| | | | Fareed: Team Trump's Dangerous Giveaway | | The United States officially relocated its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem on Monday, sparking protests and clashes along the Israeli-Gaza border that have claimed dozens of Palestinian lives, CNN reports.
Fareed says that while he believes that Jerusalem is practically and legitimately Israel's capital, the timing of the embassy move makes little strategic sense if the ultimate goal is to secure a peace deal.
"President Trump is supposed to be the master of the art of the deal. But it's rare to see such a major concession to one side without getting something in return. This is a huge gift to the Israelis that you would have expected as part of a larger strategic plan, one that would include, for example, the Israelis being asked to agree to a settlement freeze," Fareed says.
"It's one thing to talk about fulfilling your campaign promises, but that shouldn't mean engaging in a series moves that appear to be more about political pandering at home than executing a well thought out strategy.
"One of the things that US presidents have generally been cautious of, particularly in the Middle East, is to be seen as an honest broker. So, moving forward, the real question is this: What is Jared Kushner doing to win the trust of both sides? What is the strategic framework within which this embassy move has taken place? It's not clear there is one.
"Remember, the reason you want the Palestinians' trust is to make a deal possible -- you aren't going to get a peace deal if both sides don't have a certain amount of trust in you. But right now, the Palestinians have lost all trust in the United States." - Cynicism and celebration. The bloodshed that was unfolding even as US and Israeli officials celebrated the opening of the new embassy has laid bare the folly of the notion that the move would help the peace process, writes Chemi Shalev for Haaretz.
"Whether one accepts the Palestinian narrative of hungry masses demonstrating for dignity, or the Israeli version of a cynical exploitation of human lives as cover for homicidal intent, there is no doubt that the scores of dead and many hundreds of wounded on the Gaza border spoiled Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump's extravaganza," Shalev writes.
"The more the casualties in Gaza mounted, the more those assembled at the site of the new American embassy in Jerusalem seemed arrogant, detached and mainly devoid of compassion. As more and more reports and tweets came in about the mounting casualties in Gaza's day of bloodshed, the worst since the 2014 Protective Edge operation, the more the claim that the embassy move could actually help achieve peace seemed both cynical and ridiculous."
| | Germany: It's Not Just Your President We Don't Like | | | Germany's political establishment might be anti-Trump. But as tensions over the Iran deal and trade rise, the German public is increasingly looking not just anti-Trump, but anti-American, writes Leonid Bershidsky for Bloomberg View.
"The cautious German elite, led by Merkel with her preference for compromise in any situation, has been holding back the anti-American sentiment so far. But that position may become untenable as Germans realize their country isn't getting much out of being a US ally," Bershidsky writes.
"A majority can't imagine a situation in which US soldiers would need to defend Germany against aggression, and as the values gap with the US grows and the economic benefits of partnership shrink, anti-Americanism can become an increasingly attractive political card to play.
"Germany has done the US a favor by not seeking a leadership role in the decades since its reunification. There's no guarantee, however, that post-Merkel it won't take a more assertive stance, using the European Union as a vehicle for its ambition." | | Where ISIS Is a Family Affair | | | ISIS might be down on the battlefield in Syria, but it isn't out of the global terror stakes. Look no further than the weekend attacks in Indonesia – and the use of families with bombs, write Anita Rachman and Ben Otto in the Wall Street Journal.
"Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation, has long faced a terrorism threat but has had considerable success in quelling Islamist violence since the early 2000s. Sunday's coordinated attacks, however, were the deadliest in almost a decade, fueling concerns that extremists may be regrouping," they write.
"'The fact that they used children, in three separate bombings, shows an unbelievable degree of callousness, but also ideological indoctrination,' said Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington who studies Southeast Asian security.
"'The degree of coordination and sophistication we have seen in these attacks is not something we've seen in years,' he said." | | The Plastic Straw Fuss Is…A Straw Man | | | Plastic straws are the latest environmental bugbear. But in fixating on the problem of disposable straws we have created, well, a straw man, writes Peter Shawn Taylor for Maclean's. "According to a recent study of its contents in the open-source academic journal Scientific Reports, it's not swizzle sticks or straws that are to blame for polluting the Pacific Ocean. Of the 1.1 million bits and 668 kg of plastic debris collected by the authors, 46 percent of it was discarded fishing nets. A further substantial portion is related fishing industry items such as floats, ropes, baskets, traps and crates. And another 20 percent is junk washed away from Japan's shores during the 2011 tsunami. The report makes no mention of straws or other post-consumer waste," Taylor writes. "Here's more evidence of the straw man argument against straws. A recent clean-up of Canada's ocean shores jointly sponsored by the environmental group World Wildlife Federation and Loblaws Canada reveals plastic drinking straws comprise less than two percent of total beach waste. There were twice as many bottle caps as straws, and ten times as many cigarette butts." | | Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow on Monday. Al-Monitor suggests that Vladimir Putin may now "be the best bet, or last man standing, to offer a diplomatic off-ramp for Israel and Iran to avoid war."
Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will lead a Chinese delegation visiting Washington from Tuesday for the latest round of talks aimed at avoiding a trade war between the two countries. Per the Wall Street Journal's Lingling Wei and Bob Davis: "The negotiations are complicated by mistrust on both sides. The US wants to make sure that any concessions the Chinese make can be verified and aren't followed by new barriers that disadvantage US companies. The Chinese want to be certain that a settlement with the US won't be followed in a year or two by another broad-based attack on Chinese economic practices."
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins on Tuesday. Mustafa Akyol writes in The New York Times that the 30 days of fasting poses a particular challenge for Muslims who live in the high latitudes, "where 'dawn till dusk' can equal almost the entire 24-hour day. In Reykjavik, Iceland, for example, which is now home to nearly 1,000 Muslims, the sun will set at midnight, only to come back in about two hours. That means the fasting time will be as long as 22 hours, allowing for only one meal a day." | | | | | | |
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