Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Sign up here. June 6, 2024 | |
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Will Israel Fight a Second War? |
"As the United States is ratcheting up its efforts to reach" hostage-prisoner release and ceasefire deals "between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, tensions are escalating on Israel's northern border," writes Amos Harel, a defense analyst and columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz. "The exchange of blows between Israel and Hezbollah has increased in intensity (and most notably, the public awareness of the severity of the situation). Israel is now threatening an extensive attack on Lebanon if Hezbollah doesn't stop its attacks."
Indeed, long-simmering tensions appear to be nearing the brink. Since Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks and Israel's immediate military response in Gaza, the Iran-backed Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah, with which Israel fought a devastating war in 2006, has launched cross-border attacks, signaling support for Gazans and for its Islamist brothers-in-arms Hamas. Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the border, destabilizing both sides of it. Israelis evacuated the area months ago, as Melanie Lidman of the Associated Press chronicled in March. Residents of southern Lebanon have suffered under Israeli reprisal strikes, and at times pressure has mounted on Hezbollah to engage more heavily, as Rania Abouzeid wrote for The New Yorker in November.
Things have escalated sharply in recent days, as CNN's Mike Schartz and Nadeen Ebrahim write: "Cross-border attacks from Lebanon led to large fires blazing through Israel's northern region this week, consuming swathes of land and leading to the evacuation of residents. Israel attributed the blaze to rocket fire from southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah said it had launched a 'swarm of drones' at Israeli military sites. On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the northern city of Kiryat Shmona near the Lebanese border, saying that Israel is prepared for 'very intense action' in the north." Writing that "Israel and Hezbollah are moving closer to a full-scale war," The Wall Street Journal's Dov Lieber, Adam Chamseddine and Carrie Keller-Lynn report that "Hezbollah has increased its drone and rocket attacks, hitting important Israeli military installations. Israel, too, has stepped up attacks, targeting Hezbollah sites deep into southern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley as well as senior military officials in the group." Covering the basics in an explainer, Reuters asks how much worse things could get, answering: "A lot. Despite the ferocity of these hostilities, this is still seen as a relatively contained confrontation." The 2006 war inflicted massive damage in southern Lebanon. The Economist weighs the danger, writing: "Still, none of this means that all-out war is inevitable. Israel is war-weary and the fighting in Gaza persists. … An offensive in Lebanon would drive Hizbullah to fire [medium-range missiles in its large arsenal] at central Israel; enough would probably get through to cause serious damage and a heavy psychological blow. … As for Lebanon, it cannot afford a war … But it will be impossible for Hizbullah to accept a ceasefire until the Gaza war ends." Both sides want to avoid a full-scale conflict, the magazine writes, "but that is getting ever harder to do." |
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The Economy and the Vote: Inequality Matters |
What will the US economy mean for the November election? Despite rebounded growth and strong employment, President Joe Biden's approval ratings remain low. Fareed has argued that's because of a broad-based political shift, as cultural identities and social issues—like immigration and abortion—appear to have superseded the economy in driving views and votes. As the Global Briefing has noted before, some argue Biden isn't benefitting from a strong economy because high prices (a feature of the Biden presidency, even as the rate of inflation has abated) are particularly salient for voters, or that economic news coverage has gotten more negative in recent decades, or that US poll respondents are reacting more strongly to that news nowadays.
In a Financial Times column, Ruchir Sharma offers another answer, writing that "this story goes beyond Biden and the US," as "public gloom about the economy has long been building across developed nations. For decades, economic growth has been slowing with rising inequality, and now leader approval ratings in many western countries are at record lows. During his presidency, Donald Trump's approval ratings were also dismal despite a record low 'misery index,'" a composite measure of economic well-being. In Sharma's view, inequality is key. He notes that "public frustration seems to build on a sense that the system is 'rigged' against the average person." The economy may have rebounded under Biden overall, but "[t]here is a deep sense that America is increasingly dominated by a wealthy elite." Sharma will join Fareed on Sunday's GPS to discuss his new book, "What Went Wrong With Capitalism." |
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While some have examined the disconnect between economic growth and Biden's popularity, in recent years others have asked a much broader question: Is economic growth a good thing, in itself? In a London Review of Books essay in 2022 entitled "Reversing the Freight Train," Geoff Mann appraised four books questioning the idea that humans need to keep expanding the world economy, the most prominent reason being the climate crisis and economic activity's damage to the environment. In the science magazine Nature, Rutger Hoekstra continues the discussion, reviewing economist Daniel Susskind's "Growth: A Reckoning," published in April.
Hoekstra writes: "Susskind begins by pointing out how economic growth is a recent phenomenon. For around 300,000 years, while societies were mainly agricultural or capable only of subsistence, overall long-term prosperity remained more or less stagnant. Then, around the start of the nineteenth century, something unprecedented happened: the global economy began a 200-year growth spurt. Why? Economists have no definitive answer, Susskind rightly concludes. He provides an insightful overview of hypotheses, based on factors including capital investment, technological progress, skilled and educated workers, and cultural and institutional conditions."
In his book, Susskind argues economic growth can continue in cleaner fashion without endangering the planet. But Hoekstra finds that optimism "unfounded," Susskind's willingness to sacrifice some growth for other societal benefits insufficiently detailed, and the broad argument undermined by Susskind's recognition that ecological "planetary boundaries" are being crossed. |
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