Music: Ulf Kleiner & Sebastian Merk — ‘Vulfy’
To live in peace, Israel will have to finally come to terms with the Palestinians
Aluf Benn writes: History suggests there is a chance that progressivism might come back and conservatives might lose influence. After prior major attacks, Israeli public opinion initially shifted to the right but then changed course and accepted territorial compromises in exchange for peace. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 eventually led to peace with Egypt; the first intifada, beginning in 1987, led to the Oslo accords and peace with Jordan; and the second intifada, erupting in 2000, ended with the…
Saudis to Israel: No ties without recognition of Palestinian state
Reuters reports: Saudi Arabia has told the United States it will not open diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognised on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital, its foreign ministry said on Wednesday. Riyadh reiterated its call for permanent members of the U.N. Security Council that have not recognised a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital to do so, a ministry statement said. It was referring to a…
How likely is China to start a war?
Michael Beckley and Hal Brands write: In 1995, more Taiwanese citizens considered themselves exclusively Chinese than Taiwanese, and more favored moving toward unification with China than toward independence. Today, nearly two-thirds of the population considers itself exclusively Taiwanese, versus only 4 percent that identifies as exclusively Chinese. While most Taiwanese support maintaining the status quo for now, 49 percent of the population prefers eventual independence over an indefinite continuation of the status quo (27 percent) or unification (12 percent). Meanwhile,…
For the first time in two decades, U.S. buys more from Mexico than China
The New York Times reports: In the depths of the pandemic, as global supply chains buckled and the cost of shipping a container from China soared nearly twentyfold, Marco Villarreal spied an opportunity. In 2021, Mr. Villarreal resigned as Caterpillar’s director general in Mexico and began nurturing ties with companies looking to shift manufacturing from China to Mexico. He found a client in Hisun, a Chinese producer of all-terrain vehicles, which hired Mr. Villarreal to establish a $152 million manufacturing…
Inside Donald Trump’s incredible cash crunch
The Daily Beast reports: Donald Trump is just days away from getting slammed with a court judgment that could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars as a punishment for his decades of bank fraud with the Trump Organization. And two little-known New York laws could leave Trump scrambling for cash: a requirement that he immediately front the money to appeal the decision, and a sky-high state interest rate. During a deposition with the New York Attorney General in April…
In Poland, I saw what a second Trump term could do to America
Michelle Goldberg writes: Adam Bodnar, Poland’s new justice minister, recently explained to me the immense challenge of rebuilding liberal democracy in his country after an eight-year slide toward authoritarianism. Imagine, he said, that Donald Trump had won the last election and been in power for two terms instead of one. “What would be the damage?” he asked. After only four years of Trump, President Biden inherited a furiously divided nation, its courts seeded with right-wing apparatchiks and the nature of…
In a masterful opinion, the D.C. Circuit rejected Trump’s bid for immunity
George T. Conway III writes: On July 24, 1974, when the Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Nixon, ordering President Richard Nixon to produce the Watergate tapes, the president turned to his chief of staff, Alexander Haig, to understand what had just happened. He later recounted the exchange in his memoirs: “Unanimous?” I guessed. “Unanimous. There’s no air in it at all,” he said. “None at all?” I asked. “It’s tight as a drum.” These words echoed…
Music: Hvalfugl — ‘Forglemmigej’
‘Everything beautiful has been destroyed’: Palestinians mourn a city in tatters
The Observer reports: Its walls collapsed and its minaret cut short, Gaza’s Omari mosque remains standing but vastly diminished. Around it, the historic old city is also in tatters. The 7th-century mosque, also known as the Great Mosque of Gaza, was Gaza’s most famous and its surroundings a focal point of the Palestinian enclave’s history and culture, but the damage done to its heritage over more than 100 days of Israeli bombardment spreads across the city. For the few Palestinians…
Red Sea attacks: How Yemen’s Houthis have defied Western stereotypes
Andrew Hammond writes: Demonisation is a familiar play when organisations and governments challenge western policy. One of the arguments now making the rounds about the Houthi movement in Yemen is that its actions against Red Sea shipping have nothing to do with Gaza at all – and that even if Israel stopped the war, the Houthis wouldn’t stop. Underlying this is not just demonisation, but also racism. British officials have repeatedly made such claims in recent days, aiming to justify…
The Republicans who won’t take yes for an answer
David Frum writes: Sometimes, a negotiation produces a deal. Sometimes, a negotiation reveals the truth. Negotiators in the Senate have produced a draft agreement on immigration and asylum. The deal delivers on Republican priorities. It includes changes to federal law to discourage asylum seeking. It shuts down asylum processing altogether if too many people arrive at once. Those and other changes send a clear message to would-be immigrants: You’re going to find it a lot harder to enter the United…
MAGA convoy on immigrant ‘invasion’: ‘It’s not what I expected, but then again I don’t know what I expected’
Rex Huppke writes: It’s time for non-brainwashed Americans and the media at large to accept something: Former President Donald Trump’s “MAGA movement” is a tissue-paper tiger. This was on vivid display in Texas over the weekend. A much-ballyhooed convoy of MAGA patriots descended on a town near the southern border, ostensibly ready to protect America from what right-wing politicians like Gov. Greg Abbott cynically, dangerously and falsely call “an invasion.” The “God’s Army” convoy was supposed to be a mighty…
Republicans fear Trump’s ‘retribution’ campaign: ‘If you are not for him he’s against you’
The Washington Post reports: Donald Trump has promised a presidency of “retribution” if he wins another term in office. Many Republicans fear they might face the brunt of it. The former president has threatened to have donors to his Republican opponent Nikki Haley “permanently barred” from his orbit. A top adviser has vowed to destroy the career of Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), House Freedom Caucus chairman, after he endorsed another Trump challenger, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The Trump campaign has…
Sponge skeletons indicate climate change might be worse than thought
The New York Times reports: Since the dawn of the industrial age, our species has warmed the planet by considerably more than today’s most widely accepted estimates imply, according to a team of scientists who have gleaned detailed new information about Earth’s past climate from an unusual source: centuries-old sponges living in the Caribbean Sea. Networks of satellites and sensors have measured the rising temperatures of recent decades with great precision. But to assess the full arc of global warming,…
AI used to decipher the Greek text of 2,000-year-old charred Herculaneum scroll
Nature reports: A team of student researchers has made a giant contribution to solving one of the biggest mysteries in archaeology by revealing the content of Greek writing inside a charred scroll buried 2,000 years ago by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The winners of a contest called the Vesuvius Challenge trained their machine-learning algorithms on scans of the rolled-up papyrus, unveiling a previously unknown philosophical work that discusses senses and pleasure. The feat paves the way for artificial intelligence…