Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here. January 12, 2024 | |
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Fareed: Has Israel Gone Too Far? |
The human and infrastructural devastation in Gaza has been difficult to watch. In his latest Washington Post column, Fareed examines the contentious question of whether it has been warranted.
As Israel continues its war against Hamas in retaliation for the Gaza-governing terrorist group's horrific Oct. 7 massacres of Israeli civilians, the Jewish state stands accused—in a case brought by South Africa in the International Court of Justice—of pursuing genocide against Palestinians. "I think the charge is invalid," Fareed writes, arguing "there is no systematic effort to exterminate Gaza's population. (If there were, given the vast disparity in power, Israel would surely have killed many more than 23,000 people, though that number is, of course, still staggeringly high. The death toll figure comes from the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.) Genocide is an incendiary accusation that should not be used loosely."
Nevertheless, unguided bombs and troubling public statements by Israeli officials—including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's invocation of the biblical story of Amalek—raise disturbing questions. "Israel is a democracy and an open society," Fareed writes, "and precisely because of that it will one day have to ask itself whether it acted appropriately in the heat of its anger and sorrow after Oct. 7. Friends of Israel should help it ask those questions now, so that it does not look back on this episode with shame and regret." |
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Locked in a years-long civil war with Yemen's Saudi-backed government, Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi militants have instigated a somewhat global conflict in recent weeks by obstructing shipping through the Red Sea, statedly in retaliation for Israel's war against Hamas. Having warned of "consequences" in a joint statement issued by an international coalition rallied to oppose the Houthis in the Red Sea, the US and UK have now carried out airstrikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.
The strikes prompted words of caution from Washington Post Global Opinions writer Jason Rezaian, who writes that the "Middle East is as tense as it has been in recent memory," as the war in Gaza threatens to become a regional conflagration. "A carefully modulated reply to Houthi aggression is justified at this point. But President Biden should ensure that this response does not spiral out of control. A wider war would be calamitous."
A day before the US and UK struck, a Foreign Affairs essay by Alexandra Stark had warned against striking. Stark wrote: "Because the Houthi attacks could have serious consequences for global commerce, the United States is under substantial pressure to respond militarily. But instead of retaliatory strikes, the U.S. should favor a diplomatic approach. The Houthis may be recent entrants into international newspaper headlines, but they have been challenging the United States and its Gulf partners for two decades. And the use of force against the Houthis in the past, whether by former President Ali Abdullah Saleh's regime or by a Saudi-led effort to reinstate the government the Houthis overturned in the mid-2010s, has merely allowed the group to refine its military capabilities and portray itself as a heroic resistance movement, bolstering its legitimacy at home."
Viewing the strikes more favorably, The Economist writes under the headline "America fights back" that the US has reasserted itself to restore "maritime order," at a time when the world's seas face political and military turmoil: "The escalation in the Red Sea is mirrored by maritime mayhem elsewhere. The Black Sea is filling up with mines and crippled warships; this year Ukraine hopes to eject the Russian navy from Crimea, its base since Catherine the Great. The Baltic and North seas face a shadow-war of pipeline and cable sabotage. And Asia is seeing the largest build-up of naval power since the second world war, as China tries to coerce Taiwan into unifying and America seeks to deter a Chinese invasion. After Taiwan's election on January 13th, tensions there could soar. These events are not a coincidence, but a sign of a profound shift taking place on the planet's oceans." |
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Beijing Looms Over Taiwan's Election |
Taiwan will vote for its next president on Saturday, and at The Atlantic, Michael Schuman wonders if Beijing will continue to abide democracy on the island. Shuman writes: "'I just don't see (Chinese leader Xi Jinping) compromising on somehow allowing Taiwan to be autonomous or be a sort of democracy' that would operate without interference from Beijing, Bonnie Glaser, the managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told me. 'I don't see how it fits into his worldview.' … Taiwan's leaders have certainly learned the lessons of Hong Kong. At a news conference just days before the polls, (DPP candidate Lai Ching-te, viewed as the most forcefully pro-independence among Taiwan's three presidential candidates) said, 'Peace is priceless and war has no winners,' but 'peace without sovereignty is just like Hong Kong. It is fake peace.'" |
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A Positive Spin on Trump's Rise, From a Trump Critic |
Irascible as ever, former US President Donald Trump ranted at a judge this week, at the end of his civil business-fraud trial in New York. (Trump denies the allegations.) Firmly ensconced on the birther bandwagon during former President Barack Obama's White House tenure, Trump is now spreading a similar false conspiracy theory about GOP rival Nikki Haley, which John Avlon examines in detail at CNN Opinion.
For critics of the former president, that's a lot to dislike. One critic, however, recently penned an optimistic column reflecting on Trump's rise to the top of US politics.
The Financial Times' Gideon Rachman wrote: "America's period of greatness and global leadership has always involved turmoil and melodrama, from John F Kennedy's assassination in 1963 to the 'war on terror' under George W Bush. In the end, the country always righted itself and its underlying dynamism and constitutional system reasserted themselves. So it seems unlikely that this latest melodrama—'America season nine', as some call it—will bring the series to a definitive and tragic conclusion. The melodrama that America churns up—even the Trump melodrama—can be a sign of vitality as much as sickness. The US is a country with a rebellious, anti-establishment streak that allows it to shake things up and constantly reinvent itself. Voting for Trump is a sign that people are demanding fundamental change. And even if Trump is not the right answer, his emergence is a sign of that restlessness and refusal to settle for the status quo." |
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