World roundup: September 3 2024
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Libya, Ukraine, and elsewhere.
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TODAY IN HISTORY
September 3, 301: According to tradition, this is the date upon which a stonemason-turned-deacon named Marinus founds a new monastery on Monte Titano, some distance outside the Italian city of Rimini. He may have fled Rimini after a woman there accused him of being her estranged husband. The monastery grew quickly, possibly fueled by Christians looking for sanctuary amid the Diocletianic persecutions (though historians continue to debate the actual extent of those persecutions), and, taking the name of its founder, became the historical basis for the tiny nation of San Marino (“St. Marinus”). San Marino commemorates September 3 as “Republic Day.”
September 3, 863: A Byzantine army manages to defeat an Arab raiding party at the Battle of Lalakaon, in the process killing the emir of Melitene, Umar al-Aqta. They may also have killed the leader of the Paulician movement, Karbeas, though he may have died later in 863. The Byzantines then raided into the Caucasus, where at some point they killed the emir of Tarsus, Ali ibn Yahya. In basically one fell swoop the empire had eliminated arguably its three biggest threats in the east. Constantinople was able to shift its focus west and ensure that it, not Rome, would manage the Christianization of the Bulgarians. That in turn pacified the Byzantines’ western border for the time being, which allowed them to shift focus again to the east and make significant gains at Arab expense in the decades to come.
September 3, 1260: A Mamluk army stops the seemingly unstoppable Mongols at the Battle of Ayn Jalut at what is known today as Ma’ayan Harod in Israel. The Mongol commander, Hulagu, had returned east with a sizable portion of his army in order to defend his interests following the death of the great khan, Möngke, in August 1259, leaving behind an undermanned remnant. The Mongols also faced an army of slave soldiers recruited from Central Asia, who fought like the Mongols and seem to have used many of the Mongols’ favorite tactics against them. The battle is a genuine turning point in world history, as a Mongol victory probably would have seen them continue into Egypt and thus there is an argument to be made that the Mamluk victory preserved Islam’s status as a major world religion.
September 3, 1650: The English New Model Army invades Scotland and wins a decisive victory over Scottish/Royalist forces at the Battle of Dunbar. English commander Oliver Cromwell moved quickly to capture Edinburgh and the key Scottish port of Leith. The invasion, prompted when the Scottish Parliament voted to recognize Charles II as the successor to Charles I after the English “Rump” Parliament had the latter executed in 1649, ended coincidentally exactly one year later, on September 3 1651, when Cromwell’s army again crushed a Royalist army at the Battle of Worcester.
September 3, 1783: Representatives of Great Britain and the United States of America sign the Treaty of Paris, ending the American Revolution and establishing the United States as a newly independent nation. US negotiators went around the French government, which saw itself as the leader of an anti-British alliance, to negotiate a bilateral treaty with London. As a result they reached an agreement that, among other things, gave the new nation control of all North American territory east of the Mississippi River. The French delegation, by contrast, had favored a settlement that confined the US to the territory east of the Appalachian Mountains.
September 3, 1939: France and the United Kingdom, along with Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa, declare war on Germany in response to the German invasion of Poland, officially kicking off the Second World War.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The biggest story of the past several days was probably the Israeli military’s (IDF) discovery of the bodies of six October 7 hostages (including Israeli-American Hersh Goldberg-Polin) on Saturday in a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah area. All, according to Israeli officials, showed indications that they’d been executed as the IDF was approaching their location. The news sent shockwaves through Israeli politics, already deeply divided over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to agree to a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal with Hamas, and received wall to wall coverage for several days in Western media. The deaths of these six individuals received far more attention than, say, the deaths of the 35 (at least) Palestinians the IDF killed in Gaza on Tuesday, or really any of the 40,819 (or, let’s be honest, more) Palestinians it’s killed in Gaza since October 7, or the over 30 Palestinians it’s killed in the West Bank over the past week (at least 637 since October 7). It’s not a competition, of course, but the discrepancy there is hard to ignore.
I noted the effect this discovery has had on Israeli politics. Without trying to start a finger pointing contest and bearing in mind that the act of taking hostages—let alone executing them as Hamas appears to have done in this case—violates international law and basic morality, it does seem clear that Netanyahu could have secured a deal to free at least some of these six hostages, plus the dozens more still in Gaza, weeks ago and has been the main obstacle to that deal’s adoption. Netanyahu’s last minute (or really beyond last minute) insistence on maintaining a permanent IDF presence along the Gaza-Egypt border’s Philadelphi Corridor has been the main sticking point in those talk. Netanyahu now insists that maintaining IDF control over the border is absolutely key to Israeli security, even though his top security advisers all seem to disagree and Netanyahu himself only introduced it as a non-negotiable demand when it looked like a deal might be emerging.
The above is not my conclusion so much as it’s the conclusion of the tens of thousands (if not more) of Israelis who have turned out repeatedly since Saturday to demonstrate in favor of an agreement, and the Histadrut trade union, which called a general strike on Monday that heavily disrupted basic Israeli services until a judge ordered an end to it. It also appears to be the conclusion of the Biden administration, though that comes with the usual caveat about watching what Joe Biden does rather than listening to what he says. Asked by reporters on Monday whether he thought Netanyahu had done enough to secure a hostage deal, Biden said “no” and apparently left it at that. Biden and his administration have repeatedly claimed over the past several months that Netanyahu had agreed to a ceasefire, or at least that he was deeply committed to reaching a ceasefire, so this bit of candor is I guess welcome. But the saying “too little, too late” comes to mind. These negotiations have been a farce for months, enabled by the Biden administration. Netanyahu won’t make a deal because it might collapse his government, but Biden has to keep insisting that a deal is possible—nay, imminent—because acknowledging reality is too politically perilous for him.
Amid the protests and the strike and the milquetoast criticism from Biden, Netanyahu gave a televised press conference on Monday in which he declared his absolute refusal to budge on Philadelphi (and also graphically annexed the West Bank, but I digress). He apparently did this hours after Mossad boss David Barnea told the parties mediating the ceasefire talks that Netanyahu had agreed to an Israeli withdrawal from the corridor provided certain security conditions were met. Presumably this quashes whatever remaining effort the Biden administration intends to make to secure a ceasefire that would at least spare Kamala Harris the specter of any more dead Palestinian kids until Election Day. We’re now told that the administration may present a final “take it or leave it” ceasefire proposal to both principals. That sounds exciting. What happens when Netanyahu says “leave it”? Does anybody actually believe the administration will finally use any of its massive leverage to try to force Netanyahu’s hand? Or will it meekly back down and continue the farce?
In other news:
I mentioned the IDF’s West Bank operation above, but it’s been seven days and at least 33 dead with no indication of an end in sight. There’s no clarity as to how many of them have been civilians but that count does include at least a couple of teenagers according to Palestinian officials. Most of them (19) have been killed in and around Jenin, which the IDF has besieged to devastating consequences for both the city and its refugee camp. Concerns are already mounting over access to food, clean water, and medical care.
In spite of the lack of a ceasefire and the IDF’s repeated attacks on aid workers (including another one on Friday), the World Health Organization said on Tuesday that it’s been able to vaccinate some 161,000 children against polio since Sunday, exceeding expectations. Targeted IDF ceasefires seem to be working so far, though the vaccination effort is still in its initial stages. The aim is to head off a polio outbreak by fully vaccinating some 640,000 children, which involves this first round of doses and a second round a month later.
The US Department of Justice announced on Tuesday that back in February it charged Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and at least five other senior figures in the group (including Ismail Haniyeh and two other people who are now also believed to be dead) for having planned and carried out the October 7 attack. I’m unclear as to why the department felt either the charges or the decision to make them public would matter in any meaningful way.
UK Foreign Minister David Lammy announced on Monday that London “is suspending some arms exports to Israel” because for some reason it thinks those weapons will be used in violation of international law. This decision only covers around 30 of some 350 UK arms export licenses or roughly 0.02 percent of Israeli weapons imports, raising the obvious question of why the UK government would continue arming Israel at all if it believes the IDF is likely to commit war crimes. Unless it’s merely aiming to give the appearance that it cares about such things without taking any serious action.
TURKEY
In response to an earlier report from Bloomberg, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party confirmed on Tuesday that Ankara has applied to join the BRICS bloc. But party spokesperson Ömer Çelik indicated that the bloc hasn’t made any sort of “assessment or decision” regarding Turkish membership. The Turkish government’s interest in joining BRICS isn’t new, but the revelation that it’s already applied is. The bloc, which is at least generally viewed as Chinese-led (and Russian-led to a lesser extent), already includes several member states that could broadly be considered within the US diplomatic orbit, but the prospect of a NATO member joining is significant to say the least.
SYRIA
US Central Command announced on Monday that a joint US-Syrian Democratic Forces operation in eastern Syria the previous day had captured an Islamic State official named Khaled Ahmed al-Dandal, who facilitated the escape of five IS members from an SDF detention facility in Raqqa last week. Two of the five have since been recaptured. The SDF is still holding some 9000 IS detainees across several sites, overstretching its capabilities, but most countries are still refusing to accept the return of their nationals so there’s nowhere else to put them.
Elsewhere, an apparent Turkish drone strike killed a senior SDF official in Raqqa province on Tuesday. The Turkish military hasn’t claimed responsibility, but according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights a Turkish drone was observed near the location of the fatal explosion.
LEBANON
An Israeli airstrike killed at least two people in southern Lebanon on Monday, one of them a contract worker for the United Nations peacekeeping operation (UNIFIL) and the other possibly his cousin. There’s no indication that either had any link with Hezbollah or other militant groups.
YEMEN
The operation to salvage the oil tanker Sounion and thereby prevent a massive Red Sea oil spill got underway on Monday only to be abandoned on Tuesday due to safety concerns. The vessel is apparently still on fire, after the Houthis attacked and disabled it last month, then boarded it to set off explosives. The Houthis agreed a few days ago to permit tugboats to tow the Sounion to port without attacking them. It’s unclear whether the safety concerns refer to the fire, or the possibility of Houthi attack despite the group’s assurances, or some other issue. The European Union says that “alternative solutions” are under consideration.
Meanwhile, another Greek-flagged tanker, the Blue Lagoon I, apparently came under Houthi attack in the Red Sea on Tuesday. The extent of damage it’s suffered is unclear. There were also reports that the Houthis had struck the Saudi tanker Amjad, but Saudi officials are denying that.
ASIA
AZERBAIJAN
Azerbaijani voters (or at least a few of them) headed to the polls for a parliamentary election on Sunday, and in a real shocker it seems that President Ilham Aliyev’s New Azerbaijan party won. I know, I didn’t see it coming either. Aliyev, somewhat graciously, only gave himself 68 seats in the 125 seat National Assembly, allowing independents and small parties (most or all of them also Aliyev supporters) to divvy up the rest. Turnout was just 37 percent, as I guess most people didn’t really see any point to participating for some reason.
AFGHANISTAN
Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that killed at least six people and wounded another 13 in Kabul on Monday. The bomber targeted the Afghan prosecutor’s office to avenge “Muslims held in Taliban prisons,” as its statement put it. It’s claiming a substantially higher casualty count as well.
INDIA
Indian police say they killed at least nine Maoist Naxalite rebels in central India’s Chhattisgarh state on Tuesday. The circumstances surrounding this incident are unclear so I can’t say whether police attacked the rebels or vice versa.
MYANMAR
Myanmar’s ruling junta says it intends to conduct a “national census” next month, in part so as to prepare voter lists ahead of a potential election. Needless to say there is tremendous skepticism that the junta is actually interested in holding an election, or at least in holding a legitimate election that might remove the military from power. It has talked about holding an election next year, however, and its myriad recent setbacks to Myanmar’s various rebel groups may have it scrambling to come up with some sort of political compromise.
MONGOLIA
Russian President Vladimir Putin made a state visit to Mongolia on Tuesday. What raises this from mundane to mildly interesting is that Mongolia is a member of the International Criminal Court and thus its government was theoretically obliged to arrest Putin upon his arrival in Ulaanbaatar. Needless to say it did not. Mongolia’s dependence on Russian energy and its close economic ties with Moscow, to say nothing of its vulnerability to any Russian military retribution, meant there was never any chance that it would actually arrest Putin. This is still at least somewhat embarrassing for the ICC, however, which had to deal with a similar situation when former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir visited South Africa in 2015 while under ICC indictment.

AFRICA
LIBYA
A round of UN-mediated negotiations in Tripoli has apparently resolved tensions over the sacking of Libyan central bank governor Sadiq al-Kabir last month. The Libyan government based in Tripoli canned Kabir without consulting either of the country’s rival legislative bodies, the House of Representatives in Benghazi and the High State Council in Tripoli. Both objected, and a few days later warlord Khalifa Haftar’s “Libyan National Army,” which is aligned with the HoR, announced that it was closing the 90-ish percent of Libya’s oil facilities that are under its control. The UN talks produced an agreement that the HoR and the HSC will jointly name a replacement for Kabir as well as a new bank board of directors within 30 days.
TUNISIA
Speaking of free and fair elections, Tunisian authorities on Monday confirmed the candidacies of just two challengers to incumbent Kais Saied in next month’s presidential vote. As it happens, they’d already arrested one of them, Ayachi Zammel. The Tunisian government has used dubious technical grounds to disqualify multiple prospective candidates (several of whom have also been arrested), and it’s doing the same with Zammel by charging him with “falsifying endorsements.” I hate to get into the prediction business but something tells me Saied is going to win reelection.
NIGERIA
Authorities in northeastern Nigeria’s Yobe state are saying that Boko Haram fighters were responsible for attacking a village on Sunday and killing at least 81 people. The massacre may have been retaliation for the killing of two Boko Haram members by what those authorities are describing as local “vigilantes.”
UPDATE: The death toll has now risen to at least 102 and authorities are still assessing the aftermath.
UPDATE 2: The death toll has risen to at least 170 and I suspect it may continue to tick up.
UGANDA
Ugandan police shot popular opposition leader Bobi Wine in an altercation outside Kampala on Tuesday, according to his National Unity Platform party. Their statement said that Wine “was shot in the leg and seriously injured.” Details beyond that are unclear. Wine and his supporters frequently have…oh, let’s call them “encounters” with Ugandan security forces but this is the first time one of those has ended with the security forces shooting him.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
A Russian missile strike on a Ukrainian military academy in the city of Poltava killed over 50 people and left at least 271 wounded on Tuesday. It’s unclear how many of the casualties were military. This is apparently the highest casualty incident in the Ukraine war so far this year.
It turns out that one of Ukraine’s prized F-16s crashed last Monday while defending Ukrainian airspace against a massive overnight Russian bombardment, killing the pilot. As far as I know the investigation into the crash hasn’t yet generated any conclusions but Ukrainian officials have said that they don’t believe the aircraft was shot down by Russian ordinance. This leaves a few possibilities that all highlight the problems posed by Ukraine’s headlong rush to acquire F-16s. Mechanical failure is a strong candidate, given that the the handful of F-16s Ukraine has acquired to date are all older surplus European vehicles. Pilot error is another strong candidate, given that Ukrainian pilots are still very green when it comes to actually flying these things. Another possibility is friendly anti-aircraft fire, perhaps because Ukrainian gunners are also very green when it comes to not shooting down F-16s. Whatever the cause, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has already found one person to blame—he canned his air force commander, Mykola Oleshchuk, on Friday.
SERBIA
Speaking of countries acquiring new military aircraft, the Serbian government concluded a deal last week whereby it will purchase 12 new Rafale fighters from France for a cool $3 billion. This is noteworthy partly because of what it signals about Belgrade’s hopes for joining the European Union and its willingness to diversify its big expenditures away from its traditional military supplier, Russia, in order to improve ties with the West. Along those same lines, the Serbian government continues to push ahead with plans to exploit a large lithium deposit in western Serbia despite large and persistent public resistance over environmental concerns. The EU is eager to tap into that lithium reserve as an alternative to imports from more distant suppliers, including China.
FRANCE
French President Emmanuel Macron appears to be considering a new course to try to clear out his current parliamentary log jam. On Monday he met with two former French prime ministers, the leftish Bernard Cazeneuve and the right-wing Xavier Bertrand, either of whom could be a candidate to return to his previous gig in a sort of national unity/nonpartisan/technocratic/please just leave me alone style administration, should that sort of thing appeal to Macron. He is also reportedly also considering a virtual unknown, Economic, Social and Environmental Council director Thierry Baudet, for the job as well. Given parliament’s leftish bent, Cazeneuve would probably be considered the favorite at this point but that could change.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
A Venezuelan judge on Monday issued an arrest warrant for Edmundo González, who ran in July’s presidential election and maintains that he defeated incumbent Nicolás Maduro, official results notwithstanding. González has ignored three court summons on charges of conspiracy and “falsifying documents”—presumably the ones that show him getting more votes than Maduro. Arresting González is one thing that could trigger an intensification of US sanctions, which have remained relatively light despite the election dispute. While we’re on that subject, the US government impounded Maduro’s plane in the Dominican Republic on Monday, claiming that it was purchased and smuggled out of the US in 2023 in violation of sanctions. Maduro called it an act of “piracy.”
On the plus side for Venezuelans, I guess, with all the recent hullabaloo about the election Maduro has decided to reschedule Christmas for October 1. This is apparently not a joke. I’m unclear why he felt the need to reschedule an existing holiday rather than just inventing a new one. It’s also unclear how (or whether) he intends to stop Venezuelans from celebrating Christmas (second Christmas? Christmas II?) on December 25.
UNITED STATES
Finally, at Foreign Affairs researchers Wilfred Chow and Dov Levin argue that US hypocrisy on the international stage does, at least to a point, actually matter:
At first glance, it may seem as if whataboutism is a weak way to respond to critiques. After all, it has long been considered a logical fallacy: two wrongs do not make a right. And the U.S. government has hardly been chastened. American officials routinely, continuously, and openly condemn foreign governments, friends and foes alike.
But in first-of-its-kind research, we have found strong evidence that whataboutism is, in fact, highly effective, both domestically and in the international arena. When the United States criticizes a country and that country issues a whataboutist retort, U.S. public support for penalizing it declines. Allied populations become less supportive of joining American-led condemnations or sanctions. These findings were true whether whataboutism was deployed by U.S. adversaries or allies. The tactic, in other words, is a valuable tool for any states looking to challenge American policies and negate Washington’s narratives.
Yet although whataboutism works, it is not all-powerful. Our research found that whataboutism was highly successful when foreign governments pointed to more recent U.S. actions that mimicked their own—in other words, when Washington was being hypocritical. But it was less effective when foreign governments were citing an abuse that happened long ago, and it was almost entirely ineffective when they cited an unrelated bad act. American policymakers, therefore, can successfully rebuke others as long as their criticisms cannot easily be flipped back.
In some instances, however, U.S. officials should accept that silence can be golden. Often, it may be better to simply allow another country’s actions to speak for themselves. And going forward, American leaders should try to keep Washington’s own domestic and international record as clean as possible. At the end of the day, doing so is the only sure way to avoid whataboutism.
I’m sure they’ll get on that last bit ASAP.