X Is Boosting the Far Right’s UK Riots as Telegram Scrambles for Control | Israel’s Disaster Foretold | French Rail Sabotage Tied to a Murky ‘Ultraleft’, and more

But in France and elsewhere in Europe, “the number of arrests for left-wing and anarchist terrorist and extremist offenses is generally not very high,” Europol, the European Union agency for law enforcement cooperation, said in a report last year.
While experts caution that last week’s sabotage case remains open, they also say it bears some hallmarks of the insurrectionary anarchists, who frequently use low-tech methods like arson and cutting cables to target railway or telecommunication sites.

Court Disbands Thailand’s Most Popular Political Party  (Sui-Lee Wee, New York Times)
The party was dismissed by the establishment as too liberal, too radical, even revolutionary. But it scored a stunning victory in Thailand’s election last year, as millions of voters delivered a rebuke to the country’s monarchy, its military and its moneyed elite.
The old guard reacted swiftly, moving to crush its most formidable challenger in decades. Conservative politicians prevented the Move Forward Party’s leader from becoming prime minister and engineered a coalition that kept the party out of power.
On Wednesday, their quest to reverse the election results seemed complete: Move Forward was disbanded by Thailand’s Constitutional Court over charges that the party’s proposals to water down a stringent royal defamation law were an attempt to overthrow the monarchy. The court also barred from politics for a decade 11 party members and executives, including Pita Limjaroenrat, its former leader and prime ministerial candidate.
But stamping out the party could reignite the discontent that fueled its rise in the first place.
In recent decades, Thai politics have been dominated by clashes between the entrenched royalist-military establishment and forces allied to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist billionaire. Another tycoon, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, shook the status quo several years ago, with calls for reducing the military’s influence in politics and equitably distributing wealth. But his Future Forward Party ran afoul of the junta and was disbanded in 2020.
In recent decades, Thai politics have been dominated by clashes between the entrenched royalist-military establishment and forces allied to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist billionaire. Another tycoon, Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, shook the status quo several years ago, with calls for reducing the military’s influence in politics and equitably distributing wealth. But his Future Forward Party ran afoul of the junta and was disbanded in 2020.
Move Forward effectively succeeded the Future Forward Party. It tapped into that anti-establishment sentiment during last year’s election. The party campaigned on proposals to shrink the army’s budget, abolish conscription and break up big businesses like Thailand’s alcohol monopoly. And it called for weakening the lèse-majesté law — a demand that would eventually lead to its undoing.

Israel’s Disaster Foretold  (Gershom Gorenberg, The Atlantic)
At The Hague, the president of the International Court of Justice, Nawaf Salam, read out the tribunal’s opinion on the legality of the Israeli occupation on a Friday afternoon—timing that guaranteed minimal coverage, because journalists would already be leaning into the weekend. He spoke in the rhythmic monotone peculiar to judges declaiming long printed judgments, but his words were dramatic—indeed, scathing.
The ICJ had concluded that Israel, behind the facade of a temporary occupation, has developed permanent control of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. The settlements are one part of that metamorphosis. Therefore, Israel has violated the post–World War II ban on acquiring territory by force, and it has “frustrated the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”
And so, “Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory [is] unlawful” and should end. Other countries must avoid recognizing Israeli annexation of any territory taken in 1967, including East Jerusalem.
The key to the ICJ’s logic is this: Military occupation of land beyond one’s borders can be legal if it is a military necessity. But it is supposed to be temporary. Under post–World War II international law, you are not allowed to annex your conquests. The occupier must administer the territory for the benefit of the local population.
Temporary, however, is an undefined, slippery term.
Imagine an alternative world, in which Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza in 1967—and then heeded those early warnings. It left local laws in place, didn’t settle Israelis on occupied land, and treated the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention as holy writ. Let’s say that Israel tried to reach peace with the Palestinians, but an agreement never came together—over the refugee issue, or access to holy places, or security arrangements, or Palestinian cold feet about ending the conflict. Fifty-seven years later, Israel could still be a legal occupier.
We don’t live in that world.