Dimi Reider

Lower Saxony, Micoud

Senior Fellow @oandbinstitute, Berkeley. Co-founder @972mag, founding ed @theleaduk. Bylines @nytimes,@foreignaffairs, @haaretz etc. 🗣️ "raider" (not "rider")

Articles

What Louis Theroux gets wrong about the West Bank

4 weeks ago | newstatesman.com | Dimi Reider

To an Israeli, watching both Louis Theroux’s The Settlers and the response to it has been a strange experience. The film revisits the project of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Theroux previously explored in 2011.
An unfathomable tragedy

Dec 19, 2024 | journals.sagepub.com | Dimi Reider |Sarah Dawood

SARAH DAWOOD introduces DIMI REIDER’s piece of prose written on 7 October 2024 to mark 12 months of devastation in the Middle EastIT’S BEEN MORE than a year since Hamas’s brutal incursion into Israel on 7 October, when the militant group killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 people hostage. It was the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust. In response, Israel launched a devastating war on Gaza that has caused, and continues to cause, immense suffering and destruction.
There is no progressive future for Britain without the farming community on board

Nov 23, 2024 | national.thelead.uk | Dimi Reider

British farming is in deep, deep trouble. The constant push to provide ever-cheaper food to supermarkets, in competition with ever-cheaper imports, has resulted in consolidation of family farms into gigantic quasi-industrial operations. This has massively accelerated nature loss, turbo-charged air and water pollution and soil deterioration.
Why I'm staying on Twitter

Nov 16, 2024 | national.thelead.uk | Dimi Reider

Progressive journalists - and progressives in general - are leaving Twitter, formally known as X. This has happened a number of times since Elon Musk bought the platform, but appears to have finally reached a (contained) critical mass for this particular constituency after the US presidential election. Some have moved quietly; others announced their departure with varying degrees of relief, exasperation, or flourish. A respectable cluster of UK progressives signed an open letter.
Trump's triumph: Picking up the pieces

Nov 9, 2024 | national.thelead.uk | Zoë Grünewald |Lillian Race |Leah Borromeo |Dimi Reider

Zoe Grunewald: Did Kamala Harris lose because she’s a woman? Not exactly. The Democrats' campaign strategy faltered, while Donald Trump’s populism capitalised on widespread discontent, fuelled by what many saw as the failed delivery of Joe Biden’s administration. But beyond the usual political post-mortem lies a more uncomfortable truth: gender remains a formidable barrier in American politics, shaping not just who rises, but who falls.
The Democrats walked into a deathtrap. Will Labour take note?

Nov 6, 2024 | theleaduk.substack.com | Dimi Reider

It’s easy enough to sum up the prospects of the next four years in one word: bad. It also won’t be entirely incorrect. But it would also be relatively useless. The re-election of Donald Trump will have different consequences in different arenas, with different implications for different communities - including for us in the UK. These need to be analysed, if possible, predicted, and planned for. Spending the next four years with our heads in our hands will help no one. First, the consequences.
The two-child benefit cap is indefensible. It's got to go.

Oct 26, 2024 | theleaduk.substack.com | Dimi Reider

If you live in the UK, it is very likely that at some point today, you passed by a child in deep, Dickensian poverty. Over 3 million children - a quarter of the total of young people under 16 - are considered poor in the UK. This isn’t because the government can’t afford it. The UK is still one of the wealthiest countries in the world. It’s because a chancellor blinded by ideology - George Osborne - decided to try to cap how many children poor people should be having.
Labour's first 100 days: Not half as bad as it looks

Oct 12, 2024 | theleaduk.substack.com | Richard Booth |Zoë Grünewald |Dimi Reider

- Westminster Editor: So far, Labour has performed rather well on policy. They’ve stuck to their new deal for workers and fiscal discipline, with bold moves like rail nationalisation and Great British Energy—policies that show ambition the previous government could neither dream of nor deliver. And yet, this wasn’t the smoothest of starts. One resignation, two rebellions, and several Taylor Swift tickets later, it’s fair to say that the first 100 days haven’t been the easiest for the government.
The Tory leadership fiasco is not necessarily good news for progressives

Oct 10, 2024 | theleaduk.substack.com | Dimi Reider

As the news broke that Conservative MPs now have to choose either Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick as the next party leader, Labour and its supporters began celebrating their own election victory. Not the one three months ago, which somehow already feels like a distant dream. The next one, at least four years early. The glee is understandable.
October 7th: Can you mark anniversaries for a day being replicated over and over and over?

Oct 7, 2024 | dimireider.substack.com | Dimi Reider

I thought I'd be writing a big analytical piece on the anniversary of October 7. Where we've been, where we're going. What I got wrong, who got what right. And maybe I'll write some of this yet. But in truth, it doesn't feel like the day for it. Not only because I don't want to add to the cloud of analysis on a day so many people, from every side, are coming up here to share their own personal pain. But mainly because it doesn't feel like an anniversary.