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The F-16 is designed to be capable of launching nuclear strikes, usually with B61 thermonuclear bombs. The units deployed by NATO members such as Belgium and the Netherlands operate F-16 fighter jets capable of delivering nuclear weapons, specifically as part of their nuclear sharing agreements with the US. And it’s precisely these countries that still operate F-16s and could very well be the first to send them to the Kiev regime.
Andreas Babler addresses delegates during an extraordinary congress of the Social Democratic Party of Austria on June 3, 2023 in Linz, Austria. (Georg Hochmuth / APA / AFP / Austria OUT via Getty Images)
June 3 won’t be a date that many in the Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPÖ) will want to remember for very long. For months, the anti-migration hardliner Hans Peter Doskozil had launched attacks on the party’s sitting leader, Pamela Rendi-Wagner, before achieving his aim of forcing a leadership election. After weeks of campaigning, two final candidates remained. Doskozil made it to the final round, promising a tough migration policy to reclaim votes from the Right.
Opposing him stood Andreas Babler, mayor of the small city of Traiskirchen and a veteran member of his party’s left. Babler had only narrowly made it to the final round, beating Rendi-Wagner to second place with a margin of 0.1 percent.
One poll before the final round put the two candidates neck and neck, but Doskozil had a good chance of winning over disgruntled SPÖ delegates. Many were convinced that his promises to return electoral success to the party were enough to get him over the line. But before voting, Babler gave a compelling speech, confounding many critics, and was met with rapturous applause.
The delegates’ votes were counted, and the result was in: Doskozil won with 53 percent of delegates and was declared the winner. On the Left, heads dropped in disappointment. People left the room. Many of those who had been so impassioned by Babler’s speech and who were convinced of his victory said that there was nothing left but to tear up their membership cards.
This wasn’t to be the end of Babler’s story. Afterward, a journalist from Austria’s main broadcaster, ORF, noticed a missing vote in the final result and reported it to the SPÖ’s electoral commission. The vote was recounted and the electoral commissioner, Michaela Grubesa, announced that “the results were mixed up due to a technical error in the Excel file,” a problem to which many office workers can certainly relate. Soon Babler was informed of his victory and officially elected as the new party chair, later describing the events as “painful.”
Babler will now lead a party that has not increased its proportion of seats in parliament since 2002. To understand his vision, we need to look at how he was shaped into the politician he is today.
Babler was born to a working-class family in the town of Mödling, a stone’s throw from Vienna. At the age of sixteen, he joined the Socialist Youth of Austria (SJÖ), a socialist, anti-fascist, internationalist youth organisation with a close relationship to the SPÖ. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming vice president of the group’s international section.
Since 1995, he has been a member of Lower Austria’s local council, becoming the mayor of the city of Traiskirchen in 2014. The former artillery school on the outskirts of the city has been a home for refugees since 1956. Amid the increasing number of people fleeing conflict in 2015, the camp became critically overcrowded. Over a thousand people were sleeping outside, the toilet conditions were inhumane, and there were extreme food supply issues. The head of the Austrian branch of Amnesty said at the time that, “they are just left alone and have to survive there. They are the last ones who get to eat and this is a really heavy human rights violation of the convention for children.”
As mayor, Babler openly criticized the policies of then interior minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner. In 2014, he stated, “Given [Austria’s] population of 8.5 million inhabitants and well over 100 million overnight tourist stays, 25,000 refugees who are receiving basic care is a low number.” He highlighted the terrible conditions, imploring the government to provide humane accommodation for refugees and to abolish overcrowded camps.
During the leadership election, comments he made in 2020 in which he referred to the EU as the “most aggressive military alliance that has ever existed” and argued that its doctrine was “worse than NATO” surfaced. For those unfamiliar with the workings of the bloc, and the long tradition of left-wing opposition to its undemocratic expansion, Babler’s comments might seem to put him in the company of the political right rather than left. Austria joined the European Union in 1995 after a referendum in which 33 percent of the population voted against EU accession. While the mainstream parties backed the move, the Greens, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ), and Babler’s SJÖ officially objected to joining the union.
Last month, Babler also raised eyebrows by stating, “I am a Marxist, I am Marxist-oriented, ever since my days in the youth organization.” When pushed on these comments in a further interview, he doubled down, saying that, “I really don’t understand the reaction. Marx was a thinker who shaped the party and the party’s program in many ways.”
For many, it might appear shocking that a leader of a European social democratic party could elect someone as openly left-wing as Babler. His days in the SJÖ shaped him into the politician he is today, and he was rewarded for staying true to his beliefs as the organization helped to get his name on the ballot box.
Babler’s path to power looks daunting. With a legislative election on the horizon next year, the far-right FPÖ is surging ahead in the polls, with some putting the party above 30 percent. A coalition between the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the FPÖ still looks to be the most likely scenario.
The chaos of the miscount will no doubt make the SPÖ appear less credible, especially after months of infighting. However, from the 2019 FPÖ’s Ibiza scandal, in which members of the party were filmed offering government contracts in exchange for positive news coverage, to the corruption probes of the former ÖVP chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, Austrian parties have a knack for recovering from political embarrassment.
The route from youth leader to city mayor to chancellor is nothing new. Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, cut his teeth as a member of the Marxist wing of the Social Democratic Party of Germany’s youth organization (at the time criticizing the “aggressive-imperialist NATO”), later becoming mayor of Hamburg for seven years before becoming chancellor in 2021. Nevertheless, Babler has held on to the politics of his youth, while Scholz has shed his anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist commitments.
The victories of the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) in local elections have shown that there is an appetite for a genuinely radical agenda in traditionally conservative areas. Babler is not well-known in the west of the country, where the KPÖ has seen success, but he could find fertile ground there. The Green Party, whose agenda garnered vast support in the last national election, has lost credibility since joining in a coalition government with the conservative ÖVP. Progressives are looking for an alternative; under Babler’s leadership the SPÖ could offer one.
In the coming months, Babler will have to flesh out his vision for a left-wing Austria. What is clear is the deep economic precarity that the country’s most vulnerable face. Austria has a rampant child poverty problem, with 370,000 children and teens at risk of poverty or exclusion. The energy crisis and skyrocketing inflation have hit the country hard due to its dependence on Russian gas, boosting the popularity of a far right that doesn’t align with the Western sanction system. A poll in November last year showed that Austrians’ faith in their democratic system had collapsed, with two-thirds now unhappy with their country’s political institutions.
Babler cannot be accused of being unambitious about his party’s future. In his campaign, he proclaimed the “incredible comeback of social democracy.” After his manifesto was labeled a daydream, he retorted, “Dreamer? That’s just another word for Social Democrat.” His optimism has caught on, with thousands of new party members having joined in the past week.
His beliefs are rooted in something different from what we’ve come to expect from the social democratic mainstream in recent decades. They emerge out of an attempt to build on the radical legacies of social democracy by pushing for the further decommodification of society. Whether the Austrian left can break the near-universal trend of accommodation to the norms set by conservative and liberal parties will depend on Babler’s ability to forge a coalition within and outside of his party. Whether such a project is feasible remains an open question.
A protester holds a placard stating “Trans rights are human rights” during a demonstration outside Downing Street, London, United Kingdom on January 21, 2023. (Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images)
In his thought-provoking essay “What Is Socialism?” (1946), socialist and literary icon George Orwell defines the archetypal socialist as one that cannot be “without liberty, without equality, and without internationalism.” In practice, Orwell’s inclusiveness had limits. His views on gender and sexuality matched those of a traditional conservative rather than a socialist radical. In his novel Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936) he describes an effeminate male character as having tripped “nancifully in” to the room, inspiring the protagonist to wish that he would just as easily “float out again.”
Orwell can perhaps be forgiven for not aligning himself with the more progressive elements of the Left or the Labour Party. It was the 1930s, after all. Less forgivable has been the attitude that Labour’s current leader, Keir Starmer, has taken at the helm of the party. There he has allowed the culture war currently dominating British political debate around trans rights to rage unabated. For context, earlier this year the Conservative government put the kibosh on passing Scotland’s bill that offered a simpler process for trans people to legally change gender.
A battle then erupted, so Starmer suggested a reset on the Gender Recognition Act, defending his broadside with a supposed lack of public support for trans rights.
Prior to his statement, transphobia was already flourishing on the Labour benches. So-called gender-critical activist and Labour right-winger Rosie Duffield cited the “repercussions for women” as a justification for why the gender reform bill should not pass, sparking a raucous backlash from her peers. Her openly gay colleague Lloyd Russell-Moyle lambasted Duffield for her “transphobic” speech, yet was subsequently attacked by the liberal commentariat for being misogynistic and condescending. It’s a rift that signifies a critical juncture for LGBTQ rights and progressive politics in today’s polarizing discourse. Amidst the furor, it is easy to forget how recent of a phenomenon the anti-trans crusade on both the mainstream left and right is.
In a recent speech, Donald Trump made the following remark after receiving a standing ovation for a casual remark about intervening to stop “critical race theory” and “trans insanity”:
It’s amazing how strongly people feel about that. You see I’m talking about cutting taxes, people go like that [Trump mimics polite a golf clap] . . . I talk about transgender, everyone goes crazy. Who would have thought? Five years ago, you didn’t know what the hell it was.
The same could be said of the British political establishment. Last week marked five years since Labour stripped Theresa May of her majority in the 2017 general election. As Labour councilor for Haringey Council Tammy Hymas remembers: “It was then prime-minister May who championed gender self-declaration,” sharing a similar position with Jeremy Corbyn. However, Hymas observes that today this positive sense of agreement has disappeared: “Starmer appears unwilling to grant trans people legal recognition without the degrading process of seeking ‘approval’ of medical and legal professionals.”
Clearly, Starmer’s Labour has made the calculation that political capital can be won by veering right on social issues. Looking back on history it’s clear that this is not the first time that such a cynical scheme has been made within the party. Labour’s first openly lesbian MP Maureen Colquhoun faced widespread opprobrium from party colleagues because of her sexuality. She was ultimately deselected by her constituents in 1973 due to her relationship with a woman, and later told a magazine that “being a lesbian ruined my political career.”
A decade later, homophobia reared its ugly head in the Bermondsey by-election when the media, Conservatives, and right-wing members of the party took issue with gay rights activist Peter Tatchell’s decision to represent the southeast London seat. Tatchell was pilloried for his homosexuality, which was only exacerbated by then leader Neil Kinnock, who feared electoral mutiny if his party appeared unwavering in its support for LGBTQ rights. In response to Tatchell’s defeat to Liberal candidate Simon Hughes, Kinnock was quoted as saying “I’m not in favour of witch hunts, but I do not mistake bloody witches for fairies!” It was around this time that Kinnock’s leadership sparred with a radical left Greater London Council on whether to support gay activist groups through funding and public solidarity.
Historically, the tendency on the part of the right-wing factions that currently hold sway within the Labour Party to accommodate conservative positions for electoral gain has often come at the expense of marginalized communities. Admittedly, Starmer has not himself pursued an actively transphobic line, but his unwillingness to take a principled stance on these issues has made it easier for the Conservative Party to normalize the culture war.
Alexis Chilvers, founder and cochair of the Labour Campaign for Trans Rights, said that the party’s “current position is actively contributing to the deterioration of trust between itself and the LGBTQ community.” With the country gearing up for what’s likely to be a general election next year, Chilvers voiced concern that “for trans people there is a significant fear that the next 5 years will be terrible for us, no matter who wins the next election.”
It’s as if the leadership fears being raked over the coals by a so-called anti-woke “Red Wall,” a demographic Starmer’s bent on winning over. Desperate to avoid taking any position that could invite comparisons between himself and Corbyn, even if these are positions shared by a former Conservative prime minister, Starmer has opted to straddle the fence.
A recent poll indicated that Britain is sinking to the bottom of the list on trans equality when compared to other countries, while the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ lobby group founded in 1980, has declared a “state of emergency” for LGBTQ people in the United States. Both of these events should force Labour to recognize that its unwillingness to lead on these issues will have real consequences.
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Palestinian Islamic Jihad denies reports of proposed long-term ceasefire with Israel, as Hamas suggests it is gearing up for major campaign against the Jewish state.
By World Israel News Staff
A senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization has denied reports that his group is considering a proposal to establish a long-term ceasefire with Israel, built on the limited agreement reached a month ago, ending five days of fighting.
Ihsan Ataya, a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s political bureau and the group’s liaison in Lebanon, told Al-Rid news that the terrorist group is still “in an open war with the Israeli occupation.”
There is no cease-fire as some claim,” Ataya continued. “The occupation only understands the language of force.”
“The way of negotiation has failed, and we are a movement of struggle and will continue to struggle against the Israeli occupation, and everything that happens in the (West) Bank is the best proof of the continuation of the struggle.”
“We follow the path of struggle until the liberation of Palestine.”
Islamic Jihad’s primary rival in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, also indicated it is preparing for future attacks against Israeli targets, with a senior Hamas official saying the organization is looking to bring Arab-Israelis into the conflict en masse.
Ayman Nofal, a member of the General Military Council of the al-Qassam Brigades – a wing of the Hamas terror group – and commander of the military liaison unit, told Al Jazeera that his organization is looking to coordinate with all terrorist factions across Gaza, Judea, Samaria, and within pre-1967 Israel for a joint future effort against the Jewish state.
The joint front of Palestinian terrorist organizations, which rose to prominence during the conflict in the Gaza Strip last month, understands the importance of creating multiple fronts against Israel, Nofal said, including in large Arab population centers inside the State of Israel.
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