We ended the week with Alexei Navalny and that’s where we’ll start again. Over the past few days I kept thinking about his choice to move back to Russia in early 2021. It was an incredible gamble, in particular for a guy who was intimately familiar with the regime he was returning to. Bill Browder this weekend noted that Navalny expected some sort of collapse of the Putin regime so that he was on hand to get involved as the designated opposition leader ready to step in. A sort of Nelson Mandela scenario. It also pointed to Navalny’s awareness that outside Russia he might not be as relevant as inside the evil empire itself. But above all he felt it was his duty to be present on the homefront. Interestingly, as a one-time atheist he became a strong believer in the process. His religious beliefs gave him the poise and clarity to make the incredibly hard choice of leaving his family behind in the West and to move back into Putin’s gulag. At some level he must have of course have known it was risky, he also lacked the foresight of what was to come: in January 2021 there was no war in Ukraine. And although that war initially appeared to negatively impact Putin’s domestic standing, it did strengthen him in the longer run while it also added to his total paranoia. Without a Ukraine war Navalny might still be alive today.
Some commenters and Putin apologists suggested that Navalny had effectively been neutralized, lacked influence and no longer posed a risk for the Russian state and that therefore an assassination was unlikely. Really? Did they witness the many attempts to eulogize Navalny, the bouquets at makeshift shrines, not to mention the global outrage? And also, the fact that, like in Sergei Magnitsky’s case, the body was not to be found anywhere to conduct for a proper autopsy? Putin’s vengeance has no bounds and Navalny was a marked man in the Russia of 2024.
Where are we in Gaza?
Peace deals - you have heard it here before - are not driven by warring parties tired of fighting, but by changing circumstances. The Biden administration is in this election year under extreme pressure to unwind the Gordian Knot that is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is proposing and driving a grand vision for a reformed Middle East where Arab nations (notably Saudi Arabia) are accepting and recognizing Israel and in return a Palestinian State is created and recognized. In order to get there, the hostages will have to be released first and Israel will have to accept this two-state scenario and work towards this goal. It is a sort of grand bargain where everyone gets something and Biden gets to pick up the award that years ago slipped from Bill Clinton’s hands. A lasting peace in the Middle East.
All the pressure and rhetoric we have seen over the past week is furthering this deal and there are two important caveats you should be aware of. First, Israel does not have to recognize a Palestinian state right now. It can’t possibly do that as it would be seen as rewarding Hamas for its October 7th mass murder. Israel will however need to indicate its willingness to do so at some future point in time. Something like this: are you on the same page with us now, then let’s take the next step. In the meantime, also not articulated very clearly, is the wish by almost all parties that Hamas completely disappears from the scene. This wish Israel shares with key Arab nations like Egypt and Saudi Arabia who want stability above all and have no need for disruptive radical Islamist terror groups. Some hope however that Hamas will survive so that it could form a government together with the Palestinian Authority and this is now an option championed by, here he is again, Putin. A meeting to explore this option has been scheduled to take place in Moscow. As you can see, there may be a few too many cooks in this kitchen.
In the meantime in Israel itself, Nethanyahu will have to keep his coalition government in place and in order to placate his right flank he has to reject the concept of a Palestinian state outright. At the same time the war cabinet (with political moderates Gantz and Eisenkot) is getting ready to root out and destroy Hamas. A March 10 deadline, the start of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, has been articulated by them and Egypt is already prepping for a huge refugee inflow if this offensive does get underway.
Some in Israel will argue that Nethanyahu wants to not end, but also not win the war: the longer it goes on, the longer he can stay in power. In Israel itself the protests against their prime minister are back into full force on the streets and the domestic anger and political pressure there will keep building. That is in addition to Biden and Blinken’s ongoing arm-twisting of the Israeli leadership. With such pressure from all sides it is unlikely we are going to get any clear messages from the Israeli government.
In the meantime the actual hostage negotiations are going nowhere with Hamas not collaborating and rejecting most proposals that have been put forward. Counter demands from their side have been deemed to be unrealistic. If anyone needed any more evidence of the cruel nature of this gang and their utter unsuitability to ever govern, the Israeli army discovered all the medications it delivered (through the Red Cross) for the hostages that needed them in a hospital they captured in Gaza. With name tags and all: never taken to the hostages, unused, see photo.
So there are many parallel discussions going on and they all have very different motivations, objectives and goals, thus making it difficult to see where things will go. Given that speculations of an actual end date - some saying the US plan will fall into place in the next two months - are futile, anything can happen and that includes a sudden and serious escalation of the war.