Yanis Varoufakis's Blog, page 16

El Pais long interview on my TECHNOFEUDALISM

LONG READ by MIGUEL ÁNGEL GARCÍA VEGA in El Pais on my Technofeudalism. Miguel has interviewed me many times in the past but this time he did so exclusively for my new book TECHNOFEUDALISM: What killed capitalism which will shortly be available in Spanish also. Here is the English language version of Miguel’s piece, based on our conversation (click here for the El Pais site).Yanis Varoufakis, 62, turns on his laptop and enters the Zoom meeting. He sits in the studio of his home in Athens, Greece. One of the most well-known and influential economists in the world, he offers a kind greeting before beginning his conversation with EL PAÍS.For the first time in many years (he had promised his wife, Danae) he took a few days of vacation in August, in the Aegean Sea. But, soon after, he was back at work, keeping track of all his appointments (including this one).Varoufakis studied at a private school, before completing two postgraduate degrees in Mathematics and Economics at the universities of Essex and Birmingham. He has taught in Australia, the United States and, since 2000, has lectured in Economics at the University of Athens. But his life — and his “myth” — is intertwined with politics.He served as the finance minister of Greece between January and July 2015. Those were difficult days, when he dealt with Wolfgang Schäuble — who served as finance minister at the time under former German Chancellor Angela Merkel — in the familiar story that was the seemingly endless Greek sovereign debt crisis. This was when the Troika — the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission — put the squeeze on Greece for every last euro, as a condition for issuing a financial rescue package. In July 2015, citizens voted against austerity and the social suffering it would cause. Although his side won the referendum, Varoufakis resigned, after five months in office.In February 2016, he created the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025 (DiEM25). And, in March 2018 — as a former member of the left-wing Syriza party — he founded MeRA25, the “political branch” of the movement. He then returned to the Greek Parliament as an elected legislator. Since then, this “libertarian Marxist” — this is how he defines himself, with an evident sense of provocation — has also had great success with bestsellers, such as Talking to My Daughter About the Economy and Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism. Brilliant with titles, one of his latest articles is called Let the Banks Burn. He has also coined several terms for our era, such as “cloud capitalism,” “de-dollarization,” “global austerity” and “techno-feudalism.” Although he may not intend it, many of his columns are somewhat impregnated with the pessimism of the philosopher Emil Cioran (1911-1955) and his temptation to exist: “Writing is a matter of life or death.”Without a doubt, his latest book is imbued with a certain sadness. It was born from a conversation he had many years ago, in 1993, with his communist father, Giorgios.As we struggle with our internet connection, Varoufakis jokes: “Now that computers can talk to each other, will this make it impossible to overthrow capitalism? Or will technology finally reveal its Achilles’ heel?”Question. Perhaps it has already revealed it?Answer. Amazon’s Alexa, for example, is nothing more than a portal. Behind it, there’s a centralized totalitarian system created to satisfy its owner, Jeff Bezos. [This system] does four things at the same time: it trains us to tell it what we want. It directly sells us what we know we “want,” regardless of any real market. It makes us reproduce its capital in the cloud (that is, it’s an immense behavior modification machine), because thanks to our work — which is done without remuneration — it publishes reviews or rates products. And finally, it amasses enormous profits from the capitalists who are operating within this network… generally, 40% of the sticker price [of products]. This isn’t capitalism — welcome to technofeudalism!Q. What’s your hypothesis?A. Capitalism is now dead. It has been replaced by the techno-feudal economy and a new order. At the heart of my thesis, there’s an irony that may sound confusing at first, but it’s made clear in the book (Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism). What’s killing capitalism is capitalism itself. Not the capital we’ve known since the dawn of the industrial age. But a new form, a mutation, that’s been growing over the last two decades. It’s much more powerful than its predecessor, which — like a stupid and overzealous virus — has killed its host. And why has this occurred? Due to two main causes: the privatization of the internet by the United States, but also the large Chinese technology companies. Along with the way in which Western governments and central banks responded to the great financial crisis of 2008.Varoufakis’ latest book warns of the impossibility of social democracy today, as well as the false promises made by the crypto world. “Behind the crypto aristocracy, the only true beneficiaries of these technologies have been the very institutions these crypto evangelists were supposed to want to overthrow: Wall Street and the Big Tech conglomerates.” For example, in Technofeudalism, the economist writes: “JPMorgan and Microsoft have recently joined forces to run a ‘blockchain consortium,’ based on Microsoft data centers, with the goal of increasing their power in financial services.”Q. It’s been nearly 600 days since the war in Ukraine began. What do you think about this? And what impact does it have on the economy?A. My thoughts are the same as on the first day Putin invaded Ukraine. It’s a war that will end quickly if there’s a peace agreement… otherwise, it can last for decades. If it continues, there will be no winners — only losers. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians dead, hundreds of thousands of Russians dead. It will impoverish Europe and make Africa more miserable. The West must offer the Russian leader a very simple agreement, [bringing the territorial lines] back to where they were before February 2022. In exchange, Ukraine will never be a member of NATO. It’s the Austrian solution: it’s part of Europe, it has an army, it’s a liberal democracy but not part of the organization. This is the only possibility that coincides with Ukrainian interests, while avoiding sacrifice and impoverishment.

In February of 2016, Varoufakis created the Democracy in Europe Movement 2025, or DiEM25.

Q. Europe is aging, growth is slow, the economic center of the world is moving to South Asia and Southeast Asia. What kind of future awaits the Old Continent? Will it become a luxury resort for millionaire foreigners on vacation?A. There won’t be a breakup of the European Union. It has been saved by Mario Draghi (the former president of the ECB) thanks to the injection of billions of euros. We’re entering a period of decline, though. About a month ago, I met with the president of Mexico, López Obrador. The EU doesn’t concern him. Of course, Mexico wants to have a good relationship and everything, but what counts for them is the United States and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).Think about geopolitics, especially after the war in Ukraine. Think NATO — whatever that is. It’s not a European foreign policy: it’s NATO’s foreign policy. The secretary general decides our policies for us. But imagine — I wish this were the case — that, tomorrow, there’s a table for peace talks. Who would be sitting at the table? Zelenskiy and Putin… and Xi Jinping, Modi and Biden. Who would represent Europe? Nobody. We don’t have leaders. Poles, Estonians and Lithuanians don’t trust Emmanuel Macron or Germany’s Olaf Scholz, because they think they’re too close to Putin. But can you imagine an EU represented by someone other than Germany or France? It’s worse than a crisis. We (Europe) are becoming irrelevant.Q. Today, some German politicians recognize the error that was austerity, which was the policy you fought against when you were negotiating the bailout for Greece.A. They only say that after they retire. You should be judged by what you do when you are in the administration. That’s what counts. The rest doesn’t matter to me. Christian Lindner — the current German finance minister — is pushing austerity. He’ll never admit that they’re wrong. The German economic model is dying and Europe is close behind it. What are the industries of the future? Solar, wind, batteries and software development. The EU doesn’t even exist [in these fields], because it doesn’t invest in anything. What’s [the EU] going to do about China, which has an absolute monopoly on batteries?Q. Why is there no equivalent to Amazon in Europe?A. For the same reason: nobody invests. We’ve wasted 14 years practicing austerity. Germany’s mobile phone system is almost Third World. It’s an underdeveloped country in terms of digitalization. They’ve approved — with all those years of delay — a digitalization budget of $200 billion euros ($212 billion) over the next five years. About 50 billion euros less than expected. Do you know they still use fax machines in Germany?Q. What powers do politicians have over large corporations?A. Zero. Once upon a time, politicians had a role… Franklin Roosevelt, Willy Brandt (Germany), Harold Wilson (United Kingdom), or even Nixon. They could change things. Get people to sit around the table. Now, unions no longer exist. There’s no one to sit with [today’s leaders]. If you clash with the system, it eliminates you.Q. China, Singapore, India, Saudi Arabia — among other countries — have shown that they can grow and generate prosperity, while still being dictatorships or autocracies or nations with dubious respect for human rights. That is, without being democracies.A. We forget about history. Democracy was never part of capitalism. Already in the 19th century, in Great Britain, the philosopher John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) defended liberalism. He respected property rights, freedom of expression… but liberalism was the opposite of capitalism. The official Chinese party says, well, we’re liberal like the British were. They recognize private property — if you have a house, they won’t take it away from you, you can accumulate as much money as you want, do business. This is liberalism. [But only] as long as you don’t say anything against the party.Is this so different in Britain? Did you see the coronation of Charles III? There was a professor outside the House of Commons who held up a blank banner. He was arrested for disrespecting the king. This isn’t freedom of speech, is it? Is the United States a democracy? Oh, really? You have a party in government with two different faces. Trump was a poor excuse for a human being. He changed the North American Free Trade Agreement, undid the nuclear pact that Obama had signed with Iran, started the cold war against China. Biden arrived. He was supposed to be the anti-Trump. Has anything changed? No, he’s made it worse. The cold war has gotten worse, there’s more enmity with Iran. Cuba suffers a worse embargo than under the former president. Of course, I would prefer to have dinner with Biden rather than Trump. However, that’s not what a democracy is supposed to be about.Q. Is feminism compatible with the current economic system?A. Capitalism only brings enormous, terrible burdens. One is the exploitation of women. The only way women can prosper is at the expense of other women. No, in the end — and in practice — feminism and democratic capitalism are incompatible.If there’s one thing Yanis Varoufakis is, it’s tough. Perhaps it comes from the days when his father, Giorgios — a communist steel engineer — taught him, in front of the fire of a red brick fireplace (in a modest house), the properties of metals. It has served him well in the gym, in European politics, or last March, when a group of “hired thugs” — in the words of Varoufakis — beat up the former minister while he was having dinner in the popular Exarchia neighborhood of Athens. The “thugs” (who claimed to be activists) shouted at him and accused him of having “sold out to the Troika.” After the incident, the former Finance Minister ended up in the hospital. “We’re not going to let them divide us,” he wrote on Twitter. “We keep going!”Born in the 1920s, Giorgios — whose parents were Greek — grew up in Cairo, Egypt, before entering the University of Athens to study Chemistry. But he was caught up in the Greek Civil War (1946-1949). He was detained and questioned by the police. He refused to denounce his fellow communists and spent four years in prison as a result. Later, when he restarted his studies, a conservative woman noticed him. Her name: Eleni. Varoufakis’ future mother. In the end, her father’s ideas resonated with her and communism became the landscape of their conversations.Years later, he would ask his parents what freedom meant to them. His mother said it was the possibility of choosing your partners and your projects. His father replied: time to read, experiment and write. These notions run through all his books.Giorgios — under Greece’s far-right regime — had many problems finding work. The secret police did everything possible to get him fired. With some good fortune — although the salary was lower than what he was entitled to — the Halyvourgiki Hellenic Steel Industry hired him as assistant to the director. In a kind of delayed justice, he eventually became president of the board of directors.This was the environment that Yanis grew up in, with stories about prisons, with memories of harshness and reprisals. Perhaps, thanks to this upbringing, his life has been one of perseverance: he holds two doctorates (in Economics and Mathematics), served as finance minister of his country and has taught classes in the United States, Australia and Greece.Everything begins in childhood — the rest is the inexorable repetition of days.At the University of Sydney, when he was teaching, he met Xenia’s mother, Margarite — an Australian-born professor of European history, with Greek roots. They fell in love and got married. They went to live in Greece. But the relationship didn’t work out and they broke up. Margarite returned to Australia, without knowing that she was pregnant. When she found out, she returned to Greece — they had to give the relationship another chance. “But it wasn’t working. And she went back to Australia. It was a nightmare. Because I missed my daughter a lot,” he commented in an interview with The Guardian. “As a consolation, I put her to sleep at night via Skype.”In this fragile emotional state, he discovered by chance, in an art gallery, an installation titled Breathe. It was work by the artist Danae Stratou. A work in which water and earth breathe. He was impressed. They had dinner and fell in love. He now lives in Athens with Stratou and her two children. Danae — who participated in the 48th edition (1999) of the prestigious Venice Biennale cultural exhibition — comes from a very wealthy family. Her father founded the textile company Peiraiki-Patraiki.Q. Few economists doubt the idea that, to prosper in life, the family you are born into is more important than all the effort you put in.A. That’s right. The lottery of birth. We live in very unequal societies. The greatest predictor of our future is the wealth and situation of our families.Q. In another one of your books — Talking to My Daughter about the Economy — you teach Xenia about the threats of capitalism. What kind of world do you think she will live in?A. I never, never, never make predictions, because if I were forced to answer you, my answer would be very sad. I certainly don’t think things will go well in the future. But this is different from simply giving a weather forecast. Societies lack the right to predict, because what counts is the result of our actions, the result of what we do. We have the moral duty to act.Q. In your latest book, you note that BlackRock — the world’s largest asset manager, by the amount of assets under management — is part of the problem. When you hear the CEO Larry Fink say that he will continue investing in oil and gas because his clients demand it — despite his supposed commitment to sustainable funds — what do you think?A. The only solution is to dismantle the company.Q. Drastic.A. Well, capitalism must also be dismantled. I’m a leftist, after all.

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Cory Doctorow reviews my TECHNOFEUDALISM for truthdig

Socialists have been hotly anticipating the end of capitalism since at least 1848, when Marx and Engels published  The Communist Manifesto  – but the Manifesto also reminds us that capitalism is only too happy to reinvent itself during its crises, coming back in new forms, over and over again.Now, in Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis – the “libertarian Marxist” former finance minister of Greece – makes an excellent case that capitalism died a decade ago, turning into a new form of feudalism: technofeudalism.To understand where Varoufakis is coming from, you need to go beyond the colloquial meanings of “capitalism” and “feudalism.” Capitalism isn’t just “a system where we buy and sell things.” It’s a system where capital rules the roost: the richest, most powerful people are those who coerce workers into using their capital (factories, tools, vehicles, etc) to create income in the form of profits.By contrast, a feudal society is one organized around people who own things, charging others to use them to produce goods and services. In a feudal society, the most important form of income isn’t profit, it’s rent. To quote Varoufakis: “rent flows from privileged access to things in fixed supply” (land, fossil fuels, etc). Profit comes from “entrepreneurial people who have invested in things that wouldn’t have otherwise existed.” This distinction is subtle, but important: “Profit is vulnerable to market competition, rent is not.” If you have a coffee shop, then every other coffee shop that opens on your block is a competitive threat that could erode your margins. But if you own the building the coffee shop owner rents, then every other coffee shop that opens on the block raises the property values and the amount of rent you can charge.The capitalist revolution – extolled and condemned in the Manifesto – was led by people who valorized profits as the heroic returns for making something new in this world, and who condemned rents as a parasitic drain on the true producers whose entrepreneurial spirits would enrich us all. The “free markets” extolled by Adam Smith weren’t free from regulation – they were free from rents.But rents, Varoufakis writes, “survived only parasitically on, and in the shadows of, profit.” That is, rentiers (people whose wealth comes from rents) were a small rump of the economy, slightly suspect and on the periphery of any consideration of how to organize our society. But all that changed in 2008, when the world’s central banks addressed the Great Financial Crisis by bailing out not just the banks, but the bankers, funneling trillions to the people whose reckless behavior brought the world to the brink of economic ruin.Suddenly, these wealthy people, and their banks, experienced enormous wealth-gains without profits. Their businesses lost billions in profits (the cost of offering the business’s products and services vastly exceeded the money people spent on those products and services). But the business still had billions more at the end of the year than they’d had at the start: billions in public money, funneled to them by central banks.This kicked off the “everything rally” in which every kind of asset – real estate, art, stocks, bonds, even monkey JPEGs – ballooned in value. That’s exactly what you’d expect from an economy where rents dominate over profits. Feudal rentiers don’t need to invest to keep making money – remember, their wealth comes from owning things that other people invest in to make money.Rents are not vulnerable to competition, so rentiers don’t need to plow their rents into new technology to keep the money coming in. The capitalist that leases the oil field needs to invest in new pumps and refining to stay competitive with other oil companies. But the rentier of the oil field doesn’t have to do anything: either the capitalist tenant will invest in more capital and make the field more valuable, or they will lose out to another capitalist who’ll replace them. Either way, the rentier gets more rent.

“Profit is vulnerable to market competition, rent is not.”

So when capitalists get richer, they spend some of that money on new capital, but when rentiers get richer, they spend money on more assets they can rent to capitalists. The “everything rally” made all kinds of capital more valuable, and companies that were transitioning to a feudal footing turned around and handed that money to their investors in stock buybacks and dividends, rather than spending the money on R&D, or new plants, or new technology.The tech companies, though, were the exception. They invested in “cloud capital” – the servers, lines, and services that everyone else would have to pay rent on in order to practice capitalism.Think of Amazon: Varoufakis likens shopping on Amazon to visiting a bustling city center filled with shops run by independent capitalists. However, all of those capitalists are subservient to a feudal lord: Jeff Bezos, who takes 51 cents out of every dollar they bring in, and furthermore gets to decide which products they can sell and how those products must be displayed.The postcapitalist, technofeudal world isn’t a world without capitalism, then. It’s a world where capitalists are subservient to feudalists (“cloudalists” in Varoufakis’s thesis), as are the rest of us the cloud peons, from the social media users and performers who fill the technofuedalists’ siloes with “content” to the regular users whose media diet is dictated by the cloudalists’ recommendation systems.A defining feature of cloudalism is the ability of the rentier lord to destroy any capitalist vassal’s business with the click of a mouse. If Google kicks your business out of the search index, or if Facebook blocks your publication, or if Twitter shadowbans mentions of your product, or if Apple pulls your app from the store, you’re toast.Capitalists “still have the power to command labor from the majority who are reliant on wages,” but they are still mere vassals to the cloudalists. Even the most energetic capitalist can’t escape paying rent, thanks in large part to “IP,” which I claim is best understood as “laws that let a company reach beyond its walls to dictate the conduct of competitors, critics and customers.”Varoufakis points to ways that the cloudalists can cement their gains: for example, “green” energy doesn’t rely on land-leases (like fossil fuels), but it does rely on networked grids and data-protocols that can be loaded up with IP, either or both of which can be turned into chokepoints for feudal rent-extraction.

Capitalists “still have the power to command labor from the majority who are reliant on wages,” but they are still mere vassals to the cloudalists.

To make things worse, Varoufakis argues that cloudalists won’t be able to muster the degree of coordination and patience needed to actually resolve the climate emergency – they’ll not only extract rent from every source of renewables, but they’ll also silo them in ways that make them incapable of doing the things we need them to do.Energy is just one of the technofeudal implications that Varoufakis explores in this book: there are also lengthy and fascinating sections on geopolitics, monetary policy, and the New Cold War. Technofeudalism – and the struggle to produce a dominant fiefdom – is a very useful lens for understanding US/Chinese tech wars.Though Varoufakis is laying out a technical and even esoteric argument here, he takes great pains to make it accessible. The book is structured as a long open letter to his father, a chemical engineer and leftist who was a political prisoner during the fascist takeover of Greece. The framing device works very well, especially if you’ve read  Talking To My Daughter About the Economy , Varoufakis’s 2018 radical economics primer in the form of a letter to his young daughter.At the very end of the book, Varoufakis calls for “a cloud rebellion to overthrow technofeudalism.” This section is very short – and short on details. That’s not a knock against the book: there are plenty of very good books that consist primarily or entirely of analysis of the problems with a system, without having to lay out a detailed program for solving those problems.But for what it’s worth, I think there is a way to plan and execute a “cloud rebellion” – a way to use laws, technology, reverse-engineering and human rights frameworks to shatter the platforms and seize the means of computation. I lay out that program in  The Internet Con: How the Seize the Means of Computation , a book I published with Verso Books a couple weeks ago.WAIT, BEFORE YOU GO…If you’re reading this, you probably already know that non-profit, independent journalism is under threat worldwide. Independent news sites are overshadowed by larger heavily funded mainstream media that inundate us with hype and noise that barely scratch the surface. We believe that our readers deserve to know the full story. Truthdig writers bravely dig beneath the headlines to give you thought-provoking, investigative reporting and analysis that tells you what’s really happening and who’s rolling up their sleeves to do something about it.Like you, we believe a well-informed public that doesn’t have blind faith in the status quo can help change the world. Your contribution of as little as $5 monthly or $35 annually will make you a groundbreaking member and lays the foundation of our work. SUPPORT TRUTHDIG

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Why I refuse to condemn Hamas or the Israeli settlers but insist that we, Europeans & Americans, are the culprits for the atrocities in Israel-Palestine

When Hamas launched its offensive into Israel, appalled by the butchery and the human toll it would bring on, I tried to pierce through the fog of war, through all the fear and all the loathing, and to focus instead on what could end the endless cycle of inhumanity. What was its root cause? Hamas? The Israeli settlers? Netanyahu? The Palestinian Authority? Israelis? Palestinians? No. While all of the above are actors in a vile drama, they are not its author, its creator. Who, or what, is?My answer: The decade-long construction of a permanent, ironclad Apartheid. Apartheid IS violence! That’s the root cause of the endless violence. And, so, my first comment immediately after the brutal Hamas Offensive (on 7th October) read thus: “The path to ending the tragic loss of innocent lives – both Palestinian and Israeli – begins with one crucial first step: the end of the Israeli Occupation and Apartheid.” On 8th October, during an interview in Berlin (click adjacent icon and read the full text below), I refused to condemn either Hamas or the Israeli settlers committing atrocities across Israel-Palestine. Instead, I condemned us, Europeans and Americans, as the true villains who, for decades, we stood idly by while the underlying cause of these atrocities, Apartheid, became a fait accompli.Why did I not take the easier route of, on the one hand, condemning Hamas and, on the other, championing the rights of Palestinians? Because I wanted to make the point that it is we, Europeans and Americans, who must be condemned. Because it is we, Europeans and Americans, who, with our patronisingly ritual moralistic condemnations (whether one-sided or equidistant), have been making Peace impossible in Israel-Palestine.Let me explain why I say this. Why do I condemn us, Europeans and Americans, rather than Hamas, settlers, Netanyahu or any of the other actors in this drama? Because we have allowed our governments to allow successive Israeli governments to believe that, instead of a Peace Treaty, Israel can contain the Palestinians behind fences and a whole architecture of Apartheid either to keep them there as sub-humans or to cause them gradually to leave for distant lands. Because we have allowed Israel to force upon Palestinians a cruel dilemma: Either die a terrible, silent, gradual collective death or take up arms and, often, take with them innocent people.How are we, Europeans and Americans, allowing this? We allow this by keeping dead quiet when Palestinians are suffering killings, evictions, war crimes. By dismissing Israeli war crimes (like those committed now that Gaza is being turned into a parking lot) as “inevitable”, as Acts of God – like a Volcano erupting as is its wont, as its nature dictates. And by issuing stern condemnations of Palestinians, calling them ‘animals’ and ‘savages’, when some of them lash out violently, brutally, in response to the slow genocide the Apartheid state is calculatingly foisting upon their families and communities. This stance of ours, with our ritualistic condemnations of Palestinian violence and acceptance of Israel’s right to commit war crimes in self-defence, is the perfect gift to the extremists on both sides: Hamas love us for it, since we confirm Western indifference to Palestinian suffering. Settlers and Netanyahu, on the other side, also love us for it, since it us a green light to reinforcing their Apartheid and ethnic cleansing program.“But, Yanis”, friends and foes ask me “do you not have a moral duty to condemn Hamas’ atrocities?”My answer to friends is unequivocal:There is nothing that can justify deliberate violence against non-combatants. Attacking Israelis at a rave is wrong, bombing Palestinian hospitals is wrong, abducting Ukrainian children is wrong, torturing Russian prisoners is wrong… In fact the nationality, the identity, of the victim or of the attacker is utterly irrelevant. Either targeting innocents is ALWAYS wrong, no matter who does it, or you are indulging in selective outrage (e.g., Ursula von der Leyen) which is tantamount to excusing your side’s war crimes while strongly condemn the other side’s war crimes. This is the end of ethics, the end of any chance of International Law worth its name.My answer to defenders of Israel’s right to impose Apartheid is also unequivocal:If you did not condemn Israel’s killing of unarmed journalists, doctors and children, you lost the right to condemn Hamas’ atrocities now. The Geneva Convention on war crimes either applies to everyone or no-one. And anyone invoking it against the weak while exempting the powerful is committing an obscenity.In summary, those who demand from me a condemnation of Hamas or of Israeli Settlers or of any of the belligerents in Israel-Palestine will not get it: Because such ritualistic condemnations by us, Europeans and Americans, throw fuel into the fire – they are part of the problem, not the solution. What we MUST do I explained in that controversial interview:“This incredible tragedy must be converted into an opportunity for us Europeans [and Americans] to wake up and to redeem ourselves by demanding that we collectively take the first decisive step toward Peace. And that is the destruction of the state of apartheid. Just like we did in South Africa.”In summary, it is precisely because I am appalled by the never-ending cycle of atrocities perpetrated by both sides that I refuse to participate in ritualistic selective moral outrage along with those who strategically turn a blind eye to the source of all atrocities: Israel’s Apartheid.Frequent, pressing questionsSurely, Israel is nothing like South African Apartheid and Hamas is nothing like Mandela’s ANC!Nelson Mandela was never in doubt that Palestinians lived under Apartheid. [He also knew well that Israel was, openly, the best ally of the White Supremacists in Pretoria.] Desmond Tutu, a hero of the anti-Apartheid movement in its place of origin, understood it also – and articulated it beautifully.

Hamas is of course nothing like the ANC. [I never said it was.] But Israel’s Apartheid is modelled on the Apartheid the ANC fought. The simple point here is that Apartheid (South African or Israeli) IS violence and, thus, begets violence. And the only way to stop violence is to end Apartheid – not moralistically to condemn violence while turning a blind eye to Apartheid.Is Israel not engaged in a war for its very existence?No, it is not. Israel is a nuclear-armed state with perhaps the most technologically advanced army in the world and the panoply of the US military machine (including aircraft carriers at the ready) having its back. There is no symmetry with Hamas, a group which can cause serious damage to Israelis but which has no capacity whatsoever to defeat Israel’s military, or even to prevent Israel from continuing to implement the slow genocide of Palestinians under the system of Apartheid that has been erected with long-standing US and EU support.Are Israelis not justified to fear that Hamas wants to exterminate them?Of course they are! Jews have suffered the Holocaust which was preceded with countless pogroms and a deep-seated antisemitism permeating Europe and the Americas for centuries. It is only natural that Israelis live in fear of a new pogrom if the Israeli army folds. However, by imposing Apartheid on their neighbours, by treating them like sub-humans, the Israeli state is stoking the fires of antisemitism, is strengthening Hamas and, in the end, contributes to the awful insecurity consuming Jews in Israel and the Diaspora. Apartheid against the Palestinians is not the Israelis’ best defence – to put it mildly.What about antisemitism?It is always a clear and present danger. And it must be eradicated, especially amongst the ranks of Palestinians fighting for their civil liberties – as well as from the hearts and minds of their supporters in the rest of the world. For my take on Antisemitism, please see this.Do I condemn Hamas’ atrocities?I condemn every single atrocity, whomever is the perpetrator or the victim. What I do not condemn is armed resistance to an Apartheid system designed as part of a slow-burning, but inexorable, ethnic cleansing program.So, do I think that what Hamas did a week ago is a legitimate act of resistance? Or ‘just’ a criminal atrocity?Breaking out of the illegal Fence, and battling with the Israeli army that is caging Palestinians in, was not an atrocity. Killing civilians (old or young) was a repugnant atrocity. Like in every war, war crimes are indefensible.Why don’t Palestinians pursue their objectives by peaceful means?They did. The PLO recognised Israel and renounced armed struggle. And what did they get for it? Absolute humiliation and systematic ethnic cleansing. That is what nurtured Hamas and elevated it in the eyes of many Palestinians as the only alternative to a slow genocide under Israel’s Apartheid.What should be done now? What might bring Peace to Israel-Palestine?An immediate ceasefire. The release of all hostages (Hamas’ and the thousands held by Israel). And a Peace Process, under the UN, supported by a commitment by the International Community to end Apartheid and to safeguard Equal Civil Liberties for All. As for what must replace Apartheid, it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to decide between the Two-State Solution and the solution of a Single Secular State. [For what it is worth, DiEM25’s position, which was reached after a long and energetic debate, was that the Two-State solution is now obsolete and a Single State with Equal Civil Rights for All is the most realistic solution. See this.]Additional sourcesAn incomplete list of Israel’s War Crimes since 7th October 2023Timeline of my tweets and interviews since 7th October 2023TEXT OF MY 8th October 2023 INTERVIEW“Those who try very hard to extract from people like me, from DiEM25, a condemnation of the attack by the Hamas guerrillas will never get it. And they will never get it for a single reason. Those who care about humans without discrimination, who care equally for a Jew and an Arab, must ask themselves a very important question: What exactly is their idea of the cessation of hostilities? That Palestinians are going to lay down their arms and go back into the largest open-air prison in the world where they are constantly suffocated by the Apartheid state? In other words, back in South Africa in the era of Apartheid, what was the problem? Was it that some members of the Black Resistance, including the ANC but not only the ANC, took up arms against the South African regime and sometimes killed innocent people? No, that was not the problem. The problem was Apartheid. Apartheid, whether it is practised in South Africa or in Palestine-Israel, is always going to procure violence because it is a violent, misanthropic system. Any human being living on the wrong end of Apartheid will either die a terrible, silent death or rebel and, often, take with them innocent people. The criminals here are not Hamas, not even the Israeli settlers who are killing Palestinians. The criminals are us, Europeans and Americans. Every single member of our German society, our French society, our Greek society, the United States society. We have participated in this crime against humanity over the decades by keeping our mouths shut as long as there is no trouble down there. As long as people are dying outside the reach of cameras. As long as it is Palestinians who are dying and not the occupiers. So, this incredible tragedy must be converted into an opportunity for us Europeans to wake up and to redeem ourselves by demanding that we collectively take the first decisive step toward Peace. And that is the destruction of the state of apartheid. Just like we did in South Africa.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avtX-CWmVG8

 

 

The post Why I refuse to condemn Hamas or the Israeli settlers but insist that we, Europeans & Americans, are the culprits for the atrocities in Israel-Palestine appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Timeline of my tweets and interviews on Israel-Palestine between 7th & 15th October

Ever since Hamas attacked Israel, my tweets and interviews have caused much controversy. In the interests of both those who agree with me and those who disagree with me, I list below every one of those interventions. An honest debate founded on what each one of us has said (as opposed to what various trolls say we said) is the least we can offer a divided and troubled world.7/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1710627736664854638?s=20The path to ending the tragic loss of innocent lives – both Palestinian and Israeli – begins with one crucial first step: the end of the Israeli occupation and apartheid.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1710642297681985834?s=20When a former Mossad Director concurs that Israel is imposing Apartheid on the Palestinians, is there more to say other than “End Apartheid to Give Peace a Chance”?8/10https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avtX-... “Those who try very hard to extract from people like me, from DiEM25, a condemnation of the attack by the Hamas guerrillas will never get it. And they will never get it for a single reason. Those who care about humans without discrimination, who care equally for a Jew and an Arab, must ask themselves a very important question: What exactly is their idea of the cessation of hostilities? That Palestinians are going to lay down their arms and go back into the largest open-air prison in the world where they are constantly suffocated by the Apartheid state? In other words, back in South Africa in the era of Apartheid, what was the problem? Was it that some members of the Black Resistance, including the ANC but not only the ANC, took up arms against the South African regime and some times killed innocent people? No, that was not the problem. The problem was Apartheid. Apartheid, whether it is practised in South Africa or in Palestine-Israel, is alwys going to procure violence because it is a violent, misanthropic system. Any human being living under Apartheid will either die a terrible, silent death or rebel and, often, take with them innocent people. The criminals here are not Hamas, not even the Israeli settlers who are killing Palestinians. The criminals are us, Europeans and Americans. Every single member of our German society, our French society, our Greek society, the United States society. We have participated in this crime against humanity over the decades by keeping our mouths shut as long as there is no trouble down there. As long as people are dying outside the reach of cameras. As long as it is Palestinians who are dying and not the occupiers. So, this incredible tragedy must be converted into an opportunity for us Europeans to wake up and to redeem ourselves by demanding that we collectively take the first decisive step toward Peace. And that is the destruction of the state of apartheid. Just like we did in South Africa.”7/10https://twitter.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711331592998625544DiEM25 and MeRA25 declaration: Peace Now!https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711153525273645298?s=20The shock and fury in Israel are reminiscent of the emotions in the US after 9/11. That provoked a display of American unity and power. It also led to a misconceived and self-destructive war on terror. Israel may be heading down the same dangerous path.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711157219859878365?s=20Apartheid must be smashed & the two state solution is nearly impossible (even if desirable for a number of reasons). The only realistic civilised solution is for a single secular state for all – with equal civil liberties independently of religion and ethnicity.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711341886445682884?s=20From a very young age I was made aware of how those seeking to cover up inhumanities perpetrated by the Great Powers against the weakest of peoples, they invariably did so by explaining it all away as part of “the realities of the world”…https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711351103638393064?s=20Hamas is nothing like the ANC. [I never said it was.] But Israel’s Apartheid is modelled on the Apartheid the ANC fought. My simple point was that Apartheid (South African or Israeli) IS violence and, thus, begets violence. And the only way to stop violence is to end Apartheid – not moralistically to condemn violence while turning a blind eye to Apartheid.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711373657073705123?s=20If a former Mossad Director says that Israel is imposing Apartheid on the Palestinians, it is an open and shut case. You have lost this one I am afraid https://theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/06/israel-imposing-apartheid-on-palestinians-says-former-mossad-chiefhttps://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711375495483265171?s=20Let me remind those screaming blue murder when any comparison is made between South African Apartheid with Israel’s that Nelson Mandela was never in doubt that Palestinians lived under Apartheid. [Or that Israel was openly the best ally of the White Supremacists in Pretoria]https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711378779371634972?s=20Just in case you are misinformed (rather than a troll), let me point out our campaign for a Peace Process, along with a cessation of hostilities, both in Ukraine and Israel-Palestine. We are consistent. Are you? https://diem25.org/diem25-and-mera25-declaration-peace-now/https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711387107602653621?s=20No electricity, no food, no fuel for 1 million children. Straight from the horse’s mouth. That can’t be the civilised world’s answer, whatever differences we may have on who did what to whom first or last.https://x.com/GermanPolyglot/status/1711362849564455031?s=20If you did not condemn #Israel‘s killing of unarmed journalists, doctors and children, you lost the right to condemn #Hamas‘ atrocities now. The Geneva Convention on war crimes either applies to everyone or no-one. And anyone invoking it against the weak while exempting the powerful is committing an obscenity.10/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711608211105571157?s=20Apartheid is an abomination. Desmond Tutu, a hero of the anti-Apartheid movement in its place of origin, understood it. Will those who claim to respect Tutu and Mandela follow suit? Or will they continue to defend Apartheid’s continued, strengthened variant in Israel-Palestine?https://x.com/GermanPolyglot/status/1711582200418693399?s=20There is nothing that can justify deliberate violence against non-combatants. This means that attacking Israelis at a rave is wrong, bombing Palestinian hospitals is wrong, abducting Ukrainian children is wrong, torturing Russian prisoners is wrong… In fact the nationality of the victim or attacker is completely irrelevant. Either targeting innocents is ALWAYS wrong, no matter who does it, or you don’t have morals, you just have opinions. We need to stop this weird move where we excuse/ignore war crimes from our preferred side and strongly condemn war crimes from the other side – it leads to the annihilation of ethics itself, everything becomes relative.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711978132645826944?s=201982: Sharon invades Lebanon to destroy the PLO. Thus Hizbollah was born. 2002: Arafat is crushed to end hopes of Palestinian state. Thus Hamas rose up. Now Israel is pulverising Gaza to destroy Hamas. [All such moves had full US support.] Any guesses of likely outcomes?https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711995086811058347?s=20Desmond Tutu made this comparison. I dare you challenge his authority on the subject.11/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712188831233941599?s=20Compare & contrast! Attacking “civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes. Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming – these are acts of pure terror”. UNLESS the attacker is Israel. Then it’s NOT terror!?@?!!!https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712343232208609635?s=20I condemn the killing of every person, let alone 40. I also condemn the notion that Israel is imposing Apartheid and war crimes for decades in… self-defence. Foisting Apartheid/Occupation on a whole people for decades can NEVER be self-defence.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ZXE24uiW8 DiEM25 LIVESTREAM EXTRACT (from 1’40” to 17’38”): We are talking about yet another example of humanity’s capacity to dive into moral voids. Just when we thought we had done our worst, we did even worse. The emphasis is on the word WE. It is very natural, in the context of vicious conflicts, for us to have a tendency to take sides. But the long-lasting nature of this tragedy should concentrate our minds so as to take seriously our responsibility for it. A few days ago, in Berlin, I refused to denounce Hamas and, naturally, that stirred up a torrent criticism, of abuse. There is no doubt that if I were in their path, near the Gaza Fence (which, I must stress, is not an international border but a hideous, illegal fence since the people living behind it used to live on the other side before they were ethnically cleansed and forced into the awful Gaza strip), if any one of us were at, say, that music festival dedicated to Peace, the Hamas fighters would have gunned me down or taken me hostage. Those scenes are atrocious. There can be no justification and there can be no way of presenting them as justified. But, I am not going to condemn the Hamas assault on Israel. Those who demand of me, and you, and others, to condemn the Hamas killing spree are insistent that we, for whom every human loss is a calamity for which we consider even ourselves to be responsible, they demand that we – effectively – take the side of the state of Israel. That I shall never do. And who are they who demand that we condemn the Hamas atrocities? It is the same people who……look the other way when Israel kills unarmed journalists, doctors and children…support or tolerate the ritual humiliation to which West Bank Palestinians are treated every day of their lives by an apartheid regime much worse than the original one in South Africa – a reality revealed by, amongst others, Tamir Pardo, Mossad’s former Director, Avraham Burg, the former speaker of the Israeli parliament, renowned Israeli historian Benny Morris and more than 2,000 Israeli and American public figures who have signed a public statementdeclaring that “Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid”…turn a blind eye when murderous settlers rampage in Palestinian areas killing Palestinians at will…whistle in the wind while Israel’s authorities illegally evict Palestinians from the East Jerusalem neighbourhoods, where they lived for generations, to hand over their homes to people who just arrived in Israel for the first time…accept uncritically Israel’s declaration of war not against a state (since it has never allowed Palestinians to have one) but against an occupied people whom it has been terrorising for decades.Yes, these same people, who demand of us to condemn Hamas……demand that the Gazan Palestinians lay down their arms and return quietly back into the world’s largest open-air prison, to die slowly under siege surrounded by an ironclad army that has been starving them and shooting at them like fish in a barrel.So, let me be abundantly clear on this: Every loss of a human being, every severed limb, every blinded eye, even a broken finger is a tragedy for which we consider us, humanity as whole, to be responsible. So, let’s be properly responsible, shall we? Let’s embrace our responsibility. But what does this mean now? Does it mean parroting another condemnation of Hamas like that of our governments who did not even slap the wrist of the hand that has been strangling a nation thus brought to the brink of despair? Let us, DiEM25, propose what it means to be responsible now: It means to plug the spring of all this torrent of violence and pain: the never-ending Occupation and its Apartheid Apparatus. In this vein, DiEM25 has called both for an immediate ceasefire and the immediate commencement of a Peace Process under a UN mandate to end Apartheid and to secure security and free movement for all. Now, well-meaning people may disagree on what precise solution this Peace Process will reach, so complex is this tragedy. It may involve a two-state solution or, as is our preference, a single secular federal state with equal civil rights for everyone, or maybe a third alternative. What it cannot involve is the continuation of Occupation, the toleration of slow-burning ethnic cleansing through the medium of Apartheid or, indeed, the implied belief that the two peoples are condemned to hating and killing one another ad infinitum.13/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712581737887257044?s=20Israel killed all 1500 Hamas fighters that killed Israelis. More Palestinian civilians have already died than Israelis. Is this not the time to stop the bombings? No, says the ‘civilised’ West, it is time for thousands more coffins until Final Victory. Which means what exactly?https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712741442982978027?s=20When Palestinian fighters commit war crimes, the West/Press loses no time to speak of “acts of pure evil”. When the Israeli military commit war crimes, the West/Press describes them as “inevitable”, as Acts of God – like a Volcano erupting as is its wont, as its nature dictates.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712833938475954584?s=20Quote me in full please: I shall not condemn Hamas, nor the Israeli settlers killing Palestinians. I feel that we, Europeans and Americans, are responsible for these crimes by turning a blind eye for decades.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712935715225452909?s=20Good & bad news for those who want to cancel me for my opposition to Israel’s Apartheid/Occupation: The good news is that I was cancelled in Vienna where, on Monday, I was to deliver the 2023 Otto Wagner 2023 Lecture, organised by IKA Institute for Art and Architecture (even though I had no intention to refer to the situation in Israel/Gaza). https://e-flux.com/announcements/560460/yanis-varoufakis/… The bad news, for you good people who want me cancelled, is that the organisers lacked the guts to admit that they were terrified of hosting me because of my opposition to Israel’s Apartheid/Occupation. They suggested that we all pretend the lecture was postponed until my new book is out in German. When I refused to participate in that lie, they cited “the current dramatically escalating, geopolitical situation”! The gist of it? Civilised Middle Europe recoils in horror when faced with a principled opposition to Israel’s Apartheid. And then, immediately afterwards, covers up its cowardice in lies.14/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1713274051123085541?s=20Lest we forget: There IS hope! The future of Peace rests on both sides embracing Peace and turning away from Violence. We rely on progressive Israelis to renounce Apartheid and progressive Palestinians to renounce antisemitism. The rest of us must help them along the way.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1713297736794038415?s=20Correct: But purging antisemitism is what we must do for our own soul and clarity of purpose.15/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1713305253892759996?s=20As the bombs fall on Gaza and Palestinian flesh is torn apart… As Israelis grieve lost ones and fear for their future… let the rest of us press our governments to announce the World’s Demands: Ceasefire. Release of hostages. End of Apartheid. Equal Civil Liberties for All!https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1713307284992913526?s=20My message has always been crystal clear – and consistent. I shall never participate in ritualistic selective moral outrage along with those who strategically turn a blind eye to the source of all atrocities: Israel’s Apartheid.https://twitter.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1713676196247167238Question from @bnorma3L: So then the question becomes: do you think that what hamas did a week ago is a legitimate act of resistance? Or ‘just’ a criminal atrocity? I think its the latter. In fact in a way, they are complicit in the murder of Palestinians right now.Let me answer your good question: Breaking out of the illegal Fence, and battling with the Israeli army that is caging Palestinians in, was not an atrocity. Killing civilians (old or young) was a repugnant atrocity. Like in every war, war crimes are indefensible.

The post Timeline of my tweets and interviews on Israel-Palestine between 7th & 15th October appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Timeline of my tweets and interviews on Israel-Palestine since 7th October

Ever since Hamas attacked Israel, my tweets and interviews have caused much controversy. In the interests of both those who agree with me and those who disagree with me, I list below every one of those interventions. An honest debate founded on what each one of us has said (as opposed to what various trolls say we said) is the least we can offer a divided and troubled world.7/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1710627736664854638?s=20The path to ending the tragic loss of innocent lives – both Palestinian and Israeli – begins with one crucial first step: the end of the Israeli occupation and apartheid.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1710642297681985834?s=20When a former Mossad Director concurs that Israel is imposing Apartheid on the Palestinians, is there more to say other than “End Apartheid to Give Peace a Chance”?8/10https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avtX-... who try very hard to extract from people like me, from DiEM25, a condemnation of the attack by the Hamas guerrillas will never get it. And they will never get it for a single reason. Those who care about humans without discrimination, who care equally for a Jew and an Arab, must ask themselves a very important question: What exactly is their idea of the cessation of hostilities? That Palestinians are going to lay down their arms and go back into the largest open-air prison in the world where they are constantly suffocated by the Apartheid state? In other words, back in South Africa in the era of Apartheid, what was the problem? Was it that some members of the Black Resistance, including the ANC but not only the ANC, took up arms against the South African regime and some times killed innocent people? No, that was not the problem. The problem was Apartheid. Apartheid, whether it is practised in South Africa or in Palestine-Israel, is alwys going to procure violence because it is a violent, misanthropic system. Any human being living under Apartheid will either die a terrible, silent death or rebel and, often, take with them innocent people. The criminals here are not Hamas, not even the Israeli settlers who are killing Palestinians. The criminals are us, Europeans and Americans. Every single member of our German society, our French society, our Greek society, the United States society. We have participated in this crime against humanity over the decades by keeping our mouths shut as long as there is no trouble down there. As long as people are dying outside the reach of cameras. As long as it is Palestinians who are dying and not the occupiers. So, this incredible tragedy must be converted into an opportunity for us Europeans to wake up and to redeem ourselves by demanding that we collectively take the first decisive step toward Peace. And that is the destruction of the state of apartheid. Just like we did in South Africa.7/10https://twitter.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711331592998625544DiEM25 and MeRA25 declaration: Peace Now!https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711153525273645298?s=20The shock and fury in Israel are reminiscent of the emotions in the US after 9/11. That provoked a display of American unity and power. It also led to a misconceived and self-destructive war on terror. Israel may be heading down the same dangerous path.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711157219859878365?s=20Apartheid must be smashed & the two state solution is nearly impossible (even if desirable for a number of reasons). The only realistic civilised solution is for a single secular state for all – with equal civil liberties independently of religion and ethnicity.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711341886445682884?s=20From a very young age I was made aware of how those seeking to cover up inhumanities perpetrated by the Great Powers against the weakest of peoples, they invariably did so by explaining it all away as part of “the realities of the world”…https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711351103638393064?s=20Hamas is nothing like the ANC. [I never said it was.] But Israel’s Apartheid is modelled on the Apartheid the ANC fought. My simple point was that Apartheid (South African or Israeli) IS violence and, thus, begets violence. And the only way to stop violence is to end Apartheid – not moralistically to condemn violence while turning a blind eye to Apartheid.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711373657073705123?s=20If a former Mossad Director says that Israel is imposing Apartheid on the Palestinians, it is an open and shut case. You have lost this one I am afraid https://theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/06/israel-imposing-apartheid-on-palestinians-says-former-mossad-chiefhttps://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711375495483265171?s=20Let me remind those screaming blue murder when any comparison is made between South African Apartheid with Israel’s that Nelson Mandela was never in doubt that Palestinians lived under Apartheid. [Or that Israel was openly the best ally of the White Supremacists in Pretoria]https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711378779371634972?s=20Just in case you are misinformed (rather than a troll), let me point out our campaign for a Peace Process, along with a cessation of hostilities, both in Ukraine and Israel-Palestine. We are consistent. Are you? https://diem25.org/diem25-and-mera25-declaration-peace-now/https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711387107602653621?s=20No electricity, no food, no fuel for 1 million children. Straight from the horse’s mouth. That can’t be the civilised world’s answer, whatever differences we may have on who did what to whom first or last.https://x.com/GermanPolyglot/status/1711362849564455031?s=20If you did not condemn #Israel‘s killing of unarmed journalists, doctors and children, you lost the right to condemn #Hamas‘ atrocities now. The Geneva Convention on war crimes either applies to everyone or no-one. And anyone invoking it against the weak while exempting the powerful is committing an obscenity.10/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711608211105571157?s=20Apartheid is an abomination. Desmond Tutu, a hero of the anti-Apartheid movement in its place of origin, understood it. Will those who claim to respect Tutu and Mandela follow suit? Or will they continue to defend Apartheid’s continued, strengthened variant in Israel-Palestine?https://x.com/GermanPolyglot/status/1711582200418693399?s=20There is nothing that can justify deliberate violence against non-combatants. This means that attacking Israelis at a rave is wrong, bombing Palestinian hospitals is wrong, abducting Ukrainian children is wrong, torturing Russian prisoners is wrong… In fact the nationality of the victim or attacker is completely irrelevant. Either targeting innocents is ALWAYS wrong, no matter who does it, or you don’t have morals, you just have opinions. We need to stop this weird move where we excuse/ignore war crimes from our preferred side and strongly condemn war crimes from the other side – it leads to the annihilation of ethics itself, everything becomes relative.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711978132645826944?s=201982: Sharon invades Lebanon to destroy the PLO. Thus Hizbollah was born. 2002: Arafat is crushed to end hopes of Palestinian state. Thus Hamas rose up. Now Israel is pulverising Gaza to destroy Hamas. [All such moves had full US support.] Any guesses of likely outcomes?https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1711995086811058347?s=20Desmond Tutu made this comparison. I dare you challenge his authority on the subject.11/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712188831233941599?s=20Compare & contrast! Attacking “civilian infrastructure, especially electricity, are war crimes. Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming – these are acts of pure terror”. UNLESS the attacker is Israel. Then it’s NOT terror!?@?!!!https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712343232208609635?s=20I condemn the killing of every person, let alone 40. I also condemn the notion that Israel is imposing Apartheid and war crimes for decades in… self-defence. Foisting Apartheid/Occupation on a whole people for decades can NEVER be self-defence.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ZXE24uiW8DiEM25 LIVESTREAM EXTRACT: We are talking about yet another example of humanity’s capacity to dive into moral voids. Just when we thought we had done our worst, we did even worse. The emphasis is on the word WE. It is very natural, in the context of vicious conflicts, for us to have a tendency to take sides. But the long-lasting nature of this tragedy should concentrate our minds so as to take seriously our responsibility for it. A few days ago, in Berlin, I refused to denounce Hamas and, naturally, that stirred up a torrent criticism, of abuse. There is no doubt that if I were in their path, near the Gaza Fence (which, I must stress, is not an international border but a hideous, illegal fence since the people living behind it used to live on the other side before they were ethnically cleansed and forced into the awful Gaza strip), if any one of us were at, say, that music festival dedicated to Peace, the Hamas fighters would have gunned me down or taken me hostage. Those scenes are atrocious. There can be no justification and there can be no way of presenting them as justified. But, I am not going to condemn the Hamas assault on Israel. Those who demand of me, and you, and others, to condemn the Hamas killing spree are insistent that we, for whom every human loss is a calamity for which we consider even ourselves to be responsible, they demand that we – effectively – take the side of the state of Israel. That I shall never do. And who are they who demand that we condemn the Hamas atrocities? It is the same people who……look the other way when Israel kills unarmed journalists, doctors and children…support or tolerate the ritual humiliation to which West Bank Palestinians are treated every day of their lives by an apartheid regime much worse than the original one in South Africa – a reality revealed by, amongst others, Tamir Pardo, Mossad’s former Director, Avraham Burg, the former speaker of the Israeli parliament, renowned Israeli historian Benny Morris and more than 2,000 Israeli and American public figures who have signed a public statementdeclaring that “Palestinians live under a regime of apartheid”…turn a blind eye when murderous settlers rampage in Palestinian areas killing Palestinians at will…whistle in the wind while Israel’s authorities illegally evict Palestinians from the East Jerusalem neighbourhoods, where they lived for generations, to hand over their homes to people who just arrived in Israel for the first time…accept uncritically Israel’s declaration of war not against a state (since it has never allowed Palestinians to have one) but against an occupied people whom it has been terrorising for decades.Yes, these same people, who demand of us to condemn Hamas……demand that the Gazan Palestinians lay down their arms and return quietly back into the world’s largest open-air prison, to die slowly under siege surrounded by an ironclad army that has been starving them and shooting at them like fish in a barrel.So, let me be abundantly clear on this: Every loss of a human being, every severed limb, every blinded eye, even a broken finger is a tragedy for which we consider us, humanity as whole, to be responsible. So, let’s be properly responsible, shall we? Let’s embrace our responsibility. But what does this mean now? Does it mean parroting another condemnation of Hamas like that of our governments who did not even slap the wrist of the hand that has been strangling a nation thus brought to the brink of despair? Let us, DiEM25, propose what it means to be responsible now: It means to plug the spring of all this torrent of violence and pain: the never-ending Occupation and its Apartheid Apparatus. In this vein, DiEM25 has called both for an immediate ceasefire and the immediate commencement of a Peace Process under a UN mandate to end Apartheid and to secure security and free movement for all. Now, well-meaning people may disagree on what precise solution this Peace Process will reach, so complex is this tragedy. It may involve a two-state solution or, as is our preference, a single secular federal state with equal civil rights for everyone, or maybe a third alternative. What it cannot involve is the continuation of Occupation, the toleration of slow-burning ethnic cleansing through the medium of Apartheid or, indeed, the implied belief that the two peoples are condemned to hating and killing one another ad infinitum.13/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712581737887257044?s=20Israel killed all 1500 Hamas fighters that killed Israelis. More Palestinian civilians have already died than Israelis. Is this not the time to stop the bombings? No, says the ‘civilised’ West, it is time for thousands more coffins until Final Victory. Which means what exactly?https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712741442982978027?s=20When Palestinian fighters commit war crimes, the West/Press loses no time to speak of “acts of pure evil”. When the Israeli military commit war crimes, the West/Press describes them as “inevitable”, as Acts of God – like a Volcano erupting as is its wont, as its nature dictates.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712833938475954584?s=20Quote me in full please: I shall not condemn Hamas, nor the Israeli settlers killing Palestinians. I feel that we, Europeans and Americans, are responsible for these crimes by turning a blind eye for decades.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1712935715225452909?s=20Good & bad news for those who want to cancel me for my opposition to Israel’s Apartheid/Occupation: The good news is that I was cancelled in Vienna where, on Monday, I was to deliver the 2023 Otto Wagner 2023 Lecture, organised by IKA Institute for Art and Architecture (even though I had no intention to refer to the situation in Israel/Gaza). https://e-flux.com/announcements/560460/yanis-varoufakis/… The bad news, for you good people who want me cancelled, is that the organisers lacked the guts to admit that they were terrified of hosting me because of my opposition to Israel’s Apartheid/Occupation. They suggested that we all pretend the lecture was postponed until my new book is out in German. When I refused to participate in that lie, they cited “the current dramatically escalating, geopolitical situation”! The gist of it? Civilised Middle Europe recoils in horror when faced with a principled opposition to Israel’s Apartheid. And then, immediately afterwards, covers up its cowardice in lies.14/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1713274051123085541?s=20Lest we forget: There IS hope! The future of Peace rests on both sides embracing Peace and turning away from Violence. We rely on progressive Israelis to renounce Apartheid and progressive Palestinians to renounce antisemitism. The rest of us must help them along the way.https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1713297736794038415?s=20Correct: But purging antisemitism is what we must do for our own soul and clarity of purpose.15/10https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1713305253892759996?s=20As the bombs fall on Gaza and Palestinian flesh is torn apart… As Israelis grieve lost ones and fear for their future… let the rest of us press our governments to announce the World’s Demands: Ceasefire. Release of hostages. End of Apartheid. Equal Civil Liberties for All!https://x.com/yanisvaroufakis/status/1713307284992913526?s=20My message has always been crystal clear – and consistent. I shall never participate in ritualistic selective moral outrage along with those who strategically turn a blind eye to the source of all atrocities: Israel’s Apartheid.

The post Timeline of my tweets and interviews on Israel-Palestine since 7th October appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

List of war crimes and crimes qualifying as genocide committed by Israel in Gaza between 7th & 14th October 2023

Defenders of Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza have challenged me to offer a ‘chapter-and-verse’ list of war crimes that Israel has committed since the Hamas Offensive of 7th October. Here is an indicative, but not exhaustive, list. There is no doubt: Israel is investing in war crimes to effect its recapture and ethnic cleansing of Gaza while, at the same time, practising similar tactics in the West Bank and East Jerusalem Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – Genocide Article 6(c): Deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in partImposition of a complete siege of the Gaza Strip, totally depriving Gazans of electricity, food and fuel, and tightening even more the existing 16-year-old blockade thereof.Article 25(3)(c): For the purpose of facilitating the commission of such a crime, aids, abets or otherwise assists in its commission or its attempted commission, including providing the means for its commissionIsrael purchases 10,000 riffles for Israeli settlersArticle 25(3)(e): Directly and publicly Incites others to commit genocide“We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly” (Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant) War crimes – Grave breaches of the Wilful killings of the 1949 Geneva Conventions Article 8(2)(a)(i): Wilful killingIsrael’s targeting of the “Shaban family home, killing all six members, two parents and their children”.Article 8(2)(a)(ii); Torture and inhuman treatmentSevere psychological suffering inflicted on Palestinians who, every night, without electricity, fear for their life as bombings continue Article 8(2)(a)(iii): Wilfully causing great suffering and serious injury to body and healthCombined effect of the partial blockade, the total block of Gaza and the war on the mental health of children: “children who survive wars do not emerge unscathed and can pay a high price psychologically, emotionally, or behaviourally”, including “symptoms of anxiety, depression and trauma”. These traumas can go as far as “lack of interest in everyday life” and “nightmares are frequently experienced”, as well as bed-wetting. In 2022, concerns were raised on the ability of children to cope with this situation and the rising number of suicidal thoughts. While these patterns have been noticed and documented after the May 2021 Israeli military offensive against the Gaza Strip but before the one that arose on 7 October, they are still relevant for the purpose of this material. Indeed, this attack is far more devastating than the precedent, as the Palestinian death toll reaches now 1,900 Palestinians.Article 8(2)(a)(iv): Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonlyFrom 7 to 12 October 2023, “Israeli raids have destroyed thousands of housing units, and private and public properties”Article 8(2)(a)(vii): Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement423,00 Palestinians “forced to flee their homes in Gaza due to the continuous and heavy indiscriminate Israeli strikes”. Subsequently, on 13 October 2023, Israel ordered the evacuation of “1,1 million Palestinians in Gaza”. Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international lawArticle 8(2)(b)(i)): Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilitiesEntire families targeted and under the rubble: “[t]he Abou Dan family was holed up at home, in the Bureij camp in the center of the enclave. Everyone kept checking their phones to make sure that no message had been sent from the Israeli army telling them to evacuate their home. “There was no warning shot, no text message, nothing. All of a sudden, a bomb fell, then two,” said Ahmed Abou Dan over the phone”.Article 8(2)(b)(ii): Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectivesBetween 11 October midday and 12 October midday, “Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of airstrikes, destroying two houses in Beit Lahiya owned by the Nsair and Al-Bes families […]. They also targeted residential areas in Jabaliya, Al-Tawam, Al-Amoudi, and Al-Karama neighborhoods […].”Article 8(2)(b)(iii): Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflictAt least “12 UNRWA employees have been killed since the start of hostilities.”Article 8(2)(b)(iv): Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipatedFrom 11 October midday to 12 October midday, Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of airstrikes, alongside “intense shelling by filed artillery and naval vessels in Gaza District, targeting residential neighborhoods”, resulting in 78 Palestinians killed.Article 8(2)(b)(ix): Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives“The Israeli bombardment has rendered the Beit Hanoun hospital inoperative and damaged Al-Shifa hospital’s neonatal unit.”Article 8(2)(b)(xii): Declaring that no quarter will be given“[a]ll the places where Hamas is deployed, hiding in and operating from […] we will turn them into rubble. I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere”.Article 8(2)(b)(xiv): Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions in conformity with international law“Israel “directly targeted a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance in northern Gaza” on Wednesday, killing paramedics Khalil Al-Sharif, Yasser Al-Masri and Ahmed Dahman”Article 8(2)(b)(xviii): Employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devicesIsrael’s use of white phosphorus on 10 and 11 October 2023Article 8(2)(b)(xx): Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict, provided that such weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition and are included in an annex to this Statute, by an amendment in accordance with the relevant provisions set forth in articles 121 and 123Article 8(2)(b)(xxv): Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival“Imposing a total closure of the Strip amounts to a collective punishment of an unprecedented scale […]. All crossings between Gaza and Israel have been closed since Friday, 6 October. Since then, no people or goods have left or entered Gaza via Israel […].”War crimes are an everyday occurrence in the West Bank. From the Observer/Guardian: ‘They want revenge. They’re saying, either we die or you die’: West Bank residents fear rising tide of violence

Sky News, “Israel imposes ‘complete siege’ of Gaza Strip and calls up 300,000 troops”, 9 October 2023, available at: https://news.sky.com/story/israel-formally-declares-war-as-fighting-against-hamas-continues-in-at-least-eight-locations-12980754; Alice Speri, “Israel responds to Hamas Crimes by ordering mass war crimes in Gaza” (The Intercept), 9 October 2023, available at: https://theintercept.com/2023/10/09/israel-hamas-war-crimes-palestinians/, referring to Tom Dannenbaum, X, 9 October 2023, available at: https://twitter.com/tomdannenbaum/status/1711330192013095207.

Jeremy Sharon, “Ben Gvir says 10,000 assault rifles purchased for civilian security teams” (The Times of Israel), 10 October 2023, available at: https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-gvir-says-10000-assault-rifles-purchased-for-civilian-security-teams/.

Sky News, “Israel imposes ‘complete siege’ of Gaza Strip and calls up 300,000 troops”, 9 October 2023, available at: https://news.sky.com/story/israel-formally-declares-war-as-fighting-against-hamas-continues-in-at-least-eight-locations-12980754.

Al-Haq, “Palestinian Organizations Call from the International Community to Stop Israel’s Reprisal against Palestinian Civilians”, 8 October 2023, available: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21800.html.

The Guardian, “Gaza diary: ‘We survived another night. Every inch of my body aches- lack of sleep is torture’”, 13 October 2023, available at: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/oct/13/gaza-diary-we-survived-another-night-every-inch-of-my-body-aches-lack-of-sleep-is-torture.

Indlieb Farazi Saber, “How the Israel, blockade affect mental health of Palestinian children” (Al-Jazeera), 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/how-the-israel-war-blockade-affects-mental-health-of-palestinian-children.

Indlieb Farazi Saber, “How the Israel, blockade affect mental health of Palestinian children” (Al-Jazeera), 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/how-the-israel-war-blockade-affects-mental-health-of-palestinian-children.

Save the Children, “Trapped: The impact of 15 years of blockage on the mental health of Gaza’s children’, p.18, 22, available at https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/document/trapped-the-impact-of-15-years-of-blockade-on-the-mental-health-of-gazas-children/.

Al-Haq, “Urgent Action: Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Call on Third States to Urgently Intervene to Protect the Palestinian People Against Genocide”, 13 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21898.html.

Al-Haq, “Days 5-6: Following Genocidal Statements, Israel Escalates Attacks on Gaza’s Civilian Population Through Killing, Starvation and Cutting Off Vital Supplies”, 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21877.html.

Al-Haq, “Urgent: Israel’s Evacuation Order to 1,1 Million Palestinians in Gaza is Direct Forcible Transfer, Urgent Intervention is Needed”, 13 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21896.html.

Clothilde Mraffko, “In Gaza, entire families destroyed by Israeli bombing: “My son, my niece and another child are still under the rubble’ (Le Monde), 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/10/12/in-gaza-entire-families-destroyed-by-israeli-bombing-my-son-my-niece-and-another-child-are-still-under-the-rubble_6167251_4.html.

Al-Haq, “Days 5-6: Following Genocidal Statements, Israel Escalates Attacks on Gaza’s Civilian Population Through Killing, Starvation and Cutting Off Vital Supplies”, 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21877.html.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel-Flash update #7”, 13 October 2023, available at: https://ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-7.

Al-Haq, “Days 5-6: Following Genocidal Statements, Israel Escalates Attacks on Gaza’s Civilian Population Through Killing, Starvation and Cutting Off Vital Supplies”, 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21877.html.

France 24, “Gaza hospitals overwhelmed by air strikes and siege: doctors”, 10 October 2023, available at: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231010-gaza-hospitals-overwhelmed-by-air-strikes-and-siege-doctors.

Prime Minister of Israel, X, 7 October 2023, available at: Prime Minister of Israel sur X : “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening: “This morning, on Shabbat and a holiday, Hamas invaded Israeli territory and murdered innocent citizens including children and the elderly. Hamas has started a brutal and evil war.” https://t.co/ckPXuXNHk0″ / X (twitter.com).

Abeer Salman, Kareem Khadder and Ruba Alhenawi, “4 Palestinian paramedics killed Wenesday in strikes and shelling on Gaza” (CNN), 11 October 2023, available at: https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-10-11-23/h_b44251fc62ee96a79fcdb942c6aaad97.

Human Rights Watch, “Israel: White Phosphorus Used in Gaza, Lebanon”, 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/12/israel-white-phosphorus-used-gaza-lebanon.

Al-Haq, “Urgent: Israel Announces Total Warfare on Gaza’s Civilian Population, Employing Starvation as a Weapon”, 9 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21830.html.

The post List of war crimes and crimes qualifying as genocide committed by Israel in Gaza between 7th & 14th October 2023 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

List of war crimes and crimes qualifying as genocide committed by Israel in Gaza since 7th October 2023

Defenders of Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza have challenged me to offer a ‘chapter-and-verse’ list of war crimes that Israel has committed since the Hamas Offensive of 7th October. Here is an indicative, but not exhaustive, list. There is no doubt: Israel is investing in war crimes to effect its recapture and ethnic cleansing of Gaza while, at the same time, practising similar tactics in the West Bank and East Jerusalem Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court – Genocide Article 6(c): Deliberately inflicting on a group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in partImposition of a complete siege of the Gaza Strip, totally depriving Gazans of electricity, food and fuel, and tightening even more the existing 16-year-old blockade thereof.Article 25(3)(c): For the purpose of facilitating the commission of such a crime, aids, abets or otherwise assists in its commission or its attempted commission, including providing the means for its commissionIsrael purchases 10,000 riffles for Israeli settlersArticle 25(3)(e): Directly and publicly Incites others to commit genocide“We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly” (Israel’s Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant) War crimes – Grave breaches of the Wilful killings of the 1949 Geneva Conventions Article 8(2)(a)(i): Wilful killingIsrael’s targeting of the “Shaban family home, killing all six members, two parents and their children”.Article 8(2)(a)(ii); Torture and inhuman treatmentSevere psychological suffering inflicted on Palestinians who, every night, without electricity, fear for their life as bombings continue Article 8(2)(a)(iii): Wilfully causing great suffering and serious injury to body and healthCombined effect of the partial blockade, the total block of Gaza and the war on the mental health of children: “children who survive wars do not emerge unscathed and can pay a high price psychologically, emotionally, or behaviourally”, including “symptoms of anxiety, depression and trauma”. These traumas can go as far as “lack of interest in everyday life” and “nightmares are frequently experienced”, as well as bed-wetting. In 2022, concerns were raised on the ability of children to cope with this situation and the rising number of suicidal thoughts. While these patterns have been noticed and documented after the May 2021 Israeli military offensive against the Gaza Strip but before the one that arose on 7 October, they are still relevant for the purpose of this material. Indeed, this attack is far more devastating than the precedent, as the Palestinian death toll reaches now 1,900 Palestinians.Article 8(2)(a)(iv): Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonlyFrom 7 to 12 October 2023, “Israeli raids have destroyed thousands of housing units, and private and public properties”Article 8(2)(a)(vii): Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement423,00 Palestinians “forced to flee their homes in Gaza due to the continuous and heavy indiscriminate Israeli strikes”. Subsequently, on 13 October 2023, Israel ordered the evacuation of “1,1 million Palestinians in Gaza”. Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international lawArticle 8(2)(b)(i)): Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilitiesEntire families targeted and under the rubble: “[t]he Abou Dan family was holed up at home, in the Bureij camp in the center of the enclave. Everyone kept checking their phones to make sure that no message had been sent from the Israeli army telling them to evacuate their home. “There was no warning shot, no text message, nothing. All of a sudden, a bomb fell, then two,” said Ahmed Abou Dan over the phone”.Article 8(2)(b)(ii): Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectivesBetween 11 October midday and 12 October midday, “Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of airstrikes, destroying two houses in Beit Lahiya owned by the Nsair and Al-Bes families […]. They also targeted residential areas in Jabaliya, Al-Tawam, Al-Amoudi, and Al-Karama neighborhoods […].”Article 8(2)(b)(iii): Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international law of armed conflictAt least “12 UNRWA employees have been killed since the start of hostilities.”Article 8(2)(b)(iv): Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipatedFrom 11 October midday to 12 October midday, Israeli warplanes carried out dozens of airstrikes, alongside “intense shelling by filed artillery and naval vessels in Gaza District, targeting residential neighborhoods”, resulting in 78 Palestinians killed.Article 8(2)(b)(ix): Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not military objectives“The Israeli bombardment has rendered the Beit Hanoun hospital inoperative and damaged Al-Shifa hospital’s neonatal unit.”Article 8(2)(b)(xii): Declaring that no quarter will be given“[a]ll the places where Hamas is deployed, hiding in and operating from […] we will turn them into rubble. I say to the residents of Gaza: Leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere”.Article 8(2)(b)(xiv): Intentionally directing attacks against buildings, material, medical units and transport, and personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions in conformity with international law“Israel “directly targeted a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance in northern Gaza” on Wednesday, killing paramedics Khalil Al-Sharif, Yasser Al-Masri and Ahmed Dahman”Article 8(2)(b)(xviii): Employing asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials or devicesIsrael’s use of white phosphorus on 10 and 11 October 2023Article 8(2)(b)(xx): Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict, provided that such weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition and are included in an annex to this Statute, by an amendment in accordance with the relevant provisions set forth in articles 121 and 123Article 8(2)(b)(xxv): Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival“Imposing a total closure of the Strip amounts to a collective punishment of an unprecedented scale […]. All crossings between Gaza and Israel have been closed since Friday, 6 October. Since then, no people or goods have left or entered Gaza via Israel […].”

Sky News, “Israel imposes ‘complete siege’ of Gaza Strip and calls up 300,000 troops”, 9 October 2023, available at: https://news.sky.com/story/israel-formally-declares-war-as-fighting-against-hamas-continues-in-at-least-eight-locations-12980754; Alice Speri, “Israel responds to Hamas Crimes by ordering mass war crimes in Gaza” (The Intercept), 9 October 2023, available at: https://theintercept.com/2023/10/09/israel-hamas-war-crimes-palestinians/, referring to Tom Dannenbaum, X, 9 October 2023, available at: https://twitter.com/tomdannenbaum/status/1711330192013095207.

Jeremy Sharon, “Ben Gvir says 10,000 assault rifles purchased for civilian security teams” (The Times of Israel), 10 October 2023, available at: https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-gvir-says-10000-assault-rifles-purchased-for-civilian-security-teams/.

Sky News, “Israel imposes ‘complete siege’ of Gaza Strip and calls up 300,000 troops”, 9 October 2023, available at: https://news.sky.com/story/israel-formally-declares-war-as-fighting-against-hamas-continues-in-at-least-eight-locations-12980754.

Al-Haq, “Palestinian Organizations Call from the International Community to Stop Israel’s Reprisal against Palestinian Civilians”, 8 October 2023, available: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21800.html.

The Guardian, “Gaza diary: ‘We survived another night. Every inch of my body aches- lack of sleep is torture’”, 13 October 2023, available at: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/oct/13/gaza-diary-we-survived-another-night-every-inch-of-my-body-aches-lack-of-sleep-is-torture.

Indlieb Farazi Saber, “How the Israel, blockade affect mental health of Palestinian children” (Al-Jazeera), 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/how-the-israel-war-blockade-affects-mental-health-of-palestinian-children.

Indlieb Farazi Saber, “How the Israel, blockade affect mental health of Palestinian children” (Al-Jazeera), 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/how-the-israel-war-blockade-affects-mental-health-of-palestinian-children.

Save the Children, “Trapped: The impact of 15 years of blockage on the mental health of Gaza’s children’, p.18, 22, available at https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/document/trapped-the-impact-of-15-years-of-blockade-on-the-mental-health-of-gazas-children/.

Al-Haq, “Urgent Action: Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Call on Third States to Urgently Intervene to Protect the Palestinian People Against Genocide”, 13 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21898.html.

Al-Haq, “Days 5-6: Following Genocidal Statements, Israel Escalates Attacks on Gaza’s Civilian Population Through Killing, Starvation and Cutting Off Vital Supplies”, 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21877.html.

Al-Haq, “Urgent: Israel’s Evacuation Order to 1,1 Million Palestinians in Gaza is Direct Forcible Transfer, Urgent Intervention is Needed”, 13 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21896.html.

Clothilde Mraffko, “In Gaza, entire families destroyed by Israeli bombing: “My son, my niece and another child are still under the rubble’ (Le Monde), 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/10/12/in-gaza-entire-families-destroyed-by-israeli-bombing-my-son-my-niece-and-another-child-are-still-under-the-rubble_6167251_4.html.

Al-Haq, “Days 5-6: Following Genocidal Statements, Israel Escalates Attacks on Gaza’s Civilian Population Through Killing, Starvation and Cutting Off Vital Supplies”, 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21877.html.

United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, “Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel-Flash update #7”, 13 October 2023, available at: https://ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-7.

Al-Haq, “Days 5-6: Following Genocidal Statements, Israel Escalates Attacks on Gaza’s Civilian Population Through Killing, Starvation and Cutting Off Vital Supplies”, 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21877.html.

France 24, “Gaza hospitals overwhelmed by air strikes and siege: doctors”, 10 October 2023, available at: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231010-gaza-hospitals-overwhelmed-by-air-strikes-and-siege-doctors.

Prime Minister of Israel, X, 7 October 2023, available at: Prime Minister of Israel sur X : “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, this evening: “This morning, on Shabbat and a holiday, Hamas invaded Israeli territory and murdered innocent citizens including children and the elderly. Hamas has started a brutal and evil war.” https://t.co/ckPXuXNHk0″ / X (twitter.com).

Abeer Salman, Kareem Khadder and Ruba Alhenawi, “4 Palestinian paramedics killed Wenesday in strikes and shelling on Gaza” (CNN), 11 October 2023, available at: https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-10-11-23/h_b44251fc62ee96a79fcdb942c6aaad97.

Human Rights Watch, “Israel: White Phosphorus Used in Gaza, Lebanon”, 12 October 2023, available at: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/12/israel-white-phosphorus-used-gaza-lebanon.

Al-Haq, “Urgent: Israel Announces Total Warfare on Gaza’s Civilian Population, Employing Starvation as a Weapon”, 9 October 2023, available at: https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21830.html.

The post List of war crimes and crimes qualifying as genocide committed by Israel in Gaza since 7th October 2023 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Τα τρία πλούσια δώρα της Κριστίν Λαγκάρντ στην Ακροδεξιά – NEWS24|7

Την πρόσφατη αναβίωση της Ακροδεξιάς σε όλη την Ευρώπη δεν την προκάλεσαν οι τρεις μεγάλες γκάφες της Κριστίν Λαγκάρντ, από τότε που ανέλαβε Προέδρος της Ευρωπαϊκής Κεντρικής Τράπεζας. Όμως, την ενίσχυσαν τα μέγιστα!Η πρώτη γκάφα της Λαγκάρντ ήρθε νωρίς στην θητεία της στην ΕΚΤ και κόστισε στην Ιταλία δισεκατομμύρια και στην ΕΚΤ σημαντικό μέρος της «αξιοπιστίας» της ως στήριγμα του σαθρού ευρώ που ο Μάριο Ντράγκι, ο προκάτοχος της Λαγκάρντ, είχε εργαστεί τόσο σκληρά να εξασφαλίσει.Ήταν Μάρτιος του 2020. Υπό το άγχος που προκαλούσε εκείνες τις μέρες το οικονομικό έμφραγμα λόγω πανδημίας, οι χρηματαγορές βρίσκονταν σε πανικό, ιδίως όσον αφορούσε την φερεγγυότητα της Ιταλίας, μιας χώρας με γιγαντιαία χρέη χωρίς δική της κεντρική τράπεζα για να τυπώνει χρήμα με τον τρόπο που τυπώνουν κατά το δοκούνεκ μέρους των κυβερνήσεών τους η Ομοσπονδιακή Τράπεζα των ΗΠΑ, η Τράπεζα της Ιαπωνίας, ακόμη και η Τράπεζα της Αγγλίας.Όταν σε προγραμματισμένη συνέντευξη Τύπου ρωτήθηκε αν η ΕΚΤ θα στηρίξει το χρέος της Ιταλίας για να περιορίσει τα spreads των επιτοκίων (τη διαφορά στο κόστος δανεισμού μεταξύ των κυβερνήσεων των κρατών-μελών) εντός της ευρωζώνης, η Λαγκάρνταρνήθηκε να επαναλάβει την περίφημη υπόσχεση του Ντράγκι ότι θα κάνει «ό,τι χρειαστεί». Αντ’ αυτού,  έκανε ακριβώς το αντίθετο , δηλώνοντας: «Δεν είμαστε εδώ για να κλείσουμε τα spreads». Μέσα σε λίγα δευτερόλεπτα, το κόστος εξυπηρέτησης του χρέους της Ιταλίας, ιδιωτικού και δημόσιου, εκτινάχθηκε στα ύψη. Ηυπό τον Ντράγκι ιταλική κυβέρνηση βρέθηκε ξαφνικά σε κατάσταση αποπληξίας. Μόνο η ακροδεξιά ΤζόρτζιαΜελόνι, η οποία έκτοτε σκαρφάλωσε στην πρωθυπουργία, ενθουσιάστηκε.Remaining Time-0:34FullscreenUnmuteΗ δεύτερη γκάφα ήταν λιγότερο ηχηρή, αλλά έχει βαθύτερες και πιο μακροχρόνιες επιπτώσεις. Από το κραχ του 2008 κι ύστερα, η ΕΚΤ στέλνειβουνάφρεσκοκομμένων ευρώ στις μονίμως εύθραυστες τράπεζες της Ευρώπης με την ελπίδα ότι αυτές θα τα δανείσουν στις επιχειρήσεις – ιδίως τις μικρομεσαίες – και έτσι θα αναζωογονήσουν την παραπαίουσα ευρωπαϊκή οικονομία. Όταν τα επίσημα επιτόκια ήταν  αρνητικά , η ΕΚΤ ουσιαστικά πλήρωνε τους τραπεζίτες για να αποδέχονται εκατοντάδες δισεκατομμύρια ευρώ στους λογαριασμούς τους στην ΕΚΤ. Εκείνοι, αντί να δανείζουν αυτά τα χρήματα στους μικρομεσαίους, τα κρατούσαν σε αυτούς τους λογαριασμούς τους στην ΕΚΤ και  συνέχιζαν να εισπράττουν  τα ποσά που τους πλήρωνε η ΕΚΤ με τη μορφή αρνητικών επιτοκίων.Κι από τότε που ο πληθωρισμός επέστρεψε δυναμικά, και τα επιτόκια έγιναν θετικά και υψηλά, οι ίδιοι τραπεζίτες παρκάρουν δισεκατομμύρια ευρώ των καταθετών τους στους λογαριασμούς τους στην ΕΚΤ για να εισπράξουν τους υψηλούς τόκους της, ενώ συνεχίζουν να πληρώνουν στους καταθέτες τους ψίχουλα τόκων. Κι η Λαγκάρντ; Πως αντέδρασε σε αυτό το διαχρονικό αλισβερίσι; Αντί να χρησιμοποιήσει τις εξουσίες της ΕΚΤ για να βάλει στη θέση τους τους αθεόφοβους τραπεζίτες, έκανε τα στραβά μάτια αφήνοντάς τους ελεύθερους να πλουτίζουν παρασιτικά και ιδίως εις βάρος των μικρομεσαίων.Για άλλη μια φορά, η ΕΚΤ της κας Λαγκάρντ είχε κάνει ένα τεράστιο δώρο στην Ακροδεξιά. Ιδίως στην Ιταλία, όπου οι διαχρονικά ανόητες πολιτικές της ευρωζώνης έφεραν την Ακροδεξιά στην κυβέρνηση, αυτή η ελέω ΕΚΤ ασυδοσία των τραπεζιτών έδωσε στην Μελόνι το πάτημα να επωφεληθεί πολιτικά επιβάλλοντας έκτακτο φόρο στους τραπεζίτες και, έτσι, να εμφανιστεί ως προστάτης των αδύναμων – ένα δώρο ολκής για τους νεοφασίστες. Και σα να μην έφτανε αυτό, Λαγκάρντκαι ΕΚΤ αντέδρασαν στον εύλογο αυτόν φόρο  παίρνοντας το μέρος  των… τραπεζιτών. Δεν μπορώ να φανταστώ αποτελεσματικότερο τρόπο για να ενισχυθεί η απήχηση της Ακροδεξιάς στην Ιταλία κι όχι μόνο!Η τρίτη γκάφα της Λαγκάρντ ήταν η απελπιστικά καθυστερημένη αντίδρασή της στο φούντωμα του πληθωρισμού – απόρροια βέβαια μιας μακράς παράδοσης της ΕΚΤ στις καταστροφικές οικονομικές προβλέψεις. Για να είμαστε δίκαιοι, κι επί Ντράγκι οι «αναλυτές» της ΕΚΤ τα έκαναν συστηματικά μούσκεμα όταν επρόκειτο να προβλέψουν την ύφεση, τον πληθωρισμό κλπ (Σημ. Ποιος ξεχνά τις γελοίες προβλέψεις τους για το ελληνικό ΑΕΠ, χρέος κλπ;). Μάλιστα, σε όλη την περίοδο της προεδρίας Ντράγκι στην ΕΚΤ η κεντρική τράπεζα της ευρωζώνης αποτύγχανε εντυπωσιακά να επιτύχει τον στόχο πληθωρισμού (στο 2% ή λίγο πιο κάτω). Όμως, τότε, ο δράκος που ο Ντράγκι αποτύγχανε να θανατώσει δεν ήταν ο πληθωρισμός αλλά ο αποπληθωρισμός – ο αρνητικός ή πολύ χαμηλός πληθωρισμόςο οποίος τον ανάγκασε να μειώσει τα επιτόκια πρώτα στο μηδέν και στη συνέχεια στο μείον 0,7%.Αυτά τα αρνητικά επιτόκια έκαναν τον Ντράγκι αντικείμενο μίσους μεταξύ των γερμανών μικροαστών αποταμιευτών, ιδίως της παροιμιώδους «νοικοκυράς» στην οποία αναφερόταν μονότονα ως υπόδειγμα χρηστής οικονομικής διαχείρισης η Άγκελα Μέρκελ. Παρόλα αυτά, οι περισσότεροι εργαζόμενοι στη Γερμανία, και όχι μόνο, δεν έδωσαν ιδιαίτερη σημασία καθώς είχα νελάχιστες αποταμιεύσεις ενώ οι πραγματικοί (προσαρμοσμένοι στον πληθωρισμό) μισθοί τους δεν είχαν πληγεί από τον αποπληθωρισμό.Όλα αυτά άλλαξαν επί Λαγκάρντ όταν ο πληθωρισμός έγινε θετικός και μάλιστα υψηλότατος. Σε αντίθεση με τον αποπληθωρισμό, ο πληθωρισμός πλήττει ολόκληρο τον πληθυσμό, τόσο τους εργαζόμενους όσο τα νοικοκυριά της μεσαίας τάξης που αγωνίζονται να τα βγάλουν πέρα. Kεντρικός τραπεζίτης που αποτυγχάνει να τον προβλέψει έχει επομένως εξασφαλισμένη την αποδοκιμασία από όλα τα κοινωνικά στρώματα. Το είδαμε αυτό στη δεκαετία του 1970, το βλέπουμε και τώρα – μόνο που αυτή τη φορά είναι ακόμη χειρότερο.Στη δεκαετία του 1970, τα συνδικάτα ήταν αρκετά ισχυρά ώστε να ανακτούν, σε μεγάλο βαθμό, τις απώλειες των εργαζομένων λόγω του πληθωρισμού μέσω μισθολογικών αυξήσεων. Επιπλέον, δεδομένου ότι η συμμετοχή των γυναικών στην αγορά εργασίας ήταν ακόμη χαμηλή, οι λαϊκές οικογένειες κατάφερναν να διατηρήσουν το βιοτικό τους επίπεδο χάρη στην είσοδο των γυναικών στο εργατικό δυναμικό.Σήμερα, αντίθετα, τα συνδικάτα είναι σκιά του παλιού τους εαυτού και οι περισσότερες γυναίκες είναι ήδη μισθωτές. Η ανεργία μπορεί να είναι χαμηλή, αλλά καθώς οι τιμές συνέχισαν να αυξάνονται τα τελευταία δύο χρόνια, η αγοραστική δύναμη του μέσου νοικοκυριού της εργατικής τάξης έχει υποστεί χτύπημα πολύ μεγαλύτερο εκείνου της δεκαετίας του 1970.Υπό αυτή την έννοια, ο Ντράγκι ήταν τυχερός, τουλάχιστον σε σύγκριση με τη Λαγκάρντ. Τα εργαλεία του (κυρίως το τύπωμα δισεκατομμυρίων για την αγορά ευρωζωνικού χρέους) λειτούργησαν σε συνθήκες αποπληθωρισμού, τουλάχιστον στον βαθμό που συγκάλυψαν την χρεοκοπία κρατών και εταιρειών. Ο λόγος που το Βερολίνο του επέτρεψε αυτά τα εργαλεία ήταν πως, όταν οι μέσες τιμές έπεφταν, η ΕΚΤ του Ντράγκι μπορούσε να προσποιηθεί ότι ο στόχος της απεριόριστης εκτύπωσης χρήματος δεν ήταν να σώσει την Ιταλία (κάτι που απαγορεύει επίσημα το καταστατικό της ΕΚΤ)αλλά να διασφαλίσει ότι τα χαμηλά (συχνά αρνητικά) επιτόκια θα έφταναν σε κάθε μέρος της ευρωζώνης.Η τύχη της Λαγκάρντ εξαντλήθηκε νωρίς στη θητεία της, όταν τα μποτιλιαρίσματα της αλυσίδας εφοδιασμού που προκλήθηκαν από την πανδημία προκάλεσαν πληθωρισμό, τον οποίο αργότερα ο Βλαντίμιρ Πούτιν ενίσχυσε εισβάλλοντας στην Ουκρανία και προκαλώντας τον γνωστό σε όλους εφιαλτικό πληθωρισμό κόστους ενέργειας. Σύντομα, η Λαγκάρντ βρέθηκε αντιμέτωπη με το σκληρό δίλημμα: Να διατηρήσει τα επιτόκια κάτω από το 5%, αφήνοντας έτσι τον πληθωρισμό να της ξεφύγει και, άθελά της, να τροφοδοτήσει με επιχειρήματα και ερείσματα το ακροδεξιό ευρωσκεπτικιστικό κόμμα της γερμανικής αντιπολίτευσης, AlternativefürDeutschland (AfD); Ή, να αυξήσει τα επιτόκια σε επίπεδα που θα κατέπνιγαν μεν τον πληθωρισμό αλλά την ίδια ώρα θα χρεοκοπούσαν την Ιταλία και πολλές ευρωπαϊκές τράπεζες και επιχειρήσεις; Δεν ξαφνιάστηκε κανείς από την επιλογή της Λαγκάρντνα καθυστερήσει την αύξηση των επιτοκίων, μια επιλογή που με μαθηματική ακρίβεια θα οδηγούσε στην ενίσχυση της γερμανικής Ακροδεξιάς.Θα μπορούσε η Λαγκάρντ να είχε κάνει κάτι διαφορετικό; Όπως υποστηρίζαμε από το 2019 το  ΜέΡΑ25 , και το DiEM25 πανευρωπαϊκά, αλλά κι εγώ  προσωπικά , ναι, και βέβαια μπορούσε! Θα μπορούσε, παραδείγματος χάριν, να είχε ακολουθήσει την εξής διττή πολιτική. Από τη μία, να αυξήσει τα επιτόκια γρήγορα στο 3% ώστε να ξεφουσκώσει η φούσκα της αγοράς ακινήτων και να μην επιτραπεί στον πληθωρισμό να ξεπεράσει το 6% (με αποτέλεσμα να αναγκαστεί, αργότερα, να ανεβάσει τα επιτόκια πάνω από το 4%). Και, από την άλλη, έτσι ώστε και  να ενισχυθούν οι επενδύσεις  (ιδίως στην πράσινη ενέργεια) και να μην καταρρεύσει το Ιταλικό κράτος, να αγοράζει (ή ακόμα και να εξαγγείλει ότι θα αγοράζει) ομόλογα της Ευρωπαϊκής Τράπεζας Επενδύσεων (με τα έσοδα να πηγαίνουν αποκλειστικά για τη χρηματοδότηση της πράσινης τεχνολογίας) και των μελών-κρατών. Αντ’ αυτού, η Λαγκάρντ σπατάλησε την ενέργειά της και το πολιτικό της κεφάλαιο σε άνευ σημασίας αξιολογήσεις της οικολογικής και κοινωνικής «ορθότητας»των τίτλων χρέους που αποδέχεται η ΕΚΤ από τις τράπεζες ως εχέγγυα (π.χ. τις ψευτοδεσμεύσεις τύπου ψεύτικες δεσμεύσεις ESG, δηλαδή “περιβαλλοντικής & κοινωνικής, διακυβέρνησης”) – κινήσεις, δηλαδή, που  δεν κάνουν απολύτως τίποτα  για να βοηθήσουν τις επενδύσεις γενικότερα και την πράσιμη μετάβαση ειδικότερα.Επιπλέον, αντί να υποστηρίξει αλλαγές στις ευρωπαϊκές Συνθήκες που θα γλίτωναν την ΕΚΤ από το να πρέπει πάντα να διατηρεί τα κράτη-μέλη φερέγγυα (παραβιάζοντας το ίδιο της το καταστατικό), η Λαγκάρντ αναλώθηκε σε  άστοχες ομιλίες στις οποίεςαποδεικνύει ότι δεν κατανοεί τον ρόλο του δολαρίου προϊδεάζοντας για την δήθεν επικείμενη αντικατάσταση του δολαρίου ως παγκόσμιου αποθεματικού νομίσματος.Και τώρα; Το σπάνιο μείγμα ανικανότητας και έπαρσης της Κριστίν Λαγκάρντ βοήθησε στην αναζωογόνηση της πολιτικής τύχης του AfD στη Γερμανία, της Μελόνι στην Ιταλία, του φασιστικούVox στην Ισπανία, για να μην αναφερθώ στα δικά μας φασιστοειδή τόσο εντός της κυβέρνησης Μητσοτάκη όσο και εκτός (που, δυστυχώς, εκπροσωπούνται πλέον στη Βουλή μας). Το μόνο που μπορούμε να κάνουμε τώρα είναι να ελπίζουμε ότι, εν όψει ευρωεκλογών, η ανικανότητατων ίδιων των ακροδεξιών δεν θα τους επιτρέψει να εκμεταλλευτούν πλήρως τα πλούσια δώρα της Λαγκάρντ.

Το πιο πάνω άρθρο αποτελεί απόδοση  της  μηνιαίας στήλης  του Γιάνη Βαρουφάκη στο Project Syndicate

Για την σελίδα του NEWS24|7 πατήστε εδώ.

The post Τα τρία πλούσια δώρα της Κριστίν Λαγκάρντ στην Ακροδεξιά – NEWS24|7 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Interviewed by Aaron Bastani, for Novara Media, on my TECHNOFEUDALISM

In his new book, ‘Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism’, Yanis Varoufakis explores how giant tech firms, both in the US and China are expanding their control over the planet. His analysis is that, whilst material resources certainly matter, the real battle ground is over digital real estate. Aaron sat down with Yanis to talk about how Europe’s power has faded, Elon Musk’s wet dreams and why the US is really afraid of China. Technofeudalism is available on Penguin Books. Novara Live broadcasts every weekday from 6PM on YouTube and Twitch. Episodes of Downstream are released Sundays at 6PM on YouTube. __________________________ Can you help fund people-powered media? To be ready for next year, we need 5,000 of you to join our regular supporters and back our work. Donate one hour’s wage per month, or whatever you can afford at http://novara.media/support today.

The post Interviewed by Aaron Bastani, for Novara Media, on my TECHNOFEUDALISM appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

The NEW STATESMAN reviews my TECHNOFEUDALISM

Socialists periodically predict the downfall of capitalism, but each decade the coffin remains empty. In his new book, Yanis Varoufakis – the former Greek finance minister, game theorist and “erratic Marxist” – offers a twist on this familiar narrative. Capitalism, he writes, has already died – we just failed to notice.

By George Eaton

“It does demonstrate the failure of the left because we used to think that organised labour would overthrow capitalism,” Varoufakis, 62, told me when we met recently in central London. “But it turned out that it was another artefact of capitalism that overthrew it – and that’s capitalism itself.”“Technofeudalism”, as the title of Varoufakis’s sixth book has it, is now the defining economic system. Digital hegemons such as Google and Amazon have eroded two of the distinctive features of capitalism: profit and markets.“After 2008, the role of profit was replaced by central bank money [through quantitative easing] and rents; that’s not capitalism as we understood it,” he said.“And the markets were displaced by digital platforms. Now, many people such as [the left intellectual] Evgeny Morozov and Shoshana Zuboff consider companies such as Amazon to be examples of monopoly capitalism. But I don’t: a company is not a market. If you walk into Google as an employee, the moment you step in you leave the market. You enter a Soviet-like Gosplan with better pastel colours and better food. It is a hierarchical, centrally planned operation.”

Photographed for the New Statesman by Charlie Forgham-Bailey

In this new world, humans have been reduced to “cloud serfs” – freely creating value for tech companies by tweeting and posting – while others labour as “cloud proles” in sometimes dystopian conditions. But what of the capitalist riposte that Google and Amazon simply make people’s lives easier? During the Covid-19 pandemic, the latter became the West’s supermarket.“When I was in my early teens there were two books that scared the living wits out of me: Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World,” Varoufakis replied. “And I was more scared by Huxley than I was by Orwell because the slaves are happy in his book. They don’t need to be surveilled. A servitude that is volunteered to is more scary.”Events in Varoufakis’s home country have only deepened his intellectual pessimism. In March he was attacked outside a restaurant in Athens by a gang of seven, who accused him of approving Greece’s bailouts, leaving his nose broken in six places. The police, he believes, were “complicit”.“Firstly, we now have CCTV. These seven thugs dissolved through the ranks of 20-30 policemen who were nearby. But that’s not the main thing: I was never called to identify them [the attackers], not me, not my wife, not the people who were witnesses.“The police offered to post themselves outside my apartment and I said absolutely not. I wouldn’t trust them.”At the recent Greek general election, the conservative New Democracy won a majority of seats while the left was vanquished. Syriza, Varoufakis’s former party, was left with just 47 seats, while his current party MeRA25 was left with none (having previously held nine).Varoufakis traces the right’s resurgence back to Syriza’s decision to ignore the 2015 bailout referendum result, in which the Greek people refused to accept EU austerity – the act that prompted his resignation as finance minister. “After eight years of this, the vast majority of people don’t care as to who was right and who was wrong. Was [the then Greek prime minister and leader of Syriza, Alexis] Tsipras, was I right? Am I right in saying that he surrendered and betrayed? Is he right in saying that he behaved responsibly? They don’t care, they look at both of us and say ‘bugger off. You gave us hope and then you dashed that hope.’”Syriza, which originated as a radical left party, is now led by Stefanos Kasselakis, a shipping executive and former Goldman Sachs trader. “It’s worse than New Labour, it’s closer to the Democrats… I know nothing about him, I’d never heard of him till August; nobody had heard of him. He comes along with one video on YouTube and he wins. That’s when politics becomes depoliticised as a result of the failure of the left to keep it political.”It is not only in Greece that the left is becalmed. In Germany, the Social Democrats are polling behind the hard-right Alternative for Germany. In France, the left has failed to profit from Emmanuel Macron’s woes, while in its traditional Nordic heartland, the centre left has lost office in Sweden and Finland.“The left has gone to ground,” said Varoufakis. “We are fighting over how to define a woman, which is irrelevant to people who can’t put food on the table or pay their electricity bills. We’ve lost support among the working class, the equivalent of your Red Wall in northern England.”But Varoufakis is still more withering about the US Democratic Party. “The Democratic establishment are doing everything they can to re-elect Donald Trump, everything. These indictments, one after the other, the weaponisation of the legal system, they are a major contribution to his campaign… It is not clever politics.”What does Varoufakis believe a second Trump presidency would mean for the world?“It will be terrible for the United States. It will be terrible for women. It will be terrible for blacks, for Latinos, for the working class. Even the ones who vote for him are going to suffer as a result of him being president. But it may not be such a terrible thing for the rest of the world – because he doesn’t care about the rest of the world.“He may not be so gung-ho about pursuing the Cold War [with China], which he started but was not going to escalate. Joe Biden escalated it in a reckless manner. And also I have this view that the West is committing a major crime against itself and the people of Ukraine by not having a strategy for ending the war in Ukraine. Trump may have an endgame, for all the wrong reasons. Sometimes bastards do the right thing for the wrong reasons.”Varoufakis, who was a champion of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership – and reputedly persuaded him to back Remain in 2016 – draws no such consolation from Keir Starmer’s likely election. “Starmer is becoming a figment of our imagination. He flip-flops all the time, he never comes up with a statement that has a beginning, a middle and an end, a commitment that can be checked against his future deeds.“Tony Blair, could have been excused back in the Nineties because at least there was a sample of zero about the possibility that you could cosy up to the Davos crowd and do something good for the majority in Britain. Now we know it doesn’t work.”Yanis Varoufakis, once one of Europe’s most prominent politicians, is now exiled from his country’s parliament, while across the continent his socialist allies are marooned. In these circumstances, what still gives him hope?“Hope itself. Hope is a duty, it is my religion. Hope is that which you must have without any empirical evidence. That’s why I always make the distinction between hope and optimism: optimism is for idiots but hope we have a duty to have. In the same way that Christians have faith, I have hope.”

“Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism” is out now with Penguin – Bodley Head.

For the New Stateman’s site, click here.

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