Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 11m

FWIW, I've never been slurred except as a Jew (I played Starcraft under my real name and a few times did get unwanted attention thereto).

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 26m

Yes. I can dig up the paper I saw on this a few years ago if you're interested, but the rise in the relative costs of housing over the last ~150 years (from around 10% of urban income to 30%) is attributed to much higher quality of housing - massively more space, indoor plumbing, etc.

Reposted by Alon (they/them)

Rima I Anabtawi @rimaanabtawi.bsky.social · 35m

"Netanyahu never wanted this war to end. He did everything he could to perpetuate it because he knew that the morning after the morning after, there will be a reckoning for him.”

@thomaslfriedman.bsky.social

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/o...

Opinion | Thomas Friedman on the Only Way to Solve the Israel-Hamas War

www.nytimes.com

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 30m

Israel's holding Sinwar's body and Hamas wants it back as part of the deal.

And also they shouldn't be doing any unmarked tunneling in Gaza, it's going to need a proper metro system.

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 31m

He's an office worker, and his salary in today's money is £82/week, maybe $128/week in PPP terms, for what is likely a 60-hour job. So he's earning $2/hour to do a job that today pays around $30/hour... and today's economy also has far more Cratchits and fewer chimneysweeps who earned a lot less.

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Reposted by Alon (they/them)

Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 42m

Hamas and Israel have agreed to implement the first phase of the Gaza peace plan. Qatari media says that includes the release of the 20 living hostages in one go. Sky News Arabia says it will also include an Israeli withdrawal from 70% of the Gaza Strip.

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Reposted by Alon (they/them)

Voice4Justice @voices4justice.bsky.social · 4h

🕊 Peace activist and dear friend Aziz Abu Sarah was on CNN. He’s not active here, but worth a follow — maybe it’ll inspire him to post 😉

His voice carries hope and humanity, a light we could all
use 🤍 🧵
@azizabusarah.bsky.social
www.cnn.com/2025/10/08/t...

‘We cannot invest in war and expect peace,’ says Palestinian activist | CNN

Bianna Golodryga speaks with Palestinian activist and social entrepreneur Aziz Abu Sarah on the second anniversary of the October 7 Hamas attacks and the Israel’s overwhelming response.

www.cnn.com

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 9h

AfD only became a mass party as it went neo-Nazi in 2015. The cordon sanitaire was established in response to that, and has been eroding recently under American right-wing influence on German right-wing media.

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Reposted by Alon (they/them)

Rima I Anabtawi @rimaanabtawi.bsky.social · 15h

Hamas has demanded the release of a group of high-profile Palestinian leaders, including Marwan Barghouti. Hamas is also demanding the release of the bodies of its former Gaza leaders, the brothers Yahya and Mohammed Sinwar, according to Arab mediators.

www.wsj.com/world/middle...

The Sticking Points to a Gaza Hostage Deal

This week will show whether President Trump’s optimism about a deal to end the war in Gaza can survive the realities that have undermined many past attempts.

www.wsj.com

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Reposted by Alon (they/them)

Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 9h

“Car inspectors tell Yle that the root cause of the problem is that EVs are often built on platforms that do not sufficiently support the weight of the car, including the battery, and the wear and tear of the structures over time.”

Christian Breyer @christianonre.bsky.social · 1d

Electric cars fare worse in Finnish car inspections – up to half of Tesla's flunk - yle.fi/a/74-20186654 - considerable quality issues of Tesla detected, other EV manufacturers perform well

Electric cars fare worse in Finnish car inspections – up to half of Teslas flunk

EVs are gaining popularity in Finland – but perform significantly worse in inspections than petrol, diesel or hybrid cars of the same age. Teslas have by far the highest test failure rate.

yle.fi

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 8h

No, they expect to get this and then get the glory among neither-Hamas-nor-Fatah Palestinians for being the ones who got Barghouti released.

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 8h

Here, there is no alt-media threat to Axel-Springer - instead, Axel-Springer always thought AfD pols raised some good points about immigration (while also hating AfD and supporting cordon sanitaire against them), but this has changed under American influence, hence the Musk op-ed in Die Welt.

Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 10h

CDU doesn't want to, is the issue, and SPD and FDP are squeamish as well. It's considered unsportsmanlike to ban a party just because it violates the Grundgesetz and is openly taking money from a foreign adversary, and besides, much of CDU agrees with most of what AfD is saying.

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 10h

>poison Palestinian wells

Nah, most Zionist effort at the time was going to making up the Holocaust to impugn Hitler.

Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 10h

>Abe Vigoda

?aera ruoy ni ecaeP rof ecioV hsiweJ eht fo retpahc a nioj ot ekil uoy dlouW

Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 23h

Cid can occasionally make an individual Hebrew word from the family groupchat but it's rare.

(Family groupchat is normally entirely in English, since I don't have Hebrew on my phone and my sibling is much more comfortable in English than in Hebrew anyway.)

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 23h

Heritage teaching of Hebrew to American Jews is beyond horrible, and a suburban Boston Reform player in my last campaign told me that people go through Hebrew school not even knowing the Hebrew word for "I."

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 23h

Tru, Hiibru haz an eitipicli dificylt corespondens bitwiin grafiimz and founiimz. Its not laik Inglish, wich iz speld lojicli and haz predictabyl pronynsieishyn beist on speling.

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 23h

That special feature is pretty bad, but European party systems are starting to move in that direction, even without PR (the Macronists and Reform are personality vehicles, neither France nor the UK using PR). The US is different because it has presidential cults of personality and no real parties.

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 23h

Hebrew is fine to read, but that letter is chickenscratch and if I didn't have a printed gloss that I could verify I'd understand 80% and not 100% of the words.

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 23h

5. A special feature of Israeli parties is that most of them are personalist vehicles for a notable politician, such as a minister with a specific voter base or a former IDF chief of staff. All opposition parties except the Democrats (merger of Labor and Meretz) are like this.

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 23h

4. The era of five elections in 3.5 years in 2019-22 was the result of Netanyahu's corruption scandals. PR voting means it's easy for people to change their vote to an anti-corruption center-right party; the instability was because such parties didn't want to be in center-left-led coalitions either.

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 23h

3. Daniella Weiss is not a member of the Israeli government. Members of the government talk to her, but her role is more akin to Ann Coulter with her "we should invade their countries and convert them to Christianity" take from after 9/11.

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 23h

2. Israel has proportional representation with coalition governments. This means it's normal for ministers to express political views different from those of the government writ large or even act as internal opposition (this is unthinkable in the UK, but normal in Germany with our coalitions).

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Alon (they/them) @alonlevy.bsky.social · 23h

Since I was summoned:
1. Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are unpopular, and feature prominently in opposition political campaigns as "if you vote Bibi you'll get these Kahanists in government." In this way they serve a similar role to the more out there Republican members of Congress (think MTG).

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