“The settler movement has taken advantage of Israelis’ nervousness and the distraction of Gaza to reconfigure the status quo in the West Bank with a breathtakingly ambitious program of spatial engineering,” writes Shira Efron.

Sorting. Detaining. Separating. Cool cool cool cool cool

LSE Political Theory Group research seminar TODAY: Speaker: Daniel Häuser (LSE) Title: In Defense of a Modest Political Liberalism When: Thursday, 12 February, 4:00 PM Where: CKK.2.06 All are welcome!

It never ceases to amaze me that we've gone from European powers dividing up the Middle East to Europe being divided up in the Middle East

Seems the Pentagon is testing anti-drone high-energy lasers near Fort Bliss in El Paso, and didn't feel this was dangerous enough to close airspace over. The FAA administrator disagreed. Last week, these lasers successfully protected the American people from a sinister children's party balloon.

Who just took apart the bottle trap and unclogged their sink? Me!

If your framework for American policy in the age of Trump is domination, you’re going to get most things right. This is true abroad and at home.

Stage 2

I’m quoted in this @wsj.com story by Anat Peled about recent annexationist decisions by the Israeli government. I talked about why their actions are bad for Israel. Coincidentally, this is also why many Palestinians criticize the PA www.wsj.com/world/middle...

A thought on this. Iran learned several lessons in its direct confrontations with Israel that culminated in the Israeli attack last June. One of the major ones was that potentially, its missile program is a more useful deterrent than its (setback) nuclear program. 1/3

There's some serious democratic-backsliding/neo-authoritarian BS happening in Israel these days, and I just don't have it in me to write about it...

Is he a bad bunny or merely a bunny having a bad time?

At the site of the Nova party where two and a half years ago Hell was unleashed by Hamas. It’s my fist time here since the war broke out and it’s a beautiful calm day. Each of these trees is in memory of a party goer murdered here.

UPDATE Talks involving the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which took place in Oman, have concluded for today. The United States was represented by Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and CENTCOM Commander Brad Cooper. Talks are expected to continue in the coming days.

It is. Especially in the summer in Tel Aviv

The two interesting things here are that: 1) Trump doesn't have the constitutional authority to conclude this deal without congressional approval, so any enforcement of it is open to legal challenge; and, 2) Milei's timing on torpedoing Mercosur, right after it sealed the EU deal, is curious.

This is that this is basically the end of higher ed. The ROI for education in academia is extremely low as is, but at least you had tenure to look forward to and working on what’s interesting. Take the first and prosecute the second and there’s no incentive.

God of War Ragnarok is very good. The Norns in particular. It’s also waaaay too much game.

Talks are back on for Friday after multiple Arab states urgently requested the US give it a chance. Iran insisting it will only discuss nuclear issue but not proxy militias or ballistic missile program so unclear if there’s a zone of possible agreement. Israeli security cabinet to meet tmrw.

Just the most excellent and relevant exchange

US cancels weekend talks scheduled with Iran over Iranian attempts to move the talks from Turkey to Oman and change their agenda. My read: The US making it clear these are capitulation talks, not negotiations among equals. And the US is actually willing to strike so it has a BATNA.

An example straight out of my job-talk (which is based on this article www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...).

Fools forgot the Stringer Bell rule

My wife made this pottery bowl. It’s 28cm (11”) across. It’s an ongoing topic of conversation so out of curiosity, what would you pay for something like this/would be unphazed to see charged for it?

#MapleSky is showing up in force today and I'm equal parts confused and intrigued

It is currently 'packs of coyotes walking across the Charles River' cold outside.

Can we please get native iOS @zotero.org integration?

Madman theory but actually mad man

New on the personalist regime: From an IR perspective, from @seva.bsky.social hegemon.substack.com/p/taking-glo... From a comparative perspective, from Stephen E Hanson & @jeffkopstein.bsky.social www.persuasion.community/p/the-patrim...

Some key points from this excellent short piece by @jeffkopstein.bsky.social & Hanson: 1. This is a patrimonial regime that is undoing modern statehood. 2. Gaffes, dementia, inconsistencies, and the courts won't stop it. Some of these actually bolster it. 1/2

I cannot tell you how much doubt was consistently directed at the Gaza Health Ministry’s casualty numbers and how much pressure was put on news organizations to couch those numbers as unreliable. Biden himself said they were fabricated! www.haaretz.com/israel-news/...

Back in 2020, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper referred to American cities during the George Floyd protests as the "battle space". He did this in a call with governors. He later apologized. It was good that he did so. Fellow citizens are not, and should not be construed as enemies. #CivMilSky

Should I or shouldn't I share my Harvard grading story that will confirm everything you think?

Are we at the "I was only obeying orders" phase of this?

The DoD is required to do this (in the aggregate, not personally) annually since the end of the draft as a way to ensure the military doesn’t become a caste

Stancilgrad is funny

It’s official. The body of Ran Gvili, the last Israeli kidnapped on 10.7 has been retrieved from Gaza. 843 days later, that part of the war is over. Now to rebuild.

A map of major force deployment in the CENTCOM area of responsibility by my data-desk colleagues at the INSS. experience.arcgis.com/experience/6...

One more thought on this: It shouldn't escape notice that the military sees that the moment calls for civilianized behavior while paramilitary agencies are militarizing in a way the actual armed forces are more resistant to.

Minneapolis municipal notice of National Guard activation making it clear that it's there to support the city and its residents at local request, due to the disruption caused by feds. Elsewhere I saw them handing out Dunkin's to folks. #CivMilSky

For the average non terminally online American, what is the experience of what’s going on in MN right now?

"As many as 30,000 people could have been killed in the streets of Iran on Jan. 8 and 9 alone, two senior officials of the country’s Ministry of Health told TIME—indicating a dramatic surge in the death toll." time.com/7357635/more...

"bearing witness to events" literally just means recording what is happening so it cannot be elided or erased in the future, it does not mean you are required to watch execution videos as some duty, stop letting people who don't understand words tell you what to do

This is a shocking figure and, I readily admit, much higher than even my pessimistic expectation. I hope it's wrong.

Time Magazine reports that 30,000 people were killed on the streets of Iran just between January 8 and 9.

This is what the Founders feared when they objected to a standing army. Not the US military.

I present you, Israel’s savior and strongman, ladies and gentle folk: Israeli official tells ToI that Jerusalem in principle supports US-led Gaza oversight panel, but has major qualms with makeup of board that it ‘isn’t well positioned’ to address www.timesofisrael.com/despite-conc...

Trump genuinely doesn't see the point in cooperative institutions in which you some times take a hit, but the pie grows enough that so does your slice. The Board of Peace is a golf club. You pay membership to be allowed in, you get invited to parties, and you don't violate the terms. Or else.

The Board of Peace is a collective action problem. The only reason for countries to join right now is to curry favor with Trump. It's like buying property from a developer based on the 3D mock up with a huge down payment. 1/

Not the point of this, and I'm not a Marxist, but goddamit it's preverse that the end result of the big efficiency machine in their eyes, is to send the masses into menial labor while transfering creative work to automatons.