Insights, analysis and must reads from CNN's Fareed Zakaria and the Global Public Square team, compiled by Global Briefing editor Chris Good Seeing this newsletter as a forward? Subscribe here. May 20, 2021 An Inflection Point in the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict Israel and Hamas have announced a ceasefire, but as the last week and a half of fighting killed hundreds, analysts observed fundamental changes in the dynamic of the 73-year conflict.
At The New York Times, Yousef Munayyer argues that the "two-state solution is dead," as the past 11 days have reinforced the notion that it's unworkable. "For those who periodically tune in and tune out of the Israel-Palestine situation, the events of recent days and weeks might seem like a replay of a movie they have seen before," Munayyer writes. "But the truth is, this moment is different," with Arab citizens of Israel uniting in protest with Palestinians living in the occupied territories. Others had suggested it was already happening, but Munayyer writes that the Palestinian cause must evolve into a call for equal rights, not statehood, as the latter has been revealed as a "convenient excuse" for maintaining an impossible status quo.
Writing of intractable shortcomings on all sides, Khalil Shikaki suggests at Foreign Affairs that the conflict appears to be moving backward. "[W]hatever its accidental quality, the latest round of violence will have enduring consequences," Shikaki writes. "Hamas will emerge from the conflict stronger and the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its president weaker. Violence between Israeli Arabs and Jews will eventually abate, but Arab perceptions of systemic discrimination will grow—as will a belief that a search for equality within Israel is inherently futile. Jerusalem's symbolic role will also expand, deepening the conflict's religious dimensions. Among many Israelis and Palestinians, these developments mark the return to an older phase of the conflict. The last two weeks have reinforced a belief that their relationship is again existential and zero-sum, that diplomacy to resolve the conflict is futile and violence inevitable." The CDC surprised many this month by proclaiming it safe for the fully vaccinated to largely go maskless. At The Atlantic, Dana Stevens argues that in some ways, masking is still prudent and courteous, given that viral risk is still more than zero, even for those who've gotten shots.
"When I walk outside my door into a densely populated neighborhood, I know as little about the life circumstances of the people I encounter as they do about mine," Stevens writes. "Are they, like me, fully vaccinated? Or are they in between shots, still looking for an appointment, or never planning to get a vaccine at all? Might they be in chemotherapy, or otherwise immunocompromised in some way that would prevent them from either getting a vaccine or experiencing its full benefits? Do they have children at home who can't be vaccinated yet …?"
Stevens argues we shouldn't feel bad for sparing ourselves the risk (however minimal) and others the anxiety that our uncovered faces might prompt. Those who set "a high standard" of Covid-19 risk avoidance will likely feel strange going maskless, Smith writes, and that's okay. Having already postponed the games for a year, Japan is moving ahead with plans to convene the Summer Olympics in late July despite a public outcry, criticism from business leaders, and—critically—a bad state of affairs when it comes to the virus and vaccines, Matt Alt writes for The New Yorker.
"Infections continue to rage in major cities—the nation experienced more deaths from covid-19 in the first four months of 2021 than it did in all of 2020, and, as a percentage of the population, the death rate in Osaka is currently outstripping that of India," Alt writes. "Yet there remains no official timetable for when those under sixty-five will begin to receive shots. The situation led the Prime Minister, Yoshihide Suga, to extend through the remainder of the month a state of emergency that had been expected to end on May 11th." With billions of dollars having been invested, Alt writes, leaders are nonetheless reluctant to delay the Olympics again.
"SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son, Japan's richest man, is 'afraid' as Tokyo gambles it can safely welcome 90,000 visitors from all over the world," William Pesek writes for Nikkei Asia, while Hiroshi Mikitani, chief of Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, has called holding the games a "suicide mission." Japan's leaders probably don't like the idea that "Beijing may be 105 days away from basking in Winter Olympic glory," Pesek writes—but still, it would appear to be "a wacky gamble" for Japan to open its borders "to folks from places suffering third or fourth waves of infection, pouring into a densely populated city [Tokyo] where vaccinations trail Bangladesh and new COVID variants are ready to party." Is Working From Home Less Productive? Observers have noted that the newly embraced efficiencies of remote work could provide a post-pandemic boost to the global economy, as office workers prepare for a more-flexible, potentially commute-free future. But is working from home really that efficient? A University of Chicago working paper analyzes data from a large, unnamed, Asian IT-services firm and finds employees worked more and were less productive after leaving the office during the pandemic—and that their home-work was riddled with meeting time. Productivity losses were more acute among female employees, but they did not correlate to children in the home.
The study only examined the field of IT, but the sample was large, covering more than 10,000 employees. "Total hours worked increased by roughly 30%, including a rise of 18% in working after normal business hours," the authors write. "Average output did not significantly change. Therefore, productivity fell by about 20%. Time spent on coordination activities and meetings increased, but uninterrupted work hours shrank considerably. … These findings suggest that communication and coordination costs increased substantially during WFH, and constituted an important source of the decline in productivity." |
