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"Diplomacy is always our goal. Our goal is to reduce the risk of escalation. But, to date, we have not received any response," Psaki said, noting that the outreach "follows over a year without active dialogue with North Korea, despite multiple attempts by the US to engage."

However, experts told CNN prior to Kim Yo Jong's message that Pyongyang was likely to rebuff diplomatic efforts for the time-being for a number of reasons including the coronavirus pandemic, the Biden team's ongoing North Korea policy review, the meetings in the region and above all, the administration's rhetoric.

"That's just a non-starter for the North Koreans," said Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

On Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters that the administration had reached out to North Korea, noting they have "a number of channels, as we always have had, that we can reach out through."

"It has to be nuanced because you can't just say, you know, we want to have talks, and the talks are going to be about North Korea's complete denuclearization, because that sounds very one sided," he told CNN. "It would have to be long term and not the Libya model of complete denuclearization upfront before we give them anything they want."

But after the summit, Trump administration officials, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, said the agreement pledged North Korea to the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear program, despite the fact that it said nothing of the sort.

Former officials and experts also noted that Biden administration officials' commitments not to lift tariffs on North Korea during confirmation hearings did not go unnoticed, which could be one factor driving Pyongyang's decision not to engage directly with the US.

"What if the US and China come out of their meetings this week and make it clear that they are headed for escalating US-China tensions? If you are Kim Jong Un you would read that as meaning that it is less likely that China will put the squeeze on North Korea," said Anthony Ruggiero, a former National Security Council official. "If that happens, maybe Kim now knows he can go to China to buy more pieces for its nuclear programs, or to go to China and sell more coal. That would be a bad sign for the future of any US-North Korea diplomacy."

Aum said that he doesn't think they'd "want to do anything to provoke the US prior to some greater signal that the US is going to take a very hostile approach."

"We expected that Saudi Arabia would announce an end to the blockade of ports and airports and an initiative to allow in 14 ships that are held by the coalition," the Houthis' chief negotiator, Mohammed Abdulsalam,

The United States and the U.N. have been trying to end what they call the world's worst humanitarian disaster. President Biden has pledged to use diplomacy to end the war and to allow more refugees to come to the U.S.

In a briefing, U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq said he welcomed the Saudi proposals, and that U.N. envoy Martin Griffiths has been working toward these goals. Asked about the Houthis' rejection of the Saudi offer, Haq said Griffiths would be in touch with all parties to discuss moving forward with Saudi Arabia's proposal.Peter Salisbury, senior Yemen analyst at the International Crisis Group, says the Saudi proposal is essentially a new take on an idea that was put forth a year ago.

Salisbury says he believes the Saudi proposal is likely aimed at pressuring the Houthis. For now, he predicts more talks, more air strikes, and more fighting on the ground

The conflict has become a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Years of fighting have left 80% of Yemen's population reliant on aid and millions are on the brink of starvation.

The war in Yemen began in 2014, when Houthi militants supported by Iran overthrew the unpopular Saudi-backed government in Yemen's capital. A coalition of Gulf states — led by Saudi Arabia and with support from the U.S., France and the U.K. — responded with airstrikes, beginning in 2015.While the Biden administration has been critical of the way the Saudis have waged the war, it has also raised alarms about recent Houthi attacks against Saudi Arabia.

The State Department said that in a call with Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken "reiterated our commitment to supporting the defense of Saudi Arabia and strongly condemned recent attacks against Saudi territory from Iranian-aligned groups in the region."

The two officials reportedly expressed support for diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Yemen, "starting with the need for all parties to commit to a ceasefire and facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid."State Department deputy spokesperson Jalina Porter said the proposal is "one step in the right direction," calling on all of the parties to negotiate under the auspices of the U.N.

This will take some days or even weeks for the group of House lawmakers who will make the case against Trump and his lawyers to answer. So a trial can't practically happen until after President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he will not bring senators back until the last day of Trump's term -- January 19 -- at the earliest.

Senators take an oath before the proceedings. There's a call to order each day. The Chief Justice has specific duties. There are set time limits for arguments and rebuttals and all questions from senators for the House and Trump attorneys must be submitted in writing and read by the Chief Justice.

What's the historical precedent?There have been three previous presidential impeachments, including Trump's first. President Andrew Johnson was impeached, but survived the Senate trial by one vote after seven Republicans broke ranks with their party. Johnson did not win election after his impeachment. President Bill Clinton was impeached in his second term and was easily acquited; less than a majority of senators supported removing him from office, far from the 2/3 required.

They will be busy with confirmation hearings for Biden's Cabinet nominees -- at least four are already scheduled for the week of January 20, for Secretary of State nominee Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary nominee Lloyd Austin, Treasury Secretary nominee Janet Yellen and Secretary of Homeland Security nominee Alejandro Mayorkas. Senators could be called on to draft legislation having to do with the pandemic or economic relief -- Biden wants to increase relief checks to $2,000.

Impeachment failed the first time against Trump. What's different now?In a word, Republicans. In the first Trump impeachment trial, only one Republican senator -- Mitt Romney of Utah -- voted to remove him from office. This time, McConnell, rather than protecting Trump, is said to be happy about the effort as a way to excise Trump or purge him from the GOP.

How many votes are required to convict Trump?Great question! Conviction requires 2/3 of those present. If all 100 senators are present, that's 67 senators. Assuming those two Georgians are seated, that means there are 50 senators from each party and 17 Republicans would be required.

There is precedent for impeaching former officials. Read about that -- it's called a "late impeachment" -- here. While the main penalty for a guilty verdict in an impeachment trial is removal from office, senators could vote to bar Trump from holding office in the future -- remember, he has not ruled out running for president in 2024. He could also lose his six-figure pension and other post-presidential perks.

If those two Democrats from Georgia are not yet seated, it might require 66 senators. If some number of Republicans didn't want to vote against Trump but also didn't want to vote to convict, they could skip the vote and change the ratio. That kind of thing has been known to happen, although not during impeachment proceedings.

President Donald Trump has been impeached again -- the first leader in US history to be impeached twice by the House.

The House introduces and passes the articles of impeachment, but the Senate is where the person being impeached faces a trial -- and potential punishment.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he will not bring senators back until the last day of Trump's term -- January 19 -- at the earliest.

This will take some days or even weeks for the group of House lawmakers who will make the case against Trump and his lawyers to answer. So a trial can't practically happen until after President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on January 20.

While the main penalty for a guilty verdict in an impeachment trial is removal from office, senators could vote to bar Trump from holding office in the future -- remember, he has not ruled out running for president in 2024. He could also lose his six-figure pension and other post-presidential perks.

While McConnell sets the schedule as Senate majority leader now, he'll lose that status as soon as the results of Georgia's January 5 Senate runoff elections are certified and the two new Democratic senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, are seated. At that point, New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer will become Senate majority leader and will have more control over the proceedings.

This time, McConnell, rather than protecting Trump, is said to be happy about the effort as a way to excise Trump or purge him from the GOP.

President Donald Trump has been impeached again -- the first leader in US history to be impeached twice by the House.

The first is slated for Friday, when the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hears from Avril Haines, Biden's pick for director of national intelligence. Then on Tuesday, the day before inauguration, the Senate has scheduled hearings for four nominees: retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin for defense secretary, Janet Yellen for Treasury, Alejandro Mayorkas for homeland security and Antony Blinken for state.

Now, the rush to consider and vote on his Cabinet will collide with Biden's push for a massive coronavirus relief package — as well as congressional investigations into the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, and the impeachment process for Trump

"I hope that the Senate leadership will find a way to deal with their constitutional responsibilities on impeachment while also working on the other urgent business of this nation," Biden said

Mr. Pompeo’s effort to leave no bridge unburned might stand him in good stead with primary voters, should he — as has been widely expected — seek higher office in the coming years. But selfishness at the expense of the national interest isn’t the mark of an honorable diplomat or a patriot.That sentiment appears to be shared in Mr. Pompeo’s State Department, where some officials are said to be keeping discreet clocks counting down the minutes until Secretary Pompeo is a private citizen once again.

And while wealthy nations have allocated over $11 trillion for domestic Covid-19 responses, the UNs' Global Covid Humanitarian Response Plan -- meant to coordinate and rally support for crisis -- and conflict-affected countries -- is currently less than 40% funded.

Analysis by the International Chamber of Commerce found that the global economy could lose as much as $9.2 trillion if vaccines are not equitably distributed to low-income countries, with wealthy nations bearing half that loss. Unmanaged instability, insecurity, migration and climate change have similar consequences for US interests.

Women and girls bear the greatest brunt of humanitarian crises and are critical to resolving them and rebuilding their communities. With women representing 70% of the global care workforce and producing as much as 70% of the food in some low-income nations, there is a double dividend in prioritizing them.

America's absence during the previous administration created a spiral of disengagement that has left the world leaderless at this crucial time. And while the US cannot resolve these challenges alone, US leadership can encourage others to share the burden.

Sustained improvement in these destabilizing displacement crises will deliver humanitarian and strategic benefit -- but it will take aid, diplomacy, sustained engagement and coordination with donors, UN agencies and international financial institutions.

The Institute for Economics and Peace estimates that for every $1 the US spends on conflict prevention, it saves $16 in response costs.

Of the nearly $4 trillion has allocated to combat the pandemic, just less than 0.2% has been allocated to support the international Covid-19 response, including $4 billion for the global vaccine effort. The ICC study indicates that the $27.2 billion needed to close the gap on global vaccine distribution could deliver a return "as high as 166 times the investment."

The US cannot lead without getting its own house in order -- keeping President Biden's commitment to resettle 125,000 refugees in his first year; building a humane, credible, efficient US asylum system that protects those in need of safety; reinvigorating humanitarian diplomacy, engagement with the UN and the multilateral financing institutions to leverage US resettlement and aid into global action. 2021 celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Refugee Convention.

With the US presidency of the UN Security Council in March, the Biden administration can lead the world in reinvigorating the laws of war and rally other democratic nations to hold violators accountable.

Republicans were all about balancing the budget and the popular banner of anti-Communism. (Back then, anybody who wanted to raise taxes could get a “commie” categorization just for proposing the idea.)

Then the social right wing — particularly the anti-abortion forces — came up to the front. And the big money people realized they lost nothing financial by making an alliance. Everything is about taking a stand and nothing is about getting stuff done.

he simply consumed all of our mental bandwidth, so that it became all but impossible to think of anyone or anything else.

How about a great new White House agenda focused on raising taxes on the rich and redistributing the money to the poor? I believe I remember hearing someone talk about that — Joe Somebody?

We also need to think about why we are burdening college students with mountainous debt in exchange for increasingly useless college degrees. B.A. now stands for Bankruptcy by Arts. The best thing that could happen educationally is an investment in community colleges that enhances their value, rigor and prestige.

let the Biden administration focus on how to make community colleges work, occasionally reminding Republicans that should have been one of their goals if the Trump years had actually been about upward mobility for the lower-middle class.

the Dow just hit 30,000 at the same time that people are waiting in line for hours at food banks.

I sometimes fear the Trump administration has reduced us, emotionally and intellectually, to a single thought, played like a Gregorian chant on an endless loop: Just. Make. It. Stop.

Or freshman year! I’m not sure it’s ever a good idea for students to go directly from high school to college, and a gap year that entails some form of service would do everyone a lot of good.

After four years of Trump, discussing these things feels a bit like seeing the sun and hearing those chirping birds you were just talking about for the first time in years.

An American official briefed on the intelligence said it was wrong to equate the two countries. Russia, the official said, is a tornado, capable of inflicting damage on American democracy now. China is more like climate change, the official said: The threat is real and grave, but more long term.

Iran was seeking “to undermine U.S. democratic institutions, President Trump, and to divide the country”

Mr. Trump said, “The last person Russia wants to see in office is Donald Trump because nobody’s been tougher on Russia than I have.” He said that if Mr. Biden won the presidency, “China would own our country.”

“Donald Trump has publicly and repeatedly invited, emboldened and even tried to coerce foreign interference in American elections,” said Tony Blinken, a senior adviser to the former vice president.

“The director has basically put the American people on notice that Russia in particular, also China and Iran, are going to be trying to meddle in this election and undermine our democratic system,” said Mr. King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Russia, but not China, is trying to “actively influence” the outcome of the 2020 election, said the American official briefed on the underlying intelligence.

Intelligence and other officials in recent days have been stepping up their releases of information about foreign interference efforts, and the State Department has sent texts to cellphones around the world advertising a $10 million reward for information on would-be election hackers.

The coalition launched an offensive in 2015 to restore Yemen's internationally recognized government after it was ousted by the Houthis. The coalition has intensified its attacks in the wake of a deadly Houthi missile and drone strike in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi earlier this week.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Friday it was "deeply concerned about the intensification of hostilities" and "deplores the human toll this escalation has caused." US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called for deescalation.

"The escalation in fighting only exacerbates a dire humanitarian crisis and the suffering of the Yemeni people,

"From what I hear from my colleague in Sa'ada there are many bodies still at the scene of the airstrike, many missing people," said Ahmad Mahat, head of the MSF mission in Yemen. "It is impossible to know how many people have been killed. It seems to have been a horrific act of violence."

Mr. Abiy succeeded partly by mobilizing ordinary citizens to take up arms to block the Tigrayan advance. “Nothing will stop us. The enemy will be destroyed,”

Drones have also hit refugee camps in Tigray and killed dozens of civilians. Despite recent releases of political prisoners by Mr. Abiy, which prompted a phone call with President Joe Biden, the prospect of a cease-fire seems distant.

The conflict threatens to tear apart Ethiopia, a once-firm American ally, and further destabilize the volatile Horn of Africa region.

But after he took office in 2018, he set about draining the group of its power and influence in Ethiopia, infuriating the Tigrayan leadership, which retreated to its stronghold of Tigray. Tensions grew.

In September 2020, the Tigrayans defied Mr. Abiy by going ahead with regional parliamentary elections that had he had postponed across Ethiopia.

Two months later, T.P.L.F. forces attacked a federal military base in Tigray in what they called a pre-emptive strike against federal forces preparing to attack them from a neighboring region.

The Ethiopian military suffered a major defeat in June when it was forced to withdraw from Tigray, and several thousand of its soldiers were taken captive.

Through it all, civilians have suffered most. Since the war started, witnesses have reported numerous human rights violations, many confirmed by a U.N.-led investigation, of massacres, ethnic cleansing and widespread sexual violence.

The T.P.L.F. was born in the mid-1970s as a small militia of ethnic Tigrayans, a group that was long marginalized by the central government, to fight Ethiopia’s Marxist military dictatorship.

Tigrayans make up just 6 or 7 percent of Ethiopia’s population, compared with the two largest ethnic groups, the Oromo and the Amhara, which make up over 60 percent.

But at home, the Tigrayan-dominated government systematically repressed political opponents and curtailed free speech. Torture was commonplace in government detention centers.

Mr. Abiy, a onetime T.P.L.F. ally, moved quickly to purge the old guard. He removed Tigrayan officials from the security services, charged some with corruption or human rights abuses and in 2019 created a new political party. The Tigrayans refused to join.

At the same time, he strengthened his ties to President Isaias Afwerki, the authoritarian leader of Eritrea, who nursed a bitter, longstanding grudge against the Tigrayans.

But by mid-2020 that peace pact had become an alliance for war on Tigray.

Children are dying of malnutrition, soldiers are looting food aid, and relief workers have been prevented from reaching the hardest-hit areas, according to the United Nations and other aid groups. Since July, a government-imposed blockade of Tigray has kept desperately needed aid from reaching the area. In late November, the World Food Program announced that 9.4 million people across northern Ethiopia required food aid.

In western Tigray, ethnic Amhara militias have driven tens of thousands of people from their homes as part of what the United States has called an ethnic cleansing campaign.

Ethiopia’s ties to the United States, once a close ally, have come under great strain. Mr. Biden has cut off trade privileges for Ethiopia and threatened its leaders with sanctions.

He freed political prisoners, abolished controls on the news media and helped mediate conflicts abroad. His peace deal with Eritrea and its authoritarian leader, Mr. Isaias, caused the Ethiopian leader’s international profile to soar and led to his Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

But even before the war erupted in Tigray, Mr. Abiy had resorted to old tactics of repression — shutting down the internet in some areas, arresting journalists and detaining protesters and critics.

In a stark speech in November, Mr. Abiy called on soldiers to sacrifice their “blood and bone” to bury his enemies in “a deep pit” and “uphold Ethiopia’s dignity and flag.”

Efforts to impose sanctions on the Nord Stream 2, an undersea gas pipeline from Russia to Germany that would give Moscow enormous leverage over Europe, have long drawn bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers have enthusiastically sought to bolster Ukraine against Russian aggression.

the timing of the vote — amid continuing diplomatic talks between Russia and the United States in the hopes of averting war — as well as the Biden administration’s vocal opposition ultimately helped fuel the measure’s defeat.

Six Democrats — some of them facing difficult re-elections in 2022 — defected from their party’s position and voted in favor of the measure,

The Biden administration and its allies in Congress argued the legislation, led by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, would do little to counter Russian influence because the pipeline’s construction is nearly completed.

Instead, they said, the sanctions would drive a wedge between the United States and Germany, which has championed the pipeline as vital to its industrial success, and give up a key point of leverage during diplomatic negotiations.

“If this bill passes, it won’t make the Nord Stream pipeline any less likely,” said Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut. “It won’t stop Russia from invading Ukraine. In fact, it will do the exact opposite.

On a Christmas Eve video call with a bipartisan group of more than 20 lawmakers, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine cast Nord Stream 2 as an existential threat to his country, arguing that the pipeline posed as much risk to Ukraine as the Russian troops amassing on its border,

“I would suggest if Joe Biden were not president, if Donald Trump were sitting in the Oval Office today, every single Democrat in this chamber would vote for these sanctions.”

“The pipeline itself is the wedge,” Mr. McConnell said. “That’s the whole point. That’s been Putin’s goal: decoupling Ukraine from Europe and making Europe even more reliant on Russian gas.”

Republicans accused Democrats of allowing Russian aggression to go unchecked, painting their reluctance to impose sanctions as politically motivated.

An email sent on Monday to Senate offices by the lobbyist, which was forwarded to The New York Times, included a screenshot of Mr. Zelensky’s tweet, and added the message, “Ukraine Pres. Zelensky calls on all senators to vote in favor of Nord Stream 2 sanctions.”

The next day, the issue came up again as senators met with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken in a closed-door meeting to discuss an upcoming delegation trip to Ukraine.

Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, unveiled on Wednesday a Democratic alternative to Mr. Cruz’s bill that would impose sanctions on top Russian government officials, including Mr. Putin, if Russia engages in or supports “a significant escalation in hostilities or hostile action in or against Ukraine.”

It likely did not help Mr. Cruz’s cause that many Democrats are furious with him for depriving President Biden of a slew of national security officials who are still awaiting Senate confirmation.

Last month, he agreed to stop blocking the confirmation of 32 of Mr. Biden’s State Department and Treasury Department nominees in exchange for Thursday’s vote.

Mr. Hochstein had also served on a supervisory board of Naftogaz until he resigned in late 2020, citing concerns about the Ukrainian government’s willingness to combat corruption.

islands.“Communication with Tonga remains very limited. And I know that is causing a huge amount of anxiety for the Tongan community here,” Ardern said.

water a vital need.Aid agencies said thick ash and smoke had prompted authorities to ask people to wear masks and drink bottled water.

Tsunami advisories were earlier issued for Japan, Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. Pacific coast. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated the eruption caused the equivalent of a magnitude 5.8 earthquake. Scientists said tsunamis generated by volcanoes rather than earthquakes are relatively rare.

“It’s really bad. They told us to stay indoors and cover our doors and windows because it’s dangerous,” she said. “I felt sorry for the people. Everyone just froze when the explosion happened. We rushed home.” Outside the house, people were seen carrying umbrellas for protection.

One complicating factor to any international aid effort is that Tonga has so far managed to avoid any outbreaks of COVID-19. Ardern said New Zealand's military staff were all fully vaccinated and willing to follow any protocols established by Tonga.

In a video posted on Facebook, Nightingale Filihia was sheltering at her family's home from a rain of volcanic ash and tiny pieces of rock that turned the sky pitch black.

The tsunami waves caused damage to boats as far away as New Zealand and Santa Cruz, California, but did not appear to cause any widespread damage. Snider said he anticipated the tsunami situation in the U.S. and elsewhere to continue improving.

“We are praying that the damage is just to infrastructure and people were able to get to higher land,” she said.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote on Twitter he is “deeply concerned for the people of Tonga as they recover from the aftermath of a volcanic eruption and tsunami. The United States stands prepared to provide support to our Pacific neighbors.”

On Tonga, which is home to about 105,000 people, video posted to social media showed large waves washing ashore in coastal areas and swirling around homes, a church and other buildings. A Twitter user identified as Dr. Faka’iloatonga Taumoefolau posted video showing waves crashing ashore

The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano, about 64 kilometers (40 miles) north of Nuku’alofa, was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions. In late 2014 and early 2015, eruptions created a small new island and disrupted international air travel to the Pacific archipelago for several days.

“The surface area of the island appears to have expanded by nearly 45% due to ashfall,” Planet Labs said days before the latest activity.

Savannah Peterson watched in shock as the water rose several feet in a matter of minutes in front of her oceanfront house in Pacifica, California, just south of San Francisco.

In northern Peru's Lambayeque region, two women drowned after being swept away by ″abnormal waves″ following the eruption, authorities said. A dozen restaurants and a coastal street were also flooded along El Chaco beach in Paracas district.

Separately, Xinhua has published a five-part series in Chinese on “Getting China-U.S. Relations Back on Track.

Beijing, in particular, may be motivated to play up the meeting to reassure investors and foreign businesses

“Propaganda of this type is not meant for persuasion — it is not persuasive at all,” Professor Chen said. “It is mainly designed for signaling, in the hope that recipients will get the signal and implement the proper response, which is investment, or resumption of exchanges.”

many Chinese social media users have taken note of the abrupt turn — and have been left reeling, or at least wryly amused

Under another post showing true, recent state media editorials promoting U.S.-China relations, a commenter wrote: “So, going forward, do we or don’t we need to hate America? So unclear.”

On Guancha.cn, a nationalistic news and commentary site, columnists have noted that both countries are making short-term concessions for their own long-term strategic gain.

Even the most flowery Chinese articles have drawn distinctions between warm ties between American and Chinese people, and their governments; some state media outlets have continued to warn that the outcome of the California meeting will hinge on the United States, in line with Beijing’s stance that the strained relationship is entirely Washington’s fault.

On the future of U.S.-China relations, Professor Wang wrote, “I am only cautious, not optimistic.”

I had gone to graduate school in Lebanon, then moved back there in an attempt to better understand how Hezbollah had evolved into Israel’s most capable foe. My research revealed as much about Israeli missteps and weaknesses as it did about Hezbollah’s strengths.

If Israel is going to have any strategic success against Hamas, it needs to do three things differently from conflicts past.

Hezbollah took everything Israel could throw at it for a month and was still standing.

As noted earlier, Israel has an unfortunate tendency to lay out maximalist goals—very often for domestic consumption—that it then fails to meet

In 2006, for example, Israel’s then–prime minister, Ehud Olmert, told the country he was going to destroy Hezbollah, return the bodies of two Israeli prisoners, and end the rocket attacks on Israel.

Israel did none of the three. And although Lebanon was devastated, and Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, publicly apologized for the raid that started the conflict, most observers had little doubt about who had won the conflict.

Strategic Humility

As Eliot Cohen has pointed out, the other side also has maximalist goals. Hamas and Hezbollah want nothing less than the destruction of Israel. But they are in no rush.

Nasrallah addressed the Arabic-speaking world for the first time since the start of this conflict on Friday. Significantly, he declared that although fighting still rages, Hamas became the conflict’s winner as soon as Israel claimed that it would destroy the militant group, which he confidently predicted it would not.

Hezbollah clearly does not want to enter this conflict in any meaningful way. It knows that the pressure will grow to do so if Israel has any real success in Gaza, but for the moment, it doubts that Israel will accomplish any such thing.

that Israel will destroy Hamas. That just isn’t going to happen, especially because no one has any idea who, or what, should replace Hamas in Gaza. So tell the world what will happen—and how it will make Israel and the region safer.

Communications Discipline

One of the things that struck me was the almost profane way in which Israeli military spokespeople would often speak, to international audiences no less, about non-Israeli civilians

“Now we are at the stage in which we are firing into the villages in order to cause damage to property … The aim is to create a situation in which the residents will leave the villages and go north.”

The callousness with which Israeli spokespeople too often describe the human suffering on the other side of the conflict, the blunt way in which they described what many Americans would consider war crimes, never fails to offend international audiences not predisposed to have sympathy with Israeli war aims.

much like right-wing American politicians, who sometimes use inflammatory rhetoric about real or perceived U.S. enemies, Israeli officials often resort to language about adversaries and military operations that can be exceptionally difficult for their allies to defend on the international stage:

One minister casually muses about using nuclear weapons on Gaza; another claims that the Palestinians are a fictional people. One can safely assume that people will continue accusing the Israeli government of including genocidal maniacs when they can point to officials in that government talking like, well, genocidal maniacs.

Israel needs to develop a clear communications plan for its conflicts and to sharply police the kind of language that doesn’t go over as well in Johannesburg or Jordan as it does in Jerusalem.

Focus on Iran

Few people have any interest in a regional war. The economic consequences alone would be dire. But had I been in Israel’s position on October 8, I might have been sorely tempted to largely ignore Gaza—where even the best-trained military would struggle to dislodge Hamas without killing tens of thousands of innocent civilians—and focus my efforts much farther east

Israel nevertheless needs to find a way to change Iran’s strategic calculus. Otherwise, Hamas and Hezbollah will only grow stronger.

On the Israeli side, blind U.S. security guarantees have not provided a path to peace. Instead, they have provided Israel with the reassurance that it can engage in increasingly destructive efforts, such as the expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, without any real consequences.

At the same time, Israel has become a global leader in weapons exports and boasts one of the most technologically sophisticated militaries in the world. All of these factors have created a sense among Israeli policymakers that they can indefinitely contain — physically and politically — the Palestinian question.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the recent efforts, driven by the United States, first under the Trump administration and continuing under President Biden, to pursue normalization between Israel and the Arab world. While in many ways this normalization is long overdue, it has been premised on the notion that economic incentives — and a shared regional security interest in deterring malign Iranian influence — can integrate Israel, indefinite occupation and all, into the Arab world.

This premise has been shattered — likely intentionally on Hamas’s part — by the Gaza conflict and its rapid recentering of the Palestinian cause on a global stage.

As civilian deaths in Gaza and the West Bank continue to mount, it is clear any sort of Saudi normalization agreement with Israel that does not also include substantive progress on a political solution for the Palestinian cause will be difficult to advance.

Under the Leahy laws, the United States is prohibited from providing security assistance to any unit that is credibly accused of having committed a gross violation of human rights. Unlike almost all other recipients, which are vetted along these lines before they receive assistance, for Israel the process is reversed: The assistance is provided, and the United States then waits to receive reports of violations, assessing their credibility through a process known as the Israel Leahy vetting forum, which includes consultation with the government of Israel.

To date, the forum has never come to consensus that any Israeli security force unit or soldier has committed a gross violation of human rights — despite the findings of international human rights organizations

the U.S. failure to impose accountability on Israel for such violations may provide Israel with a sense of impunity, increasing the likelihood of gross violations of human rights (including those committed by settlers against Palestinian civilians) and further breaking the trust between Israel and Palestinians that would be needed for any sort of lasting peace.

Working on the ground with the authority, I saw how the major focus of U.S. efforts was to prove to the Israel Defense Forces that their Palestinian counterparts could be trusted to take on the mission of securing Israel

Palestinian intelligence officials would be provided with target information by Israel, and Palestinian forces would be expected to take on missions previously conducted by the Israel Defense Forces to detain those targets. This effort not only undermined Palestinian support for the authority but also failed to convince the Israelis, who saw any Palestinian courts’ (correct) refusal to hold Palestinian detainees without due process as proof of a revolving door in the system.

Even worse, in 2008 and ’09, when Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which resulted in over 1,300 Palestinian deaths in Gaza, sparked protests in the West Bank, it was the Palestinian Authority Security Forces that physically stood between demonstrators and the Israel Defense Forces. From my balcony in Ramallah, I saw this as a proof of success and reported as much to Washington at the time. In hindsight, it was perhaps the death knell for the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority in the eyes of its people.

If the United States is to continue to employ military and security assistance as a tool of its engagement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (and there are good arguments why it should not), it must change its approach significantly. One way to do this would be simply by applying the laws and policies that it applies to every other country in the world: There is no point in having leverage that could pressure Israel to cease actions that undermine peace if we refuse to even consider using it

The United States could also start conditioning its military assistance to Israel (as it does for many other recipients) on certain verifiable political conditions being met. In Israel’s case, these may include a halt to or dismantling of settlement infrastructure in the West Bank.

Another thing the U.S. might do is consider reframing its security assistance on the Palestinian side to reinforce, rather than undermine, the legitimacy of the Palestinian Authority

Doing so would require structuring assistance in a way that enables Palestinian society control over its own security forces. It would also require the recognition of Palestinian statehood

I resigned from my job because I do not believe that U.S. arms should be provided in a situation if we know they are more likely than not — in the words of the Biden administration’s own guiding policy — to lead to or to aggravate the risk of human rights violations, including widespread civilian harm and death.

a charge that could carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

“Brittney has always handled herself with the utmost professionalism during her long tenure with USA Basketball,” U.S.A. Basketball said on Twitter.

The timing of the detention remains murky. Its political implications do, too.

“This follows a pattern of Russia wrongly detaining & imprisoning US citizens,” Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, wrote on Twitter on Saturday, citing the case of Trevor Reed, a former U.S. Marine whom a Russian court sentenced to nine years in prison in 2020 on charges of violence against police officers that his family and supporters described as fraudulent.

Ms. Griner was in Russia to play. Many W.N.B.A. stars rely on income from overseas leagues.

The financial incentives are compelling. W.N.B.A. players make a fraction of what their male counterparts do, with their maximum salary in 2022 at $228,094 while the top N.B.A. players are paid tens of millions of dollars.

Some observers criticized the gender pay gap in American basketball in connection to Ms. Griner’s detention.

“Whenever an American is detained anywhere in the world, we of course stand ready to provide every possible assistance,” Mr. Blinken said. “And that includes in Russia.”

Biden also addressed the Russian people, telling them: "You, the Russian people, are not our enemy.""The American people stand with you and the brave people of Ukraine for peace," Biden said.

In an address from Warsaw Saturday, President Joe Biden made remarks seemingly directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine. "For god's sake, this man cannot remain in power," Biden said.After the speech, the White House released a statement saying the president wasn't calling for a regime change.

"Vladimir Putin's aggression have cut you, the Russian people, off from the rest of the world, and it’s taking Russia back to the 19th century. This is not who you are," Biden said.Biden praised Ukrainian resistance, saying the U.S. stands with the people of Ukraine and will continue to support them.