Attention to the Unseen

Reuters reports: U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that Israel is losing support over its “indiscriminate” bombing of Gaza and that Benjamin Netanyahu should change, exposing a new rift in relations with the Israeli prime minister. Biden’s remarks, made to donors to his 2024 re-election campaign, were his most critical to date of Netanyahu’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza. They are a stark contrast to his literal and political embrace of the Israeli leader days after Hamas militants’…

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The New York Times reports: Nine weeks ago, the Gaza Strip was a bustling home to more than two million people. Today, neighborhoods have been flattened by Israeli airstrikes and farming communities have been bulldozed by invading Israeli tanks. Video and satellite imagery captured in late November and early December reveals a devastating transformation in much of northern Gaza. The Port of Gaza used to be a lifeline for the Gazan fishing industry, with a fish market next to the…

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Maura Reynolds writes: It was nearly two years ago that Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and in recent months, the fighting appears to have ground to a stalemate. Aid from the United States has helped Ukraine get this far — but now Americans are asking, how long should they continue to support Ukraine in its war against Russia? At this point, just what are the stakes for the United States? Since the war began, I’ve turned to Fiona…

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The New York Times reports: The Russian push in eastern Ukraine this fall and winter was designed to sap Western support for Ukraine, according to a newly declassified American intelligence assessment. The drive has resulted in heavy losses but has not led to strategic gains on the battlefield for Russia, said Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council. Since the beginning of the war Russia has suffered from a staggeringly high number of losses, according to another newly…

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U.S. policymakers "don't have the guts and the moral courage" to stand up to the Israeli govt, says top Middle East watcher @FawazGerges. “I really have no trust in American foreign policy anymore,” he tells me. pic.twitter.com/KjvqMeglLl — Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) December 9, 2023 Fawaz Gerges is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and holder of the Emirates Professorship in Contemporary Middle East Studies.

  University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill voluntarily resigned her position Saturday after a House Education Committee hearing last Tuesday on how colleges have handled antisemitism. Magill has faced demands to resign since September, when she refused to bow to pressure to cancel the Palestine Writes Literature Festival on campus. More universities face accusations that they have failed to protect Jewish students since the October 7 Hamas incursion into southern Israel amid a broader effort to restrict pro-Palestinian speech on…

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