Jan A. Micallef

@faniaoz @gabri1967 @IL_police Moderate Zionists and moderate Palestinians are the only path for a state / two states where Israelis and Palestinians can co-exist in peace and prosperity. It is important they remain focused, letting racists, zealots and extremists fall by the wayside

@gabri1967 @IL_police Your attempt to police or annul my identity as a moderate Zionist, which is shared by many other Israelis of the center and left, is duly noted. I gave it some thought. The answer is no.

Another settlers’ attack on West Bank Palestinians being launched in front of our very eyes. It is Israel’s shame that IDF is enabling it, and that @IL_police is not arresting every single terrorist and thug. I have absolutely nothing to say that can justify this cascading Jewish intifada. My only hope is to oust the evil government that supports these fascists.

@Mio_Mind Yet everyone, their family and their dog want a visa to come to Europe, then long term residence rights, then eventually European citizenship.

We now have Indian guys telling Europeans they don’t have tech and we suck. Unbelievable. Totally delusional. Everybody loves hating Europe. Actually not a bad position to be in.

@haugejostein With the exception of “violent” to a certain extent, this description also fully applies to the Chinese Communist Party.

The US government’s transformation into an authoritarian, far-right, ultranationalist, violent, and oppressive government is complete. In political science, there’s a very precise term for this type of rule: fascism.

@haugejostein In China it is all controlled by the CCP. Which is just as terrifying.

@XueJia24682 In the meantime they are subject to censorship, discouraged from thinking freely and blocked from expressing themselves. So much for reading 10 books per year.

✨🇨🇳In China, reading is a deeply ingrained habit. According to statistics, each Chinese person reads an average of 10 books per year, which is a vivid reflection of China's reading culture.

@haugejostein Then how do you explain that the Trump administration wants out of NATO for the US, whilst Europe is desperate to keep NATO alive?

People often laugh at leftists when they say that NATO is a vehicle for US imperialism. Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General: NATO is a vehicle for US imperialism.

@BrankoMilan Hey how about the Russians just take their troops home and everything will be solved?

Why many EU/UK countries are extraordinarily bellicose in the Ukraine-Russia war is easy to understand, if thought in simplest possible terms. Costs to them in lost people or destroyed infrastructure are zero. They do bear financial costs but these would be compensated by the seized Russian assets. They put an implicit value of zero on Ukrainian lives. Their implicit value on Russian lives is negative b/c they believe that there is a fundamental conflict between Europe and Russia: Napolean, Crimean War, Hitler, Cold War. 4 big wars in 200 years. Since Russian dead are a plus, and Ukrainian dead are a zero, the longer the war last the better. Until both sides are totally exhausted & have in the meantime destroyed own countries. This is like Churchill's mid-1930s idea about the ideal Nazi-Soviet war to total exhaustion.

@CarloCalenda Nel frattempo non ha mai avuto il coraggio di fare un referendum per fare uscire l’Ungheria dall’UE.

#Orban is our enemy. #PutinsPuppet #Orbanout

@haugejostein Agreed. But for the sake of consistency and honesty I look forward to your views on this: rsf.org/en/china-indep…

The bloodbath at The Washington Post today — roughly one-third of its staff has been laid off — illustrates the ruthlessly plutocratic and neoliberal nature of the US economy. In the span of a single day, one of the world’s most prominent English-language newspapers is being both crushed and politically restructured at the whim of a billionaire. It’s honestly jaw-dropping.

@NXT4EU Don’t think we should ditch Visa and Mastercard. Europe should compete with them to create a top of the class payment system that will attract customers with its offer

In 2027, Europe will ditch Visa & Mastercard. 5 European payment methods will work together to make their payment methods work around the union. Online & in store. Europe is ditching America 🇪🇺

@haugejostein China will have to float the currency freely, remove capital controls etc. With Xi’s paranoia increasing, rather than decreasing this will not happen any time soon.

This is huge. The US dollar’s role as the world’s #1 reserve currency is *the* thing that has cemented US economic dominance. If the renminbi becomes equally important as a global reserve currency — or even surpasses the dollar — it would mark a major geoeconomic shift.

@MsMelChen Doing business and cooperating with China is good and necessary. But I agree that the “wins” made by the UK here are abysmal to say the least

Whatever the Art of the Deal is, Starmer just achieved the opposite: Keir Starmer's grand diplomatic adventure to Beijing was the international relations equivalent of trading your family silver for a couple of discount vouchers and a free trip to Shanghai Disneyland. Britain hands over approval for Europe's largest spy hub - a sprawling mega embassy plonked right in the heart of London, practically overlooking the Tower and some rather sensitive data cables. And in return? China graciously agrees to delay the sale of a few outboard motor spare parts to people-smuggling gangs (because nothing says "stopping the boats" like politely asking traffickers to wait a bit longer on engine repairs). Meanwhile, the UK scores: > Whisky tariffs slashed from 10% to 5% - cheaper Scotch for the Chinese market, which helps to drown their sorrows given the state of the Chinese economy > Visa-free travel for Brits up to 30 days - finally, we can pop over to Beijing for a weekend without paperwork, escaping a surveillance state where you can get arrested for tweets to one where you can get disappeared forever for tweets > A feasibility study for a services trade deal - the diplomatic version of "let's maybe think about maybe dating sometime." This is like Lagarde's SWOT analysis of how to make Europe stronger > And 12 whole memorandums of understanding - that's right, paperwork on everything from food safety to green energy. Truly the stuff of economic revolutions. Bold move, Sir Keir - thanks for trading British sovereignty and security for tariff relief on Scottish whisky, easier holidays and a promise that the bad guys might not get boat parts quite so quickly.

@LauraAboli_X Europe is in decline, Europe is finished, this and that and everyone and their family then want to come and live in Europe.

Europe Just Signed Its Own Death Warrant The EU has just announced a so called “historic” free trade agreement with India, proudly described as the mother of all agreements, covering 25% of global GDP and one third of world trade. What they won’t tell you is that this deal isn’t growth, it’s total surrender. Europe is entering a free trade agreement from a position of extreme weakness, after deliberately dismantling its own industrial base through energy self sabotage, climate dogma, over regulation, sanctions, and the systematic offshoring of production. You don’t liberalise trade when you’re strong, you do it when you can no longer compete and need cheap imports to mask decline. India brings young labour, low costs, state protection of industry, and rapidly scaling manufacturing. Europe brings high energy prices, ageing workers, collapsing SMEs, and regulatory burdens so heavy that producing anything locally has become an act of heroism. This agreement doesn’t make Europe more competitive, it makes Europe irrelevant as a producer. Manufacturing will move east, value creation will move east, jobs skills, and industrial know how will move east. Europe will be left consuming what it no longer makes, governed by rules it no longer enforces on anyone but itself, while politicians celebrate GDP figures that mean nothing to the people watching their towns hollow out. Free trade between unequal partners does not create balance, it accelerates collapse. Europe is done.

@alemannoEU @EuroBriefing So what’s your solution for Europe not to remain dependent on others’ whims for tech? This is not a rhetorical question. I am truly interested in your views

@EuroBriefing What makes it even more comic and self defeating is the digital omnibus relaxing standards governing EU market access

The European Parliament’s aspirations for “digital sovereignty” are almost comic. Digital sovereignty would presuppose that you have the technologies in the first place. It is just a euphemism for more anti-tech regulation, a leap back into the technological dark ages. No prizes for guessing who will not be participating in the AI productivity boom. eurointelligence.com

@EuroBriefing So what’s your solution for Europe not to remain dependent on others’ whims for tech? This is not a rhetorical question. I am truly interested in your views.

@menavisualss Whilst I am no fan of US interventions, I feel this post oversimplifies complex situations. The content from MENA Visuals has always been high quality. I hope the quality of the page will not deteriorate by it spreading third rate populist memes.

@FM_Szijjarto Why don't you do a referendum to exit the EU? Or are you scared of the result ?

Hungary will take legal action before the Court of Justice of the EU as soon as the decision on REPowerEU is officially published. We will use every legal means to have it annulled. The REPowerEU plan is based on a legal trick, presenting a sanctions measure as a trade policy decision in order to avoid unanimity. This goes completely against the EU’s own rules. The Treaties are clear: decisions on the energy mix are a national competence. Banning Hungary from buying oil and gas from Russia goes against our national interest and would significantly increase energy costs for Hungarian families.

@simonmontefiore As a Maltese national I express my appreciation for his sterling work on Malta and the a Mediterranean region as a whole. However his anti-EU stance and push for Brexit were most unfortunate and misguided.

I am so sad to learn of the death over the weekend of the great scholar David Abulafia, CBE, Professor of Mediterranean History, at Cambridge who was both an outstanding historian of world history, author of several masterpieces and also an academic who campaigned for free speech and against antiJewish racism in the public realm. His two master works The Great Sea a Human History of the Mediterranean and The Boundless Sea a Human History of the Oceans – along with his earlier Frederick II – were outstanding works of literature and scholarship, distinguished by a genuine, rarely-equalled polymathic knowledge of world history and culture, a superb instinct for anecdote and data, and a beautiful writing style, breathtaking span and depth and boldness of vision. The books are remarkable and peerless - when i read them, I couldnt put them down and I recommend them as both entertainment and scholarship - that rare and golden combination that so few can deliver. His histories stressed human life and humanism – and he himself was the heir to some of the worlds he wrote about: he was the scion of an ancient Sephardic dynasty of Jewish rabbis and leaders, starting in medieval Andalus and Castile, including a Jewish chief minister of King Pedro the Cruel, poets, kabbalists, merchants from Cordoba and Toledo to Constantinople Thessalonica and Jerusalem including a succession of famed charismatic rabbis of Tiberias and Safed. He was a famed scholar in the tradition of the great pedagogues, discursive and genial, thoughtful and playful, patient and generous to pupils and friends, confident of his expertise, charmingly diffident and even shy at times, but with a lightning intellect that shattered vanities, pieties and hypocrisies, a fearless moral sense that could not tolerate any sort of intolerant authoritarianism, and a reverence for history that would not brook its distortion and corruption in the cause of self-righteous ideologies. Gentle, scholarly and genial as he was he was also warm and funny - and bold and fearless. British academia has lost a unique and brilliant scholar and voice, British society and discourse are already missing a towering intellect, an irreplaceable jewel. Caius College and Cambridge itself has lost a titan of history. And I have lost a friend and a mentor (he generously read and corrected my book The World). Condolences to Anna, Bianca, Rosa and family. The books will be timeless. May his memory be a blessing.

@MsMelChen They can easily do all this without “owning” Greenland. Then again we have now seen that the US does not give a hoot about Europe’s security.

I see all the Trump admin emissaries doing the media rounds trying to make the case for Greenland. But no one is actually trying to appeal to the Europeans - the Danes, the Greenlanders, EU, NATO, etc. - to explain how US ownership of Greenland isn't JUST for American national security interests but THEIRS as well. Here is how US control of Greenland benefits Europe: 1) Stronger Control of the GIUK Gap and North Atlantic Greenland sits at the top of the GIUK Gap (Greenland-Iceland-UK), the critical maritime chokepoint connecting the Arctic to the Atlantic. During the Cold War, NATO's strategy hinged on blocking Soviet submarines here to protect European resupply lines. Russia still relies on this gap for its Northern Fleet to reach the Atlantic. Stronger American presence would mean better early detection and deterrence of Russian subs threatening European ports, shipping or NATO reinforcements across the Atlantic. 2) Enhanced Missile Early Warning and Space Surveillance Greenland hosts upgraded early-warning radars that detect ballistic missiles (including Russian ICBMs/SLBMs) in their boost phase over the Arctic polar route - the shortest path to North America and Europe. American ownership could upgrade these systems faster and more decisively, sharing data seamlessly with NATO allies via integrated command. Many European capitals lie within Russian missile range; better polar coverage buys precious minutes for defenses, alerts, and NATO responses. Direct US investment benefits European populations too. Mike Waltz was on Fox News earlier pointing out that home owners treat their properties differently than renters do - he's absolutely right. Ownership matters. 3) Countering Russia and China in the Arctic Russia has militarized its Arctic extensively while China pushes "near-Arctic" status via investments, research, and dual-use activities (infrastructure, rare earths). American control would deter adversarial footholds more credibly - preventing any vulnerable areas that could Trojan horse in Russian or Chinese influence into Greenland. Let's face it - the only power equipped to deal with the Russia / China threat is the US. Europe simply lacks the scale and logistics to dominate. American control strengthens overall NATO Arctic posture (have you seen what the US defense budget is vs. Europeans?). 4) Resource and Infrastructure Security for Critical Minerals Greenland holds massive rare earth reserves (vital for EVs, defense tech, renewables). At the moment, China dominates global supply chains that provide inputs for Europe's industries. American ownership of Greenland would secure Western access and mining, reducing Europe's dependence on Chinese-controlled sources. This bolsters EU's autonomy in green tech and defense manufacturing, making them less vulnerable to Beijing's export restrictions or coercion or geopolitical shocks. A US-controlled Greenland acts as an extended forward base protecting the entire European continent. The last thing the US wants is to make all these investments and have political shifts in either Denmark or Greenland to constrain US action. European bureaucracy is LEGENDARY and this kind of friction can kill response time and effectiveness. Full American ownership means permanent denial of adversary influence, unrestricted defense posture and long-term strategic clarity.

@MsMelChen It is evident that the US no longer gives a hoot about Europe’s security and will throw it under the bus anytime. What upsides are you seeing for Europe in the US taking Greenland?