A headline in the Israeli daily Ha’aretz on the first anniversary of the blast declared bluntly that “Lebanon was beyond saving.” No: Lebanon and the Lebanese can and must be saved. It is the political class that must be removed from power and set adrift in the toxic sea of sin and sorrow they have created. An international investigation is crucial if Lebanon is ever to recover from this heinous crime.
The attrition of the United States’ global hegemony is well underway, and with numerous and serious challenges at home—not least of which is a deeply divided populace roiling with White supremacist ideologies and domestic terrorists in the midst of a brutal pandemic—Biden cannot afford to take his eye off the domestic policy front, even as he and his administration struggle to cobble together a coherent foreign policy agenda.
It is still far too early for celebrations or announcements that “Palestine will soon be free” as a result of changed U.S. policy. So much hinges on circumstances that are still in flux in the interconnected realms of U.S. policymaking, electoral politics, and media coverage.
Although Donald Trump inherited a fractured and unequal system upon taking office, his administration has exacerbated America’s profound dysfunction in novel ways, that, in conjunction with this novel corona virus, have irreparably broken the United States socially, economically, and politically.
The true audience for this trial is not the 100 Senators confined to their chamber, but rather, the nation as a whole—we, the people—who are collectively consuming news in an old-fashioned, long-form, no-spin format without commercial interruption.
