Netanyahu and his allies have beaten the opposition in the Jewish Israeli vote. That's despite: - Presiding over October 7th - Netanyahu being on trial on charges of bribery and fraud - A cost of living and housing crisis - Attacks on the judiciary - Outrage over shielding ultra-Orthodox Jews from conscription - The Qatargate scandal - The disastrous Iran war - The Israeli establishment rationally believing that Netanyahu was making their state a pariah, and organising to get rid of him - The opposition overwhelmingly also supporting the genocide, occupation and illegal settlements If we include Ofer Winter's party - which pledged to support Netanyahu for prime minister, but hasn't crossed the threshold - then so far 51.5% of the non-Arab list vote went to the Netanyahu bloc. With 84.4% of votes counted, among the non-Arab list bloc, the opposition has only increased its share of the vote by about 1.6 points. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich stood separately this time, but are set to win almost the same combined number of seats as last time. The latter in alliance with Moshe Feiglin, who declared "Every child, every baby in Gaza is an enemy." The only significant shift is the surge in support for the Palestinian-led parties. But most of the opposition is opposed to working with them. Avigdor Lieberman, for example, has taken even more extreme positions towards Palestinians than Netanyahu himself. If they do a pact with the Palestinian-led parties, not only would it not last long, it would produce a huge right-wing backlash. That the opposition could on paper form an arithmetical majority with the support of the Palestinian-led parties - but absolutely will not - trashes the "well if the small minority of Palestinians who remained in Israel after the Nakba can vote, then Israel is a democracy for all its citizens" nonsense. A very likely prospect is that this will pave the way for new elections. The two right-wing parties which didn't cross the threshold would likely not stand again, boosting Netanyahu. The same huge mobilisation of Palestinian citizens of Israel would likely not transpire. Netanyahu and his allies would likely benefit from shock at the unexpected surge in support for the Palestinian-led parties. The opposition would be demoralised by its failure, and Netanyahu strengthened by having come out on top in this election. So it's best to bet on Netanyahu winning a coming election. What does all this mean? Any illusions that change can happen within Israeli society should long ago have been destroyed. The opposition would have continued the genocide, the occupation, apartheid and colonisation. But as Israel's support in the West collapsed, Israel's cheerleaders pushed the position that Netanyahu was the bogeyman, and that a shift in figurehead could allow the state to do a PR relaunch. Netanyahu isn't Israel, we were told. Well that's true in the sense that on many key issues, Israeli society is actually more extreme than Netanyahu. This baseless illusion is now dead and buried. There must now be a much more determined push for a total arms embargo and sweeping sanctions on Israel. Those arguing that Israel is something it plainly is not are now completely and utterly discredited.

There aren't many prominent left-wing leaders willing to think for themselves and then defend conclusions even though it's not what the left-wing flock wants to hear. @yanisvaroufakis is not only one of the smartest leftists but one of the few who will never pander. Read this:

Im sick of everyone calling Israel an apartheid state!!!

"But Israel is a democracy!" Exactly. That's the problem. People keep reminding me that Israel is a democracy, as if that should end the argument. It doesn't. If anything, it's why my sympathy is running out. Think of Stalin or Putin. When those regimes attacked their neighbours and committed atrocities, many of us never stopped sympathising with ordinary Russians, because they were victims of the regimes too, being sent to the gulags or the front against their will. A democracy doesn't get that alibi. When a government is freely elected, when the press is free to criticise it, and when the opposition could stand against the war but instead cheers it on, the crimes no longer belong to a regime. They belong to the society that chose them. So whoever came up with "Israel is a democracy" as a defence should have thought harder. The line that would actually earn sympathy is the opposite one: that ordinary Israelis are trapped under a regime that crushes dissent. "We chose this, freely" is not the defence they think it is.

🚨 URGENT: @the_andrey_x is in very bad shape. He has a concussion and lost consciousness several times while being detained. Settlers blocked the ambulance from evacuating him. He is now being held ALONE in the ambulance inside the settlement and is being denied transfer to a hospital.

0.001% TAX A junior auditor at @PwC in Luxembourg is getting ready to leave his job. Before he goes he goes looking for some training documents to take with him. Instead he finds a folder that anyone in the company could open. No password. No warning. Just sitting there. Inside are hundreds of secret deals between the Luxembourg government and some of the biggest companies on the planet. Deals that let them pay next to nothing in tax. His name is Antoine Deltour. He copies 30,000 pages. That is the whole story. He copies a folder. Let me explain what was actually in it, because this is where it gets interesting. Between 2002 and 2010, PwC alone helped broker 548 of these secret tax agreements, known as tax rulings, for over 340 companies. Apple. Ikea. Pepsi. Disney. Deutsche Bank. AIG. Koch Industries. Skype. GlaxoSmithKline. Coach. Abbott Laboratories. Household names, every one of them. The trick was simple. Companies moved profits through Luxembourg shell structures and Luxembourg quietly agreed in writing to look the other way on tax. Some of these companies ended up paying an effective tax rate under 1 percent. In some cases as low as 0.001 percent. On billions of dollars. Who was running Luxembourg for almost 20 years while this machine was built and protected? Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg until 2013. Deltour did not leak straight to the world. In 2012 he passed the documents to French journalist Edouard Perrin, who used them for a TV documentary. PwC noticed and filed a complaint with the Luxembourg courts. Then in November 2014, ICIJ @ICIJorg pulled together over 80 journalists across more than 30 media outlets in 26 countries and published the full scale of it as LuxLeaks. The timing could not have been worse for Juncker, or depending how you look at it, could not have been better. He had just been elected President of the European Commission days before the story broke. The man who ran the tax haven for two decades was now running Europe. A month later ICIJ dropped LuxLeaks 2, showing the other Big 4 accounting firms Deloitte, EY and KPMG were running the exact same playbook. This was never one bad apple. It was standard practice. Juncker faced a no confidence vote in the European Parliament over it. He survived. Deltour was not so lucky. December 2014, Luxembourg charges him with theft, violation of trade secrecy and fraudulent access to a computer system. He is facing up to 5 years in prison and a fine of 1,250,000 euros. For opening an unlocked folder on his way out the door. April 2016, the criminal trial. Deltour and his colleague Raphael Halet, another former PwC employee who leaked a second batch of documents, are both convicted. Deltour gets 12 months suspended and a 1,500 euro fine. Perrin the journalist is acquitted. Deltour appeals. Loses. Appeals again. Finally in May 2018 the Luxembourg Court of Appeal fully recognises him as a genuine whistleblower under European Court of Human Rights standards and acquits him completely. Halet's fight took even longer. He lost his Luxembourg appeals and only won at the European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber in 2023, nearly a decade after he first spoke up. The European Commission that Juncker went on to lead never opened a single formal investigation into a single LuxLeaks tax ruling. Not one. It did chase Starbucks, Fiat and Amazon over separate deals, but the mountain of paperwork Deltour handed over sat there untouched. So that is the LuxLeaks story. Build a tax avoidance machine for 20 years and get promoted to run the continent. Copy the evidence of it and spend most of a decade fighting to stay out of prison. @BBCNews · @ICIJorg · @Reuters · @lemondefr and others.

Οικογενειακή ομαδική στο WhatsApp Μαμά: «Σήμερα έρχονται η θεία Γωγώ κι ο θείος Μπάμπης!» Αδερφός: «Είμαι άρρωστος.» Μπαμπάς: «Είμαι σε πρόγραμμα προστασίας μαρτύρων.» Ελένη: «Είμαι υιοθετημένη.» Γιαγιά: «Έχω άνοια. Δεν ξέρω καν ποιοι είστε.» Μαμά: «Θα είστε ΟΛΟΙ εδώ, θέλετε δεν θέλετε, και δεν σηκώνω κουβέντα! Και θα παριστάνετε τους καλούς ανθρώπους. Στις 3 έχει γλυκό.»

One day before Israel's elections, the “only democracy in the Middle East” detained & barred 23 international delegates, including DiEM25's Political Director, from entering the occupied West Bank. 1/3 🧵

Congratulations to Serbia’s student list! But real change must go beyond Serbia’s borders. It’s time for the EU to fundamentally rethink its relationship with Serbia and the rest of Eastern Europe @IvanaNenadovic

Some times, rarely, our wishes do come true!

Historic day in Serbia! A huge congratulations to the student movement who made this happen after more than two years of resistance against authoritarianism and blatant repression.

Volksentscheid per Gesetz stoppen - deutsche demokratische Republik

Hey @grok, concise no spin. Victim and perpetrator’s full ethnicity only please.

This is not Gaza. This is Hebron today. The Israeli occupation has begun destroying Palestine’s economic capital, a city that accounts for 75% of the country’s production in the stone and marble, leather and footwear, plastics, glass, oils, dairy, and gold industries. Ethnic cleansing is being inflicted on the Palestinian people everywhere across the land of Palestine.

Einsatz der Armee gegen Protest gegen die Wehrpflicht - das ging aber schnell mit der Abschaffung der Demokratie

Ihr wolltet es mir ja nicht glauben: Aber Demonstrationen, die tatsächlich etwas verändern wollen und entsprechendes Potenzial haben, sind im freien Westen genauso verboten wie in Russland.

Capitalism: If you don't like your job, you can just get a new one. Me: Ok, I want a new job. Capitalism: Oh sorry, it's the time every six years where the entire economy has to collapse so rich people can loot it. have you considered begging in the street for scraps?

Πέρυσι η ΕΕ δανείστηκε 70 δισ. για την Ουκρανία, τελείωσαν και ο Ζελένσκι ζητάει άλλα 70. Ούτε η Γαλλία, ούτε η Γερμανία θέλουν να τα πληρώσουνε. Προφανώς θα φύγουν από την Κοινή Αγροτική Πολιτική, από τα ΕΣΠΑ. Πρέπει να υπάρξει αναπτυξιακή δυναμική από τους δικούς μας πόρους. Αυτούς που έχουνε μοιράσει στους ολιγάρχες. Γι' αυτό το σύνθημα του ΜέΡΑ25 στις επόμενες εκλογές είναι η ΕΠΑΝΑΚΤΗΣΗ. Ο @yanisvaroufakis στο @opentvgr Δείτε ολόκληρη την συνέντευξη: youtube.com/watch?v=kTs6k644…

WRITE YOUR MEP!

“It was like this biblical battle where the Palestinian men … went in front of me to protect … me and my rescuers from being attacked again,” Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine told Jake Tapper. Levine was kicked, beaten with clubs and robbed by Israeli settlers while covering Friday’s olive harvest in the occupied West Bank, leaving her with multiple broken bones. Speaking after leaving the hospital, she said Israeli soldiers charged Palestinian farmers as settlers advanced alongside them. She said that unlike her, Palestinian victims endure these attacks daily, with absolutely nowhere safe to go.