World roundup: January 8 2024

Stories from Lebanon, the Maldives, Ethiopia, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

January 8, 1815: US forces commanded by Andrew Jackson defeat a larger British army in the Battle of New Orleans. Regarded in US collective memory as the climax of the War of 1812, even though it took place more than two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent officially ended the war, the battle is mostly noteworthy for its effect on American morale. Jackson’s victory allowed Americans to insist that what had otherwise been a fairly dismal war for the US (plans to annex Canada were quashed and British forces sacked Washington DC) had ended with a rousing US victory. The battle also made Jackson into a national hero, a status he parlayed into a two term presidency starting with the 1828 election.

January 8, 1926: Abdulaziz ibn Saud is crowned king of the Hejaz, adding that kingdom to his original dominion in the Nejd. This personal union lasted for six years and became the nucleus of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In 1932, Ibn Saud unified the Hejaz and the Nejd (as well as al-Hasa, east of the Nejd) into a single state, to which he later added Asir, Najran, and Jizan after a 1934 war with Yemen.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

The Israeli military (IDF) declared on Monday that the “dismantling of the Hamas military framework in the northern Gaza Strip” (I think I’m remembering that right) does indeed mean that it will begin transitioning to what The New York Times characterized as “a more targeted phase in its war against Hamas.” You’d be forgiven for not noticing, insofar as the IDF kept up a withering bombardment on Monday that particularly targeted central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah area and southern Gaza’s Khan Younis area. You’d also be forgiven for reading that NYT piece and wondering how the paper came to the conclusion that Israel is “scaling back” its operations. There’s nothing in the reporting to suggest that, as Spencer Ackerman points out: