terça-feira, 20 de maio de 2025

Election analysis reveals right-wing surge across Europe

 



Election analysis reveals right-wing surge across Europe

 

Centrist wins in the triple election did not equal defeat of the right.

 

By HANNE COKELAERE

and AITOR HARNÁNDEZ-MORALES

https://www.politico.eu/article/far-right-also-won-sunday-election-europe-romania-portugal-poland/

May 20, 2025 1:48 pm CET

 

Don’t be fooled by Sunday’s triple election: The hard right is stronger than ever.

 

Centrists breathed a sigh of relief on Sunday as their candidates beat right-wing rivals in three coinciding elections across Europe.

 

In Romania, the centrist Nicușor Dan exceeded expectations in beating far-right firebrand George Simion in a presidential election runoff. In Poland, liberal Rafał Trzaskowski squeezed past his Law and Justice-backed rival Karol Nawrocki to gain the most votes in the first round of the presidential election. And in Portugal’s snap election, far-right Chega surged against parties that held the center, though none won a majority.

 

Onlookers in Brussels relaxed on the fear that an upsurge in hard-right and Euroskeptic candidates might gain ground in countries that are core EU members and key NATO allies.

 

But despite the centrists’ wins, Sunday’s elections can hardly be considered a defeat for the right.

 

Romania

Support for ultranationalist politicians has grown rapidly in Romania.

 

High voter turnout helped save moderate Nicușor Dan, whom a majority of Romanians elected as the country’s president Sunday night. The nonaffiliated mayor of Bucharest, a pro-EU candidate who campaigned on reform, beat George Simion of the right-wing nationalist Alliance for the Union of Romanians in a runoff.

 

Romania is a cornerstone of both the EU and the NATO defense alliance. But the rise of Simion, a self-declared Trumpist who favors cutting military aid to Ukraine, had fueled fears that the country of 19 million could be destabilized if he were elected president — although he took pains to assuage those concerns.

 

The odds were stacked against Dan, who had to play catch-up after Simion scored a comfortable win in the first round. Simion cast himself as the successor of ultranationalist Călin Georgescu, whose shock victory in November led the election to be annulled over allegations of Russian interference.

 

On Sunday, Dan beat Simion by a 7-point margin.

 

Dan confirmed Monday that Romania would “continue to be a staunch Ally” to NATO and would “focus on defense investments to strengthen the transatlantic bond.”

 

But in the tight race, it was a major uptick in second-round participation that helped Dan to victory.

 

Where turnout stood at 53 percent in the first round, it ballooned to nearly 65 percent in Sunday’s runoff election — the highest since 1996.

 

That trend was also clear in voting outside of Romania, where Simion won 61 percent in the first round. But as diaspora voter numbers exploded from just fewer than 1 million in the first round to 1.6 million in the second, his support among them went down to 56 percent.

 

In Moldova, where a large majority backed Dan over Simion, voter numbers jumped from 90,500 to more than 157,000. In countries including Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, Simion’s vote share took a hit — although he still won there.

 

Dan himself credited the “unprecedented mobilization” for his win, in a video message Sunday night thanking “every Romanian who turned out to vote, made their voice heard and fought for what they believe in.”

 

At home, too, Dan grew his lead with particularly clear support from the Hungarian minority. Voters from that group shifted their backing from establishment candidate Crin Antonescu in the first round to Dan in the runoff.

 

Despite Dan’s victory, the rapid growth of support for Simion and Georgescu stands out. In the canceled first round, Georgescu’s victory took the country by surprise. In the first round of the redo earlier this month, Simion did better than Georgescu’s and his own November result combined.

 

The electoral map of Sunday’s runoff shows how Dan and Simion were locked in a tight race in large swathes of the country.

 

Poland

In Poland, the liberal Mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski won the first round of the presidential election with a smaller margin than expected. Though projected to have a 5 percentage point lead, he stayed just 2 percentage points ahead of his right-wing rival Karol Nawrocki, who performed surprisingly well.

 

It’s a high-stakes vote for Prime Minister Donald Tusk. His leadership has been undercut by President Andrzej Duda, who’s allied with the populist right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party.

 

On Sunday, Trzaskowski, a member of Tusk’s Civic Platform party, won 31.4 percent of the vote, while the PiS-backed Nawrocki received 29.5 percent.

 

Yet Sławomir Mentzen, the candidate of the far-right Confederation, placed third with 14.8 percent. And Grzegorz Braun, a far-right antisemitic candidate, won a surprise fourth spot with 6 percent.

 

These votes will come back into play as Trzaskowski and Nawrocki move to a runoff election on June 1, when they will have to win over supporters of candidates who didn’t place for the second round.

 

Nawrocki already appealed for the support of Mentzen and his voters on Sunday, saying: “We both want a sovereign, strong, rich and secure Poland.”

 

The electoral map of Poland’s first-round vote shows a divided country, with large swathes of the west and larger cities supporting Trzaskowski, while most of the east preferred Nawrocki.

 

Portugal

In Portugal, the center-right Democratic Alliance won the most votes in Sunday’s snap election.

 

But the night’s big winner was the far-right Chega party, which surged to tie with the Socialist Party as the second-largest force in the country’s parliament.

 

Chega has benefited from popular anger directed at Portugal’s mainstream parties. Its performance Sunday confirmed seemingly unstoppable growth in Portugal, where it has gone from just one lawmaker in 2019, to the third-largest party in last year’s election — now controlling a quarter of the seats in the country’s legislative body.

 

It currently has 58 parliamentary seats, but could increase its showing once votes from overseas electors finish being tallied.

 

Its huge wins in the south of Portugal, an agricultural region that overwhelmingly backed the Communist Party in the decades following the Carnation Revolution, have many concerned ahead of this fall’s nationwide local elections.

 

Chega is likely to gain control of municipal governments in key cities across the country, further consolidating the far right’s presence in Portugal.

Defeated Romanian ultranationalist ‘will ask court to annul election’



Defeated Romanian ultranationalist ‘will ask court to annul election’

 

George Simion claims presidential election rerun was subject to foreign interference, like last year’s annulled ballot

 

Jon Henley Europe correspondent

Tue 20 May 2025 19.30 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/20/defeated-romanian-ultranationalist-says-he-will-ask-court-to-annul-presidential-election

 

The defeated ultranationalist candidate in Romania’s presidential election rerun has said he will ask the country’s top court to annul the vote on the same grounds – foreign interference – that led to the original ballot being cancelled last year.

 

George Simion, who was defeated in Sunday’s runoff by the liberal mayor of Bucharest, Nicuşor Dan, said on Tuesday he would ask the constitutional court to void the ballot “for the same reasons they annulled the elections” last year.

 

The election, which Dan won by a margin of 53.6% to 46.4%, was the second time the vote had been held. The first, last November, was cancelled by the court after the first round amid allegations of campaign financing violations and a “massive” Russian interference campaign.

 

The winner of the annulled vote, far-right firebrand Călin Georgescu, was barred from standing again and is under formal investigation on counts including misreporting campaign spending, illegal use of digital technology and promoting fascist groups. He denies any wrongdoing.

 

“Just as Călin Georgescu was removed and the elections were annulled, we will challenge the election of Nicușor Dan for exactly the same reasons,” Simion, an EU-critical, Trump-admiring former soccer ultra, said in a statement to local media.

 

“Why? Because there was vote buying,” said Simion, who formally conceded to Dan on Sunday night after first claiming to have won. “Because dead people voted on 18 May, and no calculation in the world can show us over 11.5 million Romanians voted.”

 

Simion has repeatedly alleged electoral fraud without providing evidence. His belated decision to contest the election’s outcome, while unlikely to succeed, will prolong the political uncertainty in Romania, which is under a caretaker government.

 

The ultranationalist, whose supporters carried out a parallel count at some polling stations, said votes were “correctly counted” but “international observers” had seen “foreign interference” and “social media and algorithms have been manipulated”.

 

He claimed there was “irrefutable evidence” of meddling by France, Moldova and others in “an orchestrated effort to manipulate institutions, direct media narratives and impose a result that does not reflect the sovereign will of the Romanian people”.

 

Simion referenced a suggestion by the founder of the Telegram messaging app, Pavel Durov, that Paris had asked it to “silence conservative voices” in Romania. France has “categorically rejected” what it called “completely unfounded allegations”.

 

Russian-born Durov, who also has French nationality, is being investigated by France in connection with alleged criminal activity on the app, including child abuse images and drug trafficking. Telegram has said it abides by EU law and denies the platform facilitates illegal activities.

 

The far-right candidate said he had congratulated Dan on election night because “I love Romania, the Romanian people, and I never want to see bloodshed.” The count may have been correct, he said, “but before and during it, there was manipulation”.

 

He acknowledged there was “little chance that my request to the court will pass”, but said he was “appealing to all Romanians of good faith to … demand the cancellation of this masquerade”. He would provide those who wished with a template, he said.


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A descrença que empurra a extrema-direita está sem resposta dos partidos...


O que para muitos parecia um receio no princípio da noite eleitoral, tornou-se mais tarde uma possibilidade e acabou com uma certeza: como André Ventura anunciou no seu discurso de domingo, aconteceu algo inédito na história da democracia portuguesa: o PS deixou de ser um dos dois pilares do sistema político-partidário. Em seu lugar aparece agora o Chega. Há quem fale no fim do bipartidarismo, no princípio do fim do regime, num terramoto, numa hecatombe. O mais certo e seguro é falar numa decorrência da democracia que, como a história o comprova, é tão generosa que dá o poder a homens ou partidos que desprezam os seus valores, quando não a querem derrubar.

 

O que assistimos este domingo e nos últimos três anos de sucessivas eleições legislativas é espantoso. Em seis anos, o Chega sobe de 1,3% para 23% e conta, até ver, com uma bancada de 58 deputados. Num ápice, Portugal, que se orgulhava se saber conter os avanços da extrema-direita que se revelavam na Europa, descobre que está em risco de ter um governo da extrema-direita no futuro próximo. Passada a barreira dos 20%, tudo é possível.

 

O que aconteceu pode ser uma manifestação tardia da expansão da direita radical europeia, mas é obrigatório tentar perceber nas suas entrelinhas o que resulta das especificidades da sociedade, da economia ou da política nacional. A desigualdade crescente, o sentimento de tantos que se sentem a ficar para trás, o descaso dos subúrbios ou do país rural, a imigração que explodiu em números num curto espaço de tempo e mudou num curtíssimo espaço de tempo a face de imensas comunidades podem ser fenómenos comuns ao que aconteceu em Espanha ou na Itália; mas as crises políticas sistemáticas, com três eleições em três anos, não deixaram certamente de reforçar a ideia de que os partidos tradicionais estão a pôr em causa a viabilidade do país.

 

Um dia depois da noite em que uma era da democracia mudou, propomo-nos discutir estas questões com Teresa de Sousa. Redactora principal do PÚBLICO, viveu e sentiu na pele os custos do combate contra a ditadura antes do 25 de Abril e acompanhou de perto a história da democracia portuguesa desde a sua instituição. Nas suas colunas no jornal, tem reflectido sobre a ascensão dos radicalismos de direita e sobre o papel que os partidos do arco da democracia assumiram ou deviam assumir para a conter.


TUDO EM CHOQUE NA SIC NOTICIAS

Israel Wavers as Far Right and Military Disagree on Gaza Strategy

 



News Analysis

Israel Wavers as Far Right and Military Disagree on Gaza Strategy

 

Israel allowed some aid into Gaza on Monday, ending a two-month blockade. Coupled with equivocation over battlefield strategy, the move highlights the government’s effort to balance competing interests.

 

Patrick Kingsley

By Patrick Kingsley

Reporting from Jerusalem

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/world/middleeast/israel-new-invasion-of-gaza.html

Published May 19, 2025

Updated May 20, 2025, 5:42 a.m. ET

 

For months, Israel has tried to pressure Hamas by both threatening a major new ground offensive in Gaza and simultaneously cutting off aid to the territory.

 

On Monday, Israel made a U-turn on aid, allowing a few trucks of food to enter Gaza. And despite escalating its rhetoric and its airstrikes on Gaza in recent days, the Israeli military had yet to begin the long-awaited major advance that would involve thousands of ground troops.The lack of strategic clarity reflects disagreements within its leadership about Israel’s national priorities.

 

On aid, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must balance right-wing political allies who oppose sending food to Gaza, and foreign allies — including the Trump administration — who feared the blockade would lead to famine. The equivocation over the ground invasion reflects Mr. Netanyahu’s need to satisfy far-right cabinet ministers, who are pushing for the full re-occupation of Gaza, and Israel’s top generals, who believe such a move would be difficult to sustain and dangerous to hostages held in Gaza.

 

“Netanyahu, as always, prefers to buy time and not to decide,” said Daniel B. Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel.

 

“While far-right ministers in Israel seek permanent control of Gaza, the military leadership has doubts about the sustainability of permanent occupation, given the concerns over the willingness of military reservists to staff it over a long-term period, and worries about the fate of the hostages,” said Mr. Shapiro, now a fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research group.

 

Why is this story labeled ‘News Analysis’? In this format, reporters with deep experience in the subject draw on their expertise to help you better understand an event. They step back from the breaking news to evaluate its significance and possible ramifications, but they may not inject their personal opinions.

 

The delay to the ground operation is also because Israel is waiting to see how Hamas responds to a new and intense round of negotiations over a cease-fire, amid pressure from the Trump administration for the two sides to reach a truce. Israel has been pressing Hamas to release several hostages, in exchange for a temporary truce, while Hamas has been holding out for a permanent deal. But Israel hopes that the fear of losing more territory may prompt Hamas to settle for less.

 

“Everything has to be read in the context of negotiations for a new cease-fire and hostage deal,” said Shira Efron, director of research at Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based research group.

 

“Israel has started a new ground operation, but it’s all still reversible,” Dr. Efron said. “For now, this is a negotiating tool — it puts more pressure on Hamas to compromise in the talks.”

 

Just as the delay to the ground operation gives negotiators more time to find a compromise, the U-turn on aid gives Israel more time to continue its bombardment of Gaza.

 

In recent days, the Trump administration — Israel’s main foreign backer — joined a long list of foreign leaders to warn of starvation in Gaza.

 

Mr. Netanyahu said the resumption of aid was a response to such criticism and an attempt to sustain foreign support for Israel’s campaign.

 

“We must not reach a point of starvation — both as a matter of fact but also as a diplomatic issue,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a video posted online. Without the resumption of aid, Israel “will simply not be supported, and we will not be able to achieve victory,” Mr. Netanyahu added.

 

It was a shift in tone that would have been unimaginable just days ago.

 

Since March, Israel had prevented food and fuel from reaching Gaza, even as aid groups, and some Israeli soldiers, warned that the territory was on the brink of starvation.

 

The Israeli government dismissed such claims, saying that there were more than enough food stockpiles in Gaza to prevent a famine. If aid resumed, Israel said it would be distributed by a new private company that would circumvent both the United Nations, which ran aid distribution, and Hamas, which Israel has accused of stealing and profiting from the assistance.

 

But on Monday, Israel once again asked the United Nations to revive its aid operation, the U.N. said. The private company earmarked to replace the U.N. — the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — is not fully operational, and so Israel must still rely on help from established aid agencies.

 

The reversal on aid highlighted Mr. Netanyahu’s juggling act, Dr. Efron said.

 

“Netanyahu is trying to do a little bit of everything,” she said. “By announcing a bigger ground operation, he is showing his base he is doing something. By announcing the resumption of aid, he is responding to pressure from the Trump administration, while buying more time for hostage negotiations.”

 

His balancing act did not appear to allay concerns in the international community about Israel’s conduct of the war or the humanitarian situation.

 

In a joint statement on Monday, the leaders of France, the U.K. and Canada condemned Israel’s expanded military operations in Gaza and called on Israel to engage with the U.N. “to ensure a return to delivery of aid in line with humanitarian principles.”

 

“Yesterday’s announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is wholly inadequate,” they said, warning, “if Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response.”

 

Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting from Rehovot, Israel; Myra Noveck from Jerusalem; Rawan Sheikh Ahmad from Haifa, Israel; Ephrat Livni from Washington and Aurelien Breeden from Paris.

 

Patrick Kingsley is The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, leading coverage of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

America is turning on Israel It can no longer ignore the bloodshed

 


America is turning on Israel

It can no longer ignore the bloodshed

 

Will Trump stand by Netanyahu?

 

Rajan Menon

May 13, 2025  

https://unherd.com/2025/05/america-is-turning-on-israel/

 

For the last 19 months, Gaza has provided an object lesson in human inhumanity. Between Hamas’s massacre on October 7, the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust, and the ongoing disaster that has engulfed the Strip’s Palestinians, it’s hard to comprehend the toll of shattered lives and broken homes. Yet if the grimness only looks set to continue — Israel’s draconian restrictions on the flow of aid into Gaza, made even tighter since the collapse of the 15 January ceasefire it signed with Hamas, means hunger and malnutrition, and the spread of infectious diseases, of which has been no shortage in Gaza, could become even worse, hard though that is to imagine.

 

Having jettisoned the ceasefire accord on 18 March and resumed its war, Israel hopes to reoccupy the Strip, and perhaps even reintroduce settlers.

 

While few in the West rejected Israel’s right to retaliate following the October 7 atrocities, the ferocity and duration of its war of retribution have turned public opinion in the West against Israel as never before. The protests on American college campuses have been all but shut down following pressure from the Trump administration, Congress, powerful pro-Israel organisations, and wealthy donors. Even so, they illustrated the outrage produced by the relentless killing in Gaza.

 

It’s common to hear that the demonstrations — on and off campuses — sprang from antisemitism or “pro-Hamas” ideology. This claim ignores the reality that it was the humanitarian catastrophe created by Israel’s war that ignited the protests and that Jews have been the most statistically overrepresented community in the antiwar demonstrations. And on 8 May, 38 leaders from some of the most prominent American Jewish organisations, which have been Israel’s most stalwart supporters, took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to warn the Jewish community against permitting Trump to undermine universities, civil liberties, the freedom of speech, and the rule of law, all in the name of stamping out antisemitism.

 

“Trump has shown that his moves won’t necessarily align with those of an Israeli government.”

 

Referring to Israel’s war in Gaza  as genocide is routinely painted as antisemitic. But this indictment, which has been echoed by the Trump administration, has begun to ring hollow given that the genocide charge comes from people like Omer Bartov, a renowned Israeli-born historian of genocide. Bartov, who did not rush to judgement, concluded recently that “it has been impossible to describe the Israeli operation as anything but genocidal”. He is not alone. Numerous other scholars of the Holocaust, and Jewish history more generally, have reached a similar conclusion—including more than 20 from Israel itself. The Oxford professor Avi Shlaim — who, like Bartov, grew up in Israel — who has rendered this same verdict in a recent book. And if criticism of Israel’s war in Gaza and occupation of the West Bank stem from antisemitism, Bernie Sanders, a Jew, would qualify as the Senate’s most antisemitic member.

 

American Jews between the ages of 18 and 34 remain strongly supportive of Israel. Still, the Gaza war has created a noticeable divide between them and their parents, and more so their grandparents. For the latter two generations, October 7 rekindled traumatic memories of the Shoah, strengthening their conviction that Israel is a haven for Jews that needs to be defended unconditionally. The younger cohort tends to be more critical of the war and Israel’s treatment of Palestinians more broadly. As for the wider American population, public opinion polls show that goodwill toward Israel has decreased substantially as Gaza’s catastrophe has worsened and become more widely known. The drop-off in Americans’ support for Israel isn’t new. As Mitchell Bard, an expert on US-Israel relations, noted in late March, referencing Gallup polls: “Sympathy for Israel peaked at 62% between 2010 and 2019 but has dropped every year since, falling to just 46% in 2025 — the lowest since 2001. Meanwhile, sympathy for the Palestinians hit a record high of 33%.”

 

The Gaza war has contributed to these shifts. As Gallup observed in late March, “the 46% expressing support [for Israel] is the lowest in 25 years of Gallup’s tracking of this measure.” These findings are replicated in other polls: a 2025 Pew Research Center survey showed that 53% of Americans viewed Israel unfavorably, compared to 42% in a 2022 poll. Since 2000, meanwhile, over half of all Americans have supported the creation of a Palestinian state, something that Netanyahu, and more so the members of his cabinet who lead far-Right religious parties, state publicly and repeatedly that they will never permit.

 

More to the point, Israeli plans could make the relationship with the US even more fraught. If Israel’s current government follows through on its vision of resettling Gaza (Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismantled the settlements there in 2005), and expelling some or all its Palestinian population, Israel’s reputation will take a much bigger hit. The reintroduction of settlements in Gaza and the expulsion of its Palestinian population isn’t, by the way, a fanciful scenario. Netanyahu has endorsed, more than once, Trump’s idea of relocating Gazans and turning their homeland into “the Riviera of the Middle East”. In March, Defense Minister Israel Katz created a “Voluntary Emigration Bureau” for the Strip, while Israel and the US have reportedly approached officials in Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland about resettling Palestinians. If Gazans refuse the offer, what then?

 

Then there’s the West Bank, where settlement-building, land confiscations, and evictions have increased sharply since 2000 — and especially in recent years. The settlement project, to which the Israeli far-Right is deeply committed, has turned the West Bank into Swiss cheese, making it all but impossible to transform the disconnected areas ruled, with varying degrees of authority, by the Palestinian Authority into a territorially-continuous, sovereign Palestinian state, especially since Israel claims exclusive jurisdiction over Area C, which comprises 60% of the West Bank and contains more than 400,000 settlers living in 125 settlements and 100-plus impromptu “outposts”. The prospects for a Palestinian state would diminish further were Netanyahu to deliver on his 2019 pledge to annex the Jordan Valley, which encompasses nearly 30% of the West Bank.

 

Israel has long enjoyed unconditional support from the United States. But the Gaza war and the continued settlement of the West Bank, could make that less reliable. Yes, Donald Trump’s professed devotion to Israel has been celebrated by many of its diehard American supporters, including Jews. But as Eric Alterman recently warned, trusting in Trump is a terrible idea because the President himself has a history of antisemitism — and anyway threatens the rule of law and the civil liberties that have protected them for so long. Trump has denied the details concerning antisemitism, but whatever one’s view of Alterman’s thesis, this much seems clear: Trump has shown that his moves won’t necessarily align with those of an Israeli government and may actually undercut them.

 

Netanyahu dreams of destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities, with American military assistance; Trump is pursuing a deal with Iran to end its nuclear enrichment program. The US reached a truce with the Houthis of Yemen (who, in solidarity with Gazans, have fired rockets at Israel); the terms didn’t, however, extend to Israel. American officials recently conducted direct negotiations with Hamas, to secure the release of Edan Alexander, the sole surviving American hostage, apparently bypassing Israel. Israel has been encroaching on Syrian territory and carrying hundreds of air airstrikes against military targets in that country; Trump has now raised the possibility of lifting sanctions so that the new government can have a “fresh start.

 

Putting aside the famously capricious Trump, what might a loosening of US-Israeli ties mean for the Jewish state? The short answer is that it would make a very big difference for the country — and not in a good way. Between Israel’s founding in 1948 and 2024, American economic and military aid, adjusted for inflation, totalled $300 billion. To put this figure in perspective, the second-largest recipient, Egypt, received only a little more than half as much. Netanyahu said this week that “we will have to detox from US security assistance”. Perhaps Israel should, and can, become militarily self-sufficient, but for now the reality is that it could never have waged war in Gaza on the scale that it has without the steady supply of American weaponry. Nor would it be anywhere near as secure as it has been in the tumultuous Middle East.

 

Beyond its foreign alliances, Israeli plans could produce problems for its future on other fronts. If its leaders continue to annex the West Bank, settle Gaza, and expel its people, the two-state solution, already on life support, will die. Israel will then be left with only one solution, if that’s the appropriate word: the continued occupation and policing of Palestinians, who won’t abandon their dream of self-determination, let alone disappear. The mix of occupation and repression will ensure the continuation of a self-perpetuating cycle of violence and accelerate a trend that’s been increasingly apparent since 2000: the increasing power of the country’s religious Right, already a major force in its politics. According to one 2016 survey, 48% of Israelis, and a much higher proportion among those who identify with the religious Right, favoured the forcible expulsion of Arabs.

 

Taken together, the erosion of democracy, greater political polarisation, the increasing influence of groups and parties wedded to religious messianism, and continual violence created by the occupation may induce Israel’s best and brightest to emigrate. This is not a far-fetched scenario. In December, Israel’s Census Bureau reported that the sharp increase in departures from the country last year — half of those who left were between 20 and 45 years of age, more than a quarter were teenagers or younger — produced “net negative migration” and contributed to slower population growth.

 

Israel’s internal transformation toward illiberalism, a metamorphosis produced partly by its repression and occupation of Palestinians and the violence it begets, is hardly foreordained. But if the country continues to move in that direction, its international isolation will increase, and goodwill toward it will diminish, even in the United States, which if not irreplaceable as a patron and protector, comes pretty close. Hamas cannot, of course, destroy Israel, but if the country undermines itself, its archenemy will have scored a victory.

 

Rajan Menon is the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor Emeritus at the City College of New York and Senior Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.

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Trump 100: How did Trump's call with Putin go?

Trump Backs Off His Demand That Russia Declare a Cease-Fire in Ukraine

 



Trump Backs Off His Demand That Russia Declare a Cease-Fire in Ukraine

 

President Trump once vowed to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine in 24 hours. Now he says the two sides should work it out themselves.  

 

Erica L. GreenAnton Troianovski

By Erica L. Green and Anton Troianovski

Erica L. Green reported from Washington and Anton Troianovski from New York.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/us/politics/trump-russia-ukraine-cease-fire.html

May 19, 2025

 

President Trump on Monday backed off his demand that Russia declare an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine, instead endorsing President Vladimir V. Putin’s call for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.

 

After a two-hour phone call with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump said the Russian leader had agreed to “immediately” start direct negotiations with Ukraine toward a cease-fire and a broader peace deal to end the war. He said the conditions would be negotiated directly between the warring countries “because they know details of a negotiation that nobody else would be aware of.”

 

It was a shift from Mr. Trump’s recent threats of more pressure on Russia, such as when he raised the prospect of new banking sanctions in April because Mr. Putin may not “want to stop the war” and “has to be dealt with differently.”

 

Mr. Trump also appeared enthusiastic to surrender his mediating role to a higher power: the pope. In his statement, Mr. Trump said the Vatican had expressed interest in hosting the upcoming negotiations, and urged: “Let the process begin!”

 

But while Mr. Trump presented the start of peace talks as a concession by Mr. Putin, he was largely endorsing Mr. Putin’s own approach, given that Russia has responded to calls to stop the fighting by proposing extended negotiations.

 

Now, Mr. Trump appears to be prepared to step back and urge Russia and Ukraine to make a deal directly with each other. President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine expressed concern about that, saying on Monday after he held two calls with Mr. Trump that “the negotiation process must involve both American and European representatives at the appropriate level.”

 

Russian and Ukrainian officials met on Friday in Istanbul for their first direct peace talks in more than three years. They agreed to keep talking and to exchange 1,000 prisoners each.

 

The lack of any meaningful breakthrough in Monday’s talks shows how Mr. Trump’s belief in his personal charisma and negotiating acumen has so far run up against deep divisions and complex political motivations guiding Russia and Ukraine.

 

After the call, Mr. Trump leaned into the economic benefits of ending the war, saying that Russia wanted to engage in “large scale trade with the United States when this catastrophic ‘blood bath’ is over,” recasting the end of the conflict as a business proposition rather than a diplomatic victory.

 

Mr. Trump’s comments showed that Mr. Putin appears to have had success in promoting the possibility of lucrative business deals in Russia to Mr. Trump. The U.S. president “spoke quite emotionally” about the prospects of the U.S.-Russian relationship and described Russia as a key future American trading partner, Mr. Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters.

 

“There is a tremendous opportunity for Russia to create massive amounts of jobs and wealth,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.

 

But in the hour leading up to the conversations, members of Mr. Trump’s administration confirmed his frustration over the impasse between Russia and Ukraine.

 

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that Mr. Trump has “grown weary and frustrated, with both sides of the conflict,” but declined to say whether the president — who once claimed he could end the war in one day — had a deadline for the two nations to broker a deal.

 

Mr. Trump told reporters later Monday that he expected there to be progress in the talks, but if there wasn’t he was “just going to back away.”

 

The phone call between the two leaders came after weeks of Mr. Trump blaming, shaming and threatening Mr. Putin for dragging out the war. It also came one day after Russia targeted Ukraine with one of its largest drone bombardments of the war, which killed a woman and injured several other people.

 

Mr. Trump has not commented on the latest attacks. In late April, however, he issued a rare rebuke of Mr. Putin for launching a similar attack.

 

“Vladimir, STOP!” Mr. Trump wrote.

 

Mr. Trump said he had not discussed that plea with Mr. Putin, but made a similar one to the Russian leader.

 

“I said, When are we going to end this, Vladimir?” Mr. Trump said.

 

On the call, he said he asked Mr. Putin to meet with him. The leaders addressed each other by first name throughout, Mr. Ushakov said.

 

On Monday, Mr. Putin made it clear after speaking to Mr. Trump that he wasn’t budging from his demands and that Russia was not on the verge of declaring a cease-fire. He said Russia was “ready to work with the Ukrainian side on a memorandum on a possible future peace agreement.” He repeated his mantra that a peace deal needs to “remove the root causes of this crisis,” referring to Russia’s pursuit of wide-ranging influence over Ukraine.

 

“We just need to identify the most effective ways of moving toward peace,” he said.

 

In fact, direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine started last Friday in Istanbul, in talks that Mr. Putin initially proposed. In that meeting, Russia stuck to its hard-line demands, including that Ukraine withdraw from a large swath of Ukrainian land that its forces still control.

 

It resulted in an agreement to conduct what would be the largest prisoner swap of the conflict, but not in a cease-fire. Mr. Zelensky said in a statement on Monday that the meeting “showed the world both our commitment to advancing peace and, at the same time, the necessity of pressuring Russia in order to stop the war.”

 

Earlier Monday, the Kremlin sought to lower expectations for the call between Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin, the third since Mr. Trump took office. Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman, said that ending the war would require “rather painstaking and, perhaps, prolonged work,” according to Tass, a state-run Russian news agency.

 

Afterward, the Kremlin said the two leaders discussed not only the war, but also improving bilateral ties — a key goal for Mr. Putin as he seeks relief from the economic sanctions the Biden administration placed on Russia. Among the topics was a potential nine-for-nine prisoner swap between the United States and Russia, Mr. Ushakov said.

 

The agreement, which was not disclosed by Mr. Trump, would come after two one-for-one prisoner exchanges between the United States and Russia since Mr. Trump returned to office.

 

Mr. Trump also spoke separately with Mr. Zelensky, who said he made it clear to Mr. Trump that his country would never withdraw its forces from its own territory and will not yield to any ultimatums from Russia.

 

Mr. Zelensky said he also asked Mr. Trump not to make any decisions about Ukraine without Ukraine.

 

“This is a defining moment,”  he wrote in a statement after his call with Mr. Trump. “The world can now see whether its leaders are truly capable of securing a cease-fire and achieving real, lasting peace.”

 

Mr. Trump’s statement gave few specifics about his calls with Mr. Zelensky, but said that like Russia, “Ukraine can be a great beneficiary on trade, in the process of rebuilding its country.” 

 

Mr. Zelensky joined another call between Mr. Trump and European leaders who have rallied to Ukraine’s defense.

 

Mr. Zelensky said it remains unclear if the United States would join with European nations in stepping up sanctions against Russia.

 

“We need to know who we can count on, and who we can’t. A support package from Europe is coming, and it will be a strong one,” he said in a brief news conference. “As for the package from the United States — that’s a different story.”

 

Marc Santora  and Anatoly Kurmanaev contributed reporting.

 

Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.

 

Anton Troianovski is the Moscow bureau chief for The Times. He writes about Russia, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Ukraine Is Europe’s War. Isn’t It?

 



Opinion

Guest Essay

Ukraine Is Europe’s War. Isn’t It?

May 20, 2025, 1:00 a.m. ET

By Andrea Kendall-Taylor

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/20/opinion/ukraine-putin-trump.html

Ms. Kendall-Taylor is a former senior intelligence officer focused on Russia.

 

It seems like the third time wasn’t the charm. President Trump spoke to President Vladimir Putin of Russia on the phone on Monday, but the call — the third between the leaders since the beginning of Mr. Trump’s second term — appeared to yield as little as have the recent months of complex, fruitless negotiations designed to end the three-year war in Ukraine.

 

The Trump administration is frustrated, both with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has proved determined to insist on a durable peace that does not leave his country vulnerable to a rested and rearmed Russia, and Mr. Putin, who has proved evasive even on the question of whether he wants the war to end. Having promised voters a quick deal, Mr. Trump has “grown weary,” a White House press secretary said, and members of his administration have repeatedly threatened to move on.

 

That threat is based on the premise that the war in Ukraine is fundamentally Europe’s war. In this view, how it ends will naturally affect Europe — that’s why Europe should be paying for it — and America’s involvement is either charitable or transactional, rather than driven by America’s own self-interest. As Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social in February, “this War is far more important to Europe than it is to us — We have a big, beautiful Ocean as separation.”

 

But the war is not as far away as Mr. Trump thinks, and how it ends matters for Americans. Mr. Putin’s long-term objectives clearly go beyond Ukraine, as he seeks to relitigate the post-Cold War order in Europe — a feat he believes would enable him to restore Russian power and Moscow’s ability to shape global outcomes. Mr. Putin’s view is zero-sum: He believes he can only increase Russia’s global influence by reducing America’s. What’s more, a negotiated peace that emboldens Russia would leave Europe, one of America’s largest trading partners, vulnerable, and could deepen other challenges that the United States is already facing around the world.

 

The Trump administration therefore faces a choice: It can stand up to the Kremlin now, in Ukraine, or later. But the cost for the United States of waiting will only rise.

 

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Just before sending Russian tanks across the border into Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow issued a set of demands that included a significant roll back of NATO borders. The Kremlin has clearly and repeatedly signaled that it aims to restore Russia as a global power and that doing so starts in Europe. After the tacit acceptance of each previous intervention — the war in Georgia in 2008, Russia’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 and its deployment of troops into Syria in 2015 — Mr. Putin grew more brazen. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine was the result. Abandoning the peace process in Ukraine now will not make it any easier or cheaper to resist Russia.

 

Moscow is already preparing the ground for a future conflict in Europe. Russia has significantly ramped up its use of sabotage, the weaponization of migrants and assassination plots. It’s suspected of cyberattacks and other targeted advances on critical infrastructure, including critical undersea cables in the Baltic Sea. The goal of these tactics is to degrade Europe’s ability to counter Russia and convince Europeans that it’s too hard and costly to stand up to the Kremlin. Moscow’s recent rhetoric, which has become more bellicose in its portrayal of Europe as its main enemy and a “war party,” reflects these intentions.

 

At the same time, the Trump administration has repeatedly indicated that it wants America to play less of a role in European security. In February, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, told U.S. allies that the United States would no longer prioritize Europe. The Pentagon is reviewing its military deployments around the world and reportedly contemplating reducing its presence in Eastern Europe, which could leave the countries along NATO’s eastern flank vulnerable. European countries are rapidly increasing their own military spending, but it will take time to ramp up their capabilities.

 

That would be time that Mr. Putin, with his economy already on a war footing and his defense industrial base in overdrive, could see as a closing window of opportunity.

 

America would not escape another, potentially larger conflict in Europe unscathed. The economies of Europe and America are deeply integrated. When goods, services and investment are included, Europe is America’s largest trading partner, the largest market for American products and a force multiplier for American power. Instability across the Atlantic will hurt the United States.

 

Some members of the Trump administration may not subscribe to the idea that its approach to Ukraine will make other adversaries like China bolder. But even setting aside that very real risk, a negotiated peace that leaves Ukraine vulnerable and Russia emboldened could increase the global challenges Washington faces. Russia has supported groups across the Sahel region of Africa, in Sudan and Yemen, including the Houthi militias who have attacked U.S. vessels in the Red Sea and disrupted global shipping. A deal in Ukraine that, for example, limits the capacity of Ukraine’s military would free up Russia to redirect its military’s energies to ramping up such destabilizing operations, almost certainly hurting American interests.

 

Likewise, an emboldened Russia would be a more potent partner for China, Iran and North Korea, breathing wind into the sails of an axis of upheaval that has coalesced in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The weapons Russia has provided to these countries in return for their support in Ukraine has made each a more potent fighting force, while their collaboration reduces the potency of tools like sanctions that Washington and its partners can use to confront them. Moscow has shown increased political support, for example, for China’s ambitions vis-à-vis Taiwan, and its military coordination with Beijing has contributed to China’s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific.

 

Mr. Putin knows Mr. Trump will leave office. The Russian media portrays Mr. Trump as a pragmatist, a leader who can cut a face-saving deal and provide relief to a Russian economy that is showing strain. But few in Moscow believe that a single president can undo decades of U.S. foreign policy animus toward Russia. The Kremlin understands that many, even a majority, of people in the American government and public have hostile views of Russia and would either thwart Mr. Trump’s plans or, at the end of his term, simply reverse them. Mr. Putin will expect Russia to once again find itself in opposition to the United States. That means Moscow will look to exploit this moment to make gains that would be difficult for a future U.S. president to reverse, like a subjugated Ukraine, or the ability to undermine the credibility of NATO’s commitment to collective defense.

 

The war in Ukraine may be being fought across an ocean, but if the Trump administration chooses not to invest in resisting Russia now, Americans will pay a greater cost down the line.

 

Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former senior intelligence officer focused on Russia.

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Trump and Putin hold phone call but Kremlin refuses Ukraine ceasefire



Trump and Putin hold phone call but Kremlin refuses Ukraine ceasefire

 

Trump describes call as ‘excellent,’ despite Putin’s lack of support for ceasefire that US said was primary objective

 

Pjotr Sauer

Mon 19 May 2025 23.33 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/19/trump-and-putin-hold-phone-call-but-kremlin-refuses-ukraine-ceasefire

 

Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have held a rare phone call, which the US leader described as “excellent”, but the Kremlin refused to agree to a ceasefire in the war with Ukraine, despite pressure from Washington and European allies.

 

Speaking to reporters in Sochi after the two-hour conversation on Monday, Putin described the call as “very meaningful and frank” and said he was prepared to work with Ukraine on drafting a memorandum for future peace talks.

 

However, the Russian leader declined to support the US-proposed 30-day unconditional ceasefire, which Ukraine had already agreed to – and which Washington had framed as the call’s primary objective. Putin also suggested his country’s maximalist objectives in the war with Ukraine were unchanged.

 

In contrast, Trump offered a far more positive spin, saying in a post on his Truth Social network that the talks went “very well”.

 

“The tone and spirit of the conversation were excellent … Russia and Ukraine will immediately start negotiations toward a Ceasefire and, more importantly, an END to the War,” he wrote, suggesting that the Vatican should host future Russia-Ukraine negotiations.

 

Trump’s statement after the call with Putin also suggested the US would be stepping back from the negotiations. He said the conditions for a deal could only be negotiated by the “warring parties”, despite his earlier claim that he could end the war in a single day.

 

Trump later said it would be “great” to hold peace talks at the Vatican, but again suggested the US could abandon its involvement, telling reporters that if there is no progress: “I’m just going to back away.”

 

Beyond Trump’s occasionally optimistic rhetoric, no breakthrough appears in sight. Despite previously demanding an immediate ceasefire and backing Europe’s ultimatum for Russia to halt hostilities, he now appears to be once again easing off pressure on Moscow. He made no mention of his previous threats to impose sanctions on Russia if it did not agree to halt the fighting.

 

Moscow has consistently rejected extended ceasefire proposals, arguing they would give Ukraine time to rearm and regroup at a time Russian forces are making battlefield advances.

 

On Monday, Putin claimed Russia supported a halt to hostilities, but said it was necessary to “identify the most effective paths toward peace”.

 

Crucially, Putin repeated his longstanding refrain that the “root causes” of the war must be addressed: a reference to Russia’s far-reaching demands that would severely undermine Ukraine’s sovereignty.

 

These demands include forcing Ukraine to “denazify” and demilitarise, cutting back its armed forces, barring it from receiving western military support, and imposing sweeping limits on its sovereignty.

 

Since Trump’s re-election, Putin has been engaged in a delicate balancing act with the US president, appearing to support peace talks to stay in Trump’s favour, while pushing for terms that in effect amount to Ukraine’s capitulation.

 

In an apparent show of confidence and nonchalance, Putin took the call with Trump on Monday while touring a music school in Sochi. His bravado is fuelled by Russia’s slow but steady battlefield gains, Europe’s disjointed response, and a domestic economy increasingly adapted for a prolonged war.

 

Trump said he spoke with Zelenskyy and several European leaders after his call with Putin.

 

In a statement late on Monday, Zelenskyy insisted Ukraine was ready for a full ceasefire and direct negotiations with Moscow, but said: “If the Russians are not ready to stop the killings, there must be stronger sanctions. Pressure on Russia will push it toward real peace.”

 

He added: “If Putin puts forward unrealistic demands, this will mean that Russia continues to drag out the war, and deserves that Europe, America, and the world act accordingly, including with further sanctions. Russia must end the war it started, and it can begin doing so any day.”

 

Zelenskyy also rejected Russia’s demands for Ukraine to withdraw its troops from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which Russia claims to have annexed but does not fully control. “No one will withdraw our troops from our territories,” he told reporters.

 

The Ukrainian leader also urged the US not to “distance itself from the talks and the pursuit of peace”.

 

“The only one who benefits from that is Putin,” he said.

 

The flurry of diplomatic activity on Monday came days after the first meeting between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in three years, held in Istanbul. Those talks broke down after Russia demanded more territory as a condition for halting the fighting.

 

A day after the delegations met, Trump said he would speak by phone with Putin to end the “bloodbath” in Ukraine. The US leader proclaimed “nothing will happen” on the peace talks until he met Putin.

 

But Putin and Trump remained silent on the prospect of a meeting on Monday.

 

Despite Putin’s continued refusal to agree to a temporary ceasefire, Trump has stopped short of directly criticising him – even as a growing consensus in Washington sees the Russian president as the main obstacle to progress in the peace talks.

 

 

As in previous calls, Putin appeared to cultivate a personal rapport with Trump, congratulating him on the birth of his 11th grandson, according to Putin’s top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov.

 

Putin has publicly praised Trump on several occasions, flattering him as “courageous” after the 2024 assassination attempt at a campaign rally. He also claimed to have prayed for “his friend” after Trump was grazed by a bullet.

 

According to Ushakov, Trump told Putin during the call: “Vladimir, you can pick up the phone anytime. I’ll be happy to answer and happy to talk with you.”

 

Speaking before the call between the two leaders, the US vice-president, JD Vance, said Trump would press Putin on whether he was “serious” about ending the war.

 

“We realise there’s a bit of an impasse here. And I think the president’s going to say to President Putin: ‘Look, are you serious? Are you real about this?’” Vance said as he prepared to depart from Italy.

 

“I think honestly that President Putin, he doesn’t quite know how to get out of the war,” Vance said, adding that he had just spoken to Trump.

 

He said Trump may offer Putin economic incentives to accept some concessions on Ukraine in return for peace.

 

But the vice-president also raised the prospect of the US walking away from the talks – a scenario that will unsettle European allies and raise doubts about America’s willingness to keep providing military and economic aid to Ukraine.

 

Vance said that it “takes two to tango. I know the president’s willing to do that, but if Russia is not willing to do that, then we’re eventually just going to say, this is not our war.

 

Fearing that Trump might strike a deal with the Kremlin at Ukraine’s expense, European leaders rushed on Sunday to sway his thinking before the talks.

 

The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, said he held talks with the leaders of the US, Italy, France and Germany on Sunday evening to coordinate efforts to pressure Russia into accepting an unconditional ceasefire, warning that new sanctions could be imposed if Moscow refuses to engage seriously.

 

The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said in a statement: “Putin must show he wants peace by accepting the 30-day unconditi