Ethan Michaeli

I have arrived at the Sándor Palace to meet the President of Hungary. @DrTamasSulyok is unworthy of representing the unity of the Hungarian nation. He is unfit to serve as the guardian of legality. He is not fit to serve as a moral authority or a role model. Following the formation of the new government, Tamás Sulyok must leave office immediately.

1) Pod Save America gives Hasan Piker softball opportunity to say he can't actually *mean* it when he says Hamas is "1,000x better" than Israel 2) Piker declines opportunity: "I mean it" 3) Headline of Ezra Klein's NYT op-ed, "Hasan Piker Is Not the Enemy," mysteriously changes

The Arab Word is Watching a Different War: Three reasons why it has been difficult to understand the Arab position: The first is the Arab relationship with Iran. From the vantage point of Brussels or London, Iran presents itself as a resistance movement with a grievance against American hegemony and Israeli occupation, and this presentation maps comfortably onto familiar Western anticolonial frameworks. What it does not map onto is the lived experience of Arab populations in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and across the Gulf. In those countries, Iran's presence meant Hezbollah holding the Lebanese state hostage to Tehran's decisions, thirty-five armed factions in Iraq drawing salaries from Iranian funds channeled through the Iraqi national treasury, and Houthi commanders answering to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps while firing on Arab civilians from Yemeni soil. Freedom is not the word any serious Arab observer would use for what Iran brought. Indeed, the Arab world's quarrel with Iran runs far deeper than American bases or Israeli airstrikes. What drives it is the systematic subversion of Arab sovereignty by a foreign power that uses the language of Islamic solidarity as cover for an imperial project conducted through proxies. The second dimension is the proxy question itself, where Western analysis fails most comprehensively. Iran goes far beyond supporting armed groups. Parallel state structures get built inside Arab countries, financial systems get captured, and political figures get installed who owe their existence and survival entirely to Tehran. The Iranians who have administered this project understand it as the export of a revolution, but what Arab populations have experienced is closer to a colonial occupation conducted through intermediaries, and as of now, they’re not mourning the Islamic Republic. When Westerners treat these proxy networks as instruments of legitimate resistance rather than as mechanisms of subjugation, they endorse an imperial project while believing themselves to be opposing one, and as a matter of fact, make themselves the legitimizing force behind Iran’s war against the Arab world. The third dimension is the most counterintuitive for a Western audience, and it is the one most consequential for how the current war is understood and misunderstood. For Arab nationalists, including secular nationalists and even those with deep reservations about Israeli policy, Iran represents a greater and more immediate threat than Israel does. This is a position that Western media are structurally ill-equipped to render intelligible, because Western discourse on the Middle East has been organized for decades around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the primary axis of regional injustice. The result is that when Western governments and Western publics take strong positions against Israel’s actions against Iran’s operations, they believe themselves to be standing with the Arab world. In reality, they are advancing a position that the Arab world does not share and has not asked for, while ignoring the threat that Arab governments and Arab populations actually live with. The rhetorical use of Israel as a perpetual alibi for Iranian aggression has been one of the Islamic Republic’s most durable tools, and Western opinion has served as the unwitting amplifier of that tool across the entire duration of the Islamic Republic’s existence. open.substack.com/pub/zinebribou…

Accusing Israel of "genocide" is pure Holocaust Inversion; and it's one of the most depraved rhetorical tricks of modern antisemitism. People love the idea of recasting the victims of the Nazis as the new Nazis and they love to congratulate themselves for pointing it out as "fact." It's revisionist history at its ugliest, and it steals the unique horror of the Holocaust, weaponizes Jewish trauma against the Jewish people, and it attempts to hand the moral high ground to those who celebrate the October 7th Massacre, Hamas, Hezbollah, and/or the Islamic Republic of Iran. In reality, it is just the same old ugly Holocaust denial, just dressed up as "moral outrage."

Rom Braslavski survived 498 days in Palestinian Islamic Jihad captivity. He was tortured, starved and sexually assaulted by his captors. Still, he saw elderly 48 Arab laborers toiling away near his home and bought them soft drinks and cigarettes. He shared about this on Instagram, criticizing the climate of hatred between Jews and Arabs. He was flooded with hateful messages from Israeli right-wingers for this small gesture of humanity. israelhayom.co.il/culture/intern… In the photos: his original post.

@yashar Wonderful!

This Iranian-American creator posted this adorable video of her grandfather taking her grocery shopping and it made me very emotional.

@CptAllenHistory Great observation!

Tucker has essentially become this generation's version of Father Coughlin.

Today in Damascus. We continue our active Ukrainian diplomacy aimed at real security and economic cooperation. Important meetings lie ahead – several substantive formats have been prepared. Every nation and every region deserves a peaceful life.

@magi_jay It's right there, but so few care to notice. Thank you.

I'm just going to say it out loud. As a matter of the historical record, you cannot both recognize Christian Easter and also deny Jewish "Indigeneity" to the Middle East. This just makes no sense and I don't know why we would allow it to continue unchallenged.

@CoreyWriting Wise.

This is true, but it doesn't matter and Zionists should stop using progressive talking points like this. The people who care about "indigenous justice" aren't going to support Israel.

Breaking: reports of mass bread shortages across Israel Bread shelves are all empty. That’s a very significant development I will dig deeper into that matter and will let you know what happened. Stay tuned

@joni_askola Smart and correct.

Hasan Piker is not the Joe Rogan of the left, but rather its Nick Fuentes

My assessment: 1- IRGC made a bet. And the bet was that they would keep the pressure on the Strait of Hormuz, and set the market on fire, as it would be the easiest way to make Trump think twice, withdraw, TACO, or have Gulf countries turn against Trump. But it didn’t work. It won’t work militarily or just in general. UAE is joining the war in a more proactive manner, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi are also more eager now than ever. Qataris have completely switched against the IRGC. But also, Trump himself said "I don’t care about the strait" obviously meaning that others should join the fight, but he denied to IRGC its strategic value. Which absolutely sucks for them given how they are pissing off their own partners, China mainly. The goal of every single military operation is to either enhance posture or change the calculus of your enemy in a way that favors you, blocking the strait isn’t achieving that for them. 2- IRGC thought that Trump given that he kept on saying that "it’s going fast" that dragging and delaying discussions or surrender to Trump’s demands, they would buy time. But they don’t understand that it’s a war, you can’t buy time when you’re being hit at the core of your command and control and your units aren’t being replenished. I’m not sure if they are delusional or if they are in a state of denial and my understanding is that it’s the latter because they constantly underestimate US resolve just like they underestimated Israel last year. 3- Trump, if you haven’t noticed, is ready to escalate, it’s a problem for IRGC because they are so used to being the ones who set the tempo of escalations, (see Iran-Israel April 2025) U.S. options have widened so much compared to just a weak ago. In other words, doesn’t look good for them. They made too many enemies and too fast.

Beldar Conehead is complete correct here.

@arash_tehran It's almost as if Iranians are just like anybody else.

Why is this not obvious?

Left-wing antisemitism is often savvier than the brash, neo-Nazi rhetoric of the right. Their attacks are loaded with words taught in social justice seminars and are often less blatant. They replace the word "Jew" with "Zionist" while pushing age-old tropes about Jewish wealth and influence. @jonahplatt highlights this in detail on CNN with @jaketapper.

@arash_tehran @ContraPoints Precisely. Trump's strategy even before he developed it.

@ContraPoints It’s because they are focusing not on winning new converts but bolstering a polarized base

Why is Israel so bad at propaganda? Are they stupid?

I add my name to the London Initiative , a letter directed to Israel’s President Herzog,calling for action against “Jewish extremist terror in the West Bank” ! Israel cannot afford such behavior to go on without it being punished. The coalition government has been too tolerant of such behavior. It hurts Israel and the Jewish people.Also ,this weeks interference with Catholic prayer in Jerusalem ,was unacceptable !

@Acyn My kid is about to graduate from one of the top high schools in the US - a Chicago Public School. Here is a photo of Humboldt Park from December.

Miller: What they are doing to the working people of this country is a form of repression.  Think about a working man in Chicago, productive citizen, his sense of honor and decency compels him to work hard and follow laws and pay taxes.  What do his taxes get him in Chicago? A park can take his family to? No. A school he can send his kids to? Not a chance. A police department that will protect him and his family? No way.