• How has the French far right managed to cancel a Black anti-racism scholar for ‘racism’?
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/03/how-has-the-french-far-right-managed-to-cancel-a-black-anti-racism-scho

    Maboula Soumahoro is a renowned French scholar and public intellectual. The holder of a PhD earned through studies both in France and at Columbia University in the US, she is an associate professor at the University of Tours, a specialist on the African diaspora, and one of France’s foremost academics when it comes to race relations.

    So when the European parliament decided to invite her to an internal event last month as part of a dialogue to discuss ways to “promote equality and inclusion in the workplace”, it made perfect sense.

    But the event never happened. First, the French far-right MEP Mathilde Androuët wrote to Roberta Metsola, the president of the parliament, seeking the cancellation of the event on the basis that Soumahoro had made statements with racist undertones and casting doubt on her expertise. Then the French far-right MEP, Marion Maréchal, formerly a member of the National Rally, led by her aunt, Marine Le Pen, weighed in, stepping up the pressure with a post on X that denounced Soumahoro in even more forceful terms as “an anti-White speaker”.

    #Maboula_Soumahoro

  • Netanyahu’s boycott of Haaretz won’t stop us reporting the grim truth about Israel’s wars | Aluf Benn | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/26/benjamin-netanyahu-haaretz-israel-gaza-lebanon-war

    Netanyahu’s boycott of Haaretz won’t stop us reporting the grim truth about Israel’s wars

    Aluf Benn

    Unlike most Israeli news outlets, my paper shows the suffering in Gaza and Lebanon. That’s why the government has targeted us

  • How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world | Carole Cadwalladr | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/17/how-to-survive-the-broligarchy-20-lessons-for-the-post-truth-world-dona
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ea95a5aedfd34245f560f94f462cc7267dc252de/0_333_5000_3000/master/5000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

    1 When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Last week Donald Trump appointed a director of intelligence who spouts Russian propaganda, a Christian nationalist crusader as secretary of defence, and a secretary of health who is a vaccine sceptic. If Trump was seeking to destroy American democracy, the American state and American values, this is how he’d do it.

    2 Journalists are first, but everyone else is next. Trump has announced multibillion-dollar lawsuits against “the enemy camp”: newspapers and publishers. His proposed FBI director is on record as wanting to prosecute certain journalists. Journalists, publishers, writers, academics are always in the first wave. Doctors, teachers, accountants will be next. Authoritarianism is as predictable as a Swiss train. It’s already later than you think.

    3 To name is to understand. This is McMuskism: it’s McCarthyism on steroids, political persecution + Trump + Musk + Silicon Valley surveillance tools. It’s the dawn of a new age of political witch-hunts, where burning at the stake meets data harvesting and online mobs.

    4 If that sounds scary, it’s because that’s the plan. Trump’s administration will be incompetent and reckless but individuals will be targeted, institutions will cower, organisations will crumble. Fast. The chilling will be real and immediate.

    5 You have more power than you think. We’re supposed to feel powerless. That’s the strategy. But we’re not. If you’re a US institution or organisation, form an emergency committee. Bring in experts. Learn from people who have lived under authoritarianism. Ask advice.

    6 Do not kiss the ring. Do not bend to power. Power will come to you, anyway. Don’t make it easy. Not everyone can stand and fight. But nobody needs to bend the knee until there’s an actual memo to that effect. WAIT FOR THE MEMO.

    7 Know who you are. This list is a homage to Yale historian, Timothy Snyder. His On Tyranny, published in 2017, is the essential guide to the age of authoritarianism. His first command, “Do not obey in advance”, is what has been ringing, like tinnitus, in my ears ever since the Washington Post refused to endorse Kamala Harris. In some weird celestial stroke of luck, he calls me as I’m writing this and I ask for his updated advice: “Know what you stand for and what you think is good.”

    8 Protect your private life. The broligarchy doesn’t want you to have one. Read Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: they need to know exactly who you are to sell you more shit. We’re now beyond that. Surveillance Authoritarianism is next. Watch The Lives of Others, the beautifully told film about surveillance in 80s east Berlin. Act as if you are now living in East Germany and Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp is the Stasi. It is.

    9 Throw up the Kool-Aid. You drank it. That’s OK. We all did. But now is the time to stick your fingers down your throat and get that sick tech bro poison out of your system. Phones were – still are – a magic portal into a psychedelic fun house of possibility. They’re also tracking and surveilling you even as you sleep while a Silicon Valley edgelord plots ways to tear up the federal government.

    10 Listen to women of colour. Everything bad that happened on the internet happened to them first. The history of technology is that it is only when it affects white men that it’s considered a problem. Look at how technology is already being used to profile and target immigrants. Know that you’re next.

    Act as if you are now living in East Germany and Meta/Facebook/Instagram/ WhatsApp is the Stasi. It is

    11 Think of your personal data as nude selfies. A veteran technology journalist told me this in 2017 and it’s never left me. My experience of “discovery” – handing over 40,000 emails, messages, documents to the legal team of the Brexit donor I’d investigated – left me paralysed and terrified. Think what a hostile legal team would make of your message history. This can and will happen.

    12 Don’t buy the bullshit. A Securities and Exchange judgment found Facebook had lied to two journalists – one of them was me – and Facebook agreed to pay a $100m penalty. If you are a journalist, refuse off the record briefings. Don’t chat on the phone; email. Refuse access interviews. Bullshit exclusives from Goebbels 2.0 will be a stain on your publication for ever.

    13 Even dickheads love their dogs. Find a way to connect to those you disagree with. “The obvious mistakes of those who find themselves in opposition are to break off relations with those who disagree with you,” texts Vera Krichevskaya, the co-founder of TV Rain, Russia’s last independent TV station. “You cannot allow anger and narrow your circle.”

    14 Pay in cash. Ask yourself what an international drug trafficker would do, and do that. They’re not going to the dead drop by Uber or putting 20kg of crack cocaine on a credit card. In the broligarchy, every data point is a weapon. Download Signal, the encrypted messaging app. Turn on disappearing messages.
    skip past newsletter promotion

    15 Remember. Writer Rebecca Solnit, an essential US liberal voice, emails: “If they try to normalize, let us try to denormalize. Let us hold on to facts, truths, values, norms, arrangements that are going to be under siege. Let us not forget what happened and why.”

    16 Find allies in unlikely places. One of my most surprising sources of support during my trial(s) was hard-right Brexiter David Davis. Find threads of connection and work from there.

    17 There is such a thing as truth. There are facts and we can know them. From Tamsin Shaw, professor in philosophy at New York University: “‘Can the sceptic resist the tyrant?’ is one of the oldest questions in political philosophy. We can’t even fully recognise what tyranny is if we let the ruling powers get away with lying to us all.”

    18 Plan. Silicon Valley doesn’t think in four-year election cycles. Elon Musk isn’t worrying about the midterms. He’s thinking about flying a SpaceX rocket to Mars and raping and pillaging its rare earth minerals before anyone else can get there. We need a 30-year road map out of this.

    19 Take the piss. Humour is a weapon. Any man who feels the need to build a rocket is not overconfident about his masculinity. Work with that.

    20 They are not gods. Tech billionaires are over-entitled nerds with the extraordinary historical luck of being born at the exact right moment in history. Treat them accordingly.

    Carole Cadwalladr is a reporter and feature writer for the Observer

  • Un appel à ceux qui rendent possible le génocide, (alias la #communauté_internationale) pour stopper le génocide.

    We, Israelis, are calling for global pressure on Israel to force an immediate ceasefire | Open letter | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/24/israel-immediate-ceasefire-open-letter

    More than 2,000 Israelis have signed this letter, published in 11 languages, asking the international community to use ‘every possible sanction’ to ‘save us from ourselves’

  • The US won’t run for another term on UN human rights council. Israel is likely why | Kenneth Roth | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/11/us-un-human-rights-israel

    Something unusual happened this week at the UN: the US government decided not to run for a second term on the human rights council. Taking a year off is mandatory after a country serves two three-year terms, but the Biden administration chose to bow out after a single term. That is extremely unusual. What happened?

    Various rationales are circulating, but one, in my view, looms large: Israel. Or more to the point, Joe Biden’s refusal to suspend or condition the massive US arms sales and military aid to Israel as its military bombs and starves the Palestinian civilians of Gaza.

    The election for the 47-member human rights council in Geneva is conducted by the 193-member UN general assembly in New York. The balloting would have provided a rare opportunity for the world’s governments to vote on US complicity in Israeli war crimes. The US could have lost. The Biden administration seems to have calculated that it was better to withdraw voluntarily than to face the prospect of such a shameful repudiation.

    (...)
    This year, something seems to have gone wrong with this cozy if detrimental practice. In the election this week, the western group had three seats to fill. Iceland, Spain and Switzerland had all put their hats in the ring, and the United States was expected to seek renewal of its term that was coming to an end. Three years ago, when a similar possibility emerged of four western candidates for three positions, Washington persuaded Italy to withdraw, allowing it to run unopposed.

    But this year, by all appearances, none of the other three Western candidates were eager to abandon their quest. That could have reflected the possibility that Donald Trump would win the US presidential election next month. In 2018, he notoriously relinquished the US seat on the council to protest its criticism of Israel. Iceland, Spain and Switzerland must have wondered: why defer to the US candidacy if Trump may soon nullify?

    (...) It is rare that the UN general assembly has the chance to vote on the US government’s conduct. A competitive vote for the UN human rights council would have provided such an opportunity. Given widespread outrage at Israeli war crimes in Gaza – and at Biden’s refusal to use the enormous leverage of US arms sales and military aid to stop it – that vote could easily have resulted in an overwhelming repudiation of the Biden administration. Rather than face the possibility of a humiliating reprimand, the US government withdrew its candidacy.

    These events show again how devastating Biden’s support for Israel has been for the cause of human rights. By virtue of its diplomatic and economic power, the US government can be an important force for human rights. Other than on Israel, its presence on the council has generally helped the defense of human rights.

    But US credibility, already compromised by Washington’s close alliances with the repressive likes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, has been profoundly undermined by Biden’s aiding and abetting of Israeli war crimes in Gaza. With Biden seemingly constitutionally unable to change, the defense of human rights is taking a hit.

    That doesn’t mean an end to that defense. The human rights council functioned well despite Trump’s withdrawal. Without the baggage of Washington’s ideological animosity, Latin American democracies led a successful effort to condemn Venezuela. Tiny Iceland secured condemnation of the mass summary executions spawned by the “drug war” of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, whom Trump had embraced.

    But it is a sad state of affairs when, rather than join the frontline defense of human rights at a time of severe threat – in Russia, Ukraine, China, Sudan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Iran and elsewhere – the Biden administration has gone sulking from Geneva back to Washington. It says it won’t run again for the council until 2028.

    Kenneth Roth was executive director of Human Rights Watch from 1993 to 2022. He is now a visiting professor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs

  • Sur LCI, cette très belle #logique_du_chaudron :
    – Israël n’a pas tiré sur la FINUL, ça n’a pas de sens de dire ça…
    – d’accord Israël a tiré sur la FINUL, mais c’était inévitable parce que la FINUL n’a pas obéi aux demandes d’évacuer les lieux,
    – d’accord Israël a tiré sur la FINUL volontairement, mais c’est parce que la FINUL est dans le camp du Hezbollah.

    https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1844663701778948099/pu/vid/avc1/1280x720/ZAOlUvwPT2QGwle9.mp4

  • Facing war in the Middle East and Ukraine, the US looks feeble. But is it just an act? | Adam Tooze | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/10/war-middle-east-ukraine-us-feeble-biden-trump

    There is one school of thought that says the Biden administration is muddling through. It has no grand plan. It lacks the will or the means to discipline or direct either the Ukrainians or the Israelis. As a result, it is mainly focused on avoiding a third world war.

    If so, that is a sad testament to the decline of American hegemonic ambition. No wonder there are calls in the US for Washington to develop an “independent” foreign policy – independent, that is, of Ukraine and Israel.

    But what if that interpretation is too benign? What if it underestimates the intentionality on Washington’s part? What if key figures in the administration actually see this as a history-defining moment and an opportunity to reshape the balance of world power? What if what we are witnessing is the pivoting of the US to a deliberate and comprehensive revisionism by way of a strategy of tension?

    Revisionist powers are those that want to overturn the existing state of things. In an extended sense, this can also mean a desire to alter the flow of events; for instance, to redirect or halt the process of globalisation. Revisionism is often associated with resentment or nostalgia for an earlier, better age.

    By comparison with Trump, the Biden team boast of their commitment to a rules-based order. But when it came to the world economy and the rise of China, Biden has been every bit as aggressive as, perhaps more so than, his predecessor.

    Under Biden, Washington has been committed to reversing years of decline apparently brought on by excessive favour shown to China. The US has tried to stop China’s development in tech. To do so, it has strong-armed allies such as the Dutch and the South Koreans. When the World Trade Organization dared to protest against US steel tariffs, the White House reaction was contemptuous. Bidenomics is Maga for thinking people.

    In what is now called the Indo-Pacific, the US is not merely defending the status quo. The very definition of the strategic arena is new. In the Quad (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), Washington is putting in place a new latticework of alliances that ties India, Japan and Australia to the US. If nothing else had happened in the past two years, the judgment would be clear. The geo-economic policy of the US towards China under Biden is a continuation of the revisionism first seen under Trump.

    #états-unis

  • Tales of infanticide have stoked hatred of Jews for centuries. They echo still today
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/06/tales-of-infanticide-have-stoked-hatred-of-jews-for-centuries-they-echo

    A year after the 7 October attack, the myth of ‘blood libel’ persists in the media coverage of Gaza violence

    Dans les médias occidentaux, même ceux qui se prétendent de gauche, on a le droit de publier les pires saloperies du moment qu’on défend Israël.

  • Des “centaines” de membres du Hezbollah blessés par l’explosion de leur bipeur, selon un ministre libanais | Monde | 7sur7.be
    https://www.7sur7.be/monde/des-centaines-de-membres-du-hezbollah-blesses-par-lexplosion-de-leur-bipeur-se

    “Des dizaines de membres du Hezbollah ont été blessés dans la banlieue sud de Beyrouth”, bastion de la formation islamiste, et “dans le sud du Liban par l’explosion de leur bipeur”, avait plus tôt indiqué à l’AFP une source proche du mouvement islamiste. Elle a cependant assuré qu’il n’y avait eu aucun mort. Une autre source proche du Hezbollah a affirmé à l’AFP qu’il s’agissait d’un “piratage israélien”.

    • L’ancien ministre libanais de la Défense, Yacoub Sarraf, a déclaré qu’il ne pensait pas que la détonation des bipeurs était une "attaque cybernétique", mais plutôt que "ce type d’équipement a un code par son fabricant, pour s’assurer qu’il peut être détoné sous une clé d’information appelée “Back door” qui permet au fabricant d’accéder à l’appareil et de donner des instructions pour le faire exploser".

      "De ce qui précède, je conclus que l’ennemi [Israël] a reçu ce code et l’a utilisé pour commettre ce crime horrible. Prions pour les blessés."

    • https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/cyber-attack-targeting-pagers-results-in-tens-of-injuries-in

      Preliminary reports indicate that hundreds of Lebanese citizens were injured after their portable pager communication devices detonated on Tuesday.

      The cyber attack managed to hack the devices, with reports of injuries spreading across several villages in the Lebanese South, Bekaa, and Beirut’s southern suburb.

      Lebanese security forces confirmed that specific types of wireless devices were targeted, with several sources alleging that an Israeli breach caused the devices to go off and subsequently explode.

      The LSF urged civilians to clear the roads for ambulances to ensure the timely and safe transportation of casualties.

    • https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/9/17/israels-war-on-gaza-live-38-killed-as-israel-risks-becoming-pariah?update

      We have some more comments from military analyst Elijah Magnier on the simultaneous pager explosions in different parts of Lebanon.

      This is a very sophisticated attack and normally, at this scale, it requires the collaboration of more than one entities.
      If the Israeli intelligence managed to compromise the pagers that have been supplied to Hezbollah, this [does not exclude] that they have managed to access the supply by Iran, because Iran supplies Hezbollah in most of its equipment.
      An operation of this scale needs the presence of high explosives, even in small quantity, and an awful long time to sit one every single pager and manually implement one to three grams of highly explosive material and yet conserve the functionality of the pager, the screen and all the electronics without all of this being affected.
      That requires the work of more than one intelligence services and the break of the channel of supply.
      That can also indicate that there is an explosive, because batteries don’t explode on their own in Beirut, in Bekaa Valley, in the south of Lebanon and in Syria and everywhere there is a pager at the same instant.
      This is not something related to the malfunction of the pager but it is something that is implemented in it and exploded by a frequency, most likely a radio frequency.
      In this case, we understand that the Israeli intelligence have placed this explosive with the support of a third country before they reached Hezbollah
      This means that they have not only taken their time but they sat on this supply for a long time before it reached its final destination and
      most probably the Iranians will be now examining all their products and equipment to make sure that nobody has tampered in what they have acquired.

    • Je ne comprends même pas comment un appareil de communication de série peut être designé pour exploser.

      Genre, y pas de contrôles de conformité, des tests ?

      En plus, t’es fabriquant : à quel moment tu demandes à tes ingénieurs de designer la fonction « explosion via un back door » ?
      C’est clairement un surcout.
      Qui décide de s’infliger un surcout de production et pourquoi ?

    • soit c’est le fabricant, avec une équipe discrète en post-fab pour équiper [installer un explosif] les pagers, soit c’est le vendeur à l’Iran, ou n’importe quel maillon/moment de la chaine de distribution (dans un bateau ou un entrepôt), qui a bossé pour Israël et/ou ses alliés (peut-être dans l’hypothèse d’éviter une régionalisation étendue du conflit qu’Israël ne cesse de promettre) avant la livraison à l’Iran.
      et c’est un coup très dur, moins symbolique mais plus opérationnel que de dessouder Ismail Haniyeh à Téhéran.

      edit effet matériel direct : incapaciter des centaines de cadres du Hezbollah ; guerre psychologique : avec ce sabotage d’ État(s), l’organisation ne protège pas contre Israël, nulle part à l’abri ; être prêt à mourir ce n’est pas la même chose que d’être blessés par centaines et par milliers (comme dit la chanson...) de manière absolument imprévue.
      cette opération ressemble toutes choses inégales par ailleurs à une préparation d’artillerie sans qu’on puisse savoir si c’est de la dissuasion plus plus ou un préalable à une nouvelle invasion du Liban (tant annoncée...)

    • Le Hezbollah visé en masse par des explosions de bipeurs au Liban et en Syrie
      https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/170924/le-hezbollah-vise-en-masse-par-des-explosions-de-bipeurs-au-liban-et-en-sy

      Des centaines de personnes ont été blessées, mardi 17 septembre, dans l’explosion simultanée de milliers de bipeurs, dans plusieurs bastions de la formation pro-iranienne au Liban mais aussi en Syrie. Le ministre libanais de la santé, Firas Abiad, a fait état de huit morts et de plus de 2 800 blessés.

    • https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/former-netanyahu-aide-hints-israel-is-behind-beirut-attack/ar-AA1qIkVx

      Topaz Luk, a former top aide and spokesperson to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, hinted in a post on X that Israel was behind Tuesday’s attack in Beirut.

      Luk’s post was a response to a former post by publicist Haim Levinson, in which Levinson argued that the prime minister would not order an attack before he visits New York next week for the United National General Assembly. Luk responded, “[The argument] did not age well,” indicating that the prime minister had ordered the attack.

      The Prime Minister’s Office responded, “Topaz Luk has not been the prime minister’s spokesperson for a number of months and is not part of the inner circle of consultations.”

    • mon hypothèse actuelle, puisqu’on sait que Israël sait imposer le tempo, c’est que cette opération a été montée avec l’accord [la participation directe ?] des É.U en la présentant comme destinée à couper l’herbe sous le pied (et le pied avec) du Hezbollah afin d’éviter (différer ?) une attaque au sol d’ampleur qui contraindrait les É.U à maintenir et renforcer leur soutien et surtout leur présence militaire dans la région (ou pas ... ?). ben oui, y a des élections chez l’Oncle Sam. c’est plus exploitable qu’un passage à l’’ONU.
      en comme c’est le boulon iranien qui n’a pas tenu, c’est tout bénef.

      edit
      Explosions au Liban : qu’est-ce qu’un bipeur ?
      https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2024/09/17/explosions-au-liban-qu-est-ce-qu-un-bipeur_6321814_4408996.html

      Leur faible puissance électrique rend très improbable qu’ils aient pu provoquer les explosions puissantes qui ont fait plusieurs milliers de blessés. (...)
      L’agence de presse Reuters rapportait cet été que le Hezbollah avait recours à des technologies de communication de plus en plus rudimentaires, dont des bipeurs, pour contrer les capacités de surveillance d’Israël, un des pays les plus avancés en matière de surveillance numérique. (...)
      En 1996, Yéhia Ayache, considéré comme le principal artificier du Hamas, avait été tué par l’explosion d’un téléphone portable contenant 15 grammes d’un puissant #explosif, le #RDX.

      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDX

      le même « live » de Le Monde évoque 2500 bipeurs piégés

      Washington affirme ne pas être « impliqué » dans l’explosion des bipeurs au Liban, et n’avait pas été informé à l’avance de l’attaque et « exhort[e] l’Iran à ne pas se servir du moindre événement (sic) pour tenter d’alimenter l’instabilité et d’aggraver encore les tensions dans la région ».

      au vu de vidéos, et malgré des morts et, sans doute, des blessés graves, il doit y avoir de nombreuses blessures curables : les bipeurs et la place libre à l’intérieur, sauf coup de bol, c’est trop petit, même pour du RDX. du coup, ça ressemblerait davantage à un coup de semonce préparant une attaque plus vaste...

    • https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240917-israel-shekel-plummets-against-us-dollar-following-mass-

      The Israeli shekel dropped to its lowest level against the US dollar on Tuesday evening after a security incident in Lebanon left dozens injured, sparking further regional tension, Anadolu Agency reports.

      The Israeli shekel was trading at 3.8 per US dollar as of 2:20 PM GMT, down from 3.73 before the mass incident. This marks the shekel’s lowest exchange rate since 7 August, according to the Bank of Israel’s historical data.

    • Thread by amalsaad_lb on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App
      https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1836090599969017998.html

      Israel’s unprecedented and highly sophisticated security operation today in which almost 3000 people have been injured so far, is by all means a massive blow to Hizbullah. This is all more so the case given that Hizbullah has always credited its performance in the July War, in part, to its primitive telecom network which relied on pagers and a fiber optic “internal” line. By neutralising Israel’s technological superiority with “simplicity”, to borrow Nasrallah’s terms, Hizbullah prevented Israel from disrupting its command and control system. 1/

      Today’s attack effectively negates this advantage. The question is: why did Israel choose to prematurely play this card outside the context of all-out war, where a disruption of this magnitude could have changed the course of the war. Israel surely knows that Hizbullah will now review and amend its entire communication protocols, which suggests that Israel has other aims which could well fall short of full war. 2/

      The operation appears to have been designed as a major spectacle potentially serving dual purposes: to demoralise Hizbullah’s cadres and instil uncertainty while acting as a coercive deterrent aimed at altering their force positioning along the border. 3/

      Israel appears to have developed a unique military-security paradigm in its war on Lebanon: its daily assassination campaign via drone warfare blurs the line between prolonged security measures and traditional warfare. Today’s attack consolidates this novel paradigm which acts more as a substitute for all-out conventional war. At least for the time being. 4/

    • Ce que dit le droit international (pour ce qu’il vaut…)

      Brian Finucane sur X :

      Thinking about rules relating to booby traps under Amended Protocol II of the CCW for no particular reason.

      https://x.com/BCFinucane/status/1836105843739160641

      2. It is prohibited to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.

      3. Without prejudice to the provisions of Article 3, It is prohibited to use weapons to which this Article applies in any city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians in which combat between ground forces is not taking place or does not appear to be imminent, unless either:
      (a) they are placed on or in the close vicinity of a military
      (b) measures are taken to protect civilians from their effects, for example, the posting of warning sentries, the Issuing of warnings or the
      provision of fences.

      Brian Finucane sur X :
      https://x.com/BCFinucane/status/1836114522685243498

      The US, Israel, and Lebanon are all parties to Amended Protocol II.

    • Craig Mokhiber sur X :
      https://x.com/CraigMokhiber/status/1836090509753774508

      Israel’s massive terrorist attack in Lebanon today, using mobile devices as weapons, besides opening a dangerous new chapter in global terrorism, and likely provoking a wider war in the region, also constitutes a grave breach of humanitarian law & a gross violation of human rights. The perpetrators must be held to account.

      It also violates the human rights law prohibition of extrajudicial executions and the IHL prohibition of booby-traps designed to look like harmless portable objects or like something likely to attract civilians. And it violates the IHL requirements of distinction, proportionality, and precaution, as well as the prohibition on targeting civilians, in some of the cases.

    • Reuters
      https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/dozens-hezbollah-members-wounded-lebanon-when-pagers-exploded-sources-witne

      The New York Times reported that Israel hid explosive material in the Taiwan-made Gold Apollo pagers before they were imported to Lebanon, citing American and other officials briefed on the operation. The material was implanted next to the battery with a switch that could be triggered remotely to detonate

    • @colporteur qui se demande

      comment Israël aurait « trié » parmi tous les pagers de Beyrouth, par exemple ?

      Les chroniques rapportées sur X à propos de ces évènements tendraient à affirmer qu’Israël (ou les instances d’IA dont ils se servent) n’a effectué aucun « tri » parmi les cibles potentielles de cette attaque. Par contre la presse « mainstream » te martèle que c’était des membres du Hezbollah qui étaient visés.

    • Oui, il n’y a clairement aucun tri : c’est du terrorisme pur et simple.

      l’OMC devrait aussi se préoccuper des conséquences des interceptions de produits commerciaux grand public afin d’en faire des armes pour guerre de lâches.

      Sans confiance, il n’y a plus de commerce.

      À partir de là, en fait, la boite de pandore est largement ouverte aux yeux du public : les gus peuvent faire ce qu’ils veulent à qui ils veulent et il n’y a ni lois, ni contrôles, rien.

    • Le taïwanais Gold Apollo affirme que les bipeurs du Hezbollah ont été produits par son partenaire hongrois BAC - L’Orient-Le Jour
      https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1427491/le-taiwanais-gold-apollo-affirme-que-les-bipeurs-du-hezbollah-ont-ete

      Le groupe taïwanais Gold Apollo a affirmé mercredi que les bipeurs piégés du Hezbollah, portant sa marque, dont l’explosion a fait au moins neuf morts et des milliers de blessés la veille au Liban, ont été produits et vendus par son partenaire hongrois BAC.

      « En vertu d’un accord de coopération, nous autorisons BAC à utiliser notre marque pour la vente de produits dans certaines régions, mais la conception et la fabrication des produits sont de l’unique responsabilité de BAC », a indiqué dans un communiqué Gold Apollo.

      Le groupe taïwanais a démenti des informations du New York Times, selon lesquelles il avait lui-même fabriqué et vendu au Hezbollah les bipeurs, du modèle AR924. « Notre entreprise n’apporte que l’autorisation d’utiliser la marque et n’est pas impliquée dans la conception et la fabrication » de ce bipeur, a-t-il insisté.

      « Ce ne sont pas nos produits (...) Ce ne sont pas nos produits du début à la fin », avait affirmé plus tôt mercredi le directeur de l’entreprise, Hsu Ching-kuang, à des journalistes à Taipei.

    • Merci à tou·tes d’être critiques. Trop vu des gens se réjouir, les yeux et le coeur qui saignent. Cette attaque est vraiment terroriste. Un espace safe.

    • En apparté pour @mfmb

      On vit une sale période. J’ai redécouvert hier soir le film « La liste noire » (Guilty by Suspicion).
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilty_by_Suspicion
      Si on en croit le déroulé historique de toute cette ignominie (maccarthysme), il faudra surement attendre des décennies pour que les lignes bougent. Ce que ne verrons pas bon nombre d’entre nous. Et nos survivants pour la plupart n’auront pas gardé en mémoire tout ce qui s’est passé dans les « années 20 » du XXIe siècle ni n’auront la possibilité de consulter des archives accessibles pour le « grand public ».

    • non, @sombre, ce tri a dès hier été expliqué. il ne s’agit pas de l’ensemble des bipeurs présents au Liban ou en Syrie mais de bipeurs piégés (sans doute lors dès la fabrication, c’est plus facile que de le faire dans le circuit logistique, surtout à une telle échelle), livrés au Hezbollah, par, semble-t-il, cette boite hongroise (la Hongrie et Israël sont en très bons termes..).
      comme ce ne sont pas des militaires cantonnés, un tel tri ne suffit pas à épargner les civils.

    • comme ce ne sont pas des militaires cantonnés, un tel tri ne suffit pas à épargner les civils.

      Pas bien compris cette phrase @colporteur. Parce que, sortis d’usine, je me pose la question à savoir comment ces terminaux se sont retrouvés dans les mains de personnes qui n’avaient rien à voir avec le Hezbollah.
      Une possibilité : les services de renseignements israéliens ont des taupes parmi le Hezbollah et ils ont fait livrer des appareils piégés aux personnes ciblées. Mais apparemment, ils ont ratissé large.

    • Explosions de bipeurs au Liban : l’ONU estime que les responsables "devront rendre des comptes"
      https://www.bfmtv.com/international/moyen-orient/explosions-de-bipeurs-au-liban-le-haut-commissaire-de-l-onu-estime-que-les-re

      Les responsables de l’attaque meurtrière aux bipeurs contre les membres du mouvement pro-iranien Hezbollah au Liban ce mardi 17 septembre, « devront rendre des comptes », a réclamé ce mercredi le Haut-Commissaire de l’ONU aux droits de l’homme, Volker Türk.

      « Le ciblage simultané de milliers de personnes, qu’il s’agisse de civils ou de membres de groupes armés, sans savoir qui était en possession des engins ciblés, où ils se trouvaient et dans quel environnement ils se trouvaient au moment de l’attaque, constitue une violation du droit international des droits de l’homme et, dans la mesure où il est applicable, du droit international humanitaire », a souligné Volker Türk dans un communiqué.

      (Malgré le fond des déclarations qu’il rapporte, l’article de BFM ne peut s’empêcher de reprendre la phraséologie habituelle qui permet d’excuser le terrorisme d’État d’Israël : « mouvement pro-iranien », « contre les membres… », « mouvement islamiste pro-iranien », « places fortes du Hezbollah »… Tiens, chez BFM on est passé de « fief » à « place forte » pour désigner Dahyé, c’est charmant.)

    • Explosions meurtrières au Liban : des téléphones et ordinateurs piégés provoquent des incendies, la Russie dénonce un terrorisme de masse - Le Père Peinard
      https://www.leperepeinard.com/flash-info/explosions-meurtrieres-au-liban-des-telephones-et-ordinateurs-pieges-

      18 septembre 2024 17h50

      Nouvelle vague de terreur au Liban : une série d’explosions d’appareils électroniques, tels que des téléphones et ordinateurs, a secoué plusieurs zones du pays, déclenchant des incendies dans des immeubles résidentiels. Ces attaques ciblées sèment la panique et aggravent encore une situation déjà explosive.

      La diplomatie russe n’a pas tardé à réagir, qualifiant ces actes de ” terrorisme monstrueux, à la fois par leur cynisme et leur ampleur “, en raison du nombre croissant de victimes. Le Liban, déjà en endeuillé, plonge un peu plus dans l’horreur.

    • @sombre, a priori le H. livre à ses hommes sa commande destinée à les équiper. Enterrez vos portables, au moins dans une cage de Faraday, ont-ils dit, et ils ont fournis la low tech qui va bien. Mais c’était face au Mossad et à ses techniques de piégeages : on nous dit (est-ce vrai ?), que Ismail Haniyeh a été tué dans un appart « sécurisé » à Téhéran, miné par Israël. Plus proche de ce qui a lieu en ce moment, à une échelle incommensurable, Yahya Ayyash, « artificier du Hamas » est mort tué par l’explosion de son portable en 1996.

      Je ne lis pas l’arabe et ne sais donc pas combien de civils extérieurs au H. (on peut être salarié, mendiant ou marchand et membre d’une organisation politico-militaire) ont été atteints, mais il est pas difficile d’imaginer (même si c’est pas ce qu’il ya de plus sérieux) que si on a un bipeur livré par le H. dans sa baraque des explosions puissent tuer des enfants, que si les explosions ont lieu dans des lieux confinés (je joue aux échecs avec mon fils ou je lui lit une histoire, par exemple) des civils non membres du H. soient atteints.
      Israël savait qu’il y aurait des victimes collatérales. Perso, j’ai aucune idée de la proportion de celles-ci.
      Et cette fois, ce que j’imagine c’est que le H. a trois raisons de minimiser le nombre de blessés parmi ses membres : ne pas amplifier la démoralisation interne (mais, par proximité et voisinage, de nombreux libanais sauront ce qu’il en est, et plus encore les miliciens du H. ) ; tenter de leurrer l’ennemi en minorant l’efficacité de son action ; et, enfin, susciter/renforcer l’indignation et/ou la solidarité.

      Ces histoires d’ordis qui explosent, je ne les ai pas vu ailleurs. En revanche, les talkies du H. qui sautent (combien ?) aujourd’hui, ça parait avéré.
      Après l’attaque au sol en Syrie contre une fabrique d’obus, cette opération de neutralisation (10% des soldats hors de combat au moins pour un moment, tous grades confondus ?) et de démoralisation est énorme, totalement inédite.
      Et c’est couplé (comme il se doit) avec l’annonce d’envoi de troupes israéliennes à la frontière du Liban (une occupation « comme avant » ? rien n’est moins sûr. des raids ? autre ?).

      Vous qui êtes si nombreux dans la tech, la com, le net, on a ici un cas d’école : sans infrastructures de communication, pas d’obéissance (sans que ce soit ici péjoratif), pas de coordination rapide, désorganisation maximale (qui reviendra aux pigeons voyageurs ?)

      (Dans les années 90, nous utilisions des bipeurs à Paris pour coordonner des groupes lors d’actions : les flics (décidaient ou) arrivaient parfois à faire que les messages soient... différés ; c’est d’un pratique).

      Avec ces actions, Israël réussi aussi à mettre l’Iran au pied du mur. Comment mener une guerre à laquelle les logiques adverse conduisent par « front de la résistance » interposé ? Comment mener une guerre sans s’y impliquer directement ?

      De l’extrême droite au centre, le mot d’ordre israélien actuel le plus officiel c’est la sécurité et la réinstallation de leurs déplacés. Ce qui signifie restaurer la raison d’être de cet État : garantir la sécu de certains juifs, raison d’être pour partie ruinée par le 7 octobre. Une « victoire contre le Hamas » de substitution à celle qui continue d’être invoquée par Netanyahou et dont on vu ici ces derniers mois comment elle est mise en cause en interne par les constats de défaite militaire et politique, par la solidarité avec les otages, etc.

      On a pas fini d’en voir (et je cause même pas des palestiniens et des libanais)

      edit quand tu es organisé, tu files ni ta kalach ni ton bipeur dédié à n’importe qui, d’autant que ce dernier est ton lien indispensable avec l’organisation. l’ambassadeur d’Iran à Beyrouth, blessé, peut bien dire que c’était le bipeur d’un de ses gardes du corps (ils sont aussi là pour ça lorsqu’on utilise je ne sais combien de téléphones, et un bipeur), on ne coupe pas volontairement le contact.

    • Second wave of device explosions hits Lebanon a day after pager attack | AP News
      https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah-syria-ce6af3c2e6de0a0dddfae4863427

      BEIRUT (AP) — Walkie-talkies and solar equipment exploded in Beirut and multiple parts of Lebanon on Wednesday in an apparent second wave of attacks targeting electronic devices a day after hundreds of pagers used by Hezbollah blew up, state media and Hezbollah officials said. At least nine people were killed and more than 300 people wounded in the second wave, the Health Ministry said.

    • Concernant cette deuxième vague, on lit qu’outre les talkie-walkie, explosent aussi :
      https://x.com/OALD24/status/1836419188593713471

      - Paging devices
      – Wireless radio devices
      – Biometric machines
      – Solar power systems

      Nisrine Sharwani avait aussi mentionné cela :
      https://x.com/snarwani/status/1836421758057922760

      - Pagers
      – Wireless radios
      – Fingerprint machines
      – Solar energy systems
      – Lithium battery cars

      Mais le tweet semble avoir été effacé.
      Avez vous des sources sur cette diversité d’engins ?

    • J’ai trouvé trace de l’information sur l’explosion de panneaux solaires via The Guardian, qui cote un communiqué de l’agence libanaise d’information :
      https://www.nna-leb.gov.lb/ar/justice-law/722390/%D8%A7%D8%B5%D8%A7%D8%A8%D8%A9-%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8

      Zahrani - A girl from the town of Al-Marwaniyah was injured as a result of the explosion of the solar energy system in her family’s home.

      The Guardian précise que
      https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/sep/18/middle-east-crisis-live-hezbollah-pager-explosion-lebanon-irael-iran-la

      Several solar power systems exploded in people’s homes across Lebanon, according to the National News Agency, injuring at least one girl in the town of al-Zahrani in south Lebanon.
      Pictures of exploded solar panels, fingerprint readers and other devices circulated through social media, though it was unclear if they blew up by themselves or were simply near walkie-talkies which blew up.

    • il n’était pas clair s’ils avaient explosé d’eux-mêmes ou s’ils étaient simplement à proximité de talkies-walkies qui avaient explosé.

      Dans un talkie il y a bien plus d’espace pour des explosifs que dans un pager, aujourd’hui, moins de talkies, plus de morts, une masse de blessés moins importante :

      Quatorze morts et plus de 450 blessés dans la deuxième série d’explosions d’appareils de communication, selon le dernier bilan du ministère de la santé libanais

      Les explosions d’appareils de communication survenues mercredi ont fait quatorze morts et plus de 450 blessés, selon le dernier bilan communiqué dans la soirée par le ministère de la santé libanais.

      https://www.lemonde.fr/international/live/2024/09/18/en-direct-nouvelle-serie-d-explosions-au-liban-israel-annonce-une-reorientat

      (ces talkies étaient dans la même livraison ?)
      .

    • Human Rights Watch - Lebanon: Exploding Pagers Harmed Hezbollah, Civilians
      https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/09/18/lebanon-exploding-pagers-harmed-hezbollah-civilians

      “Customary international humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby traps – objects that civilians are likely to be attracted to or are associated with normal civilian daily use – precisely to avoid putting civilians at grave risk and produce the devastating scenes that continue to unfold across Lebanon today. The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, using a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction. A prompt and impartial investigation into the attacks should be urgently conducted.”

    • Lebanon: Statement by the High Representative on the series of explosions across the country [Josep Borrell Fontelles]
      https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/lebanon-statement-high-representative-series-explosions-across-country_e

      Even if the attacks seem to have been targeted, they had heavy, indiscriminate collateral damages among civilians: several children are among the victims

      I consider this situation extremely worrying. I can only condemn these attacks that endanger the security and stability of Lebanon, and increase the risk of escalation in the region.

    • The Guardian view on Israel’s booby-trap war: illegal and unacceptable - Editorial
      https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/18/the-guardian-view-on-israels-booby-trap-war-and-unacceptable

      In the second world war, guerrilla forces scattered large quantities of booby-trapped objects likely to be attractive to civilians. The idea was to cause widescale and indiscriminate death. The Japanese manufactured a tobacco pipe with a charge detonated by a spring-loaded striker. The Italians produced a headset that blew up when it was plugged in. More than half a century later, a global treaty came into force which “prohibited in all circumstances to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects that are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material”. Has anyone told Israel and its jubilant supporters that, as Brian Finucane of the International Crisis Group points out, it is a signatory to the protocol?

    • Exploding pagers and radios: A terrifying violation of international law, say UN experts
      https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/09/exploding-pagers-and-radios-terrifying-violation-international-law-say-un

      “To the extent that international humanitarian law applies, at the time of the attacks there was no way of knowing who possessed each device and who was nearby,” the experts said. “Simultaneous attacks by thousands of devices would inevitably violate humanitarian law, by failing to verify each target, and distinguish between protected civilians and those who could potentially be attacked for taking a direct part in hostilities.

      “Such attacks could constitute war crimes of murder, attacking civilians, and launching indiscriminate attacks, in addition to violating the right to life,” the experts said.

      Humanitarian law additionally prohibits the use of booby-traps disguised as apparently harmless portable objects where specifically designed and constructed with explosives – and this could include a modified civilian pager, the experts said. A booby-trap is a device designed to kill or injure, that functions unexpectedly when a person performs an apparently safe act, such as answering a pager.

      “It is also a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians, including to intimidate or deter them from supporting an adversary,” the experts warned. “A climate of fear now pervades everyday life in Lebanon,” they said.

    • Jennifer O. Lee sur X :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/1072185

      people […] don’t stop to question how Israel could orchestrate a sophisticated attack in Lebanon by detonating thousands of personal electronic devices simultaneously, yet they aren’t adept enough to locate Israeli hostages being held in a geographical area approx. 5mi wide by 25mi long that functions like an open-air prison and of which they have complete control.

    • @kassem: c’est proche de la logique de cet article parodique: Confusion As Military With Ability To Kill Individual Fighters Via Pager Explosions Spent Previous 11 Months Carpet Bombing Civilians
      https://waterfordwhispersnews.com/2024/09/16/they-told-us-to-reduce-waiting-lists-chi-defends-taking-boy-o

      “Y’know after reading the news on the pager attacks I’m starting to think the systematic cutting off of food, water and electricity, the bombing of schools and refugee camps, the total destruction of thousands upon thousands of homes, the murdering of journalists and aid workers, it wasn’t the only option,” offered an idiot with zero knowledge of the complex and serious business of justified military actions which some people are erroneously calling a ‘terror attack’ or ‘war crime’.

      Having at their disposal the vast and far reaching infiltration capabilities that delivered this wave of pager explosions, questions continue to be asked of Israel in the matter of systematically trying to wipe Gaza off the map.

    • Volker Türk (OHCHR) on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question - Security Council, 9730th meeting https://x.com/UNWebTV/status/1837247285182206101

      https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1837246691579211776/pu/vid/avc1/720x720/I8Sq1BQcBCCzpZrn.mp4

      In the #SecurityCouncil, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights @volker_turk said he was appalled by the recent attacks in #Lebanon. He called for an investigation and the upholding of international humanitarian and human rights law.

      Full briefing: https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k11/k1183w0rm1

  • EU pushes for new surveillance technology against migration, German police union asks for €35 million

    A new EU regulation on the introduction of border controls came into force in June. Unwanted entries are to be prevented using drones, motion sensors and other technologies.

    The police spoke out on Monday in the debate about stationary controls at Germany’s internal borders. Andreas Roßkopf, chairman of the GdP police union responsible for the Federal Police, warned of personnel and equipment bottlenecks. He is calling for “mobile, flexible and intelligent border controls” as well as mobile checkpoints that can be set up “flexibly and adapted to the situation”. The German government should provide around €35 million for this, he said.

    According to the Schengen Agreement concluded in 1985, the more than 400 million citizens of the EU member states as well as Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein are actually allowed to cross the common internal borders without personal checks. An implementing agreement regulates “compensatory measures”, including the upgrading of the EU’s external borders and the creation of the Frontex border agency.

    The implementation of control-free internal borders is regulated in the Schengen Borders Code. Short-term exceptions apply, for example, during major political or sporting events. With the “migration crisis”, countries such as Germany, France, Austria, Denmark and Norway utilised another paragraph from 2015 to resume border controls for an initial period of six months. This measure was extended to two years. In order to continue it, the states changed the justification to an alleged “risk of terrorist attacks”.

    The EU Commission, as “guardian of the EU treaties” also responsible for compliance with the Schengen Agreement, repeatedly reprimanded the governments concerned for the internal border controls that had been in place for almost ten years. In 2021, it presented a proposal to revise the Borders Code. After three years, the member states and Parliament agreed on a final version, which came into force in June 2024. It distinguishes between “foreseeable” and “unforeseeable threats”.

    Controls due to “foreseeable threats”, which are to last longer than six months, require a risk analysis by proclaiming states. This should examine whether the objectives can be achieved by more lenient means. The Commission must comment on extensions of more than 18 months. Border controls due to the same “exceptional situation with a persistent threat” may not exceed a total of three years.

    Regulations for pandemics were also included, according to which the EU’s external borders can be partially closed or testing, quarantine and self-isolation measures can be prescribed by a Council decision.

    There was controversy over the question of whether the “instrumentalisation” of migration should also be regulated in the regulation. This refers to cases such as at the EU borders with Turkey or Belarus, in which the governments deliberately brought refugees to the border so that they could enter the EU from there. According to the Borders Code, countries affected by such a situation may then close their external borders and other Schengen members may control their internal borders for one month, which can be extended to up to three months.

    The updated Borders Code also contains new measures to combat alleged “smuggling of migrants” and to prevent migrants from entering at external and internal borders. To this end, “technical means” such as drones, motion sensors, cameras and “surveillance technologies for traffic flows” are to be increasingly used. “All types of stationary and mobile infrastructure” and “technologies for collecting personal data” at checkpoints are also permitted.

    The head of the GdP, Roßkopf, is referring to these regulations with his demand for new, multi-million euro technology for mobile checkpoints. When asked by “nd”, a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) emphasised that dragnet searches, i.e. targeted checks to prevent border crime, are also carried out at borders where there are no stationary controls.

    Such “alternative police measures” are now also being strengthened. According to the updated Borders Code, “third-country nationals illegally present on their territory” who are apprehended following a border search can be immediately “transferred” to another member state from which they have entered. Neighbouring countries are to agree on procedures for this bilaterally.

    This practice leads to more police checks based on racial, ethnic or religious characteristics, warns the Platform for International Cooperation to Secure Social Justice and Human Rights for Undocumented Migrants (PICUM), and legalises so-called “pushbacks”. The German Ministry of the Interior recently confirmed that this has long been the rule at Germany’s internal borders, stating that almost one in three irregular migrants is turned away at the border.

    On Tuesday, the Federal Police published figures on unauthorised entries in the first half of 2024 and found a slight decrease. From January to June, 42,307 cases were registered, which corresponds to a decrease of 6.7 per cent compared to the same period last year. In 2023 as a whole, 127,549 unauthorised entries into Germany were recorded.

    https://digit.site36.net/2024/07/31/eu-pushes-for-new-surveillance-technology-against-migration-german-pol
    #contrôles_frontaliers #frontières #migrations #réfugiés #business #budget #complexe_militaro-industriel #frontières_intérieures #Allemagne #technologie #surveillance #équipement #code_frontières #Schengen #2024/171 #menaces #exception #surveillance_frontalière #contrôles_mobiles

    ping @_kg_

    • Germany’s border clampdown threatens the entire European project

      No wonder Viktor Orbán and Geert Wilders are cheering. Olaf Scholz is helping them to reshape the EU as they want it

      The far right across Europe used to dream of seeing their countries leave the European Union. In France, they called for a Frexit; in Germany, it was Dexit. But recently these calls have quietened. The reason is not that far-right parties have become enamoured of the EU, but rather they now understand that instead of quitting, they can reshape the EU into a collection of “strong” nation states that will each enact their own rightwing anti-migration agenda.

      As Jordan Bardella, president of the National Rally (RN) in France, recently remarked in explaining why his party no longer called for France to quit the EU: “You don’t leave the table when you are winning the game.”

      That the far right is being allowed to “win the game” is abundantly clear in Germany, where the governing coalition has announced systematic border controls, which will come into force on 16 September. Tighter checks at all of Germany’s nine land borders are an attempt by the government to curb immigration by preventing people, especially asylum seekers who have already crossed other EU states, from entering Germany.

      This opens the way for serious human rights violations and racial profiling. Germany’s Council for Migration warns that the plan risks violating EU law.

      The border checks are due to be in place for an initial six months. They were announced amid a febrile debate about what the leader of the conservative opposition Christian Democratic Union (CDU) called a “national emergency” after a Syrian asylum seeker who, under EU asylum regulations, should have been returned from Germany to Bulgaria, was charged with a fatal killing in Solingen. Since the far-right, anti-migration Alternative für Deutschland’s (AfD’s) electoral success in Thuringia and Saxony on 1 September, the debate has reached boiling point.

      The German government is on a dangerous path. The country holds a central position in the EU and is its largest economy, meaning that this plan, which goes against one of the central tenets of the EU, threatens to undermine the European project.

      A cornerstone of that project was the ambition to make national borders disappear by creating the passport-free Schengen area, which now includes 25 of the 27 EU member states. It was one of the reasons why the EU received the Nobel peace prize in 2012 – although even then, thousands of migrants were dying at the EU’s external borders every year. At the time, a representative of the union declared: “Over the past 60 years, the European project has shown that it is possible for peoples and nations to come together across borders. That it is possible to overcome the differences between ‘them’ and ‘us’.”

      No wonder the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has publicly criticised Germany’s unilateral plan as a systematic suspension of Schengen and a contravention of European law. Austria has also said it is not prepared to receive any migrants turned back from the border with Germany, and other countries are likely to concur.

      The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, claimed on Wednesday that the government had already “achieved a great turnaround in reducing irregular migration”. But Scholz’s plan risks causing a chain reaction throughout Europe that could lead to the unravelling of the “post-national” idea itself. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right Freedom party, which is now part of the government, has already asked: “If Germany can do it, why can’t we?”, adding: “As far as I’m concerned, the sooner the better.”

      Other parties on the far right are celebrating. By caving in to anti-migration sentiment, supposedly “centrist” political parties are doing the far right’s bidding and legitimising its vision of a Europe with hardening borders. It is no great surprise that Hungary’s authoritarian leader, Viktor Orbán, congratulated Scholz, tweeting: “@Bundeskanzler, welcome to the club! #StopMigration.”

      German asylum statistics show that the number of asylum applications is actually decreasing this year. However, the three parties of the ruling coalition want to regain lost electoral support by joining with the far and centre right. Both the AfD and the CDU are aggressively pushing for repressive migration policies.

      Police chiefs have said they may lack capacity to carry out the new border checks. But whether Germany can actually control its 3,700km of frontiers is beside the point. By seeking to pass the measures ahead of a third state election in Brandenburg on 22 September, the coalition is signalling to voters that it is prepared to act decisively to address what CDU leaders hyperbolically call a “loss of control” at Germany’s borders.

      The German government’s belief that it can tackle migration and regain electoral support by ramping up border controls is misguided. The truth is, migration will continue in a world that fails to address the reasons why people flee their countries: wars and conflict, political persecution and oppression, the climate catastrophe and unsustainable forms of resource exploitation.

      Besides stoking up racist resentment in society and undermining the rights of vulnerable groups, the German government risks putting the EU itself in jeopardy. The very idea of a political community that enshrines the right to free movement across borders is crumbling before our eyes. And it is not migrants who are to blame.

      https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/13/germanys-border-clampdown-threatens-the-entire-european-project

  • We need an exodus from Zionism | Naomi Klein | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/24/zionism-seder-protest-new-york-gaza-israel
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/58fbf1093318ddb5c1e49704e8dc9bba10cf9c95/0_0_4000_2401/master/4000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

    From the start it has been at war with dreams of liberation. At a Seder it is worth remembering that this includes the dreams of liberation and self-determination of the Egyptian people. This false idol of Zionism equates Israeli safety with Egyptian dictatorship and client states.

    From the start it has produced an ugly kind of freedom that saw Palestinian children not as human beings but as demographic threats – much as the pharaoh in the Book of Exodus feared the growing population of Israelites, and thus ordered the death of their sons.

    Zionism has brought us to our present moment of cataclysm and it is time that we said clearly: it has always been leading us here.

    It is a false idol that has led far too many of our own people down a deeply immoral path that now has them justifying the shredding of core commandments: thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet.

  • Israel’s assault on Gaza is exposing the holes in everything liberal politicians claim to believe | Nesrine Malik | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/feb/12/israel-gaza-liberal-politicians-starmer-biden

    Gaza has become the expression of a legitimacy crisis for an Anglo-American political class who preside over already fragile systems that deliver less and less to their populations, and whose main offering is that the alternative is worse. Things may look stable, but underneath lurk managed discontents about costs of living, diminished social mobility and the ravages wreaked by rightwing governments to which centrists provide no real answer.

    As the writer Richard Seymour once said: “If a crisis erupts in politics we can be sure that it’s overdetermined by the accumulation of contradictions elsewhere in the structure. Individual crises might be manageable, but what’s deadly is the way in which all of these contradictions feed back on each other.”

    The political response to Gaza may seem obstinate and imperious, yet what lies behind it is not strength, but weakness.

  • In 2024, there is one 80-year-old leader we need more than ever: #Angela_Davis
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/25/angela-davis-leader-activist-palestine

    The controversy is a great reminder of how effectively Davis still speaks truth to power and how she has retained her ability to get up the nose of conservative governments. Davis turns 80 on 26 January, and although she became a symbol of civil rights activism more than 60 years ago, she remains, for me, the global figure whose ideas are still among the most radical and relevant for our time.