Joseph Belbruno Blog

  Israel’s Five Wars Credit... Amir Levy/Getty Images Want to stay updated on what’s happening in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip? , and we’ll send our latest coverage to your inbox. The world will soon know the full shape and scale of Israel’s response to Hezbollah for Saturday’s rocket attack on a Druze town in the Golan Heights, which killed 12 children. But it’s not too soon to ask what purpose the expected retaliation will serve in the context of Israel’s five wars. Five wars? Yes. And they are more about ideas than they are about geography. The first war — the war Israel is now waging against Hamas and its allies in Gaza and the  West Bank , Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Iran itself — is about security. Israelis want to be able to live safely in their homes without fearing they could be rocketed, pillaged, killed or kidnapped with barely a moment’s warning. The threat of a major escalation on Israel’s northern border has turned entire cities into...

  A ban on arms for Israel would help the ayatollahs Natasha Hausdorff Tuesday July 30 2024, 9.00pm BST,  The Times T he interests of western liberal democracy have a short reprieve. The Labour government has delayed its expected decision to ban arms exports to Israel. No doubt this delay arises from recent events. The “optics” would clearly not be favourable. Not even this government can ignore the casualties from the latest of Hezbollah’s incessant and indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel over the past nine months: 12 children murdered while playing football on Saturday. The proposed ban is far more serious than optics. It plays politics with crucial legal issues and would abandon the only functioning democracy in the region in this existential battle, orchestrated by the ayatollahs in Iran. Nearing nuclear armament and surrounding Israel with powerful proxy armies, the Islamic republic advances its stated goal  of wiping Israel off the map. What is Labour’s response...

  Biden’s Cold War savvy has shielded Ukraine C ould Ukraine be the big loser in the fast-approaching US presidential election? Whatever the outcome in November, the signs are that a future president will want to shift the focus away from a stalemated war on Europe’s eastern fringes to the strategic challenge posed by China. There’s the prospect of a White House occupied again by Donald Trump, who can barely conceal his indifference towards Ukraine, and his chosen veep, the punchy senator JD Vance, who is on record as saying: “I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine.” On the other side of the barricades is Kamala Harris, who has stayed tepidly on the Biden message (supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes”) but who is even more resistant to escalation than her  present boss. Whoever wins will not want to cede to Ukrainian demands for American backing for strikes on Russian soil or for quick Nato membership. Joe Biden is the last leader of a generation that thought deepl...

  China’s low-tech industries struggle to survive Anaemic western orders, trade curbs and rising competition hit traditional manufacturers WILLIAM LANGLEY — JINJIANG · 31 July 2024 At a factory in China’s manufacturing heartland, workers manually add small splashes of paint or glitter to printed images of flowers — small tweaks designed to boost dwindling profits in the face of softer global demand. “We would like to say that if you can go high-end, the better the quality of your paintings, the more classic they will be. But in the current global economy . . . the more we sell, the lower the price,” said Wang Xiaosha, general manager at Fujian Jie Ao Industrial in Minhou county in China’s south-eastern Fujian province. While President Xi Jinping wants China’s economy to focus on “new quality productive forces” — such as green technology and electric vehicles — lowend factories have long been the backbone of the country’s explosive growth and one of the largest sources of jobs. But ...

  Culture Netflix, français maltraité… À Sciences Po aussi le niveau baisse Écouter cet article 00:00/10:48 Des étudiants de Sciences Po assistent à une table ronde, le 17 octobre 2022. Le Ouay Karine / ABACA SCIENCES PO, UNE INSTITUTION DANS LA TOURMENTE (3/6) -  À l’Institut d’études politiques, comme ailleurs, la connaissance de la langue perd du terrain. Mais les correcteurs s'inquiètent aussi de la faiblesse des références culturelles des futurs diplômés. L'école qui s'est donné pour mission de former l'élite politique française est secouée par une succession de crises depuis la mort de   Richard Descoings   . Trois ans après le scandale de   l'affaire Duhamel   , Mathias Vicherat a été à son tour contraint à la démission. Et l'activisme militant de certains étudiants pro-palestiniens a terni l'image de l'institution au point d'éloigner d'importants mécènes. Enquête sur Sciences Po, un symbole en proie à une grave crise d'identité, entre...

  La realtà che sfugge all'Europa di Ernesto Galli Della Loggia 30 lug 2024 | 20:54 Manca il realismo. E nell’occidente non c’è consapevolezza delle minacce Tempi difficili attendono l’Europa, quell’Europa che insieme agli Stati Uniti è il cuore dell’Occidente.  Ogni giorno nei confronti di questo Occidente cresce l’ostilità dei vecchi e dei nuovi giganti del potere mondiale, Russia e Cina in prima fila. Un’ostilità che alimenta pericoli e sfide di ogni tipo a cui trovare una risposta non è facile. Ma non lo è specialmente a causa di un dato inedito: la mancanza di realismo che domina gran parte dell’opinione pubblica e delle classi dirigenti dei Paesi occidentali, che caratterizza complessivamente il loro orientamento culturale.  È una quasi istintiva mancanza di senso della realtà che impedisce la consapevolezza stessa della vastità e della varietà delle minacce che incombono. È il rifiuto di valutare l’effettiva natura dei pericoli, di considerare, ad esempio, le auten...

Chameleon Harris’s Gift to Hamas Listen (5 min) Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington, July 25.   Photo:  Pool/Getty Images Jerusalem The war in the Gaza Strip is more about losing time than capturing territory. Time works in Israel’s favor because it is a half-trillion-dollar economy contending with a few thousand terrorists who lack supply routes, hospitals for treating the wounded and camps for training fighters. But time also works in Hamas’s favor because international acceptance of action in densely populated Gaza is eroding, along with Israel’s economy and its army’s weapons. Who will run out of time first? In the spring, it seemed Israel would. President Biden turned a cold shoulder to the Jewish state as support for destroying Hamas morphed into a call to end the war and a warning against entering Rafah. Strategic weapons shipments were delayed in American ports. The International Court of Justice  is seeking...