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May 17, 2021

Cease-fires are hard to achieve in any intractable conflict. Getting them to stick can be tougher still.

The air strikes and rocket attacks traded between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas in the Gaza Strip for the past week have, alongside communal violence in Israel, already exacted a heavy toll in terms of lives and damage.

Israel and Hamas have previously fought three brutal, and inconclusive, wars. Each had a particular set of circumstances at play that had to be navigated in a de-escalation. This time is no different.

For Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who told CBS News yesterday he'll do "whatever it takes" and a resolution is "not immediate," one potential consideration is domestic politics. The violence has halted, if not irretrievably stymied, opposition efforts to form a government in Israel after a fourth election in two years yielded no clear result.

For Hamas, the conflict could position it as the outfit seen as best able to stand up to Israel, to the detriment of its West Bank rival, the Palestinian Authority.

International envoys from Egypt, the U.S., Qatar and elsewhere have to navigate not just those political realities, but also the spark for the latest violence – clashes between Arabs and Jews living in mixed areas of Jerusalem.

As images of burning synagogues and bloodied Arab families attest, even if a cease-fire is agreed it won't guarantee that communal tensions immediately fade. Instead, it's likely to simply paper over the decades of mistrust on both sides. — Rosalind Mathieson 

Palestinian demonstrators throw teargas canisters back at Israeli forces near a Jewish settlement ​​in the occupied West Bank on May 14.

Photographer: Abbas Momani/AFP/Getty Images

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Global Headlines

New offer | Republicans in the Senate are set to present a fresh counter-proposal to U.S. President Joe Biden's $2.25 trillion plan to rebuild infrastructure. While prospects for a deal are brightening, Erik Wasson writes, discord over funding could still scupper an agreement.

Uneven recovery | China's industrial output and investment were lifted by strong exports and a hot property market while consumer spending lagged forecasts. The April data underline that while China remains a global growth driver and source of demand for commodities, the economic expansion may have reached its strongest point.

  • The U.S. Senate is poised to begin action this week on a package of bills aimed at China by bolstering American competitiveness in technology and manufacturing.
  • China is vaccinating almost 14 million people a day against Covid-19, the fastest pace in the world.

Cautious easing | The U.K. today took its next steps out of lockdown after Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for "a heavy dose of caution" amid rising concerns over the highly infectious new coronavirus strain that originated in India. The measures include lifting a ban on leisure travel to a small group of countries, relaxing rules on households mixing, and allowing theaters, cinemas and hotels to reopen.

  • An air-travel bubble between Singapore and Hong Kong has been delayed as Singapore battles a rising number of cases tied to the Indian strain.

Cyclone Tauktae | A severe cyclonic storm is set to slam into India's west coast, prompting authorities already grappling with a savage second virus wave to evacuate people and patients to safer areas. The equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane, it is expected to hit Gujarat state this evening, and threatens to worsen existing shortages of medical supplies from oxygen cylinders to vaccines.

Rescue personnel evacuate a local resident in a coastal area after heavy rains associated with cyclone 'Tauktae' on May 14.

Photographer: Arunchandra Bose/AFP/Getty Images

Coalition setback | Candidates from Chile's center-right coalition government secured fewer than a third of the seats on the Constitutional Assembly in weekend elections. If that result holds through the final count, it will leave independents and the left-wing opposition with more sway to rewrite Chile's new charter.

What to Watch This Week

  • U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will meet at the Arctic Council in Reykjavik and may discuss a possible summit between Biden and President Vladimir Putin.
  • British officials aren't convinced by Biden's plan for a global minimum business tax rate of 21%, concerned that it is too high over the long term.
  • Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai, former lawmaker Albert Ho and eight others pleaded guilty to organizing a 2019 protest that highlighted local opposition to the Chinese Communist Party.
  • French President Emmanuel Macron hosts a summit with African leaders tomorrow to discuss how to counter the pandemic's impact on economic development.
  • The European Union and the U.S. today will announce a truce in a long-running metals dispute to avoid the escalation of a tit-for-tat trade war.

Thanks to the 30 people who answered our Friday quiz question and congratulations to Mond Mckenzie, who was the first to name Xiaomi as the smartphone company that was removed from Washington's blacklist in a rare victory for Chinese tech giants caught in the cross hairs of U.S.-China tensions.

And finally ... A year ago, as Covid-19 ravaged successive countries and economies shuddered, consumers were the ones panic-buying. Today, with rich countries on the rebound, it's companies furiously stocking up. Brendan Murray, Enda Curran, and Kim Chipman explain how the corporate buying and hoarding is pushing supply chains to the brink of seizing up, with shortages, bottlenecks and price spikes nearing the highest levels in recent memory.

A container ship leaves the Yangshan Deepwater Port in Shanghai.

Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg

 
 

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