Shapeshifting
NEED TO KNOW
Shapeshifting
MIDDLE EAST
A year ago, after Hamas broke through a Gaza border fence on the morning of Oct. 7, the rulers of Gaza not only killed 1,200 people and took hundreds more hostage, they set off forces that many believe have profoundly changed the region.
Since then, for example, the enclave is devastated after Israel’s pummeling response, with its leaders either dead or hiding in tunnels. Iran, despite attacks on Israel this year, looks weak as its missiles are mostly captured by the latter’s formidable defense systems. To the north, Iran’s most fearsome proxy, Hezbollah, saw its longtime leader killed last month in airstrikes. Now, the Lebanese political party and militant group is in a state of panic over the loss of Hassan Nasrallah.
“It is not too early to conclude that Nasrallah’s death will reshape Lebanon, and the region, in ways that would have been unthinkable a year ago,” wrote the Economist.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is embracing this possibility. “We are in the midst of great days,” he said in a live television address covered by the Times of Israel recently. “We are changing the strategic reality in the Middle East … Israel is winning.”
He hopes the new environment will create opportunities for new alliances, including, as the Forward noted, with Saudi Arabia, traditionally an enemy of Iran. Quietly, the Gulf kingdom has indicated it is still open to that possibility despite its criticism of the ongoing violence in Gaza and the West Bank, and now Lebanon.
Still, Netanyahu might be engaging in magical thinking. A critic at the Middle East Monitor argued, for example, that Netanyahu’s vision of a new Middle East won’t deliver security for Israel because it necessitates steamrolling the hopes and dreams of Palestinians and others who have legitimate complaints about Israel’s policies.
Now, Hezbollah will regroup and redouble their efforts to destroy Israel, wrote World Politics Review. Israeli officials themselves have admitted that “Hamas cannot be destroyed.”
Meanwhile, Iran has pledged a more robust response, leading to fears that Iranian officials might construct and deploy nuclear weapons to stop Israel, Newsweek reported. Israeli leaders have proposed joint preemptive strikes against Iran’s nuclear program to forestall a nuclear war, though such strikes might also precipitate one, too.
The history of the past few decades is illustrative, too: Israel has been trying to destroy Palestinian militant groups for decades. Despite years of oppressing the restive Palestinians in the occupied territories and conducting attacks on neighbors to eliminate threats, Israel is not any safer, CNN explained.
But now, the country is paying a steep price in diplomacy. Embroiled in cases at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, the war in Gaza and now Lebanon has split the world: From Latin America to Asia, Israel has lost support for its mission, even in Europe. On Friday, French President Emmanual Macron called for a halt to weapons shipments to Israel for its fight in Gaza and criticized the ground invasion in Lebanon, the BBC reported. That’s a remarkable turnaround from the staunch support Israel received a year ago from France and most of the European Union.
Meanwhile, there are the costs of the past year, tallied in lives. Since Oct. 7, 1,664 Israelis have been killed, 17,809 wounded and about 143,000 displaced from their homes, according to the Jerusalem Post. In Gaza, 41,689 Palestinians have died and 96,625 have been injured, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Almost two million have been displaced, or about 90 percent of the population, according to the United Nations.
And in Lebanon, more than 1,000 have been killed in Israeli airstrikes over the past few weeks, with more than 6,000 injured, according to Lebanese health officials. More than a million people have been displaced, many fleeing to Syria.
On Oct. 7, 2024, despite tremendous efforts over many months, there is no ceasefire, no peace in sight, and little to no talk about “the day after.”
Writing in the Washington Post, David Ignatius said that while some things may have changed, the main thread that runs through the region hasn’t – there will be more violence.
“Perhaps Israel’s sword of vengeance has broken the power of Iran and its boldest proxies, as Netanyahu and his supporters seem to hope. But this is the Middle East,” he wrote. “A more likely outcome is that, at the cost of so many thousands of dead, this war has restored the old paradigm of a strong Israel that can crush its enemies – until the next round … The displaced Gazans, the stunned Hezbollah fighters, aren’t likely to forget. And in the Middle East, memory is an addictive drug, and a poison.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
Reading the Tea Leaves
INDIA
India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will lose two key state elections this week, exit polls showed, marking another defeat for the Hindu-nationalist party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi after it fared poorly in the national June vote, Reuters reported.
Projections showed the opposition Indian National Congress party winning the election in the northern state of Haryana.
Meanwhile, Congress and its allies are expected to have an edge over the BJP in the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir. However, none of the parties are projected to secure a clear majority in the territory, according to Bloomberg.
The two elections were conducted in phases that concluded Saturday. Final results are expected Tuesday.
If Modi’s party does end up losing the states, it would signal a serious shift in voter sentiment against the BJP, observers noted.
The governing party saw its fortunes falter following the June elections when it fell short of its parliamentary majority for the first time since Modi came to power. The results forced the BJP to depend on its coalition partners to form a government.
Meanwhile, the loss of Haryana would be significant because the state has been a BJP stronghold for a decade. At the same time, the party’s poor performance in Jammu and Kashmir is likely to reflect voter discontent over the loss of autonomy.
The Jammu and Kashmir election, the first in a decade, occurred in a region long plagued by violence. The territory has been disputed with Pakistan since 1947 and lost its semi-autonomous status in 2019 under Modi. The government says the move has restored stability and boosted development, a claim critics dispute.
The decrease in support for Modi’s party is now leading some analysts to speculate that the party might lose in upcoming state elections in the industrial hub of Maharashtra and the mineral-rich eastern state of Jharkhand later this year.
Under Siege
HAITI
Gunmen killed at least 70 people in a central Haitian town this week, the latest flare-up of violence in the crisis-plagued Caribbean island nation despite the presence of an international United Nations-backed security force, Al Jazeera reported.
On Thursday, UN officials said members of the Gran Grif gang launched an assault on the town of Pont-Sonde, about 60 miles from the capital of Port-au-Prince. The death toll included 10 women and three infants. More than 3,000 people fled the town.
The attackers also set fire to at least 45 homes and 34 cars, the UN added.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the attack, with other officials saying it was the worst in the region. Haitian Prime Minister Garry Conille described it as an “odious crime” and ordered authorities to send medical supplies and additional reinforcements to the region.
Authorities have not determined the motive of the attack but it is the latest to afflict Haiti’s agricultural Artibonite region, which has been increasingly terrorized by gang violence spreading from the capital.
Local human rights groups criticized the country’s intelligence and security services for failing to prevent the attack, noting that rumors of a potential gang assault had been circulating for months, the Washington Post wrote.
In recent years, Haiti has been plagued with violence stemming from criminal gangs that control about 80 percent of Port-au-Prince. The country is also dealing with a political crisis following the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse and has not held an election since 2016.
More than 700,000 people have been displaced and nearly half of its population is experiencing acute hunger, according to the World Food Program.
Last week, the UN Human Rights Office said more than 3,661 people have been killed in “senseless” gang violence in the country this year.
A Kenyan-led international policing mission – supported by the UN – has been deployed in the country to help local security forces combat armed gangs and create stability so that Haiti can hold elections.
While it could ultimately grow to 2,500 officers, only 410 personnel have been deployed since June. The mission has been hampered by a lack of personnel and funding, with only $85 million of the $600 million required per year secured.
The UN Security Council recently extended the mandate of the security mission for one year.
The United States wants to transform the mission into a UN peacekeeping operation but Russia and China have opposed the move.
Truth & Consequences
HUNGARY
Thousands of people protested outside the headquarters of Hungary’s public media corporation over the weekend to denounce state-controlled media for being a “propaganda factory” for the government of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán at taxpayers’ expense, the Associated Press reported.
The opposition-led demonstrations demanded the dismantling of the state-controlled media firm and the public media director be fired. Protest organizer and opposition figure Peter Magyar criticized the government-run media for its lies and propaganda, calling it “a global scandal.”
Demonstrators also called for the restoration of genuine public media, legal prohibitions on government propaganda and the resignation of news directors accused of falsifying information.
Since taking power in 2010, Orbán has increasingly cracked down on media freedoms in Hungary. Critics at home and abroad have complained that the ruling Fidesz party has used media buyouts by government-connected business magnates to build a pro-government media empire.
According to Reporters Without Borders, Orbán’s party controls around 80 percent of Hungary’s media market resources. The international group also put the Hungarian leader on its list of media “predators,” the first European Union leader to earn that label.
The long-serving prime minister and his administration have also come under EU scrutiny over alleged attacks on the rule of law and accusations of corruption, Radio Free Europe noted.
Observers said the demonstrations also highlight the increasing prominence of Magyar and his fledgling TISZA party, adding that the opposition figure is posing a serious challenge to Orbán.
TISZA secured nearly 30 percent of the vote in the European Parliament elections this summer and is polling within a few points of Fidesz.
DISCOVERIES
Shroom with a View
With plans to move Americans to the Moon and beyond, NASA is having to get creative with ways to support human life in space.
Mushrooms might be the solution.
In a statement this summer, NASA announced that it will pour funding into researching how the agency might “grow” homes in space using fungi. The “Mycotecture Off Planet project” was awarded $2 million over two years to continue advancing the technology of Mycelium architecture.
The idea behind the project is to use the resources already available on the Moon, like water and lunar dust, to build a base, instead of lugging equipment from Earth.
That’s preferable because it is costly and dangerous to get to space, and building structures there will be no small feat. It takes about a million dollars to get even one pound of material to the Moon, and even more to Mars, according to Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, the resources on the moon are sufficient to feed some fungal species which can be fashioned into building materials stronger than concrete. This “mushroom” material supposedly comes with an array of benefits such as insulation properties from the cold. It is also highly effective as a shield from electromagnetic radiation.
Radiation and its grave consequences for human health have been among the main issues that have halted space missions in the past. NASA researchers have found they can block more than 99 percent of radiation with just 3 inches of the material.
Lynn Rothschild, the head researcher on the project, explained to BBC how the fungi would work to create the Moon structures, “We would start with a double-bag, like a plastic bag one inside the other. In the middle part you have a very lightweight, collapsible scaffold that you’ve laced with dried fungal mycelia, and a few small containers with water.”
“It would fold up and when you get to your destination you just add water and the structure inflates and the fungi grow to fill the scaffold – you’ve got your habitat,” Rothschild added.
The last time humans went to the Moon was more than 50 years ago, in 1972 with the Apollo 17 mission. Now, with the ongoing Artemis program and the goal of building a sustainable lunar colony by 2040, projects such as these are receiving more funding and attention.
“As NASA prepares to explore farther into the cosmos than ever before, it will require new science and technology that doesn’t yet exist,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “This new research is a stepping-stone to our Artemis campaign as we prepare to go back to the Moon to live, to learn, to invent, to create – then venture to Mars and beyond.”