The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar celebrated this week a “diplomatic victory” by delaying European sanctions against the Jewish state. It’s a victory that could prove to be pyrrhic.

That is, if EU foreign ministers, increasingly critical of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war, put their money where their mouth is and make good on their threat to suspend the Jewish state’s 25-year-old association agreement with the European Union because of its human rights violations.

The writing is on the wall.

As Gaza ceasefire talks flail, if not fail for the umpteenth time, a series of vignettes tell the story of Israel’s increasingly shrinking support base in the United States and Europe.

Alarmingly for Israel, the vignettes reflect mounting criticism of the Jewish state in US President Donald J. Trump’s Make America Great Again and America First support base, as well as among European leaders.

To be sure, Chirstian Zionists and pro-Israel Evangelicals remain an important segment of Mr. Trump’s base.

Similarly, European leaders have yet to put their money where their mouth is. Even so, failing to do so is becoming increasingly difficult.

That realisation may be registering on Israeli radars. Not that it will change Israel’s indefensible conduct of the Gaza war.

Instead, Israel’s response resembles Hans Brinker, the boy in Mary Mapes Dodge’s 19th century children’s novel, who puts his finger in a Dutch dike to prevent a major breach.

World soccer body FIFA’s more than a decade-long refusal to implement meaningful reforms and adhere to its own principles, rules, and regulations is on public display.

FIFA’s response to past corruption scandals and willingness to award World Cup hosting rights to violators of the group’s human rights standards illustrate the organisation’s rejection of meaningful change that would hold the group accountable.

So do FIFA’s repeated, mostly cosmetic, reforms aimed at pacifying public and commercial clamouring for change.

The scandals and disregard for FIFA’s Human Rights Policy and Code of Conduct are “only the tip of football’s problem iceberg. An extended troubleshooting list includes antiquated governance structures, growing financial imbalances, and inadequate safeguards for athletes, just to name some of the most pressing issues,” said law professor Jan Zglinski in a recent 26-page academic paper.

Mr. Zglinski argues that, potentially, Europe, a leader in regulating sports, and particularly soccer, as a sector of the economy, could emerge as the sport’s white knight.

Malaysia, unlike other perceived Muslim Brotherhood supporters such as Qatar and Turkey, has remained, by and large, in the shadows of the Middle East's information wars, despite the country’s public support for Hamas.

That may change if a recent report by the Philadelphia-based far-right, pro-Israel Middle East Forum is anything to go by.

What happens when you bring together three veteran foreign correspondents, each carrying decades of wisdom, scars, and tales from the world’s most dangerous places?

A much-touted meeting between US President Donald J. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, their third encounter this year, apparently failed to move the needle on a Gaza ceasefire, despite both men expressing optimism that an agreement was only days away.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday. The talks come amid ongoing indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas in Doha, as efforts to reach a ceasefire in Gaza continue. James M. Dorsey, an adjunct senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, shares his analysis on whether Trump’s push for a 60-day truce has a real shot.

If US President Donald J. Trump had his druthers, he would announce a Gaza ceasefire on Monday when Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visits him in the Oval Office for the third time this year

That may be easier said than done despite Mr. Netanyahu’s endorsement of the latest US ceasefire proposal and Hamas’s ‘positive’ response.

Mr. Netanyahu and Hamas have responded positively to the proposal, even though it doesn’t bridge the most significant issue dividing them: whether to end the war and on what terms.

Even so, neither Mr. Netanyahu nor Hamas wants to get on Mr. Trump’s wrong side and shoulder the blame for another failure to get the guns to fall silent in the devastated Strip.

Reading between the lines of the two parties’ responses, the cracks are apparent.

Nevertheless, the parties appear inclined to accept what amounts to cosmetic changes that paper over the gap in their positions, which have not narrowed.

Gaza, US military contractors, Trump, Syria , and much more

American contractors guarding aid distribution sites in Gaza are allegedly using live ammunition and stun grenades against Palestinians seeking food, according to the Associated Press. James M. Dorsey, from Singapore’s S Rajaratnam School of International Studies weighs in.