World roundup: July 16 2024
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Niger, France, and elsewhere
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Welcome back! As always after a long break this roundup will be a mix of some significant things that happened while I was gone and other news that’s strictly from today.
TODAY IN HISTORY
July 16, 1212: An allied Iberian Christian army under Castilian King Alfonso VIII defeats a substantially larger Almohad army under Caliph Muhammad al-Nasir at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in what is today southern Spain. The defeat, coupled with the death of Muhammad al-Nasir the following year, helped send the Almohad dynasty into a tailspin from which it never recovered.
July 16, 1945: The United States conducts the first successful detonation of an atomic weapon at Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range in New Mexico, code named “Trinity.” The 25 kiloton test, one of several such tests conducted as part of the “Manhattan Project,” involved an implosion-type plutonium device dubbed “the Gadget,” which became the model for the “Fat Man” device later dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The 15 kiloton “Little Boy” bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a gun-type fissile uranium device, a type that had not been tested prior to its use.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The actual Groundhog Day is in February, but we got a macabre reboot of the film Groundhog Day last week when Joe Biden declared once again that the Israeli government and Hamas had agreed on a ceasefire “framework” only to have Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again spit on that claim shortly after. The cause of Biden’s optimism seems to have been some movement from Hamas, which reportedly dropped its demand for some sort of guarantee that an initial temporary ceasefire would transition to an indefinite ceasefire in a second phase of any agreement. But Netanyahu subsequently backed out of a commitment his negotiators had already made to allow unfettered Palestinian access to northern Gaza, insisting instead that “armed men” would not be permitted to move into that area. He’s also reportedly demanding new security arrangements along the Gaza-Egyptian border that would surely be unacceptable to the Egyptian government, and he’s never stopped insisting that the Israeli military (IDF) will continue operating in Gaza until it achieves its “objectives,” ceasefire or not. Netanyahu’s comments seem to have set negotiations back, to say the least.
On Saturday, the IDF may have killed the ceasefire deal completely, alongside the 90-plus Palestinians it definitely killed in a massive airstrike on Gaza’s al-Mawasi area. Israeli forces reportedly dropped five 2000 pound bombs (supplied by the US) on Mawasi, which the IDF had previously designated as a protected humanitarian zone for Palestinians displaced from other parts of Gaza. The strike killed Hamas battalion commander Rafe Salama and may have killed the overall commander of Hamas’s Qassam Brigades military arm, Mohammed Deif. The IDF claims that Deif was the target and says that it’s still unsure if he was killed, while Hamas is claiming (without proof) that he survived. There seems to be little question that the attack will make it harder to conclude a ceasefire agreement, and Hamas even announced that it’s withdrawing from the negotiations though it seems they’re continuing anyway.
Elsewhere:
Saturday’s Mawasi attack was the largest of a flurry of IDF attacks on Palestinian civilians over the past few days. The IDF killed at least 20 people in the al-Shati refugee camp near Gaza City on Saturday and at least 22 people in a school-turned-shelter in central Gaza’s Nuseirat camp on Sunday—that strike also definitely used US-made weapons, by the by. These major casualty incidents have been interspersed among a number of smaller attacks across Gaza.
The IDF ordered yet another evacuation of Gaza City last week but many of its remaining residents are reportedly staying put. I can’t be sure, but I suspect that their intransigence has something to do with the fact that the IDF keeps telling people to evacuate to “safe” zones only to wind up bombing those zones anyway. I’m not sure how much it really matters at this point—according to the United Nations over 1.9 million Palestinians in Gaza are now displaced, which is nearly the entire civilian population of the territory.
While we’re on the subject of overall numbers, a piece published by The Lancet earlier this month says that “it is not implausible to estimate” that Israel’s nine month and counting massacre in Gaza has directly and indirectly killed 186,000 or more people. That’s vastly higher than the 38,000 or so deaths that have been reported by the Gazan Health Ministry, a figure that fans of the slaughter continually deride as false. It turns out that those people are probably right, though I suspect not in the way they mean. The piece uses what it calls a “conservative” estimate of four indirect deaths to every direct killing, and given the lengths to which the Israeli government has gone to limit humanitarian access to Gaza since October 7 there’s good reason to suspect that even this figure is an underestimate. It also still relies on the ministry’s figures as a baseline, even though the decimation of Gaza’s medical infrastructure also means the ministry’s count is likely too low.
Also, the UN estimates that it will take 15 years to fully clean up the rubble in Gaza, including unexploded ordinance, human remains, and toxic materials. That presumably assumes 15 peaceful years and I think it’s wildly optimistic to assume that the Israeli government could go that long without re-obliterating the territory, but I digress.
The IDF said on Tuesday that it intends to begin the process of conscripting ultra-orthodox Jewish men into its ranks on Sunday. This is in response to the Israeli Supreme Court’s order to that effect last month and means conscription is likely to begin before Netanyahu’s government is able to pass a new law governing ultra-orthodox military service. This is a controversial issue in Israel and especially within the governing coalition, but it remains to be seen how ultra-orthodox coalition members will respond.
The Joe Biden Memorial Pier seems to have reached the end of its…oh, I guess we’ll go with “useful life.” The US military detached the pier last month due to choppy seas and has not reattached it yet. Now it looks like it’s just going to bag the whole operation. The JBMP cost around $230 million—down from an estimated $320 million because it’s going away much sooner than expected—and allowed a minuscule amount of aid to come ashore in Gaza, most of which remains stuck on the beach. All in all a job well done.
A Haaretz investigation appears to confirm that the IDF employed the “Hannibal Directive” in its immediate response to the October 7 attacks. This is a story that’s been reported by multiple independent media outlets over the past nine months, particularly The Electronic Intifada, but now that it’s migrated into a major Israeli outlet like Haaretz we may see it gain more purchase in mainstream Western reporting. The Hannibal Directive permits Israeli forces to take extreme action to prevent the abduction of Israeli soldiers, even if such action puts the lives of the abductees at risk. In other words, it authorizes killing hostages. Given that the scale of the casualties inflicted during the October 7 attacks has been one of the prime justifications for the ultra-violent Israeli retaliation it seems reasonable to wonder how many of those casualties were actually inflicted by the Israelis themselves. Certainly the families of those who were killed deserve to know how they were killed.
LEBANON
Two Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon on Tuesday killed at least five people, three of them children. All were apparently Syrian nationals, and AFP has described the two adults as “civilians.” Hezbollah says it fired a volley of rockets into northern Israel in retaliation, but there’s no indication of any Israeli casualties.
OMAN
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack on a Shiʿa mosque in the Omani capital, Muscat, on Monday night that killed at least six people. Omani police reportedly killed three attackers and upwards of 30 people were wounded in the incident. Monday evening marked the onset of Ashura, a Shiʿa holy day that often sees adherents attacked by Sunni jihadists.
IRAN
Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran’s July 5 presidential runoff to replace the deceased Ebrahim Raisi, taking just under 54 percent of the vote in a head-to-head contest against conservative hardliner Saeed Jalili. Pezeshkian, who won the first round but fell short of the over 50 percent needed for an outright victory, seems to have benefited from significantly increased turnout, which jumped from just under 40 percent last month to just under 50 percent for the runoff.
Sina Toossi characterized Pezeshkian’s victory as a “surprise” in a piece for the International Policy Journal, arguing that it reflects voters’ desire for less extreme social policy and a more open foreign policy, while New Left Review’s Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi argues that Pezeshkian’s candidacy has been an attempt at “damage control” by the conservative establishment given the obvious level of public discontent within Iran. It may be that some part of said establishment has come to regret engineering Raisi’s victory in the 2021 election and seized on his death as a chance to change course a bit. In terms of foreign policy Pezeshkian has said he intends to pursue diplomacy with the West, though the Biden administration is of course already ruling that out.
ASIA
PAKISTAN
Two major militant attacks in northern Pakistan’s Kyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Monday left some 30 people dead. The first involved a strike on a Pakistani military base that left ten soldiers and ten attackers dead and was claimed by the “Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group,” a Pakistani Taliban (TTP) faction. The second attack, presumably also carried out by a TTP faction, targeted what Reuters called a “health facility” and left at least five civilians, two soldiers, and three attackers dead.
INDIA
At least five Indian soldiers were killed late Monday in a clash with militants in the Jammu and Kashmir region. According to Indian officials the incident took place during an “operation” in the Jammu area south of the regional capital, Srinagar. Authorities say they’re still hunting the militants.
BANGLADESH
At least five people were killed across Bangladesh on Tuesday amid violent protests around the contentious issue of public sector employment quotas. This was the second day of demonstrations and the violence may have been fueled in part by the fact that over 100 people were injured in protests on Monday. The specific circumstances of Tuesday’s deaths are unclear, though at least three of them resulted from gunshot wounds. Presumably Bangladeshi security forces had some hand in the carnage though there were also clashes between rival pro- and anti-government student groups.
NEPAL
Nepal’s musical chairs politics experienced another changeover on Sunday, when Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) leader Khadga Prasad Oli became prime minister. Oli’s party quit its coalition with the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) last week in favor of a new alliance with the Nepali Congress party. There doesn’t seem to have been any sort of policy issue involved. Rather, Oli just wanted to be PM again. These sorts of reconfigurations are common in Nepal—this is the country’s 14th government in 16 years.
MYANMAR
According to the AP, two ethnic militia forces—the United Wa State Army and the Shan State Army-North—are attempting to put a stop to continued fighting in Myanmar’s Shan state. Two other rebel factions, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, have been on the offensive in Shan since late October but it seems they’ve now encroached on areas claimed by the USWA and the SSA-N (respectively) around the town of Lashio. There’s some reason to suspect they’re getting help from the Chinese government, which initially gave at least tacit support to the TNLA/MNDAA offensive but has seemed increasingly uncomfortable with the fighting along its border.
AFRICA
NIGER
Leaders of the military juntas currently ruling Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger signed a treaty binding their countries in a “confederation” at a summit in Niamey earlier this month. The new construct, the “Confederation of Sahel States,” has yet to really take shape but its existence seemingly makes it less likely that any of the three countries will be returning to the Economic Community of West African States anytime soon. The remaining ECOWAS members have reportedly asked new Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye to lead a new reconciliation effort with the juntas, but that seems like a pretty heavy lift. That said, as the bloc’s newest head of state he does at least have something of a clean slate as far as the juntas are concerned.
KENYA
According to Reuters, police killed at least one person on Tuesday amid a new round of protests demanding Kenyan President William Ruto’s resignation. These are a continuation of protests that began over Ruto’s now-abandoned plan to increase taxes but have morphed into a broader call for government overhaul. Ruto sacked his entire cabinet last week but that doesn’t seem to have appeased the protesters. Police have killed at least 50 people since the protests began, and that level of brutality has undoubtedly contributed to the continuation of unrest even with the tax increase now off the table.
RWANDA
To I assume no great surprise, Rwandan President Paul Kagame won reelection on Monday. At last check, with around 79 percent of the vote counted Rwandan election officials reported the Kagame had taken a robust and I’m sure completely real 99 percent of the vote on an equally realistic 98 percent turnout. Full preliminary results are expected later this week.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
A militia attack on a village in the western DRC’s Mai-Ndombe province over the weekend left at least 72 people dead. The Yaka Mobondo militia was responsible for the attack, which was another episode in the long-running conflict between the Yaka and Teke communities. Those groups agreed to a ceasefire back in April but new reports of violence in recent weeks suggest that deal has collapsed.
A temporary ceasefire between the Congolese military and the M23 militant group in the eastern DRC also seems to be collapsing a few days ahead of schedule. The two sides agreed to a “humanitarian” pause in fighting on July 5 that was supposed to run through at least Friday, but new fighting near the capital of North Kivu province, Goma, left at least four people (two children and two teenagers) dead on Monday.
EUROPE
ESTONIA
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas resigned on Monday to take up her new gig as the European Union’s foreign policy coordinator. She’ll be replacing the outgoing Josep Borrell in that role. Kallas’s Reform Party has already tapped Climate Minister Kristen Michal as its next leader, and he should take over as PM next month.
FRANCE
In a genuine surprise, the July 7 second round of France’s snap parliamentary election did not go the way most polling, or the June 30 first round, suggested that it would go. Where that first round indicated that the far-right National Rally (RN) party was on track to be the largest bloc in a hung parliament, with an outside chance at winning an outright majority, it was instead the leftist New Popular Front (NFP) coalition that emerged victorious—albeit still within what looks like a hung parliament. French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal resigned on Tuesday but he and his cabinet will remain in place in a caretaker capacity until a new government is formed—which may be easier said than done under the circumstances.
There are multiple seat counts floating around out there but without parsing each of them the NFP took somewhere around 180 seats in France’s 577 seat National Assembly, well shy of a majority but ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s center-right Ensemble alliance at around 160 seats and the RN in third at a bit over 140 seats. It would appear that a tactical alliance between Ensemble and the NFP cost the RN a significant number of seats. The fragmented nature of the new parliament means there will likely be a lot of wrangling over the formation of a government, particularly insofar as there doesn’t even appear to be consensus within the NFP itself as to how its parties intend to proceed. Some sort of cross-alliance coalition could emerge, but a more likely scenario is some sort of compromised minority or “technocratic” government whose ability to pass any legislation will be questionable at best.
UNITED KINGDOM
As was widely expected, the Labour Party won an overwhelming victory in the UK’s July 4 election, taking somewhere on the order of 410 seats in the 650 seat House of Commons. The hitherto ruling Conservative Party lost more than 250 seats in an outcome that was shocking in scale even though it more or less comported with polling. Labour Party boss Keir Starmer is now prime minister, replacing Conservative Party leader (though presumably not for much longer) Rishi Sunak. Starmer has already pledged to do pretty much nothing as PM beyond performing competence, though given that the Tories had failed even to clear that very low bar over the past few years it seems that was enough to carry the election.
AMERICAS
COLOMBIA
The Colombian government announced on Tuesday that it is scrapping its ceasefire with a faction of the Estado Mayor Central group, one of the two main contingents of ex-Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels. The EMC appears to be fragmenting internally, with several, but not all, of its units amenable to negotiations with the government. Tuesday’s announcement only concerns EMC units active in Colombia’s Cauca, Nariño, and Valle del Cauca provinces.
UNITED STATES
Finally, the US Supreme Court recently issued a ruling that threatens to place the president above the law. At Foreign Affairs, Oona Hathaway argues that this is just confirming something the rest of the world already knew:
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on former President Donald Trump’s claims of criminal immunity has provoked grave warnings about a new expansion of presidential power. On July 1, the Court ruled 6–3 along partisan lines that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for “official acts” but found that they may still be prosecuted for unofficial acts. “The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent. “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”
Many commentators have echoed her critique. The ruling “jettisons the long-settled principle that presidents, like all others, are subject to the operation of law,” observed the legal scholar Kate Shaw. “If the president is a king, then we are subjects, whose lives and livelihoods are only safe insofar as we don’t incur the wrath of the executive,” warned the New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie. “If Trump, as commander in chief, ordered his troops to assassinate somebody or stage a coup, that would seem to fall within the absolute immunity provision of the court’s decision,” explained the legal scholar Cheryl Bader. Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision on July 15 to dismiss the charges against Trump for mishandling classified documents, while likely to be appealed and overturned, has added to the chorus of concerned voices.
What most analysts have failed to note, however, is that this lack of legal accountability for decisions by the U.S. president, including decisions to direct the military to use lethal force, is nothing new. It has long been the reality for most of the world outside the United States. For decades, American presidents have waged illegal wars, plotted to assassinate foreign leaders, unlawfully detained and tortured people, toppled democratic governments, and supported repressive regimes without any possibility of legal accountability in either domestic or international courts.
Although people all over the world have suffered from these unlawful acts, Americans have lived in a bubble—a bubble this Court decision has finally burst. Indeed, what is so frightening about this decision is that it has the potential to make the president’s actions within the United States just as unchecked as they are outside it.