Authoritarianism in Israel, Ukrainian Nationalist Heroes, Dinosaur Feuding, and Ethical Non-Monogamy - Dinner Table Digest № 37
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Sections: Authoritarianism in Israel / Ukraine’s Problematic Heroes / More Feuds Over Dinosaur Bones / Paternalism and Masking / Ethical Non-Monogamy
Israel is building an authoritarian government - Alona Ferber - New Statesman
The far-right is not only gaining ground in North America, but the longtime Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu has also been taking authoritarianism to new levels, in part to try and avoid criminal prosecution for bribery and corruption.
In November, Benjamin Netanyahu regained power in the fifth Israeli election in under four years by partnering with far-right and religious parties. Many warned about the dangers of the new coalition – some partners hold extreme racist, homophobic and Jewish supremacist views – for Israel’s already fragile (and some would argue, questionable) democracy. …
Netanyahu’s new-old Israel is one of authoritarian lurch. Dominating the headlines are sweeping reforms to the justice system that the coalition is proposing in the name of protecting democracy and fighting “judicial activism”. These changes would limit the power of Israel’s Supreme Court to protect human rights and the rule of law. They include giving Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, a way of overriding the court’s decisions and increasing government control over appointing the Supreme Court panel.
In a highly unusual political intervention, on 12 January the chief justice of the court, Esther Hayut, gave a speech warning that the reforms will “crush” the judicial system and “deal a fatal blow” to its “independence”. The man pushing the reforms is Justice Minister Yariv Levin, a member of Netanyahu’s own Likud party. He responded in a speech of his own that the court is “a political party that sees itself as being above the Knesset and above the people”.
Ukraine’s problematic nationalist heroes - Ido Vock - New Statesman
As the war in Ukraine stretches into a new calendar year, we are, almost daily, reminded of the reality of war-time atrocities. While it is, by and large, Russian forces who are currently knowingly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine, the history of Ukraine as a nation has a checkered past of its own. And, as the current war in Ukraine against Russia drags on, arguably entering its 9th year, many in Ukraine, including some of its leaders, are turning to past heroes of the Nation for inspiration, even though those heroes, themselves, participated in mass murder programs. While, in my view, the concerns have not risen to the point of ending support for Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invaders, they still must be taken seriously by Ukrainians and their allies alike.
On 1 January Ukrainian institutions, including the parliament, commemorated the birth of Stepan Bandera, a Second World War-era Ukrainian nationalist. The official parliamentary Twitter account shared a photo of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, under a portrait of Bandera. The caption directly linked the present war to Bandera’s fight against the Soviet Union: “The complete and final victory of Ukrainian nationalism will come when the Russian empire ceases to exist.”
Bandera was the leader of a branch of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN-B), which collaborated with the Nazis during the German occupation of western Ukraine. Although Bandera himself was imprisoned in Germany for much of the war, his followers founded the paramilitary Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), under the leadership of the OUN-B, which was responsible for the massacre of up to 100,000 Poles and tens of thousands of Jews during the war. The OUN-B primarily fought the Soviet Union, although later in the war it also opposed the Nazis after they cooled on the idea of an independent Ukraine.
In response to the New Year’s tweet Ukraine’s close ally Poland, which views Bandera as a perpetrator of mass violence against ethnic Poles, issued a rare rebuke to Kyiv. Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, told reporters that Poland takes “an extremely critical [stance] towards any glorification or even remembrance of Bandera”, whom he accused of “genocide”. Israel and Germany, also, have criticised Ukrainian government figures who have spoken in favour of Bandera, such as Andriy Melnyk, the former ambassador to Germany, who said in an interview with German television last year that “Bandera was not a mass murderer”.
The bitter dinosaur feud at the heart of palaeontology - Martha Henriques - BBC
A few weeks ago I featured a story about a fossil feud featuring a paleontologist who wanted so desperately to take on William Jennings Bryan that he ended up discrediting himself. In the tradition of fossil hunters motivated by pernicious reasoning, this story features two fossil hunters who, in spite of themselves, managed to shit all over each other all while making important advances in understanding prehistoric creatures.
Although their feud ended up discrediting both men and embarrassing their colleagues, what seems certain is that their enmity drove both ever harder to find and name more fossils, opening up the nascent field of palaeontology for generations to come. "Before Cope and Marsh there were just a few dinosaurs known," says Shelley. "After them there were hundreds. There's an absolute wealth of knowledge in those early descriptive papers, and some of the drawings are beautiful. We still use them in our science now." More than anything, our popular view of dinosaurs has been shaped by Cope and Marsh more than any other palaeontologists.
Paternalism and Masking - A Twitter Thread
How Having an Open Marriage Made Me Think Differently About Monogamy - Tom Rasmussen - Vogue
Non-monogamy is all the rage today, a consequence, in part, of increasingly difficult economic times which sometimes requires more than one person to lean on. For my part, I think that loving more than one person at a time is not only possible, but is something that many of us actually do anyway, whether we admit it to ourselves, our spouses and our community or not. Living authentically often means having hard conversations with the people we love most about how it is we love best.
Whenever someone close to you makes a seemingly out there life choice, it holds a mirror up to your own life. And the number of curious inquiries that came my way after we decided to open our marriage left me certain that I had done what I thought everyone, at least secretly, wants to do: fuck other people.
Monogamy was out in the swinging ’60s and ’70s, then it came back in the ’90s, then it was out again. Apparently—at least from what I’ve heard from my chic friends—monogamy is back, again. But ask others—myself included—and non-monogamy is the only way to be. After a while in this camp, I feel like monogamy is too much to expect. Sure, all the terminology around open and poly relationships is aesthetically ugly, but the act of fucking, or falling in love with, multiple people remains a deeply rich experience.
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