TODAY IN HISTORY
May 20, 1498: Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama arrives at the port of Calicut (modern Kozhikode), completing his expedition from Lisbon around the African coast to India. Da Gama, who was expecting to extract favorable trading concessions from the ruler of Calicut, found instead that his token gifts were too shabby to win him any goodwill and Muslim traders spread scandalous gossip about the Portuguese arrivals. He left with only a smattering of local trade goods, but needless to say the opening of the trade route had some very long-lasting repercussions.
May 20, 1927: Abdulaziz Al Saud, also known as Ibn Saud, concludes the Treaty of Jeddah with the United Kingdom. Under the terms of the treaty, the UK recognized both Ibn Saud’s independence and his sovereignty over the kingdoms of the Nejd and the Hejaz, which he merged into Saudi Arabia in 1932. The treaty effectively recognized the Saudi conquest of the Hejaz at the expense of Britain’s Hashemite clients, while reaffirming an earlier commitment that Ibn Saud had made not to attack British protectorates in the Persian Gulf.
MIDDLE EAST
LEBANON
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least eight people in southern Lebanon on Wednesday according to Lebanese state media, including at least five in a single strike on the village of Doueir. Hezbollah also reported a number of clashes with the IDF overnight but details beyond that are unclear. What is clear is that Hezbollah’s drones are increasingly affecting the IDF’s ability to operate on the ground. The Israeli public broadcasting network KAN reported on Monday that drones are “limiting around 80%” of IDF operations, causing Israeli commanders to eschew most daytime operations altogether, and have “severely restricted the army's freedom of movement.” A shift within Hezbollah from a rigid, military-esque command structure to a more guerrilla method of operation is also causing problems for the IDF.
