Jacobin Magazine: An Unholy Alliance

This alliance is not exactly new. For some time, the far-right parties of Europe have been outspoken in their support of Israel, all while courting hardline nationalists who often hold racist and antisemitic views. Even in the United States, this alliance has been around for a while. In the 1970s, Richard Nixon — a severe antisemite — provided significant financial and military support for Israel, allowing the country to prevail in the Yom Kippur War. [...]

The alt-right is antisemitic. This point should not be controversial. We can see it when Milo Yiannopolous referred to a reporter as a “thick-as-pig shit media Jew” or when the Trump administration released a statement for Holocaust Remembrance Day that failed to mention Jews (or any other targeted group, for that matter). Antisemitism has been central to the alt-right’s program. When they speak of “global special interests,” they are really just rebranding the old antisemitic trope of a global Zionist conspiracy. [...]

This ideology — that ethnicities should be separate and that minorities should be expunged — is precisely what is driving the alt-right. This allows us to understand why the alt-right can simultaneously hate Jews and love Israel. The alt-right is fine with Jews, as long as they’re over there, far away from the United States.

And because they consider Jews “more white” than Arabs, the alt-right is happy to use them, through the state of Israel, to keep those uppity Muslim states in check. This has been Israel’s historical role. It was the case in 1956, when France and Britain entreated Israel to invade Egypt in order to stop Gamel Abdel Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal.

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The Atlantic: Benoît Hamon: France's Utopian Candidate?

In the past few weeks, Socialist leaders like Jean-Yves Le Drian, the defense minister, and Thierry Braillard, the sports minister, have thrown their support behind Hamon’s independent rival Emmanuel Macron, signaling a divide within a party already bruised by the deeply unpopular presidency of François Hollande. This division only widened Wednesday after Valls announced his decision to defect from the Socialists and endorse Macron—a candidate he once dismissed as “populism-lite.” Valls told French broadcaster BFMTV that his decision “isn’t out of love for the candidate” but rather “about being reasonable.”

But for Hamon, the lack of support from his party’s more centrist members may not be such a bad thing. The 49-year-old Brittany native has actively tried to distance himself from the current Socialist government, in which he briefly served as finance and education minister before quitting in August 2014, citing opposition to the government’s more centrist economic policies. In response, Hollande reportedly asked: “What would Benoît Hamon be without the Socialist Party?,” to which he himself answered, “Not much.”

Hamon has long represented the far-left of the center-left party—a role that has earned him comparisons to Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the U.K. Labour party. His more than 100-point platform, which Hamon says aims to “make France’s heart beat,” would reduce the 35-hour working week by three hours, impose a “robot tax” on automatization that replaces workers with machines, and establish a universal basic income of 750 euros ($815) for all citizens—an endeavor opponents say could cost as much as 400 billion euros a year (though Hamon estimates it will cost closer to 300 billion euros). [...]

Though Hamon’s left-leaning platform may successfully distance himself from his deeply unpopular predecessor, it does little to solve another challenge: distinguishing himself from Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the similarly far-left candidate. The 63-year-old former education minister and veteran Socialist politician quit the party after 35 years in 2008 to create the Parti de Gauche, or Left Party. In this current presidential bid, however, Mélenchon has no formal party backing, opting instead to run under the banner of a movement he calls La France insoumise, or “Unsubmissive France.”

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CityLab: Berlin Preserves Its Trippy 1980s Subway Stations

The seven stations are all located in western Berlin, part of a city subway network where preservation orders are far from unheard of—with good reason, given their frequent beauty. What’s striking about today’s plans is just how new the stations are. They all date to that bygone golden age for Europe’s architectural heritage, the years 1980 to 1984. The seven newly protected stations are in one of the last sections of the subway system to be constructed exclusively within West Berlin, extending the network into Spandau, a suburban town still sitting within the confines of the Berlin Wall. [...]

Designed by architect Rainer G. Rummler, the stations are postmodernist affairs, their brightly colored tiles, pillars, and occasional splashes of shining metal making clear reference to the late 19th century Vienna Secession. There are art deco-ish dark green and gold accents here, a few ancient Egyptian capitals there, while the bold color schemes are part Gustav Klimt, part psychedelic album cover. Cheerful without being sugary, they are a notable bright spot in an often grey city. As an architect whose work is experienced  daily by thousands of Berliners, but rarely discussed, Rummler could actually be one of the great unsung heroes of partitioned West Berlin. [...]

When there were no obvious local references to guide a station’s style, however, Rummler truly went to town. Paulsternstrasse Station, for example, is in a bit of a no-man’s land with no obvious landmarks nearby. Lacking local sources to draw from, Rummler got especially creative. His design was inspired by imagining the trees, flowers and stars that might have been visible on a carriage ride between Berlin and Spandau 200 years previously, when the inn of a certain Paul Stern, after which the street was named, was serving travellers. The result is charming, odd, and more than a little trippy.

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The Intercept: U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley Doubled Down on Threats to Punish Criticism of Israel

U.N. AMBASSADOR NIKKI HALEY repeated her prior threats to punish criticism of Israel on Monday, boasting about creating a climate of fear at the U.N. in which other diplomats are frightened to speak to her about recent efforts to condemn Israel’s illegal colonization of the West Bank. [...]

Since her confirmation Haley has moved quickly to silence any criticism of Israel at the U.N. In her first speech at U.N. headquarters in New York, Haley promised to “have the backs of our allies,” and added that “for those who don’t have our back, we’re taking names; we will make points to respond to that accordingly.” [...]

Throughout the hearings, Haley claimed her willingness to silence criticism of Israel as a chief qualification. She reminded the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that as governor of South Carolina, she was the first governor to sign a law punishing businesses who participate in boycotts of Israel – a law that inspired dozens of similar bills in other states. She was eventually confirmed by the full Senate by a vote of 96-4.

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The Intercept: You Shouldn't Blame Islam for Terrorism. Religion Isn't a Crucial Factor in Attacks.

Yet according to a report from the New America Foundation, “every jihadist who conducted a lethal attack inside the United States since 9/11 was a citizen or legal resident.” A recent study in Britain, which last week endured its worst terrorist atrocity since 2005, revealed that more than two out of three “Islamism-inspired” terrorist offenses were carried out by individuals “who were either born or raised in the UK.”

The common stereotype of the Middle Eastern, Muslim-born terrorist is not just lazy and inaccurate, but easy fodder for the anti-immigrant, anti-Islam far right. Consider the swift reaction of White House official Sebastian Gorka to the horrific terror attack in London last week. “The war is real,” he told Fox News while the bodies of the victims were still warm, “and that’s why executive orders like President Trump’s travel moratorium are so important.” [...]

“Terrorism is really political violence, first and foremost,” Sageman told me last year. Atran, when I interviewed him for my Al Jazeera English show in 2015, said, “If you dialogue with these people, if you look at how they actually move into ‘jihad’ … there is very little discussion of religion.”

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