🌍 Israel ponders next move after Hezbollah attack

IN TODAY’S EDITION

Hi Intriguer. A smug thing to do at parties, between eyes-closed sniffs of your unwooded chardonnay, is to casually slip into conversation how you’ve been reading Tolstoy lately. But of course, you then run the risk someone might ask which specific Tolstoy you’ve been reading.

So here’s what you do, dear Intriguer: read one of his short stories like Master and Man, which you can smash out in a couple of hours. Not unlike a Bill Ackman tweet. And you’ll still get a feel for the themes that shaped Tolstoy’s writing: man’s capacity for conflict, redemption, and transformation.

This weekend’s election in Venezuela had left me hopeful we might see some of the latter. But the latest escalation in the Middle East, including a reported Hezbollah rocket hitting a soccer field, has left me bracing for more war.

PS – We’ll soon be offline for a team retreat, so our final briefing for the week will be tomorrow (Tuesday). But fear not, dear Intriguer! We’ll be back with more insights and ultra-niche party tips from Wed August 7th.

THE HEADLINES

Maduro claims ✌️victory✌️.
Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro has claimed re-election in Sunday’s crucial presidential election, after the loyalist-run electoral body said he’d won, 51% to 44%. Those aggressive air quotes above are because polling, surveys, exit polls, and quick counts had all pointed to a crushing win for the opposition, which is now rejecting Maduro’s victory lap. Several regional leaders – from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and beyond – are also openly questioning the result, though there’s been no indication Venezuela’s military will split from Maduro.

US and Japan announce new military command.
After months of hints, US and Japanese authorities have agreed to upgrade the US military command in Japan, aimed at deepening security cooperation between the two allies. Japan is already home to 50,000 US troops, but they currently take orders from US ‘INDOPACOM’ in Hawaii, in a timezone 19 hours behind.

Italy’s Meloni looks for deals with China.
Giorgia Meloni has pledged to “relaunch” Italy’s relationship with China, signing a three-year action plan during her first visit as prime minister. She pulled Italy out of China’s signature Belt and Road Initiative on infrastructure in December, citing a lack of concrete benefits plus friction with the US and EU. But Italy still wants to preserve and expand its ~$20B in annual exports to China.

Kamala Harris’s campaign fund grows some more.
The vice president and presumptive Democratic Party nominee has now raised $200M since announcing her intention to run last weekend. Her campaign says two-thirds have come from first-time donors. Btw – check out Election Intrigue for our weekly briefing on what the US election means for the world.

Wildfires hit Canada’s historic Jasper.
Images have emerged out of the old Canadian Rockies town of Jasper, showing a third of its buildings were incinerated by last week’s wildfires. The blaze was so intense, firefighters had to retreat as the flames advanced.

TOP STORY

INTRIGUE’S TAKE

There are still reasons to believe nobody wants a wider war here:

• Hezbollah knows the Lebanese people (including a quarter million Druze folks) are already in a world of political-economic pain, while

• Israel has been wary of Hezbollah ever since their bloody ‘draw’ in 2006, with the group now boasting ~100,000 armed members.

But, yet again, it’s also possible this is becoming something more:

• This attack will bolster those arguing Israel’s north can’t be secure until Hezbollah is pushed back

• A majority of Israelis already want to move against Hezbollah, and

• Netanyahu’s decision-making will also be shaped by his own political and legal woes.

So where to from here? One possible clue is that Israeli officials are quietly telling their neighbours, including via back-briefings to Sky News Arabia, that while Israel will respond forcefully, “we don’t intend to spark a war.”

The other possible clue is around what the players actually do, and right now, Hezbollah is quietly clearing out its key military sites along Lebanon’s border with Israel, anticipating that this is still where Israel will focus its response.

Also worth noting:

• A 2006 UN Security Council resolution called for Hezbollah to pull its forces back behind the Litani river, some 20km from Israel’s border. Hezbollah hasn’t done so.

• Phil Gordon, the national security advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris, says the Democratic Party’s presumptive 2024 nominee condemns “Hezbollah’s horrific attack” and that “the vice-president’s support for Israel’s security is ironclad.” For his part, Donald Trump says the attack was “almost the entire fault of the incompetent Biden-Harris Administration”.

• Officials from Israel, Egypt, Qatar and the US met in Rome yesterday (Sunday) to continue negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza. The talks remain stalled over various key details.

MEANWHILE, ELSEWHERE…

1. 🇰🇵 North Korea: UN agencies have delivered some four million vaccine doses to North Korea, raising hopes the country might soon reopen to international aid agencies for the first time since the pandemic. Most aid workers had to leave once Covid hit, as the impoverished hermit state closed its borders and tightened import controls.

2. 🇮🇹 Italy: Unesco’s world heritage committee has formally recognised ancient Rome’s 650km-long highway, ‘Via Appia Regina Viarum’, bringing Italy’s total number of Unesco sites to 60. That cements Italy as the place with the most heritage sites, followed by China (59) and Germany (54).

3. 🇦🇺 Australia: Canberra has announced a US$1.4B contract with Australia’s state-owned submarine builder to upgrade the country’s fleet of six diesel-electric submarines. The idea is to extend the fleet’s life, while the ‘Aukus’ pact works to add a nuclear-propelled capability to Australia’s fleet over the coming decades.

4. 🇵🇦 Panama: Authorities in Panama and Venezuela say air traffic between them has now returned to normal, after Panama accused Venezuela of blocking a flight with regional ex-leaders hoping to observe Venezuela’s election proceedings yesterday (Sunday). The Maduro regime tightened its borders before the vote, citing election security. 

5. 🇹🇷 Turkey: The Turkish parliament has approved the deployment of the country’s armed forces on a two-year counterterrorism assignment to Somalia. Turkey has been building its presence in Somalia over the past decade, and will soon run an oil and gas exploration mission off Somalia’s coast.

EXTRA INTRIGUE

🤣 Your weekly roundup of the world’s lighter news

• Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity firm that recently caused a multibillion dollar global IT outage, has apologised with $10 UberEats gift cards (which apparently didn’t work).

• A small island off the coast of Britain is going on sale, replete with a military barracks, 18th-century cannons, and 15 ghosts.

• Sharks off the coast of Brazil are now testing positive for cocaine. 

• Whales are capsizing boats again, with a breaching humpback tipping over a small vessel off the coast of New Hampshire and sending its two occupants overboard (fear not, they’re fine). 

• And a Scottish bog has been awarded world heritage status after a 40-year campaign.

BLOOPERS OF THE DAY

The 2024 Summer Olympic Games officially kicked off on Friday night, with the French capital putting on a massive and colourful – if slightly chaotic and occasionally controversial – opening ceremony.

Athletes are now bringing glory for their homelands across dozens of sports, but we feel duty-bound to share with you our favourite geopolitical bloopers thus far:

• Organisers hoisted the Olympic flag upside down on Friday night 

• Someone introduced South Korea as arch-rival North Korea, and

• A venue played the national anthem for Sudan instead of neighbouring South Sudan ahead of a men’s basketball game against Puerto Rico.

And that’s just through day three.

DAILY POLL

Last Thursday’s poll: Do you think elected officials should have a minimum and/or maximum age requirement?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟢 Yes, it’s become a necessity (69%)

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🔴 No, a blanket ban would eliminate some good candidates (28%)

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ ✍️ Other (write in!) (3%)

Your two cents:

• 🟢 M: “In our current, fast-changing technological development context, we need leaders who can integrate new information and adjust quickly. Like it or not, age is a significant factor in maintaining that ability.”

• 🔴 A.S: “People age at different rates. Reaction to specific situations rarely generates good regulation.”

• 🟢 B.J: “In most positions a minimum age has been in place for a long time, so why not a max age? Term limits are even more important.”

• ✍️ A.H.Z: “One issue with setting a specific age range is the increased life expectancy and quality of life at older ages, combined with the difficulty of passing and revising legislation. A maximum age requirement based on population percentages from census data (ex: oldest 10% of the population cannot hold government office) would perhaps be a way around this.”