Magchiel Matthijsen

Student Intern. & European Law -
Politics & International Relations - Environment /Sustainability - C'est la vie

[Magchiel Matthijsen @MagchielM]

"History shows that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus,regardless of how it's used,is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent.A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one." - @GlennGreenwald #Sleepwet

[Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI]

Yes Biden was always about to break from Netanyahu but mysteriously never did because this narrative is a total fiction. All the disputes were squarely within the framework of lockstep support & we know this because the Israeli Amb later confirmed Biden never demanded a ceasefire

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

Sanctions are rarely talked about because it’s a silent killer, but this is still collective punishment.

[Brian McDonald @BrianMcDonaldIE]

Latvia says there's no legal obstacle to hosting NATO nuclear weapons, but there remains the minor geopolitical obstacle that Russia is next door.

Humanity conducted a similar experiment in 1962 around Cuba and decided, after thirteen days, that perhaps it had been a bad idea.

[Sovereign Media @sov_media]

Two presidents. Two nations. Both overthrew their predecessors.
But two VERY different headlines.
You’ve gotta love the BBC’s world-famous “impartiality”!

[Ewald Engelen @ewaldeng]

this is telling: almost sure is not yet sure, nevertheless attribute it to Russia, for what purpose: to scare the shit out of populations and legitimize the reallocation of tax payers money from schools and hostpitals to guns and fighter jets...

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

Western media spent three years telling you this is “targeting Hamas.”

[Russians With Attitude @RWApodcast]

The Sarawat Mountains in Yemen are "Europe's backyard" but Kharkov oblast, where people from Belgorod used to have their dachas, is a foreign country that shouldn't concern Russia at all.

[John Pang 彭润年 @jynpang]

It's amazing how you now have to translate things into kindergarten terms to explain the principle of reciprocity to a grown-up western liberal audience.

[Paweł Wargan @pawelwargan]

A single Russian missile hitting Berlin, London or Washington would trigger a response so overwhelming that humanity would be lucky to emerge from it at all. And yet munitions manufactured and guided by NATO powers are now routinely hitting Moscow. With no democratic legitimacy — they hold favourability ratings of 15-40% in countries that have no real say on questions of war and peace — Europe’s ruling elites openly state their aim of dismembering Russia. To give their intentions teeth, they have embarked on an armament drive that now exceeds the annualised increases in military spending in the years immediately preceding the First World War. Even the tensest moments of the Cold War, which we now know put us seconds away from annihilation, provide no precedent for the scale of the folly unfolding today. Since there is no meaningful anti-war movement in Europe, we have reached the incredible point where our main barrier to nuclear annihilation is the thinning patience of the leadership in the Kremlin. I don’t think we have ever faced a situation so brittle and been so deeply unprepared to confront it.

[Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald]

It's always strange how the US uses its unparalleled military and economic power to strangle and suffocate the economies of small nations it dislikes, then points to the intended devastation as proof that those countries are bad and don't work, with no reference to the US role.

[Ewald Engelen @ewaldeng]

Kom daar maar eens om in de door NAVO gelijkgeschakelde Nederlandse pers: met je pluriformiteit, pffffff

[Marta Havryshko @HavryshkoMarta]

Celebrated as the Jewish face of Ukraine’s resistance, Volodymyr Zelensky is often presented as the ultimate rebuttal to any discussion of neo-Nazism in wartime Ukraine.

This article challenges that comforting narrative. It traces how, under Zelensky’s presidency, far-right military formations have expanded, foreign neo-Nazis have found a battlefield and a networking hub in Ukraine, and the rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators has entered the political mainstream.
https://t.co/rfzPZOVsMj

[Pascal Lottaz @PLottaz]

No no, this is the big misunderstanding. Genocide and Colonialism ARE the values of the West. They are honest in this regard. Just have a look at North America, Australia, New Zealand and their indigenous populations: Genocide is a very deeply rooted western value.

[Afshin Rattansi @afshinrattansi]

Vladimir Putin lays flowers at the grave of his older brother, Viktor, who died in the Nazi Siege of Leningrad.

Out of a pre-war population of 3.2 million people, 1 million civilians died during the Siege. That’s almost 1 in 3 people.

This doesn’t even count Red Army losses.

The unspeakable atrocities committed by Germany against Russia are not taught in schools in NATO nations.

[Ryan Grim @ryangrim]

Ha'aretz reports that Hamas, through Qatar, conveyed immediately on Oct. 7 that they were willing to return all the civilian hostages for nothing -- their only ask was for a mediator to arrange the exchange and establish a connection to then negotiate the further release of the soldiers. Israel refused to talk or hear about it.

So Qatar reached out to Antony Blinken to let him know that Hamas was willing to release all the civilian hostages.

Blinken told Qatar he didn't want to hear it because "Israel is still under attack, and there's no one to talk to."

Blinken had the opportunity to free every single civilian hostage and de-escalate the situation. Instead he wanted war.

[Leonid Ragozin @leonidragozin]

When pro-peace Ukrainians are stonewalled by the European mainstream which pretends there is only one point of view in Ukraine, they’ll turn to AfD.

If it’s AfD that helps them end senseless slaughter that’s leaving their country without a future, why should they care. Perspective changes when it is literally a matter of life and death for your loved ones.

Mainstream politicians will eventually lose all friends and supporters if they keep listening only to themselves in their hermetic echo chamber thoroughly detached from reality.

[Richard @ricwe123]

Andriy Bohdan, Zelensky’s former chief of staff, claims that in 2019 Vladimir Putin personally approached him with a peace proposal: grant the people of Donbas special protected status and bring an end to the bloodshed involving Russian-speaking Ukrainians.

According to Bohdan, the proposal was not seriously pursued by Zelensky. Instead, the opportunity for a potential settlement was effectively brushed aside,leaving the conflict to drag on with increasingly devastating consequences.

[Adam Johnson @adamjohnsonCHI]

Miliband announcing new (actually harsh) sanctions against Iran during his announcement of (toothless, admittedly superficial) sanctions on “Israeli settlers” is so exquisitely liberal PR white boarding session. Cant even performatively slap wrist without giving israel a victory

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

If news outlets did their jobs, this would be a headline story.

[Declassified UK @declassifiedUK]

British diplomats have privately told US counterparts that the new sanctions on Israeli settlements "are largely symbolic and will have no material impact on the UK's wider relationship with Israel", according to Bloomberg.