Is Xi Jinping an AI Doomer? | The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel | The Murky Meaning of Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive, and more

Israel Is Buying Google Ads to Discredit the UN’s Top Gaza Aid Agency  (Paresh Dave, Wired)
Back in mid-January, Mara Kronenfeld was googling the name of the nonprofit she runs, which raises money in the US on behalf of the leading humanitarian aid provider in Gaza. Atop the search results for her organization—UNRWA USA, partner to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—she saw a surprising ad. It read like a promo from the UN agency, but the link directed to an Israeli government website. Kronenfeld says she had found the beginnings of a months-long online advertising campaign by Israel to discredit and defund UNRWA.
About the time Kronenfeld encountered the ads, Israel had accused 12 UNRWA staffers of participating in the deadly attack by Hamas extremists on Israel last October. Israeli officials described UNRWA as a front for Hamas and urged governments such as the US to stop funding the agency. Kronenfeld’s impression was that Israel also wanted to tarnish, and cut off donations to, UNRWA USA.
In part due to UNRWA USA’s own Google search ads, donations to the organization had skyrocketed after Israel launched a full-scale war in Gaza to defeat Hamas, in the process triggering a food and shelter crisis. Kronenfeld says her organization raised over $32 million from about 73,000 donors in 2023, up from about $5 million from nearly 5,700 donors the year before.

The Murky Meaning of Ukraine’s Kursk Offensive  (Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy)
Is Ukraine’s surprise counteroffensive into Russia a critical turning point in the war, a meaningless sideshow, or a strategic misstep on Kyiv’s part? It has been mostly a success in the short term, but it’s the medium to long term that matters. Does it have broader implications for Western policy toward Russia in general and the war in Ukraine in particular?
The fortunes of war have shifted back and forth several times since Russia invaded in February 2022, and no outside observer has gotten everything right. For this reason, a certain amount of humility is in order. As with most wars, it is impossible to know exactly where each side’s breaking point might be, in terms of either capabilities or resolve, and it’s hard to predict how third parties will react to new developments. That said, I see little reason to think Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region will have a significant positive impact on its fortunes.
To be sure, the offensive has already brought Kyiv some obvious benefits. It has given Ukrainian morale a much-needed boost and helped counter concerns that Kyiv was trapped in a war of attrition against a larger adversary that it could neither defeat nor outlast. It put the war back on the front pages and strengthened voices calling for increased Western support. It exposed serious flaws in Russian intelligence and readiness and may have embarrassed Russian President Vladimir Putin, although there’s no sign that the incursion has reduced his resolve or slowed Russian advances in the Donbas.
It’s heartening to see Ukraine enjoy some battlefield successes, but this operation is unlikely to affect the outcome of the war. On the upside, the attack showed admirable initiative on Ukraine’s part and an impressive level of operational secrecy, which is why the invading force faced an inadequate number of poorly trained Russian defenders. In some ways the attack resembled the successful Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kharkiv in the fall of 2022, which also achieved tactical surprise and faced outnumbered and inexperienced Russian troops.
Unfortunately, these episodes tell us very little about Ukraine’s ability to gain ground against well-prepared and adequately manned Russian defenses of the sort that thwarted Ukraine’s offensive a year ago. Moreover, the Kursk operation may involve greater Ukrainian than Russian losses, which is not an exchange ratio it can sustain. It would be a huge mistake to conclude that the recent successes on the Kursk front mean that additional Western aid will enable Ukraine to retake the Donbas or Crimea.
This last point is critical, because the two states face quite different circumstances. Both sides have lost lots of troops and equipment, but Ukraine has lost far more territory. According to published reports, Ukraine has now seized about 400 square miles of Russian territory and forced roughly 200,000 Russians to evacuate these areas. These figures amount to 0.0064 percent of Russia’s total land area and 0.138 percent of its population. By contrast, Russia now controls roughly 20 percent of Ukraine, and the war has reportedly forced nearly 35 percent of Ukraine’s population to flee their homes. Even if Kyiv can hang on to the territory it has recently seized, it won’t provide much of a bargaining chip.
It follows that Ukraine’s fate will be determined primarily by what happens in Ukraine, and not by the Kursk operation.
The issue is not just the continuing danger of escalation from an ongoing war. We should ask ourselves whether we are morally comfortable aiding a war effort whose stated objectives are probably unreachable, while eschewing a serious diplomatic effort to end the fighting. The likely result of our current policy is that more people will die for no obvious political purpose. Pushing for a negotiated solution to the Russia-Ukraine war is one of those instances in which self-interest and morality are aligned. The West and the Ukrainians walked away from opportunities to prevent or end this war by negotiation, and Ukraine’s recent military success should be seen as an opportunity to start serious cease-fire talks, not as an excuse to prolong a costly war that Ukraine can survive but is unlikely to win.

The Unpunished: How Extremists Took Over Israel  (Ronen Bergman and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times)
This story is told in three parts. The first documents the unequal system of justice that grew around Jewish settlements in Gaza and the West Bank. The second shows how extremists targeted not only Palestinians but also Israeli officials trying to make peace. The third explores how this movement gained control of the state itself. Taken together, they tell the story of how a radical ideology moved from the fringes to the heart of Israeli political power.