Mid-Week Updates

Ukraine, Israel, Euro-politics and some tears

It has been a while since I rounded up news in a mid-week update and today feels like a good juncture to run one again as there is so much critical stuff going on right now.

Ukraine

Last year this time we were all counting on a potentially successful summer offensive by Ukrainian forces, hoping it would put an end to this pointless war. This year unfortunately we are forced to look at the utter devastation created by deliberate Russian attacks on multiple civilian areas. The photo above is from the Kharkiv area, which has been on the receiving end of ongoing missile and drone attacks over the past few weeks. Horrific reports of carnage in supermarkets and neighbourhoods come in on a regular basis as Russia continues its assault with the goal of breaking Ukraine’s resistance using terror and destruction. And it is increasingly difficult to defend against as resources are limited on the ground in Ukraine.

So president Zelensky had no choice but to ramp up his diplomatic rounds as he simply does not have the resources to stop this onslaught on Ukrainian territory. This week he was in Brussels meeting with NATO to get more F-16 fighter jets and to get approval to use the weapons he’s been getting so far to be used on Russian soil, in other words deploy this gifted weaponry offensively instead of only defensively. He got both and he also managed to get indications that NATO may start to deploy ‘military instructors’ inside Ukraine to help his forces conduct the war. And yes, that reminds us of the many American ‘advisors’ that were once deployed in Vietnam. They were a precursor to full involvement on the ground and if this evolves in a similar way then the world is sliding into this war in a pretty direct way with more and hard to reverse commitments. There will be no pulling back from this. It is a response to the slow or practically non-existent Ukrainian progress, but also to the realization that a NATO without America may be a fact of life after the November presidential elections.

With a deteriorating situation in Ukraine, provocations on Estonia’s border and ongoing cyber warfare Europe will need to step things up to protect itself and Ukraine is the first line of defence. Putin is not backing down and uses the window created by political weakness and divisions in the West as the opportunity to advance wherever he can. The US elections are close and so are Russia’s advancing war efforts, so expect a lot more of this in the months ahead.

Israel

The international pressure on Israel has reached proportions that simply defy the imagination. A controversial ruling of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has ordered it to cease military operations in Rafah and the prosecution at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has asked for arrest warrants for prime minister Nethanyahu and defence minister Gallant. At the same time Ireland, Spain and Norway have proceeded to recognize a Palestinian state. Lip service is the only thing being paid to the hostages and the endless Hamas atrocities while singling out Israel for ‘genocide’, a claim that to this day remains unproven, even the courts have not established this. Isolating Israel has been part of the forces that are hostile to the Jewish nation with South Africa, which enjoys a close relationship with Iran, doing some of the heavy judicial lifting. What Hamas cannot accomplish militarily has been taken on by an increasing number in the international community, aided and abetted by a selective media corps.

Israel however is edging ever closer to ending Hamas rule as it progresses towards neutralizing the Rafah area and it is no coincidence that at this very moment the calls for a ceasefire and stoppage of the war are accelerated. Yesterday Algeria moved into the fray with a draft UN Security Council resolution to stop the war and release the hostages.

An attack on Rafah this week resulted in a fire that killed some thirty Palestinians civilians and this of course cornered Israel further. It has been reported as a targeted attack, yet with the passage of time the details that are filtering out shine a very different light on what actually transpired. However it is impossible to undo the original narrative and give Israel the proper treatment based on facts. Wherever you stand, do let time do its work on news flashes and media reports, they often are way ahead of the actual facts.

That Dutch PM

Many readers read my piece on the way the Dutch are experimenting with a new coalition government. A prime minister has been found and was announced yesterday, his name is Dick Schoof. Not a politician, not a businessman, but a sixty-seven year old senior civil servant who has a track record in intelligence and heading up the country’s justice department. And he used to be a member of the Labour party. An unusual and unexpected choice, but a seemingly politically neutral task master with deep expertise at governance may fit the bill in these troubled times.

And then this

Also, I wanted to link to Bari Weiss interviewing Jerry Seinfeld. Look at the 51 second excerpt of that interview above. It is exactly how I have often reacted as Israel and October 7th are raised as a topic for discussion. You don’t cry, but you feel the tears well up behind your eyes and just before they roll you regain control of your emotions and circle back to the chat. As best as you can. But there are always a few painful seconds you have to work through. Where does it come from? Why does certain hurt goes straight to your deepest emotions and other pain doesn’t? Is it age? Is it the issue at hand? Or, a realization that we have landed in a spot where we never thought we would be and where things are likely to get a lot worse before they get better? Or is it all of that combined? You tell me.

Another well of deep and unfiltered emotion is Eve Barlow and I have tremendous respect for her to keep the stories of what the war has meant alive, in particular in the way she communicates these. Eve is the total antidote to the ‘we have moved’ on crowd. Because there is simply no moving on from it.