The two hottest of the world's hot spots had the moral clarity with which they're fraught muddied by, respectively, the leader of the world's pre-eminent superpower and the worldwide leader of the Catholic Church.
After Biden announced, in his State of the Union address, the pier the US military will construct to get more aid into Gaza (which one would hope will work out better than the air drop, two parachutes of which didn't open, killing several Gazan on the ground, but, based on experience, is likely to be pilfered by Hamas, and may put US troops in harm's way), he was caught on a hot mic telling Colorado Senator Michael Bennet that he was going to tell Netanyahu "You and I are going to have a come-to-Jesus meeting."
When asked on Sunday whether Israeli forces would move into Rafah, Netanyahu replied: "We'll go there. We're not going to leave them. You know, I have a red line. You know what the red line is? That October 7 doesn't happen again. Never happens again." The PM was referring to the murderous Hamas raid that killed more than 1,160 people in Israel and triggered the war.
Without naming them, Netanyahu claimed he had the tacit support of several Arab leaders for driving ahead with the onslaught against Hamas.
“They understand that, and even agree with it quietly,” he said in an interview with Axel Springer, POLITICO’s parent company. “They understand Hamas is part of the Iranian terror axis.”
And he again reiterates Israel's position on an idea whose time has definitely not arrived:
Israel's prime minister also doubled down on his rejection of the possibility of a Palestinian state — a topic that pits Israel against most of the rest of the world.
“The positions that I espouse are supported by the overwhelming majority of Israelis who say to you after October 7: 'We don't want to see a Palestinian state,'” he said.
Netanyahu also directly addressed criticism from Biden, who has said the Israeli leader is “hurting Israel more than helping Israel.”
Netanyahu hit back, saying while he didn’t know “exactly what the president meant,” if Biden was saying he was contravening the wishes or interests of Israel, he was “wrong on both counts.”
“[The Israeli people] also support my position that says that we should resoundingly reject the attempt to ram down our throats a Palestinian state. That is something that they agree on,” Netanyahu said.
When asked about the European view that there cannot be peace without a two-state solution, Netanyahu replied: "Yeah, they would say it. But they don't understand that the reason we don't have peace is not because the Palestinians don't have a state. It's because the Jews have a state. And in fact, the Palestinians have not brought themselves to recognize and accept the Jewish state."
Then there is the response of Ukraine and its allies to Pope Francis's blurting, which echoes both the Kissingerian Realpolitik camp as well as unhinged yay-hoos like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene - namely, that Ukraine needs to give up the idea of having its post-1991 borders restored:
Ukrainian and allied officials Sunday criticized Pope Francis for saying that Kyiv should have the “courage” to negotiate an end to the war with Russia, a statement many interpreted as a call for Ukraine to surrender.
The foreign ministers of Ukraine and Poland, a vocal ally of Kyiv, condemned the pope’s remarks. And a leader of one of Ukraine’s Christian churches on Sunday said that only the country’s determined resistance to Moscow’s full-scale invasion, launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 24, 2022, had prevented a mass slaughter of civilians.
In an interview recorded last month with Swiss broadcaster RSI and partially released on Saturday, Francis used the phrase “the courage of the white flag” as he argued that Ukraine, facing a possible defeat, should be open to peace talks brokered by international powers.
“Our flag is blue and yellow. We live, die and win under it. We will not raise other flags,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba posted on Sunday on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tweeted: “How about, for balance, encouraging Putin to have the courage to withdraw his army from Ukraine? Peace would immediately ensue without the need for negotiations.”
In his tweet, Kuleba urged the Holy See to “not repeat historical mistakes” as he alleged that the Vatican didn’t do enough to resist Nazi Germany. Yet he also invited Francis to Ukraine, saying the pope’s visit would show support for the “more than a million Ukrainian (Roman) Catholics, more than 5 million Greek Catholics, all Christians and all Ukrainians.”
The head of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, said Sunday that surrender isn’t on the minds of Ukrainians.
“Ukraine is exhausted, but it stands and will endure. Believe me, it never crosses anyone’s mind to surrender. Even where there is fighting today: listen to our people in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Kharkiv, Sumy,” Shevchuk said while meeting with Ukrainians in New York City. He mentioned the regions that have been under heavy Russian artillery and drone attacks.
These matters look a little different to the nations whose sovereignty is threatened than it does to those who can adopt a -just-stop-all-the-icky-killing stance from the distance of well-defended capitols.
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