(The Conversation) – The Middle East is on the brink of a possibly devastating regional war, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah reaching an extremely dangerous level.

Washington has engaged in intense diplomacy to persuade the protagonists to pull back from the brink. But US efforts have not paid off so far, given its lack of sufficient leverage with both sides.

A grand bargain involving Israel, Hezbollah and their outside supporters is now urgently needed to avoid a regional war.

Netanyahu hanging on by a thread

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the Gaza war has emboldened the Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon and its supporters.

Israel’s failure to achieve its two main objectives in the war – destroying Hamas and rescuing the Israeli hostages – has left Netanyahu isolated and weakened. His pursuit of scorched-earth operations in Gaza, with no plan for how to end the war or to manage the enclave afterwards, have imperilled his position, as well as that of Israel.

A majority of the Israeli public now want him to leave office. He is hanging onto power with narrow support from the extremist elements in his cabinet and the Israeli Defence Force leadership. He is even alienated from his traditional ultra-Orthodox Jewish supporters, who refuse to serve in the military, and is widely distrusted in Washington, Israel’s life-long backer.

Israeli generals have also expressed concerns about shortages of ammunition and troop exhaustion in Gaza. They have called for him to accept a ceasefire with Hamas, so Israel can confront Hezbollah effectively.

But the prime minister has remained defiant and inaccurately accused the Biden administration of holding back arms supplies that could enable him to end the Gaza campaign sooner and pivot to taking on Hezbollah.

Hezbollah’s power

No doubt, Hezbollah has been a thorn in Israel’s side for a long time.

In his address to the joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu stressed that fighting Hezbollah and its patron, Iran, was in the interests of not only Israel, but also America.

80,000 of our citizens in northern Israel evacuated their homes, becoming effectively refugees in their own land. We are committed to returning them home. We prefer to achieve this diplomatically.

But let me be clear: Israel will do whatever it must do to restore security to our northern border and return our people safely to their homes.

Israel has attempted several times to weaken or destroy Hezbollah since its emergence as a major political and paramilitary force in Lebanon from the early 1980s.

Yet Israel’s efforts, most notably its military campaign of 2006, have failed. Hezbollah’s ability to survive has added to its strength and that of Iran and its other affiliates, including Hamas, in the region.

Hezbollah today is the most powerful, sub-national militant group in the world. It reportedly has 100,000 battle-hardened fighters, a vast arsenal of weapons (including advanced missiles and drones) and a remarkable degree of organisational strength and infrastructural support.

It is a critical element in the Iran-led, predominantly Shia “axis of resistance”, whose members consider martyrdom to be an article of faith.

The newly elected Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who comes from the reformist faction of Iran’s politics, has reaffirmed Tehran’s unwavering support for Hezbollah against Israel as part of its regional security complex.

In the event of a war, Hezbollah can count on thousands of fighters joining it from Iran and its other proxies, as well as Islamic fighters from outside the region. The Taliban, for instance, has already promised to send many fighters from Afghanistan to aid Hezbollah.

Although Israel, the US and many of their allies have treated Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, the Arab League recently decided not to label the group as a terrorist outfit, in view of its growing popularity in the Arab and Muslim world.

A grand bargain

Israel is no longer regarded as the dominant power in the region. The Gaza war and its escalating military exchanges with Hezbollah, the Yemeni Houthis and Iran have revealed Israel’s vulnerabilities.

It may still possess the necessary firepower to flatten Beirut in a similar manner to what it has inflicted on Gaza, but it would need direct US involvement to come out of a war with Hezbollah with any degree of resilience or wellbeing.

The US continues to stress its iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security, but supporting a war in Lebanon would be very difficult for the US, particularly with a pivotal election coming. This would likely trigger Russian, Chinese and North Korean support for Iran and, by extension, Hezbollah and other elements of the “axis of resistance”.

In a grand bargain, Israel, Hezbollah and their outside backers would need to reach a diplomatic settlement to create mutually acceptable buffer security zones on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border.

To achieve this, Israel and Hamas must first agree on a Gaza ceasefire and an exchange of hostages and prisoners as a foundation for a lasting settlement of the Palestinian issue. Netanyahu has so far resisted this. He fears it would force him out of office and potentially land him in prison on pending charges of bribery and fraud.

The history of the Middle East has repeatedly shown armed conflicts and outside interventions have never resulted in peace and stability. Instead, they have merely compounded the region’s problems. The Middle East situation is explosive, and level heads must prevail to prevent further inflammation.

Amin Saikal, Emeritus professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Al Jazeera English Video: “Hezbollah-Israel conflict escalates: Land destroyed on both sides as Hezbollah extends rocket range”

(The Conversation) – As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to address a joint session of U.S. Congress on July 24, 2024, the nation he leads continues its slide away from democracy.

Even before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the country was engulfed by an intense debate over government-led reforms aimed at limiting judicial power, which sparked massive and sustained public protests for months.

Following that debate, for the first time, a leading democracy index demoted Israel’s classification from a “liberal democracy” to an “electoral democracy.” The new classification noted the erosion in judicial and legislative constraints on the government, along with less protection of civil liberties.

Israel is not alone in finding its democracy under threat: A recent report by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance finds that the global state of democracy has been declining for the past six years.

Democracy is associated with three key elements: leadership, institutions and citizens’ values. When they appear to be deteriorating, a democracy is said to be backsliding.

Historians and social scientists have found that a country’s democracy tends to get weaker during a prolonged war. For instance, citizens may lose faith in civilian institutions, like the courts, the police and the military. And militaristic values, such as support for the use of force, and political extremism often become more widespread in society.

Shortly after Oct. 7, there were some modest expectations that the attack would lead to less internal political partisanship and perhaps reverse course on Israel’s democratic decline. But as the war against Hamas has continued, the country’s democracy has continued to weaken.

Israel’s democratic backsliding

Most assessments of Israel’s democratic decline tend to focus on Netanyahu’s criminal trial for corruption, which is ongoing, and his government’s efforts to strip the judiciary of its power to review and restrict government actions.

But there are longer-term trends of illiberal legislative initiatives, limitations on civil society organizations and the erosion of underlying democratic values that have been more significant.

For instance, in 2018 the country’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a law declaring that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people and omitting the principle of civic equality for the 21% of the population that is non-Jewish

Also concerning is the growing share of the population, especially among the young, that supports these exclusionary policies. According to a 2016 report, nearly 40% of Israelis aged 15 to 24 believed that political rights should be withheld from Arab citizens.

Another example is the 2016 NGO Transparency Law, which requires human rights and other groups that receive half their funding from abroad to disclose the sources, increasing the administrative burden on these organizations.

Moreover, each of these factors are happening in the context of Israel’s continued occupation of and control over the Palestinian people and territories. Netanyahu’s populist rhetoric and leadership style have long focused on the conflict between Arabs and Jews. He uses language that highlights threats posed to Israelis and to the state by Palestinians both within and outside Israel, such as his 2015 election day “warning” that “the Arabs are voting in droves.”

Not surprisingly, the war has amplified this rhetoric.

Similarly, and as the examples above illustrate, attempts to undermine democratic institutions and values have often centered on Israel’s relations with the Palestinians, both within Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Limits on free speech

Since the war began, the situation has only gotten worse as the coalition government has introduced several pieces of legislation limiting civil rights, most especially freedom of speech.

For instance, a law passed in April allows the government to suspend the operations of a foreign news outlet in Israel if the prime minister or the minister of communication determines it poses a security threat. Using this law, Israel shut down Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based television channel, in May. And when The Associated Press provided media services to Al Jazeera, the Israeli government seized the AP’s equipment. Although the equipment was returned following widespread outcry, including from the White House, this illustrates the impact on freedom of the press of this law.

A June legislative proposal would require the dismissal of academic professors who allegedly incite or support terrorism. The bill would impose a punishment without a trial for an offense that is vaguely defined and without due process. Critics argue it could be used to silence the opposition.

Another law, currently awaiting a ruling from Israel’s high court over its constitutionality, would give the far right national security minister broad powers over policing. Critics fear that it could be used to crack down on people who protest government policy.

This direct ministerial intervention in police affairs has already had a chilling effect on free speech, as people say they have refrained from joining public protests over fears of police violence. What is more, this legislation appears to politicize the police, which is supposed to be an independent institution in a democracy.

Illiberal sentiment

Even before the war began, a growing share of Jewish citizens of Israel believed they should have more rights than non-Jewish citizens, and wanted a strong leader not easily swayed by media or public opinion.

The shock of the surprise attack and the brutality of Hamas’ actions unleashed a surge in militarism and illiberal sentiment. In the first month of the war, for example, there were 18,000 calls for Gaza to be “flattened,” “erased” or “destroyed” in Hebrew posts on the social media platform X, The New York Times reported, citing FakeReporter, an Israeli group that monitors disinformation and hate speech.

This sentiment hasn’t subsided, as the fighting has progressed and Israelis in general have united around the war and its aims. A February 2024 poll found that two-thirds of Jewish Israelis oppose humanitarian aid to Gaza, while 42% say Israel shouldn’t follow international humanitarian laws or abide by the international laws of war.

While Israeli protests and global media coverage focus on Netanyahu and claims that he is prolonging the war to remain in power, I believe the main risks to Israeli democracy are the increasing restrictions on freedom of speech and growing illiberal sentiment among Israelis. These, I fear, will outlive Netananyu and the war.

Michal Ben-Josef Hirsch, Associate Professor of Political Science and Legal Studies, Suffolk University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

—-

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Hindustan Times Video: “Netanyahu Minister Sparks Outrage With ‘Shoot Them In The Head’ Rant”

Spain, Ireland and Norway recognized a Palestinian state in May 2024, bringing the total number of countries that do so to 144.

The United States is not one of them.

The U.S. has officially favored a two-state solution, meaning both Israel and a Palestinian state would be recognized as official countries, since the Clinton administration in the 1990s. President Joe Biden reiterated that position at his July 11, 2024, news conference following the NATO summit, when he said, “There’s no ultimate answer other than a two-state solution.”

Yet the U.S. alone has consistently blocked the Palestinian territories from being fully recognized as a country – at least symbolically – by preventing them from becoming the 194th member state of the United Nations. Palestine does have the status of being a permanent observer at the U.N., where it is represented by the Palestinian Authority. Being a permanent observer lets Palestine attend most meetings, but it cannot vote on any international agreements or recommendations.

I am a scholar of international affairs and a former U.S. diplomat. Understanding this paradox requires a bit of history.

In the beginning

When the state of Israel was created in 1948, it was immediately attacked by its Arab neighbors Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, which refused to recognize its right to exist, but did nothing to create a Palestinian state. Subsequent wars and lesser hostilities have plagued the region ever since.

Over the years the U.S. has provided extensive support to Israel, in terms of politics, money and military aid. At the same time, the U.S. has tried to help move the Israeli, Palestinian and Arab-country leaders toward a day when they could all live in peace.

The current war in Gaza has prompted Israeli politicians and others to assert that discussion of Palestinian statehood rewards Hamas for the massacre of Israeli citizens that sparked the war. But at some point the war will end and the problem that caused it will remain unresolved. And, I believe that unless it is resolved, the end of the war will only be temporary.

The Guardian: “United States vetoes Palestinian request for full UN membership as UK abstains from vote”

Many issues would then have to be addressed by Palestinian and Israeli politicians, as well as the leaders of other countries that assist in their negotiations. The three most important would be the borders of a Palestinian state, the right of some Palestinians to return to land they were forced to flee in 1948, and the status of Jerusalem – which both Palestinians and Israelis insist must be their capital.

While the U.S. has tried to promote negotiations leading to peace without dictating the outcome, it has long officially embraced a two-state solution. Former President Donald Trump, for instance, said in 2018 that, “I like a two-state solution. That’s what I think works best … That’s my feeling.” Other presidents, like George W. Bush and Barack Obama, have also tried to nudge the parties toward negotiations.

But while the American government’s vision for peace includes the creation of a Palestinian state in theory, the U.S. has repeatedly prevented attempts in the U.N. to elevate Palestine from its status from observer to a full member state.

That would be more than a symbolic change, as a Palestinian state would be officially recognized as a country in the eyes of the international community and that would provide it standing in other international organizations and courts.

The U.S. blocked that from happening as recently as April 2024, when it vetoed a “resolution on Palestinian statehood” in the Security Council, which must approve new U.N. members. The U.S. is one of the five permanent members that make up the Security Council, alongside France, the United Kingdom, China and Russia. These countries each have the power to veto any declaration or statement the council tries to make – unlike the 10 other rotating council members who only get to vote.

What would a state look like?

Since reaching agreement on the borders of a Palestinian state and other issues will be so difficult, effective mediation is essential to achieving peace. The U.S. has largely forfeited any role in that process, however, by its isolated and inconsistent position.

A White House spokesperson explained in May 2024 that the U.S. maintains statehood should not come “through unilateral recognition,” but should instead happen “through direct negotiations between the parties.”

There are two problems with that rationale. First, 144 countries at the U.N. have already recognized a Palestinian state as a country, making recognition hardly unilateral. And it was the U.N. that created Israel in 1948.

Second, Israel currently has the most extreme, right-wing government in its history. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long made clear that he is adamently opposed to any Palestinian state. If he were to agree even to discuss the possibility of one, his coalition would immediately collapse, and he would be forced out of office.

In order to avoid pressure to discuss statehood, Netanyahu for years encouraged other countries to provide hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas, knowing that organization would never negotiate. He did that to weaken the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, and is willing to talk.

The origin of inconsistency

Why then, even before the current Gaza war, has the U.S. refused to allow a small step – recognition of a Palestinian state in the U.N. – toward a two-state solution, which it says is the only path to a sustainable peace? And why does the U.S. remain in lockstep with an Israeli government that will never allow that to happen?

The explanation is simple – domestic politics.

While 89% of Jewish Americans said in April 2024 that they support Israel’s reasons for fighting Hamas, the Gaza war has prompted some rifts in the Jewish-American community.

American Jews have heavily favored the Democratic Party for decades, and defending Israel remains an important issue to them. Believing that support might decline, however, decades ago Israel began to reach out to evangelical Christians. They are rock-solid base voters of the Republican Party. Unquestioning allegiance to Israel has become an article of faith for many of them.

Now Republicans and some Democrats compete to see who is a better friend to Israel. When the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor requested arrest warrants in May 2024 for Netanyahu and another Israeli leader, as well as Hamas leaders, the House of Representatives quickly responded in an uncharacteristically bipartisan effort, passing legislation that would sanction anyone helping the ICC prosecute Israelis.

To avoid that kind of divisive political controversy, President Bill Clinton did not embrace a two-state solution until the final weeks he was in office.

Given the political realities of the ongoing war, you might ask why this matters. A Palestinian state joining the U.N. as a member state would not make it a country. Israelis and Palestinians would have to reach agreement first. But getting this U.N. status would provide a glimmer of hope to people who dream of having their identity recognized and their desire for a country of their own someday realized.

There is no chance that such a significant change in policy could take place in the midst of a presidential election campaign in the U.S. But if peace is to ever be achieved, more people on both sides would need to think differently – and I believe that bringing a Palestinian state into being at least on paper would help bring that about more than anything else the U.S. could do.

Dennis Jett, Professor of International Affairs, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

(The Conversation) – The global information technology outage on July 19, 2024, that paralyzed organizations ranging from airlines to hospitals and even the delivery of uniforms for the Olympic Games represents a growing concern for cybersecurity professionals, businesses and governments.

The outage is emblematic of the way organizational networks, cloud computing services and the internet are interdependent, and the vulnerabilities this creates. In this case, a faulty automatic update to the widely used Falcon cybersecurity software from CrowdStrike caused PCs running Microsoft’s Windows operating system to crash. Unfortunately, many servers and PCs need to be fixed manually, and many of the affected organizations have thousands of them spread around the world.

For Microsoft, the problem was made worse because the company released an update to its Azure cloud computing platform at roughly the same time as the CrowdStrike update. Microsoft, CrowdStrike and other companies like Amazon have issued technical work-arounds for customers willing to take matters into their own hands. But for the vast majority of global users, especially companies, this isn’t going to be a quick fix.

Modern technology incidents, whether cyberattacks or technical problems, continue to paralyze the world in new and interesting ways. Massive incidents like the CrowdStrike update fault not only create chaos in the business world but disrupt global society itself. The economic losses resulting from such incidents – lost productivity, recovery, disruption to business and individual activities – are likely to be extremely high.

As a former cybersecurity professional and current security researcher, I believe that the world may finally be realizing that modern information-based society is based on a very fragile foundation.

The bigger picture

Interestingly, on June 11, 2024, a post on CrowdStrike’s own blog seemed to predict this very situation – the global computing ecosystem compromised by one vendor’s faulty technology – though they probably didn’t expect that their product would be the cause.

Software supply chains have long been a serious cybersecurity concern and potential single point of failure. Companies like CrowdStrike, Microsoft, Apple and others have direct, trusted access into organizations’ and individuals’ computers. As a result, people have to trust that the companies are not only secure themselves, but that the products and updates they push out are well-tested and robust before they’re applied to customers’ systems. The SolarWinds incident of 2019, which involved hacking the software supply chain, may well be considered a preview of today’s CrowdStrike incident.

Image by Daniel Kirsch from Pixabay

CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz said “this is not a security incident or cyberattack” and that “the issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.” While perhaps true from CrowdStrike’s perspective – they were not hacked – it doesn’t mean the effects of this incident won’t create security problems for customers. It’s quite possible that in the short term, organizations may disable some of their internet security devices to try and get ahead of the problem, but in doing so they may have opened themselves up to criminals penetrating their networks.

It’s also likely that people will be targeted by various scams preying on user panic or ignorance regarding the issue. Overwhelmed users might either take offers of faux assistance that lead to identity theft, or throw away money on bogus solutions to this problem.

Organizations and users will need to wait until a fix is available or try to recover on their own if they have the technical ability. After that, I believe there are several things to do and consider as the world recovers from this incident.

Companies will need to ensure that the products and services they use are trustworthy. This means doing due diligence on the vendors of such products for security and resilience. Large organizations typically test any product upgrades and updates before allowing them to be released to their internal users, but for some routine products like security tools, that may not happen.

Governments and companies alike will need to emphasize resilience in designing networks and systems. This means taking steps to avoid creating single points of failure in infrastructure, software and workflows that an adversary could target or a disaster could make worse. It also means knowing whether any of the products organizations depend on are themselves dependent on certain other products or infrastructures to function.

Organizations will need to renew their commitment to best practices in cybersecurity and general IT management. For example, having a robust backup system in place can make recovery from such incidents easier and minimize data loss. Ensuring appropriate policies, procedures, staffing and technical resources is essential.

Problems in the software supply chain like this make it difficult to follow the standard IT recommendation to always keep your systems patched and current. Unfortunately, the costs of not keeping systems regularly updated now have to be weighed against the risks of a situation like this happening again.

Richard Forno, Principal Lecturer in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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ABC News: “Fallout after global outage, how long will the ripple effects last?

(The Conversation) – Hezbollah began launching rockets into northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinians shortly after the start of the war in Gaza. These attacks prompted skirmishes along the border that have escalated and spread further into the territory of both countries.

On July 10, for example, the Israeli military said it had hit a Hezbollah site just 49 miles from the capital, Beirut. The strike came two weeks after Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant threatened to take Lebanon “back to the stone age”. After an 18-year lull, a new war between Hezbollah and Israel seems inevitable.

Lebanese politics is based on a power-sharing system among the country’s different sectarian groups. Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim organisation that emerged in the 1980s, is one of these groups.

Hezbollah has near total control over its own community, which it also represents in parliament. Dissenting Shia voices have all but disappeared following the assassination of a Shia public intellectual and vocal Hezbollah critic, Lokman Slim, in 2021. However, the rest of Lebanese society is divided about Hezbollah and the group’s involvement in a war with Israel.

The leaders of Lebanon’s two other major communities, the Sunni Muslims and the Christians, and those of the smaller but politically powerful Druze community, have issued statements urging caution and restraint. Yet, some Sunni and Christian groups in particular are sympathetic to Hezbollah’s position.

Sunnis

Lebanon’s Sunnis are split along ideological lines. Since the start of the war, Sunni Islamist groups have begun to side with Hezbollah against Israel. On the other hand, more secular groups and people have called for restraint.

The country’s Sunni former prime minister, Fouad Siniora, for example, has accused Hezbollah of taking Lebanon “to the brink of the abyss”. Siniora was in office in 2006 when a cross-border attack by Hezbollah fighters sparked a 34-day conflict with Israel.

Many Sunni Islamists in Lebanon have long viewed Hezbollah with distrust. This was, in large part, because the group turned its weapons on Sunni backers of the Lebanese government in May 2008 during a brief spell of intense sectarian violence.

But some of the Sunni groups that were apprehensive of Hezbollah have grown closer to the organisation over the past nine months. One of these groups is the Lebanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaa Islamiya, whose Al-Fajr forces have been fighting Israel in southern Lebanon alongside Hezbollah since late October 2023.

The group’s participation in the hostilities has, however, been “largely symbolic and limited”. By May 2024, the group had only lost seven fighters.

“Are Israel and Hezbollah edging closer to all-out war?” | BBC News Video

Christians

The Lebanese Christian community’s stance towards Hezbollah is mainly divided among three political parties: the Kataeb and the Lebanese Forces (LF) on the anti-Hezbollah side, and the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) which has broadly supported the Shia party since 2006.

In recent months, the leaders of both the LF and Kataeb have accused Hezbollah of waging an unnecessary “war of attrition” and provoking Israel into attacks on Lebanon. They appear reluctant to participate in a regional conflict in the hope of protecting Christian areas, and they criticise Hezbollah for taking unilateral decisions in the name of all Lebanese citizens.

The FPM’s stance is more complicated. For over a decade, the FPM has provided Hezbollah with cross-sectarian cover. However, the relationship has become increasingly strained since October 2022. The then president Michel Aoun’s term came to an end and Hezbollah refused to support the presidential ambition of the FPM’s leader and Aoun’s son-in-law, Gibran Bassil.

In April 2024, Bassil declared that the FPM supports “the Resistance” (Hezbollah’s adopted name), but “rejects Hezbollah’s position to participate in the Gaza war without internal national consensus”. More recently, the FPM took advantage of the spectre of war to warn of state collapse if Lebanon’s presidential vacancy persists.

Two other important Christian stakeholders are the patriarch of the Maronite church, Bechara Boutros Rai, and a rightwing private militia in eastern Beirut called Jnoud al-Rab (Soldiers of God).

Since November 2023, Patriarch Rai has urged officials to protect Lebanon and has regularly issued statements against Hezbollah’s involvement in the Gaza war. In June, he described Hezbollah’s activities in the south as “terrorist”, which led to a boycott of the Patriarchate’s June spiritual summit by Shia religious leadership.

Jnoud al-Rab claims to represent and defend Achrafieh, a Christian neighbourhood in Beirut. The group has unofficial political and religious support, and positions itself as the Christian counterpart to Hezbollah’s concept of “self-security”.

The group has exacerbated sectarian tension within Lebanon. Jnoud al-Rab claims that Hezbollah’s actions are endangering the country and Lebanon’s Christian community. In January 2024, the group hijacked flight screens at Beirut airport and displayed a message warning Hezbollah against engaging in war with Israel.

Druze

The leading Druze politician, Walid Jumblatt, is the weathervane of Lebanese politics. Despite now being retired, he remains an important voice for the Druze (who constitute around 5% of the Lebanese population).

In October, he called on Hezbollah “not to be dragged into the war”. He also took to social media to ask Israel’s Druze community not to participate in the war.

However, he clearly stated at the beginning of the conflict that he will side with Hezbollah should Israel attack Lebanon. And, since then, Jumblatt has noted that “the rules of engagement have changed”.

Lebanon’s major communities have largely been consistent in urging restraint and would prefer to see Hezbollah avoid a war with Israel. But Hezbollah’s actions have deepened sectarian divides and have complicated Lebanon’s internal politics. Should war break out, however, the sects of Lebanon will probably all rally around Hezbollah, as was the case in 2006.

Rola El-Husseini, Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Lund University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Northern and central Gaza have been hit by Israeli airstrikes this week as troops return to battle Hamas fighters in areas they claimed to have cleared many months ago. The intensified military offensive unfolded just days after mediators thought they were making headway in negotiations for a ceasefire. On Friday, Hamas reportedly dropped its insistence on a “complete” ceasefire as a prerequisite for talks.

But hope of progress was brought to an abrupt halt. It emerged that an Israeli delegation led by spy chief David Barnea had travelled to Doha not to finalise a ceasefire deal, but to instead issue further demands on Hamas. Since then, the group has said that Israel’s renewed offensive in Gaza City could “reset the negotiation process to square one”.

Ceasefire plans are yet again hanging by a thread. According to Paul Rogers of the University of Bradford, this is not a surprise. He argues that the chances of reaching a ceasefire deal are, and always have been, slim.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemingly learned shortly after the start of the war that the complete destruction of Hamas would not be possible – a fact now being proved regularly as the group resurfaces in some of Gaza’s hardest-hit areas. But he has pressed on with the military campaign anyway.

Rogers argues that continuing with the war is the only way Netanyahu can maintain support from influential factions within his government. Two of his ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose parties help Netanyahu’s coalition secure a small majority in parliament, remain steadfast in their opposition to striking any deal before Hamas is destroyed. On July 8, Smotrich took to social media to say that making a ceasefire deal now would be “senseless folly”.

Smotrich, who is finance minister and the leader of the ultranationalist Religious Zionist party, has gained huge influence over government policy over the past couple of years. As Dalia Alazzeh of the University of the West of Scotland and Shahzad Uddin of the University of Essex explain, Smotrich has used his influence to cripple the Palestinian economy.

He has blocked the transfer of – and has made deductions to – the tax revenue that Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. The result of these measures has been devastating.

The Palestinian Authority is facing a huge gap between incoming revenue and the amount needed to fund public expenditures. At the time of writing, it is only able to pay public sector workers up to 70% of their salaries, and famine is spreading throughout the Gaza Strip.

Al Jazeera English Video: “Children among 48 killed in Israeli air attacks on Gaza IDP site, school”

Alazzeh and Uddin point to a World Bank report that suggests the financial situation of the Palestinian Authority “dramatically worsened” in the three months leading up to May, raising the prospect of an “imminent fiscal collapse”.

Palestine’s beleaguered economy does, however, look set to be given a brief reprieve. In late June, Smotrich announced that he would finally unfreeze tax revenue and extend a waiver that allows cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian banks.

But there would be a catch. This would come in return for approving five outposts – or Israeli settlements – in the occupied West Bank that are widely regarded as illegal under international law.

Meanwhile, it was made public on July 3 that Israel had approved its largest seizure of land in the West Bank in over three decades. The move follows a series of similar land grabs that have happened so far this year.

According to Serag El Hegazi from the University of Bradford, these actions are part of a strategy to expand Israel’s control over the West Bank and choke off the possibility of a Palestinian state. This is something Smotrich is all too happy to admit. He has previously described thwarting the establishment of a Palestinian state as his “life’s mission”.

Britain’s unclear position

The stance of Smotrich towards Palestine is clear. But the same cannot be said for the Labour party in the UK, which swept to power last week. As James Vaughan from Aberystwyth University explains, the Labour party has a complex historical legacy when it comes to Israel and Palestine. The new prime minister, Keir Starmer, has a difficult line to tread.

On we go

So, with tensions as high as they have been at any point in the war, what might happen next? Rogers argues that the war in Gaza will probably rage on.

Israel looks increasingly unlikely to be able to defeat Hamas and end the war on its own terms. And, given the deep anger directed at Israel, ending the war on almost any terms is not as paramount among Palestinians as one might think.

The US has leverage and could force Israel to accept a ceasefire. But that is unlikely due to the support Israel has within the US, as well as the fact that Biden finds himself preoccupied with speculation over his fitness to run for a second term.

There are other issues that could influence the likelihood of a ceasefire too, says Rogers. These include the position of the new Iranian government. According to Arshin Adib-Moghaddam of SOAS, University of London, the election of a known democrat in Masoud Pezeshkian should be seen as a positive development in the sphere of foreign affairs.

But, ultimately, the main challenge to Netanyahu may come from senior members of his military, who are becoming convinced that the war is unwinnable and increasingly wary of escalation with Hezbollah.

Jonathan Este is on holiday.

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Sam Phelps, Commissioning Editor, International Affairs, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

With an assassination attempt on Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13, 2024, the U.S. experienced another violent episode in its increasingly polarized politics. Former President Trump, who’s about to formally become the GOP nominee for president in the 2024 election, survived the attempted assassination when, initial reports said, a bullet grazed his ear. But one rally attendee was killed, more spectators were injured and the suspected gunman is also dead. The Conversation’s politics editor, Naomi Schalit, spoke with University of Massachusetts, Lowell, scholar Arie Perliger after the event. Perliger offered insight from his study of political violence and assassinations. Given the stark political polarization in the U.S., Perliger said, “it’s not a surprise that eventually people engage in violence.”

Schalit: When you heard the news, what was the first thing you thought?

Perliger: The first thing that I thought about is that we were basically one inch from a potential civil war. I think that if, indeed, Donald Trump would have suffered fatal injuries today, the level of violence that we witnessed so far will be nothing in comparison to what would have happened in the next couple of months. I think that would have unleashed a new level of anger, frustration, resentment, hostility that we haven’t seen for many, many years in the U.S.

This assassination attempt, at least at this early stage, may validate a strong sense among many Trump supporters and many people on the far right that they are being delegitimized, that they are on the defensive and that there are efforts to basically prevent them from competing in the political process and prevent Trump from returning to the White House.

What we’ve just seen, for many of the people on the far right, fits very well into a narrative that they’ve already been constructing and disseminating for the last few months.

Political assassination attempts don’t aim only to kill someone. They have a larger goal, don’t they?

In many ways, assassination attempts bypass the long process of trying to downgrade and defeat political opponents, when there is a sense that even a long political struggle will not be sufficient. Many perpetrators see assassinations as a tool that will allow them to achieve their political objectives in a very quick, very effective way that doesn’t demand a lot of resources or a lot of organization. If we are trying to connect it to what we’ve seen today, I think that many people see Trump as a unicorn, as a unique entity, who in many ways really consumed the entire conservative movement. So by removing him, there’s a sense that that will or may solve the problem.

I think that the conservative movement changed dramatically since 2016, when Trump was first elected, and a lot of the characteristics of Trumpism are actually now fairly popular in different parts of the conservative movement. So even if Trump will decide to retire at some point, I don’t think that Trumpism – as a set of populist ideas – will disappear from the GOP. But I can definitely understand why people who see that as a threat will feel that removing Trump can solve all the problems.

In a study of the causes and impacts of political assassination, you wrote that unless electoral processes can address “the most intense political grievances … electoral competition has the potential to instigate further violence, including the assassinations of political figures.” Is that what you saw in this attempted assassination?

How the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump Unfolded | WSJ News Video

Democracy cannot work if the different parties, the different movements, are not willing to work together on some issues. Democracy works when multiple groups are willing to reach some kind of consensus through negotiations, to collaborate and to cooperate.

What we’ve seen in the last 17 years, basically since 2008 and the rise of the Tea Party movement, is that there’s increasing polarization in the U.S. And the worst part of this polarization is that the American political system became dysfunctional in the sense that we are forcing out any politicians and policymakers who are interested in collaboration with the other side. That’s one thing. Second, people delegitimize leaders who are willing to collaborate with the other side, hence, presenting them as individuals who betrayed their values and political party.

The third part is that people are delegitimizing their political rivals. They transform a political disagreement into a war in which there is no space for working together to address the challenges they agree are facing the nation.

When you combine those three dynamics, you create basically a dysfunctional system where both sides are convinced that it’s a zero-sum game, that it’s the end of the country. It’s the end of democracy if the other side wins.

If both sides are hammering into people again and again that losing an election is the end of the world, then it’s not a surprise that eventually people are willing to take the law into their hands and to engage in violence.

Arie Perliger, Director of Security Studies and Professor of Criminology and Justice Studies, UMass Lowell

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(The Conversation) – Israel’s ultranationalist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, announced in May that he would be witholding tax revenues earmarked for Palestine. The decision was made in response to Spain, Ireland and Norway’s recognition of a Palestinian state.

He has also made deductions to these revenues, and has threatened to cut off Palestinian banks from their Israeli counterparts. This is a move that would halt all foreign financial transactions and the import of many essential goods into the Palestinian territories.

These developments come at a time when the Palestinian Authority, the government body that exercises partial control over the occupied West Bank, is already grappling with a severe financial crisis.

According to a report published in late May by the World Bank, the financial situation of the Palestinian Authority had “dramatically worsened” in the three preceding months, raising the prospect of an “imminent fiscal collapse.”

The Palestinian economy is already battling unemployment and poverty. Nearly half a million jobs have been lost in the West Bank and Gaza over the past nine months. And on July 10, a group of independent human rights experts mandated by the UN said that famine is spreading throughout the Gaza Strip. The financial collapse of the Palestinian Authority will only make matters worse.

Israel has a long-established financial hold over the Palestinian Authority. Under peace accords reached in the 1990s, Israel’s finance ministry collects tax on behalf of the Palestinians and makes monthly transfers to the Palestinian Authority. But Israel ceased making the transfers shortly after the start of the war, withholding funds that amount to between 60% and 70% of the total Palestinian public budget.

It’s not just people in the West Bank that are being affected. The Palestinian Authority was ousted from the Gaza Strip by Hamas in 2007. But many public sector workers in the territory kept their jobs and continued to be paid with transferred tax revenues. Israel has withheld payments earmarked for those employees in the Gaza Strip too on the grounds that they could fall into the hands of Hamas.

DW News Video: “Palestinian economy on verge of collapse, according to World Bank | DW News”

Then, on May 10, and more recently in June, Smotrich announced that he would be deducting US$35 million and US$46 million respectively from Palestinian Authority’s tax revenue. The World Bank report claimed that the May deduction alone had raised “the stakes and the risk for a potential systemic collapse”.

The Palestinian Authority is now facing a rapidly widening gap between incoming revenue and the amount needed for essential public expenditures. This financing gap has reached US$682 million and, according to the World Bank report, is projected to double over the coming months to US$1.2 billion.

In May, the Palestinian Authority was only able to pay public sector workers between 50% and 70% of their salaries. And it is also unable to pay its dues to domestic banks, increasing its reliance on foreign assistance to pay its debts.

Financial blackmail

On June 28, hopes that the Palestinian Authority could stave off collapse were given a lift. Smotrich announced that he would finally sign off on the unfreezing of the past three months of tax revenue and extend a waiver that allows cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian banks.

But this would come in exchange for retroactively approving five outposts in the West Bank that had already been built. Outposts – or Israeli settlements – such as this are regarded as illegal under international law by the vast majority of the international community.

The government’s new move has drawn criticism from Palestinians, as well as the US and the UK. On June 30, a spokesperson for the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said: “The UK strongly opposes the announcement that five outposts are to be legalised in the West Bank as well as further punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority”.

But within the next few days, Israel also made public that it had approved the seizure of more than 12 sq km of Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank – its largest land grab since 1993. The move follows a series of similar land seizures across the past two years. In 2023, for example, Israel established a record 26 settlements in the West Bank, forcing 21 Palestinian communities from their homes.

Alongside greater financial control, which has brought the Palestinian Authority to its knees, these land grabs should be seen as part of Israel’s broader goal to control more of the West Bank and prevent the development of a Palestinian state.

This intention has been reflected clearly in comments made by Smotrich. Following the most recent land grab announcement, he was quoted saying: “Thank God, we are building and developing the settlements and thwarting the danger of a Palestinian state.”

The Palestinian economy may be set for a brief reprieve. But the financially embattled Palestinian Authority is by no means out of the woods. The World Bank urged swift action to prevent its financial collapse. What happens now is largely down to Israel.

Dalia Alazzeh, Lecturer in Accounting and Finance, University of the West of Scotland and Shahzad Uddin, Professor of Accounting, University of Essex

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(The Conversation) – Israel has reportedly approved its largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in over three decades, according to a report released on July 3 by Israeli anti-settlement watchdog, Peace Now. The seizure involves more than 12 sq km of land in a key corridor bordering Jordan.

Land that is privately owned by Palestinians in the West Bank can be declared as “state land” by Israel and subsequently seized. One of the primary outcomes is the establishment or expansion of Israeli settlements on the land, which are widely considered illegal under international law.

According to the Israeli authorities, the recent land seizure is necessary for “security and development”. However, a spokesperson for the UN, Stephane Dujarric, called it “a step in the wrong direction”, adding that “the direction we want to be heading is to find a negotiated two-state solution”.

The move follows a series of similar land grabs so far this year. Israel seized 2.6 sq km of land in the West Bank in February, and a further 8 sq km in March. These actions are part of a strategy to expand Israeli control of the West Bank and undermine the prospect of a Palestinian state.

There has been a massive expansion in the number of settlements over the past three decades. In 1987, there were 60,000 Israeli settlers living in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem). This had grown to 247,300 by 2005 and 465,400 by 2021.

These numbers look set to accelerate further. The Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is heavily backed by a coalition of rightwing, ultranationalist parties. And many of its ministers have made the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank a priority.

On June 28, far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich was quoted saying: “I will bring 1 million settlers. One settlement for every country that recognised Palestine as a state in the last month. This is their punishment.” Smotrich, who is himself a settler, has previously said his “life’s mission is to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state”.

TRT World Video: “Nearly 10,000 Palestinians arrested by Israeli forces since Oct 7”

Many Israelis do not class these settlements as illegal. They view them as integral parts of ancient Israelite kingdoms and as a significant part of Jewish history and identity. However, the seizure of Palestinian land on such a large scale has historically always led to violence.

The second intifada, for example, was a major uprising by Palestinians that occurred between 2000 and 2005. It took place against the backdrop of the refusal of successive Israeli governments to abide by the Oslo accords and end the occupation.

But the groundwork was laid years before by the fast expansion of Israeli settlements. The number of Israeli settlers increased by at least 117% percent in Gaza and 46% in the West Bank in the period between 1993 and 1998.

The second intifada saw a significant escalation in hostilities between Palestinians and Israeli settlers. This included a wave of deadly suicide bombings and armed confrontations, which prompted the Israeli military to respond with force. Over the course of the second intifada, violence led to the deaths of an estimated 3,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis, with thousands more injured.

Rising settler violence

Since the start of the ongoing war in Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank have increasingly become the target of violence by Israeli settlers. The UN reported that attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank surged in the weeks following the October 7 attacks.

At least 115 people were killed, more than 2,000 were injured, and nearly 1,000 others were forced from their homes, citing violence and intimidation by Israeli forces and settlers. The new moves by the Israeli government to expand its control of the West Bank have only inflamed tensions further.

Amid rising violence, outgoing Israeli major general Yehuda Fuks condemned what he called “nationalist crime” that was undermining Israel’s reputation internationally and sowing fear among Palestinians “who did not pose any threat”.

By condemning the land seizures and settlement expansions, global bodies such as the UN and the EU could increase diplomatic pressure on the Israeli government to change tack. But, for now, it looks to be stepping up its efforts to claim more of the West Bank.

In February, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wrote that the Netanyahu government’s “supreme aim … is not the occupation of the Gaza Strip”. In Olmert’s view, “Gaza is just the introductory chapter, the platform this gang [the Israeli government] wants to build as the foundation upon which the real fight they are eyeing will be conducted: the battle for the West Bank and the Temple Mount.”

The expansion of settlements is part of this.

Serag El Hegazi, Lecturer in the Department of Peace Studies and International Development., University of Bradford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.