Terrorism is a grisly theatre of violence, for which mega events offer a tempting stage. Black September, a Palestinian group, gripped the world’s attention when it took nine Israeli athletes hostage at the Munich Olympics in 1972. is likes to strike at big, crowded venues: the Bataclan theatre in Paris in 2015, the Manchester arena in 2017 and now Crocus City Hall.

These days the West has largely turned away from the long “war on terror”, having expended much blood and treasure to destroy the main jihadist groups. But extremists are on the march again. They have re-emerged in havens old and new, and are thriving in cyberspace. Furthermore, Israel’s war in Gaza is all but certain to radicalise a new generation.

The history of global jihadism is one of reinvention under pressure from the West. After September 11th 2001, America and its allies overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan and evicted al-Qaeda. American forces killed its leader, Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan in 2011. Then his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was eliminated by a drone strike in Kabul in 2022. Al-Qaeda has yet to name a new leader. Meanwhile is, al-Qaeda’s even more wanton progeny, caused a sensation by carving out a “caliphate” across large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, drawing volunteers from Europe and elsewhere. Its last stronghold was destroyed in 2019 and is has lost four leaders since that year began.

Even so, jihadists fight on.

Read it all.

These days the West has largely turned away from the long “war on terror”, having expended much blood and treasure to destroy the main jihadist groups.

But extremists have re-emerged in havens old and new, and are thriving online https://t.co/hUdgKYtJAQ 👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) April 30, 2024

Daniel Kahneman, an Israeli American psychologist and best-selling author whose Nobel Prize-winning research upended economics — as well as fields ranging from sports to public health — by demonstrating the extent to which people abandon logic and leap to conclusions, died March 27. He was 90.

His death was confirmed by his stepdaughter Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker. She did not say where or how he died.

Dr. Kahneman’s research was best known for debunking the notion of “homo economicus,” the “economic man” who since the epoch of Adam Smith was considered a rational being who acts out of self-interest. Instead, Dr. Kahneman found, people rely on intellectual shortcuts that often lead to wrongheaded decisions that go against their own best interest.

These misguided decisions occur because humans “are much too influenced by recent events,” Dr. Kahneman once said. “They are much too quick to jump to conclusions under some conditions and, under other conditions, they are much too slow to change.”

Read it all.

Daniel Kahneman, who changed psychology and economics forever, dies at 90.

Thanks for everything.

We remember him in 10 great quotes: pic.twitter.com/kiyhC2kCo3

— Wisdom Theory (@wisdom_theory) March 27, 2024

Ezekiel lays much blame for the Israelites’ deserving punishment on the moral failings of their leaders. More directly, however, it was the political failings of their leaders that sealed the fate of all their people. The Judean kings could have heeded the call of the prophet Jeremiah and surrendered to King Nebuchadnezzar; they decided otherwise, and everyone endured the consequences. The political solidarity of a nation compels them to share the same fate. Even when only soldiers are targeted, noncombatants will die alongside them.

None of this means that one should target enemy noncombatants. The realities and obligations of our shared collective fate, however, dictate that one prioritize one’s own soldiers and citizens while worrying less about those who share another people’s destiny.

These two primary factors—our obligation to protect our own citizens and our filial duties to our brethren—come together when addressing the dilemma of involuntary human shields. If, at the end of the day, an army won’t attack certain legitimate targets because of collateral damage, then the terrorist group will use human shields to prevent their defeat. It’s hard to achieve a decisive victory when you cannot—or will not allow yourself—to destroy the enemy. Yes, guided missiles and other advanced technologies allow for greater precise targeting. Nonetheless, in the fog of war, it is impossible to achieve “immaculate warfare,” especially when the defenders are daring you to kill their human shields.

Ultimately, the defeat of these terrorist groups is the primary ethical imperative. This will benefit not only Israel but also the Gazan civilians who suffer longer under their terrorist leaders and the continuous warfare that they breed. There is a moral cost to not acting decisively, and a strategic cost to forgetting the moral justification for killing in war.

Read it all.

The West Has Forgotten Why Collateral Damage Is Morally Justified https://t.co/wfD6JfYre8

— Public Discourse (@PublicDiscourse) March 15, 2024

Even though Gulf states are not siding with Israel against Iran, they are not lining up against Israel either. The UAE has maintained its diplomatic and commercial ties with Israel, to the point of keeping regular flights to Tel Aviv from Dubai and Abu Dhabi—even in the early days of the war, when the planes were nearly empty. (“Business as usual,” one Israeli businessman put it to me in January.) When I spoke off the record with an Emirati official, his talking points could have come from a hawkish Israeli. Bahrain has seen anti-Israeli protests, and its toothless parliament passed a symbolic resolution about severing ties with Israel, but its regime has ignored all that. The Saudis are still in a hurry to do their own normalization deal with Israel before the November election. The Palestinian cause is back on the agenda, at a cost of tens of thousands of dead, but it hardly seems to have advanced.

The region finds itself in an interregnum. Forget talk of unipolarity or multipolarity: the Middle East is nonpolar. No one is in charge. The United States is an uninterested, ineffective hegemon, and its great-power rivals even more so. Fragile Gulf states cannot fill the void; Israel cannot, either; and Iran can only play spoiler and troublemaker. Everyone else is a spectator beset by economic problems and crises of legitimacy. That was the reality even before October 7. The war has merely swept away illusions.

Read it all.

“Even when the United States is a more active power in the Middle East, it is a feckless one, playing whack-a-mole with Iranian proxies and pleading with a recalcitrant Israeli government,” writes @glcarlstrom. https://t.co/g9NFD6WOBs

— Foreign Affairs (@ForeignAffairs) March 6, 2024

Israel’s conflict with Hamas is set to be a long one—with both sides struggling to accomplish their fundamental aims and no clear path to any kind of enduring peace.

Israel has sworn to destroy Hamas as a significant military and political force. Hamas is committed to the long-term goal of erasing the Israeli state.

Read it all.

Israel’s conflict with Hamas is set to be a long one—with both sides struggling to accomplish their fundamental aims and no clear path to any kind of enduring peace https://t.co/M1gfz7mFDw https://t.co/M1gfz7mFDw

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) January 26, 2024

The reason the Hamas-Israel war can be hard for outsiders to understand is that three wars are going on at the same time: a war between Israeli Jews and the Palestinians exacerbated by a terrorist group, a war within Israeli and Palestinian societies over the future, and a war between Iran and its proxies and America and its allies.

But before we dig into those wars, here’s the most important thing to keep in mind about them: There’s a single formula that can maximize the chances that the forces of decency can prevail in all three. It is the formula that I think President Biden is pushing, even if he can’t spell it all out publicly now — and we should all push it with him: You should want Hamas defeated; as many Gazan civilians as possible spared; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his extremist allies booted; all the hostages returned; Iran deterred; and the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank reinvigorated in partnership with moderate Arab states.

Pay particular attention to that last point: a revamped Palestinian Authority is the keystone for the forces of moderation, coexistence and decency triumphing in all three wars.

Read it all.

“The reason the Hamas-Israel war can be hard for outsiders to understand is that three wars are going on at the same time,” writes @tomfriedman.

Read: https://t.co/kM3pqjs4Ma

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) November 29, 2023

The first clues came from the bodies of slain militants: maps, drawings, notes, and the weapons and gear they carried.

In Beeri, a kibbutz town overrun by Hamas on Oct. 7, one dead fighter had a notebook with hand-scrawled Quranic verses and orders that read, simply, “Kill as many people and take as many hostages as possible.” Others were equipped with gas canisters, handcuffs and thermobaric grenades designed to instantly turn houses into infernos.

Each was like a piece from a grisly puzzle, a snippet of fine detail from an operation that called for hundreds of discrete crimes in specific locations. Five weeks later, the reassembled fragments are beginning to reveal the contours of Hamas’s broader plan, one that analysts say was intended not just to kill and capture Israelis, but to spark a conflagration that would sweep the region and lead to a wider conflict.

The evidence, described by more than a dozen current and former intelligence and security officials from four Western and Middle Eastern countries, reveals an intention by Hamas planners to strike a blow of historic proportions, in the expectation that the group’s actions would compel an overwhelming Israeli response.

Read it all.

Breaking news: New evidence reveals that Hamas planners intended to strike a blow of historic proportions on Oct. 7 with the expectation that their actions would compel an overwhelming Israeli response. https://t.co/B3Ss0Q3LLq

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 12, 2023

Around the world the cry is going up for a ceasefire or for Israel to abandon its ground invasion. Hearing some Israeli politicians call for vengeance, including the discredited prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, many people conclude that Israel’s actions are disproportionate and immoral. Many of those arguing this believe in the need for a Jewish state, but fear for a Jewish state that seems to value Palestinian lives so cheaply. They worry that the slender hopes for peace in this age-old conflict will be buried under Gaza’s rubble.

Those are powerful arguments, but they lead to the wrong conclusion. Israel is inflicting terrible civilian casualties. It must minimise them and be seen to do so. Palestinians are lacking essential humanitarian supplies. Israel must let a lot more aid pass into Gaza. However, even if Israel chooses to honour these responsibilities, the only path to peace lies in dramatically reducing Hamas’s capacity to use Gaza as a source of supplies and a base for its army. Tragically, that requires war.

To grasp why, you have to understand what happened on October 7th. When Israelis talk about Hamas’s attack as an existential threat they mean it literally, not as a figure of speech. Because of pogroms and the Holocaust, Israel has a unique social contract: to create a land where Jews know they will not be killed or persecuted for being Jews. The state has long honoured that promise with a strategic doctrine that calls for deterrence, early warnings of an attack, protection on the home front and decisive Israeli victories.

Read it all.

The bombardment of Gaza is inflicting a terrible toll. But unless Hamas’s power is broken, peace will remain out of reach.

This is why Israel must fight on: https://t.co/plnjRqZ7oh👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) November 2, 2023

Now, with antisemitism in America, historically, we’ve had several peaks. There was one in the 1890s and another in the 1930s and 1940s, but these were some of the worst times in American history. During the Great Depression, unemployment reached 25 percent. People lost faith in the American way and as they did, they lost faith in this idea that people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds could work constructively together to make it better for everyone. When we lose that, two things happen. America doesn’t work as well, and antisemitism rises. You can look at those tiki torch boys in Charlottesville back in 2017, or the people marching on campuses today and talking about death to the Jews. They share three beliefs in common: one, they make an idol of ethnic identity. For the white nationalists, if you’re not in the white pure group, you’re only a destructive influence in America, and as for the far left, if you’re white, you’re not right. Two, neither the far left or the far right believe in the promise of the American Dream—that if we follow the American Dream, it gets better for everybody. Thirdly, the far right and the far left both hate Jews. For the white nationalists, the Jews are part of the Great Replacement. For the far left, the Jews are white. They’re uber-white, even. These two groups share these three things in common, and they’re all destructive to what has historically made America work. Our enemies overseas are glad to see the far right and/or the far left rise up. It warms their cold hearts to see us ripping and tearing at each other and denying the truths that over the centuries have made us the most successful large human society in history.

BW: So what you’re saying is that when you see the swastika daubed on a school or when you hear about death threats to Jewish students at Cornell, don’t think about those things as a Jewish issue? Think about those attacks as an American issue, because societies where antisemitism is unleashed are societies that are dead?

WRM: That’s right. Antisemitism is both a sort of mental impairment and a barrier to learning. If you think that “the Jews” control the banks, you don’t understand finance, and will never understand it because you have this happy conspiracy theory and you think you already know everything. If you think “the Jews” control the weather with their space lasers, you’re not going to bother to study meteorological science. A society in which this kind of antisemitism is prevalent is not going to be a sign of a society on the cutting edge of science or business or economics or anything else. In our society, these beliefs are toxic. They’re terrible for Jews, but they are actually poison to what makes America, America.

Read it all.

Are we tipping into a new world war? @wrmead reads the geopolitical tea leaves on @thehonestlypod.

Plus: @opinion_joe on Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial and @EliLake on the legacy of Frantz Fanon.

Read today’s digest by @ollywiseman: https://t.co/OOryvUvMjC

— The Free Press (@TheFP) November 1, 2023

As Bishops of the Church of England we condemn the terrorist actions of Hamas on 7th October. Hamas has killed civilians without mercy, defiled their bodies, treated the most vulnerable brutally and taken hostages. Its continued indiscriminate rocket attacks against Israeli targets puts civilian structures and individuals at risk. All this is built on its denial of the right of Israel to exist. Hamas has oppressed the people it was originally elected to serve and has put them in harm’s way by using them as human shields. Its actions are a violation of international law.

We must also reflect on the actions that Israel has taken in response. We affirm absolutely Israel’s right to self-defence. We wholly support the duty of the Government of Israel to protect its citizens. We echo the concerns raised by President Biden about understandable anger and deep trauma not determining strategy and actions. Israel’s right to self-defence needs to be exercised in adherence to the key principles of international humanitarian law.

The huge number of civilians killed in three weeks of bombardment, principally in Gaza City, and the immense suffering of a people herded south with no escape, are a humanitarian catastrophe. Even defined evacuation routes have been hit. Places of sanctuary and gathering have been bombed. Aid workers have been killed and wounded in large numbers. Critical services like healthcare, water, and electricity have been cut, while the military siege of Gaza has meant that no adequate humanitarian response has been possible.

Also gravely concerning are the reports of rising numbers of Palestinians killed in the West Bank by inhabitants of settlements which are illegal under international law. In mixed communities in Israel, where people have generally lived peacefully side by side, Israeli Arabs now find themselves subject to abuse, harassment and discrimination.

Read it all.

https://t.co/3QWpjPCAcJ

— Revd Dr Brenda Wallace (@BrendaW36187388) October 31, 2023

Violent conflict is increasing in multiple parts of the world. In addition to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, and the Israeli offensive on Gaza, raising the specter of a wider war in the Middle East, there has been a surge in violence across Syria, including a wave of armed drone attacks that threatened U.S. troops stationed there. In the Caucasus in late September, Azerbaijan seized the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh—forcing an estimated 150,000 ethnic Armenians to flee their historical home in the territory and setting the stage for renewed fighting with Armenia. Meanwhile, in Africa, the civil war in Sudan rages on, conflict has returned to Ethiopia, and a military takeover of Niger in July was the sixth coup across the Sahel and West Africa since 2020.

In fact, according to an analysis of data gathered by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, conducted by the Peace Research Institute Oslo, the number, intensity, and length of conflicts worldwide is at its highest level since before the end of the Cold War. The study found that there were 55 active conflicts in 2022, with the average one lasting about eight to 11 years, a substantial increase from the 33 active conflicts lasting an average of seven years a decade earlier.

Notwithstanding the increase in conflicts, it has been more than a decade since an internationally mediated comprehensive peace deal has been brokered to end a war. UN-led or UN-assisted political processes in Libya, Sudan, and Yemen have stalled or collapsed. Seemingly frozen conflicts—in countries including Ethiopia, Israel, and Myanmar—are thawing at an alarming pace. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, high-intensity conflict has even returned to Europe, which had previously enjoyed several decades of relative peace and stability. Alongside the proliferation of war has come record levels of human upheaval. In 2022, a quarter of the world’s population—two billion people—lived in conflict-affected areas. The number of people forcibly displaced worldwide reached a record 108 million by the start of 2023.

Read it all.

A World at War: What Is Behind the Global Explosion of Violent Conflict? https://t.co/2ZXtqyHqSn via @ForeignAffairs

— Nino Brodin (@Orgetorix) October 30, 2023

Story number three. It is February 2023. The setting for this final act of witness is my first-ever trip to Israel under the auspices of The Philos Project.

In the Book of Matthew, Jesus asks, rhetorically, “What did you go out into the desert to see?” It’s a question that travelers to the Holy Land of any faith can only answer for themselves. But one sight that did not exist until the second half of the twentieth century should not be missed by anyone. That is Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum.

Obviously, Israel is about much more than the Holocaust. To focus on Yad Vashem is not to detract from any of the country’s enormous historical, social, spiritual, cultural, or other riches. But for anyone who has been to Israel, and even more, for those who have not, to scant Yad Vashem in discussing anti-Semitism would be inexplicable. Let me cite the observation of the late British novelist Martin Amis. Amis, who was not Jewish, was once asked why his mind and work returned so often to the Holocaust. He replied by citing a German novelist, who said, because “no serious person ever thinks about anything else.”

Read it all.

"To love life as Catholics do is to love the Jews from whose roots we grew."

— @EberstadtMary, one of our speakers at @FranciscanU last week, writes on the importance of Catholic-Jewish relations in light of rising antisemitism.

Read in @firstthingsmag:https://t.co/C22ueD4Jez

— The Philos Project (@philosproject) October 28, 2023

“KIDNAPPED,” the posters say, in big block letters above pictures of people taken hostage by Hamas terrorists during the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, urgent reminders of the men, women and children still being held hostage in Gaza.

But on college campuses and in cities around the world in recent weeks, people have been caught tearing them down.

“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” a man says in a video posted on social media as he watches two young people at the University of Southern California shove wadded-up posters into the trash.

“They’re making the conflict worse,” one of the young people replies, adding, “I’m not a fan of Hamas.”

Read it all.

"Those who object to the posters have derided them as wartime propaganda. Critics of those tearing them down have characterized the act as antisemitic and lacking basic humanity." by @katierosman https://t.co/ygoLwNCjXd

— Sapna Maheshwari (@sapna) October 31, 2023

As the young couple prepare for a night out, the doorbell rings. Outside stands Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, universally known as Bibi. “You ordered a babysitter?” asks the smiling premier. “You’re getting a Bibi-sitter.”

The 2015 campaign ad concludes with Netanyahu addressing the camera: “This election, you decide who can best take care of our children.”

Eight years on, the spot that helped propel Netanyahu to another term in office is being revived on social media, interspersed with chilling footage of the killing of Israeli children by Hamas operatives on Oct. 7.

It’s become part of an intensifying campaign to hold him accountable and force him from office — an effort that now includes not only the political opposition but many former associates as well as some former heads of Israel’s security agencies and military intelligence

Read it all.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces an intensifying campaign to force him from office — with even some former allies turning on him https://t.co/l7d6JxpZE4

— Bloomberg (@business) October 30, 2023

Until nearly the start of the attack, nobody believed the situation was serious enough to wake up Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to three Israeli defense officials.

Within hours, the Tequila troops were embroiled in a battle with thousands of Hamas gunmen who penetrated Israel’s vaunted border fence, sped in trucks and on motorbikes into southern Israel and attacked villages and military bases.

The most powerful military force in the Middle East had not only completely underestimated the magnitude of the attack, it had totally failed in its intelligence-gathering efforts, mostly due to hubris and the mistaken assumption that Hamas was a threat contained.

Despite Israel’s sophisticated technological prowess in espionage, Hamas gunmen had undergone extensive training for the assault, virtually undetected for at least a year. The fighters, who were divided into different units with specific goals, had meticulous information on Israel’s military bases and the layout of kibbutzim.

The country’s once invincible sense of security was shattered.

Read it all.

How Years of Israeli Failures on Hamas Led to a Devastating Attack. And a Prime Minister who refuses to accept elementary responsibility. A tour de force of reporting @nytimesworld : https://t.co/FYWsfn18EU

— Michael Powell (@powellAtlantic) October 30, 2023

To paraphrase an observation attributed to Leon Trotsky, you may not be interested in the Middle East but the Middle East is interested in you. After a decade of tapering down its military presence in the region, America is back with a huge display of force. In the past few days two fighter squadrons have flown in. They follow the deployment of two aircraft-carrier strike groups, multiple air-defence systems and much aid to Israel. More units have been told to prepare to deploy.

America’s goal is to deter attacks on American interests, on Israel and to a degree on its Arab allies. But what if deterrence fails? The daunting possibilities range from attacks against American soldiers to strikes on shipping in the Persian Gulf and rocket attacks that overwhelm Israel’s air defences. Under what circumstances would America’s forces then be used? And could it be dragged into a deeper Middle East war of the kind its leaders hoped would never happen again after the hell of the forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Those questions are both uncomfortable and all too real. Attacks on American interests have been proliferating even as Israel’s invasion of Gaza has been delayed. Between October 17th and 24th there were 13 strikes on American and coalition forces in Iraq and Syria by drones and rockets, the Pentagon says. They came from “Iranian proxy forces and ultimately from Iran”. Such activity has been fairly common in recent years. But these strikes are significant because they break an informal truce that had held in recent months.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

After a decade of tapering down its military presence in the Middle East, America is back with a huge display of force.

Could the superpower be dragged back into another war in the region? Read more https://t.co/n8PjAIo4As 👇

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) October 26, 2023

In his address to the conference, the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke about his own personal struggle with depression. He noted that the all-island Mind Matters research in Ireland had shown that 46 per cent of the 290 clergy surveyed felt not enough was being done to support their mental health.

He highlighted how the poverty, war and instability faced by people in the Global South contributes significantly to poor mental health while in the Global North “there is powerlessness, there is helplessness” in the face of the constant news about conflict in places like Ukraine and the Middle East and this contributed to poor mental health.

“We are better off than we have ever been in the past, yet there is a much higher level of mental illness in the economically prosperous world than elsewhere particularly among young people.”

Read it all.

Archbishop warns of mental health consequences of #conflict. @JustinWelby was speaking from #Jerusalem to the #MindMatters Conference on #mentalhealth and well-being in #Dublin @UnitedDioceses @churchofireland #alahlihospitalgaza https://t.co/BP5IjJWUX8

— Sarah R Mac Donald (@SarahRMacDonald) October 24, 2023

Since the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas, Germany has seen a large uptick in the number of recorded antisemitism incidents, including the attempted firebombing of a Berlin synagogue and an anti-Israel riot in the German capital that led to 20 police being injured.

The Federal Association of Research and Information Centres on Anti-Semitism (Rias), has recorded 202 antisemitic incidents since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began on October 7th. The newspaper Die Welt reported that the figure is a 240% increase compared to the same period last year.

The vast majority of the incidents are anti-Israel in nature—nine in ten of those reported. Rias claimed that Israel is largely being blamed for the massacres carried out by Hamas.

In fifteen cases, residences of Jews were marked with a Star of David, evoking scenes from the 1930s when the German Nazi party’s Stormtroopers, the Sturmabteilung, painted Stars of David on businesses that were later targeted for attacks and boycotts.

Read it all.

🔴German Jews: ‘Berlin Synagogues Are Burning Again’

Over 200 #antisemitic incidents recorded since October 7th. #Germany https://t.co/40fMjt1eTt

— The European Conservative (@EuroConOfficial) October 19, 2023

Iran-backed militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah are closely coordinating their next steps in fighting against Israel, a senior Hamas representative in Lebanon told POLITICO on Tuesday, just hours after Tehran warned of “preemptive action” against Israel.

Ahmed Abdul-Hadi, the head of Hamas’ political bureau in Beirut, insisted Gaza-based Hamas had not given its ally Hezbollah any advance notice of its attacks against Israel on October 7, which killed more than 1,400 people. Despite this, however, he described a continual cooperation between the two groups, stressing Hezbollah was now “geared for a major war” against Israel in the north, while Hamas would burst Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “dream” of driving it out of Gaza.

The remarks will heighten fears the conflict in the Middle East could be about to spill onto two fronts and engulf Lebanon, particularly if Israel launches a ground invasion of Gaza, where its bombardments have already killed more than 2,700 people, and Tehran commits its fellow-Shiite Hezbollah proxies into all-out war.

Read it all.

Hamas says it's closely coordinating the war's next moves with Hezbollah in Lebanon.https://t.co/qM5SIPK0zG

— POLITICOEurope (@POLITICOEurope) October 18, 2023

It is hard in the wake of the October 7 massacre to calmly contemplate Palestinian strategy and thinking. There is no Israeli unaffected, no one without family and friends reeling from the Hamas onslaught, no one, including this writer, not overcome with anxiety for relatives or neighbors now called up to the war.

And yet it is necessary. It is necessary to understand the enemy, the chain of rationalization and habits of mind that produced it and shaped its strategy of brutality.

That enemy is not the Palestinian people, of course, even though support for terror attacks is widespread among Palestinians. The enemy is not exactly Hamas either, though Hamas is part of it. The enemy is the Palestinian theory of Israelis that makes the violence seen on October 7 seem to many of them a rational step on the road to liberation rather than, as Israelis judge it, yet another in a long string of self-inflicted disasters for the Palestinian cause.

The October 7 massacre wasn’t an outlier in Hamas’s long history of brutality; it was its apotheosis. It was what Hamas would do if it could. On that dark Saturday it suddenly found that it could, and so it did. (emphasis mine)

Read it all.

This is an absolute must read if you want to understand the depth of the Palestinian Israeli conflict https://t.co/fEXj3oHdlo

— Dan Rosenblum (@sharkbiotech) October 16, 2023

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

To discern the second and third- order effects of this crisis, half a century later, is not easy. One way to grasp their potential magnitude is to ask whether the former US defence secretary, Robert Gates, writing in Foreign Affairs before the onslaught on Israel, is right that: “The United States now confronts graver threats to its security than it has in decades, perhaps ever. Never before has it faced four allied antagonists at the same time — Russia, China, North Korea and Iran — whose collective nuclear arsenal could within a few years be nearly double the size of its own.”

The problem, Gates argued, is that at the very moment events demand a strong and coherent response from America, “the country cannot provide one”.

I have argued for five years that the United States and its allies already find themselves in a new cold war, this time with the People’s Republic of China. I have argued for a year and a half that the war in Ukraine is roughly equivalent to the Korean War during the first Cold War, revealing an ideological as well as geopolitical division between the countries of the “Rimland” (the Anglosphere, western Europe and Japan) and those of the Eurasian “Heartland” (China, Russia and Iran plus North Korea).

And I have warned since January that a war in the Middle East might be the next crisis in a cascade of conflict that has the potential to escalate to a Third World War, especially if China seizes the moment — perhaps as early as next year — to impose a blockade on Taiwan. Now that the Middle Eastern war has indeed broken out, what course will history take?

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This feels right on the money. What’s happening now is awful… but I’m really genuinely concerned about what’s coming.

Will there be a World War Three? Israel-Hamas war risks escalationhttps://t.co/LQzMvmC7DL

— Richard Suchet (@RichSuchet) October 15, 2023