THE SIXTH SEAL: NEW YORK CITY (REVELATION 6:12)

    

Earthquake activity in the New York City area

Wikipedia

Although the eastern United States is not as

seismically active

as regions near plate boundaries, large and damaging earthquakes do occur there. Furthermore, when these rare eastern U.S. earthquakes occur, the areas affected by them are much larger than for western U.S. earthquakes of the same magnitude.

Thus, earthquakes represent at least a moderate hazard to East Coast cities, including New York City and adjacent areas of very high population density.

Seismicity in the vicinity of New York City. Data are from the U.S. Geological Survey (Top, USGS) and the National Earthquake Information Center (Bottom, NEIC). In the top figure, closed red circles indicate 1924-2006 epicenters and open black circles indicate locations of the larger earthquakes that occurred in 1737, 1783 and 1884. Green lines indicate the trace of the Ramapo fault.

As can be seen in the maps of earthquake activity in this region(shown in the figure),

seismicity is scattered throughout most of the New York City area, with some hint of a concentration of earthquakes in the area surrounding Manhattan Island.

The largest known earthquake in this region occurred in 1884 and had a magnitude of approximately 5.For this earthquake, observations of fallen bricks and cracked plaster were reported from eastern Pennsylvania to central Connecticut, and the maximum intensity reported was at two sites in western Long Island (Jamaica, New York and Amityville, New York).

Two other earthquakes of approximately magnitude 5 occurred in this region in 1737 and 1783. The figure on the right shows maps of the distribution of earthquakes of magnitude 3 and greater that occurred in this region from 1924 to 2010, along with locations of the larger earthquakes that occurred in 1737, 1783 and 1884.

Background

The NYC area is part of the geologically complex structure of the Northern

Appalachian Mountains. This complex structure was formed during the past half billion years when the Earth’s crust underlying the Northern Appalachians was the site of two major geological episodes, each of which has left its imprint on the NYC area bedrock.

Between about 450 million years ago and about 250 million years ago, the Northern Appalachian region was affected by a continental collision, in which the ancient African continent collided with the ancient North American continent to form the supercontinent Pangaea.

Beginning about 200 million years ago, the present-day Atlantic ocean began to form as plate tectonic forces began to

rift

apart the continent of Pangaea. The last major episode of geological activity to affect the

bedrock

in the New York area occurred about 100 million years ago, during the Mesozoic era, when continental rifting that led to the opening of the present-day Atlantic ocean formed the Hartford and

Newark

Mesozoic rift basins.

Earthquake rates in the northeastern United States are about 50 to 200 times lower than in California, but

the earthquakes that do occur in the northeastern U.S. are typically felt over a much broader region than earthquakes of the same magnitude in the western U.S.This means the area of damage from an earthquake in the northeastern U.S. could be larger than the area of damage caused by an earthquake of the same magnitude in the western U.S. The cooler rocks in the northeastern U.S. contribute to the seismic energy propagating as much as ten times further than in the warmer rocks of California.

A magnitude 4.0 eastern U.S. earthquake typically can be felt as far as 100 km (60 mi) from its

epicenter, but it infrequently causes damage near its source. A magnitude 5.5 eastern U.S. earthquake, although uncommon, can be felt as far as 500 km (300 mi) from its epicenter, and can cause damage as far away as 40 km (25 mi) from its epicenter. Earthquakes stronger than about magnitude 5.0 generate ground motions that are strong enough to be damaging in the epicentral area.

At well-studied plate boundaries like the

San Andreas fault

system in California, scientists can often make observations that allow them to identify the specific fault on which an earthquake took place. In contrast, east of the Rocky Mountains this is rarely the case.

The NYC area is far from the boundaries of the North American plate, which are in the center of the Atlantic Ocean, in the Caribbean Sea, and along the west coast of North America. The seismicity of the northeastern U.S. is generally considered to be due to ancient zones of weakness that are being reactivated in the present-day stress field. In this model, pre-existing faults that were formed during ancient geological episodes persist in the intraplate crust, and the earthquakes occur when the present-day stress is released along these zones of weakness.

The stress that causes the earthquakes is generally considered to be derived from present-day rifting at the Mid-Atlantic ridge.

Earthquakes and geologically mapped faults in the Northeastern U.S.

The northeastern U.S. has many known faults, but virtually all of the known faults have not been active for perhaps 90 million years or more. Also, the locations of the known faults are not well determined at earthquake depths. Accordingly, few (if any) earthquakes in the region can be unambiguously linked to known faults.

Given the current geological and seismological data, it is difficult to determine if a known fault in this region is still active today and could produce a modern earthquake. As in most other areas east of the Rocky Mountains, the best guide to earthquake hazard in the northeastern U.S. is probably the locations of the past earthquakes themselves.

The Ramapo fault and other New York City area faults

The Ramapo Fault, which marks the western boundary of the Newark rift basin, has been argued to be a major seismically active feature of this region,but it is difficult to discern the extent to which the Ramapo fault (or any other specific mapped fault in the area) might be any more of a source of future earthquakes than any other parts of the region. The Ramapo Fault zone spans more than 185 miles (300 kilometers) in

New York,

New Jersey, and

Pennsylvania. It is a system of

faults

between the northern

Appalachian Mountains

and Piedmont areas to the east. This fault is perhaps the best known fault zone in the Mid-Atlantic region, and some small earthquakes have been known to occur in its vicinity. Recently, public knowledge about the fault has increased – especially after the 1970s, when the fault’s proximity to the Indian Point nuclear plant in New York was noticed.

There is insufficient evidence to unequivocally demonstrate any strong correlation of earthquakes in the New York City area with specific faults or other geologic structures in this region. The damaging earthquake affecting New York City in 1884 was probably not associated with the Ramapo fault because the strongest shaking from that earthquake occurred on Long Island (quite far from the trace of the Ramapo fault). The relationship between faults and earthquakes in the New York City area is currently understood to be more complex than any simple association of a specific earthquake with a specific mapped fault.

A 2008 study argued that a magnitude 6 or 7 earthquake might originate from the Ramapo fault zone,

which would almost definitely spawn hundreds or even thousands of fatalities and billions of dollars in damage. Studying around 400 earthquakes over the past 300 years, the study also argued that there was an additional fault zone extending from the Ramapo Fault zone into southwestern Connecticut. As can be seen in the above figure of seismicity, earthquakes are scattered throughout this region, with no particular concentration of activity along the Ramapo fault, or along the hypothesized fault zone extending into southwestern Connecticut.

Just off the northern terminus of the Ramapo fault is the

Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, built between 1956 and 1960 by

Consolidated Edison Company. The plant began operating in 1963, and it has been the subject of a controversy over concerns that an earthquake from the Ramapo fault will affect the power plant. Whether or not the Ramapo fault actually does pose a threat to this nuclear power plant remains an open question.

The Saudi Arabian Nuclear Horn: Daniel 7

Photo: Pakistan Ballistic Missile. Source: International Relations Insights & Analysis (IRIA)

And What If Saudi Arabia Were the Owner of Nuclear Missiles?

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN) — In any body politic there will be a group of powerful people who, if not in the inner circle of the president or prime minister, can win access to it at regular intervals. Security is their profession, and they can be met at discrete academic conferences where they tend to stand out as rather earnest, if sombre, figures.

It is they who bend the ear of those in authority, consistent in their solicitations even as governments change, arguing that their country will only have true security if they possess a nuclear deterrent and that if their advice is not heeded one day there will be an enemy who will take advantage of their country’s naiveté.

The politicians whose ears they bend have won their authority not by knowing about the world outside their own country and its discontents but by climbihttp://andrewtheprophet.comng the ladder in domestic politics, perhaps becoming expert in one or two things e.g. tax law, civil rights, transport, climate change or the economy, very rarely in military and geo-political matters. They are often putty in the hands of these would-be nuclear strategists and nuclear bomb makers.

One of these I knew reasonably well, the erudite and charming nuclear physicist, the late Dr Munir Khan, one of the fathers of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, who, it was said—although no proof was ever forthcoming—had used his previous position as a high official in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to build clandestine contacts for Pakistan’s bomb makers. He explained to me, long after he was retired, how he and his fellow nuclear scientists manipulated the civilian leadership.

The late Olof Palme, prime minister of Sweden for many years, told me of how he had to “de-fang” the nuclear bomb establishment that was well under way with its plans when he came to power. It is not easy to roll back the nuclear lobby even when one is prime minister—there is always the danger, if you don’t take the scientists along with you, that they, believing they love the country more than the prime minister does, will conduct their future researches clandestinely or, if not in secret, under the guise of using it for “peaceful purposes” and await for the political currents to turn in their favour. This happened in white-ruled South Africa.

This is also in essence what happened in India. An authoritative study, “The Politics of Nuclear Weapons in India and Pakistan” (Praeger) written by Haider Nizamani makes clear that their nuclear bomb programmes did not originate in response to specific security problems. Adversaries were not the cause. Rather, they had to be found. This explains India’s remarkable decision to put its bomb development on ice after its successful “peaceful” nuclear test in 1974. The “threat” from China had gone quiet and Pakistan, for all the acrimony, did not seem a real threat.

Only in the 1990s, by arguing that China with its nuclear weapons was becoming an enemy, were the bomb advocates able to win the ear of the politicians and alterative voices were gradually marginalized as “unpatriotic”. One of the pivotal figures was the strategic thinker K. Subrahmanyam who by sheer doggedness transformed a minority opinion into a mainstream assumption.

His calculation, correct as it turned out, is once a certain threshold has been crossed popular opinion, invariably nationalistic, will succumb to the call of patriotism. With the rise of the Hindu-nationalist party, the BJP, the bomb became inevitable.

We now see the same process afoot in Saudi Arabia. A couple of dozen years ago in this column I tried to draw attention to Saudi Arabia’s purchase of Chinese CSS-2 rockets. I wrote then that there could be no question these had not been purchased for conventional military activity, as they were unnecessarily powerful and, moreover, inaccurate with a normal explosive warhead. Their sole real purpose was to carry a nuclear weapon.

The Saudi military and strategists in effect hoodwinked the king and the ruling princes, persuading them that these rockets were the best deal on the market and the fact they could carry nuclear warheads was at that time irrelevant since they worked well with conventional warheads

For years, Western nuclear powers have connived to keep this, if not secret, quiet. Saudi Arabia has been a strategic ally, most important and long-standing, in the oil business. As successive administrations in Washington have viewed it, discretion has been the better part of valour, even though one of the targets for a Saudi bomb could be the Middle East’s other nuclear-bomb power, Israel, America’s staunch friend.

An article by Richard Russell in Survival, the quarterly of the influential International Institute for Strategic Studies, argued that whilst Saudi Arabia has not yet put nuclear warheads on these rockets it is probably only a matter of time before it does. Self-serving security issues are far more important in such decision-making that “an innate friendship” with the U.S.

For the desert kingdom with its small population and army but huge territory, nuclear weapons appear a sensible option.

After Washington belatedly discovered the purchase of the CSS-2s from China, 31 senators called on the Reagan Administration to suspend American arms sales to Saudi Arabia. But the Saudis were not intimidated. Requests by Washington to inspect the missiles have been refused. Saudi Arabia this year has become even more self-assertive, linking up with Russia to keep oil prices high. These days Saudi Arabia seems not to care a hoot what Washington wants of it.

As Israel long has, Saudi Arabia will always deny the intention to build a nuclear armoury. But common sense and much circumstantial evidence suggest that this is the way it will go. It is not the so-called “rogues” who pose the threat of uncontrolled nuclear proliferation; it is some of the Western powers’ “nearest and dearest”.

With Saudi Arabia now being led by the quite unscrupulous, not to say amoral, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, I would not be surprised to see him making the decision to go nuclear. A warhead would be easily purchasable from Saudi Arabia’s friend, Pakistan, a country that also likes to keep its distance from America.

What is Washington going to do about that?

About the author: The writer was for 17 years a foreign affairs columnist and commentator for the International Herald Tribune, now the New York Times. He has also written dozens of columns for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and the Los Angeles Times. He is the European who has appeared most on the opinion pages of these papers. Visit his website: www.jonathanpowerjournalist.com [IDN-InDepthNews — 25 October 2022]

Photo: Pakistan ballistic missile. Source: International Relations Insights & Analysis (IRIA)

IDN is the flagship agency of the Non-profit International Press Syndicate.

Biden States the Obvious

Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of secretly building dirty bombs at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.Credit…Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

Biden Says Russian Use of a Nuclear Weapon Would Be a ‘Serious Mistake’

By David E. Sanger

Oct. 25, 2022

WASHINGTON — President Biden renewed his warning to President Vladimir V. Putin on Tuesday that it would be an “incredibly serious mistake” to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, reflecting the increasingly urgent concern in Washington and among Western allies that Russia may be searching for a pretext to unleash such a weapon.

Mr. Biden said that he was still uncertain if Russia was trying to put together a “false flag operation” in which it would detonate a dirty bomb and blame the Ukrainians. A dirty bomb is not a nuclear weapon, but an improvised device that uses conventional explosives to spread radioactive material.

But it was clear from Mr. Biden’s comments that he is far less concerned about a dirty bomb than about the possibility that a set of incidents could result in Russia detonating a battlefield nuclear weapon, the first to be used in a conflict since the United States dropped atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It is part of what American officials have called an inescapable paradox of the conflict: While the United States and its NATO allies are committed to helping Ukraine expel Russia from its territory, the more successful the Ukrainians are, the greater the risk that Russia will break the unwritten taboo against employing nuclear weapons.

It is also a reminder that Russia may have more riding on the outcome of the war in Ukraine than it has in any conflict it has fought since it first successfully tested a nuclear weapon in August 1949, when Harry S. Truman was president.

Russia’s top military officials began the series of accusations about dirty bombs over the weekend, warning their American counterparts, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, that Ukraine was planning to detonate a radiological attack on Ukrainian soil. They offered no evidence.

Just hours before Mr. Biden spoke at the White House, Ukraine responded, accusing the Russians of secretly building dirty bombs themselves at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which Russian troops now occupy.

American intelligence officials are divided about Russia’s intentions. Some believe that the repeated threats to use nuclear weapons are a bluff; others say they are part of a Russian military doctrine called “escalate to de-escalate,” in which a small nuclear device is set off to warn adversaries to stay away.

Over the past few weeks, the Biden administration has been conducting tabletop exercises, trying to game out how Russia might try to gain an advantage by threatening to use a nuclear weapon — and under what conditions it might actually detonate one. The purpose of the exercises, officials say, is to figure out how the United States and its allies might respond.

No one in the administration is arguing for a nuclear response. But among the options under debate are conventional military strikes on Russian forces inside Ukraine, likely executed by Ukrainian forces. The United States and its NATO allies would use the moment to further isolate Russia from the world — especially China and other nations, like India, that have been continuing to buy its oil. But it is unclear how Beijing in particular would respond to a Russian use of a small nuclear weapon, no matter how destructive.

On Tuesday, Mr. Biden was asked by a reporter whether Russia “is preparing to deploy a dirty bomb itself or a nuclear weapon.” The president focused on the second part of the question. While officials say a dirty bomb would be a tragic escalation, their clear concern is what it could portend. In American intelligence agencies and the Pentagon, there is fear Russia would stage a provocation to justify using a nuclear weapon in response.

American officials appeared to have some intelligence that backed up the fear, but they refused to discuss what it is, or how convincing it is. But in making public Russia’s claims to Mr. Austin and General Milley, they appeared to be following a pattern of making information public in an effort to box in Mr. Putin as he looks for options beyond relying on his failing military force.

“Russia is pushing transparently false allegations,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday. “In the past, we’ve seen Russia use allegations as a pretext to escalate. And as the president said, we don’t know if that is the case here.”

In a briefing to reporters, the Pentagon repeatedly pushed back against Russia’s claims that Ukraine is building a dirty bomb and said that any Russian use of such a weapon would merit a response by the United States.

“The allegations that Ukraine is building a dirty bomb are false,” said Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, in a briefing Tuesday afternoon. “We have not seen at this time, though, any indication that Russia has made a decision or intends to employ nuclear weapons or a dirty bomb.”

“It is something that we will continue to watch closely,” he added. “And certainly, as others have said, there would be consequences for Russia whether it uses a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb.”

Neither the United States nor NATO has made any changes to the posture of their nuclear forces as a result of Russia’s recent allegations, the general said.

Meanwhile, Russia notified the United States and NATO that it intends to conduct a regularly scheduled military exercise of its nuclear forces, called Grom.

General Ryder called this “a routine annual exercise by Russia,” saying it notified the United States in compliance with “its arms control obligations and its transparency commitments.”

Though the exercise was expected, the major nuclear powers often suspend missile tests and exercises at moments of high tension, to avoid false alarms and miscalculations. In the spring and summer the Biden administration delayed several tests of nuclear-capable missiles, though ultimately some were conducted.

Just as there was no way to verify Russia’s dubious claims about Ukraine’s dirty-bomb plans, there was no way to test Ukraine’s contention, by its nuclear operations firm Energoatom, that Russian forces occupying the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant were making dirty bombs of their own.

Russian forces have been in control of the Zaporizhzhia plant, in southern Ukraine, since early March, but it is still run by Ukrainian engineers who report to officials in Kyiv.

Officials at Energoatom said that Russians at the plant were carrying out unauthorized work in the dry spent nuclear fuel storage facility, which holds 174 containers, each containing 24 spent nuclear fuel assemblies.

“Energoatom assumes that such actions of the invaders may indicate that they are preparing a terrorist act using nuclear materials and radioactive waste stored” at the Zaporizhzhia plant, the company said in a statement. “Destruction of these containers as a result of explosion will lead to a radiation accident and radiation contamination of several hundred square kilometers of the adjacent territory.”

It offered no evidence for its contention that the containers were being destroyed. The International Atomic Energy Agency keeps two inspectors, on a rotation schedule, at the plant.

The Russian Horn is Making Things Worse: Daniel 8

The Soviet Union’s first nuclear submarine, Leninsky Komsomol, is transported from a pier to a museum in the city of Kronstadt, outside St. Petersburg, Russia, on October 12, 2022. Both Russia and the West have ratcheted up nuclear rhetoric and exercises in recent days amid the war in Ukraine [AP Photo/Dmitri Lovetsky]

NATO, Russia war games are making nuclear risks worse

Leaders on all sides are pursuing policies inexorably driving us towards nuclear war. They must step back. Now.

• Kate HudsonDr Kate Hudson is general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and a leading anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigner.

Published On 24 Oct 202224 Oct 2022

This month, United States President Joe Biden warned that the world could face armageddon if his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, were to use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine. You would imagine that such a prognosis would lead to urgent action to dial down the confrontation. Yet no effort is being made to move us back from that risk.

On the contrary, governments on all sides are piling on more threats, more militarisation and more actions that are not just making nuclear war possible, but are increasing its probability.

Last week, NATO began a round of nuclear exercises simulating the dropping of ‘tactical’ B61 nuclear bombs over Europe. Although these drills are presented as routine, they are occurring alongside parallel Russian exercises. It’s hard to imagine worse timing.

Surely with concerns about armageddon expressed at the very highest levels of power, these exercises should have been called off as a message that the West won’t contribute to escalating nuclear tensions? Instead, our leaders are systematically failing to reduce the risk.

Still, there are powerful messages that should be listened to and acted upon. In August — even before Putin’s latest, thinly veiled nuclear threats — United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that the world is “one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation”. His words must serve as a wake-up call to leaders who pursue policies inexorably driving us towards nuclear war and to populations that are not yet taking action to stop these terrible dangers.

Guterres warned that we are at a time of nuclear danger “not seen since the height of the Cold War”. He cautioned against countries seeking “false security” by spending vast sums on “doomsday weapons”. He said that the world had been lucky that nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945. But as he rightly stated: “Luck is not a strategy. Nor is it a shield from geopolitical tensions boiling over into nuclear conflict.”

Indeed, we cannot rely on luck. And we must remember what nuclear use means and understand what nuclear war would look like today.

An estimated 340,000 people died after the US dropped atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945. That included many who survived the immediate blast but died shortly afterwards from fatal burns. Others died because of the complete breakdown of rescue and medical services that had also been destroyed. And many more died when the impact of radiation kicked in, poisoning people and causing cancers and birth deformities.

If that isn’t bad enough, consider this: The Hiroshima bomb was actually a small nuclear bomb in today’s terms. Current nuclear weapons — even the supposedly limited-range, battlefield-oriented ‘tactical’ nuclear weapons now routinely discussed in the context of the Ukraine war — are many, many times more powerful. The ones that the current exercises over Europe are designed for have variable yields of up to 20 times greater strength than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.

Equally worrying are the recent policies of nuclear weapons states. We had seen gradual reductions in nuclear weapons for a few decades. Now we are seeing modernisation programmes on all sides, with the US planning an upgrade of missiles that can deliver nuclear weapons, France launching a project to build a new generation of nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, and Britain, India and Pakistan preparing to increase their nuclear arsenals.

But worst of all is the sanitising of the idea of nuclear use. It seems that the mutually assured destruction theory that prevailed during the Cold War – that these weapons will never actually be used – has been abandoned.

Today’s policies specifically include nuclear use, including in conventional wars, even against countries that don’t have nuclear weapons. The taboo on nuclear use is over, and the global community has to face up to that reality because the impacts of nuclear war cannot be confined to a single country or even to a region. Such a war presents an existential threat to all humanity and to all forms of life. Nuclear disarmament is a prerequisite for our survival.

It’s not just the peace movement that makes this case. In fact, the global majority actively works for a nuclear weapons-free world and is very aware that it is the activities of a tiny minority of states – just nine with nuclear weapons – that hold us all at risk of annihilation. That’s why virtually the entire Global South is already self-organised into nuclear weapons-free zones. The nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons are initiatives from the Global South. That is where the good sense lies, and it is to this championing of nuclear disarmament that we must turn, for security based on humanity and peace, not on destruction and death.

In the 1980s, the former Swedish prime minister, the great Olof Palme, pioneered the principle of common security – that no state or community can be secure without others experiencing that same level of security. It’s a concept whose time has come. Europe and the world badly need a common security framework, not massively increasing militarisation. The idea that might makes right or that thousands of people can be sent to slaughter and be slaughtered must never be acceptable.

In January, the leaders of the US, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom issued a statement affirming “that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”. As we enter UN Disarmament Week on Monday, we must all urge those leaders to act on that commitment.

Nuclear disarmament, backed by the global majority of states and a new approach to common security, can yet save our world. But time is running out: We must take action to secure our future.

Militant leader among six Palestinians killed outside the Temple Walls: Revelation 11

Militant leader among six Palestinians killed in Israeli West Bank raid

Issued on: 25/10/2022 – 03:28

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Six Palestinians were killed and nearly 20 others injured early Tuesday in sweeping raids by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said that Wadih Al Houh, a militant leader of a new coalition of Palestinian fighters dubbed “The Lions’ Den”, had been among those killed in the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

The Palestinian health ministry initially reported three dead and 19 wounded, three of them seriously, shot “by Israeli fire in Nablus”.

Later statements said that two more Palestinians had died in Nablus, while another Palestinian was also killed in overnight clashes near Ramallah.

The Israeli army said it had carried out a vast operation with police and intelligence officers targeting a site “used by the main operatives of the ‘Lion’s Den'”, describing it as a “headquarters and a workshop for making weapons” of the militants.

“The forces detonated the explosive manufacturing site,” the army statement added, which did not provide a death toll. “During the activity, multiple armed suspects were hit.”

Violence has increased in recent months in the northern West Bank, the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by Israel, especially in the areas of Nablus and Jenin.

More than 100 Palestinian fighters and civilians have been killed since the start of the year, the heaviest toll in the West Bank for nearly seven years, according to the United Nations.

Lapid, speaking on Israeli public broadcaster Kan radio, warned Palestinian militants that “they need to know that we will reach them wherever they are,” he said.

“Israel will never stop acting for its security and we will do what needs to be done,” he added. “The goal is to reduce terrorism and ensure that it does not affect Israeli citizens”.

‘Aggression’

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is establishing “urgent contacts in order to stop this aggression against our people” in Nablus, his spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeinah said in a statement. 

In recent weeks, a group of young Palestinian fighters – some affiliated with mainstream groups such as Fatah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad – have launched militant attacks from Nablus. 

The new group, called “Areen al-Ossoud” or “The Lions’ Den” in English, claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on an Israeli soldier two weeks ago in the occupied West Bank. 

Late leader Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, nicknamed “The Lion of Nablus”, was known for galvanising the youth before he was shot dead by Israeli forces in August. He has since become a folk hero to Palestinians on social media.

In the aftermath, the Israeli army tightened its grip on Nablus, setting up controls to identify people leaving the city and constantly scanning the skies of the city with observation drones. 

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On Saturday night, a Lions’ Den fighter, Tamer al-Kilani, was killed in Nablus by an “explosion” attributed by the group and the Israeli press to a bomb remotely activated by the Israeli army. 

The army did not comment on these claims. 

Separately, rights group Amnesty International on Tuesday called for an International Criminal Court (ICC) probe into possible “war crimes” committed in August by both Israeli forces and Palestinian militants during deadly fighting in Gaza.

At least 49 Palestinians, including combatants but also civilians including children, were killed in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip during the three-day conflict.

World Concerned About the Pakistani Nuclear Horn: Daniel 8

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons a cause of concern to global powers The nuclear weapons have sparked global concerns as terrorism continues umabted in the country and the threat remains that they could be taken over by terrorits By : Sentinel Digital Desk  |  25 Oct 2022 12:50 AM WASHINGTON: Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have sparked global concerns as terrorism continues umabted in the South Asian country and the threat remains that they could be taken over by terrorist organizations. Recently, US President Biden at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Reception in Los Angeles (California), spotlighted Pakistan as “the most dangerous nation in the world.” He also criticized both China and Russia and said, “This is a guy (Xi Jinping) who understands what he wants but has an enormous, enormous array of problems. How do we handle that? How do we handle that relative to what’s going on in Russia? And what I think is maybe one of the most dangerous nations in the world: Pakistan. Nuclear weapons without any cohesion.” Also Read – Indian Coast Guards Rescue 20 Bangladeshi Fishermen During Cyclone Sitrang Pakistan’s government, the Taliban, its various outfits in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and other jihadist groups inside Pakistan have created concern over the nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists, reported Global Strat View. A London-based Pakistani journalist Farooq Sulehria said, “The Talibanization of the Pakistan military is something we can’t overlook. What if there is an internal Taliban takeover of the nuclear assets?” Also Read – Dirtiest Man in the World Passes Away at the Age of 94 There have been multiple instances when experts and US Presidents have expressed their concerns over Pakistan’s nukes. During the time of the Obama administration, a Harvard nuclear expert, Graham Allison, stated, “When you map weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, all roads intersect in Pakistan.” He said this while sitting on the US Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Also Read – No relief for Pakistan as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) continues to slump Moreover, the political upheaval in Afghanistan also has regional repercussions, especially for those in neighbouring Pakistan. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s continued production of fissile material and subsequent weapons, as well as the potential deployment of more tactical nuclear weapons, only makes the increasing possibility of the misuse of these materials more glaring and plausible, reported Global Strat View.

Babylon the Great Won’t Support Nuclear Disarmament

Might the U.S. Military Support Nuclear Disarmament?

Its senior leadership is uniquely positioned in the present moment to pursue a revolutionary possibility

October 24, 2022

Robert Edwards

Writer and filmmaker

Image credit: Asiya Hotaman/ Shutterstock

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In his eloquent reappraisal of the anti-war beliefs that have undergirded his entire adult life, James Carroll concludes that the war in Ukraine—as a blunt reminder that humanity remains perched on the edge of nuclear apocalypse—offers a rare opportunity for a renewed push for nuclear disarmament. 

So how likely is it that the American national security community, and the senior leadership of the U.S. military, in particular, would support the kind of bold steps that Carroll calls for? 

The first impulse is to scoff that the chances are infinitesimal.

Beginning with the Baruch Plan in 1946, wariness toward arms control has been an article of faith in American politics. The noteworthy successes—the ABM and INF treaties, SALT, START—seem unlikely to be repeated if they require the consent of the contemporary conservative movement, which is not known to be keen on nuanced solutions to thorny geopolitical problems. If anything, that faction, with its “America First” neo-isolationism, clings more than ever to the delusion of an atomic Maginot Line behind which the United States can withdraw. 

There are certainly many in the armed forces who share those hawkish views, from the humblest private to the most decorated general. But not all. 

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Over the past few tumultuous years, senior U.S. military officers, both active and retired, have shown a surprising willingness to breach longstanding protocols in order to protect the republic from what they rightly viewed as grave threats. From reducing the risk of war with North Korea, Iran, and China, to rejecting calls to deploy U.S. military forces to quell domestic dissent, we have been treated to a Strangelove-in-reverse scenario of sober generals restraining their reckless civilian superiors. 

After Mattis and Kelly’s astonishing “babysitting pact,” and Mark Milley’s brow-raising backchannels both to his Chinese counterpart and to Nancy Pelosi, is it so unthinkable that the current crop of American military leaders—including Milley, who continues to serve, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, another retired four-star—might be willing to contemplate other bold new measures to secure the safety of the country and the world?

Lest we forget, it was Ronald Reagan, a revered foreign policy hardliner, who, with Mikhail Gorbachev, proposed the most sweeping nuclear disarmament plan in history, and together almost brought it to fruition. 

One can quibble over the uselessness of “almost,” which famously counts only in horseshoes (and hydrogen bombs). But the mere fact that an archconservative like Reagan was willing to pursue disarmament is an encouraging precedent. That very reputation, of course, also made him better equipped to sell the idea, both to Congress and the public, than his predecessor Jimmy Carter, on the principle that only-Nixon-could-go-to-China. 

The senior leadership of the U.S. military is uniquely positioned to pursue a similar path in the present moment.

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Carroll promotes the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as a framework, noting that new technology offers increased possibilities for compliance and verification, reducing the reliance on good faith and any sort of international umpire. The respect and esteem in which the American people consistently hold our armed forces year in and year out make it the premier institution—maybe the only one—whose endorsement of such plans would assuage public anxiety. He also suggests new limits on the U.S. President’s single-handed authority to initiate a nuclear war, something that is actually quite easy to imagine the Pentagon getting behind.

The “military,” of course, is not a monolith. In contrast to the cool heads listed above, one has seen the opposite impulse from retired generals like Mike Flynn and Don Bolduc, or retired colonel Doug Mastriano, to name a few. Neither wisdom nor folly is an automatic companion of rank, nor experience. 

Which faction will prevail? Part of the answer will hinge on which civilian leaders hold power following the upcoming elections and have the opportunity to pick the uniformed leadership.

It is often difficult in the moment to recognize when one is at a crossroads. In the 1991 Gulf War, I was a lowly tactical intelligence officer in a parachute infantry regiment of the 82nd Airborne, rolling through the Iraqi desert beneath an air campaign that left smoldering charcoal where an enemy army once stood. I can assure you that none of us thought that operation would lead to the attacks of 9/11, or a second invasion of Iraq, let alone set off the cascade of events that would bring us to where we are today, with the threat of homegrown autocracy menacing the republic from within, and a land war in Europe threatening the first combat use of nuclear weapons since Nagasaki. I venture to say that none of our bemedaled senior leaders thought so either.

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Similarly, the war in Ukraine will surely have vast unforeseen consequences. What is partially within our control is whether any of those consequences will be positive. 

Watching how a malevolent sociopath can, almost singlehandedly, bring the world to the brink of armageddon ought to offer a refreshed awareness of the senseless fragility of the nuclear balance of terror. No competent military professional can observe that and believe that the current system is advisable, or that a renewed arms race is the solution.

Carroll reminds us that in 1945—following the only two uses of atomic weapons on human beings in history—a consensus of U.S. national security mandarins, including Secretary of War Henry Stimson and all the multi-starred members of the Joint Chiefs, met favorably with the idea that international control of such weaponry was the only sane way forward. It’s a fact so at odds with contemporary American orthodoxy that it’s hard to fathom—forgotten, as Carroll says, even by national defense professionals. One of the most chilling moments in his essay is when he recalls researching his 2006 book House of War, and asking both Arthur Schlesinger and Robert McNamara about the Stimson proposal. “Neither of them had ever heard of it.” 

In the 77 years since, history has been so thoroughly rewritten, and American public opinion on arms control moved so far to the right, that any suggestion of international custody of nuclear weapons elicits only snorts of contempt and accusations of starry-eyed naïveté. 

But times change. 

It will certainly demand great boldness and moral courage for the men and women atop the military pyramid to embrace stringent new arms control measures. It will require bucking reactionary public opinion and the allure of ill-conceived tough-guy solutions, and defying deeply ingrained impulses of the military culture itself. But it’s not beyond the realm of imagination. After all, the Overton window can move or it would not be a window at all, except one that has been painted shut.

We may soon learn whether, off the horror of Ukraine, the senior leaders of the much-admired American military are visionary enough to take a revolutionary stand in the interest of global peace and U.S. national security.

Which, after all, is their job.

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Robert Edwards is a writer based in New York City (blogging at The King’s Necktie), and a former U.S. Army infantry and intelligence officer who served in Germany in the 1980s and Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.

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Click here to read James Carroll’s six-part series reckoning with nuclear weapons, peace activism, and war in Ukraine.