|
Good afternoon. I know it’s not just me: This Monday is Mondaying a little harder than usual.
|
|
|
|
Photo: Fatima Shbair / AP
|
|
1. How could Ramadan affect the Israel-Hamas war?
On Sunday night, on the eve of Ramadan, Israeli police blocked hundreds of Palestinians from worshiping at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem, beating some back with batons, according to the Times of Israel.
The mosque is considered one of Islam’s holiest sites, and the violence contradicts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise that people would be able to pray there as usual as Ramadan was approaching.
U.S. officials had said they were hopeful that a cease-fire would arrive by Ramadan. The goal was for the holy month to be a period of “calm” that would allow humanitarian workers to safely access the Gaza Strip, which has been ravaged by Israeli bombings.
The holy month has often correlated with heightened tensions and violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories — and other parts of the world suffering from conflict.
In the past, Israel has restricted how many Palestinians can visit Al-Aqsa during Ramadan and has conducted police raids on the site. Israeli police raids and settler provocation at Al-Aqsa were one reason Hamas listed when explaining its motivations for the group’s Oct. 7 attack in which about 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 200 hostages taken.
Read Blue Marble’s full story on Ramadan coinciding with conflicts.
|
|
2. What is Biden’s ‘red line’ with Netanyahu?
Following last week’s State of the Union, President Joe Biden said in an interview with MSNBC that, if Netanyahu goes through with invading Rafah, it would be a “red line.”
Netanyahu said he still plans to invade the city in the south of the Gaza Strip, which the United Nations said will have “dire humanitarian consequences” for the over 1 million displaced Palestinians currently sheltered there.
According to the Yale Journal of International Affairs, red lines are when a country (or group of countries) tells another country that, if it takes a specific action, punishment may be imposed.
For example, in 2013, then-President Barack Obama said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad using chemical gas as a weapon in the country’s civil war was a red line. However, when Assad crossed that line, the U.S. did not use military intervention.
The term seems to have come from the phrase “line drawn in the sand,” Ben Yagoda, an English and journalism professor at the University of Delaware, told National Geographic. It’s unclear how color got involved, but it may have come from an 1854 Crimean War battle where a reporter described a line of soldiers as “a thin red streak tipped with a line of steel.”
Reporting by Hope O’Dell.
|
|
3. Blinken in Jamaica to attend urgent Haiti talks
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to attend an emergency meeting in Jamaica on Monday to discuss efforts to restore order in Haiti. The Caribbean country has seen over a week of intense civil unrest due to ongoing gang violence.
Representatives from France, Canada, the U.N., and Brazil are also expected to attend.
Last week Blinken urged Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry to “expedite a political transition” that would lead to free and fair presidential elections. Henry, who was appointed prime minister after the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, has said he won’t hold elections until order is restored.
Henry has been stranded in Puerto Rico since trying to return to Haiti last week. He had been in Kenya securing military assistance to quell the gang uprising in his country.
The U.S. military announced Sunday that it had air-lifted nonessential embassy employees out of the capital city of Port-au-Prince. Germany and the EU also evacuated their ambassadors and other diplomatic staff out of the country on Sunday.
|
|
In other news
- Pedro Nuno Santos, Portugal’s Socialist Party leader, conceded Sunday night in the nation’s snap presidential elections, signaling Portugal’s drift to the right. [The New York Times]
- Weeks before India’s own national election, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government announced on Monday it’s implementing a 2019 law that bestows citizenship to non-Muslim refugees from neighboring majority-Muslim countries, which critics say is discriminatory against Muslims. Many fear the law is a harbinger of a national register that could leave millions of Indian Muslims stateless, as many poor Indians don’t have documentation proving their nationality. [Reuters]
- Here at home, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has declared he will “not give a penny in the Ukraine-Russia war,” according to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Trump met last week with Orban, who’s maintained ties with Vladimir Putin since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. [BBC]
- Since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel, daters in Israel and Lebanon have been popping up in each others’ dating app feeds, though that’s not usually the case. It’s speculated that the Israeli military’s GPS jamming is throwing off the apps’ location features. [The National]
- A très élégant solution: France will give government workers bonuses and other incentives in an attempt to avert a strike during the Olympics. [The Washington Post]
|
|
|
Say that again
“Like many amateur photographers, I do occasionally experiment with editing.” That is, of course, the Princess of Wales herself, Kate Middleton, explaining the manipulated photograph she posted of herself with her kids in celebration of Mother’s Day in the U.K.
Middleton hasn’t made any public appearances since an abdominal surgery a couple months ago, and the photograph appeared to be an attempt to quell speculation over her health — though it’s had the opposite effect. (She was later seen being driven out of Windsor Palace.) [NPR]
|
|
|
‘We printed [the school] in 40 hours’
Much of Ukraine’s buildings have been lost to the war. Could 3D printing be a solution?
|
|
|
|
What we’re listening to
Among the winners of Sunday night’s Oscars was “The Zone of Interest,” the first film from the U.K. to win best international feature. (While the Holocaust film was set in Poland, the U.K. gets credit because most of the creative control was in the hands of people who live or are from there.)
One of my favorite things about the film was English musician Mica Levi’s disquieting score — their second with director Jonathan Glazer. Before Levi turned to scores, they released experimental pop under the name Micachu. Today I’m revisiting “Calculator” — off of Micachu and the Shapes’ 2009 debut album, “Jewellry” — an energetic oddity that hints at Levi’s discordant, experimental work to come.
—Laura Adamczyk, staff writer
Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.
|
|
Was this newsletter forwarded to you?
Sign up here to receive The Overview for free.
|
|
|
|
|
