The grand bargain between the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia is already a dead letter. This has large implications for oil at a time when the crude market is already in deficit and prices are at the upper band of their historical range – pushed higher by Saudi and OPEC production cuts of two million barrels a day (b/d), otherwise known as cartel price manipulation.

The unspoken terms of the deal were that Saudi Aramco would feed back one million b/d as a unilateral gesture. But this depended on Israel beefing up the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, one reason why Hamas was so determined to thwart it. The accord is now almost unthinkable.

One can only assume that Hamas intended to provoke total conflagration by decapitating women and children in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Events must now follow their Sophoclean script with a haunting inevitability.

There must be a high risk that the unstoppable chain of events will trigger an assault by the Lebanese Hezbollah, backed by Iran and armed with 150,000 missiles on the northern Blue Line, in turn spreading to Syria. Israel bombed Damascus and Aleppo airports in a preemptive strike on Thursday. “The longer the war, the greater the probability that Hezbollah joins in,” said Dr Walid Abdel Hay, a Jordanian political analyst.

Read it all (subscription).

We are one miscalculation short of a Middle East firestorm and the next world #oil crisis, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes: The strange calm on world oil markets is unlikely to survive blockade of Gaza. The only way to knock out Hamas is house-to-house, block-to-block, urban… pic.twitter.com/ZhFXBl0zo4

— Holger Zschaepitz (@Schuldensuehner) October 14, 2023

It was a clash too good to be true, in real time. The first 60 minutes felt like a coronation. The second 60 minutes felt like holding on to the hood of a speeding car.

As for Messi and Mbappé: spectacular. As sports observers we harp so much on the failures and shortcomings of superstars—the great players who do not deliver in the biggest moments. It’s empty theater of scolding and schadenfreude, because it’s not what we actually want.

To see two of the greatest to ever do it—a 35-year-old generational superstar, and his 23-year-old successor—play at the height of their powers, is what we want, because it’s unadulterated joy.

Messi, seeking the first World Cup title, played with incandescent fury. Mbappé, well-defended and invisible early, burst back almost single-handedly to make it a match.

Messi was Messi, Mbappé was Mbappé. It was all you could ask for.

I haven’t even gotten to the scale of all this—how a World Cup is truly worldly, with the heart rates and birthrates of continents rising and falling with each shift in momentum. It all means so much more.

Read it all.

“Epic” championships and superstars seldom deliver on pre-game hype. That was not the case at Sunday’s World Cup final, where Argentina, France, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé delivered a match that will be remembered forever. https://t.co/zRzFA1bEAc

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 18, 2022

World Champions 🏆🇦🇷#FIFAWorldCup | #Qatar2022 pic.twitter.com/TGLbXxRFLc

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) December 18, 2022

Croatia take the #FIFAWorldCup 3rd spot! 🇭🇷🥉@adidasfootball | #Qatar2022

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) December 17, 2022

On this third Sunday of Advent, millions of Christians will be at church. But millions will also be glued to a screen, anxious to find out if the Argentinian GOAT will at long last claim a World Cup title. Though past his prime, the 35-year-old team captain Lionel Messi has been sublime in the competition, with five goals and three assists under his belt, and is leading the golden boot race in his fifth World Cup.

Although the reserved Messi, whose right arm bears a tattoo of Jesus crowned with thorns, has not expressed his faith openly beyond pointing to heaven after his goals, this World Cup has featured numerous heroics of confessing Christians.

Leading the freewheeling French attack against Argentina will be 36-year-old striker Olivier Giroud, who has Psalm 23’s “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want” tattooed in Latin on his right arm. During this World Cup, Giroud became the all-time top scorer for France with four magnificent goals.

While the team’s talisman Kylian Mbappé has lived up to the hype with his blistering speed and lethal shooting, Giroud has provided a reliable focal point in offense and his selfless play has created openings for his teammates. “I try to speak about my faith whenever I can,” he said after winning the World Cup in 2018. “I feel I have to use my media profile to talk about my commitment to Jesus Christ.”

Read it all.

We celebrate the heroics and good works of athletes, coaches, and fans: https://t.co/Nf8JmztQrR

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) December 16, 2022

A court in Belgium ruled on Wednesday that two suspects in a case linking current and former European lawmakers to alleged bribery by Qatar should remain in prison until trial and that a third should wear an electronic monitor, as the snowballing scandal continued to rock European Union institutions.

Four people, including Eva Kaili, a former vice president of the European Parliament who is from Greece, were charged last week with corruption, money laundering and participation in suspected bribes from Qatar, in what may be the biggest scandal in the history of the Parliament.

A court hearing for Ms. Kaili was postponed until Dec. 22, the office of the Belgian federal prosecutor said on Wednesday, so she remains imprisoned outside Brussels. Parliamentary lawmakers also stripped Ms. Kaili of her title as vice president during a plenary session in France.

Court documents seen by The New York Times identified the other suspects as Pier Antonio Panzeri, a former member of Parliament; Francesco Giorgi, Ms. Kaili’s partner and an assistant to a current European lawmaker; and Niccolo Figa-Talamanca, secretary general of a Brussels-based charity. Mr. Panzeri and Mr. Giorgi were ordered to remain detained until trial, and Mr. Figa-Talamanca was ordered to be placed under electronic monitoring.

Read it all.

A Brussels court ordered two suspects in a case linking current and former European lawmakers to alleged bribery by Qatar to remain in prison until trial and a third to wear an electronic monitor, as the snowballing scandal continued to rock the EU. https://t.co/nyHhW3JT7w

— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) December 15, 2022

France are through to the final! 👊@adidasfootball | #FIFAWorldCup

— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) December 14, 2022

Who’s gonna win the World Cup? 🏆👀 #Qatar2022 pic.twitter.com/IdF9dooTDP

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) December 6, 2022

Eight great teams, four wonderful matches.

The U.S. Men’s National Team advanced to the knockout stage of the 2022 FIFA World Cup with a 1-0 victory against IR Iran on an historic night for U.S. Soccer. Needing a victory to advance, forward Christian Pulisic scored the game-winner in the 38th minute off an assist from defender Sergiño Dest.

With the result, the USA finishes second in Group B with five points and will face Group A winner Netherlands in the Round of 16 on Saturday, Dec. 3 at 10 a.m. ET (FOX, Telemundo). England defeated Wales 3-0 in the other Group B match tonight to finish atop the group with seven points. The victory also ensured the USA’s advancement to the knockout round at five of the last seven World Cups in which the USMNT has participated.

It was fitting that Pulisic, the USMNT’s talisman for much of this four-year cycle, provided the difference maker in a crucial win-or-go-home match. Goalkeeper Matt Turner and the U.S. defense held strong against a spirited second half push by Iran to record a second clean sheet of the tournament, marking the first time that the USA has recorded multiple shutouts at the World Cup since 1930.

After putting plenty of pressure on the Iran defense for the majority of the first half, the USA’s breakthrough finally came in the 38th minute. Left back Antonee Robinson ran a ball down on the left wing deep in Iran territory. He played a bass back and centrally to Adams, who then played Weston McKennie and the U.S. midfielder spotted Dest making a run behind the defense into the right side of the penalty area. Dest ran under the perfectly chipped pass and sent a header bouncing through the middle to Pulisic who put his body on the line to smash home a half-volley from four yards out a second before enduring a heavy collision with the Iran goalkeeper, an incident that would cause Pulisic to be replaced at halftime due to an abdominal injury. The goal was the 22nd of his international career for Pulisic, who was replaced at halftime by Brenden Aaronson, and the young midfielder played a stellar second half.

Read it all.

Yunus Musah – 20 years old
Tyler Adams – 23 years old
Weston McKennie – 24 years old

What a midfield the USMNT have 💫 pic.twitter.com/nZHKsgD3cp

— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) November 29, 2022

“We used to be excited when one of our young players took the field against Chelsea, or Juventus or Milan,” said [Roger] Bennett. “Now we have talents that play for all of those teams and more. They have gained both the self-respect that comes with that, as well as the commercial opportunities.”

Stereotypes linger, especially overseas—the U.S. as plucky, undertalented overachievers from a country that doesn’t say football and can’t hang with the highest contenders. You could sense a little of this from the disappointed England fans who booed their homeland squad off the pitch following the draw with the U.S.

But that’s an old mindset. The U.S. team is in Qatar not to represent, but to win, the surest signal that the sport has evolved past any kind of existential debate about its future or perception around the world.

What does Tuesday’s game versus Iran mean for the United States? It means survival at the World Cup. That’s meaningful enough.

Read it all.

Like every U.S. World Cup game, Tuesday’s match versus Iran is being presented as a referendum about the sport’s future in America. But that’s old thinking, writes columnist @jasongay, who says this confident and capable team is well past that point. https://t.co/BRqbh7SnEh

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 28, 2022

It’s hard to believe — mostly because it’s currently November and not June ¹ — but the 2022 World Cup kicks off at Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, Qatar, on Nov. 20. The host nation will square off against Ecuador in the first World Cup match ever played in the Arab world. And the start of the tournament comes with plenty of questions about who might lift soccer’s most prestigious trophy.

Will it be Brazil, the betting favorite? Or could France become the first nation to repeat since 1962? Is Spain’s new golden generation — piloted by teenagers like Barcelona midfielders Gavi and Pedri — as good as its previous golden generation? ² Does Lionel Messi have enough left in the tank to lead Argentina to glory and further cement himself as the G.O.A.T.? Is football finally coming home?³ Which squads could shock the world? Is there any shine left on Belgium’s underachieving golden generation?

Last week, we used Elo ratings to measure historical Groups of Death at the World Cup, and also to see where this year’s groups rank — or if a Group of Death even exists this time around. (TL;DR: We’re not sure/it’s complicated.) Today, we’re back with our full-fledged World Cup forecast model to take a broader look at the field and try to answer who’ll be the last team standing on Dec. 18.

Read it all.

The start of the tournament comes with plenty of questions about who might lift soccer’s most prestigious trophy. https://t.co/W5vE3GLiH3

— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) November 18, 2022

Sam Espada led friends in a chorus of “Happy Birthday” for his sombrero-wearing brother at a Mexican restaurant. After dinner, they saw the latest Hollywood blockbuster.

The five-story mall could have been anywhere in America, except that every storefront sign was in Arabic as well as English. The group was in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

“This place is like Disneyland,” said Espada, a Christian from New Jersey. “But I don’t feel fully free. You can definitely tell you are living in a Muslim country.”

Read it all.

Barely three years after Britain helped to free Libya from Col Gaddafi’s tyranny, anti-Western radicals hold sway. How could Britain’s goal of a stable and friendly Libya have been thwarted so completely?

Step forward a fabulously wealthy Gulf state that owns an array of London landmarks and claims to be one of our best friends in the Middle East.

Qatar, the owner of Harrods, has dispatched cargo planes laden with weapons to the victorious Islamist coalition, styling itself “Libya Dawn”.

Read it all.

I was recently struck by some photos and reports I saw on the al-Arabiya network, the most respected news outlet in the Middle East. There was a starving child in Yemen, a burnt-out ancient souk in Aleppo, Syria, car bombs in Iraq and destroyed buildings in Libya.

What links all these images is that the destruction and the atrocities were not perpetrated by an outside enemy. The starvation, the killings and the destruction in these Arab countries were carried out by the same hands that are supposed to protect and build the unity of these countries and safeguard their people. Who, therefore, is the real enemy of the Arab world?

Many Arabs would say it is Israel ”” their sworn enemy, an enemy whose existence they have never recognised. From 1948 to today there have been three full-scale wars and many confrontations. But what was the real cost of these wars to the Arab world and its people? The harder question that no Arab wants to ask is: what was the real cost of not recognising Israel in 1948 and why didn’t the Arab states spend their assets on education, healthcare and infrastructure instead of wars? But the very hardest question of all is whether Israel is the real enemy of the Arab world and the Arab people.

Read it all (requires subscription).

It has become common in the West to express remorse or pessimism about the course of events in the Arab world since the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions a year ago. Tunisia, in fact, does not present a cause for general pessimism. Egypt’s xenophobic Islamism is alarming, but it is too early to judge that revolution’s outcome. In any event, the Arab revolutions never were conceived to conform to the West’s expectations, goals, or principles. In settings long influenced by nationalism and political Islam, the Tunisian, Egyptian, Libyan, and Syrian revolutions seek justice, the dispatch of autocrats, a reduction of corruption, the restoration of dignity and equality to ordinary citizens, and the development of new constitutional experiments involving rights and accountability.

These experiments must unfold in divided societies with weak economies and unresolved””perhaps never to be resolved””tensions between mosque and state. Arab democrats who struggle in these settings are not seeking to imitate Western liberalism; they are reinterpreting it, as Turkey has done successfully, and as India’s British-educated independence leaders once did. In sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America, democratic change in low and middle-income countries has evolved as a synthesis of local and global ideas, lurching through disruptions, failures, and recoveries. The Arab awakening is no longer an adventure park for bored emirs or a televised spectacle that inspires Western viewers. But its transformational power has not yet ebbed, and the liberalism within it is far from expired.

Read it all.

The Anglican Centre in Doha’s church complex will be fully operational by the end of next year, the church rector has said.

According to Father Bill Schwartz, the 35 million Qatari riyal complex, under construction since 2008, will be ready by the end of 2012 and will offer Christian Protestant denominational groups a location to worship.

“Building is moving ahead apace, and moving ahead in line with our expectations. The building should be usable by Christmas next year,” he said, quoted by Qatari daily Gulf Times.

Read it all.