Israel launched a ground invasion of Gaza, causing a widely critisized high number of Palestinian civilian casualties and a discussion on whether Israel's reasoning is justifyable (“Hamas uses innocent civilians as a human shield for terrorist activity.”) or a war crime.
For many Gazans, and not just Hamas supporters, it’s worth risking more bombardment and now the ground incursion, for a chance to change that unacceptable status quo. A cease-fire that fails to resolve the salary crisis and open Gaza’s border with Egypt will not last. It is unsustainable for Gaza to remain cut off from the world and administered by employees working without pay. A more generous cease-fire, though politically difficult for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would be more durable.
Crisis Group: How the West Chose War in Gaza, July 17, 2014Following the presumed shooting down of a civilian plane over Ukraine by separatists, a crisis and sanctions against Russia (Quartz and the Guardian with what effective sanctions could look like) - and CSIS on a possible way towards peace in Ukraine.
Dexter Filkins, author of The Forever War, on what the withdrawing troops left behind in Iraq and Rolling Stone on AUMF (The Authorization of the Use of Military Force), a resolution passed after 9/11 with dire repercussions.
openDemocracy on "the collapse of the Arab political order" and how the term terrorism is "deployed as a device sustaining a US informal empire".
Ebola is spreading in Western Africa, which has no known cure.
Wired on the moral implications of a future where robots play a central role.
Pop Culture:
Judith Butler on the many claims made to the ownership of Franz Kafka's legacy and the connection to Israel and the occupied territories.
The New Yorker has opened its archives for a short while, and here's Slate with a list of must-read articles (especially one on the dysfunctionality of the US Congress and the dire situation faced by LGBT youth living on the streets in New York).
Richard Linklater discusses making Boyhood.
