World roundup: April 19 2023

Stories from Israel-Palestine, India, Canada, and elsewhere

NOTE: Attentive readers may notice a small formatting change that we’ll be adopting starting with tonight’s roundup. This is a change I should have made a while ago, when Substack introduced the ability to choose where to put the paywall in locked posts, but it’s taken me some time to realize that because, well, I’m not terribly bright.

TODAY IN HISTORY

April 19, 1775: Two military engagements between British regulars and American colonial militia in the Massachusetts towns of Lexington and Concord mark the start of the American Revolution. The British force succeeded in destroying some cannons and ammunition at Concord but was driven back into Boston by the militia. A large (15,000 man) militia army recruited from across New England then surrounded and besieged the city, which the British evacuated the following March.

April 19, 1943: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, perhaps the largest World War II Jewish revolt against Nazi rule, begins in occupied Poland. Jewish resistance groups had formed in the Ghetto, spurred to a large extent by the previous year’s Grossaktion Warsaw, in which the Nazis deported some 260,000 or more Warsaw Jews to the Treblinka death camp. Nazi forces entered the Ghetto on April 19 in an attempt to implement a second mass deportation but encountered the armed resistance. The Nazis then began a month-long suppression campaign that included the systematic torching of homes and other buildings within the Ghetto. The uprising ended on May 16 with the Nazis having killed outright or deported (to death camps) some 56,065 Jews according to official Nazi figures.

INTERNATIONAL

In today’s global news:

• Worldometer is tracking COVID-19 cases and fatalities.

• The New York Times is tracking global vaccine distribution.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen visited Azerbaijan on Wednesday, though his stopover there was perhaps less interesting than his eventual destination: Turkmenistan. Cohen met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to, among other things, thank him for opening an embassy in Tel Aviv late last month. His trip to Turkmenistan, meanwhile, will see him inaugurate a brand new Israeli embassy in Ashgabat. The observant reader might note that both Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan border Iran. Indeed, the Israeli embassy in Turkmenistan will be a scant 20 kilometers from the Iranian border, making it Israel’s closest (official) outpost to Iran. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.