World roundup: November 11 2024

Stories from Israel-Palestine, Taiwan, Haiti, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

November 11, 1813: A relatively small and heavily outnumbered British-Canadian force defeats an invading US army near the town of Morrisburg in what is now the Canadian province of Ontario, in the War of 1812’s Battle of Crysler’s Farm. The American defeat, following so closely on the heels of their defeat at the Battle of the Chateauguay in late October, ended the US army’s Saint Lawrence Campaign and thus its hopes of capturing Montreal.

November 11, 1918: Marshal Józef Piłsudski becomes Chief of State of the first Polish nation to have existed since Austria, Prussia, and Russia carved up the previous one in the “Third Partition” in 1795. The German and Austrian governments had formed a Polish Regency Council the previous year, and with Germany defeated, Austria-Hungary defeated and disintegrating, and Russia in chaos following its 1917 revolution, the council availed itself of the opportunity to declare independence in October 1918. But it’s Piłsudski’s appointment that’s considered the foundation of the modern Polish state and it’s therefore this date that’s commemorated every year as Polish Independence Day.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Responsible Statecraft’s Paul Pillar argues that the situation in northern Gaza is making Israel’s plans for the territory even more apparent than they already were:

The dominant images from northern Gaza are partly the ones that became familiar a year ago, of buildings reduced to rubble, and pictures of residents walking away from their homes with what few possessions they can carry. The latter images resemble those from an earlier Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians—the Nakba of 1948.

Despite Israeli denials, what is happening appears to be a version of the “generals’ plan,” a proposal presented to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in September and subsequently leaked. That proposal calls for cutting off supplies to the portion of the Gaza Strip in question and telling all who live there that they must leave or be considered combatants subject to attack.

Although the current focus of Israeli operations is in the north, much of what the Israeli military has been doing throughout the Gaza Strip during the past year has been consistent with ethnic cleansing. Those residents who are not killed outright — and the actual death toll amid the rubble is probably far higher than the running official count that is now at about 43,000 — are left with an unlivable wasteland. The Israeli assault has destroyed health care and educational systems and facilities, emergency services, and most other infrastructure needed for a community to exist.