Poland’s democracy is on the brink. Can these elections save it?

The high stakes of Poland’s elections, explained.

LONG READ

By Jen Kirbyjen.kirby@vox.com 

 Oct 14, 2023, 

Donald Tusk, the leader of Civic Platform (PO) opposition alliance, attends an election convention in Katowice, Poland, on October 12, 2023. 

 Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Jen Kirby is a senior foreign and national security reporter at Vox, where she covers global instability.

WARSAW, Poland — “We have been talking that these are the most important elections since 1989, which was the first partly free elections since the fall of communism,” Jakub Kocjan, a rule of law campaigner for Akcja Demokracja, a Polish pro-democracy organization, told me from his apartment in Warsaw, less than a week before parliamentary elections that may determine the democratic future of Poland.

Behind him, a map of the European Union spans the wall. Another map, this one of Poland, hangs on the other side of the room. Kocjan sits in a desk chair, one leg extended and propped up on a bed. His foot is in a plastic boot, an old injury flaring up.

“There is some point,” Kocjan says, “where there is no possibility to go back to democracy.”

For Kocjan, and for many other civic and pro-democracy activists, opposition party members, and some observers, this October 15 election is that point.

Poland’s democracy is wounded, the consequence of eight years of rule by the right-wing populist Law and Justice Party (PiS). The party has captured state institutions and resources, dismantled the judicial system and constitutional courts, consolidated control over public media. The party has mainstreamed nationalism, which has put Poland at odds with the European Union and its members, like Germany and with other partners, most recently, Ukraine.

The stakes of the election are undeniable: If PiS wins again and returns to power, it will keep Poland on this illiberal path: more undermining of the rule of law and the judiciary; more domination over the media and the state resources; more tension with European partners. Which is why these elections feel to many like the most important vote in more than 30 years.

“This time, many people are expecting the same — but more. Stronger, with the Hungarian path actually becoming a reality,” said Piotr Łukasiewicz, a former Polish diplomat and analyst for security and international affairs with Polityka Insight, referring to Viktor Orbán’s authoritarian consolidation in Hungary.

“THERE IS SOME POINT WHERE THERE IS NO POSSIBILITY TO GO BACK TO DEMOCRACY”

Yet Poland is divided, and right now the elections are a bit too close to call — and that means, despite the odds, the democratic opposition has a chance to unseat PiS. PiS’s control of the media and state resources has skewed competition, but it has not eliminated it. Broad public frustration over the high cost of living has eaten away at PiS’s support, along with the rise of a more radical far-right party, the Confederation that has questioned Poland’s support for Ukraine, and is appealing to younger voters, especially men.

Jen Kirby traveled to Warsaw, Poland, days before the country’s October 15 vote. She met with activists, civil society leaders, and political and foreign policy experts, and wandered the streets of Warsaw asking people their biggest concerns ahead of Sunday’s parliamentary elections. Most people quickly walked away, although a few people stopped and shared their worries, frustrations, and hopes for Poland’s future.

The opposition centrist Civic Coalition, led by former Prime Minister Donald Tusk, is promising to restore Poland’s democracy and improve relations with Europe. Civic and an array of other opposition coalitions on the left, center, and center-right, are pulling close in polls. It is a catch-all, diverse group, but together they may be able to get PiS out of power and try to begin unraveling the illiberal regime it created.

None of this is a guarantee. PiS seems unlikely to win an outright majority, but it very much could still garner the most votes, enough to form a government, even if they have to seek the help of the more right-wing Confederation. Even if the opposition coalitions win enough seats to potentially form a government, it is likely to be a slim edge, under a very broad tent, and reliant on cooperation from many disparate groups, which may weaken its effectiveness. No matter who emerges, this parliamentary election could make Polish politics a lot more unstable. That may dislodge PiS for now, but make unpredictable what could replace it.

These election results also matter for more than just Poland. They will reverberate across Europe and the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance (NATO). Poland is Europe’s front line in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a critical transfer point for arms, and a host of more than 1 million Ukrainian refugees. The future of Poland’s democracy may influence regional stability and its future support of Ukraine; PiS has picked fights with Kyiv, in part, to fend off the rise of the far right, and if PiS retains power, those tensions may persist, another nick in an increasingly fragile Western coalition as the war moves closer to its third year.

Poland is not alone in being framed as a last-chance election: Recent votes in Brazil, Turkey, and soon the United States and India, all carry similar stakes. One election isn’t enough to unmake polarization or fully fix a faltering democracy, but it may be the first step to healing the break. This is Poland’s test: not just whether it can save its own democracy, but whether it can be a model for Europe and the world that it’s even possible.

“There are two feelings that everyone has,” Kocjan told Vox. “First is a lot of hope because we really know that we have this chance, and we cannot waste it. Because it will be too late.”

The other, he said, was anxiety that even if the opposition won enough votes, it would be able to take control. “It is really hard to imagine,” he said, referring to PiS, “that they will simply give the power to the other party.”

How do you win an election you’re rigged to lose?

Warsaw, Poland’s capital and biggest city, is largely an opposition town. The campaign signs at bus stops or on street signs skew toward the opposition, Koalicja Obywatelska (KO), or the Civic Coalition. On Nowy Świat, a main thoroughfare in Warsaw’s Old Town — the part of the city reconstructed after World War II to look like it did before it was destroyed — many voters criticized the direction of the country, the state of education, health care, and democracy. “I really want to change what’s been there so far,” one Warsaw resident told Vox. “My whole heart is with the Civic Coalition, with the opposition party.”

Elsewhere, near the Wileński (Vilnius) metro station in the North Praga, an area by the Warsaw district that had the most PiS support in the last parliamentary election in 2019, not everyone seemed eager to vote for PiS again. A woman sitting at a stand selling socks said she’d had enough and would definitely not vote for Jarosław Kaczyński, the deputy prime minister and leader of the PiS party. She recently had to buy medicine. It cost too much for her, and yet, she saw plenty of people getting benefits who didn’t work for them.

Civic Coalition campaign signs in Warsaw. Jen Kirby/Vox

It reflected some of the fatigue around PiS. The right-wing party is socially conservative, but a lot of its popularity was built on its populist economic policies, which included generous welfare benefits like a child subsidy. PiS oversaw a period of growth, which they can’t take exclusive credit for, but their policies did benefit lower-income households, and so PiS became the party most trusted on economic issues.

But the economic aftershocks of Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine have raised Poland’s inflation to some of the highest in Europe and that has refracted onto PiS. PiS was popular as long as Poles felt things were improving, but now with the costs rising, support for PiS is flagging.

That did not necessarily translate to support for the Civic Coalition in this neighborhood though; one man said he’d take the current government over the opposition, but he’d prefer to clear them all out. Another woman said she wouldn’t vote because she didn’t like anyone.

Some of this disillusionment is because, as high as the stakes of the election, voters are mostly dealing with the same cast of characters (if that sounds familiar). Civic’s leader, Tusk, was the Polish prime minister from 2007 and 2014 and is the former president of the European Council — that is, a guy who’s been around for a long time. “The Civic Coalition doesn’t look like a new offer,” explained Edwin Bendyk, chairman of the Fundacja im. Stefana Batorego, a pro-democracy organization, of some of the public’s hesitation around the party. Plus, media propaganda doesn’t help. Poland’s public media has relentlessly attacked Tusk, framing him as a European bureaucrat who is an agent of Germany, but also an appeaser of Russia. On Warsaw’s streets, residents repeated some of these attacks.

Still, it all felt fairly typical for a week ahead of a major election: the motivated, the undecided, the disillusioned, the indifferent. This is the trickiness of an illiberal democracy. It isn’t a fully authoritarian state where elections are a farce. The PiS has chipped away at the rule of law and democracy but not destroyed it entirely, and the beats of the electoral system are intact. The outcome of the vote is still uncertain, though exactly how uncertain is hard to know because it’s difficult to quantify exactly how far the scales have been tipped.

“The election will be free. It’s not fair because of the advantages that the government has. But it’s still more or less a functioning democracy,” said Adam Traczyk, director of More in Common Polska, a pro-democracy think tank.

The PiS party was legitimately elected in 2015, and since then has used the levers of power to capture the state and its institutions. PiS has subverted the constitutional and judicial system. PiS painted judges as post-communist holdovers, acting against the people’s interests — in part because they had previously thwarted some of PiS’s legislation and agenda, and they, after all, PiS had a democratic mandate. Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal is stacked with PiS loyalists and is now neutered to the point of dysfunction.

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of Law and Justice (PiS) ruling party, gives a speech during a final convention of elections campaign in Krakow, Poland on October 11, 2023. 

Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images

In this, and other ways, PiS has fully captured the state, subverting it to its own political interests. This election has shown just how tilted things are. PiS has turned public media into state propaganda that relentlessly attacks the opposition. In this campaign, PiS has raised funds from state-controlled entities and its employees. A state-controlled oil and gas company owns a press company that publishes almost 20 regional newspapers and hundreds of weeklies and online sites; they refused to publish ads for certain candidates because of their “left-wing” values. The PiS party has approved benefit and pension hikes ahead of this campaign.

“THE ELECTION WILL BE FREE. IT’S NOT FAIR BECAUSE OF THE ADVANTAGES THAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS.”

As a nationalistic party, PiS has also tried to hype up its base by fear-mongering around immigration, especially from the Middle East and Africa (though PiS itself was embroiled in a cash-for-visa scheme), and a meddlesome Europe that is trying to interfere in Poland. To motivate their supporters, PiS is staging a referendum it has little power to implement, with loaded questions like: Do you support “the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, according to the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy?”

PiS has also tweaked electoral rules, increasing polling stations in rural areas, places most likely to benefit PiS. It is likely PiS strongholds are already overrepresented since the country hasn’t updated its parliamentary count to adjust for potential population changes, and some estimates suggest cities — where the opposition tends to do well — are underrepresented. Right now, a record number of Poles — some 600,000 — have registered to vote abroad. Those will most likely favor the opposition, but they must be counted within 24 hours or they are disqualified, a rule PiS passed in January that notably does not apply to the rest of Poland’s votes.

These baked-in disadvantages are why the opposition faces steep odds, and it explains some of the desperation they feel. “For the opposition, this is seen pretty widely as an election that if they don’t win this one they might not be able to win another one, that the systemic advantage of the government would be so strong,” said Michal Baranowski, managing director for the German Marshall Fund East, in Warsaw.

Tusk and the opposition have framed this election as the last chance to save Poland’s democracy. Jakub (Kuba) Karyś, chair of Komitet Obrony Demokracji (Committee to Protect Democracy), said he believed if the opposition did not win these elections, they would be the last ones.

“Having this government for the third time would be a disaster because they will continue to close up this authoritarian system,” Bendyk said. Poland was not authoritarian yet; there was still a free press, strong civil society, and thriving local democracy which Bendyk described as the immune system in the democratic resistance. But one by one, PiS would target these. “It’s quite easy to lay down rules to demand you can be penalized for different actions,” Bendyk said. “It can be difficult to do what we are doing now.”

Thousands of people hold Polish and EU flags as Donald Tusk, the leader of Civic Coalition, delivers a speech during the March of a Million Hearts on October 1, 2023 in Warsaw, Poland. 

Omar Marques/Getty Images

In her office in Warsaw, Marta Lempart, leader of Strajk Kobiet, or Women’s Strike, a women’s rights and pro-abortion-rights group, was preparing to film videos to respond to different election outcomes. She has campaigned against PiS’s strict abortion laws. I asked how the organization’s work would change if PiS won again. “When they close the system,” Lempart replied, “our operations will be different because I will be in jail, obviously.”

Can the opposition actually win?

The opposition has an incentive to hype the stakes and make this election existential. But most experts and other observers Vox spoke to agreed that Poland would continue on this anti-democratic path if PiS captured power again.

And, right now, the opposition does have a real, if tenuous, opening.

The cost of living concerns of the electorate are real. Beyond that, PiS is facing a challenge from its right, the radical, anti-establishment party Konfederancja, or Confederation. The group doesn’t really fit into neat boxes; it’s a wild mess of libertarians, conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, antisemites, and incels. Confederation also has a strong anti-Ukraine strain, reviving historical grievances, criticizing the war and Poland’s support for it, and Warsaw’s welcome of Ukrainian refugees.

Slawomir Mentzen, co-leader of the Konfederacja (Confederation) alliance of right-wing and far-right political parties, tosses fake money to supporters while speaking in a style closer to that of a standup comedian at an election campaign rally on September 16, 2023, in Szczecin, Poland. 

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Broadly, Poles are still supportive of Ukraine and of Warsaw’s political and humanitarian response to Russia’s invasion, and Russia is too big of a security threat for a real pro-Russia party to thrive. But Confederation’s anti-establishment message is peeling off some disillusioned voters, especially from younger demographics. That has freaked out PiS enough that it has hardened its stance on Ukraine, an uncomfortable development for the Western alliance given Poland’s position on NATO’s eastern flank.

Together, though, PiS looks somewhat vulnerable. So the pro-democracy opposition is mobilizing. In early October, hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters attended a massive rally in Warsaw. Karyś, of the Committee to Protect Democracy, said his group has registered more than 27,000 volunteers so far to observe the polls.

The democratic opposition — both parties running and pro-democracy activists and civil society leaders — is a diverse group. They are unified to dislodge PiS, which gives the vote a bit of the feel of the 2020 US election: anti-Trump more than pro-Biden; anti-PiS more than pro-Tusk and pro-Civic. Kocjan, the rule of law campaigner, said people are trying to vote strategically; that is, if they live in a more conservative district, voting for the opposition party most likely to win, not necessarily the one they favor the most.

A woman in a “Vote” T-shirt with a red lightning bolt painted on her face — a symbol of Women’s Strike — at a demonstration. Under the slogan “Not One More!” (Ani Jednej Wiecej!), thousands of Poles took to the streets in Warsaw and in numerous cities across the country to protest once again the tightened abortion law after the death of another pregnant woman in a Polish hospital. 

Attila Husejnow/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

In 2020, PiS oversaw a near-total ban on legal abortion, one of the most extreme in Europe. Lempart, leader of Strajk Kobiet, is trying to motivate voters on the abortion issue, especially younger voters, ages 18 to 25, to convince them they can get enough pro-abortion MPs elected, they can dismantle these restrictions.

She noted that many young voters are disillusioned with the current political establishment — something backed up by surveys — but the opposition wasn’t offering a positive message, just criticizing young people, telling them to vote and save the country or else.

Her organization’s approach was to give voters a clear deliverable. “We’re saying ‘it’s absolutely okay if you don’t feel anything, when you see the flag, when you hear the anthem, if you don’t care what happens, [if] the call to save the country just doesn’t appeal to you,” she said. But the Parliament needs 50 percent plus one to change the abortion laws. “If you go and vote for abortion, believe that then we can deliver,” Lempart said.

Can Poland reverse its illiberal path?

The radical far-right Confederation may end up the decider on Poland’s democratic future. PiS is still likely to win the most seats in parliament, though it seems unlikely to secure an outright majority. It may have to look to its rivals in the Confederation. The Confederation hates PiS because of its welfare spending; going into government with them would probably destroy their anti-establishment credentials. Still, PiS might just need to persuade a few opportunistic politicians to switch sides.

And even if the opposition can pull it out, the path forward is likely turbulent and tricky. One wild and risky possibility is the far-right Confederation tolerating a minority government led by the Civic Coalition. And no matter what, PiS is unlikely to go quietly. Their allies are in the courts, including the ones that deal with elections. Their allies control the business interests. Their allies control the messages on public media.

“If the opposition really manages to win or has enough votes to form a coalition, it’s not that on the 16th of October, we will all be sitting and singing Kumbaya and everything will be fine,” said Maria Skóra, a researcher at the Institute for European Politics (IEP), in Berlin. “The thing is that Law and Justice will not give up their powers too easily.”

Which is why many activists, experts, and observers in Warsaw seemed to think the most likely outcome of this election is one of instability: a fragile, messy government that might not last very long. That instability still offers the chance of evicting PiS from some of the centers of power, but the consequences of that are just as uncertain. It might make it far more difficult to undertake any meaningful reforms, and the opposition in disarray could be replaced by an emboldened PiS or a radical right, maybe in snap elections next year.

Even if the opposition does take control, it is a prospect — but not a guarantee — of change. “We also realize that the democratic opposition parties are not angels,” Bendyk said. But, he added, “At least open the window for opportunity for changes.”

What that window looks like is hard to say because reversing an illiberal democracy hasn’t really been done. “You don’t have an example of a country where you had an illiberal regime, established over years, and then rolled back by a democratic, liberal government,” said Piotr Buras, head of the Warsaw office for the European Council on Foreign Relations. Because Poland isn’t a full-on authoritarian system, you can’t just start from scratch. If the opposition gets into power, it will be because it won an election, after all. “An illiberal regime, this is a different animal,” he added.

Experts and activists suggested the opposition might find some tasks easier than others: replacing people at the public media station, or disentangling some of the state-controlled businesses from the state. But for the judiciary and the courts, even experts are perplexed by some of the changes there. How to unravel that and restore rule of law will be a complicated, and maybe even doomed process. On top of that, Poland’s PiS-aligned president, Andrzej Duda, will be in power until at least 2025. He can veto legislation, which a divided Parliament probably won’t have the votes to override.

“YOU DON’T HAVE AN EXAMPLE OF A COUNTRY WHERE YOU HAD AN ILLIBERAL REGIME, ESTABLISHED OVER YEARS, AND THEN ROLLED BACK BY A DEMOCRATIC, LIBERAL GOVERNMENT”

“It’s the question,” Tracyzk said. “Do you want to do it quickly? Or create possibly even more chaos risking that every four years there will be chaos once again? Or do you want to try to do it kind of in a more democratic stable manner, knowing that it will take more time, knowing that you will not be able to fix all the things that quickly?”
The very high stakes of Poland’s election — for the country and the world

Yet Poland, if it has the chance, has to try. These elections are critical for global democracy but also for Europe and the rest of the world. The PiS party has challenged Europe and the supremacy of its rule of law, a perpetual and persistent problem from the bloc. PiS is picking fights with its neighbors, like Germany, at a time when Europe is trying to figure out its own future — on foreign policy, governance, and security. Tusk, a former European official, will almost certainly reset Polish relations with the EU, although he’ll be dealing with a long list at home.

But the war in Ukraine looms over all of it. After Russia’s full-scale invasion, Poland emerged as Ukraine’s ironclad supporter. Poland used this position to rally other EU countries, putting pressure on its partners, like Germany, to deliver tanks. It won some goodwill, including from the EU, and some saw it as a sign that Warsaw might become the new power center in Europe and of NATO.

That has since shifted. The Polish public remains broadly supportive of Ukraine and of hosting Ukrainian refugees, but inflation and inflammatory rhetoric, especially by the Confederation, has eroded some of that enthusiasm. As a result, the PiS party has turned Ukraine into an electoral issue, most notably with its dispute over Ukrainian grain.

Poland has said the transit of Ukranian grain into Europe is hurting undermining Polish farmers (who also happen to be an important voting bloc for PiS), and so it (along with some others) would defy a EU rule and continue banning Ukrainian grain imports. The spat culminated with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki saying last month that Poland was no longer giving weapons to Ukraine. This was a bit misleading; Poland continues to be a transfer point for international aid and weapons, but Poland itself is not sending more weapons, mostly because it has already given everything it has to give. But the damage was done.

“How can this Polish government go back and become an advocate again, and actually name and shame our bigger allies — Europeans, Americans, as well, to some extent — on sending more, or sending more advanced weapons?” Baranowski, of GMF, said. “We, as a country, just gave away a huge chunk of credibility that could have been used and was used successfully.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is seen on a screen as people gather to mark Ukraine’s Independence Day while a demonstrator holds up a placard reading “Stop Russia” and showing an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin, at Zamkowy Square in Warsaw, Poland, on August 24, 2023. 

Janek Skarzynski/AFP via Getty Images

As experts said, Ukraine is not about to break with the Western alliance; it still sees Russia as too big of a threat and the war as critical to its security. But as the war enters something of a standstill, Poland’s domestic politics could spill over and further strain the Western alliance, which is already under pressure, especially as the United States now struggles to approve Ukraine aid. And if the PiS party must work with the Confederation to stay in power, Poland’s tensions with Ukraine may only grow deeper.

Although the PiS party has sold itself as the real protectors of Poland, if opposition wins they will continue support for Ukraine, and potentially offer a little relations reset. Beyond that, so much of the rhetoric around Ukraine support revolves around defending democracy — even as some of its supporters, like Poland, are not exactly living up to those values.

With Sunday’s election, Poland has the chance to rebuild its democracy, as it also defends the one next door. “Poland is the final buffer between the West and the East,” said Karyś. “It’s incredibly important for Europe and the world for it to be there.”

"The most important election"

Far-right eyes kingmaker role as Poland prepares to vote

AFP|Update: 14.10.2023 

© Wojtek Radwanski/AFP via Getty Images

Poland is gearing up for close-fought elections on Sunday that could ramp up tensions with the EU and neighbouring Ukraine, as the ruling populists bid for a third consecutive term in power against the liberal opposition led by former EU chief Donald Tusk.

While all the polls put the ruling populist Law and Justice (PiS) in first place, they show the party is highly unlikely to win an overall majority.

Its most likely partner would be the far-right Confederation party, which has called for an end to aid to Ukraine.

A poll this week by the Ibris Foundation conducted on October 9-10 showed PiS and Confederation together scoring a narrow majority in Poland's 460-seat parliament.

But another poll by the same organisation also conducted this week showed the two parties falling just short of a majority.

Instead it showed the second-placed Civic Coalition, the liberal opposition led by former EU chief and ex-premier Donald Tusk, able to form a majority with two smaller parties -- Third Road and Left.

"PiS is not going to form the next government in Poland," said Wojciech Przybylski, a political analyst from the Visegrad Insight group, pointing out that a PiS-Confederation alliance was unlikely.

"The opposition is more likely now to form a next coalition government."

Anti-migrant rhetoric

PiS supporters say victory will allow the party to fulfil its vision of a strong, sovereign Poland based on traditional values including upholding an abortion ban.

Some supporters are more grudging.

"There's nothing better coming," said Eugeniusz Krzyszton, a 71-year-old small-scale farmer living in Godziszow, a municipality which voted 89 percent for PiS in the last elections in 2019.

Asked about the economic problems Poland has experienced in recent years, he said: "The government is trying its best".

The campaign has been highly polarised and divisive, characterised by personal attacks on Tusk by the ruling party which has accused him of operating in the interests of Germany, Russia and the EU.

The ruling party has also ramped up rhetoric against migrants, with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Thursday saying Polish families should be protected against illegal immigrants "who have no respect for our culture".

The opposition says a PiS victory would lead to growing tensions with the EU and accuses the government of planning "Polexit" -- a departure from the bloc.

Many opposition supporters and non-governmental organisations also warn that a third term in power would further undermine democratic freedoms, such as rule of law and media rights.

"It's high time that we return back to normal, to the rule of law, to freedom of choice and of speech," Monika Pieleszynska, a 43-year-old clerk, said at a massive opposition rally this month.

'Damage' to Ukraine ties

Dorota Dakowska, a politics professor at Sciences Po Aix in southern France, said this was "the most important election" since the first vote of the post-communist period in 1989.

"What is at play is the future of democracy in Poland and the future of Poland as a democracy and a country of rule of law," she said.

Ukraine is also watching warily as any Polish government featuring Confederation could steer Warsaw firmly away from a strongly pro-Ukraine course.

Poland has been a leading cheerleader for Ukraine in the EU and NATO and has taken in a million Ukrainian refugees, but there is growing fatigue among many Poles.

The government has also recently fallen out with Ukraine over a grain import ban aimed at protecting Polish farmers.

Marcin Zaborowski, an expert at the Globsec think tank, said the ruling party has adopted a chillier stance towards Ukraine in a bid for nationalist votes.

"After the elections, it may be too late to go back on this since the damage will have been done," Zaborowski said.

What does Poland's parliamentary election mean for the EU?

11 Oct 2023
AUTHORS
Professor Aleks Szczerbiak

With Poland going to the polls on 15 October, Aleks Szczerbiak highlights that EU-related issues have barely featured in the campaign, despite clashes with the EU political establishment having been one of the defining features of Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice party’s time in office. He suggests that, if re-elected, Law and Justice will be hoping to normalise these relations, while the opposition parties are pledged to return Poland to the ‘European mainstream’.

On 15 October Poland will hold a critical and closely fought parliamentary election. As the EU’s fifth largest member state, and an increasingly important regional actor, the election outcome will have important implications for both Polish and European politics more generally.

Clashes with the EU political establishment have been one of the defining features of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party time in office since it was elected in 2015. The party promised to break with its predecessors’ policy of trying to exert EU influence by aligning Poland with the so-called ‘European mainstream’ and developing close links with the main European powers, especially Germany. Law and Justice argued that Poland and Germany’s interests often clashed, and that Warsaw needed to develop adopt a more autonomous EU policy.

The EU political establishment also shares the Polish opposition’s critique of Law and Justice’s judicial reforms as undermining democracy and the ‘rule of law’. A string of unfavourable EU Court of Justice rulings have called upon Warsaw to reverse its reforms, and the European Commission is withholding Poland’s share of the Union’s coronavirus recovery fund. Law and Justice strongly rejects these accusations and accuses the EU institutions of politically motivated double standards and exceeding their treaty powers.

Opinion polls suggest that Law and Justice will still emerge as the largest party after the October election but fall short of retaining its parliamentary majority. The main opposition grouping is the liberal-centrist Civic Platform (PO), Poland’s governing party between 2007-15, led by Donald Tusk, who was prime minister in 2007-14 and European Council President 2014-2019.

However, at the moment most polls also show that the combined vote share of the three opposition groupings would not be enough to secure a parliamentary majority. One of them – the eclectic ‘Third Way’ (Trzecia Droga), comprising a long-standing agrarian party and new liberal-centrist formation led by TV personality-turned-politician Szymon Hołownia, is hovering dangerously close to the 8% parliamentary representation threshold for electoral coalitions.

In fact, the question of Poland’s role as an EU member has not featured much in the campaign. The radical right free-market and Confederation (Konfederacja) – which most polls suggest will hold the balance of power in the new parliament – has toned down its radical Euroscepticism, knowing that the overwhelming majority of Poles appear to support the country’s EU membership. Rather it has focused on specific areas of EU policy that it disagrees with, such as climate policy.

Even the EU coronavirus funding issue has not, despite the opposition’s best efforts, been especially salient. Those for whom the issue matters will vote for the opposition parties anyway, while Law and Justice supporters largely came to terms with the fact that Poland was unlikely to receive this money ahead of the election – and feel that the Commission will end up releasing the funds anyway.

Two specific EU-related issues have featured in the campaign. Firstly, the EU’s September decision not to extend its embargo on imports of Ukrainian grain. This was introduced originally after cheap Ukrainian agricultural produce was re-routed through Eastern Europe due to the Russian blockade of Black Sea ports. Much of this ended up staying in Poland which, together with last year’s bumper harvest, caused Polish farmers to make huge losses.

Farmers vote overwhelmingly for Law and Justice and are a crucial element of the party’s support base. So, it was vital that the party was seen to be defending their interests, not least because Law and Justice wanted to neutralise attacks from the Confederation that, in developing solidarity with Ukraine, the government had often failed to properly stand up for Polish national interests. As a consequence, Warsaw introduced a unilateral ban on imports of grain and several other agricultural products from Ukraine.

The second EU-related issue to feature in the campaign has been the Union’s proposed new ‘migration pact’, which will require member states that are less vulnerable to ‘irregular’ migrants crossing their border to either take in a minimum relocation quota or make ‘solidarity’ payments of 22,000 Euros per migrant not accepted.

Poles are overwhelmingly opposed to migrant relocation quotas and Law and Justice was hoping to use the pact to revive an issue around which it had mobilised successfully in the run-up to the 2015 parliamentary election at the peak of that year’s European migration crisis. Rejection of the pact is one of four questions in multiple referendums that Law and Justice has called to coincide with polling day.

However, the migration issue has proved to be something of a double-edged sword for Law and Justice. A corruption scandal relating to the allocation of work visas has led to the resignation of a deputy foreign office minister and criminal charges being brought against several other officials. This has allowed Civic Platform to try and turn the tables on Law and Justice and highlight the fact that the government has overseen Poland’s largest ever wave of immigration, including many more workers from countries outside Europe than the EU was planning to transfer, and suggest that many of these work visas may have been obtained fraudulently.

A series of further developments, such as Germany introducing additional checks on its border with Poland, have meant that migration has, somewhat unexpectedly, become a dominant issue during the closing stages of the campaign. In fact, Law and Justice still feels that it will benefit from this because it has more credibility on the issue and its salience has prevented others that are more problematic for the governing party, such as economic insecurity and falling living standards, from being more prominent.

Law and Justice is hoping that if it is re-elected for an unprecedented third term this will encourage the EU political establishment to come to terms with a Polish government with a renewed democratic mandate and put contentious issues, such as ‘rule of law’ compliance, on the backburner. It thereby hopes to de-couple such disagreements from its efforts to develop closer strategic co-operation and economic ties on day-to-day bread-and-butter policy issues.

On the other hand, a new government led by the current opposition parties would try and re-build relations with the EU political establishment, especially Berlin, and draw Poland back into the European ‘mainstream’. However, apart from arguing that EU coronavirus funds will be unfrozen on the day that they take office, Civic Platform has been vague about what this would mean for Poland’s approach to contentious EU issues such as the EU migration pact on which it has (as Law and Justice continually points out) avoided taking a clear stance.

By Aleks Szczerbiak, Professor of Politics, University of Sussex.

Protesters in US capital warn of Israeli 'genocide' in besieged Gaza

Pro-Palestine demonstration outside White House draws thousands from many ethnicities and religions, including Arabs, Asians, Latinos, African-Americans and others.

NOURELDEIN GHANEM

TRT WORLD

TRT WORLD
Jewish group hold signs that read "State of Israel does not represent world Jewry" and "authentic Rabbis always opposed Zionism and the State of Israel" during the rally.

Washington, DC — For Burtun, an American Jew, the root cause of ongoing war between Israel and Palestine is not the Hamas' unprecedented surprise attack on Israeli settlements and towns but the "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians and continued US support to Israel.

"The root cause of the current violence is that the Palestinians were pushed off their land and were ethnically cleansed," said Burtun, who was among thousands of protesters outside the White House in Washington DC on Saturday, demanding end to Israeli bombardment of besieged Gaza and final settlement to Israel-Palestine conflict.

Burtun told TRT World he was participating "to show that there are many in America who don't support the idea of America giving unconditional support and more weapons to Israel to kill people in Gaza."

Calling Israeli bombardment of besieged Gaza "a horrible tragedy," he said Israel must immediately end its war on the blockaded enclave and try to reach some "negotiated settlement" with the Palestine.

The pro-Palestine demonstration in the US capital saw people from all communities and ethnicities, including Arabs, Asians, Latinos, Jews, African-Americans and others.

Demonstrators held signs that read "Free Palestine", "Resistance is not terrorism", and "End ethnic cleansing" while chanting "Free Palestine" and "Free Gaza" during their march.

Organisers said there were around 5,000 participants. Demonstrations were also held in other major US cities and states.


Demonstrations were also held in other major US cities and states. 

/ Photo: TRT World.

Media bias

Mohammed Usrof, a protester of Gaza origin, slammed what he called Western media bias and the false narrative on the current crisis.

"It has long-term implications," Usrof said, adding "What I hope by protesting is that we can get this message clear to the news outlets and to the general public."

Since the start of the fight, the Western media has come under fire for its pro-Israel bias and anti-Palestine coverage.

Usrof also said Arab countries move forward with a stronger front for the Palestinian people "instead of being neutral."

Another demonstrator, Badreldein Rashidy, a Moroccan student in the US, told TRT World that while the war on Gaza is devastating, the way the international community has reacted is shocking.

"There are barely any calls for a ceasefire. It’s basically like supporting genocide," Rashidy said.

"The only hope for the people to resist this across the world is to be out in the streets."


Since the start of the fight, the Western media has come under fire for its pro-Israel bias and anti-Palestine coverage. / Photo: TRT World.

Jewish group hold signs that read "State of Israel does not represent world Jewry" and "authentic Rabbis always opposed Zionism and the State of Israel" during the rally. / Photo: TRT World.

'Stop dehumanising Palestinians'

Donia, who has family ties in besieged Gaza, said history is being ignored, and the West is taking the fight out of context to justify Israel's actions.

"This is not unprovoked," Donia told TRT World.

"We just demand that Western media and governments stop dehumanising Palestinians. We're demanding they stop genocide in Gaza."

She also blamed the US for financing Israel's bombardment of besieged Gaza.

"The most urgent thing to happen right now is to stop the genocide. Israel should not be allowed to do whatever they want to do. They have to go back to the international law."

Israeli bombardment on Gaza has killed over 2,200 Palestinians, including 724 children, More than 1,300 Israelis were killed in the Hamas raid on Israeli side of the fence last week.

Thousands of Palestinians have fled north of Gaza from the path of expected Israeli ground invasion, while Israel continues to pound the besieged enclave with more air and land strikes. Most of the residents of northern Gaza, some 1.1 million people, have defied Israeli ultimatums of evacuating the region.

Despite taking place thousands of kilometres from the US, Israel-Palestine war and the root cause of it has roiled and agitated American communities, including in US capital and other states.


Israeli bombardment on Gaza has killed over 2,200 Palestinians, including 724 children, More than 1,300 Israelis were killed in the Hamas raid on Israeli side of the fence last week.

 / Photo: TRT World.

In first call with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Joe Biden discusses support for humanitarian aid to Gaza

By Matthew Lee And Lolita C. Baldor 

The Associated Press
Saturday, October 14, 2023

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — President Joe Biden on Saturday spoke with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, urging the leaders to allow humanitarian aid to the region and affirmed his support for efforts to protect civilians.

The weekend calls in Washington came as the U.S. said it was moving up a second carrier strike group in support of Israel, while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken intensified diplomatic outreach across the Middle East and beyond to rally an international response to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from expanding.

Blinken met with Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan in Riyadh before stopping in the United Arab Emirates as he sought ways to help civilians trapped in between the fighting and to address the growing humanitarian crisis. He also called his Chinese counterpart as Palestinians struggled to flee from areas of Gaza targeted by the Israeli military before an expected land offensive.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin as well on Saturday spoke with Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, stressing the importance of safeguarding civilians. Austin offered updates on U.S. efforts to boost air defense capabilities and munitions for Israeli forces that he noted were aimed at stemming escalation of war, according to a readout of the call.

The Biden administration is sending the the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike group to the Eastern Mediterranean to support Israel, two U.S. defense officials told the Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss the move ahead of its announcement.

The Eisenhower will join the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group, which is already sailing near Israel, to bolster U.S. presence there with a host of destroyers, fighter aircraft and cruisers.

The broad U.S. efforts reflect the international concern about the number of civilians at risk and the potential ramifications of a prolonged war as Israel told Gaza residents to move south and Hamas urged people to remain in their homes. The Biden administration has not publicly urged Israel to restrain its response after the Hamas attack a week ago, but has emphasized the country's commitment to following the rules of war.

While Biden has spoken to Netanyahu multiple times since the Hamas attack, Saturday's call was his first to Abbas, who runs the Palestinian Authority which controls the West Bank. According to a readout of the call, Abbas briefed the president on efforts to bring aid to Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza.



‘The horror has affected everyone’: Canadians arrive on first flight home after airlift out of Israel

Video shows last known sighting of Canadian missing after Hamas attack

Biden reiterated to Abbas that “Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination,” according to the readout.

Biden spoke with Netanyahu to “reiterate unwavering U.S. support for Israel,” according to the readout. He briefed the Israeli leader on regional efforts to ensure civilian access to food, water and medical care.

The number of U.S. citizens killed rose to 29, U.S. officials said Satutday, and 15 were unaccounted for, as well as one lawful permanent resident.

Blinken, in his visits with Saudi and UAE leaders, also cited the need for humanitarian assistance and safe passage from those who wish to leave Gaza as he spoke to Arab audiences from their home turf, where his hosts put that issue at the top of their concerns.

An Israeli ground assault would worsen the plight of civilians in Gaza who are without power, fresh water or access to aid. Egyptian officials said the southern Rafah crossing would open later Saturday for the first time in days to allow foreigners out. Israel has advised all Palestinian civilians to flee south to avoid Israel's continued offensive against Hamas militants in Gaza City.

Blinken also called Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to seek his country's help in preventing the war from spreading, asking Beijing to use whatever influence it has in the Mideast. Blinken's spokesman declined to characterize Wang’s response but said the U.S. believes it and China have a shared interest in the region's stability.

In Riyadh, Blinken and Prince Faisal stressed the importance of minimizing the harm to civilians as Israel prepared for an anticipated incursion against Hamas a week after the militant group's unprecedented attack against Israel.

“As Israel pursues its legitimate right, to defending its people and to trying to ensure that this never happens again, it is vitally important that all of us look out for civilians, and we’re working together to do exactly that,” Blinken said.

"None of us want to see suffering by civilians on any side, whether it’s in Israel, whether it’s in Gaza, whether it’s anywhere else," Blinken said.

The Saudi minister said the kingdom was committed to the protection of civilians.

“It’s a disturbing situation,” he said. “It’s a very difficult situation. And, as you know, the primary sufferer of this situation are civilians, and civilian populations on both sides are being affected and it’s important, I think, that we all condemn the targeting of civilians in any form at any time by anyone.”

A U.S official said Saturday that Washington did not ask Israel to slow or hold off on the evacuation plan. The official said the discussions with Israeli leaders did stress the importance of taking into account the safety of civilians as Israel’s military moved to enforce the evacuation demand.

The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the private discussions and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Israeli leaders acknowledged the guidance and took it under advisement.

The U.S. worked out an agreement involving to allow Americans and other foreigners in Gaza to cross the Rafah border into Egypt, but the crossing remained blocked Saturday, with no sign that those gathered would be allowed through. There are an estimated 500 Americans living in Gaza, but that number is imprecise, officials have said.

The U.S. State Department on Saturday authorized the departure of nonemergency U.S. government personnel and their family members from the American Embassy in Jerusalem and an office in Tel Aviv.

Prince Faisal said it was imperative for the violence between Israel and Hamas to end.

“We need to work together to find a way out of this cycle of violence,” he said. “Without a concerted effort to end this constant return to violence, it will always be the civilians that suffer first, it will always be civilians on both sides that end up paying the price.”

While in Abu Dhabi, Blinken visited the Abrahamic Family House, a complex consisting of a church, a mosque and a synagogue representing the three Abrahamic faiths. He signed a tile with the words “Light in the Darkness.”

Blinken planned to return to Saudi Arabia and then stop in Egypt on Sunday. He has already visited Israel, Jordan, Qatar and Bahrain.

UK

Suella Braverman criticised for suggesting waving a Palestine flag may be illegal

Chris Jarvis 11 October, 2023 


"Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s instruction to Chief Constables to consider whether the waving of a Palestinian flag is legitimate as it may indicate support for terrorism, is deeply concerning, threatening to civil liberties and likely to further normalise a dehumanising of Palestinians that is currently widespread in political discourse."

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has suggested that ‘the waving of a Palestinian flag’ may be a criminal offence. In an extraordinary letter to police chiefs in England and Wales, Braverman has suggested that doing so in some circumstances may be ‘intended to glorify acts of terrorism’.

Braverman’s letter comes in the wake of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7 and the extensive military response from the government of Israel. Following Israel’s bombing campaign and siege on Gaza – in which no food, water, electricity or fuel is being allowed to enter the Palestinian territory – a number of demonstrations have taken place across the UK in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Braverman’s letter begins by setting out that there is a heightened risk of antisemitic conduct in the UK at the present time – citing past experience of vandalism of Jewish business and physical abuse directed at Jews. She then goes on to highlight that UK law prohibits being a member of Hamas – a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK – or to invite support for the group.

However, in an astonishing series of set of arguments, Braverman goes on to suggest that displaying Palestinian flags or using certain chants on demonstrations could be considered a criminal offence.

Braverman wrote: “Of course, it is not just explicit pro-Hamas symbols and chants that are cause for concern. I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world, and whether its use in certain contexts may amount to a racially aggravated section 5 public order offence.”

She went on to add: “Context is crucial. Behaviours that are legitimate in some circumstances, for example the waving of a Palestinian flag, may not be legitimate such as when intended to glorify acts of terrorism.”

Braverman’s letter has faced extensive criticism. Shami Chakrabarti – a Labour peer and former director of human rights group Liberty – said: “Police chiefs know their powers and duties. Anxious and vulnerable minority communities are not made safer by the politicisation of policing in difficult and dangerous times.”

The barrister Adam Wagner also criticised the letter, writing on Twitter/X: “”From the river to the sea” is an ambiguous phrase – it is hotly contested what it means and quite obviously people reasonably disagree about this. In those circumstances, it’s hard to see how an offence could be committed by chanting it.

“And then there are the supporting/glorifying terrorism offences, which include reckless support/glorification. I can’t see how anything but explicit support for Hamas and its actions could be an offence. Waving a Palestinian flag or chanting “from the river to the sea” isn’t that. There would have to be more – e.g. an explicit link to Hamas. Even the recklessness element wouldn’t extend (I doubt anyway) to the waving of a flag or chanting an ambiguous phrase.”

Ben Jamal, director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), told Left Foot Forward that Braverman’s letter was “deeply concerning”, “threatening to civil liberties”, and “likely to further normalise a dehumanising of Palestinians”.

Jamal said: “Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s instruction to Chief Constables to consider whether the waving of a Palestinian flag is legitimate as it may indicate support for terrorism, is deeply concerning, threatening to civil liberties and likely to further normalise a dehumanising of Palestinians that is currently widespread in political discourse.

“A police force enacting this instruction denies the right of Palestinians to fly a flag which is the symbol both of their nationhood and struggle for liberation from Israel’s system of oppression. It is also an assault on the basic right of British citizens to show solidarity for the Palestinian people’s legitimate desire to have their rights realised, including the fundamental right of self-determination.

“PSC will be leading a march in London on Saturday calling for an end to violence in the region by dealing with the root causes of violence, which requires the international community to hold Israel to account for its decades-long imposition of an illegal military occupation and system of apartheid. We will be inviting people to fly the flag of Palestine in support of those principles.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward

Image credit: Brandon Hattiloney / Number 10 Downing Street – Creative Commons

Israel-Palestine tussle could spill over to cyberspace

Updated - October 13, 2023 

CloudSEK asks Indian organisations to strenghten the cyber armour to thwart attacks

BY K V KURMANATH

The ongoing conflict in West Asia could well spill over to the cyber space, and India may be a target for hacktivists from across the border, according to cybersecurity and intelligence provider CloudSEK.

“Our contextual artificial intelligence digital risk platform XVigil has discovered multiple hacktivist groups planning cyber attacks on India due to their extended support towards Israel amid war-torn situations in West Asia,” said a CloudSEK report.

It cautioned that the cyber attacks on India are to be conducted under their hacktivist campaign, #OpsIsrael #OpIsraelV2. “The motivations behind these attacks primarily revolve around political factors, most of which are retaliatory actions in the ongoing hacktivist warfare between countries,” it said.

Read:Indian IT industry monitors safety amid Israel-Palestine conflict

The attack vector for the campaign will likely be mass defacement, data breaches, credential leaks, & DDoS (distributed denial of services) attacks. “Multiple threat actor groups were involved in the attacks which stood supportive towards Palestine,” it pointed out.

It said it found messages in the dark web that indicated likely attacks on the Indian cyberspace.

The DDoS attacks are aimed at making popular, official and useful websites unavailable to genuine users, disrupting services for several minutes.

Listen: Could the Israel-Gaza conflict affect the progress of the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor?

“The attacker tricks multiple computers or servers into sending a huge amount of data to a target. This flood of data overwhelms the target’s network, causing it to slow down or crash, making it difficult for legitimate users to access the target’s website or services,” said the CloudSEK report.

The other forms of attacks could include accounts takeovers and leaking sensitive information.

How to be safe

In order to defend the networks, the company wanted organisations to deploy load balancers to distribute traffic and configure firewalls and routers to filter and block traffic. It also asked organisations to implement bot-detection technologies and algorithms to identify large-scale Web requests from botnets employed by the threat actors to launch DDoS attacks.

Hybrid war comes to the Middle East. 

SUMMARY

By the CyberWire staff

 V7 | Issue 40 | 10.14.23

Disinformation in the war between Hamas and Israel.

The war that intensified Saturday with major attacks into Israel by Hamas has been accompanied by extensive disinformation, some of it directed by authorities (for the most part Hamas and governments sympathetic to Hamas) but much of it also spontaneously posted, especially in X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, but in other platforms as well. TikTok (where, for example, footage from video games has been presented as video of Israeli airstrikes) and Telegraph (where, for example, unverified and often false claims of successful cyberattacks have proliferated) have been prominent among those other platforms. But Twitter seems to have been particularly receptive to disinformation, in part because the sale of blue checks has eroded such filters that media outlets had once imperfectly but usefully provided: it's now more difficult to determine what reports originate from organizations that vet their reporting. X has also tended to promote inflammatory false information, amplifying it because such content generates engagement. And the platform's influencer culture gives careless influencers outsized clout with users.

But much of the influence being pushed doesn't involve disinformation proper. The New York Times has an overview of how Hamas has posted, often to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, images of its atrocities against civilian victims in Israel. These are intended as both expressions of triumph and as incitement to further atrocities. X has been widely criticized for its failure to screen, filter, rate, or otherwise effectively moderate content. Changes to X's content moderation policies have, CNN reports, more-or-less adopted celebrity as a standard of newsworthiness, and largely abandoned attempts to expose coordinated inauthenticity. A European commissioner has written X to warn the platform that its failures in this respect may constitute a violation of the European Union's Digital Services Act (DSA).

Hacktivism and state action in Hamas's campaign against Israel.

"At least 15 known cybercriminal, ransomware, and hacktivist groups," by the Register's count, "have announced their active participation in disruptive attacks targeting institutions in Israel and Palestine." International supporters of both parties to the conflict are also coming under cyberattack. Some of the groups have long been aligned with Hamas, others with Israel, and still others are ramping up operations against a long-term enemy whose support for Israel or Hamas serves as either pretext or provocation. While most of the activity has been familiar distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) or nuisance-level defacement, some of it has targeted, SecurityWeek reports, infrastructure (especially electrical power distribution) and military command-and-control (especially Israeli Iron Dome anti-rocket systems). It seems the attempts against infrastructure and C2 have so far had limited effect. According to HackRead one pro-Hamas group, AnonGhost, seems to have been able to exploit a vulnerability in the Israeli Red Alert civil defense app to transmit false warnings of missile strikes.

Group-IB has been following both sides' hacktivist activity, and ReliaQuest has published a useful overview of the conflict in cyberspace, along with some brief recommendations for actions organizations can take during what should be a period of heightened alert. That said, US NSA cybersecurity director Rob Joyce commented that the cyber phases of the war have so far been largely confined to nuisance-level hacktivism. “But we’re not yet seeing real [nation] state malicious actors,” the Wall Street Journal quotes Joyce as saying. Israel has taken action against Hamas funding, seizing Hamas-linked Binance cryptocurrency accounts, Financial Magnates reports. Israel has also worked with British authorities to freeze at least one Barclays account linked to Hamas fundraising.

International hacktivists join the cyber conflict.

Researchers at Radware outline the course the cyber phases of the war have taken--DDoS, for the most part. The hacktivist groups Radware has observed conducting or at least claiming attacks in support of Hamas include the Indonesian threat actor Garnesia_Team, Ganosec Team (also from Indonesia), the Moroccan Black Cyber Army, Mysterious Team Bangladesh, Team Herox (from India), Anonymous Sudan (which presents itself as a religious and political group from its eponymous country, but which in fact is a Russian auxiliary) and, of course, the Russian group KillNet, 

Russian hacktivist auxiliaries have not been unanimous on the war in the Middle East. KillNet has been outspoken against Israel during the current fighting Hamas initiated last weekend, as has Anonymous Sudan. The Cyber Army of Russia disagrees sharply, not because it wishes to engage on behalf of Israel, but because the Cyber Army sees war in the Middle East as a distraction from Russia's main concern: the war in Ukraine. Cyble's Cyber Express reports that the Cyber Army of Russia is seeking to organize sentiment against KillNet under the hashtag #STOPKillNet.

Hacktivists (and hacktivist auxiliaries) who've joined the war Hamas began against Israel Saturday have claimed widespread and substantial damage to important systems, but so far their activities haven't extended much farther than familiar distributed denial-of-service operations and site defacements. Claims of attacks against, for example, electrical power distribution, seem to be for the most part attention-getting brag. AnonGhost's compromise of the RedAlert app, designed to send attack warnings to smart phones, seems the most consequential of the cyber operations so far. The Wall Street Journal describes threats of more significant cyberattacks. These haven't materialized yet, but concern will mount as threat actors more capable than ordinary hacktivists join the action. Security firm Sepio told the Journal that they've seen a rise in activity from Iran and Syria, as well as from Russian hacktivist auxiliaries.

Most of the hacktivism has been conducted in the interest of Hamas, but at least one Israeli group--either a front group or a hacktivist auxiliary--has reemerged to take a role in the conflict. Predatory Sparrow, known for operations against Iran, has been observed probing Iranian sites and posting warning messages, CyberScoop reports. "You think this is scary?" the messaging said, in Farsi. "We're back. We hope you're followng the events in Gaza." Iran has long been Hamas's patron, and is widely suspected of having provided both planning and logistical support to the Hamas operation.

A volunteer group acting for Israel, functions as an augmentation to intelligence services. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Israel Tech Guard, formed by workers in the country's cybersecurity sector, has been concentrating on the labor-intensive work of looking through online content to, among other things, seek to identify and locate Israelis taken hostage by Hamas. The volunteers are also working to secure online tools that contribute to public safety, like the Red Alert app compromised in the early hours of Hamas's assault.

Elite Israeli Special Ops Unit Suffered Heavy Casualties at Start of War with Hamas: Reports

'I have seen the catastrophe with my own eyes,' the commander of the Shaldag Unit said

Published 10/14/23 

Bruce Golding

An Israeli special operations unit suffered heavy casualties and took five hours to defeat the horde of Hamas terrorists who slaughtered more than 100 residents at the kibbutz where slain children were found with knives still stuck in them, according to reports.

The commander of the Israeli Air Force's elite Shaldag Unit told reporters that a dozen members arrived by helicopter at Kibbutz Be'eri around 8:30 a.m. Saturday and were met with heavy gunfire.

Several of the commandos were immediately killed or wounded and the unit quickly realized the compound was full of Hamas gunmen, the commander, identified only as Lt. Col. "B," said, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Special operators with the Israeli air force's Shaldag Unit hold assault weapons in an undated photo.

Israel Defense Forces


A total of five Shaldag members were reportedly killed and 15 were wounded — including the commander's top deputy — battling Hamas fighters at Be'eri and other sites near the Gaza Strip.

“I have seen the catastrophe with my own eyes,” the commander said, according to the Jerusalem Post.

“But soldiers here are fighting — my forces and the entire IDF."

The special operations commandos were killed following what's been widely characterized as a massive intelligence failure that let Hamas launch thousands of rockets and send hundreds of gunmen into Israel.

It wasn't just Shaldag — named after the Hebrew word for the kingfisher, a bird that feeds on fish by plunging headfirst into water and spearing the prey with its bill — that suffered losses.

Other elite commando units also reported deaths in the fight to repel Hamas from southern Israel, according to casualty reports from the Israel Defense Forces.

Sayeret Matkal, which is Israel's most famous special operations force, reported 11 members killed in action. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a former commander of the unit, and his brother was killed leading the Entebbe Raid, a hostage rescue mission in 1976.

Five members of the Rafaim "Ghost Unit" were also killed, including the unit commander.

In Be'eri, where Shaldag was fighting, a civilian survivor of the carnage said about 90 gunmen entered the compound near the Gaza Strip around 7 a.m. Saturday.

Shaldag operators arrived about two hours later.

Members of the Israeli air force's Shaldag Unit dangle from a helicopter in an undated photo.

Israel Defense Forces

But Dani Fux, who's in his 70s, said that "within a short time, the force was eroded," according to the Times of Israel.

“From then on, we only heard Arabic. The terrorists went from door to door, abducted people or killed them," Fux said.

"Sometimes they only killed. Sometimes they took the kids and killed the parents, sometimes the other way around."

Those kidnapped reportedly include the parents and eight other relatives of Yotam Kipnis, who grew up at the kibbutz.

Hamas militants are seen on surveillance video arriving in Be'eri in southern Israel on Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023.

Saher95755738/X

"It's like a limbo, I don't know where they are, if they are alive or dead and if they are alive, they're probably held hostage in Gaza," Kipnis told New York City's ABC 7 Eyewitness News.

A father whose 8-year-old daughter was killed while staying at a friend's house in Be'eri even called it a better fate than being held by Hamas.

“They simply said, ‘We found Emily and she’s dead,” Tom Hand told CNN as he broke down in tears.

“And I went, ‘Yes!’ and smiled because that was the best news of the possibilities that I knew.”

The grieving dad added: “She’d be in a dark room filled with Christ knows how many people, pushed around … terrified every minute, hour day, and possibly for years to come. So death was a blessing."

An Israeli soldier walks by a house previously destroyed by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Be'eri in Be'eri, Israel, on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023.

AP Photo/Baz Ratner

It’s not clear what the Shaldag squad's movements were after confronting the Hamas gunmen at Be’eri.

But an official account posted online by the IDF said the unit commander was headed to another kibbutz at Re’im by 9:30 a.m.

"At 9:30, I'm on a helicopter on the way to the enemy with the next team," he said.

"Just before, I grab my lieutenant and tell him, 'Bring them all.' In the next hours, the entire unit arrives... from the training party to the last of the reservists."

At least 200 special operations forces were involved in the fight against Hamas by 2 a.m. on Sunday, according to the Jerusalem Post report.

"B" said that at Re'im, about three miles from Be'eri, "we rescue the wounded and continue to fight the terrorists."

At Be'eri, the fighting took five hours to conclude — with more than 20 Hamas gunmen killed, according to reports.

More than 100 hundred residents of the kibbutz, about 12% of the population, were also killed.

An Israeli flag flies over more than 20 body bags with the word 'terrorist' written in Hebrew and holding more than 20 dead Hamas members at Kibbutz Be'eri on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023, in Be'eri, Israel.

Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

The IDF has said that about 1,500 bodies of Hamas fighters were found across southern Israel after the fighting around the Gaza Strip ended.

The dead men were put into white body bags with the word "terrorist" spraypainted in red on them, according to images from the scenes of combat.

 

Bill Clinton: “Palestinians Were The Least Radical of All People In The Middle East”

by Lisandra Gomez-Tate in Daily Edition | October 14, 2023

Bill Clinton, photo: Hayden Schiff from Cincinnati, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Former President Bill Clinton gave a short history lesson about Gaza and the Palestinians now ruled by Hamas there. Listening to Clinton describe the events leading to the Hamas takeover of Gaza, it’s striking to hear the former President — knowledgeable on foreign policy, whatever his personal foibles — say in 2009 that when Hamas took over “the Palestinians were the least radical of all the people in the Middle East.”

Clinton says plainly: “The Bush administration thought there ought to be elections among the Palestinians. And that’s how Hamas got Gaza.” Clinton says Hamas slid into a vacuum left by Fatah, which long had been the ruling party and had “gotten a little long in the tooth.”

[Citing a situation closer to home, Clinton draws a stark historical parallel between the complacency of Fatah before the Hamas takeover and the Democratic Party’s complacency and schism in the deep South before Republicans made political inroads there.]

“People were going to vote for Hamas not because they wanted terrorist tactics — the Palestinians were the least radical of all the people in the Middle East — but because they thought they might [be] better service, better government,” Clinton says, echoing the famous idea that Mussolini would make the trains run on time.

Because Fatah was essentially split into two factions, Hamas was able to win Gaza with 41 percent of the vote. “A lot of people have forgotten that,” Clinton says.

America under the Bush administration wanted to “empower the Fatah government,” Clinton says, and “especially the moderates.” But while an election was a good idea, important details were overlooked, Clinton says, leaving a vulnerability that Hamas violently filled.