Mid-Week Updates
Local Elections, Ukraine and Israel
A local by-election has taken quite a bit of my time over the past week and therefore less time for updates here. But it is for a good cause and I described the local election dynamics here a while ago. The local polarization continued to go nuclear, so it was time to step up to support the right candidate. We will see how it goes, it is always fun to help campaigning and engage with voters. What actually struck me this time now that I see it up close in real-time is what disinformation is doing to people. It is amazing how it can change totally reasonable individuals into fanatics and how difficult it is to dispel all the rumours and nonsense that are floating around. You literally have to go door-to-door to talk and hopefully convert some of those voters back to a level of normality.
Ukraine
It appears that the much anticipated Ukrainian spring offensive will not get going until next month. The expectations notably from US military experts are that it remains to be seen if it will be a successful effort. The elaborate Russian defence systems are a big factor, but the requirement for the continuous replenishment of material and manpower on the Ukrainian side is quite another. The latter is a pre-condition to force a material breakthrough and absent that we may see a new stalemate without any tangible frontline changes.
What is very likely is that the US is setting the stage for a negotiated settlement, something which is being pushed by France as we know, but even more so by China. The much anticipated call between Xi and Zelensky took place today and it is clear that roadmapping to a settlement is the centrepiece of Beijing’s efforts. It even includes a special envoy who will represent China in Kyiv. So, the pressure on Zelensky is building from many directions and the only way out of a forced settlement is the continued military support from Western nations. And that may well diminish as the spring and summer wear on. It is really hard to see it any other way at the moment.
In the meantime it is of course Putin who can wait this out and keep digging into his country’s human and material reservoirs without the risk of destabilizing his position domestically. In fact a report that came out this week notes that repression in Russia is not ‘overt’ and has not reached the levels of Stalinism which is what some hard-core nationalists in Russia are now arguing for. The way Putin has crushed opposition defies any standards of basic humanity by our standards however, note the most recent report from Alexei Navalny’s confinement in prison.
Israel turns Seventy-Five
This is what I wrote about it a when Israel turned seventy and it still stands today as the country wraps up its seventy-fifth anniversary. It is interesting to see how media all across the world are trying to define the nation and find the origins of its success and durability given the extreme pressures it has had to deal with on a daily basis.
Dutch national TV ran a three-part series called ‘The Promised Land’ in which Dutch Jews discuss their journey from the Holocaust to today, some who continued to live in The Netherlands and some who emigrated to Israel. Their lives have not been easy. The 106-year old Mirjam Bolle who survived the Holocaust and lost many of her family in it, resettled in Israel where she married and had three children. Today, she is childless. Her eldest son died in the Six Day War, her second child, a daughter died when her military jeep ran over a Syrian mine. Her third and remaining child, a daughter passed away after a period of illness. It was not so much that it was hard to watch and listen to her, but it was more transformative in the sense that you have to understand and feel how someone who has lost everything still, and at her age, can talk about it in a calm and rational way.
That same sentiment was more or less put forward by Israeli tech personality Hillel Fuld whose brother was murdered by a terrorist. I met Hillel a few years ago in Tel-Aviv and have followed his writings ever since. On Facebook yesterday he explained how the journey of Jews suffering throughout history have forged a mentality that enables a distinct approach to dealing with reality. It’s incredibly hard, but it ensures survival. And a successful survival at that.
