“Foreign Policy: Amir, describe your community of Nahal Oz. Amir Tibon: Nahal Oz is one of approximately 20 small, tight-knit communities that are situated along the border and mark the place where the state of Israel begins and ends. Most of these communities have a more liberal, left-leaning political tendency. The residents of these communities have said for years that if we want to have a better future, Gaza needs to have a better future. That’s a big part of the tragedy of what happened on Oct. 7. The communities that were attacked are the same communities that advocated to build new industrial zones on the Gaza border, to bring workers from Gaza into Israel, to bring international investment into Gaza. Now we are at a loss of words after what happened to us. FP: Did southern communities like Nahal Oz feel that the government had neglected them before Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7? AT: There is a clear difference between how Israeli governments over the years have dealt with attacks on our communities and attacks on larger, more populated areas in Israel. For many years, Hamas or the Islamic Jihad fired rockets toward our communities and the government responded in a very tactical, limited way. Whereas if they shot a missile toward Tel Aviv, that garnered a much tougher response. It’s absurd because a missile launched at Tel Aviv is less dangerous than a missile shot toward our community, because Tel Aviv is protected by the Iron Dome, which could block the rocket in most cases. The communities on the border are not covered by Iron Dome because we’re too close to Gaza. An attack on our community was always treated as not that strategic or worth it in terms of a military response. Hamas used that in a very smart way, because in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 7 attack, they kept testing the Israeli military along the border fence with nightly demonstrations in which they would rattle the fence and try to cut parts of it, and the military did not respond in a very forceful way. It allowed it to happen.” (Amir Tibon/Foreign Policy)
“More than 500 years ago, an Incan girl was killed as part of a sacrificial ritual at a mountain summit in Peru. Her frozen mummified remains were discovered in 1995 by archaeologists, who named her the ‘Inca Ice Maiden’ and ‘Juanita.’ However, no one knew what the mysterious girl looked like — until now. To find out, Oscar Nilsson, a forensic artist based in Sweden, used a combination of computed tomography (CT) scans of skeletal remains, skull measurements and DNA analysis to create a hyper-realistic facial reconstruction of Juanita, Nilsson told Live Science in an email. Nilsson teamed up with a group of Peruvian and Polish researchers to get a better idea of who Juanita was and what her life may have been like as an Incan youth. To do so, they investigated details from her frozen body, which archaeologists found during a trek up Ampato, one of the highest volcanoes in the Andes. When researchers discovered her body, she was wearing a ceremonial tunic and a headpiece. Scattered nearby were female figurines made of gold and silver, woven bags, pottery and a shell. A CT scan of her skull revealed a ‘severe blow’ to the back of her head … ‘In Juanita's case, I wanted her to look both scared and proud, and with a high sense of presence at the same time,’ Nilsson said.” (Jennifer Nalewiki/LiveScience)
“Nine days ago, the idea that an obscure 2020 election denier from Shreveport, Louisiana, with less than five thousand dollars in his household’s bank accounts, a literalist’s belief in the presence of dinosaurs on Noah’s Ark, and a dubious past as an advocate of ‘conversion’ therapy for gay teens could single-handedly shape the fate of tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance to key allies at war was even more preposterous than the notion that America might soon reëlect its four-times-indicted former President. But these are not normal times in our politics. As the new Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson now wields outsized power over which bills get a vote in Congress, and he has decided to make the first major fight of his tenure a dispute with the White House and the Democratic-controlled Senate over emergency aid to Israel and Ukraine. In the Senate, meanwhile, Tommy Tuberville, a first-term G.O.P. member from Alabama, who is better known for his years as Auburn’s head football coach, has waged a one-man campaign to block hundreds of military promotions for the past nine months. With a new war in the Middle East and embarrassing vacancies in key Pentagon posts threatening to affect U.S. readiness, his Republican colleagues finally pushed back for real this week, spending much of Wednesday night yelling at Tuberville on the Senate floor. ‘I do not respect men who do not honor their word,’ Joni Ernst, a senator from Iowa, huffed. Dan Sullivan of Alaska complained about Tuberville’s ‘national-security suicide mission.’ He added, ‘Xi Jinping is loving this. So is Putin. How dumb can we be, man?’” (Susan B Glasser/TNY)
“Seventy-four days before the Iowa caucuses, the biggest donor set in America is still undecided on the Republican presidential field, leaving millions up for grabs in what is expected to be the most expensive election ever. While Democratic backers like George Soros have targeted their giving to the Biden Victory Fund, financiers on the other side of the aisle are still casting about for an alternative to Donald Trump, switching horses and hedging their bets, mostly with little real enthusiasm. Some have kept their millions on the sidelines entirely, waiting to see if anyone can mount a surprise showing in Iowa. ‘Big donors are trying to figure out what’s going to happen, rather than make something happen,’ said Mike DuHaime, a Republican strategist who guided Chris Christie’s governors races. ‘They need to stop playing pundit and start playing advocate. Debating over who could beat Trump just continues to delay and delay and that only advantages Trump.’” (Liz Hoffman/semafor)
“In an astonishing and ugly rant, Watters on Wednesday said that he was fed up with Arab Americans and the entire Muslim world. "We have had it with them," Watters declared during the diatribe, which aired during a segment about activists ripping down posts spotlighting Israeli hostages. The remarks earned Watters and Fox News another stinging rebuttal from the White House, which called them a ‘sickening attack on the rights and dignity of their fellow Americans.’ The White House added that Fox News ‘owes an apology to every single viewer.’ If you're waiting for an apology from Fox News, however, don't hold your breath (you should probably know this by now). As usual, Fox News hasn't said a word about the hateful rant that streamed out of a top host's mouth and into the homes of millions. And it's not the first time that Watters has made abhorrent comments since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out. In October, Watters said, ‘I don’t like how people try to differentiate between the Palestinians and Hamas.’” (Oliver Darcy/Reliable Sources)
“With the contraction of print publications, the front pages of newspapers and the covers of newsmagazines have essentially disappeared, no longer providing a unifying focus. With a multitude of people, political factions, and organizations weaponizing media, using fake or misleading imagery in a parallel media war, viewers have been left largely in the dark, not knowing with whom to empathize, their tribal loyalties reinforced. And now, with increasing skepticism fueled by the emergence of artificial intelligence systems capable of simulating conventional media, the photographs and videos that actually depict the conflict between Hamas and Israel are more and more considered suspect. As a result, the BBC can publish an article on how two four-year-old boys, Omer and Omar, one Israeli and one Palestinian, were both killed in the early days of the war, their deaths becoming the subjects of a social media battle. Some have argued that it is not Omar who has been depicted but a doll; others that Omer and his sisters did not die but are ‘crisis actors,’ people paid to perform a tragedy. Omar’s mother, who confirmed to the BBC that her son had been killed by an air strike, has been forced to protect her child’s memory from this grotesque accusation: ‘They have no right to say he is a doll,’ she told the outlet. And a friend of Omer’s family, all five of whom were reportedly massacred, told the BBC, ‘To deal with their death is hard enough, and all these comments make it even worse.’” (Fred Ritchin/VF)
“As of November 3, CPJ’s preliminary investigations showed at least 36 journalists and media workers were among an estimated 10,000 killed since the war began on October 7—with more than 9,000 Palestinian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank, and 1,400 deaths in Israel … As of November 3:
36 journalists and media workers were confirmed dead: 31 Palestinian, 4 Israeli, and 1 Lebanese.
8 journalists were reported injured.
3 journalists were reported missing.
“As expected, there were murmurs in Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia, countries whose ports are leading candidates for an Ethiopian acquisition through commercial deals or (highly unlikely) force. Abiy’s careless statement about force — typical of his elevated sense of self-importance and very likely to be a misguided negotiating tactic vis-a-vis Djibouti — was catnip for the Horn commentariat that delights in pillorying the gaffe-prone Ethiopian Prime Minister. Consequently, few (with some exceptions) paid attention to the economic case for Ethiopia acquiring a reliable access to a seaport as well as the capacity to militarily protect such access. Ethiopia’s economic case for reliable and cost-effective seaport access is strong. In order to secure its economic future, the country must minimize or completely erase the economic costs associated with being landlocked. Overall, landlocked countries tend to be 20% less developed than they would be if they had access to the sea. This is partially due to cost of trade, with transportation costs being between 50%-262% higher for landlocked countries.” (Ken Opalo/The Africanist Perspective)
“(Tracey) Emin would go on to become a legend in her native England but never caught fire here in the same way. She was so far out in front of all curves that her installations like 1998’s My Bed — a re-creation of a disheveled bed with clothes and condoms strewn about, a statement on love and loss that offended just about everyone — and her ecstatic, tragic paintings were misinterpreted as opera buffa, shock-your-nana art, as if she were a messy female version of Damien Hirst. But she is a great artist who does it all: neon, drawings, prints, and sculpture, often featuring women in poses of abjection, self-abuse, and self-pleasure. And she only gets better with time, even after going through a horrific bout of bladder cancer. After radical surgery three years ago, she must now wear a urostomy bag and suffers from chronic backaches and urinary-tract infections. Her colon keeps collapsing because there is nothing to keep it in place. When that happens, the pain can be excruciating. We began DM’ing on Instagram during the pandemic and shared our cancer stories — hers and my wife’s. Last year, we had a conversation onstage at the New York Academy of Art; recently, we connected again over the phone on the occasion of her upcoming show ‘Lovers Grave’ at White Cube in New York, the gallery founded by her longtime dealer, Jay Jopling. When we speak, we never speak about the future. Only the now.” (Jerry Saltz/The Vulture)
“It was midday on October 26 when the M23 rebels attacked the town, nestled in the hills in Rutshuru, North Kivu province. An AFP team documenting the lives of people living on the frontlines of the M23 conflict was caught in the attack, leaving the town at the same time as its inhabitants. Families broke into a run as rifle fire crackled overhead, jostling with crowds of people on the road out. Panicked Congolese soldiers and policemen were pushing to get out ahead of the crush, fearful of falling into rebel hands. AFP witnessed a soldier threatening to shoot a civilian unless he handed over his bag and phone. ‘It's always like that with our soldiers, when we flee they steal our money and telephones,’ said the victim, a young man. After lying dormant for years, the M23 launched an offensive in late 2021 and conquered swathes of North Kivu, displacing over a million people. Rwanda backs the group, according to the United States and several Western countries, although Kigali denies the claim.” (France24)
“The war in Ukraine has put a spotlight on the employment of so-called kamikaze drones, or loitering munitions (巡飞弹). These are weapons that have some level of capacity to patrol over the battlefield before attacking a target in self-destructive fashion. They often combine intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), communication nodes, and data transfer capabilities, as well as strike functionality, in one platform. This class of weapons dates to at least the 1980s, when Israel developed the Harpy loitering munition for use in the suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD). China would later acquire the Harpy from Israel in 1994 and has been studying loitering munitions for over two decades. Both Russia and Ukraine have used loitering munitions successfully in the current war – and China is watching closely. A recent article titled ‘The Little Pests that Patrol the Battlefield’ in the Chinese military periodical ‘Weapons’ enumerates the lessons that Chinese strategists have learned. ‘Despite their small size, loitering munitions have achieved big results in the Ukrainian large-scale war of attrition,’ the Chinese analysis notes. This assessment highlights that these relatively low-cost weapons are destroying high value and expensive targets, such as air defense radars and missiles, as well as other important targets. Loitering munitions are thus seen by Chinese strategists as being ‘highly cost effective’ in this conflict of attrition. This obvious pattern has ‘attracted more and more countries to invest heavily in both the development and use of new loitering munitions and research on defensive countermeasures.’” (Lyle Goldstein and Nathan Waechter/The Diplomat)
“The length of deliberation at the end of a trial varies drastically from case to case, taking hours to days. Here, it took the jury fewer than five hours to find (Sam) Bankman-Fried guilty on all counts. The prosecution had convinced the jury that Bankman-Fried had, per the indictment filed against him last December, architected and overseen a multibillion-dollar fraud. While Bankman-Fried’s conviction will be viewed by most in crypto as ‘justice served,’ says Hillmann, unqualified celebration is premature because the conditions that allowed the FTX founder to establish himself as the latest wunderkind remain unchanged. In the span of three years, Bankman-Fried was able to steer a fraudulent business to a $32 billion valuation. He courted regulators, politicians, and venture capitalists. He fraternized with sports stars and supermodels. He disarmed reporters with his trademark T-shirt, shorts, and dad sneakers. He’s the ‘next Warren Buffet,’ they crooned, the ‘Michael Jordan of crypto.’ As long as entrepreneurs like Bankman-Fried—and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes and Ponzi fraudster Bernie Madoff before him—are able to ‘buy a fast pass into the kind of esteem in which they were held by some of the most powerful entities in the country,’ says Hillmann, there remains cause for concern.” (Joel Khalili/WIRED)
“Joe Biden and top aides have discussed the likelihood that Benjamin Netanyahu’s political days are numbered — and the president has conveyed that sentiment to the Israeli prime minister in a recent conversation … A current U.S. official and a former U.S. official both confirmed that the administration believes Netanyahu has limited time left in office. The current official said the expectation internally was that the Israeli PM would likely last a matter of months, or at least until the early fighting phase of Israel’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip was over, though all four officials noted the sheer unpredictability of Israeli politics. ‘There’s going to have to be a reckoning within Israeli society about what happened,’ said the official who, like others, was granted anonymity to detail private conversations. ‘Ultimately, the buck stops on the prime minister’s desk.’ The administration’s dimming view of Netanyahu’s political future comes as the president and his foreign policy team try to work with, and diplomatically steer, the Israeli leader as his country pursues a complicated and bloody confrontation with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza and attacked Israel on Oct. 7.” (Jonathan Lemire, Nashal Toosi and Alexander Ward/Politico)
“The leader of Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed Islamist militant organization and Lebanese political party, has not ruled out escalating its ongoing fight against Israel as that country expands its ground operations in Gaza. In a highly anticipated televised speech Friday, Hassan Nasrallah said that Hezbollah — which has previously vowed to destroy Israel — has already entered the fray. Hezbollah has increasingly traded fire with Israel along its northern border with Lebanon in the most significant escalation in violence since Israel fought Hezbollah in a bloody 2006 war. Over the past few weeks, some 30,000 people have fled southern Lebanon in anticipation of further violence. Hezbollah’s next steps, Nasrallah said, depend on what Israel does in Gaza. According to Nasrallah, a ceasefire would prevent broader regional war, but he did not elaborate on what other actions Israel might take to ensure Hezbollah doesn’t more fully enter the war. He did add that the US bears responsibility for the war in Gaza — but also has the power to stop it. ‘All scenarios are open on our Lebanese southern front,’ Nasrallah said. ‘All options are laid out and we can adopt any at any point in time.’” (Nicole Narea/Vox)
“CHOTYIEL, South Sudan — It was 1 p.m., her children still hadn’t eaten, and every item on Nyaguey Dak Kieth’s ‘long to-do list’ pertained to surviving another day. So Nyaguey grabbed a plastic bucket and an empty sack and set off from her village surrounded by floodwater. Those waters had upended her life, but also provided a food option — not a desirable one, but one of the few left. Water lilies. They’d been keeping her family alive for two years. They were bitter. Hard to digest. They required hours of manual labor — cutting, pounding, drying, sifting — just to be made edible. Nyaguey could still remember her initial shock at eating them, figuring they’d be a short-term measure. And now, with the floodwaters holding their ground, she could trace a two-year arc of distress in what the lilies had become: sustenance so vital that people were slogging farther and farther into the waters to find them, before someone else did. ‘I can see some lilies here,’ another woman told Nyaguey after a group of four had walked 20 minutes out of town, reaching the edge of the waters. ‘Not enough,’ Nyaguey said, and the group kept moving. ‘It looks like somebody already collected most of these.’” (Chico Harlan/WashPo)