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Kerry, Ireland
Joined August 2012
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Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
For me, Europe began in Ireland 🇮🇪.
Today at the conference in Dublin, I shared some personal memories. As a teenager, I visited Ireland several times through a programme for children affected by the Chornobyl disaster. I stayed with Henry and Marian Deane in Roscrea, County Tipperary.
I learned English here, and even a little Irish. I discovered another culture. But most importantly, I discovered another way of life.
I saw that people could speak freely. That they could disagree with their government without being afraid. I was too young then to understand what democracy really meant. But I could feel what freedom was. That is something you never forget.
Ireland helped shape me as a person, my values and my European identity. Long before I learned about the European Union, I experienced European values through ordinary Irish people. Through a family who opened their home to a girl from Belarus. Through neighbours who treated me as one of their own.
Ireland also taught me another important lesson: You can love your country, your language and your traditions while remaining open to the world.
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
I'm not going to name the school, but the @BBC's coverage of the antisemitism in schools report featured interviews with children from a Jewish school.
Here's the rub, though.
The school's own published curriculum explicitly teaches Zionism, celebrates the establishment of Israel and describes preparing pupils to become "positive advocates for Israel" at university.
It even references bringing in organisations such as StandWithUs to prepare pupils for that advocacy.
Now, let me be absolutely clear. There is nothing wrong with teaching Jewish history, culture or identity. And antisemitism must be challenged wherever it exists.
But when children are actively encouraged to advocate for a particular state, rather than critically examine its history, policies and actions, surely we have to question whether this is education or ideological conditioning?
And here's the staggering hypocrisy.
We're being told that schools must exercise political impartiality when discussing Palestine, while a school can openly describe preparing children to advocate for Israel.
Political impartiality cannot be a principle applied selectively, depending on which side of a conflict children are encouraged to support.
And the BBC has a responsibility to scrutinise that distinction, not simply present children's views without examining the educational environment in which those views have developed.
Children deserve an education that teaches them how to think, not what to think.
@NEUnion @educationgovuk
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
Help get @abdulelsayed elected to the senate! Jewish safety depends on a real multiracial democracy—and Abdul is the one fighting to protect it.
Get involved and help at abdulforsenate.com/vote
go.abdulforsenate.com
We know how much it matters to live in a country where our rights are protected, where the law applies equally to everyone, and where the majority can’t just decide that some people don’t deserve the same freedoms. The safety and freedom we’ve found in America didn’t happen by accident. They exist because of democracy. And protecting democracy means protecting Jewish safety, too.
We know what happens when those protections start to break down. When courts are weakened, elections are undermined, and people lose equal protection under the law, minorities are often the first to pay the price. Jews have seen this throughout our history. It’s one of the reasons so many of our families sought refuge in democratic countries.
That’s why I find it so alarming to see what’s happening right now. When masked government agents are taking people off the streets and citizens are being shot in public, we should all be worried about where things are headed. As Jews, we know that when a government starts targeting certain groups of people, no one should assume they’re safe from what comes next.
Mike Rogers has chosen to align himself with a movement that is willing to attack our democracy. He stood with Trump and refused to accept the results of the 2020 election. And now we’re seeing what happens when a political movement treats the rights and dignity of certain people as disposable. For Jews, these things should set off alarm bells.
Jewish safety is tied to the health of our democracy. We can’t protect one without protecting the other. And in this Senate race, Abdul is the candidate who understands that and is willing to fight for it.
#abdulelsayed #democracy #jewish #midterms
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
Now would be a good time to remind everyone of these Trump facts, because apparently some people still need the refresher.
Please meet the President of the United States:
Flew on Epstein’s plane at least seven times. Just friends, I guess.
Pleaded the Fifth more than 400 times in a single deposition. Nothing says “innocent” like refusing to answer a single question about your own business.
34 felony convictions. A record most people would call disqualifying. And 91 criminal charges.
Accused of sexual misconduct or assault by at least 26 women. But sure, tell me again how he’s a great guy.
6 corporate bankruptcies. The self proclaimed greatest businessman alive somehow keeps running out of money.
5 draft deferments. Funny how the toughest guy in the room never actually showed up for duty.
4 criminal indictments. Not two. Not three. Four.
2 impeachments. A club of exactly one president.
2 of his own companies convicted of criminal tax fraud. Convicted. Not accused. Convicted.
1 fake university shut down. 1 fake charity shut down.
Even his charity was a grift.
Paid 25 million dollars to settle the Trump University fraud lawsuit because scamming people who believed in you costs money eventually.
Ordered to pay 5 million dollars in the first E Jean Carroll sexual abuse verdict, then hit with 83.3 million more in the second.
A jury said it twice so nobody could pretend it was a fluke.
Ordered to pay 2 million dollars for looting his own so called charity.
Stealing from a charity with his own name on it.
Found liable for business fraud and originally slapped with a penalty topping 450 million dollars, later thrown out on appeal while the fraud finding itself stuck to him anyway.
First president in modern history to increase the deficit every single year of a full term. Fiscal responsibility, apparently, was always just a talking point.
Kept the debt to GDP ratio above 100 percent for his entire first term.
Presided over the largest single day point drop in Dow Jones history at the time. So much for the guy who claimed to be a genius with money.
Set the record for the longest government shutdown in US history in his first term at 35 days, then couldn’t resist beating his own miserable record in his second term with a 43 day shutdown, followed by yet another shutdown just months later. Encore nobody asked for.
Added roughly 2.25 trillion dollars to the national debt in his first year back in office alone, pushing the debt past 39 trillion dollars.
Somebody remind me who the party of fiscal discipline is again.
Pushed through the largest defense budget increase since World War Two while the debt kept climbing anyway.
Purged more than 300,000 federal employees in his first year back.
Efficient, if your goal is chaos.
Pardoned nearly 1,600 January 6 Capitol rioters.
At least 40 of those pardoned rioters have already been rearrested, charged, or sentenced for new crimes since walking free. Shocking absolutely nobody.
His family’s crypto ventures, including a meme coin and World Liberty Financial, pulled in more than 1.4 billion dollars in disclosed earnings while he sat in the Oval Office.
Draining the swamp was apparently code for filling his own pockets.
Sent the National Guard into American cities at a cost of nearly 500 million taxpayer dollars in 2025 alone.
His own tariffs are projected to cost the average American household more than 2,500 dollars this year.
You’re paying for this. Not China. You.
No more foreign wars. Peace deal with Russia and Ukraine on Day One.
None of this is a conspiracy theory, a rumor, or something you saw in a group chat.
It is the actual, documented record, sitting in plain sight for anyone willing to look.
So the next time someone tells you to relax and give him a chance, ask them how many more indictments, judgments, and shutdown records he needs to rack up before that chance runs out.
Credit: Charles Curtis Rone
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
Perhaps the most stark and revealing (accidental?) admission in the David Bell 'antisemitism in UK schools report. Antisemitic attitudes aren't increasing, only anti-Israel ones are. That's what most of this is about.
From the horse's mouth:
assets.publishing.service.go…
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
🚨 REPORTER: Are Jews oppressed in Iran?
IRANIAN JEW: We have rights, schools, and a seat in parliament.
REPORTER: And Israel?
IRANIAN JEW: We oppose what they’re doing.
The world is fed a wrong narrative
Israel does NOT represent Jews
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
Apparently “antisemitism” is when you acknowledge Palestinian existence. This is how you drain it of any meaning.
Teachers to be banned from wearing Palestine badges as review finds 3 in 5 Jewish pupils have faced antisemitism at school trib.al/00Lztkq
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
Seinfeld actor Jason Alexander recalls a visit to Ramallah that challenged his fears about visiting Palestinian cities as a Jewish American.
When Israeli soldiers opened fire nearby during a raid, the Palestinian group he was with surrounded him to protect him.
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
The most effective attack on Europe is one Europeans don't even recognise as an attack.
Make energy expensive.
Undermine food security.
Discredit scientists.
Divide allies.
Destroy trust in institutions.
Turn Europeans against each other.
Once you see it you can’t unsee it.
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
I’ll stipulate that Trump is an agent of Putin.
Go down the checklist.
1. Destroyed the Western alliance? Putin wanted that.
2. Threatened a NATO ally over Greenland? Putin wanted that.
3. Pulled out of the intermediate nuclear pact? Putin wanted that.
4. Withdrawing 25-40,000 troops from Western Europe while Russian bellicosity is rising? Putin wanted that.
5. Russian satellites giving coordinates to Iranians killing our soldiers, and his response is “they kill us, we kill them”? What American president says that?
I think he’s been compromised.
The election of Donald Trump may be the greatest foreign policy success in post-Czarist Russian history.
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
I don’t think Europeans fully appreciate what is happening to the European Union right now.
The EU is under an extraordinary, multi-front assault, both from outside and from within. And I struggle to think of another period in its history when so many powerful actors had an interest in weakening it simultaneously.
Russia has spent years waging hybrid warfare against Europe. Weaponised migration, sabotage, cyberattacks, coordinated disinformation campaigns, bot networks and political interference. The objective is clear: undermine trust in democratic institutions, deepen social divisions and weaken European unity.
China has different motivations, primarily economic and geopolitical. A fragmented Europe is easier to pressure, easier to negotiate with individually and less capable of defending its economic interests.
And then there is the United States. Perhaps the most disturbing development of all.
Under Trump and MAGA, a country that helped rebuild the old continent and then spent decades supporting European integration now has an administration openly hostile to much of what the EU represents. Its own National Security Strategy even calls for cultivating resistance to Europe’s current political direction.
Think about that for a moment.
Meanwhile, within Europe, parts of the far right and far left amplify these divisions, whether through ideological alignment, political opportunism or outright sympathy for authoritarian regimes.
This doesn’t mean Russia, China and MAGA are all following some jointly coordinated master plan. They don’t have to. Their interests increasingly overlap, and Europe’s internal divisions make their work considerably easier.
What makes this particularly alarming is what is actually at stake.
For all its flaws, the EU remains one of the world’s most consequential projects built around liberal democracy, the rule of law, individual freedoms and cooperation between nations.
At a time when authoritarianism is gaining ground and even longstanding democracies are showing disturbing tendencies, that matters enormously.
Europe is far from perfect. Its bureaucracy, indecision and inability to act decisively are real problems. But the answer cannot be to retreat into 27 competing nation-states, each too small to meaningfully influence a world increasingly dominated by continental powers.
Quite the opposite.
Europe needs deeper integration, stronger common institutions, genuine strategic autonomy and the political courage to defend its interests and values.
Because fragmentation is precisely what so many external actors want.
And perhaps that’s the central irony of our time: people are being deliberately manipulated into believing that the reverse is true — that national identity and sovereignty can only be protected by weakening European cooperation. In reality, a divided Europe is less sovereign, less secure and far easier for outside powers to pressure. Therefore the very thing that will make Europe stronger is the thing its adversaries are working hardest to prevent.
A united Europe is a geopolitical power. A divided Europe is a collection of countries waiting to be played against one another.
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
A brief review of recent technical “errors” at Meta:
1. Restricting the Facebook pages of Brazilian president Lula who is in a runoff election against a Trump-favored candidate
2. Shutting down the pages of Albanians protesting Jared Kushner’s plans to build a luxury resort in the country
3. Rejecting ads for a documentary critical of Elon Musk
4. Shutting down the No Kings instagram page in the middle of a major anti-Trump protest
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
This is what billionaire ownership of the media means:
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta shut down the No Kings account for hours during the height of their protests.
Meta suppressed accounts supporting Brazil President Lula da Silva in the recent election.
Larry Ellison’s TikTok blocked advertising for a documentary criticizing Elon Musk.
Fight back. Defeat oligarchy. Preserve democracy.
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
We’ll continue stocking and supplying Sally Rooney’s books. We recognise support for Palestine Action, proscribed under UK terrorism law, is a divisive and contentious issue. We oppose antisemitism and all forms of violence and oppression. Peace ✌️
Ireland needs an independent investigation into endometriosis care. Please sign.
c.org/QLrbPCvsQf
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
Hello from Dublin airport as I'm leaving the International AI Summit with something close to existential dread from being exposed yet again to the parallel reality in which much of Europe’s political establishment appears to be living.
The summit was literally organized around the theme of European competitiveness. Yet from the plenary stage, I heard from mostly American companies (fair play to them, Ireland is home to their international HQs) coupled with European politicians advancing claims that the AI Act, DFA, CADA and other digital rules somehow make European startups more competitive and that regulation is what will stop AI agents from “escaping their sandboxes."
Meanwhile, you could walk around the innovation hall and struggle to find any of the major European AI companies that are actually trying to compete at the frontier.
Panel after panel returned to the same comfortable and boring platitudes about trust, values, guardrails and responsible innovation.
There is an huge disconnect from the real world. In a desperate pursuit of sovereignty for sovereignty's sake and an ever-growing digital maze of bureaucracy, Europe will fall behind in AI. We will have fewer frontier companies, less capital, less compute and dramatically less appetite for risk than the US or China. We will also be incapable of grasping (or, at a minimum, understanding) the opportunities ahead of us.
Instead, we keep congratulating ourselves on having built a telegraph cable in the 1800s (!?) and now the world's most elaborate regulatory framework and call that a competitive advantage.
One of the few genuinely refreshing interventions came from Siemens CTO and Chief Strategy Officer Dr. Peter Koerte, who spoke frankly about some of the real obstacles European innovators face.
I will keep saying this until I'm blue in the face: Europe does not have an AI values problem, it has an AI competitiveness problem. But I’m increasingly worried that many of the people supposed to solve either don't have the intellectual capacity or curiosity to do so.
To end on a positive note: the event was super slick, and the logistics were very straightforward. Congrats to the Irish government for their ability to put together a great experience for their guests, for being so welcoming, and attracting a very high caliber of speakers.
#AISummitIE #Ireland2026EU
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
In a disturbing development, on Oct 14th, the former head of Israel's Shin Bet, Ronan Bar, filed a law suit against Netanyahu, alleging the latter had received no less than twenty warnings of the precise character and of the approximate date of the Hamas attack. Formerly, nine warnings were cited in YNet, Ha'aretz and Maariv. It has now become increasingly unreasonable not to suppose that Netanyahu was a complicit actor in the Hamas attack, an organisation he had funded, directly and indirectly, for almost twenty years, and about which he possessed precise internal intelligence. Thus Netanyahu could not only have prevented the attack, but now appears to have been proactively enabling the attack, to manufacture a pretext to ethnically cleanse Gaza, while simultaneously using the attack to disrupt charges supported by three hundred witnesses that Netanyahu had presided over a twenty year reign of corruption, gangster-like coercion, malfeasance and repeated breaches of international law.
Hazel | Travel Writer retweeted
"Since 1967, approximately 1 million Palestinians have been detained by Israel, with some estimates calculating that up to 40 percent of Palestinian men have been arrested at least once in their lives."
“Children [in administrative detention] often don’t even know why they’re being held, and their parents don’t know either.”
972mag.com/palestinian-child…
