World roundup: May 23 2024
World roundup: May 23 2024
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Kenya, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and elsewhere
This is the web version of Foreign Exchanges, but did you know you can get it delivered right to your inbox? Sign up today:
NEWSLETTER NOTE: I keep forgetting to mention this, but FYI it is no longer possible for unpaid subscribers to reply by email to these newsletters. Due to an unfortunate influx of bots here at Substack I have had to limit email replies to paid subscribers only. For the same reason I’ve had to turn on the “double opt-in” for new email signups, which I know adds an extra step in the subscription process. I do apologize for any inconvenience but there was no way around it given the bot situation. Thanks for your consideration.
TODAY IN HISTORY
May 23, 1430: In the early days of their siege of the town of Compiègne, Burgundian forces drive off a sortie by the French garrison and in the process capture none other than Joan of Arc, the heroine of the siege of Orléans. The Burgundians turned Joan over to their English allies in exchange for a substantial ransom, and English authorities quickly put her on trial for blasphemy. Among Joan’s alleged crimes were claiming to have received direct communications from God and wearing “masculine” clothing, which seems inevitable if you’re going to ride into battle but I digress. The verdict was never in doubt, with England intending to discredit French King Charles VII’s claim on the throne by associating him with a “convicted” heretic. Joan was executed on May 30, 1431. As far as the siege was concerned, it ended in November 1430 with a French victory that was not terribly decisive as far as the wider Hundred Years’ War was concerned.
May 23, 1618: Two Catholic Bohemian nobles, Jaroslav Bořita of Martinice and Vilém Slavata of Chlum, are thrown out of the top floor window of the Bohemian Chancellery in Prague by a group of Protestant nobles angered over the religious policies of the Bohemian king, the future Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II. Both somehow survived the 70 foot drop, but this “Defenestration of Prague” (one of three such incidents but the one most people likely mean when they talk about the Defenestration of Prague) helped trigger the Thirty Years’ War.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
According to Diplomatic’s Laura Rozen, the Biden administration is concerned that the Israeli government is trying to destroy the Palestinian financial system:
Even as it urges greater Israeli restraint in Gaza and the reopening of the Rafah border crossing for humanitarian aid, the United States is expressing growing concern about the potential economic collapse of the Palestinian Authority and the instability that would cause in the West Bank and ultimately Israel, amid threats by an ultra-nationalist Israeli minister to cut off Palestinian banks from the Israeli financial system.
The United States and its partners “need to do everything possible to increase humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza, to curtail violence in the West Bank, and to stabilize the West Bank’s economy,” US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told a press conference in Stresa, Italy today (May 23), ahead of a meeting of G7 finance ministers.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Belazel Smotrich vowed Wednesday to withhold the transfer of tax revenue to the Palestinian Authority as retribution for the decision by three European nations to recognize a Palestinian state.
But a diplomatic source earlier this week said that Smotrich had in fact been withholding all tax revenue from being sent to the PA in the month of May, seemingly ahead of the decision announced Wednesday by Ireland, Norway, and Spain to recognize Palestinian statehood.
Like I said yesterday, collapsing the Palestinian Authority is a self-defeating idea for an Israeli government that relies on the PA to manage its occupation of the West Bank. Smotrich is absolutely dumb enough to do it, though, and it’s unlikely he’ll still be in government when it comes time to clean up the mess he may be about to make.
In other items:
The Israeli military (IDF) is continuing its intense assaults throughout the Gaza Strip, pressing further into Rafah while also attacking the central and northern parts of the territory in places where it has already declared “mission accomplished.” The Rafah offensive, which apparently still hasn’t come upon the Biden administration’s hypothetical red line, now looks close to surrounding the city with Israeli forces attacking from the east and advancing toward its western outskirts. The United Nations says that over 800,000 people have fled Rafah since the operation began earlier this month and hundreds of thousands more are now compressed into those western areas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Thursday that Israel’s “war cabinet” has instructed its negotiating team to continue efforts to achieve a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal. Netanyahu has been a primary reason, if not the primary reason, why these talks have failed. However, he has some incentive to at least appear to be pursuing a ceasefire, to the extent that it might influence the International Court of Justice’s forthcoming ruling on the Rafah operation. The ISJ is expected to issue its ruling tomorrow, and apparently there is real concern among Israeli officials that it will order an end to the operation. Israel will presumably ignore such an order, but doing so could strain its relations with Western governments (other than the US) and even open it up to sanctions.
The Biden administration has reportedly dispatched CIA Director Bill Burns to Europe for said ceasefire talks, and Egyptian and Qatari officials apparently believe Hamas is willing to resume negotiating as well. It is difficult to envision how a new round of talks could be any more successful than previous rounds unless at least one of the two combatants adopts some radically different expectations and red lines.
The UN says it resumed aid shipments from the US-installed pier to the World Food Program warehouse in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah on Tuesday, after they had been suspended over the weekend over logistical problems. The WFP received 17 truckloads of aid from the pier on Tuesday and 27 truckloads on Wednesday, both drops in the bucket compared with what is needed.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has reportedly ordered his foreign ministry staff to open a new embassy in the Palestinian Authority’s “capital,” Ramallah. Petro announced earlier this month that he was severing diplomatic ties with Israel over its “genocidal” campaign in Gaza.
YEMEN
With Houthi attacks on commercial shipping in and around the Red Sea continuing unabated, the movement claimed on Thursday that it fired on a vessel in the Mediterranean Sea earlier this week. There’s no indication that any ships were damaged in the Mediterranean this week and no confirmation that the Houthis even attempted it. However, an anonymous “senior US defense official” told reporters on Monday that the Pentagon believes that the Houthis do have weapons capable of reaching the Mediterranean. Further, in a somewhat stunning admission, US officials are basically conceding that their months-long bombing campaign has had essentially no effect on Houthi capabilities. To be clear that outcome is not stunning, but it is surprising that people in the US military are admitting it.
ASIA
MYANMAR
The UN Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar issued a statement on Thursday saying that it is monitoring increased fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine state and reports that said fighting is displacing Rohingya. According to the IIMM the conflict between Myanmar security forces and the rebel Arakan Army “has reportedly resulted in the displacement of thousands of mainly Rohingya civilians, and is also impacting on Rakhine and Hindu communities.” The apparent rebel capture of the town of Buthidaung, near the Bangladeshi border, reportedly caused significant displacement among its largely Rohingya residents.
THAILAND
The Thai Constitutional Court agreed on Thursday to hear a case that could lead to the removal of Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin from office. The case involves Srettha’s appointment of Pichit Chuenban as a minister within the prime minister’s office. Pichit, who resigned earlier this week, spent six months in jail in 2008 for contempt of court amid a bribery allegation. As a result, the case alleges that he failed to meet the “moral and ethical standards” required of ministers according to the Thai Constitution. If Srettha is ultimately removed from office, his Pheu Thai party would have to find a new PM candidate who would be acceptable to a majority of legislators in a fragmented parliament.
OCEANIA
NEW CALEDONIA
French President Emmanuel Macron met with local officials in the New Caledonian capital, Nouméa, on Thursday, after which he announced that his government will delay a parliamentary drive to relax residency requirements for voting in local elections. The French parliament’s push to amend the constitution to change those requirements provided the spark for an uprising in the territory earlier this month that has left at least six people dead and prompted Macron to declare a state of emergency last week. Leaders of the Indigenous Kanak community have characterized the residency change as an attempt to undermine a future independence referendum, should the French government allow one to take place. Macron said he’s still aiming to pass the measure but insisted that he’s “committed to ensuring that this reform will not be implemented by force.”
AFRICA
BENIN
The Beninese government closed river crossings along the Nigerien border on Thursday in a significant escalation of an ongoing dispute between the two countries. Benin closed its side of the border after Niger’s military coup last year, in concert with measures taken by the Economic Community of West African States bloc. When ECOWAS lifted its sanctions back in February, Beninese officials announced the reopening of the border. However, Niger has kept its side of the border closed and overall relations between the two countries have been very cool of late.
NIGER
An apparent jihadist attack on a village in southwestern Niger’s Tillabéri region left at least two soldiers and one civilian dead on Wednesday. Nigerien media is also reporting another attack in the same region earlier this week in which at least 20 people were killed. Tillabéri has long been plagued by jihadist violence, primarily from Islamic State’s local affiliate but also from al-Qaeda linked militants.
CHAD
Chadian junta leader Mahamat Déby officially shed the junta bit when he was inaugurated as Chad’s newly elected (that’s the official story, anyway) president on Thursday. Déby also named his new prime minister on Thursday, appointing former ambassador Allamaye Halina to the job. Halina previously served as Chad’s envoy to China, for anyone looking for a New Cold War angle to this story.
KENYA
At a joint press conference with Kenyan President William Ruto on Thursday, Joe Biden announced (as expected) that he intends to promote Kenya to the status of “major non-NATO ally.” Once Biden formally notifies the US Congress of his decision, that will begin a 30 day countdown until Kenya becomes the 19th nation (and first from sub-Saharan Africa) in the major non-NATO club. The status is partly symbolic but also does carry with it expanded security cooperation across a number of areas.
Biden and Ruto also discussed expanding bilateral commercial ties as well as something they’re apparently calling the “Nairobi-Washington Vision,” an initiative to tackle the unsustainable and often crushing levels of debt held by developing nations. The US views debt as a wedge issue it can use to attack China, which is one of the developing world’s largest creditors. To actually make a difference in this area would require the US to confront the somewhat inconvenient fact that Western private creditors pose at least as big a problem for developing economies as China, but I digress.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
The European Union on Tuesday finally came to a consensus about using frozen Russian financial assets to support Ukraine after an extended debate. Something on the order of €210 billion in Russian assets are currently frozen in EU institutions. The Ukrainian government has been pushing to confiscate the entirety of those assets but EU member states have balked at that idea over concerns that it could undermine confidence in EU banks and the euro’s status as a reserve currency. They’ve decided instead to provide Ukraine with the interest generated by those assets, an estimated €2.5 billion to €3 billion per year. Discussions over tapping into the principal, or finding some other way to use the principal to aid Ukraine (perhaps as loan collateral) are likely to continue.
The US government decided last month to grant itself the authority to confiscate some $5 billion in Russian state assets held in US institutions, though it hasn’t yet put forward a proposal to do so. On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree authorizing the Russian government to seize any available US assets in compensation, should the US move forward with seizing Russian assets.
UKRAINE
The Russian military says it has seized control of another village in Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast, while the offensive it began in Kharkiv oblast earlier this month has now displaced almost 11,000 Ukrainians. The New York Times takes stock of the Russian military’s gains over the past several months and finds that they are undoing, or threatening to undo some of the Ukrainian military’s most significant victories since the Russian invasion began.
BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA
The UN General Assembly voted 84-19, with 68 abstentions, on Thursday to establish July 11 as the “International Day of Remembrance of the Srebrenica Genocide.” Bosnian Serb militants massacred more than 8300 Bosniak men and boys in the town of Srebrenica for several days starting on July 11, 1995, amid the Bosnian War. The resolution was staunchly opposed by Bosnian Serb officials and by the Serbian government—Republika Srpska leader Milorad Dodik rejected the claim that a genocide took place, while Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić warned that the resolution would reopen old wounds, though he didn’t deny the massacre.
AMERICAS
ECUADOR
The International Court of Justice on Thursday declined to issue any emergency orders in a case brought by the Mexican government over Ecuador’s raid on the Mexican embassy in Quito last month. Mexico has asked the ICJ to suspend Ecuador’s UN membership, but in the interim it asked the court to order Ecuadorian authorities to take “appropriate and immediate steps to provide full protection and security of diplomatic premises.” The ICJ ruled that the Ecuadorian government has already made sufficient assurances in that regard.
HAITI
Kenya’s police deployment to Haiti was supposed to kick off on Thursday to coincide with William Ruto’s visit to the White House (see above). It has been delayed, however, for unspecified reasons. Some 200 Kenyan personnel were apparently prepared to fly out of Nairobi on Tuesday as the deployment’s vanguard, but their flight was postponed due to unsatisfactory “conditions” in Port-au-Prince. As I say there’s no indication what those conditions were/are and so it’s hard to know how long this delay might last.
UNITED STATES
Finally, TomDispatch’s Nick Turse says that the US military is still refusing to acknowledge the civilians it kills:
For hundreds of years, the U.S. military has been killing people. It’s been a constant of our history. Another constant has been American military personnel killing civilians, whether Native Americans, Filipinos, Nicaraguans, Haitians, Japanese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians, Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, and on and on. And there’s something else that’s gone along with those killings: a lack of accountability for them.
Late last month, the Department of Defense (DoD) released its congressionally mandated annual accounting of civilian casualties caused by U.S. military operations globally. The report is due every May 1st and, in the latest case, the Pentagon even beat that deadline by a week. There was only one small problem: it was the 2022 report. You know, the one that was supposed to be made public on May 1, 2023. And not only was that report a year late, but the 2023 edition, due May 1, 2024, has yet to be seen.
Whether that 2023 report, when it finally arrives, will say much of substance is also doubtful. In the 2022 edition, the Pentagon exonerated itself of harming noncombatants. “DoD has assessed that U.S. military operations in 2022 resulted in no civilian casualties,” reads the 12-page document. It follows hundreds of years of silence about, denials of, and willful disregard toward civilians slain purposely or accidentally by the U.S. military and a long history of failures to make amends in the rare cases where the Pentagon has admitted to killing innocents.