When Israel planned the blockade of Gaza after Hamas won elections and took charge of it in January 2007, an adviser to the then Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak put into words what few have dared to say since. Dov Weisglass said: “The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not to…
The Iranian rial: crash. The Turkish lira: crash. The Argentine peso: crash. The Brazilian real: crash. There are multiple, complex, parallel vectors at play in this wilderness of crashing currencies. Turkey’s case is heavily influenced by the bubble of easy credit created by European banks. Argentina’s problem is mostly to do with the neoliberal austerity…
With regard to American foreign and security policy, President Donald Trump presents a paradox. Aside from some harsh bluster (“fire and fury” directed towards Pyongyang in the lead-up to an unprecedented US-North Korea summit), Trump generally seems to want more peaceful ties with the rest of the world and an end to wasteful and dangerous…
The United States and Turkey, as of the second week of August 2018, are ready to break off diplomatic relations as a result of broad US sanctions on Turkey. However, not only is Turkey a full NATO member, an organization whose charter legally prohibits President Trump’s actions under its “mutual assistance” tenets, but Turkey also…
The United States on Friday cut funding to the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees, saying its business model and fiscal practices were an “irredeemably flawed operation”. “The administration has carefully reviewed the issue and determined that the United States will not make additional contributions to UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency),” State Department…
Donald Trump is on a mission. His goal? Destroy the post-WWII institutional order that has outlived its usefulness. And there have been a number of major moves that fundamentally tear at the fabric of that order. In a span of a day we’ve had the following things occur in quick succession. French President Emmanuel Macron…
