#russia scolds israel | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

countriesgame · 9 months

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I have to say. I don't mean to be rude, but I feel like some of these polls need some research from your part. Obviously, the fun of the game is having people submit what they associate with any given country, but a lot of the stuff people have been submitting is... a tad off.

I don't expect the average Tumblr user to know the intricacies of, say, Bulgaria or Kyrgyzstan, but I feel that's where a bit of better research from your part would go a long way. Like I know it's frustrating that there's not a lot of prompt submissions, but that's where you'd fill in, instead of doing stuff like associating entire countries with stuff like Harry Potter.

I also don't really understand what counts and doesn't count as a morbid topic, either? Some countries' polls were cool in that you deliberately avoided having terrorism and war be one of the possible prompts (I was the anon that thanked you for not including a cartel option for Mexico, once again many thanks for that), but then other countries are seemingly unable to shake that off, like Kuwait for example. It's also bizarre that you exclude Israel on account of current affairs but had no problem adding in Russia, despite the fact the Russo-Ukranian War is still ongoing and it has been confirmed they've enacted genocides in certain Ukranian cities.

It's also a little weird that the US poll was so negative when the other two comparable powers, Russia and China, got more positive choices. I get that English-speaking Tumblr is mostly American, but I'm going to be entirely real with you guys, as someone who isn't, the mindset of portraying yourselves as the world's devil is a facet of American exceptionalism. It doesn't magically stop applying to your ideology just because you think of yourselves as Satan as opposed to God. You should either commit to portraying imperialist countries negatively or treat yourselves like any other.

Sorry for the long post and for the scolding at the end, I just want to see this fun blog bloom into the best possible version of what it can be.

Believe it or not, I do actually do research, but you do understand that "doing research" for a blog, that is pretty much not important, is just... googling stuff. Yes, I could have added other stuff that wasn't HP related in the Bulgaria one, I chose it because I didn't see it as offensive per se, not like horrible associations people had for other countries, and it was the most mentioned thing by far.

Doing these polls take a lot of time. If I were to do more research, I would have to slow down the polls... a lot. And I think it's naive to think I could possibly do a good research for every single country. A lot of history is very intricate and deep and it would take me a lot of time to study... and then what? To determine myself what is important and what is not? As a foreign reading stuff in a language that is not even their own - because i can only read in three languages. I started doing this because I accepted that it was going to be imperfect. I do not have the time or the energy to do justice for every country, which was why from the very beginning I made it clear that it would be based on people's association and I would only censor what I thought was very bad. And guess what, I'm actually doing more than that. Many countries didn't have enough submissions to say 11 different things and I had to google, and choose - from what I personally think it looks more important from random websites like the country's wikipedia page or tourism information to what to visit in this country.

I do think the Israel situation is different then China and Russia, which is why I included it. It's not a "israel is evil, other countries are good" thing. I do not believe in "evil" powers. There are good people and good things everywhere, there are many horrible governments. I already explained part of my thought of not including it and I'm not going to go around discussing this again, because it was a decision I made, with what i was comfortable with. As I said, it was more of a solidarity gesture with Palestine than anything.

Lastly, please stop assuming I'm usamerican, I'm not and I've said it on this blog many times, so I don't enjoy your use of "you" to refer to me as I was was usamerican. I was not born in that country and have never lived there. When I started doing this, my point was that it would be nice to learn about other countries and share about their cultures. The US does not need this.

Other countries may be imperialists, yes, but in western culture the US dominates media in a way no other country does. I do not know if people in Asia, for exemple, feel the same way. I'm speaking for myself and, considering everyone who shares polls here is on tumblr, I'm going to assume everyone is used to a very US-centric view. This means we do NOT need to know about their culture, their cities, their monuments. God, we know about it already. So my choice to include negative options in the US was not "imperialism is bad", is the US doesn't need this.

I don't think, in a western view - that dominates tumblr - projecting Russia or China as "evil imperialists" is actually uh groudbreaking. That is literally what we hear the most. I did include things like imperialism in Russia, did not really include it in China because it was NOT as mentioned in the associations.

I'm sorry for this long ass answer, but doing this is very tiring. I am doing research and I am thinking of every single option and whether it is offensive or is it just a history fact, and is that a fun fact or is that even true, and hey that country doesn't have stuff let's see each of the single submitions stuff and see which one seems more famous or more adequate, and finding people who are from that country and talking to them and seeing if it is ok. And I do that because I care and I think learning about other cultures is very important and if at least one person is learning something about a different country is at least worth it. And maybe a lot of times that person is just going to be me doing the polls but that's okay too. And still every country I do there is someone in the tags angry at me because i either didn't include an specific thing or included something they didn't like it, even when it's knowingly what their country is most known for. If I try to care and worry about all of that, i am going to explode.

The very first week I started doing that, I was almost giving up because I felt it wasn't worth it. And my therapist said I should try to see it as an exercise to see people criticizing and being angry at me so I would get dessensitized in time (hey, can you guess that's a issue for me from this or what) and that would be good for me in other areas of my life. Clearly, I'm still not great at just listening and not being affected by that.

TL;DR: I am trying. I'm trying very fucking hard. But I am a human with a real life out of this, I don't have enough time. And I'm always trying to make decisions fast here so I won't just stop doing it. It's not always the best, but it's what I can do.

#i was going to reply in private #but you know what just going to post it so if other people feel the same #answers

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simply-ivanka · 6 months

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Trump Was Good for America’s Alliances

He pushed NATO to spend more on defense, expanded the Quad and facilitated the Abraham Accords.

By Alexander B. Gray Wall Street Journal April 3, 2024

Foreign-policy experts are predictably fretting over Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. They fear that the former president threatens the alliances and partnerships that have sustained global peace since 1945. Should Mr. Trump return to the White House, the thinking goes, he will be unconstrained by the guardrails that prevented him from torpedoing America’s alliances in his first term and will permanently damage both U.S. security and the international order.

This narrative concedes a point that undermines its premise: The U.S. alliance system didn’t crumble during Mr. Trump’s first term. On the contrary, the Trump administration strengthened relations with partners in the Indo-Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe and the Mideast. Anyone who believes that Mr. Trump was once bound by conventional wisdom but won’t be again—and will wreak havoc on the global order he ostensibly detests—hasn’t been paying attention.

To understand Mr. Trump’s record, recall what he inherited. The Obama administration’s disastrous “red line” in Syria, its ill-conceived Iranian nuclear deal, its failure to deter or respond adequately to Russia’s 2014 aggression against Ukraine, its toleration of Chinese malign activity in the South and East China seas, and its promise of a “new model of great-power relations” with Beijing had brought U.S. relations with allies and partners like Japan, Taiwan, Israel, the Gulf Arab states and much of Eastern Europe to a historic low point. Much of Mr. Trump’s tenure was spent not simply repairing those relationships but expanding them in innovative ways.

Mr. Trump appalled many foreign-policy veterans, who thought his rhetoric threatened the world order. In one sense, that fear was absurd: Nearly every American administration has publicly scolded North Atlantic Treaty Organization member countries for shirking their defense-spending commitments. Mr. Trump did likewise—and, perhaps unlike his predecessors, was seen as willing to take decisive action to secure change. Through public and private cajoling—also known as diplomacy—he secured a commitment from NATO members to beef up their contributions. From 2017 through 2021, nearly every signatory raised defense spending, contributing substantially to the alliance’s ability to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

These efforts resulted in a significant redistribution of U.S. forces from legacy bases in Germany to facilities in Poland and the Baltic states, where they are far better positioned to deter Moscow. Along with NATO allies, Mr. Trump provided long-sought Javelin antitank missiles to Ukraine, imposed sanctions against malign Russian actors, and worked with partners to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which would have increased European allies’ energy dependence on Russia. These weren’t the acts of a retrograde isolationist; they were the work of a pragmatist seeking novel solutions to 21st-century challenges.

The administration’s goal of strengthening America’s standing in the world bore fruit, including the Abraham Accords between Israel and several Arab states, a significant upgrade to the Quad alliance among the U.S., India, Australia and Japan, stronger diplomatic relations with Taiwan thanks to unprecedented cabinet-level visits and record arms sales, and an unexpected deal between Serbia and Kosovo.

At each step, Mr. Trump asked his staff to think of creative ways to resolve issues that had bedeviled their predecessors for decades. Doing the same things over and over and expecting different results rightly struck the president as insane.

After three years of press adulation over America’s supposed return to the world stage under President Biden, one might ask: What have Americans and the world gotten from a supposedly more alliance-friendly U.S. president? So far, a catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, the failure of American deterrence in Ukraine, an Iranian nuclear breakout inching ever closer, and an accelerating Chinese threat toward Taiwan. Allies in the Mideast, Eastern Europe, and Asia have begun to chart their own course in the face of an uncertain U.S. trumpet.

The global foreign-policy elite is sowing needless fear around the world by willfully misrepresenting Mr. Trump’s first term and scare-mongering about a second. Should Mr. Trump return to the White House, there will doubtless be sighs of relief among officials in friendly capitals who remember his time in office. It isn’t difficult to understand why: Mr. Trump’s language may make diplomats uncomfortable, but his actions strike fear among those who matter most to American security: our adversaries.

Mr. Gray is a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council. He served as chief of staff of the White House National Security Council, 2019-21.

#trump #president trump #trump 2024 #repost #america first

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artcalledky · 2 months

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Ssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh it’s scolding

Dumbfounded in dehydration! **Speak more j d Vance.***

It’s a Sunday in Julian date

Prunts

Prunt

It’s today!!!!!!!!!!

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unhonestlymirror · 11 months

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"The main question I have is why neighbouring countries don't want to help Palestine and accept their refugees. Why is it always Europe who has to do that, yet being constantly accused of Islamophobia? Saudi Arabia, e.g., is"...

...this is linked to russia and their alliances to various countries, too, probably.

Most likely. I just don't really get how can Palestines, living safely for a while close to their land (because it sucks living far from your land), be disadvantageous for russia?.. AH. OH. HOLD ON. Remember the illegal immigrants on the Belarus-Poland border problem? Latvia and Lithuania actually suffer from it, too. And it's being highly encouraged and financed by russia. Although, EVERYONE must have known for today that Poland is very strict in these terms (I'm not judging them). I didn't expect anything else from a country where almost every city has a Holocaust museum.

Unfortunately, Palestines are hostages of the situation even more than Belarus because Belarus at least has neighbours, which support her. They are hostages because they can't even raise their flag without being perceived as terrorism supporters... thanks to hamas and russia, which finances it (together with China and Iran)! The next problem is they don't have a flag which is not associated with hamas: which of course makes people hate them. Belarus doesn't really have this problem because its official flag is ⚪️🔴⚪️, which was replaced by dictator Lukashenko. russian opposition tried to solve it by ⚪️🔵⚪️, I can't call it a success because stealing the flag of Yotvingians is kinda questionable (lol), nevertheless, some russians fight for Ukraine and kill occupiers under this flag. I can not truly disrespect those who kill russian occupiers of my land.

It's important to notice that telling Jews and Israel citizens that "they have no right to hate Palestinian flag" is the same as telling Ukrainians that we have no right to hate any russian flag or any Belaruthian flag. If a Ukrainian hates it, it means they have reasons, for example, their loved ones were killed and raped, so you better shut the fuck up.

The most important problem of Palestine: they don't have a clear action plan. The "I'm asking you a REASONABLE question" video proves it. Ukraine has a veeery clear action plan. Belarus... 50/50. And no clear plan will help russia, because there are no people left there who are not zombies. What's interesting: Palestines don't have a clear action plan, nevertheless, they have such big rallies all over the world... Not even Ukraine had so much, therefore, someone is investing a lot of money in this. And it's not poor Palestine.

Unfortunately, the immigrants also play a huge role. You see, Muslims are very famous in Europe for thinking that everyone owes them, famous for not working and adding a balast on the economy. Thankfully, not everyone are like this, but unfortunately, A LOT of Muslim people behave completely disrespectful to countries that give them the roof over the head and the money. They also often demand that the government build mosques, which make people develop prejudice against Muslims, including Palestine. It is absolutely possible that this is, to some extent, exaggerated and financed by russia, but! It's also reality. I had an opportunity to travel by French, English and Spanish public transport (French is more polite, btw). You can scold Poland as much as you like for the "cruelty towards immigrants", but nevertheless, it has all the grounds for such behaviour, and unfortunately, it influences the Polish perception of other refugees like Ukrainians and Belaruthians too. To Ukrainians, and ESPECIALLY to Belaruthians, it's very important to not be perceived like that. (Sadly, not all of us care, as well.)

The saddest thing is that russia steals the grain from occupied Ukrainian lands -> russia sells it to countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia and receives money, and asks them in return for some "small services" like the Palestinian ban from the neighbouring countries -> for those money, russia finances terroristic organisations including hamas (which is imo not even Muslim organisation, they kill CATS, the sacred Muslim animal, they kill potential food like cows, they don't give a single fuck about Palestine) -> hamas attacks Israel under Palestinian flag and kills a lot of people -> Jewish people start hating Palestine -> with the same money, russia spreads ideas like "Palestine needs to get rid of Israel because you see, Israel now wants to see you dead😱" and finances rallies, finances murders of French teachers "for Palestine" -> people start hating Muslims even more. I believe that's how it goes since 1987. We could have stopped it earlier if we had stopped the russian invasion of Ukraine earlier. But we have what we have. We must put more sanctions on russia.

Since Palestine doesn't even have a clear plan, I don't want to say "I stand with Palestine" because I don't understand what it means except "I want Israel and Jews to stop existing." I don't want Israel and Jews to stop existing, I don't want them to be tortured and raped for anyone. I also have friends who lost someone because of hamas. I don't see here any solution unless russia is gone.

#stop russian aggression #russia is a terrorist state #israel palestine war #hamas attack #genocide of ukrainians #Belarus #Poland

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apicturewithasmile · 2 years

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I'm the anon that asked about Palestine, I am actually a follower and have been for months. I think it's the right thing to stand up and advocate for Ukraine, however I just feel like its performative to advocate for human rights when you can't clearly condemn another country doing the same thing as Russia, if not way worse. I don't see what your family members being in the wehrmacht has to do with zionism and innocent Palestinian children and women being killed simply for existing every day.

And why is it okay to post about Ukraine/Russia on tumblr but not Israel/Palestine? The truth is that it's really not that nuanced if you're educated about the matter. Just admit that you're a racist that only care about white lives and leave.

That said, as you recommended I will be unfollwing you.

Don't know if you've already unfollowed or will see this... but in case, I still just want to point out that I think it's funny that what's caused you to message me in the first place is the fact that I am posting about Ukraine. Whereas if I had not posted about that issue at all, you probably also would not have messaged me about Israel. But as soon as someone advocates for one thing they are expected to be equally as vocal about every other issue on the planet. While people who do not post/advocate about political and human rights matters at all do not get a personal scolding...

You can be disappointed by a lack of coverage about Israel and Palestine, you can even be offended by me personally not posting about, if you want. But I still find it a little bitter that it's the fact that I am advocating on behalf on Ukraine which caused this offense.

I don't know who you are, if we've ever even talked about anything before and why you started following me. If you had sent me a direct message or at least one with your username attached I might be willing to have a discussion with you and explain my thoughts on Israel and Palestine, but your approach isn't the right way to go for an open respectful debate, I think. In my opinion it doesn't start on an equal level if you choose to remain anonymous and put me on the spot to justify myself for... what? For the crime of posting about Ukraine and not about every other terrible thing in the world? You know there's more things happening other than the Russian invasion and Zionism that you could accuse me of "not caring about" due to a lack of tumblr posts about it.

And if you are still reading... why is my family's Wehrmacht history relevant? For one, because it means commenting on Israel is a very sensetive issue for me as a German with that family history, and I don't want to use tumblr as a platform for that. And also because I know that at least one of my great-uncles was stationed in Ukraine. I don't know if he personally killed people and if so how many and whom. But he was an occupier of Ukraine. I have absurdly been called a nazi on here for supporting Ukraine. The truth is that the real nazis in my family brought unspeakable horrors to Ukraine. At the same time my grandmother from Poland had to flee her hometown from the Russian army who also brought unspeakable horrors to her country. So maybe think again next time you claim that someone from Germany who cares about Ukraine (or Eastern Europe in general) does so for purely "performative" reasons and not because their own history is connected to what's happening and they feel a responsibility to the people there.

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itsdabworthy · 5 years

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The Power Adapters and Converter You Need for International Travel

There can be a lot of confusion and trepidation when it comes to traveling internationally, and rightly so. Running an American hair dryer in a European hotel with just a plug adapter will get quite exciting and likely get you a thorough scolding from hotel staff after tripping the breaker for the entire floor.

We’ll try to answer some of the common questions here and recommend some good products to help you with traveling overseas with ease.

It was only five years after Benjamin Franklin “discovered” electricity that he traveled to Europe. It was a busy schedule I’m sure but it would have been nice if he had solicited buy in to standardize electrical plugs. It was a century too early for that, but boy it would have been nice to get the world’s electrical grids on the same system.

As it stands, many countries operate on 220 volt electrical systems, while the United States and others operate on 110. OneAdaptr has created the World Power and Voltage Outlet Guide. Use it to see what your destination country is using.

As you think about traveling, people have three considerations typically: your laptop, your USB devices, and normal North American appliances like hair dryers, irons and the like.

Your Laptop International Adapter Requirements: Basic Plug Adapters.

That box that is in the power line for your laptop is a transformer. Since laptops are built for mobility, they are designed to work within both the 220 or the 110 voltage sources. Typically, all you need is a basic plug adapter to power your laptops. These do not convert the electricity in any way, they only make a connection from our North American plug type to your destination country’s outlet. An easy and simple source for plug adapters can be found on Amazon by clicking here or on the picture to the right.

Your Mobile Phone, Tablet, iPad, iPhone and Air Pods: USB Adapters

Most of your devices have USB inputs. All of these run on the same voltage. One option for these devices is to simply use the basic plug adapters discussed above for your existing mini cube plugs. This requires a bag of adapters for each of the devices you want to charge, but is a viable route to go.

As you visit more countries, you’ll develop quite a bag of plug adapters, so this isn’t necessarily the most economical choice. Read below for more options.

The Cube USB Power Converter: Ceptics CTU Series Dual USB World Travel Adapter.

One option would be to purchase a cube adapter for the country you are visiting. Minis like the Ceptics CTU Series Dual USB World Travel Adapter are made specifically for each country, and will power for a USB or North American standard plug. If you travel to a certain country regularly, it’s not a bad idea to have some of these on hand.

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It’s very important to understand however: these do not convert voltage to that North American type outlet. You’ll blow a breaker or damage your hair dryer, iron or other basic electrical appliance if you simply plug in without a converter to 110. You would only use the North American standard outlet on these adapters with a device that converts voltage from 220 to 110. This would include your laptops, any regular USB device plug, etc.

Don’t let that scare you. If you’re only traveling with a laptop, iPad, phone and other USB type devices, this might be just what you need. Below is a list of devices for their specific country or region (all on Amazon):

Type C: Most of Europe

Type A: Japan and the Philippines

Type D: India

Type E/F Schuko: Germany and Russia

Type G: England and Hong Kong

Type H: Israel and Palestine

Type I: Australia and China

Type J: Switzerland

Type L: Italy

Type M: South Africa

Type N: Brazil

As you can see from the list, buying all those cubes and keeping track of them can get expensive and confusing. In addition, you’ll need a cube for every two devices you need to charge. So, depending on your travel needs, you might need some more robust options. See below for our top choices of converters that might meet your specific travel requirements:

Traveling Light to Europe and England: Syncwire 34W 4-Port USB Wall Charger

The Syncwire 34W 4-Port USB Wall Charger adapter has two primary benefits: it is quite inexpensive and is very compact. Once you travel overseas, you’ll understand: when you plug into a European outlet, it’s usually an act of faith. It’s rarely a tight fit, and you wind up wondering how the whole thing stays in the wall. When you plug in a 1.5 lb heavy transformer adapter into the wall, it’s usually a surprise when the thing stays in the wall all night.

The Syncwire is quite compact and light, coming in at 6.7 ounces, so staying in the wall outlet requires less prayer. It’s another adapter that doesn’t convert to 110 from 220, and you can only plug in USB devices. it is, however, quite affordable, and allows you to travel with a single adapter for all your plug-in needs. You can purchase this on Amazon by clicking here or on its picture.

Travel Light and Want Power for Possibly Every Country in the World: The OneAdaptr Twist World Adapter DUO.

If you want to buy a single adapter that will fit into any plug this side of the Sun from Mars, the OneAdaptr Twist World Adapter Duo is for you. It has a unique round design that will rotate to provide any plug combination you require. It has two USB and a good ‘ol North American plug input for your charging needs. Like the Syncwire above, the Twist World Adapter Duo does NOT convert 220 down to 110 for the North American outlet on this adapter. Keep reading for that solution below.

You can buy this handy, well designed converter directly from the manufacturer here. I do recommend buying from them directly, as I would want to be sure you get the most current version. Original versions from 2015-2016 had some complaints from their first manufacturing learning curve.

If you’ve got serious power needs, and want to bring your high amp, 110 voltage appliances with you, none of the solutions above will meet your needs. They can’t power your typical iron, hair dryer or straightener. If you’re bringing something like that, you need a power converter.

Travel the World and Suck all the Power Right out of every Hotel: The DOACE C11 2000W Converter

When the name of your international transformer and adapter sounds like a jet airliner name, you know it’s got power. The 2019 Upgraded DOACE C11 2000W Travel Voltage Converter is designed for folks who normally pay higher than average electric bills at home, and might have heavier than normal luggage while traveling. If you need to dry your hair quickly, straighten it, iron your clothes, boil your water and power any of the other normal low voltage devices people normally carry, this is your beast of burden.

The DOACE C11 comes with standard adapters to plug into most of the world’s outlets, but you need something a little more out of the ordinary, it will fit any standard adapter that can be bought individually here.

You can buy this converter on Amazon here or by clicking on its picture.

from WordPress https://dabworthy.com/2019/04/15/the-power-adapters-and-converter-you-need-for-international-travel/

#dabworthy #Entrepreneurship #Household #iPhone #Products #Technology #Travel #Uncategorized #adapter

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writer59january13 · 5 years

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Nuttin boot mieskeit goyim...

lives among this nebbish atheist of Jewish ancestry

Tongue in cheek Yiddish

humor to playfully scold often time sounds like a compliment

yours truly, (a run of the mill Shlimazel) behold only knows a smidgen,

yet grew up within household

where foter and muter kibitzing did unwittingly mold

their second born and modest chutzpah regarding only son undersold.

Though at times he earned appellation schmuck just ask the misses - yea that yuck a puck

she will be more than willing to chuck

kill with delight rattling off with aplomb and pluck

I eagerly attest with veracity that she blurts "ƒµ©*

you a$$hole," her glib endearment -- yuck, which does wonders to spark romance

no surprise, yours truly rather be struck with self driving smartass self driving motortruck.

Aforementioned language used by Jews no longer lost in central and eastern Europe before Holocaust originally German dialect with words tossed from Hebrew and several modern languages jost today spoken mainly in US, Israel, and Russia.

More so acuity, affinity, and avidity of late

growing interest doth not seem to abate,

hence I could rattle off voluminous spiel megillah but best abbreviate,

otherwise which followers might suddenly abominate,

thus this son mentsh chin hubble meshugener wordsmith best accommodate

preferred brevity lest he doth accumulate

a slew of gentile enemies, apt to annotate

unsolicited comments their choice lingua franca pointedly, happily, decisively, and brazenly annunciate and cheekily crow kush meyn tukhes

in Macy's window.

Analogous to most every previous poetic theme I set low standards on par with Bupkis, you probably deem that comparison over the top, hence please choose a meme most apropos even extreme expletive epithets or... dream up fictitious, (albeit "fake") that one day maybe come supreme.

#yiddish as a second language hoopfully learned before I die.

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Syrian troops enter towns in northeast as Erdogan warns of wider offensive

By Erin Cunningham, Sarah Dadouch and Kareem Fahim | Published October 14 at 12:02 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 14, 2019 5:30 PM ET |

The abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria has unleashed dramatic developments, with Syrian government forces retaking territory long held by U.S. allies and Turkish-led forces expanding their offensive. Here’s what we know so far.

●Syrian government troops have moved back into towns in northeastern Syria for the first time in years after U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters, in a stunning reversal, reached a deal with the government.

●Turkish-backed rebels have begun a push to retake the northern city of Manbij, which has long been a flash point.

●Hundreds of Islamic State family members have escaped a detention camp in Ain Issa, which has been the administrative capital of the Kurdish-led government in northeastern Syria.

ISTANBUL — Syrian rebels allied with Turkey launched a fresh offensive on Kurdish fighters in the flash point city of Manbij, broadening a Turkish-backed military campaign as forces loyal to Syria’s president deployed in key towns to ward off a wider assault.

The operation, part of an offensive called Peace Spring, comes amid a rapid U.S. withdrawal from northern Syria as Turkish forces and their proxies battle Kurdish fighters in towns and cities along the border, plunging the region into chaos.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that Turkey was “in the process of implementing our decision on the subject of Manbij,” a town about 25 miles west of the Euphrates River.

Turkey has long demanded that the United States, which partnered with Kurdish forces in Manbij to battle the Islamic State militant group, expel the fighters from the town. Turkish officials complained that a deal struck with Washington to remove the fighters — who lead the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF — was not being implemented.

On Sunday, U.S. officials declined to confirm reports that troops had withdrawn from Manbij and another border town, Kobane.

Syrian Kurdish authorities said they struck a last-minute deal with the government of President Bashar al-Assad to allow Syrian troops to reenter towns across northeast Syria, following days of heavy Turkish airstrikes and artillery shelling against SDF positions.

While the details of the agreement remained unclear, Syrian government forces deployed in several locations in the area for the first time in years, state media reported. Images from Ain Issa, the headquarters of the autonomous Kurdish-led administration, showed Syrian troops arriving atop pickup trucks and waving government flags. In Tel Tamer, a village near the Turkish border, a crowd threw rice and candy as it approached a line of Syrian soldiers.

“With our soul, with our blood, we sacrifice for you, Bashar!” the people in the crowd said, reciting a chant praising the Syrian leader.

The sudden return of Assad’s forces to areas of northeastern Syria promises to further roil security in that region, analysts said, and marks a stunning reversal for Syrian Kurdish authorities, whose fighters once controlled a wide swath of territory.

A statement from the Kurdish-led administration said Monday that the agreement was a “military deal to protect Syria’s borders and Syrian sovereignty against Turkish aggression.”

“The understanding that took place yesterday, between the autonomous administration and the SDF on one side and the Syrian government and Russia on the other, was restricted to the Syrian army deploying along the border,” said Luqman Ahmi, a spokesman for the Kurdish administration. Russia is a key ally of the Syrian government.

“There has been no political agreement until this moment,” he said. And “the autonomous administration will continue to govern these areas as it has been doing before.”

Turkish officials view the Kurdish fighters in Syria as terrorists for their links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decades-long war for autonomy inside Turkey. Its military launched the operation with allied Syrian rebels to oust the SDF from the Syrian-Turkish border, where it planned to establish a buffer zone.

As the campaign escalated, aid agencies pulled out of the area, and President Trump ordered the final withdrawal of all U.S. troops in the coming weeks.

On Monday, Trump suggested, without evidence, that Kurdish forces may have purposely released some Islamic State prisoners amid the fighting to prevent U.S. troops from withdrawing from the region.

“Kurds may be releasing some to get us involved,” Trump said Monday on Twitter. “Do people really think we should go to war with NATO Member Turkey?”

On Sunday, hundreds of family members of Islamic State fighters escaped a detention camp in Ain Issa after Turkish shellfire hit the area.

Security has generally deteriorated around a constellation of camps housing families that fled battles against the Islamic State — among them the relatives of militants. About 950 foreign women and children were among potentially thousands of escapees from the Ain Issa camp.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said late Sunday that it had “grave concerns” for the population of the camp, which hosts about 13,000 civilians.

On the road to al-Hol, a sprawling camp holding 70,000 people disgorged from the Islamic State’s final scrap of territory, SDF forces also have pulled back.

“It’s quiet in the camp for now, but we’re all scared of the uncertainty,” said a medic, speaking on the condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to talk to the media. “We thought that America would protect us here. Why are they walking away?”

Dadouch reported from Beirut. Louisa Loveluck in Irbil, Iraq, and Asser Khattab in Beirut contributed to this report.

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In the Middle East, there’s one country every side talks to: Russia

By Will Englund | Published October 14 at 12:14 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 14, 2019 5:30 PM ET

MOSCOW — In the not so distant past, no reference to Saudi Arabia in the Russian media would be complete without one official or another denouncing its radical Wahhabi Islam as an extremist threat to Russia’s own way of life.

But there was President Vladimir Putin Monday, descending from his plane in Riyadh, Sauid Arabia, to the echoes of a 21-gun salute and traveling to the royal palace with a cavalry escort.

Less than four years ago, Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near its border, prompting fears of a widening conflict between those neighbors as they faced off in Syria.

Yet today, with the withdrawal of American troops from northeastern Syria, analysts agree it now falls to Russia to restrain Turkey through talks and persuasion.

Several years of adroit diplomacy and politicking have left Russia in a new and untested position in the Middle East: It is the one country all sides can talk to.

Saudi Arabia and Iran, for instance, have nothing but deep enmity for each other, yet Moscow maintains good relations with both Riyadh and Tehran. In a sense, it plays one off the other, Mark Katz, a professor at George Mason University who studies Russia and the Middle East, said in a recent interview.

“You don’t like the Iranians in Syria?” he paraphrases the Russian message to the Saudis. “Then it’s a good thing we’re there to keep an eye on them.”

The Turks loathe Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad. Russia is Assad’s staunchest ally, yet Russia just sold an antiaircraft missile system to Turkey.

Now Putin wants to sell one to Saudi Arabia, too. Plus a nuclear power plant.

“Saudi Arabia appreciates Russia’s active role in this region and in the world,” King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud said Monday as he opened talks with Putin.

“In Soviet times, relations between Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union were at a rather low level. In recent years, the quality of our relations has changed dramatically. We consider Saudi Arabia a friendly nation,” Putin responded.

Analysts say that American confusion, bungling and missteps — especially in the past few days — have opened the door to the Middle East for Russia. Moscow, by not talking about human rights and transparency, is a welcome change of pace from the West, they say. Putin finds common ground with leaders as diverse as Assad of Syria, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, Hassan Rouhani of Iran and even Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. Russians do not scold the Saudi prince, Mohammed bin Salman, over the 2017 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, the journalist.

But experts question whether Russia, having established diplomatic beachheads, has the means to bend the Middle East to its will. “They don’t have enough oomph to turn it,” said Heather A. Conley, a former U.S. diplomat who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The American withdrawal from Syria gives Russia an even freer hand in that country. Turkey’s invasion of Kurdish areas does not directly threaten Russia’s interests. In fact Turkey offered Russians the opportunity to persuade the Kurds to start talks with Assad’s government. The mutual recriminations between Turkey and the United States — two NATO allies — give Russia even more to build on as it attempts to weaken the Western alliance.

Dmitri Trenin, head of the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank, said in a tweet that Russia’s influence in Syria “has been again tested and proven strong” by the Kurds’ decision to talk to Damascus. “Keeping contacts with all, including Turkey, and having a clear view of one’s own interests and thus a coherent policy is paying off.”

Yet the dramatic turn of events of the past few days has led to signs of an underlying uneasiness among some in Moscow.

“The Turkish military invasion in the north of Syria has only complicated the situation in the region,” Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the foreign affairs committee in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, wrote on his blog. “Trying to solve its problem by military means, Turkey creates a new one and exacerbates the old ones.”

Invading a neighboring country, he wrote, is not an effective counterterrorism tactic.

Russia, he concluded, must call for more substantial dialogue.

There is not a great deal else it can do while it waits to see how the invasion plays out.

Vladimir Dzhabarov, the deputy head of the Federation Council foreign affairs committee, suggested that Russia and the United States could jointly broker further talks between the Kurds and Assad’s government.

Syria is just one item on the agenda during Putin’s visit to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The price of oil is another — both Riyadh and Moscow believe its price should not be allowed to go too high. Russia wants to pursue a number of energy and military deals — that nuclear power plant being one of them. They will also talk about the attacks on a Saudi oil refinery last month and on an Iranian tanker on Friday. Another topic sure to come up is war-torn Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and Iran back opposing sides — both of which, as it happens, have had cordial talks with the Russians.

It is a balancing act for Moscow: Sow some friendship with one side, then the other; sow some uncertainty at the same time, get some deals done, some boots on the ground. Katz argues that Russia does not have an actual strategic goal for the Middle East. It wants to continue as a player and prevent any one side from becoming dominant.

“They’re dependent on keeping the pot simmering but not boiling over,” he said.

It is not clear, he said, that is possible in the long run.

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Trump’s retreat in Syria turns into a mess

By Ishaan Tharoor | Published October 14 at 12:59 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 14, 2019 5:30 PM ET

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A week ago, President Trump shocked Washington and announced he wouldn’t impede an imminent Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria. Now, in the space of just a few days, his administration is already reaping what it sowed.

Turkey’s incursions at various points along its border with Syria began on Wednesday and, by the weekend, had already plunged the region into chaos. Turkish artillery pounded Syrian Kurdish positions, while footage emerged appearing to show Turkish-affiliated militiamen carrying out grisly roadside executions of Kurdish fighters allied to the United States. Tens of thousands of panicked civilians attempted to flee the Turkish-led advance, raising fears of an eventual exodus into Iraqi Kurdistan, where more than a million people displaced by conflict still live in camps.

Trump, who spent part of the weekend at one of his golf courses, insisted on Twitter that his country ought to be rid of its commitments in the “quicksand” of the Middle East. Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper told CBS’s “Face the Nation" on Sunday that the United States was now in “a very untenable situation” and would evacuate its roughly 1,000 troops in northeastern Syria entirely.

“The order to remove troops came Saturday, toward the end of a chaotic day in which the viability of the U.S. mission in Syria rapidly unraveled after Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel proxies advanced deep into Syrian territory and cut U.S. supply lines,” my colleagues reported. It flew in the face of the Pentagon’s assurances last week that the United States would not “abandon” its Syrian Kurdish partners, who have been on the front lines in the war against the Islamic State and borne the brunt of the casualties in a U.S.-led campaign.

But security headaches have only mushroomed amid American maneuvers to withdraw. Hundreds of Islamic State detainees may have escaped a prison camp run by beleaguered Syrian Kurdish fighters. Separately, in the late hours of Sunday, reports indicated that Syrian regime forces were also converging on areas once guarded by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish-led alliance now in Turkey’s crosshairs.

Hung out to dry by the United States, the SDF turned to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for protection. A senior Syrian Kurdish politician told Reuters that SDF officials met counterparts in the Assad regime at a Russian air base in Syria to hash out a deal. By Sunday evening, the SDF confirmed that, to repel or stall the Turkish invasion, it had invited the regime into areas it had formerly controlled with U.S. protection.

For many on the ground, this seemed an inevitable and relatively welcome outcome. “For the regime to intervene and deploy its forces on the Turkish border is a comforting thought,” a Syrian Kurdish woman, who gave her name as Nowruz, told my colleagues. “If a deal with the regime is what it takes to stop these massacres, then so be it. At the end of the day, we are all Syrians, and the regime is Syrian, too.”

Turkey’s thinly veiled goal in launching the invasion was to smash Rojava, the name for the autonomous enclave in northeastern Syria carved out by the SDF over the past few years. Ankara views the main Syrian Kurdish faction as a direct outgrowth of the PKK, an outlawed Kurdish separatist group that has fought a bloody decades-long insurgency in Turkey. If northeastern Syria falls back under the security umbrella of Damascus, that may in and of itself be a satisfying outcome for the Turks. Russia’s role in brokering the rapprochement between Assad and the Syrian Kurds after the Turkish invasion may be a sign, analysts suggested, of a tacit Syrian endgame being thrashed out by the Turks and the Russians.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration painted itself as a somewhat helpless bystander. “We have American forces likely caught between two opposing advancing armies,” Esper told CBS. In his Sunday tweets, Trump seemed to wave away any interest in the battle and reiterated his position that it’s “very smart not to be involved in the intense fighting" along the Syrian-Turkish border. This followed reports Friday that Turkish artillery appeared to be firing multiple “bracketing” rounds near positions manned by U.S. Special Forces, an astonishing act by a NATO ally that U.S. officials thought was deliberate.

Trump attempted to underscore his point of view with a garbled history lesson, but it only emphasized his lack of genuine engagement with the intricacies of Middle East policy. He brought up a supposed incident in 2017 when “Iraq was going to fight the Kurds in a different part of Syria” and his critics then also urged the United States to stand by their Kurdish allies. But no such event took place. Trump was possibly thinking of the Iraqi government’s seizure of the city of Kirkuk — in Iraq — from the control of fighters affiliated with factions based in the semiautonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan.

Whatever the case, some experts argued that the sudden American departure from northeastern Syria was inevitable — if not the chaotic manner in which it’s being carried out. Trump has been determined for months to pull out U.S. forces. The American support of the SDF — no matter the great affection for the Syrian Kurdish fighters among U.S. politicians and military officials — was always in conflict with Washington’s need to keep Turkey on its side.

At the same time, somewhat in opposition to the president, senior Trump officials steered a policy that let the SDF think it had “indefinite” backing from the United States. They also pursued an ambitious agenda of ending Iranian influence in Syria, a goal that is deeply at odds with Trump’s desire for an exit.

“For three years we have kidded ourselves about this, and those that pushed policies at odds with Trump, working to sketch out a maximalist policy that ignored Ankara’s obvious intent, and the wishes of the world’s most powerful man, should be ashamed," said Aaron Stein, director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, to Al-Monitor.

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U.S. allies in the Mideast consider their options as Russia’s Putin visits the Gulf

By Adam Taylor | Published October 14 at 12:47 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 14, 2019 5:30 PM ET

Russian President Vladimir Putin landed in Riyadh on Monday for his first state visit to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in more than a decade, emphasizing not only coordination between three of the biggest oil producers in the world but also Moscow’s growing influence in the Middle East.

The timing may be especially fortuitous for Putin. President Trump’s announcement last week that the United States would be pulling out of northeast Syria, as well as his equivocation over the conflict with Iran, has left many traditional U.S. allies in the region nervous.

Some, such as the Syrian Kurds, already argue they have been abandoned, but the wider implications are still being felt in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and even Jerusalem. Notably, Russia maintains relations in all those cities, even as it works with rivals in Tehran, Damascus, Syria, and Ankara, Turkey, and faces U.S. sanctions.

“We build bilateral relations that rely on positive trends generated by our contacts; we do not build alliances against anyone,” Putin said in a joint interview with Saudi-owned Al Arabiya, Sky News Arabia and RT Arabic that aired Sunday.

Putin’s trip to Saudi Arabia and the UAE marks his first state visits to the countries since 2007. It shows continuing warming ties between Russia and the two Gulf States, which were traditionally Western allies with little ties to Moscow during the Cold War and which, until recently, maintained relatively modest trade links.

It is part of a strategy that puts Moscow at the center of Middle East politics. Putin recently announced he intends to visit another U.S. ally, Israel, early next year. Embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Russia to meet with Putin last month, just days before a bitterly contested election.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as Israel, had viewed the Trump presidency as a chance to reinvigorate their relationship with the United States. But while they appeared to favor Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran and other world powers, as tensions across the Persian Gulf grew, there were increasing doubts.

A crippling attack on key Saudi oil facilities last month raised new questions about Saudi Arabia’s ability to protect itself, even with its expensive relationship with the United States and the masses of U.S.-made weapons it buys. The United States announced Friday it would be sending 1,800 troops to Saudi Arabia, but the president emphasized the financial aspect of the deal.

“Saudi Arabia, at my request, has agreed to pay us for everything we’re doing,” Trump told reporters. “That’s a first.”

The announcement that troops would be sent to Saudi Arabia came as U.S. forces were abruptly pulled out of northeastern Syria, allowing a Turkish offensive that threatened to devastate Syrian Kurds, who had been instrumental in the fight against the Islamic State.

The U.S. pullout resulted in a last-minute agreement between forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Kurdish forces, once on opposing sides of Syria’s long-running civil war. Since an intervention in 2015, Russia has been allied with Assad, providing air power and other support in an often brutal conflict.

Russia had played a key role in three days of negotiations that led to the agreement between the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a primarily Kurdish military alliance in Syria’s northeast, a Kurdish intelligence official told The Washington Post.

Moscow has good relations not only with the Kurds and Syria, but also with Turkey. Though Turkey is a member of NATO and an ally of the United States, Russia began deliveries of its S-400 missile defense system to Turkey in the summer, hastening a spat between Ankara and Washington, which suspended Turkish involvement in the U.S. F-35 fighter jet program in response.

The S-400 system is considered one of the most advanced missile defense systems in the world, but most U.S. allies have avoided purchasing it for fear of angering Washington. Last month, after the attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, Putin jokingly suggested at an event in Ankara with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that the kingdom should have purchased the weapons.

“The political leadership of Saudi Arabia just needs to make a wise state decision,” Putin said, pointing to the purchase of the S-300 missile system by Iran and the S-400 missile system by Turkey. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, also in attendance at the event, was shown smiling after the remark.

Russia ultimately remains far weaker than the United States in a variety of ways. Its economy has suffered greatly under sanctions, and it has suffered a number of humiliating military setbacks in recent years; even its vaunted S-400 system remains untested in real life.

But with longtime partners Syria’s Kurds finding themselves at odds with Trump’s Middle East plans, and even those with many friends in Washington such as Israel’s Netanyahu unsure of their footing, allies such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE may see Russia as a more reliable alternative — even if it is opposed to the United States and allied with many of their own rivals.

In his interview with Arab media outlets on Sunday, Putin emphasized the positives of his relationships with Saudi Arabia and the UAE but made no secret of his government’s ties to Iran and Syria. He said that while his government did not need to mediate, it could play a role.

“What you can do is maintain a friendly conversation with them and present some ideas from a friend’s perspective,” Putin said. “I am convinced that as highly intelligent people, they listen and analyze everything they hear.”

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The four biggest foes of America that gain from Trump’s Syria pullout

By Rick Noack | Published October 14 at 8:49 AM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 14, 2019 5:30 PM ET

When President Trump announced his decision to pull troops from northern Syria, his critics immediately warned that the move would pave the way for a Turkish offensive with potentially catastrophic repercussions.

State Department officials swiftly denied that Trump supported the Turkish incursion. Meanwhile, Trump appeared convinced he had made the right choice.

“Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to figure the situation out,” Trump wrote.

They now indeed are, but not to the advantage of the United States.

“What’s clear is that the U.S. has shot itself into the foot,” said Ali Fathollah-Nejad, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.

Who are likely winners?

The U.S. pullout has enabled Turkey to pursue its military incursion without having to fear U.S. interference, but it has also created opportunities for four of the United States’ key foes: Iran, the Assad regime, Russia and — potentially — the Islamic State group.

Who is set to lose most?

The biggest losers — it appears at this stage — are the allies who fought alongside U.S. soldiers in Syria: Europe and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The former are afraid the move will free Islamic State prisoners held in Kurdish prisons and camps and expose Europe to new militant attacks after a period of relative calm. The latter had established a de facto state in the north of Syria during the past years — in large parts in places previously ruled by the Islamic State. The Kurds hoped their territory was somewhat protected by a U.S. military presence that acted as a deterrent.

How did we get to this point?

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long viewed the Kurdish-held territory in Syria as a haven for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK — which Erdogan considers to be a terrorist group.

Meanwhile, to the south of the Kurdish-held territories, Russia and Iran-backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have been waiting for an opportunity to seize back the cities and swaths of land he lost during the war.

Trump’s announcement of a pullout one week ago offered an opening for both Erdogan and Assad. On Wednesday, Turkish troops began their offensive at multiple points along the Turkish-Syrian border. Turkish artillery fire on the Kurds, a mass exodus of civilians and apparent footage of roadside executions of Kurdish fighters soon followed. Hundreds of Islamic State family members escaped detention, according to Kurdish officials.

Without U.S. backing and amid mounting chaos, the Kurds appeared to face the choice between a deadly confrontation with the militarily superior Turkish forces — or a deal with the Assad regime.

By Sunday, the SDF had opted for the second option: They announced a deal with the Syrian government to allow forces loyal to the regime to enter its territory. By Monday, Syrian government troops were raising flags in the towns close to the Turkish-Syrian border in a move that could make the presence of the remaining U.S. troops in the region unsustainable.

How do the Assad regime, Russia and Iran benefit?

With the United States voluntarily giving up much of its leverage in Syria, Russia has probably the most to gain. Throughout the Syrian civil war, Russia has staunchly supported the Assad regime. During the weekend, the New York Times revealed that the Russian Air Force deliberately and repeatedly bombed Syrian hospitals in rebel-held areas, indicating how far Russia is willing to go to support Assad.

But apart from military force, Russian President Vladimir Putin has also pushed ahead with diplomatic initiatives, positioning him at the center of the Syrian morass. The U.S. pullout expands the Russian leverage in at least two ways.

Firstly, the strengthening of the Assad regime would inevitably also bolster Russia, a key backer.

But ironically, it could also help to deepen Moscow’s ties to the country Assad’s forces may now face off in northern Syria: Turkey. With the United States potentially poised to impose sanctions on Turkey, as Trump indicated Monday, Russia’s rapprochement with Turkey could speed up — despite the countries’ differing interests in Syria.

From Russia’s perspective, this apparent contradiction may not seem so contradictory at all. In the past, Moscow has argued that SDF fighters should yield control to the Assad regime. The Turkish incursion and U.S. pullout may lead to exactly such a scenario, as Sunday’s deal between the SDF and the Assad regime appeared to suggest.

The developments of the past week may also be an opportunity for Iran, another backer of the Assad regime. The U.S. pullout, said Brookings researcher Fathollah-Nejad, “will expand Iran’s opportunities to engage with Kurds and portray itself as the only reliable partner.” This could help Tehran restrict the Kurds’ drive for empowerment, which Iran opposes.

But Fathollah-Nejad cautioned that Russia’s and Iran’s interests in Syria were not necessarily aligned and that the Turkish incursion may still end up becoming a “double-edged sword” for Iran, which explains why Iranian officials have officially condemned the Turkish offensive.

Iranian officials may fear a radicalization of Kurdish separatism, said Fathollah-Nejad, and a full-blown resurgence of the Islamic State.

How does Islamic State gain?

Amid the backlash against his decision to pull U.S. troops out of northern Syria, Trump went on the offensive last week and blamed European countries for what he suggested was a lack of willingness to take back Islamic State fighters born in Europe and held by the Syrian Kurds.

“Europe had a chance to get their ISIS prisoners, but didn’t want the cost,” Trump reiterated on Monday.

European officials have rejected Trump’s criticism, arguing that Islamic State returnees would in many cases walk free in Europe, as authorities often lack evidence for crimes committed in Syria or Iraq. Despite fierce criticism from human rights advocates, major European governments have opted to leave Islamic State fighters in Kurdish detention.

The U.S. pullout has resulted in an outcome detrimental both to U.S. counterterrorism officials and their European counterparts. Some 785 people affiliated with the Islamic State escaped from a camp on Sunday, according to Kurdish officials.

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empiregalaxy · 5 years

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So, I want to visit many countries. But it’s hard to prioritise which nations to visit. Here are my ‘see in the next 10 years’ places:

Oceania: Western Australia & Queensland, New Zealand, Fiji

Africa: Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia (right now, my interest is in North Africa)

Middle-East: Israel, Jordan, Turkey (no, I’m not going to get into a debate about what continent that country belongs in, haha). I think Iran, Iraq and Syria are beautiful countries with alot of history, but sadly, they aren’t safe at the moment.

Asia: India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong (visiting in January for a stopover!), Singapore. Oh, and Mongolia!

South America: Brazil, Chile, Peru, Argentina. Once I see those, I will do more research about other countries.

Central America: Costa Rica, Belize. This is my ‘geography weakness’ area.

North America: Mexico, Canada, The United States of America (especially New England, The South, Western national parks, Hawaii, Alaska, cities like Chicago, Washington, DC, Seattle, New Orleans etc. Would like to see NYC again).

Europe: Russia, Greece, Portugal, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland. Haven’t been to these countries! Going to Switzerland and Spain in January, as well as some Italian cities.

What places do you guys want to visit? Probs won’t be able to go to all these countries in ten years. Still I can dream :) If anyone has any advice on these locations, share! (Or scold me for not including your fav country!)

#madeleine's adventures in travel #thoughts?

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political-fluffle · 5 years

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Moscow says move could lead to a 'sharp escalation of tensions' in the Middle East, harm chances for peace

Russia warned Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to extend Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley could escalate tensions, as the Israeli premier geared up to hold talks with President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian foreign ministry said it was concerned over the Israeli leadership’s plan, saying its implementation could lead to a “sharp escalation of tensions in the region (and) undermine hopes for the establishment of long-awaited peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors.”

Moscow pointed out that Netanyahu’s pre-election pledge drew a “sharp negative reaction” in the Arab world and reiterated its call for direct talks between Israel and Palestinians.

Battling to win re-election in September 17 polls, Netanyahu issued the pledge on Tuesday night, drawing firm condemnation from the Palestinians, Arab states, the United Nations and the European Union. (...)

Today for our Daily Stupid Moment: Vlad bitchslaps Bibi

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sufredux · 5 years

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Israel and the Post-American Middle East

Was the feud between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, first over settlements and then over Iran, a watershed? Netanyahu, it is claimed, turned U.S. support of Israel into a partisan issue. Liberals, including many American Jews, are said to be fed up with Israel’s “occupation,” which will mark its 50th anniversary next year. The weakening of Israel’s democratic ethos is supposedly undercutting the “shared values” argument for the relationship. Some say Israel’s dogged adherence to an “unsustainable” status quo in the West Bank has made it a liability in a region in the throes of change. Israel, it is claimed, is slipping into pariah status, imposed by the global movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS).

Biblical-style lamentations over Israel’s final corruption have been a staple of the state’s critics and die-hard anti-Zionists for 70 years. Never have they been so detached from reality. Of course, Israel has changed—decidedly for the better. By every measure, Israel is more globalized, prosperous, and democratic than at any time in its history. As nearby parts of the Middle East slip under waves of ruthless sectarian strife, Israel’s minorities rest secure. As Europe staggers under the weight of unwanted Muslim migrants, Israel welcomes thousands of Jewish immigrants from Europe. As other Mediterranean countries struggle with debt and unemployment, Israel boasts a growing economy, supported by waves of foreign investment.

Politically, Netanyahu’s tenure has been Israel’s least tumultuous. Netanyahu has served longer than any other Israeli prime minister except David Ben-Gurion, yet he has led Israel in only one ground war: the limited Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014. “I’d feel better if our partner was not the trigger-happy Netanyahu,” wrote the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd four years ago. But Netanyahu hasn’t pulled triggers, even against Iran. The Israeli electorate keeps returning him to office precisely because he is risk averse: no needless wars, but no ambitious peace plans either. Although this may produce “overwhelming frustration” in Obama’s White House, in Vice President Joe Biden’s scolding phrase, it suits the majority of Israeli Jews just fine.

Netanyahu’s endurance fuels the frustration of Israel’s diminished left, too: thwarted at the ballot box, they comfort themselves with a false notion that Israel’s democracy is endangered. The right made similar claims 20 years ago, culminating in the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Anti-democratic forces exist in all democracies, but in Israel, they are either outside the system or confined in smaller parties, Jewish and Arab alike. There is no mechanism by which an outlier could capture one of the main political parties in a populist upsurge, as now seems likely in the United States. Under comparable pressures of terrorism and war, even old democracies have wavered, but Israel’s record of fair, free elections testifies to the depth of its homegrown democratic ethos, reinforced by a vigorous press and a vigilant judiciary.

Israel is more globalized, prosperous, and democratic than at any time in its history.

Israel is also more secure than ever. In 1948, only 700,000 Jews faced the daunting challenge of winning independence against the arrayed armies of the Arab world. Ben-Gurion’s top commanders warned him that Israel had only a 50-50 chance of victory. Today, there are over six million Israeli Jews, and Israel is among the world’s most formidable military powers. It has a qualitative edge over any imaginable combination of enemies, and the ongoing digitalization of warfare has played precisely to Israel’s strengths. The Arab states have dropped out of the competition, leaving the field to die-hard Islamists on Israel’s borders. They champion “resistance,” but their primitive rocketry and tunnel digging are ineffective. The only credible threat to a viable Israel would be a nuclear Iran. No one doubts that if Iran ever breaks out, Israel could deploy its own nuclear deterrent, independent of any constraining alliance.

And what of the Palestinians? There is no near solution to this enduring conflict, but Israel has been adept at containing its effects. There is occupied territory, but there is also unoccupied territory. Israel maintains an over-the-horizon security footprint in most of the West Bank; Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation fills in most of the gaps. The Palestinian Authority, in the words of one wag, has become a “mini-Jordan,” buttressed by a combination of foreign aid, economic growth, and the usual corruption. By the standards of today’s Middle East, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains stable. It is prosecuted mostly at a distance, through maneuvering in international bodies and campaigns for and against BDS. These are high-decibel, low-impact confrontations. Yossi Vardi, Israel’s most famous high-tech entrepreneur, summarizes the mainstream Israeli view: “I’m not at all concerned about the economic effect of BDS. We have been subject to boycotts before.” And they were much worse.

Every political party in Israel has its own preferred solution to the conflict, but no solution offers an unequivocal advantage over the status quo. “The occupation as it is now can last forever, and it is better than any alternative”—this opinion, issued in April by Benny Ziffer, the literary editor of the liberal, left-wing Haaretz, summarizes the present Israeli consensus. It is debatable whether the two-state option has expired. But the reality on the ground doesn’t resemble one state either. Half a century after the 1967 war, only five percent of Israelis live in West Bank settlements, and half of them live in the five blocs that would be retained by Israel in any two-state scenario.

In the meantime, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are all shaking hands with Israel, sometimes before the cameras. Israel and Russia are assiduously courting each other; still farther afield, Israel’s relations with China and India are booming. The genuine pariah of the Middle East is the Syrian regime, which never deigned to make peace with Israel. This last so-called steadfast Arab state is consumed from within by a great bloodbath; its nuclear project and massive stocks of chemical weapons are a distant memory.

The only credible threat to a viable Israel would be a nuclear Iran.

Israel faces all manner of potential threats and challenges, but never has it been more thoroughly prepared to meet them. The notion popular among some Israeli pundits that their compatriots live in a perpetual state of paralyzing fear misleads both Israel’s allies and its adversaries. Israel’s leaders are cautious but confident, not easily panicked, and practiced in the very long game that everyone plays in the Middle East. Nothing leaves them so unmoved as the vacuous mantra that the status quo is unsustainable. Israel’s survival has always depended on its willingness to sustain the status quo that it has created, driving its adversaries to resignation—and compromise. This is more an art than a science, but such resolve has served Israel well over time.

THE SUPERPOWER RETREATS

Still, there is a looming cloud on Israel’s horizon. It isn’t Iran’s delayed nukes, academe’s threats of boycott, or Palestinian maneuvers at the UN. It is a huge power vacuum. The United States, after a wildly erratic spree of misadventures, is backing out of the region. It is cutting its exposure to a Middle East that has consistently defied American expectations and denied successive American presidents the “mission accomplished” moments they crave. The disengagement began before Obama entered the White House, but he has accelerated it, coming to see the Middle East as a region to be avoided because it “could not be fixed—not on his watch, and not for a generation to come.” (This was the bottom-line impression of the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, to whom Obama granted his legacy interview on foreign policy.)

If history is precedent, this is more than a pivot. Over the last century, the Turks, the British, the French, and the Russians each had their moment in the Middle East, but prolonging it proved costly as their power ebbed. They gave up the pursuit of dominance and settled for influence. A decade ago, in the pages of this magazine, Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, predicted that the United States had reached just this point: “The American era in the Middle East,” he announced, “. . . has ended.” He went on: “The United States will continue to enjoy more influence in the region than any other outside power, but its influence will be reduced from what it once was.” That was a debatable proposition in 2006; now in 2016, Obama has made it indisputable.

Israel faces all manner of potential threats and challenges, but never has it been more thoroughly prepared to meet them.

There are several ways to make a retreat seem other than it is. The Obama administration’s tack has been to create the illusion of a stable equilibrium, by cutting the United States’ commitments to its allies and mollifying its adversaries. And so, suddenly, none of the United States’ traditional friends is good enough to justify its full confidence. The great power must conceal its own weariness, so it pretends to be frustrated by the inconstancy of “free riders.” The resulting complaints about Israel (as well as Egypt and Saudi Arabia) serve just such a narrative.

Israel’s leaders aren’t shy about warning against the consequences of this posture, but they are careful not to think out loud about Israeli options in a post-American Middle East. Israel wants a new memorandum of understanding with the United States, the bigger the better, as compensation for the Iran nuclear deal. It is in Israel’s interest to emphasize the importance of the U.S.-Israeli relationship as the bedrock of regional stability going forward.

But how far forward is another question. Even as Israel seeks to deepen the United States’ commitment in the short term, it knows that the unshakable bond won’t last in perpetuity. This is a lesson of history. The leaders of the Zionist movement always sought to ally their project with the dominant power of the day, but they had lived through too much European history to think that great power is ever abiding. In the twentieth century, they witnessed the collapse of old empires and the rise of new ones, each staking its claim to the Middle East in turn, each making promises and then rescinding them. When the United States’ turn came, the emerging superpower didn’t rush to embrace the Jews. They were alone during the 1930s, when the gates of the United States were closed to them. They were alone during the Holocaust, when the United States awoke too late. They were alone in 1948, when the United States placed Israel under an arms embargo, and in 1967, when a U.S. president explicitly told the Israelis that if they went to war, they would be alone.

After 1967, Israel nestled in the Pax Americana. The subsequent decades of the “special relationship” have so deepened Israel’s dependence on the United States in the military realm that many Israelis can no longer remember how Israel managed to survive without all that U.S. hardware. Israel’s own armies of supporters in the United States, especially in the Jewish community, reinforce this mindset as they assure themselves that were it not for their lobbying efforts in Washington, Israel would be in mortal peril.

But the Obama administration has given Israelis a preview of just how the unshakable bond is likely to be shaken. This prospect might seem alarming to Israel’s supporters, but the inevitable turn of the wheel was precisely the reason Zionist Jews sought sovereign independence in the first place. An independent Israel is a guarantee against the day when the Jews will again find themselves alone, and it is an operating premise of Israeli strategic thought that such a day will come.

ISRAEL ALONE

This conviction, far from paralyzing Israel, propels it to expand its options, diversify its relationships, and build its independent capabilities. The Middle East of the next 50 years will be different from that of the last 100. There will be no hegemony-seeking outside powers. The costs of pursuing full-spectrum dominance are too high; the rewards are too few. Outside powers will pursue specific goals, related to oil or terrorism. But large swaths of the Middle East will be left to their fate, to dissolve and re-form in unpredictable ways. Israel may be asked by weaker neighbors to extend its security net to include them, as it has done for decades for Jordan. Arab concern about Iran is already doing more to normalize Israel in the region than the ever-elusive and ever-inconclusive peace process. Israel, once the fulcrum of regional conflict, will loom like a pillar of regional stability—not only for its own people but also for its neighbors, threatened by a rising tide of political fragmentation, economic contraction, radical Islam, and sectarian hatred.

Israel is planning to outlast the United States in the Middle East.

So Israel is planning to outlast the United States in the Middle East. Israelis roll their eyes when the United States insinuates that it best understands Israel’s genuine long-term interests, which Israel is supposedly too traumatized or confused to discern. Although Israel has made plenty of tactical mistakes, it is hard to argue that its strategy has been anything but a success. And given the wobbly record of the United States in achieving or even defining its interests in the Middle East, it is hard to say the same about U.S. strategy. The Obama administration has placed its bet on the Iran deal, but even the deal’s most ardent advocates no longer claim to see the “arc of history” in the Middle East. In the face of the collapse of the Arab Spring, the Syrian dead, the millions of refugees, and the rise of the Islamic State, or ISIS, who can say in which direction the arc points? Or where the Iran deal will lead?

One other common American mantra deserves to be shelved. “Precisely because of our friendship,” said Obama five years ago, “it is important that we tell the truth: the status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace.” It is time for the United States to abandon this mantra, or at least modify it. Only if Israel’s adversaries conclude that Israel can sustain the status quo indefinitely—Israel’s military supremacy, its economic advantage, and, yes, its occupation—is there any hope that they will reconcile themselves to Israel’s existence as a Jewish state. Statements like Obama’s don’t sway Israel’s government, which knows better, but they do fuel Arab and Iranian rejection of Israel among those who believe that the United States no longer has Israel’s back. For Israel’s enemies, drawing the conclusion that Israel is thus weak would be a tragic mistake: Israel is well positioned to sustain the status quo all by itself. Its long-term strategy is predicated on it.

A new U.S. administration will offer an opportunity to revisit U.S. policy, or at least U.S. rhetoric. One of the candidates, Hillary Clinton, made a statement as secretary of state in Jerusalem in 2010 that came closer to reality and practicality. “The status quo is unsustainable,” she said, echoing the usual line. But she added this: “Now, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be sustained for a year or a decade, or two or three, but fundamentally, the status quo is unsustainable.” Translation: the status quo may not be optimal, but it is sustainable, for as long as it takes.

As the United States steps back from the Middle East, this is the message Washington should send if it wants to assist Israel and other U.S. allies in filling the vacuum it will leave behind.

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whittlebaggett8 · 5 years

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Under Modi, How Did Hindu Nationalism Affect India’s Foreign Relations?

As the working day of reckoning for Narendra Modi’s federal government in India has occur and elections are in progress, many types of summaries of his tenure maintain emerging. Just one of the quite a few angles one particular could glimpse at is regardless of whether the ideology of Hindu nationalism – professed by Modi’s ruling occasion, the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP) – affected Indian foreign policy in any significant way about the previous five decades.

Modi and a lot of of his bash colleagues belong to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist corporation that follows a rigid nationalist outlook. A person could have anticipated that the potent ideological roots of most of the cabinet members would impact India’s policies toward the outside earth. This has not occurred a lot, nonetheless, and India’s foreign coverage retained a superior diploma of continuity and exhibited just gradual modify. The system of the ship was saved as a result of tenures of various ruling coalitions and Modi did not divert from it possibly.

But, measuring the impression of ideology is tough. Nobody denies that thoughts are crucial, but it is frequently complicated to evaluate their exact importance. This in an situation I once briefly reviewed with the erudite Zorawar Daulet Singh of the Centre for Policy Exploration in New Delhi: international policy offers us enough source content, but these data will typically not support to validate how the selections of policy makers ended up driven by their thoughts. Also, ideology is usually a single of quite a few important things on the front of domestic politics, but in overseas relations its spirit is constantly saved inside the restrictions of a human body of the country’s main demands, this kind of as protection and financial progress.

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Modi’s cabinet has, for instance, proved to be bolder in dealings with Pakistan in the second 50 % of its tenure (2016-2019) than the two former Congress-led governments (from 2004-2014). One could believe that Hindu nationalism – the proponents of which usually demanded that New Delhi deal with Pakistan by implementing robust actions – was an crucial element of this place. And but Modi was also substantially more conciliatory toward Islamabad at the beginning of his tenure (2014-2015). The BJP has also not fulfilled its assure of facilitating the comeback of Kashmiri Pandits – a community of Hindu priests that experienced to flee the Kashmir valley in which they ended up persecuted by Muslim radicals. This step would the two fit in properly properly with the plans of Hindu nationalism and mail out a solid concept to Islamabad.

Then all over again, in 2016, Modi’s governing administration replied boldly just after the terrorist assaults in Uri and Pathankot (each orchestrated by extremist companies from Pakistan) by ordering “surgical strikes” on camps in Pakistan-managed Kashmir. But that evaluate was not a novelty: India responded with identical functions in 2008, 2010 and 2011, underneath a distinctive authorities. The a person minute when Modi’s cabinet truly lifted the bar in stability relations with Islamabad was the airstrike on Balakot in 2019. It was a still an additional, solitary punitive operation in opposition to a radical Pakistani organization and a reply to an before terrorist assault in Indian Kashmir. But what established that action aside by making it extra dangerous and bold was the use of the Indian Air Drive and attacking a concentrate on within Pakistan correct, not in disputed Kashmir. One particular could argue that Hindu nationalism as an influencing believed was one of the motives the cupboard took this action, although the governments 2004-2014 shied absent from this sort of action. But this impact can neither be ruled out nor verified. Just one could as nicely speculate that the excellent form the operation took can be explained by the actuality that the tensions took place just right before the elections and Narendra Modi’s government actually needed to demonstrate it can stand up to its foes.

Allow me record 6 other points to take into consideration in this discussion.

Very first, the shades of ideology ended up barely obvious in New Delhi’s policy towards the a few key world wide powers: the United States, China, and Russia. India’s cooperation with United States has been evolving for many many years now, and none of the earlier governments attempted to transform the ship in one more direction (the Communist get-togethers are the only ones who would wish to do so). But Modi did his finest not to neglect the weakened partnership with Russia both. Nationalist boldness was also invisible in his conciliatory (and unsuccessful) gestures in the direction of China.

Next, Modi has been trying really hard to improve India’s escalating partnership with Israel, starting to be the to start with Indian key minister to stop by that place. It is also palpable that the Palestinian challenge is remaining progressively sidelined in New Delhi’s plan towards the Middle East (even though Modi stopped by in Palestine for a few hours in 2017 and expressed his governing administration guidance for a two-state answer and an “independent” Palestine). These developments are in tune, it appears, with how before Hindu nationalist leaders experienced known as for India to forge stronger ties with Israel somewhat than with the Muslim Arab countries of the Middle East. But the previously Indian governing administration had also been maximizing ties with Israel and Modi has not neglected some of the vital companions between the Arab nations as properly (he has paid out visits to Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, for instance). It would look that the spirit of ideology was the moment once more locked in the system of India’s day-to-day wants, as some of the Muslim Arab states residence a considerable selection of Indian employees and export their vitality means to India.

3rd, opposite to the most vehement votaries of the free sector that declare that dollars has no nationality, nationalists frequently declare it does. Both equally streams of imagined are to be discovered within just the coteries of the ruling BJP. Both equally the celebration and a great deal a lot more the nationalist group guiding it, the RSS, have been advertising and marketing the thought of swadeshi — the advertising of Indian providers and their products and solutions and solutions. But this has hardly translated into any insurance policies underneath Narendra Modi, himself a major supporter of overseas investment decision. Even though in opposition Modi and the BJP had criticized permitting FDI in retail and, yes, they have not overturned this choice the moment in ability. The recent government’s flagship “Make in India” plan was in truth all about rolling out a crimson carpet for overseas traders and not defending the Indian industries. Even some sections of the RSS took a various stand from the BJP governing administration and experienced at times scolded Modi’s cupboard for its totally free current market-oriented financial insurance policies.

Fourth, a person region where Modi’s government seemed to be ideologically more involved was the promotion of Indian lifestyle, such as spirituality, as element of its coverage. Producing the International Yoga Working day an official UN celebration and the highly effective once-a-year marketing of this party is possibly the most effective occasion of this. Abhijnan Rej and Rahul Sagar in their apt summary of Modi’s international policy for Carnegie gave more this kind of examples:

Below Modi, India has progressively begun to use spiritual diplomacy, for occasion, as a strategic tool for a range of ends. The innovation of Buddhist diplomacy has develop into, variously, a resource to keep the Dalai Lama card alive, forge ties with Southeast Asia, and construct bridges with China when essential. Equally, the aforementioned Kartarpur agreement signifies a variety of spiritual diplomacy all-around Sikhism that could aid pave the way (at the very least in a limited perception) for renewed engagement with Pakistan.

Fifth, the Hindu nationalists perceive Hindu religious identification as the bedrock of Indian countrywide id and therefore understand any conversion from Hinduism as a threat to nationwide unity. They have been generally suspicious – and occasionally even violent – toward Christian missionaries operating in India. In this regard Modi’s coverage has followed the nationalist spirit by cancelling the licenses of selected international Christian NGOs and restricting their pursuits, even though this are unable to be regarded as element of a direct relation to any state.

Eventually, it is maybe the policy toward refugees where Hindu nationalism surfaced most strongly, as Modi’s authorities admitted openly that it is unwilling to acknowledge Muslim refugees or to grant citizenship to Muslims of international origins. The BJP’s election manifesto of 2014 declared that beneath its rule “India shall stay a pure household for persecuted Hindus and they shall be welcome to search for refuge in this article.” Modi’s governing administration was obviously not happy to settle for the (predominantly Muslim) Rohingya refugees from Myanmar the moment they started to be persecuted yet again in 2017 and started out to flee to nearby countries, including India. The BJP’s choice-makers also ignited a controversy by tabling the Citizenship (Modification) Invoice in 2016 and eventually voting it by the reduced property of Parliament. The piece of legislation stipulated that following seven years of home Indian citizenship would be supplied to any particular person who experienced come from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan furnished that she or he would profess any other faith other than Islam. The bill was criticized for a few reasons – as a lot of identified it too liberal – but any level its intention of granting citizenship based mostly on spiritual denominations was distinct. All of this was capped by the declarations of BJP get together president, Amit Shah, in the course of the 2019 election campaign, when he mentioned that “We will take out every single one infiltrator apart from Buddha (sic), Hindus, and Sikh.”

To sum up, the BJP’s overseas policy took a predictable and relatively sensible trajectory. The shades of ideology within just the spectrum of its actions and declarations ended up much less noticeable whenever it arrived to dealing with the realm of hard electricity (in aspects these types of as safety and financial system) and in relations with much better nations. They were being, nevertheless, a lot more clear each time domestic politics known as for it, and also in just the location of smooth energy (these kinds of as lifestyle marketing), as well as in relation to non-state actors and weaker teams (this kind of as Christian NGOs and Muslim refugees).

The author would like to specific his gratitude to Shounak Established (King’s Higher education London) for offering him the plan to produce this text.

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