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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   24843 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 17, 2025

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Another case of culture war cancellation dropped, this time somewhat more important than the usual cases.

The case of Nicolas Guillou, French judge at the ICC, cancelled by Marco Rubio personally.

If your French is not sufficient, here is Xitter summary.

Guillou's daily existence has been transformed into a Kafkaesque nightmare. He cannot: open or maintain accounts with Google, Amazon, Apple, or any US company; make hotel reservations (Expedia canceled his booking in France hours after he made it); conduct online commerce, since he can't know if the packaging is American; use any major credit card (Visa, Mastercard, Amex are all American); access normal banking services, even with non-American banks, as banks worldwide close sanctioned accounts; conduct virtually any financial transaction.

He describes it as being "economically banned across most of the planet," including in his own country, France, and where he works, the Netherlands.

That's the real shocking aspect of this: the Americans are:

  • punishing a European citizen
  • for doing his job in Europe
  • applying laws Europe officially supports
  • at an institution based in Europe
  • that Europe helped create and fund

Can it happen to you?

Not in this way, not even the most IRL important mottizen is worthy of Marco's personal attention.

If it happens, it will happen because AI analyzed your online activity and decided it crossed a threshold of dangerous nihilist extremism (and you could do about it just as much as Nicolas Guillou, this means nothing at all.)

Interestingly the US has committed to canceling these people in a very literal sense if the ICC actually captures a member of the US military or an ally. See the "Hague Invasion Act" for details.

So there's pros and cons for the current situation. Con: this guy can't easily book hotel rooms or use payment processors. "If you don't like it, just build your own global financial system" type of being canceled. Pro: Seal Team Six is not currently kicking down this guy's door and giving him the just wages of his actions. Which is possible if he somehow gets a US ally in a ICC cell.

The US and Israel are not signatories of the Rome Statute. We need to, in the strongest way possible, repudiate the imagined authority of the ICC. This is an attempt to imprison a democratically elected head of state. The ICC is a rogue organization and needs to be treated as such.

The US and Israel are not signatories of the Rome Statute. We need to, in the strongest way possible, repudiate the imagined authority of the ICC. This is an attempt to imprison a democratically elected head of state.

I agree and I would add that at a deeper level, this is a power grab. In some alternate timeline where the ICC becomes a respected international organization, how long would it take before pressure starts building within the organization to go after Donald Trump or any other Red-Tribe aligned American president? It's easy enough to cobble together an argument that Donald Trump is a war criminal, probably even easier than it is for Benjamin Netanyahu. If the ICC gained the power and legitimacy it seeks, it would not be long before that power was abused a la Letitia James to go after any leader the Blue Tribe does not like.

The ultimate result would be a sort of international anarcho-tyrrany.

The ICC needs, at a minimum, to be delegitimized, discredited, and humiliated.

The ICC needs, at a minimum, to be delegitimized, discredited, and humiliated.

Limiting its claims of jurisdiction to only its members and member territory, while requiring members to be sovereign states with defined boundaries recognized by the UN, might serve as an alternative.

Limiting its claims of jurisdiction to only its members and member territory, while requiring members to be sovereign states with defined boundaries recognized by the UN, might serve as an alternative.

I'm not optimistic . . . courts can always come up with BS arguments to expand their jurisdiction. In fact, I am pretty sure what you describe is how the ICC Treaty was supposed to work. And then a few years ago it accepted a creative argument that "Palestine" had standing as a state entity to join the treaty. From their it's just a short step to creatively argue that Israelis are committing war crimes in "Palestine."

I dont think this man has been cancelled for doing his job, he was cancelled for doing his job very stupidly. If you are holding yourself out as an international court with enforcement powers, your job is to never issue an order that can upset the fiction that you are a real court. He has done that and issued an unenforceable set of warrants that no one actually believes will actually be enforced, or even carry any non-virtue-signaling purpose.

On top of that, the idea that Netanyahu engaged in war crimes is, itself, unserious and childish.

This guy is basically a martyr for international antisemism and leftism, but its a fate he chose, and should have known he was choosing.

I dont think this man has been cancelled for doing his job, he was cancelled for doing his job very stupidly. If you are holding yourself out as an international court with enforcement powers, your job is to never issue an order that can upset the fiction that you are a real court. He has done that and issued an unenforceable set of warrants that no one actually believes will actually be enforced, or even carry any non-virtue-signaling purpose.

On top of that, the idea that Netanyahu engaged in war crimes is, itself, unserious and childish.

I agree with all that, but I think one needs to draw a distinction between the interests of the ICC and the interests of the progressive memeplex. From the point of view of the woke mind virus, damaging the ICC's credibility is worth it if Israel can be damaged in the process.

I have analogized this to Disney movies, for example the live action remake of The Little Mermaid. It was totally obvious that the movie would make a lot more money, especially in China, if they had used an attractive redheaded girl for the lead role instead of doing a race-swap. And yet they chose to lose a lot of money in the service of progressivism.

From another perspective, one can imagine the writer's room at Disney. If you, as a writer, go along with the idea of a race-swapped Ariel, you don't have to worry about being accused of Racism; your invitations to cool parties won't be threatened etc.

So too with the International Criminal Court. Yes, this Nicolas Guillou can't use credit cards, but I can pretty much assure you that within his elite circles, he enjoys enhanced status.

Sucks for the guy in question obviously.

That being said:

That's the real shocking aspect of this: the Americans are:

  • punishing a European citizen
  • for doing his job in Europe
  • applying laws Europe officially supports
  • at an institution based in Europe
  • that Europe helped create and fund

Lol, lmao even. Imagine replacing "Europe" with "Russia" and trying to use an otherwise identical argument to feign shock about the US sanctioning someone high up in the Russian military.

This is an obvious case of the ICC flying too close to the sun. Whether they like it or not, Israel is considered by the US to be a close ally. Making direct threats against them is obviously going to risk incurring the US's displeasure.

This is an obvious case of the ICC flying too close to the sun. Whether they like it or not, Israel is considered by the US to be a close ally.

As I said in another discussion recently on reddit: part of this is America's fault. They could have held to a line that non-signatory nations like Russia could never be punished by the ICC which would obviously also cover them and Israel.

Instead they decided to use it against Putin which probably emboldened this mission creep.

Instead they decided to use it against Putin

Can you tell me what exactly the US did that facilitated ICC activities against Putin?

He publicly came out in support of the action (while also maintaining the ICC's jurisdiction didn't apply to the US because ??)

As this situation is showing, the US president has some ability to make things difficult for the ICC. He could have held the line on the taboo and made it clear he didn't approve of the warrant. Instead he backed it.

He publicly came out in support of the action (while also maintaining the ICC's jurisdiction didn't apply to the US because ??)

By "he" do you mean Donald Trump? And what exactly did he say and when?

Oop, cut an earlier bit. Biden supported the Europeans trying Putin for war crimes, while admitting the US didn't recognize the court either.

“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” Biden told reporters on Friday. “I think it’s justified,” he said, referring to the arrest warrant.

“It’s not recognised internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point,” he added.

So basically a warrant from an organization that neither the US nor Russia recognize and will never actually lead to Putin's arrest because it's a "strong point".

While no one might be suicidal enough to try to try US servicemen there are other more vulnerable US allies that could be the victims of said court, so a strong US line (as opposed to "it's okay if it makes a strong rhetorical point") may have given people second thoughts.

“He’s clearly committed war crimes,” Biden told reporters on Friday. “I think it’s justified,” he said, referring to the arrest warrant.

“It’s not recognised internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point,” he added.

So basically a warrant from an organization that neither the US nor Russia recognize and will never actually lead to Putin's arrest because it's a "strong point".

I seems like a stretch to start from that and to reach this conclusion:

Instead they decided to use it against Putin which probably emboldened this mission creep.

And then this:

part of this is America's fault.

Although I agree it would have been better for Biden to emphasize that the ICC has no legitimacy, that one remark seems pretty minor.

Given the situation at the time and how much the Europeans needed America, Biden had far more leverage for his words to matter than usual. The majority of work for this would have been done under his administration, and certainly it would have helped if the American President showed zero ambiguity about how the court could be used.

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It's not like they're not allowed to do it in some objective way, but substituting "Europe" with "Russia" isn't actually a good argument unless you're trying to argue that America no longer differentiates between Europe and Russia. There are things you're allowed to do with enemies that you're kinda not supposed to do with allies.

And those things warrant their own arguments. The point of the substitution format is that the argument being subjected to substitution is typically relying on unstated arguments that are being smuggled, not made. Forcing the substitution can reveal the sort gaps that a more explicit argument might reveal... but that more explicit argument, in turn, may open the original argument to scrutiny.

For example, 'things you're allowed to do with enemies that you're kinda not supposed to do with allies' is an excellent example of an unstated argument that could bring awkward focusto the previous argument. Such as, trying to arrest the head of state of an ally of an ally. Is Israel an enemy of Europe? There's a reason that the OP didn't make that argument. And if that argument was made, it would expose them to the question of what you do to the allies of an ally. It might even raise the question of if the French judge was being a bad ally to the US, by going after a US ally, even though that ally is not an enemy of Europe. A potential retreat- 'it's not about being an ally, it's about adhering to international law'- would still allow the counter-attacks that (a) the ICC judge was going well beyond international law by trying to prosecute a head of state not part of the Rome Statute, and (b) abandoning the ally/enemy distinction as a smokescreen. Which then surrenders that field to the opposition that might press that ally/enemy relevance.

There are certainly arguments that some would eagerly make that the jews are enemies of the west. However, that's an argument the OP would rather avoid. Substituting 'Europe' for 'Russia' is the sort of counter-argument that forces original argument to be adhered to and defended, as opposed to abandoned.

This is cancellation for power politics reason, not bc of culture war.

If it happens, it will happen because AI analyzed your online activity and decided it crossed a threshold of dangerous

In Europe, debanking etc isn't due to Americans. Nobody in US cares about random anti-immigration activists who are typical targets.

Which anti immigration activists have been debanked?

I believe dozens at least in Britain, possibly up to a hundred. Real stupid policy, they went after basically nobodies too. They also tried to debank Farage which backfired.

More locally, Martin Sellner said he ultimately had to go to .. Latvia, I think, to get a working bank account?. In this lawsuit against Erste Bank, he claims he made 400+ attempts to open an account, and when he succeeded, in 93 cases the account was terminated a few days after.

In the proceedings, Sellner and his attorney demonstrated that 394 banks had refused to open accounts for him upon request , and according to his own statements, he has had 93 accounts closed over the years, with nearly 400 account applications rejected.

Now he's suing Erste Bank in Austria. Mind you, his organisation was acquitted from the organisation charge and doesn't seem to have a criminal record except some self-defense in 2017. He got charged with that mostly on the basis of accepting a donation from Brenton Tarrant and swapping a few emails. That was the guy who made money in crypto and then committed a mass shooting.

Anyway, it seems a low-lvl court ruled in his favor, so I wonder how it'll go from there.

The Commercial Court in Vienna (Handelsgericht Wien) ruled partially in Sellner's favor, stating that bank accounts in Austria are subject to an obligation to contract, provided there are no objective grounds against a business relationship, and that political views or media assessments are not sufficient grounds for refusal

To me this post seems to be a reflection of the absurd dominance of American power, how all of EU is America's bitch, and pointing out how crazy this is without taking sides. But most comments are about defending American actions as moral and proper and how this asshole Frenchman started shit anyway. Have I badly misread this or is everybody else crazy?

More clearly it is a reflection of the absurd dominance of jewish power over America in that US institutions can be used to injure foreign parties opposed to genocidal jewish supremacy in Gaza. This isn’t unexpected - the DHS X account was registered and operated out of Tel Aviv. Zionist Occupied indeed.

It is interesting that the U.S. State Department recently published a thread on X stating “Mass migration poses an existential threat to Western civilization and undermines the stability of key American allies.” However, Rubio has yet to use these cancellation and debanking tools against other judges in Western countries who facilitate mass migration or otherwise oppress the native White population. No, the only compelling interest here is to defend an alien ethnic group occupying Palestine.

Europe has an annoying quality where they want America to pay their meal ticket and then act snooty about it. They aren’t an Indian reservation, if they really wanted to make a go of being independent they could. Even when they’re right about the particular item of snootiness (like wrecking up Iraq) it’s hard to feel sympathetic for them.

It definitely demonstrates the "absurd" dominance of American power. But the tone of the comment was how it was horrible for the US to do this, not how it was horrible for the US to have the power to do this.

Have I badly misread this or is everybody else crazy?

This is the "just build your own financial system if you want to [political act]" finally deployed against the outgroup.
Which is why people are cheering it. It's that simple.

But then again, this is what happens when you willingly outsource your technology and financial system to the Americans. It doesn't come for free; just like membership in NATO, the cost is not "X% of GDP on military", it's "the US gets to fuck around in your country, delete your sovereignty, and there's fuck all you can do about it".

If Europeans didn't want to be vulnerable to this, they can build their own system. Oh, but that costs money and requires paying for the kinds of talent that run to the US at the first opportunity, and if there's anything European elites hate more than being told "no" it's having to pay their countrymen at fair market prices. So the response to this will be impotent at best- maybe more EU sanctions/finger-wagging to American tech companies because their AI can deny the Holocaust or whatever (and I'm sure it was coincidental that the French launched an investigation against Grok for that around this time).

This is the "just build your own financial system if you want to [political act]" finally deployed against the outgroup.

Particularly juicy in that the nations of the EU, uh -- did in fact have their own financial systems previously...

This is the "just build your own financial system if you want to [political act]" finally deployed against the outgroup. Which is why people are cheering it.

While I agree that there's an element of this, consider:

"the US gets to fuck around in your country, delete your sovereignty, and there's fuck all you can do about it".

This Nicolas Guillou is spearheading an effort to fuck around with Israel's sovereignty as well as to set up precedents that will inevitably be used to fuck around with American sovereignty.

Certainly as I Brit I find it hard to see the EU as a guardian of national sovereignty.

The one that really makes me baffled when I skim UK discussions is the idea that Britons wouldn't have human rights without the ECHR or some European organization. I would say there's a lot of self-serving myth-making to justify the European project but Brexit happened and people still seem to believe this stuff.

I guess when the conservatives argue that the ECHR is too restrictive they hear 'we have too many human rights'. Also people including myself have been fairly open that they don't consider human rights to be a sensible construction, or native to the British unwritten constitution.

I was very against Brexit at the time. But much of the behaviour of the EU* since then has done a lot to disabuse me of the notion that "European" is a synonym for enlightened/benevolent/compassionate. I'm not sure I'd support rejoining.

*To be fair, it mostly seems to be France.

The implications, issues, and tensions with the ICC's efforts to establish broad jurisdiction despite being a non-universal treaty organization have been discussed in various contexts for approaching 30 years. I can't say how much you may have misread as opposed to not read at all.

In most other contexts, it is considered absurd to try and impose treaty institutions on a state that is not part of the treaty, even when you think that treaty is a good idea or should supersede other principles of international law. Given that the French media article cited is not even inclined to argue that it is a matter of international law, but European law, it becomes even more absurd to try claim a European jurisdiction over non-Europeans for acts outside of Europe against other people not under a European sovereign aegis.

In most other contexts, it is considered absurd to try and impose treaty institutions on a state that is not part of the treaty, even when you think that treaty is a good idea or should supersede other principles of international law.

I remember one of the times someone brought up online (as a possible novel solution to some issue of the time) Congress's Constitutional power to issue letters of marque, adding that the US is not a signatory to the 1856 Declaration of Paris banning them. A few Europeans all responded with the same message: it doesn't matter what the US Constitution says. That the US claims to retain this power is face-saving cope, as are the excuses given for why the US hasn't issued such letters since. The actual reason Congress won't issue letters of marque is because they can't, because the rest of the world considers the Declaration of Paris a universal ban, binding on signatories and non-signatories alike. And were the US to try to defy this binding international law, then the rest of the world will enforce that ban on the Americans receiving those illegal, invalid letters of marque, lack of ratification be damned.

TBF, letters of marque have never really been tolerated by the countries being targetted, and I'm not sure about third-party tolerance (by which we mean, what, the French recognising British letters of marque against Spain? There aren't really that many other relevant cases for most of the period). They mostly just meant that you could claim prizes and avoid getting hanged in your own country.

Certainly, there's nothing saying a third-party country can't forbid foreign privateering in its own territorial waters.

In your effort to notice, you seem to have forgotten to notice that there is nothing surprising about the Americans opposing attempts by Europeans to create precedents of universal jurisdiction that could also be applied against the Americans by international legal institutions Americans also aren't a part of. And by nothing surprising, I mean that the so-called Hague Act is over two decades old, and over half of that was under Democratic administrations.

The Americans have consistently opposed various European efforts to apply the Rome Statute beyond the jurisdiction of the Rome Statute, which has very clear jurisdictional limitations even when you factor in the internal-ICC efforts to claim jurisdiction over the Gaza conflict via a membership application by the Palestinian Authority, which is not a sovereign state, over a decade after the Palestinian Authority was thrown out of (or off of high rises within) Gaza. That various members and lobbyists in the ICC are inclined to ignore this in pursuit of their foreign policy preferences doesn't really change the implications of this longstanding opposition. It doesn't change things even if they are Europeans doing it in Europe with European funds to European applause. They they attempted to apply this against an American ally, in a format that isn't-currently-but-could-easily be invoked against American administrations were it successful, is merely poor statecraft.

That it is also poor legal policy on their part, and very likely counter-productive to the aims they claim to be pursuing, are entirely separate matters.

That it is also poor legal policy on their part, and very likely counter-productive to the aims they claim to be pursuing, are entirely separate matters.

As a side note, from what I hear, there was a decent amount of internal dissent within the ICC over the decision to go after Netanyahu. Apparently there were some elements who correctly predicted that doing so would not accomplish anything except to undermine the legitimacy of the ICC.

But I think that when progressivism infests an organization, it's analogous to a virus infecting a living organism. i.e. the organism's systems and resources are hijacked to primarily serve the interests of the invader as opposed to those of the host. So that in the same way Disney keeps churning out lousy woke movies that lose money, the ICC has seriously undermined its own legitimacy in order to damage Israel.

So that in the same way Disney keeps churning out lousy woke movies that lose money, the ICC has seriously undermined its own legitimacy in order to damage Israel.

The problem here is that you've ignored the other side of the equation - failing to prosecute Israel would cause just as much, if not more damage to the ICC's credibility. Why, exactly, would any nation sign up to the ICC when they can see Israel doing what it has done without any kind of censure? Failing to prosecute Israel while at the same time prosecuting Russia for conduct that is less egregious than what people can see Israel proudly proclaiming would destroy the court's legitimacy in the eyes of the global south. Sure, the real principle at play is and always has been that "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must", but that's not actually a principle that will convince the weak to sign up for your criminal court.

Why, exactly, would any nation sign up to the ICC when they can see Israel doing what it has done without any kind of censure?

If you are talking about the actual reality of what Israel is doing, I would have to disagree. Everything Israel has done has been well within the bounds of legitimate warfare. Not only that, but Israel has a perfectly good system in place to investigate and prosecute its own soldiers and military leaders for misbehaving.

If you are talking about the fantasy that Israel is engaged in a psychopathic genocide campaign, well, countries should learn to get beyond Jew-hatred and start distinguishing between fantasy and reality.

Edit: By the way, if the ICC believed in good faith that Israel was engaged in wrongdoing but wanted to avoid blowback and the loss of legitimacy that would inevitably result from issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, there was an easy workaround: The ICC could have declined to recognize "Palestine" as a state which has standing to enter into the ICC treaty.

But instead, the ICC did some mental and legal gymnastics to recognize a phony State of Palestine. Which was hardly a surprise, given the large number of progressives (as well as members of the "Global South") who thirst to undermine and destroy Israel.

Everything Israel has done has been well within the bounds of legitimate warfare.

lmao at the idea you expect anyone to believe this at all. Can you actually explain the legitimate military purpose behind what happened to Hind Rajab? Look, this is the motte - you don't have to pretend that you're some social justice activist and that the IDF are the most moral army in the world. You can just admit that this is ethnic cleansing for more lebensraum, like many members of the Israeli government have already done. Hell, Sarah Hurwitz, an incredibly pro-zionist speechwriter, recently came out and said that one of the problems advocating for the state of Israel is that she has to argue through a wall of dead children (how do you get walls of dead children in legitimate warfare?). She explicitly compared what they were doing to the holocaust and said that holocaust education was working against them because it made people think that strong militaries wiping out poor and weak minorities is bad. Your own advocates explicitly compare themselves to the Nazi genocide! Not to mention that we live in a world where I can just have a computer translate hebrew messages and news articles or look up what it means when they say that the Palestinians or people like me are Amalek.

If you are talking about the fantasy that Israel is engaged in a psychopathic genocide campaign, well, countries should learn to get beyond Jew-hatred and start distinguishing between fantasy and reality.

Russia has claimed that they don't deserve any sanctions for what is happening in Ukraine with direct comparison to Israel. China has come out and said that what Israel is doing is bad. All over the world, countless nations have come together and outright stated that what Israel is doing is monstrous. Official IDF photos now show them with their faces censored and hidden, because there are credible threats to prosecute them for warcrimes whenever they leave their ethnostate. In the US, support for Israel's genocide is splitting the conservative movement into not-quite equal halves because even they are unable to justify what they are seeing on their screens every day.

Have you ever heard the saying "If it stinks everywhere you go, check your shoes"? The idea that the entire world is just possessed by irrational jew hatred for no reason (lol at the idea China or Russia would be jealous of Israel) is so much less likely than people objecting to Israel's conduct that I can't understand how you could believe in it beyond thoughtless support for your ingroup. Why, exactly, did this irrational hatred of jews suddenly appear at the same time as Israel's genocide of the Palestinians? Coincidence? I'm honestly curious here.

Which was hardly a surprise, given the large number of progressives (as well as members of the "Global South") who thirst to undermine and destroy Israel.

Yes, I actually am one of those progressives. I thought that Nazi germany needed to be destroyed because what they were doing was unconscionable, not because I have an irrational hatred of bratwurst and oktoberfest. My feelings towards Israel are similar(have been ever since Rachel Corrie), and I proudly link arms with Torah jews and other jewish antizionists at the protests - while also considering christian zionists (who actually outnumber jewish zionists) to be just as bad.

lmao at the idea you expect anyone to believe this at all. Can you actually explain the legitimate military purpose behind what happened to Hind Rajab

Sure, of course. Civilians regularly get killed in the fog of war. It's not totally clear what happened, but I do know that if it were official Israeli policy to target non-combatants, there would be no Arabs left alive in or around Gaza.

Anyway, let me make sure I understand your argument.

(1) Sarah Hurwitz is a very pro-Israel writer.

(2) this individual has equated Israeli activities with Nazi genocide

(3) moreover, Israeli forces have killed Palestinian Arab non-combatants

(4) moreover, there are members of the Israeli government who have advocated for clearing Palestinian Arabs out of Gaza.

(5) therefore, it is clear that Israel is engaged in a Nazi-style genocide with the goal of securing more space for Jews.

Do I understand your argument correctly?

Russia has claimed that they don't deserve any sanctions for what is happening in Ukraine with direct comparison to Israel. China has come out and said that what Israel is doing is bad. All over the world, countless nations have come together and outright stated that what Israel is doing is monstrous. Official IDF photos now show them with their faces censored and hidden, because there are credible threats to prosecute them for warcrimes whenever they leave their ethnostate.

I certainly concede that many people and groups have bought into the fantasy that Israel is engaged in serious wrongdoing. So what?

The idea that the entire world is just possessed by irrational jew hatred for no reason

Sadly, there are very good reasons: To virtue signal; to deflect attention from actual wrongdoing; to find a scapegoat.

Let me ask you this: Of all the countries in the world, do you believe that Israel is the very worst behaved in terms of war crimes?

I thought that Nazi germany needed to be destroyed because what they were doing was unconscionable, not because I have an irrational hatred of bratwurst and oktoberfest.

Serious question: Were you an adult in the 1940s? If so, where were you living at the time?

Sure, of course. Civilians regularly get killed in the fog of war.

This was not a case of the fog of war - the IDF waited for the ambulances to arrive before they killed the 5 year old girl who had been crying while surrounded by her dead family and murdered the medical workers.

I do know that if it were official Israeli policy to target non-combatants, there would be no Arabs left alive in or around Gaza.

The official Israeli policy is, to the best of my knowledge, to make sure that they don't simply wipe them out and exterminate them directly because the international pressure that would bring down on them would be too severe. Wiping out the Palestinian christian communities would also cause some problems with the Christian Zionists currently paying for their lifestyles and military defence to boot.

Do I understand your argument correctly?

No, not at all. Sarah Hurwitz' responses are given as an illustrative example of how zionists discuss these issues due to her prominent position in US politics. When somebody who is actively supporting the IDF and Israel's actions makes statements like these it isn't really possible to claim that they're some jew hater with an irrational hatred of Israel. She's just one example, but there are countless statements by people like Smotrich, Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and other members of the Israeli government on the same topic. As I said, official statements and interviews with members of the Israeli government make it clear that they, internally, believe that what they are doing is on the same level as what Hitler did to the jews in Germany. While this wouldn't be compelling by itself (maybe they're all just larpers), when you combine that with the incredibly well documented evidence of their actions in Gaza it actually does form a viable argument - they are producing mountains of corpses, reducing cities to a moonscape, torturing lambs, tearing down olive trees, starving people, etc. One example I've brought up on this site before is the growing number of IDF soldiers who are killing themselves because they can't live with what they've done - that they can't bear to look at meat anymore because it reminds them of all the Palestinian corpses they crushed under a bulldozer. When giving speeches at the funerals of IDF soldiers, their compatriots frequently mention how much they enjoyed killing civilians and blowing up houses. IDF soldiers post on social media about how they're wearing the lingerie of female Palestinians after driving them from their homes - the mountain of evidence is so voluminous that it beggars belief.

I certainly concede that many people and groups have bought into the fantasy that Israel is engaged in serious wrongdoing. So what?

Leaving aside the non-fantastical nature of Israel's wrongdoing, this is actually a serious problem. If everyone in your community suddenly started accusing you of being a pedophile and posting pictures of you behaving inappropriately with children, along with you giving speeches about how the age of consent is just a polite fiction, even if you weren't actually a pedophile you would have some explaining to do. Why, exactly, do all these people believe what they do?

Sadly, there are very good reasons: To virtue signal; to deflect attention from actual wrongdoing; to find a scapegoat.

Why the fuck would China need to virtue signal? Why the fuck would Thailand need to virtue signal? Why would Malaysia need to virtue signal? I can already tell you from my direct personal experience that my distaste for Israel stems from the videos of their actions and speeches that I've seen, and not because I need to virtue signal or find a scapegoat (as I have previously attested I'm an extremely cool and good-looking sex-haver with no need to deflect attention). I just can't take this claim seriously when it applies to so many people all over the world. Are you aware of how widely loathed and detested Israel and their actions are across the globe?

Let me ask you this: Of all the countries in the world, do you believe that Israel is the very worst behaved in terms of war crimes?

Historically? No, I think there were definitely worse regimes in the past. The Athenians were pretty nasty to the Melians, Alexander was nasty to the Thebans, etc. In the modern day, right now? I think it depends on how you attribute blame - the only other contender I can see in the present moment is the USA, but that is in part because they're also culpable for what Israel is doing. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has produced far fewer civilian casualties and far fewer warcrimes (which is one of the reasons I find it so laughable that they would need a scapegoat).

Serious question: Were you an adult in the 1940s? If so, where were you living at the time?

No, I'm basing this on the education I received during history class.

This was not a case of the fog of war -

Can you summarize the best evidence for this please?

The official Israeli policy is, to the best of my knowledge, to make sure that they don't simply wipe them out and exterminate them directly because the international pressure that would bring down on them would be too severe.

Can you summarize the best evidence for this conclusion as well?

As I said, official statements and interviews with members of the Israeli government make it clear that they, internally, believe that what they are doing is on the same level as what Hitler did to the jews in Germany.

Can you please provide 3 specific examples of this?

they are producing mountains of corpses, reducing cities to a moonscape, torturing lambs, tearing down olive trees, starving people, etc.

What is the evidence that the IDF is "torturing lambs" and "tearing down olive trees" in Gaza?

As far as the other things go (producing corpses, demolishing buildings, and starving people) would you agree that this is also consistent with a Hamas that is hiding behind civilians and deliberately intercepting food aid?

Why the fuck would China need to virtue signal? Why the fuck would Thailand need to virtue signal? Why would Malaysia need to virtue signal?

To deflect attention from their own wrongdoing. Duh.

Historically? No

No, I'm asking about the last 10 years. Is it your position, that in terms of war crimes, human rights abuses, and the like, Israel is the very worst country in the world over the last 10 years. Very simple question.

More comments

There's accusations that it was driven by more mundane motives, specifically to distract or avoid a sexual harassment charge

Putting that aside, I wouldn't underestimate the ability of Europeans to actually get high on their own supply.

Regardless of your feelings about Netanyahu's actions as PM of Israel, he is a democratically elected head of state who took office in a free and fair election. This is the first time the ICC has ever been so bold as to issue a warrant for a leader who meets that definition (prior recipients such as Putin and Gadhafi mostly dont even bother to wave the fig leaf of democracy), and IMO sets a terrible, no-good, very bad precedent that should be treated with utter contempt by all peace-loving denizens of the world.

Issuing an actual international arrest warrant because you don't like what the leader of a democracy is doing is dangerous and destabilizing to the norms of international behavior. The only people who can get away with it are those who have enough actual international muscle to shake up the playing field, and the ICC definitely fails that test. Our robed man of excessively signaled virtue fucked around and is now finding out. This is a good thing.

Putin and Gadhafi mostly dont even bother to wave the fig leaf of democracy)

?

Despite some amount of electoral fraud, Putin gets pretty securely elected. It's nowhere near as impressive as the democratic fig leaves in the West, but he's clearly taking care to preserve democratic legitimacy.

There was also his stepping down to Prime Minister because of the constitutional limits on consecutive terms.

Regardless of your feelings about Netanyahu's actions as PM of Israel, he is a democratically elected head of state who took office in a free and fair election.

Not only that, Israel has mechanisms in place to hold leaders to account if they misbehave. In fact, Netanyahu himself has been prosecuted for some sort of minor corruption charge.

The ICC Treaty is not supposed to apply in situations where the country at issue already has an effective system to investigate and prosecute its own citizens for war crimes. But of course, anyone with a modicum of intelligence and intellectual honesty knew at the time that this provision would eventually be ignored in order to go after Israeli leaders.

Issuing an actual international arrest warrant because you don't like what the leader of a democracy is doing is dangerous and destabilizing to the norms of international behavior. The only people who can get away with it are those who have enough actual international muscle to shake up the playing field, and the ICC definitely fails that test.

I agree, but as I pointed out in another post, this is sort of the international law equivalent to Disney releasing yet another woke movie which will obviously flop. i.e. when an institution has been captured by progressivism, the resources of that institution are put towards progressivism as opposed to the interests of the institution itself.

Why should being democratically elected shield you from ICC prosecution? The whole point of the ICC is that it is, well, international; you may believe that the people of Israel forfeited their right to judge Netanyahu when they elected him, but the ICC does not judge in the name of the people of Israel but in the name of the people of a pretty large chunk of the Western world. If anything, maybe the majority of Israeli voters should also stand trial in some sort of reverse class action suit - I think it's high time to patch out the stage magic trick by which democracies make accountability disappear.

For a very different polarity example, by all accounts Milošević was elected democratically and "genocide the Albanians" seems to have represented the Serbian people's will pretty accurately in the '90s. Was it "dangerous and destabilising" that he was dragged to the Hague for enacting it? Are you instead using the old descriptivist definition of "democratic" as "friends with the US" here? (Playing brazen word games like that is how you wind up bleeding soft power.)

Why should being democratically elected shield you from ICC prosecution? The whole point of the ICC is that it is, well, international; you may believe that the people of Israel forfeited their right to judge Netanyahu when they elected him, but the ICC does not judge in the name of the people of Israel but in the name of the people of a pretty large chunk of the Western world.

This is smuggling in a consensus of the basis of the ICC authority. The ICC does not get to judge because it does so the name of the people of a pretty large chunk of the Western world, nor does it get any extra legal authority from having the word 'International' in its name. These are utterly irrelevant factors. It would have the exact same jurisdictional reach if it's title were changed to the European Criminal Court. Its jurisdiction beyond non-signatories would be just as valid if its composition switched so that non-signatories were the signatories and the signatories were the non-signatories.

The International Criminal Court is a treaty-law organization. Its powers derive not externally, but from the sovereign authorities of its constituent members. As such, by it's very nature, it judges in the name of its treaty signatories. No more, and no less.

But this also means that- as a treaty-law organization- a treaty law organization's legitimacy in applying authority to non-signatories ends where the treaty's signatories end. Other- and higher- principles of international law recognize that the sovereign right of sovereign states to bind themselves in international laws, i.e. treaties, also entails to not join into such international agreements. In turn, the sovereign legitimacy of those states, whose sovereignty is what enables them to commit or not to such arrangements, derives from the legitimizing source of those states.

As such, it is not that 'being democratically elected should shield you from ICC prosecution.' It is that 'a legitimate sovereign state, whose sovereign legitimacy derives from its democratic processes to elect its own leader, should have the right to refuse to become a member of any treaty, and to refuse attempts to impose treaty-law they are not a part of.'

A pretty large chunk of the Western world has no greater grounds to pass judgement or ignore the sovereignty of other nations than another chunk of the Western world, or the non-western world.

For a very different polarity example, by all accounts Milošević was elected democratically and "genocide the Albanians" seems to have represented the Serbian people's will pretty accurately in the '90s. Was it "dangerous and destabilising" that he was dragged to the Hague for enacting it?

Yes.

Opposing Milosevic was moral, righteous, and even lawful for reasons beyond the ICC. UN treaty law that the Soviet block was also nominally a party of already forbade genocide. There's a reason that for decades when anti-NATO shills try to raise 'muh sovereignty' objections to the Yugoslav interventions, they conspicuously avoid asserting Milosevic's own legal obligations at the time. At the same time, dragging Milosevic also entailed an international war that- but for a geopolitical context of a temporary decrease in Russian military capability to intervene- could have expanded into a much broader regional conflict. 'Just war' does not mean 'safe war.'

But the R2P ('Responsibility to Protect) principles also encoded into the Rome Statute and that were invoked over Milosevic have absolutely been both risky and destabilizing when put into practice. Its attempts to assert universal jurisdiction as a basis, reason, and even requirement for states to act to resolve the injustice directly contribute to geopolitical conflicts when the state being motivated is acting against a state that- even if evil- will work to ensure its own survival. And that's when R2P works.

R2P was a contributing factor / legitimizer to the neocon wars of the middle east, including the Iraq War, when 'bringing Saddam to justice' for many very real and very bad things he did to the Shia and Kurd populations entailed cracking apart a police state and triggering a civil war. R2P can be directly tied to regional policy disasters that have made the humanitarian issues they were intended to resolve worse, such as the Libya intervention that a pretty large chunk of the western world was happy to use as a pretext to settle old scores with a dictator who had, if not repented, long since stopped being a state sponsor of terrorism that ran up those scores. R2P might have 'succeeded' with Milosevic, but that experience and validation was what contributed to the American participation in Somalia, and thus the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, which in turn had just a little to do with the American decision to sit out the far-more-genocidal rwanda genocide in 1994, and (some time later) the electoral prospects of a later American president who ran on a platform of domestic focus and compassionate conservatism.

Ah, but those are American military interventions. Perhaps you 'only' meant legal stuff, not enforced by state hard power?

Well, it turns out that when motivated would-be litigants sympathetic to separatists or insurgencies would like to sue countries for the ugly business of fighting said conflicts, it neither inclines the states to hand over jurisdictional authority to the potentially sympathetic judges that motivated parties are seeking to court shop, or to adopt the belief systems of the people who think they really should anyway. Which is how nations like India (which speaks for about 1/6th of the whole world, not just a good chunk of the west) ends up not exactly wanting to become a part of that legal mindset, and involved in expatriate conflicts with in-exile separatist advocates who absolutely will try to lawfare whatever they can wherever. Which, in turn, brings India- or India equivalents- into geopolitical conflict with the states hosting such litigants. Hence the India-Canada issue, which shapes the India-US relationship, which is very significant to the India-US-China dynamic, which is the single biggest geopolitical stability issue of the century.

Or, conversely, claims to universal jurisdiction lets any state attempt to lawfare-litigate as a geopolitical cudgel. South Africa absolutely has no internal or international political interests to be advanced by accusing Israel of genocide, it is solely because they really care that much. And, since the South African movement created a legal obligation on the part of Europeans to act against Israel, which weakens the European influence on Israel to end the war (cause, you know, the Prime Minister of Israel will no longer go to European capitals where they can try and talk or lobby him). This might have made the Israelis more susceptible to American pressures to end the war in the Trump peace plan (that was widely panned as being unrealistic and prone to failure), but that influence / negotiation goes both ways, since things the US President is more comfortable with are no longer deal-breakers if there is no European deal to break. So while the Europeans recognized a Palestine, the Israelis restarted a long-restrained eastern jerusalem / west bank settelement plan that even the litigants would probably eagerly concede / argue / accuse of being bad for the (West Bank) Palestinians, but which the ICC won't have any real recourse except to support an invasion to take by force of arms, or sit around for years/decades hoping that international isolation will lead to an Israeli collapse... which no one claims will help the Palestinians in the interim, if at all.

And let's not get started on the topic of amnesty in international law, and the commodification/commercialization of it as an economic migrant population flow policy, and what various states have to accept- in terms of legal and political opposition- to mitigate it. Or exploit it as leverage, such as the totally-not-Russia-encouraged Belarusian-Poland border crisis the year before the Ukrainian invasion, which totally-wasn't-a-signal of what too much support to Ukraine could lead to. Or used globally in later propoganda as a demonstration of what European claims to human rights law really means.

All of which further weakens the role of humanitarian protection in international law. When you present humanitarian considerations as self-evidently legitimate basis for overcoming all objections, including sovereignty, you are incentivizing states to pre-emptively avoid systems created to respect it because there is no limiting principle. It sets incentives for motivated parties to invoke it as much as they can, but surviving states that don't want to be eternal hostages to Current Thing to systematically reduce the relevance of laws intended to codify empathy of a different era. It even incentivizes states to take fait accompli actions that international law cannot reverse in any sort of consistent or timely manner.

But worst of all, it doesn't normalize prioritizing humanitarian consideration. International law normalization is a function of how many states actually do the thing. The more states that are pushed by, or to, cynicism to water down humanitarian protections, the weaker those protections become when they are needed most, not as steady-state lobbying devices but as calls to action to stop imminent genocide.

Which- if it's not clear enough- is a reason to overcome sovereignty objections. States concede that genocide is not an internal-only matter when they sign certain treaties. But when this gets expanded and leveraged beyond actual not-even-technically genocide on grounds of universal jurisdiction, at the behest of people whose interests aren't actually genocide, the consequences (of bad policy) and the blowback (of delegitimization) can be measured in terms of catastrophes.

Milosevic is a symptom, not a cause. It is not 'because NATO countries intervened in the caucuses, these bad things happened.' Rather, NATO intervened because of pre-existing paradigms of optimistic / moralistic assumptions that, when run into reality, regularly do not pan out. That does not mean they never pan out. Again, Milosevic. But when they fail, they can fail in ways that make existing problems worse, and destabilize entire geopolticial regions for years or decades to come.

The premise behind R2P have always been risky and destabilizing. Sometimes risks are worth taking, even when they incur costs. But risky and destabilizing they still remain.

Obviously the ICC and the rest of the internationalist crowd continues to believe (just as they did in 2003 when W invaded Iraq) that national sovereignty must give way to international law. Waving around the democratic mandate of the Israeli government is totally irrelevant to the question, given they don't believe that the nation itself has such authority. Quibbling about how it's constituted is besides the point.

They're pretty obviously wrong, but it is important to actually understand the core of their position (even if we all disagree with it). It would be impossible for them to concede that a national leader has impunity if he can demonstrate sufficient democratic mandate -- indeed it makes a mockery of the entire conception of international law as vindicating universal and inalienable human rights. They can't just say "well they're inalienable unless the guy alienating them won an election" -- that's an untenable position.

indeed it makes a mockery of the entire conception of international law as vindicating universal and inalienable human rights.

That's because that conception is bogus. The only way, ever, to force a country to behave according to your principles has been "start a war".

And yes, kidnapping the leaders of a country is a pretty-good way of starting a war. If you want to start a war with Israel, by all means do so; you won't be the first or the fifth and I have no particular love for the place. I'd recommend investing in some really-good ballistic missile defence first, though.

The entire reason the UN Security Council is set up with vetoes is precisely to prevent the UN from trying to enforce "international law" on great powers and consequently triggering a nuclear exchange. You get to play nice with the genocidal arseholes with nukes, or you get to live through World War III; trying to use "international law" to get around that dichotomy will only wind up with the second horn and it is dangerously foolish to pretend otherwise.

EDIT: I think I might have misinterpreted you and as such misaddressed this; it's a relevant point to the discussion more generally, though.

I'd take the case against international law more seriously here if there were any politically significant actors who abstained on principle from invoking it to condemn their geopolitical enemies as well. I find the rank hypocrisy morally more revolting than any object-level "violation of international law".

I do not believe the US has condemned Russia for using cluster munitions or land mines, for instance.

This is not cancellation, and "I see what you did there". This is hardball diplomacy.

Play stupid games win stupid prizes. It is refreshing to see virtue signaling bearing consequences.

The most shocking thing is that Rubio isn't even doing this to protect Americans. Rubio is doing this on behalf of a foreign country.

The most shocking thing is that Rubio isn't even doing this to protect Americans. Rubio is doing this on behalf of a foreign country.

Be assured if the ICC had their way, they would have charged Rummy and Cheney.

Protecting a small country from the ICC is an excellent way to remind them not to try it against a big one.

He's helping an ally (Israel) against an enemy (the ICC). Israel hasn't been the best of allies, but the ICC has been a perfectly fine enemy.

That's a weird way to spell donor.

That's the real shocking aspect of this: the Americans are:

Sounds like Europe isn't a reliable ally, since whatever unmentioned action he took was opposed so strongly. Swap out "African", "Asian", or even "South American" for European there, and it becomes an utter non-story, as written.

applying laws Europe officially supports

It doesn't matter whether Europe supports him. He issued an arrest warrent for the prime minister of a state which is not a party to the Rome Statute. He is acting ultra vires to overthrow the government of a US ally. If Europe supported Osama Bin Laden, and The Netherlands let him set-up a compound in The Hague, the US would still send in Seal Team Six.

To your other point, United States financial regulations are amongst the most powerful tools on the planet. Underestimate them at your peril.

He issued an arrest warrent for the prime minister of a state which is not a party to the Rome Statute. He is acting ultra vires to overthrow the government of a US ally.

Agreed. It's not like he was just sitting in the Netherlands, minding his own business. He is trying to reach out across international borders and kidnap and imprison a head of state. So he's not really in a position to complain that someone reached out across international borders and sanctioned him.

And what happens when the ICC kangaroo court puts out a warrant for you?

I'll let you know when i'm personally responsible for some vile shit like saturation bombing of civilian infrastructure and neighborhoods.

If such unlikely situation happened, I would go to Hague to clear my name. After few years in comfy United Nations prison, I would show I never participated in any genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.

There are many rightful complaints against ICC, major is very slow procedure, but no one seriously claimed that any person, of rather short list so far found guilty by ICC was wrongfully convicted.

(i am not aware that any person blacklisted by US received any sort of trial)

There are many rightful complaints against ICC, major is very slow procedure, but no one seriously claimed that any person, of rather short list so far found guilty by ICC was wrongfully convicted.

For what it may be worth, I am ready to defend the position that (1) Netanyahu has not committed any war crimes whatsoever by any reasonable definition of the phrase "war crimes."; (2) there is no reasonable basis to accuse him of such; (3) based on any reasonable interpretation of the ICC Treaty, there is no basis to issue a warrant for his arrest; and (4) therefore, the ICC is acting illegitimately.

I would add that this attack on Netanyahu is pretty obviously the result of the coalition of progressive, Muslim, and Arab Jew-haters.

Just shows the importance of having your own versions of the services which are necessary for daily life. Europe made the mistake of funneling its resources to paying for the welfare of low human capital instead of developing indigenous service providers. Now it's suffering the consequences. The hope would be that they learn their lessons, cut welfare and move the money into long term US (and China) independent services. Payment processors are a good starting point, even places like Nigeria have fully functional home grown versions like Verve.

In the short term they really should force the American companies to lift these sanctions or suffer just as nasty consequences in Europe as not following the sanctions would inflict upon them in the US. This would basically force a divestment of the EU business by the company which would give the EU a good starting point for their own versions of these services.

Just shows the importance of having your own versions of the services which are necessary for daily life.

This would require unchaining their private sector to provide them, which in turn changes the balance of domestic power.

These things are all linked, you can't just manage an economy like you're playing SimCity.

force the American companies to lift these sanctions

These companies are much more beholden to Secretary Rubio than to Eurocrats. These are Americans in America. Violating official sanctions is not an option. Million dollar penalties and federal imprisonment are the possible punishments for purposefully violating sanctions.

Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

Yes, but their EU operations exist because the Eurocrats allow them to. Such a proposal would mean their EU operations are no longer viable and they have to choose between the US and EU. Yes of course they are going to choose to keep the US operations but that means a full sale of the EU operations to an entity which will be EU based and therefore comply with the Eurocrats.

This will give the EU ready made versions of their own services that they don't need to build up from scratch, a bit like how McDonald's still exists in Russia after McDonald's International left the country, the restaurants just changed their name but offer basically the same food at basically the same prices, Russia didn't need to build up their McDonald's replacement from scratch.

a full sale of the EU operations to an entity which will be EU based and therefore comply with the Eurocrats.

This will give the EU ready made versions of their own services

I don't think so. They aren't handing the tech over. EU can kick them out but not make them sell their tech. If there's any possible way for the US to block them from selling off their tech, I would support that.

a bit like how McDonald's still exists in Russia after McDonald's International left the country

Well, no, for 2 reasons.

First, software isn't fast food. In a restaurant like that you already have a bunch of employees who have the institutional knowledge to remake it from scratch, but for tech the platforms are a lot more complex. Not that a Twitter clone is technologically out of reach of the EU, but they couldn't really re-use anything.

Sure, "but Elon Musk did it by firing 90% of the company", but that only works if you're Elon Musk and still have the infrastructure running. But Twitter EU loses access to a lot of that infrastructure (and the code repos) the second the plug is pulled.

Second, because the product is software, the US alternative doesn't suddenly cease to exist. They don't have to have a corporate presence in a country to sell there. They don't have to have EU divisions for any reason... other than "we'd like to use local labor for things like localization and lock down the smarter workers coming out of the universities in those countries". Which are good reasons, but in the face of EU sanction the best thing to do is likely to pull out and let them fend for themselves while the ad spend continues apace. And in a sanction fight the EU loses for the same reasons they're losing here now: they let the Americans capture the power that comes from building -> owning the international banking system for reasons that had to do with the domestic balance of power, so the EU telling banks to not process payments to US companies because reasons is not going to be particularly enforceable.

This will give the EU ready made versions of their own services that they don't need to build up from scratch,

Will it? I'd expect any company leaving Europe to delete their stuff before selling off the datacenters. Sure, the authorities could sweep in and compel the local employees to prevent this from happening, but this would be a rather blatant expropriation of intellectual property without a fig leaf of "this company is voluntarily leaving because they are no longer willing to comply with local laws, too bad!"

There's also the point that asymmetric tit-for-tat doesn't require identical fields of retaliatory regulation. If EU authorities target US operators to open up competition space in the EU markets, US authorities can target EU banks that the EU would count on to finance those EU operators. The EU financial sector can make far more money by accessing the US financial markets than by servicing EU operators cut off from the US financial system, and EU attempts to try and set up dummy-financial companies still run into the issue that, at some point, those nurtured companies are expected to access private capital investments. Which, by the nature of the global markets, will want access to the US financial system and US markets and US consumers to grow faster than a company that exists solely on EU government dole.

The reason the Russian expropriations of McDonalds or Irish airlines were able to 'work' is that the Russian banks are already cut-off from western financial sectors, and so have little to lose. Even then they have, and will, pay high opportunity costs for the credit close offs, such as we're seeing with the Chinense economic takeover of the Russian market. The EU would have to cut off the US financial sector as a self-own to open up an equivalent policy space, and that still wouldn't address the issue of the incentive structure from the US side (i.e., paying people more than the Europeans).

That's the real shocking aspect of this: the Americans are:

   punishing a European citizen
   for doing his job in Europe
   applying laws Europe officially supports
   at an institution based in Europe
   that Europe helped create and fund

It's worth noting that something similar could be said about Guillou vis-a-vis a certain Israeli citizen. Yes, I know, from Guillou's perspective he's just prosecuting a ruthless bloodthirsty war criminal. But from another perspective, Guillou is targeting a Jewish head-of-state, the leader of a vibrant democracy which is simply trying to defend itself from an enemy dedicated to maximizing civilian casualties on both sides.

So, as usual, it's not about cancellation per se but rather who/whom.

That's fascinating. Good news, though: China maintains a nearly full-stack offering, so you have options! I'm not even being entirely sarcastic - out of an excess of masochism, I turned down the usual offer of a VPN when visiting China for the first time and had to live entirely without the American tech stack for a week. It was interesting and entirely viable once you got used to it, though perhaps less so if you live in Europe.

(Caveats: obviously I wouldn't do this myself except in extremis because it's inconvenient and the Chinese will obviously use it to spy on you and control you, but I find it interesting that they saw the danger and the promise of full-stack control so far ahead.)

nearly full-stack offering, so you have options

Try even installing wechat. Last I checked it was an unbelievable pain in the ass.

I didn’t have any trouble at all, though I did have to sign in with my passport. Only trouble was that my bank kept having a hissy fit and cutting me off. I always travel with some paper money just in case but I could have got into real trouble otherwise.

I did similarly this past summer. Wechat let me validate my identity with a selfie and a photo of my US passport.

Incidentally the Motte is accessible in China and I posted from there without VPN. I did not even have a VPN on the phone I brought.

You could get Wechat working as a foreigner? Every time I've tried I've been stuck in non-verified jail which is impractical to get out of once you're flagged.

Do like the rest of their ecosystem, though.

I was using my wife's old phone signed into the Chinese Apple app store with Chinese WeChat installed. They have Chinese-only versions of apps for only people with Chinese mainland phone numbers and bank accounts. It was effortless. I clicked through a few screens of taking photos and entering info and I was done. A verified foreigner ready to buy a bun from a street vendor with Wechat pay. I'm not sure if the American version of WeChat is as functional.

Many years ago a Chinese immigrant coworker got locked out of WeChat. I tried to helped them get back on by them scanning a QR code from my account. The point being a user in good standing who is physically in front of a person can verify them. WeChat wrongly implied this would unlock their account. It ultimately did not. They couldn't get on as Chinese person recently immigrated to America. Somehow flagged as a fake account. But inexplicably I, an American who worked a bit in China long ago, was let into the system. Something about anarcho-tyranny applies.

I've consistently had issues even with people trying to approve me, though potentially your number being US means less flagging than me trying to do it with a Malaysia/Australian number on a fresh account since apparently there's a lot of random spambots that come through.

I mean, if the Chinese censorship apparatus works off of blacklists, the motte is probably just too small to be listed.

If your French is not sufficient

Official English translation

AP article on the ICC prosecutors who have received the same treatment

EU page explaining the "blocking statute" that the judge wants the EU to implement in order to prevent EU companies from obeying US sanctions

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