Branko Milanović:

Before I try to answer the question, let me dismiss two, in my opinion, entirely wrong epithets attached to Trump: fascist and populist. If fascist is used as a term of abuse, this is okay, and we can use it freely. Nobody cares. But as a term in a rational discussion of Trump’s beliefs, it is wrong. Fascism as an ideology implies (i) exclusivist nationalism, (ii) glorification of the leader, (iii) emphasis on the power of the state as opposed to private individuals and the private sector, (iv) rejection of the multi-party system, (v) corporatist rule, (vi) replacement of the class structure of society with unitary nationalism, and (vii) quasi religious adulation of the Party, the state, and the leader. I do not need to discuss each of these elements individually to show that they have almost no relationship to what Trump believes or what he wants to impose.

Berliner Zeitung:

Während einer Demo am Kottbusser Tor kam es am Montagabend zu Ausschreitungen.

Die Berliner Polizei hat am Montagabend eine Demo in Kreuzberg abgebrochen. Hintergrund war das Skandieren von strafbaren Parolen mit Nahost-Bezug, wie die Einsatzkräfte auf X schreiben.

This is how a fair amount of pro-Palestinian activity in Berlin appears in mainstream German media. Demonstrations do not come up in conversations with my co-workers or fellow students, just as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza do not enter conversation. „News“ articles focus on the disruption of order, how illegal slogans (which? 🤔) were chanted. The rules must be followed.

Patrick Lawrence, ScheerPost:

At bottom I read the warrants as a formal, legal announcement in behalf of the vast majority of nations that the new world order many of us now anticipate—the post–American world order, the order that is to follow the Americans’ awful, disorderly “rules-based order”—is to be accepted as an historical inevitability. International law, to put this point another way, is to be restored after its decades of abuse at the hands of the Americans and their most loyal clients. In this way the warrants declare a kind of confrontation—between the old and the new, between law and lawlessness, between hegemony and global parity as a 21^st century imperative.

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It will be interesting to see how the Europeans navigate the-world-after-the-warrants in months and years to come. I take the Starmer government’s swift declaration of its intent as an interesting portent. The major European powers may decide they simply cannot stand with the Zionist regime and the Americans against the ICC. If this turns out to be so, the warrants issued last week could mark a decisive turn in trans–Atlantic relations. It is plausible.

Think of the ICC’s warrants as a great storm in a channel flowing between the U.S. and Israel and the rest of the world, and then ask yourself, Who is cut off?

Mathieu von Rohr, Spiegel:

Doch während laut Artikel 25 des Grundgesetzes das Völkerrecht sogar höher gewichtet wird als die deutschen Gesetze, steht nirgends geschrieben, dass Deutschland die Pflicht hat, die Person Benjamin Netanyahu vor Strafverfolgung zu schützen.

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Vor diesem Hintergrund gibt es deshalb nur eine mögliche Antwort auf die Frage, ob die Bundesrepublik Deutschland den Haftbefehl gegen Netanyahu vollziehen müsste: ja, natürlich.

US and UK authorization of medium range missile attacks on Russia makes me feel young again.

Spyros Kontomaris, Diomedes Komnenos, Sokratis Michail, Toril Margrethe Engeland, Vasilis Famellos, Yiorgos Samouris, Dimitris Kyriakopoulos, Spyros Marinos, Nikos Markoulis, Katerina Argyropoulou, Stelios Karayiorgis, Markos Karamanis, Alexandros Spartidis, Dimitris Papaioannou, Yiorgos Yeritsidis, Vasiliki Bekiari, Dimitris Theodoras, Basri (Alexandros Vasilis) Karakas, Alexandros Papathanasiou, Andreas Koumbos, Michailis Myroyiannis, Kyriakos Panteleakis, Stathis Koliniatis, Yiannis Mikronis, ¡presente!