WORLD ROUNDUPWhat Was Hamas Thinking? | 'Terrorist' Designations for Houthis | Emerging Narrative About Renewables Gets It Wrong, and more
· South Korea Suspends Military Agreement with North
2018 military agreement with North Korea suspended after Pyongyang was said to have launched a military spy satellite
· Europe’s Chance to Finish Off Illiberal Democracy
Europe’s illiberal governments are a weakened state, and the EU must fulfill its promise to crack down on them by using the bloc’s financial resources
· What Was Hamas Thinking?
The Oct. 7 attack was the culmination of a strategic shift to challenge the movement’s containment
· Javier Milei’s Next Challenge: Governing Argentina
The messianic president-elect may struggle to implement many of his most radical ideas
· What Hamas Promises, Iranians Know Too Well
Young Iranians can have no illusions about the mix of misogyny, anti-Semitism, and Islamism that Hamas and Iran’s rulers share
· US Reviewing Possible ‘Terrorist’ Designations for Houthis
One of the Biden administration’s first acts after taking office in January 2021 was revoking terrorist designations of the Houthis
· What an Emerging Narrative About Renewables Gets Wrong
The green transition will mean less mining, not more
· Why North Korea May Use Nuclear Weapons First, and Why Current US Policy Toward Pyongyang Is Unsustainable
North Korea has large incentives to use a tactical nuclear weapon—or several of them—early in another conflict on the Korean peninsula
South Korea Suspends Military Agreement with North (DW)
North Korea’s use of ballistic missile technology for a recent launch was condemned by the UN and the US. Meanwhile, Japan expressed uncertainty about Pyongyang’s claim.
Europe’s Chance to Finish Off Illiberal Democracy (Sona Muzikarova, Project Syndicate)
Recent elections in Poland and Slovakia offer valuable lessons for pro-democratic movements challenging populist regimes across Europe. Whereas the Polish opposition parties managed to unite around a common cause, Slovakian centrists failed to connect with rural voters, older voters, and those disillusioned with the status quo.
What Was Hamas Thinking? (Tareq Baconi, Foreign Policy)
Since 2007, Hamas’s presence in the occupied territories has been restricted to the Gaza Strip, where the movement has been effectively contained through the use of a hermetic blockade that collectively imprisoned Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians. In its containment, Hamas was stuck in what I have termed a “violent equilibrium,” whereby military force emerged as a means for negotiating concessions between Hamas and Israel. The former uses missiles and other tactics to compel Israel to ease restrictions on the blockade, while the latter responds with overwhelming force to build deterrence and secure “calm” in the areas around the Gaza Strip. Through this violence, both entities operated within a framework whereby Hamas could maintain its role as a governing authority in Gaza even under a blockade that enacts daily structural violence against Palestinians.
Beginning in 2018, Hamas began experimenting with different means of changing this equilibrium. One was through its decision to allow for popular protests against Israel’s domination to take place. The Great March of Return in 2018 was one of the most extensive examples of Palestinian popular mobilization. The protest emerged as a civil society-led effort that was given permission, supported, and ultimately managed by a committee comprising the various political parties in Gaza, including Hamas. As a governing authority, Hamas provided much of the infrastructure necessary for the mobilization, such as buses to transport activists. This was a stark departure from the means with which Hamas traditionally challenged the blockade.
