WORLD ROUNDUPThe Brutal Logic to Israel’s Actions in Gaza | China Has Thousands of Navalnys, Hidden from the Public | How Germany’s Most Wanted Criminal Hid in Plain Sight, and more
· The Brutal Logic to Israel’s Actions in Gaza
The Biden administration’s delicate, much criticized line recognizes the lack of a coherent alternative strategy
· In Britain, Shockwaves from Israel-Hamas War Are Jolting Domestic Politics
The United States and several European nations have been caught up in toxic debates that have altered election campaigns and led to eruptions of inflammatory language over the conflict.
· Russia Attacked Ukraine’s Power Grid at Least 66 Times to ‘Freeze It into Submission’
Several of the strikes occurred far from the front lines of the conflict, indicating possible war crimes. Researchers say the attacks likely had devastating impacts on civilians
· Biden Calls Chinese Electric Vehicles a Security Threat
The president ordered an investigation into auto software that could track U.S. drivers, part of a broader effort to stop E.V. imports from China.
· The UK’s GPS Tagging of Migrants Has Been Ruled Illegal
The UK’s privacy regulator says the government did not take into account the intrusiveness of ankle tags that continuously monitor a person’s location
· 5 Convicts Familiar with Navalny’s Prison Confirm Hellish Conditions
The brutal cold, revolting food and beatings aren’t the worst part of being imprisoned at IK3, where Aleksei Navalny died. Rather, it’s being inside a system meant to break the human spirit.
· China Has Thousands of Navalnys, Hidden from the Public
China has no dissident with the kind of public profile that Aleksei A. Navalny had. The government has many critics, but they all disappear from view.
· China Wants to Weaken, Not Replace, the U.S. in the Middle East
Beijing doesn’t want the costs of being a regional hegemon
· How Germany’s Most Wanted Criminal Hid in Plain Sight
Daniela Klette, a militant from the Red Army Faction, was on the run for decades. Yet with publicly available digital recognition tools, German police could probably have found her much sooner.
· Chinese Space, Nuclear Development Is ‘Breathtakingly Fast,’ DOD Officials Warn
Heads of STRATCOM, Space Command discuss growing nuclear, space dangers
The Brutal Logic to Israel’s Actions in Gaza (Raphael S. Cohen, Foreign Policy)
There is a lot to hate about Israel’s war in Gaza. It is a bloody, destructive war that has killed far too many innocents and upended far too many civilian lives. It is by any measure a human tragedy that will reverberate across the region for years to come. But if the international community is not simply grandstanding and actually hopes to solve the tragedy playing out in Gaza, then it needs to begin by offering feasible solutions that address both Palestinian grievances and Israeli security concerns.
To its credit, the Biden administration is at least trying to move in this direction. It is pushing Israel to curtail civilian casualties, set up safe zones, increase humanitarian aid, and move to a longer-term political solution—all while still backing (or at least not outwardly opposing) Israel’s ongoing operations to root out Hamas. Some might call such a balanced approach overly tactical and unable to quickly end the war, but a good strategy is built on sound tactics.
Unfortunately, the Biden administration’s nuance is the exception both internationally and in the domestic debate over U.S. policy. Just as the political right needs to be continuously reminded that the Palestinian population is not going anywhere and Israel cannot kill its way to victory, the political left needs to be reminded that Israelis are also not going anywhere and their equities must also be taken seriously.
Ultimately, if Biden’s critics on the political left want a different war, then they need to offer an alternative strategy and subject that strategy to the same sort of analytical rigor that it trains on Israel’s current military effort. If not, the brutal logic of the current war will remain, and the ongoing tragedy will continue.
