May

Israel

The IDF is about to start its invasion of Raffah, this city is the last region of Gaza that is not yet under Israeli control, this move is highly controversial as Raffah has been the refuge for the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the operation in the Gaza Strip. Such is the controversy that the Israeli war cabinet took months to publicize its intention, aware of the possible ramifications regarding international support. President Biden halted further weapons deliveries to the IDF in the beginning of May, showing the strain and growing disconnect between these two thought to be inseparable partners.

President Biden’s reticence has a humanitarian reason but more cynically also an electoral reason, with the war in Gaza and American support for Israel being wildly unpopular among the younger voters, that being part of the reason as to why on American universities big protests, encampments and great disruption have been happening. The American political polarization, widespread suspicion of authority and the growing shift in support for Israel towards disapproval makes this conflict, although inconsequential to American material well-being, as it once was, very important for the American election later this year.

On the 20th of May the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Hakim Khan, announced that he was seeking warrants on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for the events on the 7th of October and the subsequent response in Gaza for both Benjamin Netanyahu and Yahya Sinwar, the Prime minister of Israel and leader of Hamas respectively.

Khan said the ICC’s prosecution team is also seeking warrants for Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as two other top Hamas leaders — Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader of the Al Qassem Brigades and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader.

This move by Mr. Khan is very controversial, some critics claim that such action ends up putting in equal footing a democratically elected government and a terrorist organization. Now the prosecutor’s request will be reviewed by a panel of judges of the ICC.

Russian excursion in Kharkiv

Russian troops for the first since the beginning of the war in 2022 have crossed the border between the two countries, opening a new frontline north of the city of Kharkiv, the second biggest city of Ukraine. Much is being theorized about this offensive action, whether it was a renewed effort to take the city, a fixing operation or even the product of a commander's wounded ego.

In the early days of this operation some observers and even ukrainian reports from the front were concerned about this renewed russian effort, however upon advancing a few kilometers the attackers halted and started to dig in, with no further offensive activity seen and no build up of forces for a bigger attack the operation seems to have been drawn up as a attack to fix ukrainian resources away from the main russian effort in the Don-bass.

Biden Tariffs

President Biden announced the implementation of tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, advanced batteries, solar cells, steel, aluminum and medical equipment on Tuesday the 14th of May. The President argues that the Chinese government subsidies to their own industries gives them an unfair advantage. Protectionism has since 2016 been part of the Trump “brand” of politics and Biden has continued this growing shift against free trade and reinforcing the notion that protectionism is an American policy not a Trump policy. 

The Chinese government has reacted to this move by saying that this will seriously harm the “bilateral cooperation between the two countries”. The tariffs will affect many sectors, the most publicized one is the Electric Vehicles market, the tariff for EVs went from 27,5% to 100% of the price of the vehicle. This policy lever is meant to challenge Beijing’s practice of encouraging aggressively low pricing by domestic EV manufacturers while levying a 40% tariff on US car imports.

The White House said the measures were designed to protect American workers and businesses in the face of China’s unfair trade practices, including flooding global markets with artificially low-priced exports. Ursula Von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, has also begun to investigate the extension of the relation between the Chinese government and EV manufacturers, announcing that there will be extra import duties on these products by early July.  

Helicopter crash in Iran

Recently the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, the Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and several other officials died when their helicopter crashed whilst transporting them from the inauguration of a dam on the Iranian border with Azerbaijan, after meeting with his Azeri counterpart the president’s helicopter found itself amidst heavy fog and crashed, with the crash site and remains found hours later, with the heavy fog making the search take longer than expected.

Raisi was by many considered to be the potential successor to the Ayatollah Khamenei, already 85 years old the matter of succession to the Islamic Republic’s supreme authority grows by the day. President Raisi, also known by his detractors as the butcher of Tehran, was considered an important part of the hardliners in the Iranian government. His sudden death is bound to create infighting on the upper echelons of the Iranian Republic.