A PALESTINE-ISRAEL UPDATE

Overseas in the Middle East, a conflict has been brewing between the Jewish state of Israel and the Muslim state of Palestine. Though the history of the tension between the two countries can be traced as far back as 1948, it reached a boiling point on October 7th, 2023 of this year, when a Palestinian organization, Hamas, launched surprise attacks into Israel across the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory which Israel has been occupying since 1967. 

Hamas claims their rebellion is a “natural reaction” to Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip— under the current Israeli rule, many Palestinians have reported being deprived of basic civil rights. However, the violence of Hamas’s actions, which have been perpetrated against civilians (including women and children), have led many countries, including the US, to proclaim Israel’s right to defend itself.

While a temporary “pause” was put into effect on the conflict beginning on November 24th to exchange hostages and evacuate civilians, both sides broke the ceasefire and resumed fighting after its expiration upon the dawn of December. The UN has been trying unsuccessfully to pass a resolution that may help to end the war since mid-October. 

With such a profound history of conflict, it is difficult to see when or how this dispute will come to an end. 

HOUSE OF CARDS

The House of Representatives has been dissolving into chaos for months. On October 3rd of this year, the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, was the first Speaker in American history to be voted out of office mid-term. Less than two months later, on December 1st, George Santos, a New York Representative, met the same fate. 

Santos has been facing criminal charges on multiple fronts, most significantly for fraudulent use of campaign funds for personal indulgence in luxuries such as Botox and OnlyFans. Though the outlook was bleak, he had not yet been found guilty of any crime. This detail is deeply significant; while other representatives have twice been ousted from the House (once in 1980, once in 2002), both instances followed a federal conviction, meaning they had been charged as criminals by the national government. 

Though highly unusual, the expulsion of a non-criminal House member has happened before, in 1861— during the Civil War. With America so intensely divided in recent years, the implications of this are fairly grim. The removal of a second member of the House in a 60-day period sets a concerning precedent for the operation of Congress moving forward— the question no longer seems to be if, but rather when, someone else will be voted out.

LEADERS MEET FOR COP28

On the last day of November, world leaders congregated in Dubai to attend COP28— the twenty-eighth session of the United Nations Climate Change Conference. The COP (Conference of Parties) has been meeting regularly since 1955 in an attempt to resolve what has been referred to as the world’s “climate crisis.” In attendance this year will be several figureheads of the modern world, such as the recently crowned King Charles III and Emmanuel Macron, the president of France. However, there are a few conspicuous absences from the attendees list— the most glaring of which are Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping of China. Though both leaders sent delegations to represent their countries, their absence is still a source of frustration for many representatives, as the United States and China are the two most prominent contributors to global carbon emissions. 

Another discontentment with this year’s conference is its President— Sultan Al Jaber, of the United Arab Emirates. Al Jaber is an executive of the oil company Adnoc, which has raised the question of conflicts in his interests. 

The main goal of COP28 has so far been to draw attention to the lack of success the world has seen in its commitment to the Paris Agreement, a motion filed in 2015 to keep global warming to below 2.0° Celsius, preferably as low as 1.5° C. The phrasing of legislation has been a huge point of issue; attendants are struggling to agree on whether fossil fuels should be completely “phased out” or just “phased down.”