World roundup: September 27 2024

Stories from Lebanon, Japan, Guatemala, and elsewhere

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Apologies for the abruptness of this but over the past couple of days it has become abundantly clear to me that I need to take a few days away from the newsletter to recharge. Consequently, after tonight’s roundup I will be taking the next week for that purpose and we will resume our regular schedule on Sunday, October 6. Thanks for your patience and support.

TODAY IN HISTORY

September 27, 1669: The Ottoman siege of Candia (modern Heraklion), finally ends after more than 21 years with the city, and all of Crete, in Ottoman hands. The siege was the centerpiece of the 1645-1669 Cretan War, the fifth of seven wars between the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Venice. Its conquest of Crete brought the Ottoman Empire to its greatest territorial extent, though it was a fleeting moment as by the end of the 17th century the empire would begin shrinking.

September 27, 1822: French orientalist Jean-François Champollion (d. 1832) publishes the first results of his translation of the Rosetta Stone, the first true breakthrough in the effort by European scholars to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphics. Two years later he published Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens, which cemented his reputation as the “Father of Egyptology.”

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his United Nations General Assembly address to a largely empty chamber on Friday, and after offering his annual complaint that the UN is unfairly picking on Israel he pledged to continue raining death and destruction across the Middle East for the foreseeable future. This message is of particular meaning with respect to Lebanon these days, but it also included yet another public rejection of a Gaza ceasefire on principle so that’s another great success for the Biden administration. He also called for diplomatic normalization between Israeli and Saudi Arabia…whose delegation boycotted the speech. To the extent that Netanyahu had an audience aside from his cheerleaders in the gallery, it was presumably the US right wing and his own coalition partners back home.