Farid Hafez @fhafez.bsky.social

IR Faculty @williamandmary | Faculty @bridgeinit | Racism, Coloniality, Far-Right, Europe, Islam | Co-editor @islamophobiaEIR | opinions mine | rt ≠ endorsement

[Farid Hafez @fhafez.bsky.social @ferithafez]

Fresh out of print https://t.co/xmGH0DpjKj

[Farid Hafez @fhafez.bsky.social @ferithafez]

Use promotion code AUFLY30 to save 30% https://t.co/BFSyktGB1m

[Amnesty Austria @AmnestyAustria]

Die EU riskiert, Menschen in Systeme auszulagern, in denen Rechtsstaatlichkeit, Schutz vor Misshandlung und wirksame Kontrolle nicht garantiert sind.

Die EU muss menschenrechtskonforme Lösungen schaffen, statt Schutzsuchende außer Sichtweite zu bringen.
https://t.co/uRM7pnioan

[United Nations Geneva @UNGeneva]

Independent human rights experts:

"Relentless attacks by the settler-colonial movement, carried out with the support and acquiescence of the Israeli State, have become a daily terror in Palestinian lives, sowing fear, uncertainty & profound insecurity."

https://t.co/2JspvC5fGT

[Al Jazeera English @AJEnglish]

An Al Jazeera investigation has found arms and military-related goods from at least 51 countries entered Israel after the ICJ warned of a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza.

Al Jazeera's @caomag11 explains.

[Chris Menahan 🇺🇸 @infolibnews]

The Mossad should be sicced on Israel's enemies in the PR war, World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder tells the Jerusalem Post conference in New York City.

This sounds completely illegal.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

⭕️ NYT Called Every Major Gaza City a “Hamas Stronghold,” New Book Documents

A new book by media critic Adam Johnson, How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza, documents how the New York Times used the term “Hamas stronghold” 154 times between October 2023 and October 2024, almost always while reporting on war crimes or pending war crimes.

Johnson shows the paper applied the label to all five of Gaza’s most populated cities, including refugee camps like Jabaliya, where an Israeli strike killed upwards of 120 people in an October 2023 attack. The NYT headline read: “Israel Strike Targets Hamas Stronghold in Dense Gaza Area.”

The book argues the framing militarized civilian areas in the public imagination to justify their destruction.

[Noodles @criptopaul]

Let's decode what actually happened here.

Axios reported that Trump exploded at Netanyahu. Called him "fucking crazy." Said "you'd be in prison if it weren't for me." Said "everybody hates you now."

The journalist is Barak Ravid again, we talked about it. Israeli. Based in Washington. Covers the Netanyahu-US relationship for Axios, and every latest deals to calm the markets.

This is the same journalist who wrote the exact same type of story about Biden. There is literally a book chapter about this pattern. It is called "Fuming Biden." The same reporter. The same format. The same function. Different president.

Now watch the response.

Mark Levin, a close ally of both Trump and Netanyahu, did not deny the story. He demanded an FBI investigation into who leaked it. When your defense is "this should never have leaked" instead of "this never happened," you have confirmed the call happened.

But here is the part that matters.

Why would Levin, a friend to BOTH men, confirm the most explosive account of their relationship ever published?

Because it serves both.

Trump gets to look tough. Not Netanyahu's puppet. Willing to put Israel in its place. His base loves it.

Netanyahu gets cover. He "paused" the Beirut strike, but not because Iran threatened him. Because his "friend" asked him to. His base loves it too.

And look at what actually changed on the ground. Nothing.

Israel cancelled the Beirut strike. But the ground invasion of Lebanon continues. The IDF is still miles deep. A soldier died today from a Hezbollah drone. Netanyahu's office said: "position unchanged."

The performance was perfect. Trump gets the headline. Netanyahu gets the cover. The deal gets another 48 hours of "progress." Markets get a reason to breathe.

And the war continues exactly as planned.

This is the same playbook. Every time public opinion turns against the war, a story appears showing the US president is "furious" with Israel. It creates the illusion of restraint while changing nothing.

Biden was "furious" for 14 months. The war never stopped.

Trump is "furious" now. The ground invasion is expanding.

The visible game is: Trump controls Netanyahu.
The real game is: both men are performing for their audiences while the machine moves forward.

Nothing has been signed. Nothing has stopped. The war is not winding down. It is being managed.

Neither one controls the other. They walk arm in arm. Know that.

[POLITICOEurope @POLITICOEurope]

Albanian anti-corruption prosecutors are investigating a luxury resort project linked to U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as protests from citizens and environmental organizations over the development persist.

https://t.co/aaeDIQApis

[Oxford Union @OxfordUnion]

A statement from the President, Arwa Elrayess:

[Dr Andreas Krieg @andreas_krieg]

We are not in medieval Europe where only a few monks knew how to read and write - history is literally written by everyone now

Algorithms and bots aside, the sheer amount of organic content bearing witness to what happened in Gaza will have historians wonder how so few were thinking they could distort the truth

[Marc Caputo @MarcACaputo]

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Trump lit into Netanyahu over the Lebanon bombing:

“You're fucking crazy. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this."

@BarakRavid & I

https://t.co/b1lEZEmN6p

[Le Monde diplomatique in English @LMdiplo]

Palestine was in no way a desert, nor were its people primitive nomads. While these illusions were propagated to make the Zionist project more palatable to Jews in Europe and beyond, Zionist thinkers were well aware that there was an indigenous population.
https://t.co/ehx2isqgmL

[Islamophobia Report @islamophobiaEIR]

📢 Call for Authors: EIR 2025

We are looking for country report contributors for the European Islamophobia Report (EIR) 2025.

Open Countries:
• Norway 🇳🇴
• Lithuania 🇱🇹
• Latvia 🇱🇻
• Czech Republic 🇨🇿
• Georgia 🇬🇪

📩 Send your CV to: [email protected]

[Mobashra @mobbiemobes]

Terrorist labels exported from Egypt and the UAE to crush political opposition are now being deployed across Europe and the US to hollow out Muslim democratic life.

Must read from @ferithafez: https://t.co/RawT929S0H

[Jacobin Magazin @jacobinmag_de]

»Der Fall Abdallah A. wirkt wie ein Lackmustest, inwieweit deutsche Behörden bereit sind, das reformierte Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht auszulegen«, schreibt @hahauenstein.
https://t.co/vfolF2RFoE

[Murtaza Hussain @MazMHussain]

Perhaps the most important variable holding together the UAE-Israel alliance is not the questionable geopolitical logic but the deep ties that have developed over at least a generation now between Israeli and Emirati elites, who share not just intimate relationships but deep economic interests on a personal level. This dynamic long predates the Abraham Accords, which were really just a coming out party, and you can chart its evolution over the past two decades by looking at a web of joint investments and institutional affiliations that now bind elites in the two countries. (That is also something we have reported on in important individual cases: https://t.co/4AeSZIcWgh)

This is why regardless of what happens—or individual instances of friction like Netanyahu embarrassing Emirati leadership, or a future Israeli government legally annexing the West Bank—the dynamic set in motion by the Abraham Accords is likely irreversible. Not only are there mutually overlapping layers of business interests tying key Emirati regime figures to Israel, on a practical level there is by now abundant evidence that the UAE permitted Israeli firms to penetrate its critical infrastructure and even given them ongoing access to sensitive data with national security implications. MBZ is ideologically committed to the alliance, but even if a different leadership emerged later the sunk costs of those prior actions will make scaling back the Israeli relationship dangerous or even impossible for Emiratis.

The joint Israeli-Emirati project of a war against Iran conducted over the objections or caution of other regional countries is just another step forward in a relationship that had already crossed the Rubicon a long time ago. The Abraham Accords is seen by the UAE now less as a pragmatic political arrangement than a core part of their identity, which also explains their growing hostility to other GCC countries that have turned against the idea.

While the advantages for Israel of such a relationship are obvious, from the Emirati perspective going all-in on this alliance seems much more like a high-risk gamble. But it is one from which they can by now not back down, and in fact will probably feel compelled to escalate.

[Jacobin Magazin @jacobinmag_de]

Zwei Posts zu Palästina, Presseanfragen von rechts – und Berlin leitet ein Ausbürgerungsverfahren ein. Der Fall Abdallah A. zeigt, wie das reformierte Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht zur Sanktionierung politischer Meinungen eingesetzt werden kann.
https://t.co/vfolF2RFoE

[The Bridge Initiative @bridgeinit]

During the campaign, too many political actors and media outlets fell back on lazy, divisive narratives about Muslims, spreading misinformation and misrepresenting how our communities actually engage politically.

https://t.co/6Rs9JjlWf0

[Jacobin Magazin @jacobinmag_de]

Peter Thiel ist heute einer der mächtigsten Strippenzieher der amerikanischen Rechten. Hunderte E-Mails zeigen: Sein Weg dorthin führte über Jeffrey Epstein, der ihn mit Trump-Vertrauten, Geheimdienstlern und ausländischen Machthabern vernetzte.
https://t.co/QZw4VxbReH