La D-Day ceremony in Normandy it provided an opportunity for the leaders of the free world to commemorate the crowning moment of transatlantic solidarity. Thousands of soldiers, especially North Americans, faced certain death to land in France and put an end to the tragic Nazi-fascist affair. The guest of honor was the president Volodymyr Zelensky, with an involuntary and evident distortion. There should have been the country that is today the heir of the Soviet Union, then allied with the Western Front. But the Russia is not allowed to the celebrations since he attacked Ukraine. While Ukraine, a Soviet Republic at the time of the conflict, experienced moments of collaboration with Germany.
European solidarity and global tensions: a new balance
THEItaly , Germany, the defeated powers, have been admitted for some time. The divisions of the past are overcome, both belong to the European system, of which they are co-founders France and Benelux, and to the Western bloc. The new solidarity goes towards the attacked by the new tyrant. This is how the American president defines the Russian president.
The presence of Steven Spielberg e Tom Hanks, director and star of Saving Private Ryan, adds the artistic touch. The great American cinema is capable of representing the great moments of history in the form of an epic.
From Moscow Vladimir Putin relaunches them threats already by Dmitrij Medvedev: don't force me, you NATO, to evoke nuclear weapons, I could seriously use it if the threat were to the integrity of Russia. Even if – he adds – Europe is so defenseless that it does not deserve such treatment. To conclude, Italy does not experience caveman Russophobia and this is a detail worth highlighting.
The message oscillates between the usual closures and some ambiguous openings. The recipients are members of the G7 and the summit NATO. In Borgo Egnazia the Seven will discuss the use of the proceeds of Russian capital deposited in the West: whether and how to use them in favor of Ukraine. The positions diverge. The option being worked on is to transfer the billions of dollars of profits to the European Peace Facility. The EPF is the European Peace Fund managed by Brussels. This is both to dilute the scope of the operation by attributing it to the Union and to direct the funds towards the purchase of European materials. Since 2022, 70% of Ukraine's arms spending has gone to American industry.
Military debate in the Middle East: the challenges of Biden, Netanyahu and Gantz
The language of war and its practice dominate the debate in Middle East. Negotiations for the hostages are slowing down due to the dispute between the American plan and Israel's version of it, the latter considered reductive by Hamas. The forcible liberation of four hostages speaks in favor of the military line.
THEassault on Rafah continues, the remaining Hamas positions are hit but without overexposing themselves. Joe Biden he no longer wants to know about this story, he probably no longer wants to know about Netanyahu, but he is not the one calling early elections in Israel or determining their outcome.
Benny Gantz, the expected winner, leaves the War Cabinet, with him the other two exponents of the National Unity Party. Gantz and his deputy Gadi Eisenkot were Chiefs of Defense Staff. Like other soldiers, having given up their uniform, they moved into politics, again through elections. The armed forces are a mix of professionals and volunteers, with compulsory conscription for men and women. Exemptions for students of religious schools are the subject of criticism from secular circles. Among the conditions posed by Gantz, the most delicate for Netanyahu is to reduce if not cancel the exemptions, in order to make the draft universal.
Israel, a country increasingly divided between external and internal challenges
Israel it is a unique case in the regional context: while the conflitto, popular demonstrations for and against the government line follow one another, martial law is not triggered, the press writes openly about everything, the government crisis virtually opens.
If Gaza wasn't enough, here comes the Lebanon case. Hezbollah intensifies attacks on northern Israel. Settlements in the Galilee are targeted by rockets, populations are displaced elsewhere, their numbers grow with each passing day.
Hezbollah is better organized than Hamas and openly supported by Iran. The new war in Lebanon would be destructive for that country, it would have the side effect of plunging Israel into a new vortex. And this while its international reputation loses points.
The UN declares the Jewish state a place unsafe for children, with reference to the deaths of minors in Gaza. Another point in the controversy between New York and Jerusalem, a new chapter in the distant dispute between Netanyahu and Guterres, persona non grata in Israel.
