Nafeez Ahmed sacked from the Guardian

Nafeez Ahmed, one of the foremost journalist, researcher and truthteller about Peak Oil and climate change has had his contract with UK's liberal newspaper, the Guardian terminated because of an article he wrote about the attack on Gaza.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the newspaper, already known for its russophobia and distortion in defence of Empire in several areas of geopolitics from Libya, Syria to Ukraine bowed to pressure from the Israelis and/or British government.

Nafeez is setting up a new venture creating a venue for watchdog journalism for the global commons, something that I would like to support in any way I can.

NAFEEZ AHMED IS CREATING

INSURGE INTELLIGENCE: WATCHDOG JOURNALISM FOR THE GLOBAL COMMONS

investigating power=to empower people

Via Facbook

I'm Nafeez, a 12-year investigative journalist, bestselling author, documentary film-maker and global security scholar - formerly of The Guardian and currently writing a weekly column for Vice Motherboard. 

I've been praised by the likes of Gore Vidal and had spats with the likes of Christopher Hitchens. I'm the winner of two Project Censored Awards for my Guardian journalism (this year for my report on Ukraine, and last year for my article on food riots) and was selected among the Evening Standard's ‘Power 1000’ most globally influential Londoners for 2014.

I tell the stories you won't find anywhere else about big global issues that affect us all, digging deep to investigate complex invisible realities behind world trends - from geopolitics and intelligence games, to foreign policy agendas and the police state, from resource crises and economic meltdown, to grassroots movements and new technologies. I write to help people make sense of how all these fit together, but also to empower people with a sense of what is possible by exploring real-world solutions to our global challenges. But to keep telling the hard-hitting stories that need to be told, I need your support. 

Censorship: "Palestine is not an environment story"

My last article for The Guardian, where I wrote on the environment site about the geopolitics of interconnected environmental, energy and economic crises via my Earth Insight blog, was an exclusive analysis of the role of Gaza’s off-shore gas reserves in partly motivating Israel’s Operation Protective Edge. It is by far the most popular article on the The Guardian website about the Gaza conflict (last time I checked it had about 67,000 social media shares). The day after posting, my editors unilaterally terminated my Guardian contract on the grounds that this was not a legitimate environment story.

Yeah, right.

The termination was particularly odd given that since having joined The Guardian in 2013, I'd received millions of views, and become by far the most popular Guardian environment blogger, putting out stories such as my interview with ex-CIA official Robert Steele on the 'open source revolution' (44,000 FB shares); the Pentagon's Minerva project and Ministry of Defence initiatives (47,000 FB shares) targeting domestic activists and political dissidents; the little-understood link between NSA mass surveillance and Pentagon planning for the impact of climate, energy and economic shocks.

Clearly, my work had touched a nerve somewhere - and my Gaza piece was seemingly the last straw. "You're writing too many non-environment stories," one of my editors had told me. My report on Israel's efforts to control Palestine's gas resources, he said, is "not an environment story." This experience at The Guardian is undoubtedly the most egregious form of overt censorship I've ever been subjected to as a journalist - and, ironically, from a publication that styles itself as "the world's leading liberal voice."

Breaking suppressed stories that no one else will tell

I've written about the Egyptian uprising, the Syria conflict, the rise of Boko Haram in Nigera, the breakdown of Ukraine, and the militarisation of Thailand - bringing to light how western hubris combined with the unsustainability of flawed models of governance, neoliberal austerity and fossil fuel dependence are unravelling regional order with unforeseen consequences. I've also broken major stories on state-sponsorship of al-Qaeda terrorists, the use and abuse of double agents, Sibel Edmonds and the continuation of "gladio", how Ed Husain's memoirs were ghostwritten in Whitehall; and much, much more.

Since leaving The Guardian, I've continued to break exclusives you won't find anywhere else: on the UN's endorsement of agroecology to solve the global food crisis; how Pentagon social media data-mining is fine-tuning the CIA's drone strike kill lists; the western covert operations behind the rise of 'Islamic State' (ISIS); the Pentagon's exploitation of ISIS to ramp up mass surveillance; IRS whistleblowers exposing US Treasury and IRS executive facilitation of fraudulent multi-billion corporate tax giveaways; and the Pentagon's plan to maintain global military dominance by creating Skynet.

The challenge is that I'm increasingly forced to make hard choices about what I write. Major, hard-hitting investigations often simply can't get commissioned by establishment outlets resulting in their being postponed or deprioritized.

People-powered journalism

I'm using Patreon to create a sustainable platform to give you cutting-edge independent journalism on the issues that matter on a full-time basis; and to move toward a new model of crowd-supported media that is publicly-accountable, holistic, fearless in its integrity, rigorous in its research, and driven by the values of compassion, truth, and justice.

With your support, I will tell the stories I can't get paid to write anywhere, the stories that establishment media are too scared to commission. Your patronage will allow me to ramp up my independent journalism full-time to go where others fear to tread, to chart the full-scale of the planetary emergency we face together, to explore the possibilities for living ethically and transforming our world, to uncover the corruption and wrongdoing that is so endemic in the 'national security' apparatus, to expose wilful state-terrorism and complicity in human rights abuses at home and abroad; to name just a few critical issues.

My mission is to give you the facts to really understand events in a way the rest of the media simply won't tell you. I'll also be exploring alternative (positive and negative) visions of the future. Whether that means show-casing some of the exciting innovative transitional projects that communities around the world are implementing, or interviewing leading visionaries, scientists, or thinkers pioneering harmonious fulfilling ways to live, with your support I'll canvass the stuff you need to know.

INSURGE: A new platform that investigates power to empower people

If it works out, I'll dedicate myself to this on a full-time basis in a way I've not been able to do before, writing daily and creating new video and audio projects to empower you with the facts across a range of media. I'll post my work on my blog, while continuing to pitch to a range of media outlets to maximize exposure and get the story out to as wide an audience as possible.

You can pay me as much or as little as you like, or even make a one off payment and stop. If you subscribe, I'll invite you exclusively to join up with me and your fellow Insurge patrons to become members of a private social network where we can build a global, online community of like-minded thinkers and doers to brainstorm on issues, share ideas and insights, send me feedback and tips for new coverage/investigations - and to be an integral part of the future of digital media.

If this experiment is successful, if we can get to a certain amount per month, I'll take this project to the next level: With your support I'll create a new, people-powered multimedia investigative journalism collective with its own dedicated website, where I'll commission new investigations and hire amazing journalists in my network. At that point we'll be able to explore together how to make our people-powered global newsroom a global force to be reckoned with.

Ukraine crisis is about Great Power oil, gas pipeline rivalry

Here is the article that got Nafeez sacked

IDF's Gaza assault is to control Palestinian gas, avert Israeli energy crisis

Israel's defence minister has confirmed that military plans to 'uproot Hamas' are about dominating Gaza's gas reserves

 A Palestinian boy plays in the rubble of a house destroyed in an Israeli air strike on Beit Hanoun, Gaza. Photograph: Khalil Hamra/AP

the Guardian,

9 July, 2014

Yesterday, Israeli defence minister and former Israeli Defence Force (IDF) chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon announced that Operation Protective Edge marks the beginning of a protracted assault on Hamas. The operation "won't end in just a few days," he said, adding that "we are preparing to expand the operation by all means standing at our disposal so as to continue striking Hamas."

This morning, he said:

"We continue with strikes that draw a very heavy price from Hamas. We are destroying weapons, terror infrastructures, command and control systems, Hamas institutions, regime buildings, the houses of terrorists, and killing terrorists of various ranks of command… The campaign against Hamas will expand in the coming days, and the price the organization will pay will be very heavy."

But in 2007, a year before Operation Cast Lead, Ya'alon's concerns focused on the 1.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas discovered in 2000 off the Gaza coast, valued at $4 billion. Ya'alon dismissed the notion that "Gaza gas can be a key driver of an economically more viable Palestinian state" as "misguided." The problem, he said, is that:

"Proceeds of a Palestinian gas sale to Israel would likely not trickle down to help an impoverished Palestinian public. Rather, based on Israel's past experience, the proceeds will likely serve to fund further terror attacks against Israel…

A gas transaction with the Palestinian Authority [PA] will, by definition, involve Hamas. Hamas will either benefit from the royalties or it will sabotage the project and launch attacks against Fatah, the gas installations, Israel – or all three… It is clear that without an overall military operation to uproot Hamas control of Gaza, no drilling work can take place without the consent of the radical Islamic movement."

Operation Cast Lead did not succeed in uprooting Hamas, but the conflict did take the lives of 1,387 Palestinians (773 of whom were civilians) and 9 Israelis (3 of whom were civilians).

Since the discovery of oil and gas in the Occupied Territories, resource competition has increasingly been at the heart of the conflict, motivated largely by Israel's increasing domestic energy woes.

Mark Turner, founder of the Research Journalism Initiative, reported that the siege of Gaza and ensuing military pressure was designed to "eliminate" Hamas as "a viable political entity in Gaza" to generate a "political climate" conducive to a gas deal. This involved rehabilitating the defeated Fatah as the dominant political player in the West Bank, and "leveraging political tensions between the two parties, arming forces loyal to Abbas and the selective resumption of financial aid."

Ya'alon's comments in 2007 illustrate that the Israeli cabinet is not just concerned about Hamas – but concerned that if Palestinians develop their own gas resources, the resulting economic transformation could in turn fundamentally increase Palestinian clout.

Meanwhile, Israel has made successive major discoveries in recent years - such as the Leviathan field estimated to hold 18 trillion cubic feet of natural gas – which could transform the country from energy importer into aspiring energy exporter with ambitions to supply Europe, Jordan and Egypt. A potential obstacle is that much of the 122 trillion cubic feet of gas and 1.6 billion barrels of oil in the Levant Basin Province lies in territorial waters where borders are hotly disputed between Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Cyprus.

Amidst this regional jockeying for gas, though, Israel faces its own little-understood energy challenges. It could, for instance, take until 2020 for much of these domestic resources to be properly mobilised.

But this is the tip of the iceberg. A 2012 letter by two Israeli government chief scientists – which the Israeli government chose not to disclose – warned the government that Israel still had insufficient gas resources to sustain exports despite all the stupendous discoveries. The letter, according to Ha'aretz, stated that Israel's domestic resources were 50% less than needed to support meaningful exports, and could be depleted in decades:

"We believe Israel should increase its [domestic] use of natural gas by 2020 and should not export gas. The Natural Gas Authority's estimates are lacking. There's a gap of 100 to 150 billion cubic meters between the demand projections that were presented to the committee and the most recent projections. The gas reserves are likely to last even less than 40 years!"

As Dr Gary Luft - an advisor to the US Energy Security Council - wrote in the Journal of Energy Security, "with the depletion of Israel's domestic gas supplies accelerating, and without an imminent rise in Egyptian gas imports, Israel could face a power crisis in the next few years… If Israel is to continue to pursue its natural gas plans it must diversify its supply sources."

Israel's new domestic discoveries do not, as yet, offer an immediate solution as electricity prices reach record levels, heightening the imperative to diversify supply. This appears to be behind Prime Minister Netanyahu's announcement in February 2011 that it was now time to seal the Gaza gas deal. But even after a new round of negotiations was kick-started between the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and Israel in September 2012, Hamas was excluded from these talks, and thus rejected the legitimacy of any deal.

Earlier this year, Hamas condemned a PA deal to purchase $1.2 billion worth of gas from Israel Leviathan field over a 20 year period once the field starts producing. Simultaneously, the PA has held several meetings with the British Gas Group to develop the Gaza gas field, albeit with a view to exclude Hamas – and thus Gazans – from access to the proceeds. That plan had been the brainchild of Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair.

But the PA was also courting Russia's Gazprom to develop the Gaza marine gas field, and talks have been going on between Russia, Israel and Cyprus, though so far it is unclear what the outcome of these have been. Also missing was any clarification on how the PA would exert control over Gaza, which is governed by Hamas.

According to Anais Antreasyan in the University of California's Journal of Palestine Studies, the most respected English language journal devoted to the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israel's stranglehold over Gaza has been designed to make "Palestinian access to the Marine-1 and Marine-2 gas wells impossible." Israel's long-term goal "besides preventing the Palestinians from exploiting their own resources, is to integrate the gas fields off Gaza into the adjacent Israeli offshore installations." This is part of a wider strategy of:

"…. separating the Palestinians from their land and natural resources in order to exploit them, and, as a consequence, blocking Palestinian economic development. Despite all formal agreements to the contrary, Israel continues to manage all the natural resources nominally under the jurisdiction of the PA, from land and water to maritime and hydrocarbon reяources."

For the Israeli government, Hamas continues to be the main obstacle to the finalisation of the gas deal. In the incumbent defence minister's words: "Israel's experience during the Oslo years indicates Palestinian gas profits would likely end up funding terrorism against Israel. The threat is not limited to Hamas… It is impossible to prevent at least some of the gas proceeds from reaching Palestinian terror groups."

The only option, therefore, is yet another "military operation to uproot Hamas."

Unfortunately, for the IDF uprooting Hamas means destroying the group's perceived civilian support base – which is why Palestinian civilian casualties massively outweigh that of Israelis. Both are obviously reprehensible, but Israel's capacity to inflict destruction is simply far greater.

In the wake of Operation Cast Lead, the Jerusalem-based Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (Pcati) found that the IDF had adopted a more aggressive combat doctrine based on two principles – "zero casualties" for IDF soldiers at the cost of deploying increasingly indiscriminate firepower in densely populated areas, and the "dahiya doctrine" promoting targeting of civilian infrastructure to create widespread suffering amongst the population with a view to foment opposition to Israel's opponents.

This was confirmed in practice by the UN fact-finding mission in Gaza which concluded that the IDF had pursued a "deliberate policy of disproportionate force," aimed at the "supporting infrastructure" of the enemy - "this appears to have meant the civilian population," said the UN report.

The Israel-Palestine conflict is clearly not all about resources. But in an age of expensive energy, competition to dominate regional fossil fuels are increasingly influencing the critical decisions that can inflame war.

Dr. Nafeez Ahmed is an international security journalist and academic. He is the author of A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It, and the forthcoming science fiction thriller, ZERO POINT. ZERO POINT is set in a near future following a Fourth Iraq War. Follow Ahmed on Facebook and Twitter

This was the film that familiarised me with Nafeez's work

Nafeez Ahmed - The Crisis of Civilization