Attention to the Unseen

The Washington Post reports: Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development and a world-renowned scholar on genocide, was pointedly challenged by current and former USAID employees who during a public event Tuesday questioned her stance on the war in Gaza and complicity in the divisive U.S. policy. “You wrote a book on genocide and you’re still working for the administration: You should resign and speak out,” said Agnieszka Sykes, a global health specialist who told The Washington…

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The Guardian reports: A robust and united position among EU member states convinced Viktor Orbán to end his “blackmail” and support a €50bn (£43bn) funding package for Ukraine, European prime ministers have said. The Hungarian prime minister, who had been vowing to block the funds since December, performed one of the fastest U-turns seen at a leaders’ summit after six weeks of brinkmanship. There was relief that the deal was finally done but also a sense of fury among leaders…

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The Times of Israel reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government does not support the immediate discontinuation of UNRWA, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday as a host of Western countries moved to suspend funding for the UN relief agency for Palestinians amid allegations that roughly a dozen of its employees took part in Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught and hundreds more are either operatives or have close ties with members. “If UNRWA ceases operating on the ground, this could…

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Middle East Eye reports: British Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s suggestion that the UK is considering recognising a state of Palestine has been dismissed as “PR” and a “masterclass in mental gymnastics” by legal experts and Palestinian advocates. Speaking to the Conservative Middle East Council in the House of Commons on Monday night, Cameron said that the Palestinian people would have to be shown “irreversible progress” towards a two-state solution. “We should be starting to set out what a Palestinian state…

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NBC News reports: If only young voters knew more about what Biden has done to erase billions in student loan debt, for example, they’d feel differently, the president’s allies contend. In an interview before the church service [in Sumter, SC], Clyburn summoned one of his security aides, a Black man in his 40s, who described his delight in getting a letter telling him that his and his wife’s student loan debt totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars had been wiped…

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The Guardian reports: Hamas militants have returned to northern Gaza, where they are mobilising against Israeli forces and rebuilding a system of governance, aid officials, Gaza residents, analysts and Israeli officials say. Elsewhere in Gaza, Hamas administrators and police maintain firm control of the south, where much of the population is concentrated, though civil order is breaking down in central regions. The apparent resurgence of Hamas in areas seized and cleared by Israeli troops during the nearly four-month offensive underlines…

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Last year, Ruth Margalit wrote in the New Yorker about Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir: Ben-Gvir, who entered parliament in 2021, leads a far-right party called Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power. His role model and ideological wellspring has long been Meir Kahane, a Brooklyn rabbi who moved to Israel in 1971 and, during a single term in the Knesset, tested the moral limits of the country. Israeli politicians strive to reconcile Israel’s identities as a Jewish state and a…

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The Guardian reports: Officials in Brussels have reportedly drawn up a secret plan to sabotage Hungary’s economy if Viktor Orbán decides this week to again block a €50bn support package for Ukraine. The plan, reported by the Financial Times, reflects the fury mounting across European capitals at what one diplomat called the “policy of blackmail” being pursued by the Hungarian prime minister, who leads the bloc’s most pro-Russia state. The FT said the strategy involved targeting Hungary’s economy, weakening its…

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