Category: Michael Novakhov’s favorite articles

Blinken’s shuttle diplomacy came as Israeli troops surrounded Gaza City and cut off the northern part of the besieged Hamas-ruled territory. Troops are expected to enter the city Monday or Tuesday, and are likely to face militants fighting street by street using a vast network of tunnels. Casualties will likely rise on both sides in the month-old war, which has already killed more than 9,700 Palestinians.

The top U.S. diplomat hopes that pauses in the war would allow for a surge of humanitarian aid to Gaza and the release of hostages captured by Hamas during the militants’ deadly Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians — while also preventing the conflict from spreading regionally.

Neither Blinken nor Fidan spoke as they posed for photographers ahead of their formal talks in Ankara. The top U.S. diplomat was not going to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyep Erdogan who has been highly critical of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an outlier among NATO allies in not expressing full support for Israel’s right to defend itself.

Outside the Foreign Ministry, dozens of protesters from an Islamist group carried Turkish and Palestinian flags and held up anti-U.S. and anti-Israel placards as the Blinken-Fidan meeting got underway. Earlier Monday, police dispersed a group of students marching toward the ministry chanting “murderer Blinken, get out of Turkey!”

It was the second day of protests denouncing Blinken’s visit. On Sunday, pro-Palestinian protesters clashed with Turkish riot police outside the U.S.-Turkish Incirlik military air base in the southern city of Adana. Police fired tear gas and water cannon as the demonstrators tried to cross fields to enter the base.

Several hundreds also marched to the U.S. Embassy in Ankara on Sunday, chanting “God is great.”

Blinken’s mission, his second to the region since the war began, has found only tepid, if any, support for his efforts to contain the fallout from the conflict. Israel has rejected the idea of pauses while Arab and Muslim nations are instead demanding an immediate cease-fire as the casualty toll soars among Palestinian civilians under Israeli bombardments of Gaza.

U.S. officials are seeking to convince Israel of the strategic importance of respecting the laws of war by protecting non-combatants and significantly boosting deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s beleaguered civilian population.

It remained unclear, however, if Netanyahu would agree to temporary, rolling pauses in the massive operation to eradicate Hamas — or whether outrage among Palestinians and their supporters could be assuaged if he did.

Already Jordan and Turkey have recalled their ambassadors to Israel to protest its tactics and the tide of international opinion appears to be turning from sympathy toward Israel in the aftermath of Oct. 7 to revulsion as images of death and destruction in Gaza spread around the world.

On Saturday in the Jordanian capital of Amman, both the Egyptian and Jordanian foreign ministers appeared at a joint news conference with Blinken. The two said Israel’s war had gone beyond self-defense and could no longer be justified as it now amounted to collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

That sentiment was echoed by tens of thousands of demonstrators who marched in the streets of world capitals over the weekend to protest Israel and condemn U.S. support for Israel.

After finishing his talks in Turkey, Blinken will head to Asia where the Gaza conflict will likely share top billing with other international crises at a series of events in Japan, South Korea and India, including Russia’s war on Ukraine and North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

On Sunday, Blinken flew from the occupied West Bank, where he held talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, to Baghdad for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.

When word spread of Blinken’s arrival in the West Bank city of Ramallah, dozens of Palestinians turned out to protest, holding signs showing dripping blood and with messages that included, “Blinken blood is on your hands.” The meeting with Abbas ended without any public comment.

The Palestinian Authority administers semiautonomous areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. It has not been a factor in the Gaza Strip since 2007, when Hamas seized control after winning in elections there a year earlier. Abbas himself is unpopular among Palestinians.

American forces in the region face a surge of attacks by Iranian-allied militias in Iraq and elsewhere. U.S. forces shot down another one-way attack drone Sunday that was targeting American and coalition troops near their base in neighboring Syria, a U.S. official said. From Baghdad Blinken traveled to Turkey.

The Biden administration, while remaining the strongest backer of Israel’s military response to Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7, is increasingly seeking to use its influence with Israel to try to temper the effect of Israel’s weeks of complete siege and near round-the-clock air, ground and sea assaults in Gaza, home to 2.3 million civilians.

Arab states are resisting American suggestions that they play a larger role in resolving the crisis, expressing outrage at the civilian toll of the Israeli military operations and believing Gaza to be a problem largely of Israel’s own making.

How freaked out and messed up is Donald Trump over having to testify in his New York civil fraud trial tomorrow? He’s melting down on his social network in manic fashion, and he’s reaching the point where nothing he’s saying even makes any sense.

For instance Trump posted this today: “Sloppy Chris & “Aida” got booed off the stage yesterday at the big, and very successful, Republican Party event in Florida. I didn’t even know that Aida was still in the race.”

It might take you a minute to figure out that “Sloppy Chris” is Chris Christie, and that “Aida” is Asa Hutchinson. But Trump didn’t bother to specify this at any point in his rant, because he really isn’t ranting for an audience. He’s just ranting out of frustration, and is that far removed from whether his words end up being any decipherable messaging. Trump is out of his mind about having to take the stand, and it shows.

World leaders should stick by Ukraine, despite the additional demands of dealing with the Israel-Hamas war, the Ukrainian president’s powerful chief of staff told POLITICO in an interview from Kyiv.

Andrii Yermak, top aide to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, also pushed back hard on the idea, voiced last week by Italy’s Prime Minister Georgia Meloni in a call with Russian pranksters, that many are growing tired of the war in Ukraine, which on Friday faced its biggest barrage of drone attacks in weeks on critical infrastructure in the south and west of the country.

Meloni said in the prank call — in which she thought she was speaking to the president of the African Union — that there was “a lot of fatigue … from all sides,” and that “everyone understands that we need a way out.” 

Yermak retorted: “Even if there are people who feel this fatigue, I’m sure they don’t want to wake up in a world tomorrow where there will be less freedom and less security, and the consequences of this last for decades.” And he suggested Meloni brush up on her history.

“Think for a moment, if Britain in 1939 had felt tired of Poland, or if the U.S. … felt tired of Britain, would there be such a thing as Poland today, Britain, or Europe as we see it now? We could not afford fatigue then or now. That will repeat itself for sure if these people with ‘fatigue’ stop supporting Ukraine,” Yermak said.

A stalemate in the counteroffensive being waged by Ukraine’s army has led to predictions of a frozen conflict, as the Kremlin hopes that a changeable international situation — with the Middle East in foment and a U.S. election year ahead — will sap commitment to supporting Zelenskyy’s demand for assistance.

Yermak insisted that Ukraine “will never live in the frozen conflict mode” and warned that complaining of  “war fatigue” would rebound on Western powers as much as it would on Ukraine, claiming that the narrative was being driven by a Russian propaganda push to weaken allies’ resolve as the Israel-Hamas war distracted attention in global capitals.

Fighting in Gaza and a fragmented international response to Israel’s campaign to wipe out Hamas’ operational base — which is testing the unity of Western allies — has led to concerns that support for Kyiv could wane, as the war-torn country vies with Israel for dwindling supplies of shells and more limited diplomatic bandwidth in the United States and the EU to deal with two major conflicts simultaneously.

Regarded as a key decision-maker on the Zelenskyy team and a personal friend of the president, Yermak said: “What we are hearing from [foreign] leaders and allies is that support will stay as it was” before the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.

On the need to maintain stocks of shells and other munitions via the allies in the U.S. and Europe, however, he admitted that some shortages were arising. “During the war, [there are] a lot of shortages and I think these days it is impossible to cover 100 percent of your troops or get everything that you need because war is war — you’re always falling short of something. This is why we want to increase domestic production of munitions, with the support of our allies.”

Upcoming talks in the U.S. on ramping up cooperation to enhance Ukraine’s defense capability and enable it to build out its air defense system would, he pledged, be “very specific and a hands-on conversation.”

Yermak admitted that some munition shortages were arising | AXEL HEIMKEN/AFP via Getty Images)

Reports of weapons intended for Ukraine surfacing in Gaza have circulated on social media in recent days, but Yermak strongly denied that armaments sent to Ukraine were ending up outside the country. “Ukraine fully controls the situation. I think this is yet another Russian fake … The bigger the lie, the easier it can be for people to believe,” he said.

Ukraine is striving to establish itself as a firm ally of Israel and Yermak penned an article for the Haaretz newspaper in the wake of the Hamas atrocities, saying “the similarities of our tragedies are not accidental.”

He cited Iran’s backing for Hamas and supply of drones and weapons to Moscow as evidence of a “pole [axis] of evil” and added: “Russia is aggressor number one. And the second after Russia is Iran. And I think these two have an interest in what is happening in the Middle East as well.”

But he also spoke of the need for a broad alliance to aid Ukraine and singled out Qatar for thanks after its mediation in secret talks to secure the release of four children taken from Russian-occupied territory and returned to Ukraine in a gesture intended to shore up Doha’s push to act as an intermediary between Moscow and Kyiv. Ukraine has identified some 20,000 children forcibly removed from its territory since the full-scale invasion in February last year.

Yermak also confirmed that the majority of drones used in the attacks on Friday on Ukrainian infrastructure were supplied by Iran. Asked if his country’s defenses could keep pace with the growing volume of airborne and drone attacks from Russia, the chief of staff said. “We are prepared to strike back and defend ourselves, but we have to keep strengthening our air defenses.”

Ukraine’s hopes of speedy accession to full membership in the European Union rest heavily on the report card set to be published on Wednesday on the progress of Ukraine and other aspiring EU members. It could pave the way to the start of formal accession talks after Kyiv was offered candidate status in June, subject to agreements to overhaul its judiciary and deal with widespread corruption.

Asked if he expected Ukraine’s bid to start EU accession talks would begin shortly, a bullish Yermak indicated that a visit to Ukraine by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Saturday boded well for his country’s EU ambitions. 

“Yes, this is what we are expecting because we are doing everything to make it happen,” he said. “And I think that the visit of Ursula von der Leyen … is a very powerful step on that way.”

On her visit to Kyiv on Saturday, von der Leyen strongly hinted that the Commission will recommend that EU countries open accession negotiations with Ukraine. EU leaders will discuss the matter at a summit in December.

Von der Leyen’s predecessor as head of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, claimed recently that Ukraine was unfit for EU membership because it was “corrupt at all levels of society.”

Asked about that allegation, a clearly irked Yermak shot back: “I don’t recall Mr. Juncker visiting Ukraine in the last couple of years. So it’s a bit strange for me to hear these words from him. … I am categorically dismissing the statement that Ukraine is very corrupt. These challenges happen all over the world, but could you please give me an example of one other country that, under conditions of this horrific war, would undertake the reforms on such a scale.”