The Intelligence: Strikes on Rafah

This episode covers the ongoing Israeli military actions in Rafah, Gaza, highlighting the strategic challenges and international reactions.

1. Israeli military operations in Rafah have intensified, causing significant civilian casualties and drawing international condemnation.
2. The Israeli government lacks a cohesive post-war strategy for Gaza, leading to internal political tensions and uncertainty about future governance.
3. Despite extensive military actions, the ability of the Israeli forces to achieve lasting defeat of Hamas remains questionable.
4. The international community, including several Western European countries, is increasingly recognizing Palestinian statehood, indicating Israel's growing isolation.
5. The dire humanitarian situation in Gaza is exacerbating, with disrupted aid deliveries and a severe lack of safe havens for displaced Palestinians.

1: Ground Offensive in Rafah

The chapter discusses the recent Israeli military advancements in Rafah, including the control over strategic locations and continued bombardment despite international scrutiny. Key topics include the tactical aspects of the ground offensive and the immediate repercussions on Rafah's civilian population. Greg Karstrom: "As soon as Israeli troops leave, Hamas tries to move back in."

2: International Reactions and Isolation

This chapter covers the global response to the Israeli actions in Gaza, focusing on the diplomatic shifts and recognition of Palestine by countries historically aligned with Israel. Greg Karstrom: "More and more isolated as this war goes on."

3: Humanitarian Crisis and Future Scenarios

An in-depth look at the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza due to military actions and the blockade, discussing potential future scenarios, including Israeli occupation or a multinational governance model. Greg Karstrom: "Incredibly dire humanitarian situation for the million and a half Palestinians."

1. Stay informed about international conflicts to understand their global impact.
2. Support humanitarian efforts in conflict zones through donations and advocacy.
3. Engage in community discussions to raise awareness about the implications of foreign policies.
4. Educate others about the importance of political solutions to military conflicts.
5. Encourage diplomatic and peaceful resolutions through petitions and support of NGOs.

Horrific images of charred bodies being pulled from the rubble in Gaza drew outcry, and more countries are recognising the Palestinian state. Israel is becoming more isolated as a result, and Binyamin Netanyahu’s lack of a postwar plan is threatening his government. The growing electoral power of Mexico’s diaspora ahead of the country’s upcoming elections (11:45). And, come with us for a game of lawn bowls (19:38).

People

Benjamin Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, Yoav Galant

Companies

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Books

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Guest Name(s):

Greg Karstrom

Content Warnings:

Graphic descriptions of violence and casualties

Speaker A
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Jason Palmer
The Economist hello and welcome to the intelligence from the Economist. I'm Jason Palmer. And I'm ore Okambi. Every weekday, well, in my case for just a few more weekdays, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

There are nearly a 10th as many mexican citizens abroad as there are at home, most of them in America. Those emigres only recently got the right to vote ahead of Mexicos elections. This weekend we look at the growing political power of its diaspora. And do you know what lawn bowls is? I was told it's a quintessentially british sport, but I'd never heard of it.

Ore Okambi
And that's the problem. The game is in decline, partly because too few younger players are joining in.

But first, for several weeks, israeli troops have been making incursions into Rafah in southern Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people have been sheltering from israeli airstrikes. Yesterday, IDF troops were reported to have reached the heart of the city, taking control of the landmark al Awada roundabout, home to shops, large banks and government buildings. But the israeli shelling and strikes on Rafah have continued, according to the Hamas run health ministry in Gaza, a blast at an encampment of displaced people yesterday killed 21, with scores more injured. Israels military has denied attacking the al Muwasi site, and three more countries went ahead and declared their recognition of a palestinian state. So what next for Israel's ground offensive and for its wider war?

Greg Karstrom
The blast yesterday comes after an earlier israeli airstrike on Sunday that killed at least 45 displaced people in a tent camp in an area of Rafah. Greg Karstrom is a Middle east correspondent for the Economist. There were horrible images that came out of children burned to death, of charred bodies being pulled from the rubble.

That attack drew international convicts. Benjamin Netanyahu, the israeli prime minister, said it was a tragic mistake. He promised an investigation. The israeli army has put out a preliminary story, saying that its own bombs might not have caused the fire in this tent camp, that they might have hit an Amo depot nearby, and that is what caused the blaze. Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size.

We are looking into all possibilities, including the option that weapons stored in a compound next to our target, which we did not know of, may have ignited as a result of the strike. Meanwhile, you have Palestinians who have fled from Rafah, who have fled to what they thought was a safe zone in al Muwasi, who are now looking for other places to run to, in some places fleeing back to Khan Yunis, a city that already saw heavy fighting earlier in the war. And now that israeli defense force troops appear to have reached the heart of Rafa, what does that mean for Israel's campaign in Gaza? I mean, remind us what Mister Netanyahus objective is and has it been achieved? The objective has always been to eliminate Hamas.

And what that actually means in practice is something that israeli generals, israeli officials have been vague about since the beginning of the war. They've often struggled to describe what it means to defeat Hamas. I think what we've seen throughout the course of this war is that just entering a city, seizing some territory, is not enough to actually achieve that goal. We saw israeli troops go into northern Gaza in the early months of the war. They went in in huge numbers.

They conquered Gaza city and other population centers in the north. Then they moved south, and they did that in Khan Yunus for several months earlier this year. Now they've moved on to Rafah. But what we've seen is that as soon as they've left each of these areas that they've conquered, Hamas has tried to move back in. The Israelis have left behind a power vacuum that Hamas has tried to fill.

This isn't a conventional war in the sense of one military fighting another. And if you conquer the enemy's capital, you can declare victory in the war. This is a war between a state and a non state actor. And so the idea that conquering a city, conquering territory, is a way to actually achieve the defeat of that enemy, it just doesn't work in a war like this. We've seen that before, and we're likely to see that be the case as well, no matter how long the Israelis, I think, spend in Rafa.

Ore Okambi
Greg, we heard on the show last week from our editor in chief and our Jerusalem correspondent that Mister Netanyahu's lack of an apparent plan for Gaza after the war is causing open revolt from senior officials and cabinet members. Are we at a moment now where that comes to a head. We should be, im not sure we actually are, but we should be. Benny Gantz, former army chief opposition lawmaker who joined the war cabinet back in October. He has given Prime Minister Netanyahu an ultimatum.

Greg Karstrom
He told him to come up with a plan for what happens after the war, where Gantz has said hes going to leave the war cabinet, and Netanyahu has about another week. Netanyahu, who has refused for eight months now to even talk about post war plans, no one thinks he's going to suddenly get serious and agree to implement something. But I think there's also a lot of skepticism that Benny Gantz is actually going to follow through. I think a lot of people in Israel think that he's going to find a way to stay in the war cabinet after the deadline comes and goes. So what you have is Israel drifting towards what looks like the inevitable postwar upcome of an israeli military occupation of Gaza.

You've had other ideas floating around. Yoav Galant, the defense minister, has talked about a palestinian administration that should be in control of Gaza, not the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West bank, but some kind of government cobbled together with local notables in Gaza. I don't know many people who think that is a workable idea. Gantz has talked about bringing in a consortium of the Palestinians, the Americans, the Europeans, Arab states, all of them somehow getting together to run Gaza. But again, that's not something Netanyahu was willing to discuss, and that's something that certainly many other countries in the arab world would be reluctant to do unless it was linked to a serious israeli effort to talk about a two state solution and end to the occupation and end to the conflict with the Palestinians.

And that is something that neither the israeli government or I think much of the israeli public right now is in a position to contemplate. And so despite all of these ideas floating around, despite this very strong opposition with within the war cabinet to israeli military occupation of Gaza, that increasingly seems like the inevitable outcome of this war. And yet yesterday, three more countries, Norway, Spain and Ireland, officially recognized a palestinian state. Is it safe to say that Israel is beginning to isolate itself? It is, and it's more and more isolated as this war goes on.

You can dismiss these recognitions of Palestine as symbolic. There are more than 140 countries around the world recognize a palestinian state, but that hasn't brought the Palestinians any closer to actually having a sovereign state. At the same time, the fact that it's now countries in Western Europe who are doing this, they have historically been very reluctant to recognize Palestine. They've been some of the only holdouts who haven't recognized it before. So now in western Europe, this idea starting to gain traction.

Countries that are israeli allies, countries that are close to Israel, even, they are beginning to talk about recognition of Palestine. Weve heard increasingly sharp criticism of Israel's military conduct over the past few days. Emmanuel Macron, after that airstrike in Rafa, said he was outraged. The italian defense minister saying that there was no longer any justification for israeli strikes that killed civilians in Gaza. The british foreign secretary said he was very concerned and that Britain wants to see a pause in the fighting.

America at this point, that is holding the line, holding a very pro israeli line, and that is despite the so called red line that President Biden put forth before the offensive in Rafah, despite his threats to curtail military aid or the sale of weapons to Israel, the White House has found a way to insist that what Israel is doing in Rafah doesnt cross that red line, doesnt trigger a halt to aid or a halt to arms deliveries. Everything we're seeing, and we can't see everything, but everything that we can see tells us that they are not moving in. In a major ground operation in population centers in the center of Rafa, Israel. Is now really entirely dependent on America because just about everyone else in the world, I think, is angry, exasperated with Israel's conduct in Gaza. And how about the plight of displaced people?

Ore Okambi
I mean, Greg, we've all seen that footage you spoke about earlier of charred bodies of the people who were sheltering in tents. Do you think that we're any closer to a hostage release and a ceasefire deal? No, I don't. I think, if anything, we are further away. We've heard from Hamas in the past couple of days since that strike in Rafah.

Greg Karstrom
They've said that they have no intention now of going back to ceasefire talks with Israel. Those talks, of course, had seemed to be making some progress in the weeks before the operation began. Now, I think they're saying that for public consumption. I don't think they are 100% opposed to continued negotiations with Israel, but I do think this makes it harder for them to agree to a deal. The israeli army and the israeli government, they've put out this very optimistic message in recent weeks that military pressure on Hamas and Rafah might make them more amenable to negotiating.

And I think it's likely to do the opposite. And if a deal is not going to happen anytime soon, then you have just an incredibly dire humanitarian situation for the million and a half Palestinians who were displaced in Rafah who have now, many of them, fled to other parts of the south. The flow of aid into southern Gaza has been interrupted by Israel's seizure of the Rafah crossing and by fighting near the other main border crossing in the south. The UN says it often cannot deliver aid. Even if aid reaches the border, the UN cannot deliver it.

You have this temporary pier that the Americans set up earlier this month to begin channeling aid into Gaza by sea. That pier has been damaged by bad weather, so the maritime route is out for the time being. You have people running from one part of southern Gaza to another, trying to find somewhere that is safe and finding that in some cases, the areas they thought were safe are not. And there are tragically going to be many more palestinian lives lost, I think, in the weeks to come. Greg, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Thank you.

Ore Okambi
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Jason Palmer
Mexicos general election campaign is in its final stretch. On Sunday, the country will host its biggest poll ever, a record number of voters and a record number of elected positions up for grabs. The presidential frontrunners are the incumbent president's protege, Claudia Schoenbaum, and Sochil Galvez, the candidate of an alliance of opposition parties. Both are crisscrossing the country, pressing the flesh.

But in earlier months, they could be found in more far flung places. Millions of mexican citizens live outside of Mexico. Erin Braun writes about the american west for the Economist. The country has a really mighty diaspora, and this year, in Mexico's largest ever elections, a record number of them are actually going to vote. But the diaspora, despite its size, has historically punched below its weight, and it doesn't seem like that is going to change this year.

When you say that it's mighty, let's put some numbers to it. How many citizens live outside of Mexico? About 12 million people who were born in Mexico now live outside of the country, and that's compared to about 130 million Mexicans who actually live in Mexico, so not a small fraction. And when we're talking about the mexican diaspora, we're really talking about Mexicans who live in the United States. About 97% of the mexican diaspora lives in the US.

Erin Braun
But of those 12 million, only about one and a half million actually have a voter id card, which is necessary to vote. And of those, only 227,000 are registered to vote in this year's election. So it's a really, really small fraction of the number that could vote. And because this year the presidential election is not close, the leading candidate, Claudia Schoenbaum, is very far ahead of her rival, Sochild Galvez. The diaspora is probably not going to make a difference.

But I still think that the diaspora is worth having a closer look at. Ok, I'll take you at your word. Why? Jason? There are two main reasons why.

One is because the diaspora electorate is growing really quickly despite its small numbers. And second is that it's almost certain that their votes will matter more incoming elections, especially when the race is closer than this year. And the first mexican president to actually court diaspora voters was Vicente Fox in 2000. And his campaign was actually sort of ingenious. He rode a horse through Chicago's little village neighborhood and he wore a cowboy hat because he's a rancher.

And this was a really, really important election. It was the year that Mister Fox, who was an opposition candidate, beat the institutional revolutionary party known as the Prix. And they had been ruling for seven decades. But at the time, mexican voters abroad didn't have the right to vote. So Fox was trying to galvanize support because of the influence that he thought the diaspora had over their families.

Back in Mexico, he passed out phone cards and asked them to ring their families and tell them to vote for him. And it was prescient. Five years later, while Fox was in office, Mexicans abroad finally got the right to vote. And ever since then, their numbers have grown. But you've said that the numbers are comparatively quite small and they're not going to swing the election.

Jason Palmer
Presumably this time around it isn't really worth the candidate's time to court that diaspora vote. I think there are good reasons to court the diaspora and we have seen candidates do so. And that's partially because Mexicans abroad do have a lot of influence over their families and friends at home, but also because they know that this vote is growing. And so parties are putting in the groundwork now. And we're seeing that with both presidential candidates this year.

Erin Braun
They traveled to several places in the US, when there are lots of mexican voters, like in Los Angeles and California, where I live, about a third of Los Angeles county is mexican or of mexican descent, and a third of the consulates where Mexicans can vote abroad this year are in California. And Miss Sheinbaum, who's the protege of the current president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and representing his party Morena, was in LA in October and she met with workers groups and held rallies and even met with the mayor of LA. Here she is on that trip at a rally at an LA landmark called the million dollar Theater.

The opposition candidate, Sochil Galvez, also went to Los Angeles and she met with young immigrants and she picked strawberries in the fields with migrant workers. And she also went to New York earlier this year.

And here she is talking to workers while touring a food distribution center in the Bronx.

Jason Palmer
Ok, so it's, as you say, worth their time to go and stump in America. But what is the pitch that they're making to voters abroad? There are a couple themes that come up a lot. They talk a lot about how crucial mexican migrants are to the economies of the US and Mexico, and they're particularly talking about these billions of dollars in remittances that Mexicans in the US send back to their families each year.

Erin Braun
This is a really big change because for generations, even Mexicans who migrated to the United States were kind of seen as traitors. They had left the country, politicians didn't really care about them.

And then both candidates have these kind of politiciansque lines about how they still consider mexican expats a key part of their country, even if they're abroad. They say that Mexicans split by the border, especially in California. They said this are still basically one people. And how do you think that message will land? Do we know how the diaspora tends to vote?

Polling of the diaspora is very scarce, but emigres tend to vote against the party that was in power when they left Mexico. And this has implications for both candidates. So a lot of Mexicans migrated north when the PRI was in power for those seven decades. And Sochil Galvez represents a coalition of the opposition parties, which includes the Prix. Folks unhappy with the Prix probably won't want to vote for her.

On the other hand, if more recent migrants show up to vote on election day who left during Mister Lopez Obrador's presidency, they might not be willing to vote for Morena, for which Claudia Sheinbaum is the candidate. What we do know, though, is that we'll continue to see mexican candidates working even harder in future. Years to win over these voters, because they may not decide this election, but they definitely could decide the next. Erin, thanks very much for joining us. Thank you, Jason.

Speaker G
The line was right. Just need to take the weight off a little bit. Come on. It's a sunny day, and there's a beautiful, really flat and well manicured lawn. And we've got Rob, who's setting up for us to play some bowls.

Ore Okambi
So you've got three little circles on the ground. I imagine that's some kind of goal. There's lots of people hanging around, lounging around under the shade, socializing, having a few drinks. I think I saw someone smoking a pipe earlier. Looks quite relaxed.

Robert Rain
Okay, once more with the jack. Okay. Just to get your arm warmed up and your bowling arm in the groove. Okay. Right foot on the map.

Greg Karstrom
Yeah. I'm Robert Rain. I'm the secretary and coach at Elton Bowls club. It all happened after retirement. I was made redundant, and I was at home.

Robert Rain
I'd organized the beans into alphabetical order and date order, and my wife was beginning to send me out into the high street or anywhere just to get rid of me. And I noticed the postman was avoiding me as well. So I don't know quite how it happened, but a neighbor or somebody took me down to the bowls club. And as is the case with bowls, you are affected by a certain amount of vanity, because you always tend to think, I'm too young for bowls. I couldn't possibly be old enough to play bowls.

But I went down there, met the people, lovely people, and I literally started as you did. Oh, it's going with that? It's going. What does it need to correct it? It needs a bit more power.

Breakfast cereal? Yeah. Some wheat. A bit. Come on.

Ore Okambi
Okay. Other than that. All right. Perfect delivery line. Take it away.

Speaker G
Many people would consider crickets to be the archetypal british sport. But lawn bowling, the game in which players roll a biased ball towards Jack with the intention of getting as close to the jack as possible, arguably fits the description much better. Meehan Ridge is a Britain correspondent for the Economist. The game is older than cricket. The first rules were published in the late 17th century.

It was so popular at one time that kings outlawed it. One of them was Henry VIII, because it was considered to be distracting the lower classes from more important activities, one of them being archery. A recognizable version of the modern game that you see today was established at least by 1501 of. The sort of interesting things about it is that it crops up a lot in literature. So Shakespeare alludes to it in Cymbeline, Clotton, who's the son of the queen and he likes a gamble, refers to kissing the jack.

But that's all history. I'd be surprised if there are many mentions of lawn bowling in modern literature. Could the game make a comeback? Me? And how popular is bowls now compared.

To in the past? Pretty unpopular. It could make a comeback in one sense, which is that Britain still has a lot of bowling greens. They often have clubhouses and many serve as community hubs where people meet for drinks and socializing. And England still does very well at bowls in the Commonwealth Games, where it's a core game, but the game is in decline.

Club memberships have fallen, closures have followed. No one actually knows how many bowling greens Britain has left. There may be something like 7000, but an awful lot have disappeared. Someone estimated that if the rate of closures continued, the game would have disappeared from Britain by 2050. Why do you think it's fallen out of fashion?

I think it's seen very much as a sport for older people, mostly because it doesn't require any athleticism. It's a game that people often start playing when golf becomes a bit much for them. There's also increased time pressure on the retired people who would once have played lawn bowls. They're expected to help with grandchildren more than they were in the past. They're on social media, more like people of all ages.

Possibly they've lost a little bit of their ability to concentrate on something that's comparatively slow and dull. Cut to local council budgets have also threatened the game. So some bowling greens are in parks and they're maintained by local authorities, and therefore they're particularly vulnerable to closure. So typically, a green in a municipal park will attract relatively few users. And can the sport be saved from decline?

I suppose it could be. There's a lot to like about bowls. It's easy to learn, although it's difficult to actually become good at. It's a game that men and women have always played together, but quite unlike golf. I live in Brixton, south London, and I've heard residents here talk about how the bowling club in the local park, Brockle park, used to hold these impromptu games in the evening, to which strangers were made very welcome.

One man told me that his mother used to wander up with some wine and glasses. Other people would bring music, some people would bring marijuana. And, like London itself, this sounds like a much more sort of easy going, diverse version of a game that in other parts of Britain, I think can be quite sort of buttoned up. But that woman sadly died and the other members of the club moved away. And only a couple of years ago, the local authorities stopped maintaining the green for bowls.

So now the grass has gone brown. Kids play football there, and the grass has been worn down. In a crowded city, that does actually feel a bit like progress because it's obviously important that children have somewhere to play, rather than old people have somewhere to play bowls, especially if they don't actually want to.

But it's also, I think, a reminder of how quickly things that once seemed really very important to communities are forgotten. Mian, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thanks so much, ori. Oh, you know. Oh no, you've got it.

Ore Okambi
I've got it. Oh my God. I think I beat him. Yeah, you've got it. Too much.

Weetabix. Fucked it.

That's all for this episode of the intelligence. Let us know what you think of the show. You can get in touch@podcasteconomist.com and we'll all see you back here tomorrow.

Speaker I
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