Associate professor @UChicagoHistory and @UChicagoCEGU. "Egypt's Occupation: Colonial Economism and the Crises of Capitalism," out with @stanfordpress.
New York, USA
Joined January 2011
- Tweets4.7K
- Following1.2K
- Followers4.3K
- Likes6.4K
Pinned Tweet
In this era of online everything, opportunities for conventional book talks are few and far between. But I've been fortunate enough to line up a series of interviews about Egypt's Occupation with some fantastic podcasts. I'll post them here as they drop.
sup.org/books/title/?id=2941…
Aaron Jakes retweeted
You are a disgrace.
My dad used to say, “Joey, when you get knocked down, get up.” I’ve leaned on those words my whole life, in politics and with my family, through the best days and the hardest ones. I write about that and more in my new book, PROMISE ME, AMERICA. It’s out November 17th, and you can preorder it now at PromiseMeAmerica.com. I’m looking forward to folks reading it.
Aaron Jakes retweeted
I’ve never witnessed someone so energetically tie themselves into knots in the service of an overriding commitment to being obviously and stupidly wrong.
Me: "Even if it was unpopular, are you saying the Democratic Party should not speak out against the president sending migrants who have committed no crimes to be tortured in a foreign gulag?"
@mattyglesias: "Yeah."
Me: "Just stay silent?"
Yglesias: "I think that sometimes, if you want to help people... you gotta win first."
Me: "They might be dead in three years time, by the time you win."
Despite all the arguments on this hellsite over the exact number of his Piker tweets, this was the part of my interview with Matthew Yglesias that really stood out to me. I was actually stunned by this response. Shouldn't politics also stand for something more than triangulation, polling and 4-D chess strategizing?
Full interview: zeteo.com/p/matt-yglesias-me…
Note to prospective graduate students in history PhD programs: sending an email and draft SoP that are entirely AI generated to someone whose main responsibility would be to take you seriously as a scholar for the next decade or more really isn't a smart move.
Aaron Jakes retweeted
Lina Attalah is one the region's most courageous and principled journalists. This is outrageous.
In an absolutely egregious escalation against press freedom, Egyptian journalist and @MadaMasr Editor-in-Chief @Linaattalah has been referred to trial on charges of establishing, managing, and operating a website without a license. Her trial is set to begin this Tuesday, Oct 27.
Aaron Jakes retweeted
Walzer gets it backwards (again): Israel’s war on Gaza did not become unjust because of its cruelty; it was unjust from the beginning as a modality of a politically, morally and legally untenable occupation. It has always been wrong to think an unjust war could be waged justly.
Michael Walzer published “Just and Unjust Wars,” an attempt to delineate the rights and wrongs of warfare in both its causes and its conduct, in 1977. In the nearly 50 years since, no other book on the subject has matched its influence. The precepts are not complicated: it is just to defend your country from an invasion and it is unjust to invade a country that has not attacked you—although Walzer does allow for exceptions, mostly for humanitarian causes. It is just to assume certain risks to avoid civilian casualties and it is unjust to bomb towns indiscriminately to compel an enemy to surrender. The justice of going to war—what philosophers call jus ad bellum—is separate from jus in bello, the justice of how a war is fought.
The war in Gaza has made Walzer rethink one of the book’s fundamental principles. “The wall between jus ad bellum and jus in bello, which had sustained his theory for almost half a century, was no longer sturdy,” Jordi Graupera writes. As Walzer said to him, “There is a sense in which the carnage of Gaza, the ongoing carnage, simply made the war unjust.” Read about why a philosopher of war is now reconsidering his seminal work: newyorkermag.visitlink.me/T7…
Aaron Jakes retweeted
2/2 As the regime makes headlines with talk of political change in 2030, it's escalating its attacks on independent journalism today. The assault on @Linaattalah and @MadaMasr speaks volumes about its priorities.
This is the story!
Aaron Jakes retweeted
1/2 To me, this is the biggest story out of Egypt today. @Linaattalah has pioneered independent journalism since well before Jan. 25, 2011. @MadaMasr remains one of its few surviving spaces. This chilling attack should give everyone pause.
🟠The Supreme State Security Prosecution referred Mada Masr editor-in-chief Lina Attalah today to trial on charges of establishing, managing and operating a website without a license. Her trial is scheduled to begin on Tuesday, October 27.
🟠The case, registered as Case No. 11743/2026, Fifth Settlement Misdemeanors, and No. 9072/2026, Supreme State Security, will be heard at the New Cairo Court in the Fifth Settlement. The prosecution accused Attalah of violating Law No. 180/2018 regulating the press, media and the Supreme Council for Media Regulation.
🟠Attalah received the referral order less than 24 hours after her release on LE100,000 bail, following more than six hours of questioning by the Supreme State Security Prosecution. During the interrogation, prosecutors accused her of running an unlicensed website and publishing false news domestically and abroad.
🟠According to Mada Masr, the questioning concerned its reporting on a wave of prison protests following the postponement of the new Criminal Procedure Code’s implementation. Prosecutors also asked about the outlet’s work and its efforts to obtain a license.
Find out all the details via the following link:
tinyurl.com/4jerka2t
#مدى_مصر #لينا_عطالله @madamasr
Aaron Jakes retweeted
One of McGurk's last acts in office was to lie to Congress that the UAE was not arming the RSF in Sudan.
Aaron Jakes retweeted
The GRU hacked into Jared Kushner's iPhone. Dutch military intelligence (MIVD) then recruited a GRU spy who gave them access to the hacked phone. What MIVD discovered was that Kushner had access to two bank accounts --one Azerbaijani, the other Israeli --where Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Emirati ruler Mohammed bin Zayed deposited money. It sounds like a slightly far-fetched episode of "Slow Horses," but it's real. And it proves just how eye-poppingly corrupt this administration was and continues to be as its "special envoy" decides the fate of tens of millions in Europe in the Middle East. Simply incredible reporting by Matthew Cole, drawn from his new book on Kushner. vanityfair.com/story/jared-k…
Aaron Jakes retweeted
AIPAC has become such a political liability that it’s shifting to a more “nimble” (read: secretive) approach to buying politicians for Israel
Instead of high profile endorsements and PAC donations, it will quietly mobilize individual donors for direct contributions
Aaron Jakes retweeted
It is hard to overstate the significance of this development. Historically, AIPAC sustained an aura of invincibility that ensured it won most battles by walkover - if you are perceived as invincible, the other side doesn't even bother to fight you.
Rather than invincibility, AIPAC's name now carries such toxicity that the group doesn't want its own name on its political donations.
SCOOP: AIPAC will no longer endorse congressional candidates or earmark donations to congressional campaigns. The group's super PAC, United Democracy Project, will continue to operate and it will urge members to donate directly to pro-Israel candidates. jewishinsider.com/2026/10/ai…
Aaron Jakes retweeted
Brett, are you ever going to agree to sit for an interview with a reporter who will challenge your version of events, or is it just going to be friendly talks with various pieces of Washington furniture?
I knew former ICC prosecutor Karim Khan from his work investigating ISIS crimes against the Yazidis.
On May 19, 2024, I helped secure the access he sought in Israel. Israel agreed. The next day, he announced his application for warrants.
Here’s the story. From my conversation with @IgnatiusPost on BRINK at @AtlanticCouncil.
Aaron Jakes retweeted
TOMORROW
How did cotton shape Egypt’s struggle for economic sovereignty and national liberation?
Join Ahmad Shokr for a talk exploring agrarian capitalism, decolonization, and the making of postcolonial Egypt through the history of one of its most prized exports 🔗 history.utoronto.ca/events/a…
Aaron Jakes retweeted
At least 45 international activists, including Brad Lander—a proud liberal Zionist—were just rounded up by police at an olive harvest in Nehalin and put on a bus. Unclear if they’re under arrest, being deported, etc. (I’m reporting this secondhand from Taybeh, where another fascist crackdown just took place.)
Aaron Jakes retweeted
I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis & volunteers. We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nehalim in the West Bank.
The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.
Aaron Jakes retweeted
A woman sued the Alpha Delta Phi national organization and its UChicago chapter on Monday, alleging that she was sexually assaulted by a member of the fraternity at its house in February and accusing the fraternity of negligence. Story to come.
Aaron Jakes retweeted
This is what it looks like to cower before authoritarianism. You don't call out a white supremacist president even when he uses classically antisemitic language because you're afraid he'll retaliate against you. jewishcurrents.org/the-shame…
The term “Shylock” is rooted in a longstanding antisemitic stereotype. Regardless of intent, its use can reinforce harmful tropes about Jews and normalize language that has long been used to target the Jewish community.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Trump used “Shylock” at a Kansas rally Oct. 19 defending Sen. Marshall. ADL’s post omits naming him, unlike its 2025 statement.
forbes.com/sites/siladity…
x.com/Acyn/status/21…
x.com/ADL/status/194…
Is anyone surprised that the folks on here who constantly warn against the specter of anti-semitism to smear @ZohranKMamdani or anyone else opposed to genocide in Gaza have, once again, said absolutely nothing about Trump's open, repeated rehearsal of overt anti-semitic tropes?
For a lengthy and detailed elaboration of this patterned weaponization of anti-semitism allegations in service of a much more specific political project, see here:
nplusonemag.com/issue-54/rev…
