How Dangerous is the Plan  for the US to Sell Commercial Nuclear Reactors to Saudi Arabia

From Pacifica Radio in San Francisco, this is FlashPoint. I'm Dennis Bernstein. Today on the show, we have an in-depth report on Gaza and on the brutal attacks by the Israeli military against the international movement to bring food, supplies, and medical aid to help counteract the suffering from the ongoing genocide in Gaza. It is an ongoing genocide. And how dangerous is the plan for the U.S. to sell commercial nuclear reactors to the Saudis? All that and more coming up straight ahead on flashpoints. Stay tuned. And you're listening to FlashPoint on Pacifica Radio. My name is Dennis Perrinstein. This is your daily investigative news magazine. We come to you over the Pacifica Radio network. That's KPFA in the Bay Area. And we are happy to have you along on free speech radio truth to power. And we speak out. And we use this. mechanism to tell the truth and to get the word out. The word these days that we're trying to get out is that there is an ongoing expanding genocide in Gaza. And it just continues and continues. The suffering is immense and the reporting is almost non-existent in the corporate mainstream. Huerta Aranth joins us. She has worked with many organizations in terms of Palestinian actions, liberation, working with taxpayers against genocide, National Lawyers Guild, International Committee, and a whole lot more. Welcome Huweta back to flashpoints. It is good to have you with us. I'm glad to have you because I know that you... have a full understanding of the entirety, the full breadth of the suffering, and we want to make sure we keep people apprised that there is, in fact, a genocide in motion, and it's being paid for in large part by US tax dollars. That wouldn't be an exaggeration, would it? First of all, thank you for having me, Dennis. It's always an honor to be with you, and I really appreciate the work, and especially what you said now is so critical that there's an ongoing genocide. And no, it would not be an exaggeration at all to say that this genocide is enabled. It's being committed in lockstep with the United States. Without the United States, Israel would not be able to carry it out. It was actually the premise of a complaint that taxpayers against genocide that you mentioned lodged a complaint at the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. I represented them, continue to represent them as a lead attorney on that case, representing taxpayers against genocide and Palestinian Americans who are taxpayers who pay their taxes that then

go to murder their families in Gaza and destroy their property and violate all kinds of human rights, which goes against the United States' responsibility. If there's time, we could talk a little bit more about that. But what you said that's so critical is that the genocide is ongoing. We don't see a lot of coverage of Gaza. Some people believe that there's a ceasefire now. And because there aren't hundreds of bombs raining down every day, people think that it is a little bit easier, a little bit. The genocide has ended. And that is so far from the truth. And that continues to aid Israel's plan. to continue annihilating the Palestinian people. And while I don't really like to speak in statistics, but just to give your listeners an idea, the supposed ceasefire was agreed to on October 10th, right, of 2025. Since then, Israel has killed nearly 1,300 Palestinians. Every day, there's been killing about 300 of them children, either through Blob. blowing them to pieces, burning them to death. Children have been sniped in the head and in the heart during what is supposed to be a ceasefire. You have not heard of... any Palestinian military activities, Palestinians fighting back, Palestinians even threatening, you know, as Israel says its security, and yet Israel has continued to kill Palestinians on a daily basis and continue to deny Palestinians and necessities of life, including food and humanitarian aid as part of the ceasefire agreement that israel committed to they are supposed to allow 600 trucks of humanitarian aid into gaza every day which is the bare minimum of the bare minimum that people need to survive and israel has not on any day come close to even meeting half of that on average maybe they're allowing 150 uh trucks in and sometimes none at all And it's not the thing that people don't also recognize this is or understand because it's not reported as how insidious this is that they may be allowing 100, 150 trucks in, but these aren't from humanitarian aid organizations that can distribute them to people who need them. They'll allow in trucks full of commercial goods and food that will go into the markets. So you'll see that there is food in the markets. But people are devastated in Gaza. Hardly anybody is working. People don't have money to buy this. So you've created this black market while the humanitarian aid that's sitting in trucks on these organizations is not getting in. And so people continue to really struggle every day to survive, to find food, to find water. It really is a catastrophe, but an engineered man-made deliberate humanitarian catastrophe.

a deliberate catastrophe, and I want to just... talk a little bit more about what you're describing here because it is a near panic and people are desperate because they're barely getting by something goes wrong and people simply are going to die in larger and larger numbers I Could you say something about, what about health care? How are people, they're being bombed every day. People are being wounded and murdered, we have to say, every day. Has the health care system holding up? The health care system has been all but decimated. I mean, you have less than half of Gaza's hospitals that are functioning. And it's really hard to explain how Palestinian medics continue to try to serve with very little equipment and medicines that are being allowed in and them themselves being under attack. So the Palestinian health care community has been targeted. For a while, Israel was allowing in a limited number of foreign medics to come assist Palestinians. And repeatedly, you'd hear from these, including American doctors, about how heroic really these Palestinian medical professionals are and the conditions that they are working underneath with almost nothing. Sometimes they don't even have gauze. to work with and even though their structures and their ambulances and their colleagues have been bombed they continue to try to make do because there really is no other option they're trying to survive a genocide so it is very core and a lot of people are dying from preventable conditions from infections if you can imagine Approximately 90% of Palestinian housing buildings has been destroyed in this genocide. Even post the so-called ceasefire, Israel was taking bulldozers and raising entire neighborhoods. You said 90%. Approximately 90%. It's hard. It's really hard to imagine. It's unbelievable. Yes. But it's true. I know. And so you have people who may have injured, let's say, but there isn't room in the hospitals to continue to keep people. And if you've seen images from Gaza, you have people on the floors getting treated or attempted to get treated. So if someone would have a, you know, have a...

a procedure done, including an amputation. And then they're sent home because you can't keep them. There are so many. There's so much need, there's so much injury. So you send them home, but they don't have a home to go to. So they're in these tents. You don't have water. You don't have sanitation. You have something else that's not reported on. You have mass infestations of rats, of... of vermin that stories of parents that are staying up all night to try to keep the rats from biting their children in these tents but so there is no sanitation and so people are getting infected their wounds that they should be able to heal from are getting infected and people are dying there are The last I checked close to 20,000 Palestinians also that need immediate evacuation because they don't have the ability to treat them in Gaza. And Israel is not letting them out. They were supposed to allow out, according to the ceasefire agreement, 50. Palestinians a day for medical treatment, which is almost nothing when you consider the need, but they're not even meeting that. And so many Palestinians are continued to suffer, are unfortunately dying from diseases or conditions and infections that could be treated if supplies were able to come in or if they were allowed to be evacuated to be treated abroad. Wow. You're listening to FlashPoints on Pacific Radio. We're speaking with Huerta Ralph. She works with taxpayers against genocide. Let me ask you, Huweta, about the... We've done a lot of reporting on the boats trying to bring... aid alternative routes to get necessary aid in this life and death situation that you've been describing for us. What kind of are they still, are these boats still under attack? Are they still being undermined? Are they still being, are the people on the boat still being arrested and brutalized? Oh. Absolutely, Dennis. As you may know, I was on my first boat to try to break the seat of Gaza in 2008. And since then, you know, the movement has grown. People have, especially in the last year, people have come to see frustrated by this. genocide and the fact that our government is failing it has not only failed for nearly two decades to end a brutal and illegal siege on gaza but even during a genocide that everyone could witness on their screens uh failed to to intervene and continue the international community continues to allow israel which has been credibly accused by

all major human rights organizations and scholars and the International Association of Genocide Scholars and is before the International Court of Justice for Genocide and its leaders are wanted by the International Criminal Court and yet Israel is allowed to control what medicines, what aid, what anything gets into a people that they are actively exterminating. It is an unbelievable, unacceptable state of affairs. And so the Freedom Flotilla Coalition believes that it is our duty to continue to sail, to try to break this. illegal siege of Gaza, not simply to bring in humanitarian aid because, yes, aid is needed, but our votes, our simple votes are not going to do it. It's not going to meet the humanitarian aid need. And also Palestinians continue to tell us, we don't want to live on aid. We want our freedom. And so from the very first time we sailed until the last mission that went, we are carrying what we can, but we're also saying it's our duty to act to break this criminal. illegal siege, Palestinians deserve freedom, and we cannot allow Israel to continue to decimate Palestinian lives like this. It is precisely because there has been no accountability for the decades that Israel has been persecuting Palestinians, that Israel has felt completely at ease to carry out a live stream genocide and to continue. And so the last time we sailed with a couple of different... It wasn't, for many, many years, it was only the Freedom Flotilla Coalition organizing. But in this last year, we've had other organizations come on board, the Global Samud Flotilla. We had dozens and dozens of boats sail. And Israel attacked these boats twice within the period of a month the first time. attacked these boats and kidnapped international civilians on the doorstep of Europe. The boats were not even headed to Gaza yet. They were off the coast of Greece and yet Israel attacked them, kidnapped and brutalize these internationals with impunity. They think they can attack anyone anywhere. The entire Mediterranean is theirs to pirate is the message that they were sending. And Europe has said and done nothing about it. And so just a few weeks later, when... 50 boats launched carrying 430 civilians, 25 U.S. citizens on these ships. Israel again attacked them one by one. It kidnapped all of the civilians. It transferred them onto what we have called torture ships because it...

It brutalized. It tortured these international civilians, including 25 Americans. Some of the injuries that these volunteers sustained were burn marks all over their bodies from being tasered, collapsed lungs, broken ribs. At least a dozen of them report sexual abuse. It was absolutely horrific. And this is... Some of your listeners may have seen, you know, the Israeli national security minister, It's Amar Itamar Ben-Gvir boasting and tormenting these international volunteers while they were in stressed positions, again, because it's this total feeling that they can do anything they want with impunity because our governments have not sanctioned them, have not held them accountable. Now, a few governments after announced that they were sanctioning Ittimore Itamar Ben-Gvir, this individual that posted these videos. of himself tormenting these international volunteers. But it is so important to stress that it is not one person. It's not Ben Vieck. It's not Benjamin Netanyahu. It is an entire settler colonial apartheid project that has been. working to ethnically cleanse to get rid of Palestinians for eight decades with near total impunity. And that is what has to be stopped. So as far as the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and the Flotilla in general, we will continue and you will hear very, very soon about a new mission that is going to try to break the siege of Gaza. And of course, we want to reach Ghazim, but what these mission do is continue to pressure our own governments to act, because our governments do have a responsibility under international law to the Palestinians, which they have failed. But they also have domestic responsibilities to their own civilians, which they are failing and civilians more in Europe than here because our laws are terrible, but are trying to hold their governments accountable for what they're not doing to uphold their rights and the rights. of the Palestinian people under international law. We're speaking with Huwaita Arraf. Huweda, I want to ask you before one more area that I want to explore with you, and that is what is going on in the West Bank. A lot of people don't understand the geography of Gaza and the West Bank. The West Bank is probably eight or ten times the size. of Gaza, there is expanding violence and collaborations between the Israeli military and the so-called settlers movement. Could you talk about that, the dangers and what's sort of happening on the ground there? Because it's pretty violent and it's getting worse. It is very violent. It is the worst that I can remember. I just heard some activists actually from the West Bank saying a Palestinian activist that it is the worst that they've seen in their entire lifetime. Settlers are...

I mean, they've always acted with impunity, but they feel even more emboldened. And it is settler with the complete cooperation of the Israeli military. So they are attacking Palestinian communities, towns and villages. They are burning their fields. They are burning their homes. They are hospitalizing Palestinians because they descend. They are pogromes. They descend on these villages. backs with guns with chains with four by fours or two by fours and and the military the israeli military is either watching and protecting the settlers, or they're actively participating. And if Palestinians try to defend themselves in any way, the soldiers, the Israeli military comes and arrests the Palestinians. And this is happening on a daily basis. On average, it's about a half a dozen to a dozen attacks daily throughout the occupied. West Bank. And even the settlers have become involved in that they are also carrying out these sexual assaults on these Palestinian communities. And again, Palestinians, if they fight back, they are the ones who are targeted, who are arrested. And we didn't even speak about the situation inside the Israeli prisons. what the Israeli state is doing to these Palestinian hostages. Talk about that. And doctors and everybody has been subjected to torture if they act outside what the Israelis are willing to accept. Oh, absolutely. And before I do that, I just want to say we are calling on people who can to consider going to the occupied Palestinian territory because there is active ethnic cleansing, violent ethnic cleansing being carried out right now. And one of the things that is helping to... save it off a little bit, not completely, but having international witnesses there. And as you mentioned, I have long been involved with the International Solidarity Movement that provides a solidarity presence, international volunteers that go and stay with Palestinian communities and document, and their presence alone sometimes can serve as a deterrent. And so if people can look up the International Solidarity Movement and see if you can spend some time volunteering, there's also another organization called Fezah, working with the International Solidarity Movement. They are together trying to plan a significant international presence for the olive harvest, which is coming up in the fall. But even if you can go now, you'd be welcome. In the olive harvest, we'd like to have a lot of people there because olive harvesting is one of Palestinians.

main source of livelihood these days and the settlers and soldiers try to prevent Palestinians from harvesting their olives or actively attack them and having an international presence of conserved as a deterrent or if not an active deterrent at least a witness and we need witnesses we need more people telling the story Now, briefly, I know we don't have a lot of time left, but yes, we have medical doctors who have been kidnapped from Gaza, who are languishing in Israeli jails, one of the most well-known Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyah. There's a large international campaign to try to secure his release because the last time... His attorney was able to see him. Dr. Abu Safia had visible torture marks on his body. He did tell his lawyer, this is the last time you will see me. They are going to kill me. And this man is a hero, and yet he is being held and tortured by Israel. He was kidnapped from his hospital in northern Gaza. He was the director of the Kamal-Adwan Hospital. Say more about his history. The idea that this man is being tortured to death as we speak, it's important for people to understand the extraordinary nature of this humanitarian medical visionary in one of the most difficult areas in the world. Yes, absolutely. He was the director of the Kamal-Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, and this hospital came under bombardment repeatedly. In fact, Dr. Abu Safia's own son was killed, and he had to bury him in the hospital grounds because they couldn't leave. But he continued to serve his patients. And Israel... tried to get them to evacuate the hospital. He said, I can't leave and I'm not leaving my patients. You can't evacuate an entire hospital of people who are injured. He himself is a pediatrician. And in December 2024, Israel called him out of the hospital under threat of bombing the entire hospital. So he steps out, and there's an iconic picture. him walking towards it amidst all destruction all over the place walking towards an israeli tank and they took him from there and for almost a year nobody heard from him what was happening to him it was only earlier this year that he was seen for the first time and then he was seen once again just last month as I said and his attorney is reporting that he had visible

abuse torture marks on his body. And Dr. Abu Savilla himself said, you won't see me again. They brought me here to kill me. And he is only one of 10,000. And of course, not all 10,000 are medics, but there are other medics also still being held that have been kidnapped from Gaza. We actually don't know how many, Dennis, because there are people missing from Gaza and their families don't know if they were taken by Israel, if they are buried under the... rubble if they have been killed if they are in prison their families don't know there are still approximately 10,000 Palestinians buried under the rubble that is Gaza Israel has not allowed in excavators the only time they allowed in excavators is when they were looking for israeli possible Israeli hostages but they won't let Palestinians have digging machines so they can also find their loved ones and so you have many families in Gaza that actually don't know what happened to their loved ones we know that of the 10,000 Palestinians that are held in these israeli dungeons nearly 4,000 of them have not been charged with anything, have never had their day in court, may not even know why they're being held, including Dr. Abu Safia. He has not been charged with anything. He has been held for a year and a half with no charges, no charges whatsoever. And this includes children. About 300 children are also subjected to this military regime where Palestinians have no rights. And then what's happening to them, who is responsible for the Israeli prison system is the same man that was taking pleasure in publicizing his tormenting of the international civilians? This is the Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. And he has been starving Palestinian detainees in giving them barely enough food to survive. So if you see anyone who's been released, they've sometimes lost a third of their weight in addition to the various forms of physical and sexual abuse that has been carried out against him. There are some reports on there, things that I can't even repeat here. But we have. The Palestinian feminist collective group that I am a part of recently released a report about this. The Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Reporteur on Human Rights and the occupied Palestinian territories released a report about this. And also Amnesty International Human Rights Watch, even the Israeli Human Rights Organization, Bates, and they all have reports talking about the horrific things, unspeakable things that are done to Palestinian detainees. Well, you are listening to FlashPoints on Pacific Radio. We are speaking with Hulida O'Rov. She's worked with taxpayers against genocide, worked with many organizations. And I guess we're running out of time, but give us your best sense of where this is going if...

if something doesn't change. We see there's still not a lot of sympathy for Palestinians in the United States. There's a, you know, we can see the sort of the conservative Democratic Party talking about sort of these dangerous brown people in who are now the mayor of New York and, you know, big high offices in Michigan. And it's almost as if you are not. There's either full. capitulation, full silence on this that you've been talking about, this genocide, or people are attacked for even bringing it up and sort of folks like me and you were accused of making it up. Yeah, you're right in that there is not enough focus and there is not enough concern and involvement in action in order to stop what's happening because we are. looking at and we are faced with a genocide that is being committed on our watch and nobody can say they didn't know about it. And especially as U.S. citizens, people who pay taxes, people whose elected representatives are making the decision to continue funding this genocide. We are complicit. And so it's what do we say about ourselves, what we did and what we didn't do as these horrific crimes were being committed. really sobering and devastating when you think about it. It's coming upon three years where we have been seeing emaciated, starved infants and babies decapitated and disemboweled children, a family's being burned to death every single day. Today marks the one year anniversary of the killing of a Palestinian, beloved Palestinian journalist, N.S. Sharif, and he is One of over 250 Palestinian journalists who have been killed and targeted, targeted for trying to document their own genocide. And so the statistics are staggering and knowing that this is being committed on our watch and with our funding and enabled by our elected representatives, it should put more of an emphasis on people, on Palestinians, sorry, on U.S. citizens. to care and to do more. I am a little bit more optimistic, not what's happening on the international scene because we just heard today that Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the Trump's 15-point plan because he is interested in his right-wing government in order to appease. Imagine, imagine.

He needs more war and more violence and more killing in order to get votes in Israel. This is where Israeli society has come. And that 15-point plan is so far from even meeting the bare minimum when it comes to the rights of the Palestinian people. But let's say maybe it would have moved things a little bit forward. Benjamin Netanyahu just announced today that he's rejecting it. Any kind of relief does not look like it's on the horizon. But when it comes to the U.S. political scene, we have seen a massive shift. So now you have reportedly 80% of Democratic voters or the Democratic base that is opposed to continued funding of Israel. People are Americans. across all parties are sympathizing more with Palestinians, don't want to see more of U.S. weapons go to fund Israel. And as you mentioned, in Michigan, we just had our elections, our primaries last week, and we saw Dr. Abdullah Sayyad, as you said, a brown Muslim man and all of the racist tropes and the fear-mongering was used against him and over $70 million. of outside money, half of it from APAC or Israel Align Group spent against him. And yet he still eked out a win. He still had such. And so I would have liked to see him win by a larger margin. But when you consider the massive amount of money spent against him, he was outspent about 10 to 1 and still won. This is. indicative of something. And if you hear some of the establishment Democrats or some pundits, they'll talk about an insurgency in the party. But it is where the base has been for a long time on things that we're demanding. And a lot of us are saying you can't be progressive except for Palestine anymore. And so Palestine and the corruptive role of APAC and the millions that they have been paying in to buy our elections and our politicians were a central focus of this race. And races across the country. So that change, I think we don't want to underplay that. Is that going to result in saving any Palestinian lives anytime? soon no but I think we need to continue to make it we need to make it make sure it continues to play an important role in the November elections coming up and also as we go into 2028 for the presidential elections Huerta, we really thank you for taking the time out and for sharing very important information that's hard to get out into the mainstream and your wealth of the kinds of things we need to understand to deal with this issue in a fair way that makes sense. Thanks for taking the time out again, and I hope you'll keep keeping us posted on what's happening on the ground.

Thank you. You know, I will be in the Bay Area next week. Oh, yeah. Tell us about that. Please. I will be in the Bay Area. Yes, I am. I'm excited to come out to the Bay Area. On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, there will be events. It's sponsored by local organizations and friends of Sabil, North America. Sabil is a Palestinian Christian. uh acumenical organization believing in and promoting liberation theology on saturday i will at from three to five at the united methodist church in santa rosa on sunday uh i believe also from three to five at the um plymouth united church of christ in oakland and on monday at seven p m in let me tell you where Oh, at the West Hope Presbyterian Church. Yes, on Monday, August 17th, West Hope. Yes, in Saratoga. This, I think Fawzna, Friends of Sabine, North America will have a complete itinerary on their list. But I look forward to joining you out there and having good discussions and hopefully some mobilizations taking place. Well, we look forward to seeing you. And again, if anybody missed any of those details, is there an address? They can check out and follow up and get any information they might need. Is there a good email for me? Yes. Please look up FOSNA, which is Friends of Sabine, North America, F-O-S-N-A dot org, and backslash my name, and you'll get the, you can register, you'll get the full schedule. So F-O-S-N-A-D-O-R-B-H-U-W-A-I-D-A.A. FOSNA.org slash H-U-W-A-I-D-A, and you should get the full schedule. Thank you for taking the time, and I hope I get to see you when you come out west. All right, you take it easy now. And you are listening to FlashPoint on Pacific Radio. This is your daily investigative news magazine, KPFA in the Bay Area. We're going to take a short break. And then we're going to be joined by an old friend of this show, Linda Pence Hunter, who is the founder of Beyond Nuclear International and knows a great deal about nuclear stuff. And we're going to talk about... whether it's a good idea, among other things, whether it's a good idea for the United States to make sure that the Saudis have nuclear power. And I guess that includes weapons because there's no way to separate them. We're going to take a nice breather. When we come back, that's what we're going to talk about. Stay with us.

I'm And you are listening to Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio. We're happy to welcome back, an old friend of this show, Linda Pence Gunter. She's the founder and executive director of Beyond Nuclear and editor of the news site Beyond Nuclear International. She is the author of the book, No to Nuclear, Why Nuclear Power, Destroyes Lives, Derails Climate Progress, and Provokes War. There's a... A couple of interesting details. Linda Pimp Gunter, welcome back to FlashPoint. It's been too long, but we're happy to have you back. Thank you, Dennis. And it was great to follow Huweda, who's somebody I've actually interviewed and met a couple of times. And, you know, listening to her, I sort of brought to mind an interview I just did recently with Mustafa Bahuti, who said Palestine has now become the issue of the world, not the issue of Palestine. Palestine is now the most important human injustice issue worldwide as Nelson Mandela anticipated. And really, when I wrote the book, I was trying to center justice in that story because I think it's become apparent that the crises, the real existential threats that we face now with nuclear war, nuclear power, the climate crisis. None of that can be solved if we look the other way on justice. And so everything that she talked about in terms. terms of that sort of special place that's reserved for Palestine where you can't protest it and you can't criticize Israel and so forth. It really has become the flashpoint, if we could coin a phrase. Thank you. For everything else we're trying to do. in this space to make the world safer and more humane and kinder and more just and neither nuclear power nor nuclear weapons has a role to play in that endeavor and that's sort of the central thesis of the book actually Well, we're happy that you did the book and that we have access to you. It's been too long, but I want to dive in with you at a couple of different levels. Let's start with some current events. The Trump administration is thinking of, I guess, given the necessary...

information and resources to create. They say they want to create nuclear power, but to make a bomb. What are your thoughts on the United States making the so-called peaceful atom available to the Saudis? Well, this deal with Saudi Arabia is for AP 1000 reactors, probably, which is a Westinghouse company. But when you start to dig deeper and there's been some really good investigative journalism on this, all the sort of companies that, it's a Westinghouse in a way doesn't really exist, but now it's owned by Brookfield Management Assets and Camaco, two Canadian companies. Guess whose fingers are in some of the associated pies, sons of cabinet members of Donald Trump, sometimes sons of Donald Trump, as we know. But the basis of the deal is to sell nuclear power technology, i.e. these reactors, to Saudi Arabia. But also, and this is the key piece, also allow them to enrich their own uranium, which has never been part of any kind of civil nuclear deal with a country that does not already. have nuclear weapons. For the simple reality being that if you give the Saudis control over the fuel, which is what the uranium enrichment is for, then they have the capacity to transition from not just a civil nuclear program where you're enriching uranium 235, no higher than 5%, usually about 3%. That's what the fuel is. If you go above that and above 90%, That's weapons grade. And all the hard work is done in the initial stages of getting to that three to five percent. So it's fairly easy to just keep enriching it and arrive at that point. So this is an unprecedented arrangement, but also. clearly has nothing to do with needing to turn lights on in Saudi Arabia because, you know, the reasoning is, well, we don't want to burn so much oil, so we need to replace that with something else. Now, if you were Saudi Arabia and you wanted to find an electricity source that made sense that was cheap, fast, deployable, would you really choose slow, expensive nuclear power? No, you would choose solar and wind. You know, we're talking Saudi Arabia here. A sunny place, desert, windy. So it's sort of blatantly obvious that this is not about energy. And it's all about giving the Saudis the capacity to transition to a nuclear weapons program. Could you talk a little bit about the wisdom of... bombing with the US and Israel now have bombed nuclear reactors in Iran a couple of times and they seem to want to continue the policy what are the what are the dangers what are the motivations around that how do you analyze that very delicate and dangerous situation

So they haven't actually bombed the reactor, which is Boucher. So they have one operating civil reactor, although the Iranians say that there have been 85 occasions when there's been attacks in and around that facility. So it hasn't been struck, but very close calls. But what they have bombed are all the... the infrastructure, so the uranium fuel manufacturing, the enrichment and so forth. So Iran had a very sort of strict deal that was made under the Obama administration. It's known as the Iran nuclear deal. It has an acronym, which... is irrelevant, but it was in place which it insisted on inspections and verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency. So it was very closely monitored to ensure that they were not enriching beyond 3%, and that they were doing this purely for civil purposes. Of course, because it's possible to continue, as I've just described, for Saudi Arabia, there was always a deep suspicion about whether or not Iran was actually continuing to do so. And in fact, it was discovered that they were at least up to 60%, which is sort of this gray area of weapons usable, but not actually weapons grade. Iran has always insisted that they were abiding by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to which they're a signatory and exercising their right to develop civil nuclear energy as long as they didn't develop nuclear weapons. So there's this sort of uncertainty about what Iran was doing, which doesn't justify obviously what two nuclear-armed nations did, Israel and the US. Israel, of course, is this undeclared nuclear weapon state, but everybody knows they have them and they probably have got at least 200 nuclear bombs. So there's this sort of have and have not aspect to this, which is... two nuclear armed nations bombing a country which is abiding by a treaty and saying that it doesn't plan to make nuclear weapons, although not everyone believes them. And then a country like the US also a signatory to that treaty, which is supposed to be disarming, but instead all the major nuclear weapons nations are arming up and increasing their arsenals. So there's a huge amount of hypocrisy attached to this. And of course, the Iranians are not happy at all with a deal that's been offered to Saudi Arabia and have actually closed the door on any inspections by the IAEA, also because Trump tore up that agreement. And so he's sort of been bombing Iran to try and get them to go back to an agreement that basically was in place before Trump tore it up in the first administration. I mean, all of this is neither here nor there probably in terms of the real premise of why Israel and U.S. bombed.

the nuclear facilities, I think that was a very convenient reason, an excuse, to cover up a bigger agenda, which was a grab for the oil, control of the oil, and regime changed, neither of which have gone very well, one might add, but in fact seems to have backfired considerably on the Trump administration. So he's really got nothing. The strait of Hamoos is controlled by Iran. The regime is pretty much the same with the son instead of the father, and they don't have a nuclear deal. Yeah. We're speaking with Linda Pence-Cunter. She's the founder and executive director of Beyond Nuclear and the editor of the news site Beyond Nuclear International. She is the author of the book, Know to Nuclear, Why Nuclear Power, destroys lives, derails, climate progress, and provokes war. And we're talking about all those kinds. of things and I guess I really would like to get a sense from you about the what where are the dangers where do you see the the the the the most extreme problem that's being ignored as we sort of people seem to be more interested in making wars and weapons than preserving our environment for the next 200 generations. It's a really frightening trend, I think, that we seem to be doing all the wrong things to ensure our survival at a time when we face two existential threats. And that's actually another kind of central theme in my book, which... as I started to write it, it's predominantly about nuclear power and all the reasons why we should reject it. But putting the human face on the story, I didn't want to do a technical book. There are no graphs or charts, you know, calculations. It's really telling it from the point of view of the people to whom it happened. So I started to think, well, why are we insisting on doing all these obviously stupid things that are just going to hasten our own demise? And it started to present some bigger questions, sort of like the one you just asked. Why? Why are we intent on burning up the planet? Why are we intent on increasing our nuclear weapons arsenals when clearly these are the two existential threats? And we used to say, well, the climate change is sort of the oncoming one, and the nuclear weapons one is the one that's here and that could wipe us out in 20 minutes. But now the climate crisis, as we've seen in recent weeks, I think, is so obviously upon us. And we're already scrambling. to try to deal with the extreme heat, the fires that we've seen, out of control fires for days, even weeks, the drought, the shortages of water. And of course, nuclear power plants, as we've seen in the middle of this, are in the way, all right? Because they need water, otherwise they're going to melt down. And so they get priority. You know, we've seen the Romanians.

blowing rocks out of the Danube to try and get the water towards the nuclear power plant. This is not a time when we need that to be the priority for water because water is life, right? We need it to survive. And we've got things like that. And of course, the AI data centers that guzzle water all coming at us. at a time when that's what we need the least. You know, we don't want to create anything else that's going to consume massive amounts of water and a massive amount of electricity. We need to be going completely the opposite direction. So it does seem like a sort of collective madness, but it's partly, I think, also, and I'm sure you've addressed this on your show, this sort of oligarchical cabal that is decided with their billions, right, that they are going to control the narrative and they're going to control our... future and and so that's what's evolving right now in terms of the data centers the nuclear power plant projects that they have which will never be in here in time to power them and we've got to wrestle back our rights to survival and not let our future be dictated by madman like Elon Musk and that in that crowd you know because they don't seem to care about everybody else just their own self-enrichment What's your take? And boy, I'm having a lot of sort of conversations about this, but what's your take on how do you see evaluate the dangers of AI versus the possibilities. Are there possibilities? Are they all sort of dangerous temptations? I mean, we're sort of drifting a little bit out of my lane a little bit here, I guess. But I mean, it's like it comes up everywhere. Yeah, absolutely. And it is absolutely the issue of the hour. And I'm of the mind that, frankly, I mean, you know, I'm a writer, so I, first of all, resent the idea of any kind of machine-made writing going on. Because I love writing and I love playing with words and I don't want somebody to write. I've never even explored anything like Chat, GBT. But at the same time, the other bigger, more important issue is really what I just sort of talked about, which is when are we going to wake up and realize that we, this is it, you know, this blue marble is all we've got and we're all here on it. And so if we want to remain here, we better be doing something to pull together, which is not fight over bits of land, not discriminate against people who are fleeing for their lives because of one kind of conflict or another, because those conflicts are going to get worse as the climate stress gets worse, right? We're already seeing that. Places will become unlivable. Where are those people going to go? And so we need to pull together now and realize that it's all hands on deck to... save ourselves and that isn't what's happening and AI which requires so much energy and so much water and by the way you know the other bit of the data centers of course the noise which also has both medical and psychological effects on the people that have to listen to that 24-7 this is not a luxury we can afford right now maybe later but right now

We cannot afford to be monkeying around going to Mars or sending any rockets anywhere. We shouldn't be doing any AI data centers. We need to buckle down, live more simply, figure out how we can use less. And especially here in the West, because we're the perpetrators of this situation. So that's my take on that, that, you know, maybe later, but not now. You know, my great friend, the late Robert Knight, who was a newsperson for, and a lot more, won the George Polk Award for reporting on Panama. But he did this study and survey back in the day about the implications for wars in Iraq and the, you know, what actually happened to the ozone layer. above and around Iraq. And these are the things I think we're still going to be suffering from. This is, you know, this is what our disrespect for the environment has brought us to, is to really jeopardizing our very existence, right? And we go, there's nothing that helps about war. and what happens in the war zone, but there seems to be no end to the making of massive amounts of weaponry. And people aren't wondering where all this is going very quickly, but I'm concerned. The weapons manufacturers really are on relenting. Yes, and they're making a profit, right? So they're loving the attacks on Iran. They're loving all of this. They're loving the genocide in Gaza because they're all making money hand over fists. It's so incredibly immoral. And I think that that's something, it's on all of us to stand up and oppose that. So I can see that we're running a little bit out of time. So I just want to sort of throw in the fact since Huea mentioned that she's going to be in your area. I am too. You have a few minutes. Please. So I'm on a book tour. And actually, maybe you can find me one more because I'm going to be in Sausalito at the Samuel Alito Library on October 9th from 6 to 8 p.m. And then at Medicine for Nightmares in San Francisco in the Mission District. That's a favorite of ours. There you go. So maybe you'll see you there on the 11th at 7 p.m. So but I would love to come to Oakland Berkeley. I've been trying to poke around and see if there is a bookstore or somewhere where I could do a book event in that part of the world too. So I'm absolutely open to invitations if anyone's listening and wants to have me there. But at any rate, those are the two that are booked so far. So I hope I'll meet you in person, Dennis. Beautiful. What I would love to meet you as well in the work that you do and have been doing with Beyond Nuclear International has always been of interest to us. We've been talking to you for a long time about these issues. And it's always really...

you know, inspirational to have your depth of knowledge on these issues that we care a great deal about. So we thank you for spending the time, and we will talk to you again soon. Any final words, please bestow upon us your counsel. Well, you know, I've been told that, oh, it's also gloomy and depressing, and now we all feel sort of suicidal. And so we need to have some sort of... Yeah, thanks for that, yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's such a gloomy subject. So I've been sort of admonished for that a bit. And I say, well, no, you know, I mean, we have to, we have really no choice, but to continue this fight and keep, I don't like the word hope, you know, because that feels just aspirational, but keep our commitment alive. And that's why we're here. That's why we're alive on this planet to make it better. And especially for our children and grandchildren, you know, who have a rather grim future ahead of them otherwise. So we all have to step up. do something and actually it's very rewarding to do. And I think that's a little known piece about activism and protest and all of this. It makes you feel good. It's actually good for your mental health. Yeah. And so I encourage people to do as much of that as possible and to oppose the extended licenses of existing reactors because they are the clear and present danger that we have right now, Diablo Canyon on the California coast being one of them. And then also to really. Raise your voice against new nuclear power plants, especially the ones that are coming along with the data centers. They won't happen probably, but we've still got to push back against them and let our elected officials know that this is not a technology we're willing to accept in the present times. We need to absolutely use less, do energy efficiency measures and put in renewable energy where we need it. Beautiful. Well said. We thank you again for your time and the very good information. Please stay safe. Come back soon. We'll talk to you. We'll see you in the Bay Area. Absolutely. I hope so. See you there. Bye. All right. Bye. Bye. Adios. And guess what, folks? That does wrap it up for another edition of Flashpoints. We will see you tomorrow. Stay with us.

And that does it for another episode of FlashPoints. Our executive producer is Dennis Bernstein. Senior producers, Miguel Gavalon Malina and Kevin Pina. Technical producer, Rod Akil. Our theme music written and produced by Charlie Lang. For questions and comments, email Dennis Bernstein at Dennis at kpFA.org. Thank you for listening. concern himself since we've been away from the African continent for 400 years, three or 400 years. Why should we concern ourselves? What impact does what happened to them have upon us? Number one. For news, information, and analysis about Africa and the African diaspora, tune in weekly on Mondays at 7 p.m. to Africa Today with your host, Walter Turner. Africa Today is your source for being up to date on Africa and African. Mondays at 7 p.m. Africa Today on your Pacifica Radio station, KPFA 94.1 FM.

You're listening to 94.1 KPFA in Berkeley, 89.3, KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1, KFCF in Fresno, and online at KPFA.org.