Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
France has suggested it would not necessarily detain Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he entered the country despite an outstanding arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court over alleged war crimes in Gaza.
The French foreign ministry on Wednesday said Netanyahu could have immunity from arrest because Israel has not signed the Rome Statute, which established the ICC.
“A state cannot be compelled to act in a manner that is incompatible with its obligations under international law regarding the immunities of states not party to the ICC,” it said. “Such immunities apply to Prime Minister Netanyahu and other concerned ministers and must be taken into account if the ICC were to request their arrest and surrender.”
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The French statement, which came a day after Paris helped the US broker a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, risks undermining the ICC by raising questions about its jurisdiction.
Rights groups including Amnesty International criticised the French position as “deeply problematic” because it ran counter to its obligations as an ICC member.
The Hague-based court last week issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant “for crimes against humanity and war crimes” allegedly committed in Israel’s offensive in Gaza.
The ICC’s 124 member states — which include most European and Latin American countries and many in Africa and Asia — are obliged to arrest Netanyahu and Gallant if they enter their territory. But the court has no means of enforcing the warrants if they do not.
While Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, a 2021 ICC ruling said the court has jurisdiction over offences committed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip because the Palestinian territories are signatories.
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The relationship between the Israeli prime minister and Emmanuel Macron, president of France, has become increasingly strained, with French officials sharply criticising Israel’s military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.
But France has also played a key role in trying to prevent the conflicts in the region from spreading.
The ICC warrants were a flashpoint in the muti-party talks over the Lebanon ceasefire because French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot angered Netanyahu after he suggested France would comply with the warrant. Barrot said “France will always apply international law” without clarifying exactly what he meant.
The warrants have sparked outrage in Israel, with Netanyahu’s office branding them “antisemitic” and calling the ICC “a biased and discriminatory political body”.
Israel on Wednesday filed appeals to the ICC over the war crimes charges and requested the court suspend the warrants pending the outcome.
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According to the Rome Statute, the ICC has jurisdiction over all heads of state or government, even if “immunities or special procedural rules” exist under domestic or international law.
But article 98 of the statute says the court cannot request an arrest that would require a state to “act inconsistently with its obligations under international law” regarding an individual’s diplomatic immunity.
French officials did not give further details of the basis for their stance, but it raised questions over whether the same reasoning could apply to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is subject to an ICC arrest warrant for war crimes in Ukraine. Like Israel, Moscow is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.
Macron’s opponents in France attacked the government’s statement and accused it of adopting the position to gain Israel’s support for the ceasefire.
“France is once again bowing to Benjamin Netanyahu’s demands by choosing him over international justice,” said Green leader Marine Tondelier on social network X, adding that it set a dangerous precedent.
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“If we follow the logic . . . to its conclusion, what should we understand? That Putin will not be arrested if he comes to Unesco? This is a serious historical error,” she wrote.
The fans see the games, the crowds, the food and the beer. But behind every World Cup watch party is a team working long before kickoff and well after the final whistle. We go behind the scenes at a beer hall in Brooklyn to see what it takes to serve a room full of soccer fans on game day.
Members of the group Patriot Front ride the subway as a commuter looks on, in Washington, D.C., on July 4.
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The sight of hundreds of masked men roaming the streets of Washington, D.C., on July Fourth weekend, wearing khakis, blue shirts and uniform patches, was chilling to some of the city’s residents.
For many Americans, it was the first they heard about Patriot Front, a white nationalist organization that was born out of the deadly 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. A now-viral Reuters photo prompted reflections on the experience of a lone African American woman who was photographed in a Metro subway car, surrounded by white supremacists.
The planned demonstration of force was timed to bring a fringe group of extremists into public view as the nation marked 250 years of its independence. Indeed, the stunt succeeded in earning the group media coverage across mainstream outlets, amplifying its brand and potential to reach new recruits. On this occasion, the members refrained from engaging in violence and property damage, projecting an image of law-abiding, orderly activism.
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But those who are closely familiar with Patriot Front’s history and operations warn: Don’t believe what you see.
“That is not who they are in private,” said Len Kamdang, director of the Criminal Justice Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Although they were on their best behavior [last] weekend, this is a dangerous group that commits acts of violence all over the country.”
Patriot Front’s history of violence and property damage
Kamdang’s organization sued members of Patriot Front for vandalizing a public mural dedicated to the tennis legend and Black activist Arthur Ashe in Richmond, Va., in 2021. Ashe, who was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1985, was born in Richmond and his legacy is a continuing source of pride to members of that community.
“A couple of Patriot Front members showed up under cover of night and vandalized the mural,” Kamdang said. “They painted white stencils all over. … They literally tried to whitewash him and they put their symbols of hate all over — their stencils, their slogans. And all the while they were caught on video. And that video leaked using some of the most horrible language that you can imagine.”
In many jurisdictions, law enforcement can seek additional hate crime charges or sentencing enhancements in cases where illegal acts appear to have been motivated by racial bias. But in this case, Kamdang said, Patriot Front members faced no criminal charges and their identities were only revealed when online activists later infiltrated the group and leaked internal records.
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In another civil case, Patriot Front was ordered to pay almost $2.76 million to an African American musician whom they assaulted in Boston in 2022, at another July flash rally they staged. Despite a police detective concluding that the attack “appeared to be more likely than not motivated in whole or in part by Anti-Black bias,” nobody was criminally prosecuted.
Neo-Nazi ideology in patriotic colors
In 2020, Kristofer Goldsmith said that a fellow veteran invited him to partner up on infiltrating Patriot Front. Goldsmith, who later established the Task Force Butler Institute to recruit Army veterans to counter fascist groups through open source online research, was not closely familiar with the group at the time.
“Frankly, when my friend used the term ‘neo-Nazi,’ I thought he was using hyperbole,” Goldsmith said. “It wasn’t until I saw them doing things like debating the merits of national socialism versus fascism versus monarchy that I truly understood that neo-Nazi was not hyperbole, that these people actually praise Hitler. … These people have dedicated their lives to promoting white nationalist, fascist and genocidal ideology.”
Patriot Front’s founder, Thomas Rousseau, was formerly a leader of a group called Vanguard America, which was prominent in planning and a presence at the 2017 Unite the Right rally. That gathering, the largest public white nationalist event in generations, turned fatal when one extremist drove a car through a crowd of counterprotesters, killing Heather Heyer. Ultimately, Goldsmith said that rally further smeared public perception of the white nationalist movement as violent and un-American — lessons that Rousseau took to heart.
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“Rousseau needed to rebrand Vanguard America,” Goldsmith said. “So he basically stole all of its assets, its digital assets … and made it into Patriot Front and literally painted everything in red, white and blue so that it would be more attractive.”
The group has also shown up at natural disaster sites, namely in Central Texas last summer, ostensibly to assist local residents. Goldsmith said these missions and the group’s outward aesthetic are meant to project an idea of patriotism and service. He said the group maintains a strict code of conduct. Among other things, they do not display swastikas or give Hitler salutes in public.
“The goal of their propaganda, of their public actions like this, is to beat MAGA and conservatives and Republicans into defending them and to saying, ‘I don’t see anything wrong with this group. They clearly love America,’” he said.
Patriot Front described as a “cult” and a “pyramid scheme”
The show of force in D.C. has raised questions about the group’s financing, and whether members’ travel was sponsored by outside individuals or groups. In fact, Goldsmith and Kamdang said that members of Patriot Front appear almost entirely to shoulder the cost of operations and Rousseau’s lifestyle. They said it’s most likely that those who traveled to D.C. had to cover their costs themselves.
“All of them funnel resources to the top,” Kamdang explained about the group’s general financial structure. “In order to be a Patriot Front member, you have to engage in acts of what they call ‘activism.’ And usually what that means is vandalism: putting up banners, spreading the slogans of hate all over the country. And in order to do that, they will have stickers, stencils, branding. All of that has to be approved from the top down, and all of it has to be purchased from the top down. So all the members who do this multiple times a month send cash to Thomas Rousseau for essentially stickers and stencils.”
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Goldsmith said that from his time infiltrating the group, the costs could run up to hundreds of dollars a month per member. Kamdang, who said that attorneys are actively seeking to collect judgment in the settlement over the Arthur Ashe mural, noted that Rousseau appears not to hold any additional paying jobs.
“This seems to be what he’s doing full time,” Kamdang said. “So he appears to be being propped up full time by his members.”
Goldsmith likened the financial operation to a pyramid scheme. But he said even more substantial than the financial investment that Patriot Front members are required to make to retain membership is the control they give up over their time and personal choices.
“I describe it as a cult, not to be offensive, but because it is like Rousseau needs to have complete control of all of his members,” Goldsmith said. “[The group] requires its members to give up all of their lives, all of their relationships. All of their priorities in life need to be focused towards growing the organization or continuing the organization [and] enriching its leadership. So, it’s costly.”
NPR reached out to Patriot Front for comment. The group did not respond by deadline.
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Goldsmith also noted that Rousseau often gives lengthy speeches that members are expected to listen to, via online platforms.
To Kamdang, the publicity that Patriot Front earned through the group’s D.C. stunt presents a danger: It amplified a presentation of the group that was deliberately crafted to make Patriot Front appear orderly and patriotic.
“I think the reason why it got a lot of attention is because Patriot Front was very careful in their language,” he said. “They try to mask their replacement theory, the white supremacy and in ‘Americana’ terms and patriotism. But that is not who these guys are.”
Now-former Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks at his primary election night event on June 9 in Blue Hill, Maine. Platner officially dropped out of the race July 10 following rape allegations from a former romantic partner that he denies.
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Graham Platner, Maine’s Democratic nominee for Senate, is officially out of the race.
The Maine Secretary of State said Platner filed the necessary paperwork to withdraw his candidacy two days after he announced he planned to do so following an accusation of rape by a former romantic partner. Platner denies the allegation.
The Maine Democratic Party has until July 27 to pick Platner’s replacement.
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In his withdrawal notice, Platner said “people are desperate for change” and that’s why they voted “for a new kind of politics” by making him the Democratic nominee. He expressed gratitude for those who supported his campaign and said that he will continue to fight for “the movement we have built together and the future we believe in.”
He ended his notice with a strong statement aligned with the progressive platform.
“F*ck ICE. Free Palestine. Up the Hearts.”
Platner announced his plan to withdraw from the race in an 11-minute video he posted to social media on July 8. He said he had no choice but to suspend his campaign, citing it was no longer viable financially.
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“We are going to lose our ability to fundraise. We are going to lose our ability to access voter data. We are going to lose all of the things that any campaign needs on the basic level simply to function,” he said.
Platner addedthat dropping out was not an admission of guilt. Rather, the decision, he said, is to keep the progressive movement in Maine alive to defeat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in November. Platner blamed the “political establishment” for his downfall and argued the goal was to force him out of the race.
“We built a campaign. We engaged in electoral politics. We motivated people. We banded together. We did it the way that we were told we are supposed to make change and we won. And now they are not going to let us have it. Not if it’s me,” he said.
Many powerful Democrats and progressives, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent, urged Platner to step down.
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Platner has had to answer to a waterfall of scandals since he launched his Senate bid. Despite those, he ran away with the nomination in the June 9 primary, securing more than 150,000 votes — more than any other Democratic Senate candidate in Maine’s history.
Platner ran on a progressive platform centered on affordability, universal health care and getting corporate money and influence out of politics. During his campaign, he generated an undeniable amount of enthusiasm, something the Maine Democratic Party will have to harness if it hopes to beat Collins in the general election.
Multiple people have already launched campaigns to replace Platner, including former state Sen. Troy Jackson and former CDC official Nirav Shah, who both ran unsuccessful bids for governor.
Platner called on the replacement process to reflect “the Mainers who on June 9 turned out and showed that they are desperate for a different kind of politics.”
“We were asking for real democracy, and we did it the right way. And we won. But now the ball is in the court of the Democratic establishment,” he added.
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The Maine Democratic Party said that it intends to hold a new nominating convention where around 600 delegates will select Platner’s successor. Candidates have until July 15 to declare their intent to seek the nomination and gather signatures from at least 8 of Maine’s 16 counties. Party leadership added they will make the nomination process public and transparent.
