Haaretz: The Real Story of How the Nazis Have Returned to Germany's Parliament

While the party performed strongly across Germany, the AfD achieved the second-best result of all parties in the former communist-ruled German Democratic Republic and, with 27 percent of the vote share, was the most popular party among East German men. 

When trying to explain the AfD’s success, analysts have often pointed to eastern Germany’s continuing relative economic weakness. However, most AfD supporters are not economically "left behind" voters. Studies have found that while the AfD’s electorate is not homogenous, most AfD voters are male, have an average level of education and belong to the medium-income bracket. Moreover, the AfD performed gained more votes than any other party in Saxony, East Germany’s wealthiest state. [...]

After World War II, the East German regime tried to shun its historical responsibility by declaring widespread racism had been overcome, by an incomplete program of denazification, by introducing a new socioeconomic system and by portraying West Germany as the sole inheritor of the Nazi legacy. [...]

Suppressing responsibility for Nazi atrocities was helped by the Marxist-Leninist conception of fascism. Communist doctrine considered fascism to be the most extreme form of capitalism. By changing the socioeconomic structures of the state, communists would, it was argued, be able to rid society of fascist and anti-Semitic elements. In contrast, the West still harbored the virus of fascism as it did not break with capitalism - the wellspring of the horrors of the Nazi regime. [...]

That pervasive ethos meant that when many East Germans were first confronted with the West German Erinnerungskultur (culture of remembrance) after reunification felt very alienated. The AfD has succeeded in tapping into this feeling of alienation and manipulating it to further its own agenda.

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Politico: Redrawing the Brexit map

Let’s take an imaginary step into an alternate near future, one in which the U.K.’s two largest parties have reshaped themselves along Brexit allegiances. Labour has finally abandoned its ambivalence and swung fully behind Remain. It opposes Brexit at every turn. The Tories, meanwhile, have doubled down on Leave and given up any attempt to lure back soft Remainers [...]

For a start, the political map looks completely different. Based on Chris Hanretty’s estimates of how constituencies voted at the 2016 referendum, the Conservative Party now finds itself in a much, much stronger position, with a majority of around 150. This is because of how the larger number of Leave votes are distributed more widely across Britain’s political map, whereas the smaller number of Remain votes tend to be concentrated in a smaller number of seats.

Across the country, old rules are overturned. The Tories run riot through a large swathe of Labour territory in northern England and Wales, where they were once a toxic brand. Their new leader, Jacob Rees-Mogg, sets out on a celebratory tour, driving through the more than 120 former Labour seats in his vintage 1968 Bentley. [...]

Meanwhile, Labour has finally called a truce with the Scottish National Party and cemented its takeover of London and middle-class enclaves. The party also reaches into parts of the southeast and southwest, including David Cameron’s old seat of Witney. But Labour is firmly out of power. [...]

For the foreseeable future, both parties will have to walk a tight-rope, carefully crafting their messages to pander to uncomfortable coalitions of Remainers and Leavers. As a result, nobody is likely to end up feeling terribly satisfied with what’s on offer.

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Politico: Why Europe doesn’t need a finance minister

To make matters worse, in Juncker’s vision, the finance minister would serve as Commission vice president, Eurogroup chairman and head of the eurozone’s portion of the EU budget. This unduly mixes the role of the Commission with that of the European Council, upsetting the fine balance between community interests and national interests on which the EU is built. [...]

Juncker’s proposal for a European finance minister may be misguided but other aspects of his plan to reform the bloc’s fiscal rules deserve serious consideration. The Commission president is right in saying that Europe needs a joint discussion on the bloc’s budget, which should be reformed to redirect resources from 20th-century targets — such as the common agricultural policy — to these new priorities.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed common initiatives — such as security and defense; border control and migration; research and common climate policies — would be a sensible place to start. Those priorities are widely shared among European leaders. [...]

Brussels should move away from creating an institutionally and politically ill-conceived finance minister position, and focus its energy on reforming the EU budget to make it more useful for its citizens. If the EU is serious about improving fiscal governance of the eurozone, beefing up the chairmanship of the Eurogroup and establishing greater accountability to the European Parliament will be far more effective.

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Haaretz: In Generational Shift, Millennial Evangelicals Not as Supportive of Israel

For example, while 76 percent of evangelicals over the age of 65 have a "positive" view of Israel, among evangelicals under the age of 35, the number was only 58 percent. That's still a clear majority, but almost a fifth less than among the older population. At the same time, 66 percent of evangelicals under 35 believe that "Christians should do more to love and care for the Palestinian people," while only 54 percent of those over 65 share this view. [...]

Overall, the survey purports to show that 25 percent of U.S. evangelicals support Israel "no matter what it does," while 42 percent support Israel in general, but not "everything it does." [...]

On the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, only 23 percent of U.S. evangelicals say they support a peace deal that would lead to the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. But only 31 percent say they oppose the idea. 

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Quartz: A speech by Ghana’s president calling for Africa to end its dependency on the West is a viral hit

The question by a local journalist was about whether France was going to strengthen its “support” for other African countries aside its former colonies where the majority of French aid is spent. Ghana won independence from Britain in 1957. After jokingly tossing the question between each other, Macron replied with fairly standard mundane rhetoric.

But when it was time for president Akufo-Addo to speak, knowing fully what he was about to say was controversial, he began by saying: “I hope that the comments I am about to make will not offend the questioner too much and some people around here”, the latter part widely interpreted as directed to his much younger counterpart. [...]

“We have to get away from this mindset of dependency. This mindset about ‘what can France do for us?’ France will do whatever it wants to do for its own sake, and when those coincide with ours, ‘tant mieux’ [so much better] as the French people say…Our concern should be what do we need to do in this 21st century to move Africa away from being cap in hand and begging for aid, for charity, for handouts. The African continent when you look at its resources, should be giving monies to other places…We need to have a mindset that says we can do it…and once we have that mindset we’ll see there’s a liberating factor for ourselves,” his rising tone and demeanor demonstrating his passion for this subject. [...]

Others have said, it showed the difference between Anglophone and Francophone African countries which are still closely aligned to France. For example, all of Ghana’s Francophone neighbors are members of the CFA franc, the currency of 14 African countries. The CFA and its structure, in which the countries, through two regional central banks, deposit 50% of foreign exchange reserves at the Bank of France in exchange for fixed-rate euro convertibility, are facing their most significant criticism in decades.

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Social Europe: Small States Under Pressure

For the Baltics Euro Area membership has become even more important with the uncertain US commitment to NATO. Some American politicians have made absurd statements about the Baltic States. Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives, told CBS that “Estonia is in the suburbs of St Petersburg […] I’m not sure I would risk nuclear war over some place that is the suburb of St Petersburg.” Statements like that from an influential US politician must be especially shocking for Estonians and all the Baltics, but also for all EU member states as well as for European NATO member states. During the election year 2016 President Trump said, according to the Washington Post: “Pulling back from Europe would save this country millions of dollars annually. The cost of stationing NATO troops in Europe is enormous. And these are clearly funds that can be put to better use.”

The Baltic states sought economic shelter in the EU during the 2008 crisis. But the cost was high with austerity and fixed exchange rate policy, a condition for euro adoption. Staying within the Euro Area is not easy. Tight fiscal discipline and a fixed exchange rate have not exactly proven to be a growth formula for transition countries wishing to catch up. But this formula seems perfect for stable stagnation. And the Euro Area crisis continues with incomplete fiscal and banking union. But the Baltics know that powers like Germany and France could not possibly tolerate an attack from Russia on the Euro Area. They would be forced to respond. So, the Euro provides external security for the Baltics, but the austerity policies fuel internal divisions and outward migration. [...]

Shelters can be a blessing and a curse for small states. For the Baltics, the shelter provided by the European Union in 2008 came at a high cost with fixed exchange rate policy and austerity programs. Foreign banking systems were saved. Iceland enjoyed no such shelter. Its currency depreciated sharply and the government ran large stimulus deficits well beyond the formulae prescribed in Brussels. Its local banks collapsed but its economic recovery was resounding.

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statista: Most Coup Attempts In Recent Years Have Failed

In July 2016, a faction of the Turkish armed forces attempted to carry out a coup d'état against state institutions and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the country's president. Like the majority of coup attempts in recent years, it ended in failure, though it remains one of the highest-profile incidents in recent memory. Some notable coups did succeed over the past decade including Egypt in 2011 (and again in 2013) as well as Mali and Guinea-Bissau in 2012.

This month's coup in Zimbabwe joins the success list. It all started on 14 November when elements of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces sized control of key areas in the country's capital of Harare. By 19 November, ZANU-PF removed President Robert Mugabe as the country's leader, replacing him with Emmerson Mnangagwa. Impeachment proceedings were initiated when Mugabe failed to resign the presidency by a 20 November deadline. After a joint session of Parliament and Senate to discuss his impeachment on 21 November, Mugabe sent a letter of resignation before Mnangagwa was sworn in as president three days later.

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Quartz: Why does India want to buy the world’s emptiest airport?

When the bills became due, the government couldn’t repay them. Sri Lanka, now minus Mahinda Rajapaksa, was forced to go to its Chinese backers cap in hand—essentially to hand over ownership of the port in a debt-for-equity swap. Although Sri Lanka claims to have retained control over management of the port, the details are suspiciously murky. China now has plans to build a big Special Economic Zone around Hambantota. This may eventually drive some demand for shipping, but it is hard to see it ever becoming the global shipping hub it was once touted to be. [...]

Similar claims are being made about the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor now being constructed in Pakistan at a cost of somewhere like US$40 billion-$100 billion, with some fearing it will create a “debt trap” for Pakistan. [...]

This is where the world’s emptiest airport comes in. India is proposing to spend around US$300 million to buy out Sri Lanka’s debt to China in return for a 40-year lease over Hambantota airport. But India’s future plans for the airport are hazy. Maybe a flight school? A new destination for Indian weddings? There seems little chance that it will turn a profit.

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The Washington Post: American Jews vs. Israel

The Israeli government proceeds as if none of this matters. Its preoccupation, naturally enough, is with its domestic constituency — the voters of the upper Galilee and not the donors of the Upper West Side. Not only don’t American Jews vote in Israel, but as Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely dismissively put it, they don’t serve in the army, either. Just as important, the vast majority of American Jews are not Orthodox, and they resent the hold that the very religious have over Israeli political life. As we see with Sunni and Shiite Muslims, interreligious fights are the most ugly.

For moderate or liberal Jews — in other words, for the 76 percent who did not vote for Donald Trump — Israel has become like a relative who always has to be explained. While religious restrictions matter a great deal, the overriding issue is the future of the West Bank — whether, along with the Gaza Strip, it will comprise a future Palestinian state or whether Israel will simply swallow it. This is usually called a one-state or a two-state solution. Another way of putting it is whether Israel will remain a Jewish democracy or will need to repress a Palestinian majority far into the future. [...]

But he is also somewhat typical. He is one of many retired generals or intelligence chiefs who favor a two-state solution. These are men who would not trifle with Israel’s security, and so when Netanyahu argues, as he has, that a Palestinian state would become a terrorist enclave, Barak and others insist otherwise. They can handle the situation.

In the meantime, Israel is increasingly criticized. On American campuses, it is routinely accused of being a racist and colonial power. Not so. But American Jews on those very campuses find it harder and harder to mount a defense. The continuing occupation of the West Bank and the Trumpian persona of Netanyahu leave them mute. Jeremy Ben-Ami, head of the liberal pro-Israel group J Street and a frequent campus speaker, finds that many college students feel a contradiction between what they believe are Jewish values and the policies of the Netanyahu government.

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