World roundup: May 13 2021
Stories from Israel-Palestine, China, Brazil, and more
This is the web version of Foreign Exchanges, but did you know you can get it delivered right to your inbox? Sign up today:
Eid Mubarak to those who are celebrating
THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
May 12, 1364: Jagiellonian University is founded as the “University of Kraków” by Polish King Casimir III, making it the oldest university in Poland. The institution hit a rough patch after Casimir’s death in 1370, but had its funding restored and a permanent location obtained for it by King Władysław II Jagiełło (r. 1386-1434). After having been known as the Kraków Academy for much of its existence, the university’s name was changed several times around the Third Partition of Poland in 1795, eventually settling on its current moniker in 1817 in honor of Władysław II’s Jagiellonian dynasty.
May 12, 1551: The National University of San Marcos is founded in Lima, Peru, under a decree from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Initially called the “Royal and Pontifical University of the City of the Kings of Lima,” it is officially the oldest still active university in the Americas and is sometimes called the “Dean of the Americas” for that reason. The Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic, is older, but didn’t receive its official charter until 1558.
May 13, 1805: The Battle of Derna ends
May 13, 1846: The US Congress votes to declare war on Mexico, marking the formal start of the Mexican-American War though the fighting had actually begun several days earlier. The war ended formally in February 1848 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which has to be one of the most lopsided treaties every negotiated, in which Mexico acknowledged US sovereignty over the whole of Texas and ceded most of what is now the southwestern United States.
INTERNATIONAL
Worldometer’s coronavirus figures for May 13:
161,820,088 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide (+743,191 since yesterday)
3,358,176 reported fatalities (+13,374 since yesterday)
For vaccine data the New York Times has created a tracker here
MIDDLE EAST
YEMEN
6507 confirmed coronavirus cases (+9)
1278 reported fatalities (+1)
The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen said on Thursday that it had shot down eight Houthi drones and three ballistic missiles fired toward Saudi Arabia. The Houthis are claiming that they fired a total of 12 projectiles at targets in southern Saudi Arabia’s Najran province, so that seemingly leaves one unaccounted. There haven’t been any reports of a successful Houthi drone or missile strike to my knowledge.
LEBANON
534,968 confirmed cases (+580)
7569 reported fatalities (+20)
Somebody fired three rockets into northern Israel from southern Lebanon on Thursday, according to the Israeli military, but all three went off course and landed in the Mediterranean. Presumably this is related to the ongoing fighting in Gaza (see below). Hezbollah, likely everyone’s first guess as to who fired the rockets, has already denied any involvement. There’s no word of any Israeli retaliation as yet.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
839,059 confirmed cases (+29) in Israel, 303,270 confirmed cases (+0) in Palestine
6379 reported fatalities (+0) in Israel, 3401 reported fatalities (+0) in Palestine
As I noted yesterday it’s somewhat pointless for me to cite casualty figures to you in an ongoing conflict, since by the time any of you reads them they’ll most likely be obsolete. That said, the most recent figures I’ve seen have 87 people killed in Gaza, 18 of them children, and seven people in Israel (UPDATE: as of Friday morning that’s now 109 people and 29 children, with 52 people killed on Thursday alone and no end in sight). Gazan officials say that more than 530 people in that enclave have been wounded in the fighting, and while it’s hardly the most important consideration right now it’s probably worth considering what that’s doing to a health care infrastructure already overtaxed by COVID. There were reports of a couple of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces in the West Bank yesterday, but it’s up to you whether you believe those should be considered as casualties of this conflict or as part of the steady drip of killings—one today, two tomorrow, another the day after that—that is inherent to the Israeli occupation. Dozens of West Bank Palestinians were wounded by Israeli forces overnight and into Thursday.
The course of Thursday’s fighting has been more or less the same as it’s been the previous three days—a sustained Israeli battering of Gaza via air and artillery and barrages of rocket fire out of the enclave. There’s no ceasefire in sight, mostly it seems because the Israeli government doesn’t want one, and there’s no comment from the United Nations, because the US government won’t permit it. The rocket fire has expanded from southern Israel and Jerusalem to all corners of Israel proper, including Tel Aviv and northern parts of the country, but that’s a relatively minor change. Thursday did bring a new potential escalation, as the Israeli military began deploying ground forces around Gaza in anticipation of a potential incursion. As of Friday morning there were reports that the Israeli military had sent those ground forces in to Gaza, but Israeli officials have denied them. Some sort of ground assault may be inevitable, but as of this writing it hasn’t happened yet. Israeli forces have reportedly intensified their bombardment, but we won’t have a good sense of what that’s meant in terms of casualties and damage until tomorrow’s roundup.
Another development, which really started to take shape Wednesday evening, has been the steep escalation in inter-communal violence within Israel proper. These incidents are of course sparked by the events of the past several days, but they reflect enmities and resentments that go back much further than that. Details on casualties and property damage related to these sorts of incidents are hard to find, which is somewhat understandable given the chaos that’s prevailing in many parts of Israel right now. So there’s not much to say about them other than that they’re happening. But I would like to say something about etymology, because the term “inter-communal violence” doesn’t really do it justice. Like the “clashes” between Palestinian protesters and Israeli police and “exchanges of fire” between Hamas and the Israeli military you’ve undoubtedly seen reported in Western media, it implies parity where none exists.
It is true that there are Jewish Israeli mobs attacking Arab Israelis and Arab-owned businesses in places like Ramle and Tel Aviv’s Bat Yam neighborhood and Arab Israeli mobs attacking Jewish Israelis and Jewish-owned businesses in places like Acre and Lod. But one of these communities far outnumbers the other, and that community also enjoys the protection and even the assistance of the entire apparatus of the Israeli state. The members of one group can reasonably expect to see little or no punishment for their crimes, while members of the other group must fear the wrath of a security establishment whose leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, promised it total impunity in televised remarks on Thursday. That security establishment is being reinforced by emergency deployments of Israeli border guards, whose regular job is shielding settlers and enforcing the occupation in the West Bank. One wonders how they’re going to handle outbursts of violence between Jewish and Arab Israelis in Israeli towns and cities.
On a related subject, Yair Lapid’s effort to unseat Netanyahu as prime minister has officially collapsed. Already on ice after United Arab List leader Mansour Abbas suspended his negotiations with Lapid, the budding coalition came completely apart on Thursday when right-wing Yamina Party boss Naftali Bennett announced that he was pulling out entirely. Bennett says he’ll resume negotiations with Netanyahu on forming a government that would be ultra right-wing even by Israeli standards. That effort will probably fail, ensuring another snap election. But Netanyahu will hang on to power in the meantime, with another chance to secure his grip via that new vote. Mission accomplished?
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
542,158 confirmed cases (+1512)
1623 reported fatalities (+4)
As we’ve previously noted, several Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel are suddenly scrambling to respond to a surge in pro-Palestinian sentiment among their citizens:
The outpouring of support for Palestinians, along with social-media images of the storming of the Al Aqsa mosque a few days before the Muslim Eid Al-Fitr holiday, have put the region’s governments on the defensive.
The U.A.E. has positioned itself as an enthusiastic ally of Israel since becoming the first country to join the accords negotiated by the Trump White House last year. But since the Gaza violence began, some Emirati officials have reiterated their pro-Palestinian positions. Gulf officials have tried to separate their support for Palestinians from any connection to Hamas, a group that most of the region’s governments have kept at arm’s length.
“The Emirates stands with Palestinian rights, with the end of the Israeli occupation, with the two-state solution, and with an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital,” tweeted Anwar Gargash, a senior official in the U.A.E. who served as foreign minister until recently. “This is a historic and principled position that does not budge.”
SAUDI ARABIA
430,505 confirmed cases (+1116)
7122 reported fatalities (+11)
Saudi authorities have reportedly freed Bakr bin Laden, former head of the Saudi-Binladin Group, after over three years in custody on corruption allegations. Bakr was one of the headliners who were bundled off to the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh back in 2017 during Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman’s “anti-corruption campaign”/public shakedown operation. Many of the other elites who were nabbed in that effort eventually bought their way out of detention, but for some reason Bakr was unable to do so despite transferring substantial assets to the Saudi state/MBS’s money market account. It’s unclear why he was kept in custody and equally unclear why he’s been released now or whether that release is permanent. He seems to be under a form of house arrest at present and could easily be detained again.
ASIA
ARMENIA
220,217 confirmed cases (+267)
4291 reported fatalities (+19)
The Armenian government on Thursday accused Azerbaijani soldiers of illegally entering Armenian territory near the southern border towns of Sisian and Vardenis. Azerbaijani officials denied the allegation but the Armenian prosecutor-general’s office is apparently opening a criminal investigation into the incident.
AFGHANISTAN
63,349 confirmed cases (+407)
2730 reported fatalities (+9)
Afghanistan marked the start of its Eid ceasefire on Thursday with four bombings—two in Kandahar province, one in Kunduz province, and one in Ghazni province—that killed a total of 11 people. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, well, it doesn’t. But three of the incidents involved roadside bombs and the fourth apparently involved a sticky bomb, so it’s also possible they were all planted prior to the ceasefire. Otherwise it seems the fighting really has halted, most notably in Maidan Wardak province where government forces have paused their effort to regain control of the strategically important Nirkh district.
INDONESIA
1,731,652 confirmed cases (+3448)
47,716 reported fatalities (+99)
Indonesian security forces killed two Papuan separatists in a battle that took place in the Puncak district of Indonesia’s Papua province on Wednesday. The militants were part of a larger group that had reportedly attacked a village in that area, killing two teachers and setting schools on fire.
CHINA
90,808 confirmed cases (+9) on the mainland, 11,818 confirmed cases (+3) in Hong Kong
4636 reported fatalities (+0) on the mainland, 210 reported fatalities (+0) in Hong Kong
The Quincy Institute has been publishing a series of pieces on a new piece of legislation circulating in the US Senate called the “Strategic Competition Act,” which would go a long way toward enshrining a “Cold War” with China as official US policy. Pending US legislation isn’t really our focus here but the series is worth a look if you’re interested in the future of US-China relations. That said, I wanted to highlight the latest entry in the series, from Boston University’s Jake Werner, for its very interesting discussion of the Belt and Road Initiative:
The BRI is many things — not all of them good — but the now extensive research from Western scholars presents a far different picture from what currently circulates as conventional wisdom in Washington. Rather than top-down centralized control, this research shows a high degree of fragmentation even within the central government, with different ministries pushing different and often contradictory agendas. The landscape is further complicated by other domestic interests — ranging from provincial and local governments to state-owned enterprises of varying size to private entrepreneurs — all clamoring for influence and manipulating the idea of BRI for their own ends. Contending interests in host countries also strongly shape the BRI, sometimes making a mess of the hopes that Chinese investors and lenders bring to these projects.
AFRICA
LIBYA
181,179 confirmed cases (+234)
3085 reported fatalities (+3)
The British government on Thursday blacklisted the Libyan Kaniyat militia, which is aligned with Khalifa Haftar’s “Libyan National Army” and is accused of numerous human rights violations. The sanctions asset freezes and travel bans for the militia and its senior leadership.
MALI
14,149 confirmed cases (+0)
508 reported fatalities (+1)
United Nations peacekeepers in Mali have reportedly offered to help authorities pursue a band of Islamists who reportedly inflicted hudud (traditional Islamic) penalties on three suspected thieves in a town in eastern Mali in an incident earlier this month. The Islamists, likely members of the Islamic State’s regional affiliate (Islamic State in the Greater Sahara), amputated the right hands and left feet of the suspects before a crowd in Tin-Hama on May 2.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
2,135,886 confirmed cases (+6813)
47,333 reported fatalities (+346)
A Ukrainian court on Thursday ordered that politician Viktor Medvedchuk, who runs the pro-Russian NGO “Ukrainian Choice,” should be placed under house arrest while awaiting trial on treason charges. The details are unclear from the reporting, but Medvedchuk is apparently accused of benefiting from the Russian annexation of Crimea in some fashion. Generally considered to be the most prominent pro-Russian political figure in Ukraine, Medvedchuk is friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin and is reportedly seen by Moscow as something of an informal representative in Kyiv. His legal troubles could further inflame tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
AMERICAS
BRAZIL
15,436,827 confirmed cases (+75,141)
430,596 reported fatalities (+2340)
A new survey from pollster Datafolha has lots of bad political news for Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. His approval rating is at new all time low, 24 percent, down six points from Datafolha’s March poll. On the other hand, 45 percent of Brazilians disapprove of Bolsonaro’s performance, and a cool 54 percent say they won’t vote for their president in next year’s election. In a head to head matchup against former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Bolsonaro is losing, 55-32. On the plus side, um, at least Bolsonaro has his health?
NICARAGUA
7086 confirmed cases (+0)
184 reported fatalities (+0)
Nicaragua’s various opposition parties have failed to agree on an alliance to challenge President Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista party in November’s general election. Election officials had set Wednesday as the deadline for organizing formal alliances ahead of the election, and the conservative Citizens Alliance opted to register on its own rather than in coalition with the Democratic Restoration Party. A divided opposition should make Ortega’s reelection campaign substantially easier.
UNITED STATES
33,626,097 confirmed cases (+39,825)
598,540 reported fatalities (+762)
Apparently the reason why Colonial Pipeline’s operations are coming back online is because the company paid the ransom its cyber attackers demanded last week. That’s interesting, since in multiple media reports as recently as yesterday the company was insisting it wouldn’t pay. I don’t have a point here but since we’ve been sort of following this story I figured I’d mention this latest twist.
Finally, here’s TomDispatch’s Mandy Smithberger on the graft that helps feed America’s ever-expanding military budget:
The future of the Pentagon will largely be shaped by the personnel selected to lead it. In too many instances, they’ve come directly from a defense industry that’s profited handsomely from its soaring budget. In the Trump administration, for instance, figures were selected for the position of secretary of defense who had worked for top defense firms. Retired general Jim Mattis had been on the board of General Dynamics (and returned to it shortly after his stint at the Pentagon ended); Patrick Shanahan came from Boeing; and Mark Esper came from Raytheon.
Although Joe Biden issued a strong ethics executive order to be applied to his political appointees across the board, so far his administration doesn’t look that different from past ones when it comes to the Pentagon. After all, his secretary of defense, retired General Lloyd Austin III, arrived directly from the board of Raytheon; while Frank Kendall, nominated to be Air Force secretary, comes from the board of Leidos, another top Pentagon contractor, though one that provides services rather than building weaponry. (While often overlooked, service contracts make up nearly half of all the department’s contract spending.)
Spreading defense contracts across congressional districts, a practice known in Washington as “political engineering,” also needs to end. Lockheed, for instance, claims that the F-35 program has created jobs in 45 states. According to conventional wisdom, it’s this reality that makes the Pentagon too big to fail. Though seldom noted, similar money put into non-military funding like infrastructure or clean energy almost invariably proves to be a greater job creator than the military version of the same.
Here, then, is a question that might be worth considering in the early months of the Biden administration: Is there a more striking indictment of this country’s approach to military budgeting than continuing to buy a weapon because our political system is too corrupt to change course?