International Affairs Archives

Analyses

International Affairs

On January 19, just before President Trump’s inauguration, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect. While the agreement will not end the 15-month war on Gaza, it marks a significant breakthrough on one of the war’s key objectives outlined by the Israeli government: the release of the remaining hostages. This objective is also the one that enjoys the strongest public support with 57.5 percent of Israelis in favor. After months of negotiations in Qatar, the deal aims to secure the return of all hostages in three stages.

International Affairs, Religion
The Citizenship Battle Dividing Catholic America
Matteo Muzio 22 January 2025

One of the key points of Donald Trump’s new administration program is its commitment to abolish birthright citizenship (jus soli) on his first day as president, as he has declared repeatedly. This would involve using the executive order tool. It didn’t quite happen that way, but it came very close. The new occupant of the White House has signed an order directing federal agencies to stop accepting citizenship applications within thirty days from the children of people entering the country illegally. The text suggests an attempt to get around current laws, as it simply ignores the applications without formally abolishing the right itself.
International Affairs, Society
Lebanon’s Solidarity Beyond Politics
Nicole Hamouche 15 January 2025

Despite political polarization, the shared experience of closeness in adversity has solidified the foundations of vivre ensemble, a defining aspect of the Lebanese identity, “because Lebanon is the witness of history, because religions are complementary, and because the people are one,” and “our identity, despite our diversity, is Lebanese,” as stated by the newly elected President, Joseph Aoun, in his inaugural speech.
International Affairs
Joseph Aoun Takes the Helm in Lebanon: The End of the “Iranian Era”
Riccardo Cristiano 14 January 2025

General Joseph Aoun, until now the commander-in-chief of the army, is the new president of Lebanon. This marks the end of a dramatic, thirty-year chapter in the troubled history of this small yet crucial country. After 26 months of a presidential vacuum, his election officially brings to an end the so-called “Iranian” era, during which Hezbollah, the Party of God, not only achieved military success but also made Lebanon the Mediterranean terminal for exporting the Khomeinist revolution.
International Affairs
Reconstruction and Distrust: Stories Amid Lebanon’s Ceasefire
Nicole Hamouche 23 December 2024

After an initial sense of relief, reactions to the ceasefire among the population vary depending on one’s personal history, background, and level of awareness. If, for a population exhausted by years of repeated violence since the end of the so-called civil war—what stateman and journalist Ghassan Tueni called “the war of others”—the news of a ceasefire was significant, a page of such brutality cannot be turned in just a few days or weeks. Besides the moral damages, the bill of this war includes 4,047 killed and 16,593 injured in Lebanon since October 2023, with over 3,000 deaths in the last two months alone. Around 1.5 million people have been displaced, and destruction is concentrated in the South and in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Hezbollah’s headquarters. This comes on top of the unprecedented financial and economic crisis that has gripped the country for years, compounding the suffering.
International Affairs
Mona Harb on Lebanon’s Fragile Ceasefire and the Road to a New President
Alessandra Tommasi 17 December 2024

On November 28, 2024, a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon began, announced by US President Joe Biden as “designed to be permanent.” However, strikes continue to devastate southern Lebanon. Just days ago, Tel Aviv declared a partial troop withdrawal but refrained from a full pullback as part of the truce. Amid this fragile peace, set against Lebanon’s severe economic and political crises, we reached out to Mona Harb, Professor of Urban Studies and Politics at the American University of Beirut.
International Affairs
After the Exodus: The Hong Kong Diaspora Engaging in UK Politics
Owen Au 3 December 2024

Hong Kong, once a vibrant city celebrated as an international financial hub, is now witnessing a significant new wave of mass exodus. While official data on the scale of this migration is unavailable, estimates suggest that between 200,000 and 500,000 people have left the city over the past few years. Hong Kong has long been familiar with migration; cross-border employment and split families are nothing new to Hongkongers. However, the mass migration taking place is still something worth a glance at – not only because of the factors driving it but also because, for the first time, it has created a Hong Kong diaspora.
International Affairs
The Gaza Massacres: A Suicide for Israel?
Alessandra Tommasi 22 November 2024

“The siege. The hunger. Innocent children, the first victims of war. […] Why does God allow harm to be done to children? […] It pairs with another insoluble question: how could God allow the Holocaust? Children were the first to be sent to the gas chambers. The only thing that should be clear to everyone is that a Palestinian child is worth exactly the same as a Jewish child.” From the biblical massacres of the innocent to the war in Gaza. This is how Macellerie – Guerre atroci e paci ambigue (“Slaughterhouses – Atrocious wars and ambiguous peace,” by Siegmund Ginzberg begins, a book that profiles a violent humanity through conflicts and atrocities in history, from the Warring States period in China to today’s wars. Ginzberg, a journalist and essayist born in Turkey to a Jewish family, is not alone in taking a stand in recent weeks. Historian Anna Foa, “a Jew of the diaspora,” explores the “same pain for both sides”—the victims of October 7, the Israeli hostages, and the civilians killed in Gaza—in her book, Il Suicidio di Israele.
International Affairs, Society
Jeffry Frieden: Once Again, it’s the Economy, Stupid
Sofia de Benedictis 13 November 2024

One week ago, Donald Trump secured a resounding victory over opponent Kamala Harris in the 2024 US elections, primarily due to a country-wide shift to the right. Swing states like Georgia and Michigan that were previously blue, are now red, and urban areas – historically Democratic bastions – have shifted their favor considerably towards the Republican party. We asked Jeffry Frieden, Professor of International and Public Affairs and Political Science at Columbia University what was motivating voters and whether this rightward shift will mean for democratic values and whether Trump will be able to live up to his lofty election promises.
International Affairs
The Triumph of Trump and Netanyahu: The End of the Two-State Solution?
Claudia De Martino 8 November 2024

Donald Trump’s clear-cut victory in the US presidential election has shaken the entire world, and has been greeted with sharply contrasting reactions, especially in Middle East. For Palestinians, it felt like the final nail in the coffin. Hopes for American mediation toward a fair resolution of the conflict are virtually non-existent, and Palestinians view the next four years through a lens of mere survival, trying to withstand the blows from Israel’s most right-wing government in history, which will now feel even freer from burdensome external constraints, such as the call to respect international law.