The significance of an Arab party's presence in the governing coalition formed Wednesday, plus: tough talk from the US on Central America, the dark side of the lab theory, and migration's democratic dividends ...
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. June 3, 2021 A Potential First for Israel Though Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has at least a week to rally support against Israel's new governing coalition, which is poised to oust him pending a vote in the Knesset, observers are noting that Israel is on the verge of a national first: the inclusion of an Arab political party in the country's government.
"There are other centrist and left-wing parties in the coalition" that finalized its plans Wednesday night, "but what makes it truly historic is the inclusion of Ra'am"—also known as the United Arab List—"which has four seats" in the Knesset, The Economist writes. "It would become the first Arab party to join a government since Israel's founding in 1948. For decades the Arab parties have been shunned and, in turn, shown little interest in joining a coalition. Ra'am will not hold any cabinet seats. But its leader, Mansour Abbas, used the party's leverage as a potential kingmaker to obtain greater resources for Israel's Arab minority."
Plenty of analysts have noted that a new government headed by Naftali Bennett, a right-wing politician who supports settlements and opposes Palestinian statehood, likely won't change Israel's fundamental course. Nonetheless, Ra'am's inclusion is being marked as significant.
Whether or not the new coalition holds together and indeed takes power, Noa Landau writes for Haaretz that "[r]epresentatives of Israel's Arab citizens … have once again proven that they are key players in the struggle for the future of the state's leadership … Mansour Abbas' United Arab List continued to stubbornly negotiate until the last minute for the benefit of its voters in the Negev. Suddenly, the Hebrew media was forced to explain to prime-time viewers what the Kaminitz Law"—passed in 2017 to enhance criminal penalties for illegal building in Arab communities—"is and describe the plight of the residents of the unrecognized villages. Who would have believed that the headline 'Waiting for the Shura council's decision' would appear on TV screens in Hebrew in the midst of a seminal political battle … ?" The US in Central America: Here to Help? As US Vice President Kamala Harris prepares for a trip to Mexico and Guatemala on June 7 and 8, Brian Winter of Americas Quarterly wonders if the US is taking the right approach to Central America.
Despite broad recognition that the region needs development assistance if it is to staunch the flow of emigrants heading for the southern US border—and despite signals from the Biden administration that it wants to spend $4 billion in aid to civil-society groups—Winter writes that the Biden administration has nonetheless stressed the problem of corruption in its public statements. Such tough talk about a "predatory elite," as one White House official put it, might not help, according to Winter: During the Trump years, Central American governments got "a taste of what it's like to be left mostly alone" by a US government mostly concerned with immigration and drugs. Now, China waits with open arms as an alternative partner, if they grow weary of US pressure; Winter writes that "[o]ne is left wondering whether [President Joe] Biden is trying to replay his greatest hits in front of an audience that has irrevocably changed." For the Scientific Community, the Lab-Leak Theory Has a Dark Side Scientists appear to have genuine, good-faith disagreements over Covid-19's likeliest origin, but Amy Maxmen writes for Nature that the lab-leak controversy has led to online trolling, anti-Asian hate, and understandable recoiling in the research community.
"For instance, a neuroscientist belonging to a group that claims to independently investigate COVID-19 tweeted that" a recent letter by a group of scientists to the journal Science, which called for more investigation into Covid-19's origins and which has propelled some of the renewed interest in the lab-leak theory, "is a diluted version of ideas his group posted online last year," Maxmen writes. "The same week, on Twitter, the neuroscientist also lashed out at [University of Saskatchewan virologist Angela] Rasmussen, who has tried to explain studies suggesting a natural origin of SARS-CoV-2 to the public. He called her fat, and then posted a derogatory comment about her sexual anatomy. Rasmussen says, 'This debate has moved so far from the evidence that I don't know if we can dial it back.' [Lead Science-letter author and Stanford microbiologist David] Relman says he's saddened by the abuse of his fellow scientists, but he stands his ground." Can Immigration Stop the Authoritarian Tide? Following a pandemic-related dip, some expect global migration to rise in coming decades amid climate change and uneven population growth, destabilizing governments and regions worldwide. But Abel Escribà-Folch, Covadonga Meseguer, and Joseph Wright argue in Foreign Affairs that migration makes for healthy governance, paying a democratic dividend in the countries people leave.
Remittances—sums of money sent back home by emigrants living abroad—circumvent governmental control, obviate clientelism and vote-buying, "facilitate protest and undermine authoritarian tactics, tipping the balance of power toward citizens who mobilize for democratic change," they write. Also important is the "exchange of ideas" from family members and friends living under different forms of government, which amount to "social remittances" that "foster democratic values and participation even among citizens who never leave home." As migration rises, "new migrants send money back to their families, friends, and communities" and "make it possible for citizens to advocate for democracy in the places they leave behind." |
