Israeli Occupation Forces Expand Their Attacks in the West Bank with Heavily Armed Illegal Settlers

From Pacifica Radio in San Francisco. This is Flashpoints. I'm Dennis Bernstein. Today on the show, Israeli occupation forces expand their attacks in the West Bank with heavily armed illegal settlers. We'll speak with Zia Abbas, Executive Director of the Middle East Children's Alliance. Also, poet and child psychotherapist Anita Burroughs will share her latest poems from the Gaza genocide and nuclear madness at Diablo Canyon here in the Bay Area as the feds move to loosen the rules on nuke plants even further endangering all of us. All this and more coming up straight ahead on flash points. Stay tuned. Okay, go spin it down. And you're listening to FlashPoint on Pacifica Radio. Hope you can hear me okay. This is your daily investigative news magazine. We call it Flashpoints here on KPFA Pacifica Radio. Beautiful, beautiful radio station founded in 1949 by folks who understood how important it is to have a free speech, no-holes barred, non-corporate, non-owned radio and media network to speak truth to power. And we continue that tradition. from 1949 until now. Joining us is our good friend Zia Abbas. He is the executive director of the Middle East Children's Alliance. Zad, I really wanted to have you on today because now we're focusing on the West Bank, the West Bank about eight or ten times the size of the Gaza Strip. You know a great deal about what's going on there right now. It would be great if you could describe what the settlers are up to and what it's like to be forced to confront these folks who are on your land and in your houses. Tell us what you understand about what's happening these days in the West Bank. Yeah.

Yeah, it's the same, I can say, since over a thousand days, since the beginning of genocide in Gaza. This is what happening in West Bank, but the focus on news, it was in that period on Gaza Strip. But right now, it's West Bank become the center for the Israeli army, what they are doing, and how they target Palestinian. You have their bulldozers? Everywhere in Westpac, destroying homes, destroying uprooting trees. And there you have their drones, not just in Gaza Strip, and bombing and killing. Like today, they killed three people inside Gaza Strip and 29 injured. Their drones, too, in Westpac now, following the Palestinians. They are watching. Palestinian villages, farmers, watching Palestinian cities, and following the Palestinian, sometimes target what they call it, wanted Palestinian, and they shoot them and they kill them. You have the Israeli army at the same time, invading Palestinian cities, towns, villages, camps, etc., and arrests tens of people every night. This is part of the daily. Add to that, you have the settlers and their activity every day. And almost every hour, I can say, in different part of West Bank. And these kind of attacks become part of the daily life. Add to that, you have over 900 checkpoints inside West Bank. You have towns with Bill Gates where Israel block, they close these Bill Gates. I speak, like I know my area, Befahm, you have many villages around Beflehem. Many people living in these villages, they are not able to reach the city because, simply, the Israelis, they close the Bill Gates, and even they cannot drive their cars. As to that, the settlers, they are everywhere in the mountains, not just in the roads. Even in the others, what we call it, alternative ways for Palestinian, where they can cross it through some hills, settlers, they are everywhere there. And we can hear the story. We read. I speak with my family almost. every day right now just to chicken them and all the time there are stories where their life can be in danger and like last night for example last night for them for us where some houses sit in fire by the settlers. Now I'm speaking with you there. The Israeli army embossed the carefew in a town called Bethomar. It's between Bethlehem and Hebron. And this town all the time targeted. Now in both the carefew, tens of military jeeps and military tanks entering the village. And who knows what will happen there or how many people they will be arrested? Citilars at the same time, they are attacking right now, tonight, like in Belisian time, it's early morning. They are in many villages right now. For example, I say, Bede Dajan, you have Bates Foric, you have other villages around Salfi, Nabilis area still under siege, where the people, what happened a few days ago, that the four Palestinians, they were killed by the settlers and by the Israeli army.

These settlers, and here I'm not speaking about like you speak tens of settlers, hundreds of settlers where they targeted the villages and sit houses and fire. And we saw that. It was all over social media about that. This kind of, this is the picture of what's going on in West Bank. I don't want to say it's an escalation, but I can say. This is part of the daily life. Palestinian right now, many of them, it is hard for them to move from their village to the city, from city to the city. And in a way or another, Australia, they speak a lot about annexation. Like, ah, for Palestinians now in Spain, they consider it the annexation already happened because the implementation in the ground, how many Israeli army units, they are everywhere controlling everything in the Palestinian. daily lives and the annexation already happened the only what they are missing is the official announcement now what will happen this is the big question even in there like when you speak with them and the ground there family or friends or our colleagues that's working with spank they are expecting a lot of things they are thinking like like this maybe someday you will wake up or the news will come a massacre happening in this village or in this town by the settlers. And here you speak about settlers. They are already protected by Israeli army. Citilers doesn't move alone. They have the Israeli army all the time protecting them. And this is what happened in a village near Navalis when they killed the four Palestinians. And the choices for Palestinian living in Uzbek is very limited. Very limited, how they want to defend, because it's not just they are defending their land when they attack their farms. They are attacking their house while they are sleeping inside. And these people, they try to protect their families, their children. They try to protect themselves. And these are the choices. And what will happen to the Palestinian? This is a big question. And the coming a few days, it will be clear for us. It's a scary time in respect. And it's the international, I can say, public opinion not paying enough attention on that. And I'm speaking here about Palestinian. If you speak about Palestinian land, Israel is expanding settlements everywhere. The last two days only, just I'm saying, for example, the last two days in 48 hours, 13 settlements outposts. And when I say settlements outposts where a group of settlers or a few of settlers, they come, they sit up their own tent. This tent later become a room and the room grew up. Later they open the infrastructure, a road to these mountains and become a settlement. And this is now 13, just in the last two days. In addition to that, what Israeli government, they are planning to expand settlements in all over West Ham. They speak about it in very clear. If we follow what's Israeli, this government, what they speak. Yeah, they speak about, they want to control over 82% of West Bank. Actually, they are controlling all West Bank.

because they control the air, they control the roads, and they control the water, they control the movement for the people, and they control the people if they want to travel outside, etc., people not allowed to get to Jerusalem, etc. So, this is the reality right now in respect. You're listening to Flashpoints on Pacific Radio. We're speaking with Zia Abbas. He's the executive director of the Middle East Children's Alliance. Right now we're talking about the occupied West Bank where Ziyadh is from and knows a great deal about it. I think Zad, the first time we heard your voice over these airwaves, that was the night of the day. You were with the kids singing in the trenches, ducking from fire. And that's why I'm coming back to you today because you're somebody who knows the situation in the West Bank and it really is substantial in the sense that this is a much bigger area and the Israelis and the US and the Israelis have their eyes on seizing this land and turning it into more occupied Israel. So I mean what's happening now with the West Bank is quite scary and dangerous isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. United States government, with all the support to the Israeli government, unleashed. this government to do what they want to do. We saw what they did and still ongoing genocide in Gaza's trip and ethnic cleansing. And in Gaza, this is another story. I don't want to. They sit up like yellow line and the yellow line is moving in Gaza. People, they are displaced again and again because the Israeli, the yellow line where this is the area is controlling and this yellow line is moving and pushing the people. moving like tower now israeli almost 70% of gazerib under their control and they cut the area and they are building walls inside gaza when i say building walls not by concrete they build it by uh they make a huge hills to separate areas uh in gaza strip at the same time you i say continue to support and ignore what israel doing inside west bank israeli unleashed In Israel, the Israeli government unleashed the settlers and their army, and they are attacking everyone in Palestine in every village. And when you speak about settlers, don't forget the last three years. According to the statistics coming from inside Israel, over 350,000 Israel is already armed by the Israeli government. These settlers, they are living in West Bank, all of them are. You speak about 650,000 the settlers living in West Bank. They are already armed, but 350,000 gave them more arms inside West Bank. And these settlers right now, they are more organized. We are not speaking about random attacks. This is a systematic between the Israeli government and the settlers to target Palestinian people.

And right now you have communities they are moving from area to other area. People, you have a disease spread everywhere right now because people, they are living in tents. It's very hot there right now. People, they are out of the clean water. This is part of our work, but we cannot cover enough. People are still struggling in their daily life to get food, to survive. And you have the drones all the time and the shilling coming from the Israeli tanks. three people killed right now we are speaking about over 73 000 people already killed in gaza itself and over 1,211 people killed since the ceasefire until now and the people there are struggling and it's scary the israel pushing the people right now You speak about over 2 million people, they are living in 30% of Gaza Strip. And Israel, what I said in the beginning, the yellow line bushing the Palestinian more and more. For us, there are certain areas where our water trucks and sometimes distributing food, bars, etc. Right now we are not able because the yellow line moved and the people already evacuated, pushed out. of that area and people still living you speak about 1.7 million they are living in tents and all that most of them they are moving and now the people they are worried where we will go 30 percent and what will happen and still israel they are like me allowing that only Around like 20, 25% of the people needs in Gaza to get in. I mean between food and I speak about like other some necessities for the people to survive, which is not enough in Gaza. Again, you're listening to FlashPoint on Pacifica Radio, and we are speaking with Zia Abbas of the Middle East Children's Alliance. Zad, before we let you go, you want to talk a little bit about maybe what actions, what kinds of things Mecca is involved with now. Are there any things you'd like to share with us in terms of programs or things going on? Yeah, absolutely. We have actually, we make us still, we are able, fortunate. We are very fortunate still. We are working in Gazistrip and in West Bank. And in West Bank, sorry. In Gaza Strip, we are still our kitchen, our water. We ask the people to still, fares to take actions. We want the people to take action to stop, reach out to the representative to do whatever they can to stop this unicide in Gaza Strip and what the Israel is the ethnic cleansing inside this bank by the Israeli army and Israeli settlers. At the same time, we want the people to continue to support us and donate and help us.

to continue to do the work inside. They can go to our website and learn about the work. And we have our upcoming event, actually. They can go to our website and learn about this event. It's with Adam Johnson, how you sell genocide. And we will have it in August 13th here in Mecca. People, they can go to the website and sign. It's free, but we need the can R-CBB in our website. This is very important event to learn about how the media treating the genocide and gazelpset. And are the boats continuing? Are there still independent boats and independent materials arriving? What is the actual struggle on the ground? Are they getting just a small percentage of what they need in terms of things coming in through trucks? Yeah, the trial is still controlling, like many, there is a lack of everything, but the most important thing is there is a lack of medicine. When I speak about different kinds of diseases have read among the people inside living in tents, and still the people, they need medicine, they need material to clean up around. because they have different kinds of lives, different kinds of animals right now growing up in this reality and attack them in their tents. At the same time, these are not available inside Gaza Strip. There are certain kind of medicine, and there are certain kind of needs for children. You speak about over 50,000 women pregnant inside Gaza. These women, they cannot access their own needs inside Gaza. All of this kind of things is missing, and many, many other things is necessary for the people to survive inside Gaza. Unfortunately, the international community They are not putting any kind of preference on Israel to allow these kinds of necessities get inside together. Then if we are right now coming close to three years of genocide, the other day, in one day they succeed. Slowly, slowly, the community with the small machines they have to... to get 99 Palestinian bodies under a big building. And so they were killed over two years ago. And this is still in many, we speak about Gaza, you have over 9,500 people. They are disobedient. This is the statistics speak about coming from Gaza resources. But the numbers can be more than this. And still, you have these bodies still spread everywhere. And these bodies can create more disease.

for the people around inside gas drift. This is the reality. It's amazing. It's unbelievable. What a reality. It is created by U.S. tax dollars and the flow of weapons continues unabated and the suffering is just extraordinary. We obviously we appreciate our long-time... relationship with the Middle East Children's Alliance. Zia Abbas is the executive director. And you could hear that his experience is firsthand. This is this is his country. And it's the violence is unbelievable. Zadda, I hope we can obviously continue this dialogue. And obviously we're always here if you need to get the word out. Thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Matt. You're absolutely welcome. And you are listening to flashpoints on Pacifica Radio. What I want to do here now, dear engineer, is take a musical break, and then when we come back, we're going to bring in. Anita Barrows has been writing a poem every single day of this genocide. Anita Barrows, master poet, translator of Rilke. A psychotherapist for children, troubled, very troubled children, has been writing a poem every single day of this genocide. And we're going to continue the sharing of those poems. Stay with us.

One morning I woke up and I knew Yes, let's bring it down and bring her in. And you're listening to FlashPoints on Pacifica Radio. And this is your daily investigative news magazine. We have been covering the genocide in Gaza for as long as this program has been on the air, and that's about 40 years now in one form or another. And the suffering, Anita, continues apace. You have been doing an amazing thing in writing. one of these powerful poems every single day of the suffering, documenting this genocide. It will be one day a very big collection and an important collection, a document. You talk about information. How do we, we're journalists, we report. Well, the reporting that you've been doing in these poems is extraordinary and the fact. that you're now teaching kids in Gaza in a poetry workshop in the context of a genocide is quite amazing, inspiring. And we're happy that we can share some of that experience with you. Anita, welcome. What day is this? Do we have a poem? Today, yeah, we do. It's day 1027.

It's unimaginable, unimaginable. But we have today's poem, and it's with thanks to Dr. Dorothea Gouchardo, who Nora interviewed on the Electronic in Dakota last week, and it was on flashpoints. So here we go, Day 1,027. No more than two years old. possibly given the levels of starvation, two and a half. She's walking alone on the ruined road, shoulders hunched, back stooped, carrying a heavy jug of water. Her little arms bent backward over her head to secure it. We don't know who may have sent her, a mother who just gave birth to her sibling, a father whose legs were blown off in a bombing. We don't know how many times she has walked this same road to get water for her family. How many times she's been fixed in the sniper's eye, the quadcopter's vicious aim. We don't know what the weight of the jug carried day after day will do to her spine or how many more times she'll survive this errand. It's just unimaginable. Little two-year-old sent to get water for her family, most likely because there was no one else. I hear these stories coming in. you know, from various sources, including the electronic entity fodder, and I find myself screaming. Yes. No, how can you can't? No, no, you're not doing this to people. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it's just unbearable. And the stories of the children, you know, certainly because I work with children and because I'm a mother and a grandmother, the stories of children are the ones that just, you know, tear me apart. And writing about it, bearing witness to it, feels like the only thing I can do. So you're doing a lot, and read us another one of yours, and then I'd like to spend a minute or two talking about your students, and maybe we can hear one of their poems. Okay, but why don't you give us another? Yes, please. I will read yesterday's Day 1026, their bodies charred, unable to be identified except for the sizes of the children. length of a six-year-old, length of a nine-year-old, an 11-year-old, charred like trees, like a grove of trees that yesterday was green and leafy, a family asleep now dead, who in the evening had been alive. Children plain, unrecognizable now, except for how long the shrouds are.

Shrouds wound around ash. Their laughter, ash, their love for each other, ash. They're studying, ash. Their tenderness, their fear, they're singing, their arguments, their desires, they're teasing, their dreaming, ash. That was a whole family that was killed in their sleep in El Mawesi. Wow. About a week ago, yeah, four children and their parents. Wow. Years, yeah, yeah, yeah, just. just unbearable and and Israel keeps inflicting it. I mean, people I know who watch and listen to only mainstream media say, you know, why are you still writing these poems? Isn't there a ceasefire? Isn't the genocide over? And not only is it not over, it has gotten more intense. I heard from one of my students today that one of the tactics Israel is using now is freezing bank accounts so that people cannot access their money to buy the basic staples of life. And this happened to my student and her father. And all of a sudden, they have no money to buy groceries with such groceries as there are, which are not many to begin with. And it's just one tactic after the next designed to wipe out a people. So I read another one? Yes, please. And, yeah. Yeah, and then we can maybe read the poem by this amazing young kid that I'm working with in Gaza. So this is day 1024. Their bodies were found together. The two sisters whose laughter, the family, and the next tent had been hearing the night before. Their bodies stiff and cold and covered with blood when only the night before they'd been dancing to music from their brother's phone and calling for others to join them. How is it possible they're dead? Their voices, their wild joy despite everything, they'd been so alive. Now they are being wrapped in white shrouds. Now the earth is being prepared to receive them. Now their mother will live the rest of her life hearing the shots that killed them. Oh, powerful. Let's talk a little bit about how you evolved to be teaching some students, having some students in Gaza, young students in...

What is really, I guess it's a poetry workshop, or I'm not even sure how to characterize what you've been up to with these young poets in Gaza. But tell us about it, and I know you've got a poem. I hope you do one of their poems. I do. I do. Yeah, I have an amazing poem. Talk about it, though. Talk about this process. Yeah, so it's a wonderful organization that I'm volunteering with. It's called We Are Not Numbers. It was founded by, among others, Dr. Rashad Alarir, who was due to speak on flashpoints. I think the day he ended up being assassinated by Israel. He was a very well-known poet and a professor of English literature at the Islamic University of Gaza in Gaza City. In fact, the student whose poem I'm going to read had taken a class with him and had been looking forward to taking more classes with him. Anyway, he and a group of others, oh, about 15 years ago, at least founded, we are not numbers. the name being self-explanatory to help young poets in and storytellers as well for those writers in Gaza be mentored by writers in the English speaking world. They were very encouraging that the students write in English because they felt that English would reach a wide audience and the kids in Gaza learn English. pretty early in their schooling when they have schooling. But in any case, they pair. writers with mentors and sometimes it's a one-off relationship and you you know work with a student on a particular piece and then that's done and you work with other people but sometimes the relationships last and I have a group of students now with whom the relationship has lasted and this one young woman Takwa Ahmed al-Wawi who just turned 20 a couple of months ago, began writing poetry shortly after I started mentoring her. She came to the project with a prose piece, and I worked with her on that. Then she began reading the daily poems that my daughter posts on.

on the website, Poemsfor Gaza.com, the poems I write. And Takwa said, would you be willing to work with me on my poems? I'm just beginning to write poetry. And this kid who was just beginning to write poetry about a year and a half ago is now, I think, a phenomenal, phenomenal poet. And she's writing and she's helping to support. her family with her writing. She sells her articles to various places around the world, Monda Bari Weiss, and she's had some pieces in the electronic interfaida, actually. And with what she gets paid, she helps support her family. She has several brothers and sisters. So I'm going to read this poem that she and I have been working on together. I mean, I've given her suggestions and written to her about why these particular suggestions, the poem is hers. It's extraordinary. And she names a group of friends, which you'll hear shortly into the poem. The poem is called 6.30, like 6.30 on the clock. Count with me. 1. The clock stopped. 2. I did not notice. 3. The world kept moving. 4. I stayed behind. 5. Shima. 6. Raghad. 7. Maya. 8. Nevin. Asma. Fatima. 9. Abd al-salam, Hutaifa Allah. 10, asthma. Now count again, but slower. 1. They were here. 2. They are not. 3. I am still here. 4. I do not know why. 5. I write their names. 6. The names do not bring them back. Seven, I write them anyway. Eight, because if I stop, nine, they die again. Ten, and I cannot bury them twice. Do you understand now? The clock is not broken. It is simply stuck. The world does not wait. It is still moving, but I am not in it. I am in 15th October. I am in 16th October. I am in 31st October. I am in 1st November. I am in 30th December. I am in 24th May. I am in six dates. I am six wounds. I am six reasons. The clock is stalled. It will never move again. All of them, they did not speak. They did not need to. They pointed forward and I understood. Do not say they died. Say they are ahead of me. Say they won. Say, I am still running. Say, I will catch up. Say the race is not over. Say, I will not stop. The world asks me, what time is it?

I look at the clock. I look at my hands. I look at the names on my skin. I answer, it is 6.30. It will always be 6.30 because time does not move forward. It stops with them. And I am still running. I am still running. I am still running. I am still running until I catch up. Wow. Yeah. So that is, tell us again, that's one of your students from Gaza. And is that part of a collection now? She's putting together a collection, and I want to see this collection published, not just in Gaza. I want to see it published here. I think that her poetry is so extraordinary, and I know I've said this before on the air, if she survives, and, you know, as you can see from that poem, Nobody in Gaza can fully believe that they will survive. But if they do, if she does, I think she will be one of the great poets of the Palestinian people. She's extraordinary. Can we figure out a way to have her come and read in Berkeley? Maybe it could be part of a publication ceremony. of her first book. Andshallah. And shahah. You know, Gaza, Israel is not even letting kids who have cancer and who are going to die unless they get treated an hour away from where they live. They're not even letting those people outside Gaza right now. They're killing. It's a killing machine. All the different ways you can kill people. That's what's happening in Gaza. That's what, you know, and that's my, you know, the calls come around the clock. The suffering is immense, and it's not getting any better. Exactly, exactly. Yeah, it's not getting any better. It's getting more intense, and they're finding new ways like freezing people's bank accounts to exterminate people. I mean, there are so many ways to exterminate people. The official count, the 73,000 dead, is just the count of the people who they know have been killed by bombs or, you know, other implements, drones, quadcopters. But the people who are still buried under the rubble and the people who have died of starvation and the people who have died because they have no access to medication, it's got to be at least 200,000. Yeah. Amazing. Well, would you like to share, do you have a couple more of your own that you'd like to share with us? We'd like to hear them.

Absolutely, absolutely. This is day 1,021. This is for a boy named I am. The boy 13 went to the market to buy what he could for his family. When he returned, his whole family, parents, siblings had been killed. Instead of being received with happy smiles for the peaches, the zucchini, he was met by shrouds, some of them small, his youngest sister, which was his mother, which was his father. Confused in shock, the boy looked around, people had gathered, were standing, looking. They were standing around him, behind him, their hands on his head, his back, his shoulders, Who will eat these fruits and vegetables now, he was thinking. And how is it that I'm the only one alive? This is day 120. This is a record of how they were killed. He was standing on the roof of his house. His house was still standing. She was bringing a bucket of water to her grandmother's tent next to hers. She was sitting in her tent, reading a book she'd read 20 times before the one book she had. He was combing his younger brother's hair. He was climbing a tree barren of leaves to see if he could see his father walking back from where he had gone for food. He was taking his first steps across from his uncle, his one surviving relative. She was doing arithmetic homework assigned by her teacher who had been teaching children in a tent with workbooks she made herself. The child was subtracting two-digit numbers from other two-digit numbers when suddenly she was shot in the neck. And she herself had to be subtracted from the group who met in the teacher's tent later that day. Count the hours, the minutes. Count the children. Count the bullets. Listening to flashpoints. That is our good friend, Anita Barrows, who has written a poem for every day of this genocide. The poetry is extraordinary, and we have been featuring it on flashpoints over the last many weeks and months. Very fortunate to have it, and people again have asked, what this is a news magazine and, you know, this is, this flashpoints, I think we believe in the open flow of information and as much of it as possible. And one way to get extraordinary information, it's not journalism, it's called poetry and storytelling. And there's that combination.

And what we're hearing of these poems that we've been sharing with Anita and her poems has been really inspirational, inspirational to many people. We've gotten many responses, and we appreciate that. Maybe a final poem for this segment. Great. And I will say these are all news stories. All the poems I write come from real stories. They're just ways of making them very personal and bringing out the feeling. So this one was actually told by Dr. Mimi Syed, who is a Palestinian-American emergency room doctor who spent some time working in Gaza at various hospitals with children and wrote an extraordinary paper recently with a few other contributors. about how children are deliberately targeted by Israeli quadcopters. So this is a poem based on a story she told about a girl named Mira. Mira was playing by herself on the morning of her older sister's birthday. Mira, then four. Her parents were trying to make a cake. They were going to celebrate, though it was in the middle of a genocide, though they had been displaced, though they were living in a tent and not in a house. Four, playing just outside the tent by herself, thinking about the sweet cake they would eat, the songs they would sing to her sister. That's when the quadcopter began hovering over her like a bird of prey. That's when it stopped, took aim like a hawk, a vulture, ready to kill, to consume. That's when the bullet sent by the soldier nowhere in sight lodged in her brain. Mira, four years old. That's when she fell miraculously still breathing. That's when everything went blank. No more birthday cake, no more songs. And I have to say Mimi Syed operated on Mira, removed the bullet from her brain. And Mira has been medically evacuated with her mother and is recovering from her injuries and will be all right. That is an extraordinary. Way to end this segment, Anita, as always, we are amazed by the work you've been doing, the way you've documented this genocide, a poem every day of these killing fields, and they do continue. And it is mind-boggling the suffering that's being caused that doesn't have to happen. It's just every day I wake up and I think, no, it couldn't be. Why would we? Why would human beings do this to each other? But this is what's going on now.

Thank you for documenting it. And obviously, we're going to continue our dialogue. We're going to have somewhere in the future, we're going to have a beautiful celebration. We're going to honor the work you're doing, and we're going to make these poems that you're doing. And by the way, they're up at a website. Now, people can get the complete work so far, right? Yes, exactly. My amazing daughter, Nora Barrow Sreedman, has set up a website. It's Poems for Gaza.com. And we have a little assembly line. I write the poem and she posted it. All right. Well, I want the people to know it. It is available if you want it. And we're going to keep working with Anita. And we really want this genocide to end. That would be. a great, a great thing, a great celebration, end the genocide. Anyway, we're going to have to end the segment now. Thank you, Anita. Everybody are listening to FlashPoints on Pacifica Radio. We're going to take a bit of an extended music break. When we come back, we're going to be joined by Harvey Wasserman, and he's going to be talking about some nuclear insanity. That's emerging around, you guessed it, Diablo Canyon here in Northern California. Dangerous place to be. Stay with us. Beautiful, thank you.

And you are listening to FlashPoint on Pacific Radio, your daily investigative news magazine. Welcome back to these airwaves, our good friend, Harvey Wasserman, longtime environmentalist, Solar Topia, many books on the subject, out on the front lines, fighting the good fight against the nuclear madness. But the madness continues, Harvey Wasserman. Why should we be concerned about places like Diablo Canyon? You got Trump's in charge. Trump's in charge. What's there to worry about? You and I've been talking for decades. I'm going to give you the scariest sentence you ever heard. The entire 100% health and safety regulation of all 94 atomic reactors in the United States, including the two at the Abil Canyon, are now solely and 100% in the charge of Donald Trump. The swan of decision from the Supreme Court of the United States says that the President of the United States, whoever it might be at the time, can fire without cause any regulator. That means that Donald Trump, who has personal, very large, personal financial investments in the nuclear power industry is now 100% in charge of the safety regulations at the Abil Canyon and all the other nuclear power plants in the United States. So these two reactors at San Luisbo, which everybody is telling us, oh, they're so safe, they're so heavily regulated. Donald Trump can fire any member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff that might give a peep about maybe, oh, you know, San Andreas could turn that place to rubble, or, you know, the pipes are corroded, or it's embrittled. Anyone who dares to say such a thing, Donald Trump will send them to Siberia. So, you know, that's the situation we're now in, Dennis. It's probably the worst moment in the history of American atomic power. Donald Trump 100% in charge of all nuclear regulation. And Gavin Newsom running around telling us that Diablo Canyon is safe while he's also attacking Donald Trump. Come on, Gavin, who's in charge of the safety there. What scares you most about Diablo Canyon? In real terms, what's the concern? The San Andreas. I mean, everybody who knows anything about earthquakes knows that the San Andreas is headed for a fall. And those two reactors are going to turn to rubble.

immediately. And total radiation all over the place we saw it four times of Fukushima, you know, slightly different causes at Chernobyl. But we have known for decades what can happen with an earthquake at Diablo Canyon. There are a dozen earthquakes off there. And those reactors can just crumble. It's nothing. Aside from the fact that they're breaking us economically, the Diablo Canyon is an incredibly expensive piece of garbage that is costing us at least a billion dollars a year over what our budgets should be in California and the incredible breakthroughs that are happening against. If there's any miracle in our time, it's been the advance of solar, wind, geothermal, and now... All right, let's go there. Let's go there for a little bit. Tell us about the solar-topian world, what we should be doing, what it should look like, where we could be. Aren't we desperate? Don't we need this nuclear power? We really need it, don't we? Right now, it's fulfilling a need. Well, you can join me. Go every night tonight to YouTube and look at what's happening in the solar industry and the wind industry, especially in the battery industry. The breakthroughs in renewable energy are just... spectacular. And the cost savings that we would get from shutting Diablo are enormous. Our electric rates in California would go down 25, 30 percent immediately if they shut the Diablo and made the conversion to renewables. Because the technology is the miracle of our lifetime. It has expanded so rapidly and dropped in price. so radically that it's a joke. The idea that they would run those two reactors is such a rip-off. It's all going straight into the hands of the people at PG&E are sponsoring Gavin Newsom's run for president. It's ridiculous. There is zero, and there's every economic reason to shut those reactors right away. Economically, even if they weren't really, even if they're 100% safe, Diablo Canyon would be just the biggest rip-off in the history of California. It's incredibly, it makes no sense economically. And to keep on that, the incredible... disaster that would accompany the earthquake that we all know is coming and then multiply that with the fact that Donald Trump will be in charge of the evacuation I mean really come on you know it's Donald Trump is literally in charge of the health and safety at the Abil Canyon just let that sink in for a minute well I bet you he'd get out of there first if there was a problem

And he and Elon Musk. He happens. He'd have an exit plan. You know, these are a hideous beasts. these people, they have zero compassion, zero empathy, and no care whatsoever for the health and safety of the general public, which they seem to omit actually includes them. I mean, they think there are different species, I suppose, but this damage has never been more dangerous than it is right now at the Apple Canyon. What should happen there? What exactly should happen? How should that break down? How should Diablo Canyon be gotten rid of? What would be the safest way? What needs to happen? Jerry Brown laid it all out in 2016. It was signed, sealed, and delivered. Gavin Newsom was lieutenant governor, and he signed on. And in 22, somebody handed him a check and picked up his tab at the French gardener, whatever it was called. And he stabbed us in the back. The whole plan was laid out beautifully in 2016 to 2018. It was signed on by the unions, the local governments, the FUC, the assembly, you know, the environmental groups. PG&E wanted to shut it down. It was all laid out perfectly, 2016 to 2018, and then in 22, Gavin stabbed us in the back. And there's no excuse for it. There's every very, very clear path. to gradually phasing those reactors out and phasing in more rapidly than ever now the renewables. The lights will not flicker when we switch to renewables. We have seven times more battery storage capacity than the capacity of Diablo Canyon now. Battery storage has plummeted. Solar panels have plummeted wind power, geothermal is all right there. And we have the highest electric rates. in the continental U.S. because the Ablo Canyon continues to operate. It is absolutely no impact whatsoever to the well-being of the people. Harvey Wassman. People want to follow your work, want to follow Solitopia, want to know more about what you're up to. How do they do that, we're just about out of time? Yes, right? And Dennis, we've featured you on our Monday calls, Monday 2 to 4, Pacific Time. People email me directly, SolarTopia at email. People can participate in it. This is like a Monday roundtable that you do, right, every Monday. Yeah, it is. It's, and you've been a featured guest, we want you again. We'll be talking this coming Monday about. It's a great place to go to learn. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you, Dennis. Thank you. All right. Be safe. You're listening to FlashPoints on Pacific Radio, and we're gone. And that does it for another episode of FlashPoints. Our executive producer is Dennis Bernstein. Senior producers, Miguel Gavallon 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. Bushman. ballot measures to tax billionaires, regulate dark money, and more. Join KPFA's election watch program, The Stakes, airing every Thursday at 10 a.m. and online anytime at kpFA.org and wherever you get your podcasts. The following is brought to you by no one trying to sell you anything. This is 94.1, KPFA, 89.3, KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1, KFCF in Fresno, and online everywhere. Tell a friend at kpFA.org.