The Post-Partisan Emporium

  No, there were no ‘antisemitic pogroms’ in Amsterdam. Here’s what really happened. Media claims of ‘antisemitic pogroms’ against Israeli fans in Amsterdam are the latest in a pattern of false narratives fueling anti-Muslim violence and justifying the genocide in Gaza. By   Sana Saeed   A crowd of Israelis tear down a Palestinian flag hanging on a building in the city of Amsterdam. Hundreds of Israelis and fans of the notoriously racist Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team had traveled to the city for a match in the city. Following a string of attacks and vandalism carried out by Israelis, the Maccabi fans were targeted in what the media dubbed an ‘antisemitic pogrom’. (Screenshot, X) “ Olé, olé! Olé, olé, olé! Let the IDF win and fuck the Arabs! Olé, olé! Olé, olé, olé! Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!” On the night of November 7th, there was an anti-Jewish pogrom in Amsterdam as young Dutch Moroccans on scooters descended onto the streets to assault Israeli Jewis

  Perfidy in Tehran Alastair Crooke     The West is in the throes of at least one, potentially two, crushing defeats at the moment – and so the question arises: Will lessons be learned? John Kerry, just last  week  at the  World Economic Forum , so clearly blurting out the truth:  “Our First Amendment stands as a major block to our ability to be able to hammer [disinformation] out of existence”. Translated: Governing is all about narrative control. Kerry articulates the ‘International Order’s’ solution to the unwelcome phenomenon of an uncontrolled populism and of a potential leader who speaks for the people: Simply, ‘freedom to speak’ is unacceptable to the prescriptions agreed by the ‘inter-agency’ – the institutionalised distillation of the ‘International Order’. Eric Weinstein  calls  this  The Unburdening:  The first Amendment; gender; merit; sovereignty; privacy; ethics; investigative journalism; borders; freedom … the Constitution? Gone? Today’s reality unhinged narration is tha

  Of Cool Heads and Hot Heads Philip Kraske   Ever more desperate, Israel is working hard to start a world war with the United States on its side. The elimination of  Hassan Nasrallah  won’t make much difference to Hezbollah’s fight; the new leader will soon step up. But Israel might regret the absence of the cool-headed Nasrallah. Cool-headedness has actually been the norm this past year, and is among the few hopeful notes on the international scene. Lots of leaders are keeping calm, holding back the factions in their governments that would love to take a crack at the folks thumbing their military noses at them. China merely tut-tuts about foreign navy ships traversing the Strait of Taiwan, Hezbollah keeps its big missiles in their silos, Iran responds to Israeli attacks with a few half-hearted firecrackers, and Vladimir Putin frowns and issues warning after warning when Ukraine, with Nato help, hits Russian refineries and radar installations. Meanwhile Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Syria, and

  Powerlessness Patrick Lawrence Damage in Gaza Strip during the October 2023. Palestinian News & Information Agency (Wafa) in contract with APAimages, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Let us begin with some facts of the cold, hard kind concerning conditions in Gaza and the West Bank after nearly a year of terrorist Israel’s daily assaults on the Palestinian populations in both places. These statistics derive from a World Bank report issued this month,  Impacts of the Conflict in the Middle East on the Palestinian Economy . They cover conditions through March; we can confidently conclude things have since worsened. “Eleven months into the conflict in the Middle East, the Palestinian territories are nearing economic freefall, amidst a historic humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip,” the report begins. “Official data reveals a 35 percent decline in real GDP in the first quarter of 2024 for the Palestinian territories overall, marking its largest economic contraction on record. The