| 0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
Did you hear the big news? Zeteo is expanding our political coverage – all thanks to you! Beginning this fall, we’re launching a new morning political newsletter. As Semafor wrote in its scoop last night, we’re taking on the likes of Politico, Axios and others who have dominated the morning news market for so long with bland, centrist takes. We’ve also got a new Senior Political Correspondent joining Prem Thakker, our award-winning political correspondent who you all know and love, along with a new Senior Politics Editor, and also a breaking news reporter to be announced very soon. Asawin “Swin” Suebsaeng, who joins Zeteo as our new senior political correspondent, after serving as senior political reporter at Rolling Stone and before that The Daily Beast, is an expert on covering the biggest threat to US democracy right now, Donald Trump and the GOP. Swin wrote the book on Trump’s destructive presence in Washington DC, quite literally, as he is the coauthor of Sinking in the Swamp: How Trump's Minions and Misfits Poisoned Washington. Swin’s knowledge of the capital, its dark corners, and hidden alleys, will undoubtedly put Zeteo’s ear closer to the ground than ever before. Subscribe now Andrew Perez, who joins Zeteo as senior politics editor after serving in the same role at Rolling Stone and before that the Lever, understands money’s toxic relationship with politics like no other, with a focus on dark money and its even darker ripple effects on the world around us. Andrew’s work has also appeared in major publications like HuffPost, ProPublica, and International Business Times. American politics is all over the place right now, and as hard a task as it may be, we plan on being at the center of it all. So, in addition to our new team members, Zeteo is launching its first morning newsletter. Mehdi is partnering with former MSNBC colleague and up-and-coming writer Peter Rothpletz to launch Zeteo’s morning political newsletter for progressives, where every word counts. This won’t be your usual centrist inside-the-Beltway offering that uses a lot of words to say very little; it’ll come with a take, a hard edge, both from Mehdi and Peter, whose own writings have appeared here at Zeteo, as well as at the New Republic and The Guardian. Subscribe now Destination coverage, breaking news, hiring the best of the best, none of that is cheap. Growth needs fuel. At Zeteo, we are adamant on keeping our fuel as pure as can be. No shady billionaires or big corporations, just you, the people. If you believe in this journey that we are on and want to be part of our growing media movement for change, become a paid subscriber and join us. So much is waiting for you on the other side of those pesky paywalls, and we are still working to bring you even more. And if you’re already a paid subscriber, but want to help further, you can also donate to us here. Stay tuned for more announcements!
2025-09-09 01:00:50 UTC
|
| 0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
The tables have turned: Mehdi’s in the hot seat, and you, the subscribers, get to fire the questions! How does Mehdi recall facts and statistics during his toughest interviews? What’s his prediction for the New York mayoral race and the fallout from a shock Mamdani win? What’s his own long-term vision for Zeteo and independent journalism? Subscribe now You can watch the first episode of ‘Ask the Editor,’ above, hosted and moderated by Zeteo’s very own Prem Thakker. Mark your calendars: every Monday, Zeteo’s Editor-in-Chief will get candid about work, politics, and everything in between, in our brand-new and live Q&A. And this morning, you, the subscribers, along with Prem of course, put Mehdi on the spot, and got answers! Missed it? All subscribers can tune in live next Monday morning at 11am ET / 8am PT / 3pm GMT on zeteo.com, on the Substack app, or on YouTube. Bring your questions! See you next week for another ‘Ask the Editor’! This series will not be paywalled for any of our subscribers. If you believe in the work we do and want to see more of it, do consider becoming a paid subscriber. And if you’re not ready for the commitment, then a donation would still go a long way.
In case you missed them, here are some of our latest stories:
2025-09-08 21:28:15 UTC
|
| 0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
This piece was first published by Dutch-Palestinian analyst and writer Mouin Rabbani on his Substack. Zeteo is republishing it with his permission.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during the UN General Assembly on Sept. 27, 2024, in New York City. Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images Israel and its flunkies consistently complain that Israel is held to a different standard than other states. The assertion is factually correct, though not in the manner intended. No state since the Second World War, and this includes the United States, Soviet Union, Russia, and China, has enjoyed both the impunity and freedom from criticism enjoyed by Israel. It was hardly a taboo to condemn the US wars against Vietnam or Iraq, the Soviet war in Afghanistan, Russia’s wars in Chechnya or Ukraine, or China’s domestic policies. By contrast, the prominent politicians who dared to explicitly condemn Israel for its murderous 1982 invasion of Lebanon, for example, can be counted on the fingers of an amputated hand. Subscribe now Israel likes to complain that the United Nations, which in 1947 adopted the critical decision to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, is an anti-Israeli organization and even one whose primary purpose is to promote an anti-Israel agenda. Yet, with the exception of the veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council, no state in the world body’s history with a record even remotely similar to Israel’s has systematically escaped sanction and condemnation. The former Rhodesia, South Africa’s former white-minority regime, the former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Iran, North Korea, Yemen, and Myanmar, to name but a few, would like nothing better than to be in Israel’s exalted international position. Zero economic sanctions, zero arms embargoes, zero UN-mandated criminal tribunals, zero anything with practical consequences. The same could be said for Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Iran has been subjected to decades of Western and UN sanctions on the pretext that these are required to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. Earlier this year, Washington supported and participated in an Israeli war against Iran, the claimed purpose of which was to destroy its capacity to weaponize its nuclear program. UN sanctions on Iran, lifted a decade ago, are at European urging almost certain to be re-imposed later this year. Unlike Iran, Israel has refused to ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has possessed a nuclear arsenal since the 1960s. Western governments systematically refuse to even acknowledge that this arsenal exists, let alone attach even a single consequence to Israel’s possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons and advanced delivery systems. Most recently, Germany knowingly provided Israel with nuclear-weapons-capable submarines and subsidized much of their cost. Ensuring a permanent Israeli nuclear monopoly in the Middle East while simultaneously refusing to acknowledge its existence is the West’s undeclared policy. Russia and China have voted in favor of Chapter VII Security Council resolutions against not only Iran but also North Korea. And then there is, of course, Iraq, sanctioned to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dead long after it ceased to have any WMD. By contrast, Israel’s nuclear arsenal, now more than half a century old, has never even been discussed as a council item. Subscribe now At the International Criminal Court (ICC), the 2023 indictment of Russian President Vladimir Putin and warrant for his arrest did not produce an international crisis. The Russian leader threw a fit, took it in his stride, avoided visiting certain countries, and that was the end of it. The Court’s 2024 indictment of two Israeli leaders has, by contrast, produced an ongoing, concerted campaign to dismantle the court wholesale. Hungary has withdrawn from the ICC. Greece, Italy, and France have effectively repudiated the Rome Statute and renounced their treaty obligations by repeatedly permitting international fugitive Benjamin Netanyahu to traverse their airspace. Most recently, Little Marco for a Big Israel sanctioned the three leading Palestinian human rights organizations on the grounds that they were cooperating with the Court. Any organization with the temerity to hold Israel to the same standards applied to others must be destroyed – by any means necessary. I recently had dinner with an individual who has, for many years, been teaching at a British university. Almost immediately after the October 7, 2023, attacks, the university administration sent a communication to all staff warning them to be careful about how they expressed themselves about this issue. No similar communication had ever been received about any other issue, whether foreign or domestic. Not Iraq, not the climate protests, not government austerity policies, not even the major terrorist attacks Britain has experienced in recent years. It seemed to me clear that the warning was meant to instill fear and stifle discussion about causes and consequences, just as the campaign against freedom of expression in US universities has far exceeded anything witnessed during the Vietnam or Iraq wars, wars in which the US was directly involved and lost thousands of lives. What has changed during the Gaza Genocide is that the taboo on criticism and condemnation of Israel – the taboo on open discussion of the nature of the Israeli state and its policies – has been irrevocably shattered. Individuals, public figures, and increasingly politicians as well, are no longer mortified by the spurious accusations that are inevitably flung their way if they dare to hold Israel to the same standards they have for their entire lives instinctively applied to other and similar regimes. Even the Washington branch office of Israel’s parliament, the US Senate, recently debated a partial arms embargo on Israel, a development inconceivable even three years ago. Share Jewish critics of Israel have played a pivotal role in these developments. Their words and actions have made a mockery of the tropes that criticism of Israel is, for all intents and purposes, criticism directed at Jews for being Jewish, and invalidated the Defamation League’s constant refrain that anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism. In so doing, they have given many others, often previously unfamiliar with the Middle East, and instinctively and rightfully opposed to being associated with hatred and discrimination, the confidence to judge Israel as a political entity like any other. Their numbers are also perceptibly increasing. In decades past, a Jewish anti-Zionist or public critic of Israel was often considered something of an anomaly, and their affiliation would be repeatedly noted as if they were a member of an endangered species miraculously sighted in Borneo. That is, for the most part, no longer the case. The schism between Israel and diaspora Jewish communities, or at least with significant sectors of the latter, is as real as it is visible. The same can be said for the growing rift between Jewish communities and the organizations that claim to represent them, but are in practice surrogates for the Israeli government. From Israel’s perspective, being judged by the same standards applied to others after a lifetime of impunity may well feel like being singled out for special treatment. But the reality is, of course, precisely the opposite. The goose is finally being treated like the gander and is no longer the unacknowledged elephant in the room. Hence, the ongoing meltdown, and the systematic resort to formal measures to shut down not only protest but also debate, and punish those who insist on speaking their minds. Mouin Rabbani is a Dutch-Palestinian researcher, analyst, and commentator specializing in Palestinian affairs, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He is a senior non-resident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs Center and co-editor of Jadaliyya. Subscribe to his Substack and follow him on X (@MouinRabbani) for more of his writing. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Zeteo
Check out more from Zeteo:
2025-09-08 14:03:17 UTC
|