10 March 2018
Social Europe: Fear, Loathing And Poverty: Italy After The 2018 Elections
The 37-38% (respectively in the House and the Senate) won by the Centre-Right comes from the success of the League, gone from 4% in the 2013 general elections, to 6% in the European elections of 2014, to 18% today, while Forza Italia falls from 22% in 2013 to 17% in 2014 and to the current 14%. The 32-33% (respectively in the Senate and the House, with a younger electorate) for Five Stars should be compared with the 26% of the general elections of 2013 and with the 21% of the European elections of 2014. Matteo Renzi is the clear loser of the election, with his Democratic Party getting 19% of the vote – it had 25% five years ago and peaked at 41% in the 2014 European elections – and his coalition reaching a total of 23%, including the 2.6% of the ‘More Europe’ party of Emma Bonino. On the Left ‘Liberi e Uguali’ obtained just above 3% of votes, failing to build a significant left-wing opposition. Voters’ participation was similar to five years ago, around 75%, while in the European elections it had fallen to 57%.
Those gains of the Centre-Right and Five Stars are parallel successes, fueled by common ingredients: protest vote, populist rhetoric, criticism of Europe, anti-immigrant feelings. In the Center-Right coalition such drivers coexist with very distant other interests – those of the rich and powerful around Berlusconi; the balance of internal power relations in the coalition will be difficult to sort out, in terms of political hegemony even before the formation of a government. In the Five Stars those ingredients coexist with the attempt to achieve a transformation from protest movement to government party, with an evolution – in terms of identity and political agenda – that is yet to be charted.
These same drivers, however, have taken different directions in the North and South. The League’s roots in Northern regions have been expressed in demands for lower taxes, for protecting falling incomes, local and national identities. The South – which has been ‘left behind’ by political and economic developments, abandoned by a new emigration, marked by social degradation and criminal powers – has expressed a protest that demands new political power. The main limit of Salvini’s attempt to build an Italian ‘National Front’ has been his inability to overcome these regional division.
Haaretz: The Real Oppressors of Gaza's Gay Community: Hamas or Israel?
The discourse driving these claims is predictable. Too often, LGBTQ Palestinians are reduced to victims, stripped of their own agency, and exploited by Israelis to advance Israel’s image around the world as a safe haven for LGBTQ persons. Examples of such practice abound, from campaigns sponsored by the Israeli government and news stories to documentaries and movies. [...]
It’s because of the misery inflicted upon them by Israel’s continued siege and its debilitating large-scale military assaults that rendered Gaza nearly unfit for human habitation, as well as Egypt’s prolonged closure of the Rafah Crossing, the sole gateway into the world for the majority of Gazans. This reality is evidently not on Rozovsky’s radar. [...]
A particularly gross representation of the asymmetry between occupier and occupied Rozovsky appears to affirm is the fetish of Israeli power, where one soldier alleges that Jamil discussed with him the "erotic power of [Israeli] soldiers,” and Jamil apologizes for rocket attacks on Israel to another Israeli he spoke with. [...]
After all, using the fetish of attractive soldiers to downplay the horrors committed by the IDF is not a new trend. In 2007, Maxim Magazine led with a collection of “drop-dead gorgeous” Israeli soldiers who "can take apart an Uzi in seconds," and most recently, the world was greeted by former IDF soldier Gal Gadot, the lead actress in Wonder Woman and a vocal supporter of the IDF. It is no coincidence that Gadot appeared in the Maxim collection.
FiveThirtyEight: Which Power Centers In The Trump Administration Still Have Power?
But recent developments suggest the power couple is running low on wattage. Two White House aides who were close to the pair resigned. (Hicks and Kushner press aide Josh Raffel). Kushner’s access to classified information has been curtailed. And Ivanka Trump’s proposal to create a national paid leave program for new parents has stalled. Whether they keep working at the White House or opt at some point to return to New York, “Javanka” is having fairly limited influence in Trump’s Washington. [...]
Still, much of Trump’s national security agenda is little different from the perspective of Arizona Sen. John McCain, long a leader in the Republican Party on defense issues. Trump, who suggested during the campaign that the U.S. military was too involved in conflicts abroad, has increased the number of troops in Afghanistan and kept up the U.S. policy of using drones to target terrorists abroad. Aside from his bombastic rhetoric and his policy on Russia, much of Trump’s approach is fairly normal for a Republican on national security issues. [...]
And second, the number of departures from the administration should not obscure a broader story of policy stability. Cohn is leaving, and he was perhaps the administration’s most important figure on economic policy. But the dominant figures on other issues remain, including Mattis (national security), Miller (immigration), Pence (abortion and priorities of social conservatives), Pruitt (the environment) and Sessions (criminal justice). Trump may seem erratic. But generally, his policy preferences — perhaps shaped by these powerful advisers — are somewhat predictable.
Independent: Brexit is already raising tough questions about the unity of the United Kingdom itself - and we need answers
These questions are crucial. After all, the Brexit vote has disturbed the devolution settlement. Politics in Northern Ireland have been roiled by the Brexit vote and its aftermath. The referendum triggered a (brief) revival of interest in a second Scottish independence referendum.
There was of course some discussion during the referendum campaign about the potential implications for the unity of the UK. In the weeks prior to the vote, for instance, Tony Blair and John Major, campaigning together in Northern Ireland, warned that a vote to Leave might have a destabilising effect not only in Stormont, but also in Scotland. [...]
Last week, David Lidington set out how the UK government planned to address these criticisms while preserving the integrity of the UK’s own single market. The swift rejection of his arguments by the Welsh and Scottish governments bore eloquent testimony to the problems inherent in squaring the objectives of Westminster with those of Edinburgh, Cardiff and Stormont. [...]
Meanwhile, new political voices have joined the debate. The newly elected Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, claimed that Brexit should lead to greater devolution to cities and regions across the UK. Inequality, and the inability of London to provide adequately for the rest of the country, were, he argued, key drivers of the Brexit vote. Moreover, with the Westminster system “grinding to a halt” under the weight of Brexit, it was less able than ever to govern effectively. Tony Travers puts it somewhat differently, arguing that, with central government preoccupied with negotiating Brexit and trade deals around the world, devolution might offer an opportunity for the Government to lighten its load in order to focus on the primary task at hand.
Al Jazeera: Israel passes law to strip residency of Jerusalem's Palestinians
The Israeli parliament has passed a law that allows the minister of interior to revoke the residency rights of any Palestinian in Jerusalem on grounds of a "breach of loyalty" to Israel.
The bill, ratified on Wednesday, will also apply in cases where residency status was obtained on the basis of false information, and in cases where "an individual committed a criminal act" in the view of the interior ministry. [...]
Palestinians in the city are given "permanent residency" ID cards and temporary Jordanian passports that are only used for travel purposes. They are essentially stateless, stuck in legal limbo - they are not citizens of Israel, nor are they citizens of Jordan or Palestine. [...]
In a recent report, Human Rights Watch said such residency revocations, which force Palestinians out of Jerusalem, "could amount to war crimes" under the treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
FiveThirtyEight: Four Reasons That Gary Cohn’s White House Resignation Is Different
That Cohn resigned suggests that Trump is serious about implementing these tariffs, despite resistance from fellow Republicans and the business community. This is not like Trump talking about supporting gun control, only to backtrack soon after. Trump has long favored new tariffs, appears to be acting on that policy preference and didn’t stop pushing in that direction when his top economic adviser objected so strongly that he quit. Of course, this is Trump, so he could always reverse course, but so far he appears more serious about following through on tariffs than on his other more unconventional views.
Trump is breaking with GOP orthodoxy in a big way — Cohn isn’t the only person who objects to these tariffs. House Speaker Paul Ryan, who usually avoids direct criticism of the president, went public with his opposition to the tariffs. So has Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who has largely aligned himself on policy with the president since Trump entered office. [...]
As I said before, this is Donald Trump, so he could decide next week to drop the tariffs idea and hire another person from Goldman Sachs to replace Cohn — or even ask Cohn himself to come back. But I doubt it. Instead, I will be curious — with Cohn ostensibly leaving over tariffs — whether Trump will take additional steps to implement his vision in his second year as president, even if he has to dump some well-respected aides along the way.
Social Europe: EU Takes Beating In Italian Elections: When Will They Ever Learn*?
The centrist parties in the European Parliament treated the growth of the far right as a fringe phenomenon requiring no amendment to their “ever closer union” agenda. The British vote to leave brought no more than a momentary shock. Shrugging off Brexit as a uniquely British phenomenon and no threat to the continent, the centre-right (European Peoples’ Party) and centre-left (Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats) pursued their top-down strategy of deepening through compromise. [...]
That the European Commission president could make such a statement reveals the bureaucratic myopia of the EU leadership, in Brussels, Berlin and elsewhere. Juncker and other EU leaders face the high probability of needing to work with an Italian government of the right led by the Lega and one which is homophobic, misogynist, opposed to the euro, and dedicated to expelling illegal immigrants. I would prefer such a government to be weak and non-operational. [...]
It is not appropriate for Brussels to seek to influence the political process in member countries. Indeed, German pressure via Brussels on Silvio Berlusconi to resign in 2011 is one reason for anti-EU sentiment on the Italian right. Nor will the long-term consequences of the Commission’s part in undermining the Syriza government during 2015 prove beneficial to Greek democracy or foster respect for the EU.
The Guardian: Tories seek to block move to reveal donations to DUP in EU referendum
Serious questions remain over the DUP’s spending on the EU referendum in June 2016 – including a £435,000 donation from a group called the Constitutional Research Council (CRC), chaired by Richard Cook, a former vice-chairman of the Scottish Conservatives and Unionist party.
The DUP spent more than £280,000 of that money on a wraparound advertisement in the London-based Metro newspaper, which is not distributed in Northern Ireland. [...]
However, after objections by Labour at the last-minute nature of the SI, the measure will now be put to a vote on Wednesday, where the party will attempt to get the law backdated to its introduction in 2014. Conservative MPs are under a three-line whip to oppose.
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