, accountants, clergy, local politicians, donors, golf champions and other friends of the Senators and Representatives, and forcefully promote Israeli expansionism backed to the hilt by the U.S. government.

AIPAC is proficient in part for lack of any organized opposition. It is also practicing state-of-the-art non-stop grassroots lobbying.

Congress is poised to send $14.3 billion to Israeli militarism—a “genocide tax” on U.S. taxpayers—without public hearings. While growing public opinion in the U.S. is against unconditional backing of the Israeli regime, it has not changed a single vote in Congress. Someday, more organized support for America’s national interest will.

(For calls to your legislators, the Congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121.)

Original article by RALPH NADER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingStunning Atrocities in Gaza Funded by US Taxpayers