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Arieh Kovler

@ariehkovler.com
15K followers 216 following 6.3K posts

Writer, political analyst, comms consultant. UK, Israeli, US. Politics, current affairs and technology. arieh@ariehkovler.com. linktr.ee/ariehkovler

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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 30/09/2026
and the pilot was able to fight back, a dentist and other medically-trained passengers were able to stabilize him, and the pilots got the plane down despite the tail rudder breaking off during the copilot's crash attempt.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 27/09/2026
An OpenAI 'enhanced' version of image on the left, supposedly of the Fairford suspects, is circulating online. In the original blurry pic, the guy on the left and the fourth guy appear white, though it's hard to be sure due to the blurriness and lighting. The "enhanced" version has made them black.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 25/09/2026
But this is against the grain in Israel. It's not like the US, where Congress is full of people in their 70s and a fair crop are 80+.
Israel isn’t generally a gerontocracy like the United States. At its election in 2022, the current Knesset had only four members older than 70 (3%), and only one (Likud MK Haim Katz, then aged 75) older than Netanyahu. By contrast, it had 12 members under the age of 40.

Compare that to Congress, where across both houses more than 20% of the members are over 70, with several members aged 80 or older.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 25/09/2026
Maybe partly because Israel has a tradition of old prime ministers? Of the 14 people who’ve served as prime minister of the state of Israel, eight of them were elected or re-elected at 70 or older.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 25/09/2026
There's something wonderful about this exchange, like it symbolises so many online conversations: "Frodo's wound never healed because it symbolises PTSD after trauma" ⤷"No, actually it's because the morgul blades are cursed."
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 24/09/2026
My 3yo: "I don't like pizza bites. I want regular pizza for dinner!" My successful solution:
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 24/09/2026
For people confused about the communism line: that's the MAGA message the last couple of weeks. Sure, gas prices are high but it's a price worth paying to stop Communism so vote GOP!
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 24/09/2026
Some interesting choices made in the production of this illegal taxpayer-funded GOP campaign ad:
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 24/09/2026
Via @jimdefede.bsky.social on X: "So I was just watching Fox News and this commercial played during Jesse Watters show. It says “Paid for by the US Government.” This is clearly a campaign ad. And the singers are just singing over and over again, “Love me” - over images of Trump."
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 18/09/2026
OK, this is a good one I found on Reddit.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 18/09/2026
But they were all of them deceived, for another orb was made, in the fires of Las Vegas
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 18/09/2026
Is there some life hack for when you buy cheese slices that don't separate? Some trick to get them apart?
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 17/09/2026
It'll happen to you, too
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 17/09/2026
I don't generally call out smaller accounts but I feel like if you put me in a textbook then I have the right to say hey, @sarapolak.bsky.social, what's the deal? Would you have accused me of being a "secret service" shill if I'd have been John Smith from Berkshire?
Conclusion
King of the Hill or the storming of the
Capitol as double play
The multiplications of worlds through social media
platforms
Frans-Willem Korsten, Sybille Lammes,
Bram Ieven, Saniye Ince, and Sara Polak
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 17/09/2026
I don't see how else I'm supposed to interpret this passage below. The book's final chapter is also arguing that actually my twitter thread and others like it were partly *responsible* for Jan 6 happening too. So there's that.
The engagement with potential scenarios is evidenced in a viral tweet by Israeli blogger and political analyst Arieh Kovler, published on December 21, 2020, and quoted in a Washington Post article. The tweet reads: “On January 6, armed Trumpist militias will be rallying in DC, at Trump’s order. It’s highly likely that they’ll try
to storm the Capitol after it certifies Joe Biden’s win”. While The Washington Post interpreted these kinds of social media outings afterwards as clear “predictions” of the event, the better analysis is to see them as forms of premediation (even if this reference was a prediction possibly informed by, for instance, some secret service)
and to look at these utterances on social media platforms not so much as predictions that will turn out to be true or false, but as playful engagements with what might happen. With this shifted focus, we are looking at how (and to what extent) other social media users might engage with these statements, and how they build upon them and expand them.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 15/09/2026
A momentary lapse in concentration and I nearly greased the pizza dough bowl with whisky.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 11/09/2026
All the MAGAsphere influencers performatively cancelling their Netflix accounts because they say this is mocking the memory of Saint Charlie Kirk. I wonder if any of them believe it or if they just know it'll do numbers.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 09/09/2026
Of course, people insist that it's a quaint local tradition with no connection to racism, heaven forfend.
According to tradition, celebrants drink 33 glasses of lemonade between Friday of Sorrows and Easter Sunday, in commemoration of the age at which Jesus Christ died.[7] It is also a centuries-old tradition for revelers ordering limonada to say they are "going out to kill Jews." According to Professor Torres, another common expression is "How many Jews have you killed? Three, four, five [limonadas]? Oh, you have killed a lot.'"[4]

There are also celebrations in Ponferrada, Astorga, Sahagún, and La Maragatería.[1] In El Bierzo, locals toast, "Salir a matar judíos" -- "Let's go kill the Jews" -- while drinking Leonese lemonade during Holy Week.[3] The tradition has also been linked to the Spanish expression, "Limonada que trasiego, judío que pulverizo" ("Lemonade I drink, the Jew I pulverize").[2]
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 09/09/2026
This may be one of the funniest opening paragraphs on Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matar_j...
Matar judíos (lit. 'killing Jews') is a tradition during Holy Week celebrations in the northern Spanish Province of León, especially in the city of León and its environs, during which participants drink Leonese lemonade, consisting primarily of lemonade, red wine, and sugars.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 02/09/2026
Pics of the Abe Lincoln arriving to Thailand. I'm not a ship guy but are they supposed to be this rusty?
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 01/09/2026
updated graphic now RZ and Zehut have merged:
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 01/09/2026
I rushed to publish that article before two parties merged and made it out of date. Just in time too: the Religious Zionism (Smotrich) and Zehut (Feiglin) parties signed on a joint electoral slate tonight.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 01/09/2026
All these parties fighting over the same segment of voters, and most of them are going to fail. The 3.25% threshold is going to get them unless they merge. But between ego, different politics and general bloody-mindedness, so far nobody's merging.
table of the positions of right-wing parties.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 31/08/2026
Fwiw, my answer to the question is just inflation. There was basically no inflation for an entire generation and everyone convinced themselves that this is the normal, natural state of an economy and rising prices are the ultimate sickness, even if wages rise too.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 30/08/2026
Before and after using a US VPN. without VPN: Lake Ontario on the map itself, but the attraction pin has been renamed to Lake America with VPN with US IP: Both are Lake America.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 25/08/2026
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 25/08/2026
This person wrote articles on her Substack to her 23,000 subscribers without disclosing that she had left the Pentagon press corps and was now secretly working for the Pentagon instead.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 23/08/2026
Thanks, AI app! My family looks much better in colour. OK, they've changed a little, I suppose, but still well done.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 21/08/2026
To be fair, in this case, it's easy to prove. It has a Google SynthID.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 21/08/2026
Honestly it wasn't that long ago that half the things on this list would have been written off as feminist man-hating anti-sex nonsense by the same people attacking it now as too obvious to write down.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 20/08/2026
Netanyahu needs centrist votes to win, so this is technically a 'good result' for him, but it hasn't helped in the polls. Years of similar primaries and attrition of good candidates means a dull list.
Netanyahu can afford to lose votes to parties on his right. It’s worth his while to moderate the Likud list in the hope of winning some centre-right voters away from opposition parties, even if it costs Likud overall because a vote for Ben Gvir is still a vote to keep Netanyahu in office.

Overall, Netanyahu got about the most he could reasonably get from this primary. The firebrands either lost or performed poorly, and the current Knesset members did well enough to limit internal discontent. It’s not a very exciting list, though, and post-primary polls don’t show any gains for Likud.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 20/08/2026
For all the local focus on the Likud primary, the actual result was pretty dull. No new names, ultra-populists performing worse than expected. But also only two women in the top 24, which is around where Likud's polling.
After all the fuss and fury, the results were kind of boring. No newcomers won any slots in the top 25 in an election where Likud is mostly polling in the low 20s (the only new name, celeb entrepreneur Oren Dobronsky, was one of Netanyahu’s direct appointments). Firebrand Tally Gotliv, who was tipped to do well with populist votes, ended up in 20th place.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 20/08/2026
The Likud primary is, on the one hand, full of voting blocs, special interests and power brokers. On the other, usually there's a lane for populist candidates to win too.
Not every Likud member is part of an organised bloc. There are plenty of independent members, usually supporters of Netanyahu and often pretty hardcore right-populists. And so another way of winning the Likud primary is to cater to them.

And so Likud has seen a run of, erm, “populist” candidates who are in the media every other day for insulting someone, saying something racist, or both.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 20/08/2026
What makes primaries really bad is that you have to keep doing them. In the UK, MPs don't face reselection every parliament so they have to worry about their voters. In the US (and in Likud), reps have to worry about their activists.
What makes the UK different from the US isn’t just the method of selection, though. It’s the frequency. Once someone wins a seat and becomes an MP, that’s usually it for selections. They’re the candidate automatically until they lose or stand down — unless they’re suspended from the party or piss off enough local activists.

That means that MPs aren’t constantly looking over their shoulder worrying about re-selection and can, instead, focus on re-election. They need to balance pleasing their constituents with the demands of their conscience and loyalty to the party leadership, but they mostly don’t have to cater too much to the more extreme party activists.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 19/08/2026
Would you like to take your grandparents' wedding photo and 'enhance' it into a photo of two vaguely similar people? Use AI! Seriously, this is the actual ad on Reddit.
Reddit ad as described in body.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 19/08/2026
It is the nineteenth of August.
email from Amazon about Halloween
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 18/08/2026
Imagine suspending a rank-and-file party member for being "too critical in public". Is this the SWP? Bunch of snowflakes.
Tweet: Guido understands Montgomerie was suspended after being too critical in public, and was informed yesterday.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 07/08/2026
7 years since I saw this media request from a Cosmo feature writer looking for a "list of guys who've had erections that didn't lead to orgasm". I still wonder what her boyfriend must have been telling her.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 22/07/2026
Is he trolling? Is this all some genuinely epic troll we all fell for?
Nolan's obsessions with the non-linear storytelling gimmick really hurts this film. It jumps around so much, and spends so little time on any one particular moment or scene, that you never really feel like Odysseus is on an epic journey spanning many years. When he makes it home, you never feel like he's been gone for 20 years. The film does not capture the grandeur and scope of the original epic. That's why it feels rushed and too long simultaneously. The movie comes off like a rough draft. Nolan was searching for the actual story but never quite found it.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 20/07/2026
King Charles, wearing the ceremonial porcelain crown while accepting Sir Keir Starmer's resignation.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 19/07/2026
My proposed minister for Al
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 16/07/2026
I know! But we do say "Mayor of London" without the "Greater" -- even the office uses that term/branding. And we do say "Lord Mayor of London" without specifying the City. Though, as it happens, there's currently a Lady Mayor.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 16/07/2026
It's kind of weird how watering down Net Zero has become a political litmus test in Labour. Net Zero was in the last TORY manifesto!
We are proud of our record and remain committed to delivering net zero by 2050. Today the UK is home to the five largest offshore wind farms in the world. Half of our electricity comes from renewables, compared to just 7% when Labour were last in office. We have reduced emissions further and faster than any of our competitors and the UK is the first major economy to get halfway to net zero. And we have done this while growing our economy by 80%, demonstrating to other countries that there is a positive economic path to tackling climate change.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 14/07/2026
Not a historian but...
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 14/07/2026
I see DHS has given up even trying to say that they shot in self-defence. "fearing for public safety"? What, was he wearing a suicide bomb vest? What fears for public safety were there here beyond not wanting him to get away?
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 12/07/2026
Bluesky's attitude to both ChatGPT and X...
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 12/07/2026
Potential gift to the killer's defence team. "It wasn't him, it was one of these people who sent a weird email to Nigel Farage".
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 12/07/2026
There have always been some stories that blow up into scandals for no obvious reason, while others are treated as just a bit of fun. Compare, eg, Obama's tan suit (scandal!) and Trump's Covfefe tweet (delightful whimsy?)
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 10/07/2026
I just saw a chameleon in the wild.
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Arieh Kovler @ariehkovler.com · 08/07/2026
OK, Twitter profiles with statue avatars have convinced me that Helen of Troy was white. Also, I remember she hatched from an egg. So I refuse to watch any version of the Odyssey that doesn't make the obvious casting choice.
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