In part two, historian and genocide scholar Omer Bartov discusses Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisions to prolong the plight of the Israeli hostages and the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza in order to remain in power. Bartov also derides the U.S. billionaires who pressured university presidents to break up pro-Palestine student encampments.
By calling snap parliamentary elections, French President Emmanuel Macron took a political gamble: it resulted in the left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front, winning the most seats, and Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally failing to obtain a majority. Political analyst Yasser Louati breaks down Macron’s crushing electoral defeat and his undemocratic tactics in delaying the appointment of a new Prime Minister until after the Paris Olympics. The results reflect an increasing rejection of Macron’s neo-liberalism and anti-Muslim policies, such as his hijab ban for French female athletes at the Olympics.
The assassination of Hamas’ top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, on Iranian soil was an embarrassment to the Iranian regime and its new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, lays out how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to corner Kamala Harris – should she win the presidency – into steering U.S. policy in the direction of an all-out war in the Middle East. Yet neither is her bearhug of Netanyahu, nor a war, inevitable.
During the hyper-masculine clown car that was the Republican National Convention, Trump and his VP nominee, J.D. Vance, spewed absurd anti-migrant accusations and supposed pro-worker policies. Journalist and author Jonathan M. Katz breaks down the reactionary rhetoric of MAGA Republicans and argues that Vance’s populism is anything but worker-friendly, given his well-established ties to Silicon Valley.
In part 2, French-Palestinian sociologist Dr. Sari Hanafi discusses right-wing movements in France and Italy and the misuse of the descriptor “hard left” or “extreme left” to misrepresent the platform of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Unbowed.
Against all expectations, the left coalition, aptly calling itself the “New Popular Front,” was able to win the most seats – 182 out of 577 seats – in the final round of the French parliamentary elections. French-Palestinian sociologist Dr. Sari Hanafi explains how the left quickly formed a political alliance to keep Marine Le Pen’s far-right party, the National Rally, from gaining enough seats to govern in the French parliament. He delves into the weaponization of antisemitism to smear Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of France Unbowed, which is the largest leftist party within the New Popular Front.
A recent Reuters investigation uncovered a scandalous Pentagon operation that sought to discredit the Chinese Sinovac vaccine and sow distrust among the population in the Philippines towards China. Col. Larry Wilkerson discusses previous unlawful Strategic Information Operations (SIOs) launched by the Pentagon and the particular depravity of this operation initiated in Spring 2020 under President Trump’s administration, at a time when countries such as the Philippines did not possess their own vaccine manufacturing capacity and were accepting a free supply of vaccines from China.
As the war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine continues to exact a catastrophic death toll for civilians and military forces alike, the prospect of a lasting peace remains elusive. Latvian politician Igor Pimenov denounces President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, calling it a colonial war that also adversely affects the Russian population. Pimenov lays out his proposal for a multilateral peace agreement between Ukraine, Russia, and its European neighbors.
In recent EU parliamentary elections, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party won 31.4% of the vote, while the coalition representing President Emmanuel Macron’s Renaissance party garnered an embarrassing 14%. Renaud Lambert, journalist at Le Monde Diplomatique, contextualizes the rise of the far-right, and how President Macron’s decision to call snap legislative elections on June 30 and July 7 has prompted the left to form the New Popular Front, an unlikely coalition of four left-wing parties. Will this left alliance garner enough support to torpedo a far-right victory in the French parliament?
As Israel continues its campaign of destruction in Gaza, the situation in the West Bank has deteriorated, with the Israeli Defense Forces as well as settlers killing over 500 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7. Holocaust and genocide studies scholar Dr. Omer Bartov unpacks Israel’s genocidal strategy in the Gaza Strip, and describes the surge of settler violence towards Palestinians. Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has not only armed the settlers but has been incorporating them into Israeli forces operating in the West Bank.
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