Fareed: Only Moral Persuasion Can Solve the Israeli–Palestinian Problem

Posted by :

View this email in your browser

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 21, 2021

Fareed: Only Moral Persuasion Can Solve the Israeli–Palestinian Problem

This most recent spate of Israeli-Palestinian fighting has been paused by a ceasefire, but Fareed writes in his latest Washington Post column that the 73-year conflict is intractable, if approached as a political or security issue.

"Ultimately," Fareed writes, "this is not a problem that can be resolved through power, whether political or military. It can only be resolved through moral persuasion." Israel has become the Middle East's superpower, with a per-capita GDP and a military that dwarf those of all other countries in the region, including Iran. As such, Fareed writes, "Israel doesn't have any practical reasons to make a deal with the Palestinians."

But as the Israeli government has moved farther to the right, some Israelis "argue passionately that it can find a way for Israel to have security and Palestinians to have dignity," Fareed points out. "The only hope—and right now it looks remote—is that those forces will gain strength and one day lead the country to give the Palestinians a state of their own. That would finally fulfill Israel's historical mission to be, in the words of Isaiah, 'a light unto the nations.'"

Palestinians Can't Count on Help

At The Atlantic, journalist and author Kim Ghattas writes that in past decades, Palestinians were a cause célèbre of sorts for the region—and a venue for Iran to compete for regional primacy and to legitimate its claim of Shi'a authority in the Muslim world. Arab states, meanwhile, "used the Arab-Israeli conflict to defend their bloated military budgets and explain away human-rights abuses and oppression—claiming it was all in service of a greater cause."

But Palestinians have long felt a sense of "abandonment," fueled also by a lack of focus from the US, Ghattas writes. The recent eruption should remind us that the Palestinian cause is both "secular" and "nationalist"—but Ghattas may well add "local." For Arab countries and Iran alike, Ghattas writes, the Palestinian cause has been self serving, meaning Palestinians cannot count on an outside power to help them.

An 'Optimistic' Prediction About India, but Big Problems Remain

"India's second wave of Covid-19 is expected to decline by July this year. A third wave of the pandemic is expected in about six to eight months," Sneha Mordani reports for India Today. "These are the fairly optimistic projections made by the three-member panel of scientists set up by the Department of Science and Technology under the Science Ministry of the Government of India."

But large factors remain worrisome. At Science, Jon Cohen writes of a vaccine campaign that has sputtered. (India ranks relatively low globally in vaccinations, with 3% fully vaccinated—the US figure is nearly 38%—and Cohen cites deep vaccine skepticism, quoting dismissive comments and pointing to anti-vaccine "rumors that spread constantly on social media," logistical challenges, and a massive wealth divide. Some have blamed India's woes on a new variant, but as the country's health system has been so completely overwhelmed, it's hard to assess that claim, Rukmini S. writes for The Guardian, arguing an inept national response should not be forgotten.

About That Herd Immunity …

For countries with widespread vaccination like the US, experts suggest an approximation of "herd immunity" might be possible in some states or regions, Spencer Bokat-Lindell writes for The New York Times. But scientists seem to be preparing the public for a future in which herd immunity isn't achieved so cleanly—or at all.

Several reasons intertwine, Bokat-Lindell notes. Among them are vaccine hesitancy—a recent Gallup poll found 32% of respondents worldwide didn't want the shots—and the arrival of new variants like the "more contagious B.1.1.7 … which pushed the estimate" of how many must become immune, for herd immunity to be reached, "to at least 80 percent."

Some experts hope that even if it becomes endemic, Covid-19 may evolve into something less harmful, perhaps closer to the common cold, as the 1918 flu did—or that the virus could rear its head only sporadically, with a measles-esque prevalence, in still-dangerous but largely manageable form. Of course, Bokat-Lindell notes, the alternative is frightening: that the virus could become more dangerous, not less.

Should We Worry About Inflation?

At the Financial Times, Martin Wolf argues that maybe we should. A recently reported rise in US consumer price inflation—by 4.2% over the last year—might reflect short-term, pandemic-related "unpredictability," Wolf writes, but there are larger factors to consider. One is the "wildly expansionary" fiscal policy with which governments met the pandemic; another is the "large overhang of private savings waiting to be spent."

But more importantly, Wolf writes, "politics have changed": US President Joe Biden seems determined not to repeat the perceived error of 2009, when post-crisis stimulus was viewed as too small; debt runs rampant among governments and corporations alike; the stock market is "generously priced"; and "bubbles" seem to be everywhere. "All this together has strengthened lobbies for cheap money and big fiscal deficits, and weakened ones for prudence," Wolf writes—which could keep the faucet flowing and consumer prices going up.