Joe Biden and Donald Trump marked the Memorial Day national holiday honoring America’s war dead with jarringly divergent messages that promised to foretell the forthcoming US presidential election campaign as a contest of sharply contrasting characters.

In a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, Biden paid tribute to the fallen as heroes who sacrificed themselves in the service of American democracy and ideals. Meanwhile, Trump, taking to his Truth Social site, took a very different tack – bestowing holiday wishes on those he branded “human scum” and accused them of trying to destroy the country.

Biden and Trump are neck and neck in national polling for the 2024 presidential election, with Trump often narrowly ahead. Trump is, however, polling more strongly in the key swing states that will decide the contest.

The targets of Trump’s ire on Memorial Day included the judges who presided over his various trials and a writer who won more than $80m in damages after accusing him of rape.

While his predecessor and 2024 opponent fulminated on social media, Biden – accompanied by Lloyd Austin, the US defense secretary, General CQ Brown, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and Vice-President Kamala Harris – visited the the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington, final resting place for revered military heroes and US presidents.

Identifying his own family with the notion of national sacrifice, Biden highlighted his son Beau, attributing his death from brain cancer nine years ago this week to his exposure to burn pits while serving in the military in Iraq.

“The hurt is still real, still raw,” Biden said, after describing the “black hole” that opens up for family members who hear the news of the death of a relative serving in wartime.

“I can still hear him saying, ‘it’s my duty dad, it’s my duty. Duty – that was the code my son lived by … the creed the generation of service members have followed into battle on the grounds around us by fallen heroes.”

Biden’s words seemed calculated to contrast with previous comments attributed to Trump about fallen members of the military, whom he is said to have derided as “losers” and “suckers” for allowing themselves to be killed in battle.

If so, the glaring disparity was further emphasised by Trump’s Memorial Day outburst, which reprised previous holiday volleys of abuse aimed at his enemies and opponents.

“Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country, & to the Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge in New York that presided over, get this, TWO separate trials, that awarded a woman, who I never met before (a quick handshake at a celebrity event, 25 years ago, doesn’t count!), 91 MILLION DOLLARS for ‘DEFAMATION,’” he wrote.

That comment was aimed at Lewis Kaplan, the judge in a civil trial brought by the writer E Jean Carroll, who alleged that Trump raped and then defamed her.

“She didn’t know when the so-called event took place – sometime in the 1990s – never filed a police report, didn’t have to produce the dress that she threatened me with (it proved negative)…” Trump continued in reference to Carroll.

He then turned his attention to Judge Arthur Engoron, who ruled in a civil lawsuit last year that the former president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee had committed fraud by overvaluing his assets – and to Judge Juan Merchan, who is in charge of Trump’s current hush money trial in which he is accused of falsifying documents to cover up an affair with a porn actor.

He referred to Engoron as “the [New York] state wacko judge who fined me 500 Million Dollars (UNDER APPEAL) for DOING NOTHING WRONG” before adding: “Now for Merchan!”

Prosecutors and lawyers are scheduled to present their closing arguments on Tuesday in the trial, which has been running for four weeks and in which Trump faces 34 counts of paying money to an adult film star before the 2016 presidential election, which he won over Hillary Clinton.

The framing of the forthcoming election campaign as a competition about personal character is generally thought to be beneficial to Biden, who is consistently seen to be lagging behind Trump in polls quizzing voters about who has the greatest competence over economic affairs.

Police have deployed divers and a blood detection dog in the search for a mother and her newborn baby after finding evidence she may have given birth by a Sydney riverbank.

A resident walking his dog found what police believe to be a placenta and umbilical cord next to the Cooks River at Earlwood in the city’s south-west on Monday afternoon. Police said tests on the organs had revealed them to be human.

Serious concerns were held for the welfare of the child and mother and detectives established a crime scene.

Officers urged the mother to attend her nearest hospital to receive urgent care.

Supt Christine McDonald said lights had been brought in to allow the launch of a large-scale search on Monday night. The search resumed on Tuesday morning with police divers “searching the mangroves and the water’s edge”.

McDonald said it would “take some time to work through the scene” as the placenta and umbilical cord were found amid mangroves and “it is muddy down there”.

A blood detection dog also arrived on the scene on Tuesday morning after police identified an area needing “further forensic examination”.

An area near Lang Road remained taped off on Tuesday and investigators were also searching through a grassy area outside the Canterbury rugby union club.

“Obviously our search will hopefully identify what has taken place; whether the delivery of that child occurred at this location or another location is yet to be determined,” she said. “I ask anyone with information to contact Crime Stoppers.

“It’s very important and it’s extreme urgency we find the mother and the child as soon as we can. We ask she goes to a hospital. We will be contacting hospitals.”

The Cooks River flows from Yagoona in Sydney’s outer south-west and runs into Botany Bay at Kyeemagh, 23km away.

Anyone within the vicinity of Lang Road, Wardell Road, Ewen Park and Tennent Parade on Monday who may have seen a woman in distress was urged to come forward.

“Any information is critical,” McDonald said, with police also appealing for CCTV footage. “I am deeply concerned for the safety and mental health of the mother and also for the safety of her baby.

“There is no judgment. They need to know we are concerned for them. We are wanting to know they are safe.”

Police said at this stage there was no evidence the baby had been harmed.

The placenta and umbilical cord was sent for testing on Tuesday morning to try to establish the gestation period, the gender of the child and how long the placenta and umbilical cord were at the river.

The NSW health minister, Ryan Park, said his “heart absolutely goes out” to the mother and child and repeated the advice from police – that she should attend hospital.

“You’re not in trouble, you don’t have to talk to police. The only thing I ask that you do is make your way to one of our hospitals so that we can care for you and your baby as quickly as possible,” he said.

“I don’t think anyone could even begin to imagine what this mother is going through. I certainly can’t.”

Pope Francis allegedly used an offensive slur during a discussion with bishops over admitting homosexual men into seminaries, several Italian newspapers have reported.

The pontiff, 87, is alleged to have made the remark during a closed-door meeting with bishops in Rome last week, where they were reportedly discussing whether out gay men should be admitted to Catholic seminaries, where priests are trained, a topic that the Italian bishops conference (CIE) is said to have been pondering for some time.

During the discussion, when one of the bishops asked Francis what he should do, the pope reportedly reiterated his objection to admitting gay men, saying that while it was important to embrace everyone, it was likely that a gay person could risk leading a double life. He is then alleged to have added that there was already too much “frociaggine”, a vulgar Italian word that roughly translates at “faggotness”, in some seminaries.

The story was first reported by the political gossip website Dagospia, before being covered by the Italian dailies La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera, and the news agency Adnkronos.

La Repubblica, Corriere and Adnkronos quoted unnamed bishops, who said that the pontiff meant the derogatory term as a “joke”, and that those around him were surprised and perplexed by the alleged slur. One bishop told Corriere della Sera that the pontiff might not have been aware that the term was offensive.

La Repubblica and Corriere reported that there was a meeting among bishops in November during which it was decided that homosexual men could be admitted to seminaries, so long as they did not practise their sexuality, but that the move was ultimately stopped by the pope.

Since he was elected pope in 2013, Francis has sought to adopt a more inclusive tone towards the LGBTQ+ community in his public statements, much to the disdain of conservative cardinals.

Soon after becoming pope, he famously said in response to a question about gay priests: “Who am I to judge?”

He approved a ruling in December allowing priests to bless unmarried and same-sex couples in what was a significant change of position for the Catholic church.

However, he has been clear about not allowing gay people to join the clergy. In an interview in 2018 he said he was “concerned” about what he describes as the “serious issue” of homosexuality and that being gay is a “fashion” to which the clergy is susceptible.

“In our societies it even seems that homosexuality is fashionable, and that mentality, in some way, also influences the life of the church,” he said at the time.

The Roman Catholic church’s position is that homosexual acts are sinful. A decree on training for priests in 2016 stressed the obligation of sexual abstinence, as well as barring gay men and those who support “gay culture” from holy orders.

A spokesperson for the Vatican did not respond to a request for comment.

An 81-year-old man who investigators say terrorized a southern California neighborhood for years with a slingshot has been arrested, police said.

While conducting an investigation, detectives “learned that during the course of 9-10 years, dozens of citizens were being victimized by a serial slingshot shooter”, the Asuza police department said in a statement.

The man is suspected of breaking windows and car windshields and of narrowly missing people with ball bearings shot from a slingshot, the statement said. No injuries were reported.

The man was arrested on Thursday after officers served a search warrant and found a slingshot and ball bearings at his home in Asuza, about 25 miles (40km) east of Los Angeles, police said.

The Azusa police Lt Jake Bushey said on Saturday that detectives learned that most of the ball bearings were shot from the suspect’s backyard.

“We’re not aware of any kind of motive other than just malicious mischief,” Bushey told the Southern California News Group.

The man was scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday.

An Israeli airstrike that caused a huge blaze at a tented area for displaced people in Rafah has killed 45 people, medics have said, with images of charred and dismembered children prompting an outcry from global leaders and putting ceasefire talks in jeopardy.

Bombing overnight that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said targeted senior Hamas militants in a precision strike appears to have ignited fires that spread quickly through tents and makeshift accommodation, overwhelming a nearby field hospital operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross and overstretched local hospitals.

“We pulled out people who were in an unbearable state,” Mohammed Abuassa, who rushed to the scene in the north-western neighbourhood of Tel al-Sultan, told the Associated Press. “We pulled out children who were in pieces. We pulled out young and elderly people. The fire in the camp was unreal.”

The health ministry in the Hamas-controlled area said about half of the dead were women, children and older adults. Barefoot children wandered around the smoking wreckage on Monday as searches for the dead continued and mourning families prepared to bury their loved ones.

Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in parliament that “something unfortunately went tragically wrong” with the airstrike. “We are investigating the incident and will reach conclusions, because this is our policy,” he said.

The US, Israel’s staunchest ally and weapons supplier, described the images from the aftermath as devastating.

The strike, one of the deadliest single incidents in the eight-month war to date, came two days after the international court of justice in The Hague, which arbitrates between states, ordered Israel to stop its operation in Rafah immediately.

More than 85% of the Palestinian territory’s population had sought shelter in the area having fled fighting elsewhere, and a million people have been forced to move again since Israel’s ground operation began on 6 May. Israeli ground troops have so far probed Rafah’s southern and eastern outskirts, rather than its overcrowded centre.

Aid deliveries have slowed to a trickle, with the Rafah and nearby Kerem Shalom crossings effectively blocked.

International censure of Israel’s war against Hamas has grown steadily in tandem with the death toll and humanitarian crisis in the strip, but Israeli officials have repeatedly said that a ground operation in Rafah, where it believes Hamas’s leadership and four battalions of fighters are camped out with Israeli hostages, is necessary for “total victory”.

Friday’s order from the ICJ is binding, but not enforceable. Several countries called on Israel to obey the judges’s 13-2 majority decision in the wake of the Rafah strike.

Qatar, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas in attempts to secure a ceasefire and the release of hostages, said the Rafah casualties would complicate the protracted negotiations. The Israeli daily Haaretz reported later on Monday that Hamas had decided to pull out of the latest proposed talks over what its senior leadership described as a massacre.

Neighbouring Egypt and Jordan, which made peace with Israel decades ago, also condemned the Rafah strike.

Relations between Egypt and Israel, cool at the best of times, have reached a nadir since the Rafah operation began. The situation deteriorated further on Monday after the Israeli military confirmed there had been an exchange of fire between Israeli and Egyptian soldiers in the Rafah crossing area in which at least one member of Egypt’s security forces was killed. Both countries’ militaries are reviewing the incident.

France, a European ally of Israel, said it was outraged by the Rafah strike. “These operations must stop,” the country’s president, Emmanuel Macron, posted on X. “There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians. I call for full respect for international law and an immediate ceasefire.”

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, posted: “Horrified by news coming out of Rafah on Israeli strikes killing dozens of displaced persons, including small children. I condemn this in the strongest terms.”

Italy’s defence minister, Guido Crosetto, said that bombings such as Sunday night’s would have long-standing repercussions for Israel. Speaking to Sky TG24, he said: “Israel with this choice is spreading hatred, rooting hatred that will involve their children and grandchildren. I would have preferred another decision.”

The head of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, said: “The state of Israel continues to violate international law with impunity and in contempt of an international court of justice ruling … ordering an end to its military action in Rafah.”

After criticism of the Rafah strike, the IDF said it had not anticipated civilian casualties, and had bombed an area outside the latest “evacuation zone” to where Palestinians have been ordered to move, although that claim appeared to contradict a previous “safe zone” map from 22 May.

The bombing had killed Hamas’s chief of staff for the West Bank and another senior official responsible for deadly attacks on Israelis, the IDF said.

About 1,200 Israelis were killed and another 250 taken hostage in Hamas’s 7 October attack that triggered the latest conflict. According to the local health ministry, more than 36,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory operation, which has left desperate civilians without healthcare, food or water and reduced most of the coastal territory to ruins.

After a week in which Israel’s global standing had plummetted, Sunday’s attack attracted more attention than usual in the Hebrew-language media, which has often avoided daily reporting on the scenes of death and destruction in Gaza.

Several rightwing Israeli journalists celebrated the Rafah attack in appearances on Israeli television and on Twitter, likening it to this week’s Jewish bonfire festival, Lag B’Omer. Commentator Yinon Dromi retweeted another user’s post which showed a fire in Rafah, adding her own: “Happy Holidays.”

Hostilities also flared on Israel’s northern border on Monday. The powerful Lebanese group Hezbollah said it had launched a salvo of rockets at Israeli territory in response to a deadly Israeli strike outside a hospital in southern Lebanon earlier in the day.

Israel has been locked in a battle of attrition with the Iranian-backed militia since 8 October, when Hezbollah began firing missiles at the Jewish state to aid Hamas.

Jillian Ambrose’s interesting articles on heat pump myths (Do heat pumps work at freezing temperatures? 22 May) have not yet mentioned the noise that a single heat pump can generate, and the implication once large swathes of communities start using them.

We stayed at a new-build property in Suffolk last summer, where all eight or so properties had heat pumps. We had to shut the windows in hot conditions as heat pumps went on and off all night, each with its own start-up and switch-off frequency and whine. If you sat in the garden in the evening, it was an annoying, continual source of noise.

I have read that some local authorities now demand noise assessments before agreeing to an installation. The noise of a pump can be up to 65 decibels – like having someone hold a conversation in your garden. Not so bad at 11am, but irritating at 2am. Imagine thousands of them in your town – all stopping and starting all the time. You need to factor in the cost of noise reduction using some form of acoustic barrier in your price calculations and lists of pros and cons.
Martyn Taylor
Reading, Berkshire

In January, I explored the possibility of installing a heat pump via British Gas. I live in a 1930s semi with solid walls. My home is on an estate of hundreds of such houses. To even make my home heat-pump-ready, I would need to install internal or external wall insulation and underfloor insulation, and increase the level of insulation in my loft. I would also have to find room for a water cylinder and have all the piping and radiators replaced. The cost would be about £30,000, only some of which will be eligible for grants.

I already have a gas boiler that could apparently run on hydrogen without all these major changes and disruption to my home.

The installation of heat pumps will often require the wasteful removal of functioning gas boilers, piping and radiators. Surely a sensible and less wasteful way forward is to ensure all new homes are built to high insulation standards with heat pumps, while older properties are offered a transition to hydrogen central heating systems?

As always, there appears to be no clear evidence of a central government strategy.
John Lovelock
Bristol

A lightning strike killed a Colorado rancher and 34 head of cattle over the weekend, officials said.

Mike Morgan, 51, was feeding his cattle from a trailer when he was struck and died on the scene despite life-saving efforts, the Jackson county sheriff’s office said.

The lightning bolt struck on wide open pasture outside the town of Rand, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) north-west of Denver, said George Crocket, the county coroner.

The strike also bowled over around 100 head of cattle that had bunched around the trailer loaded with hay, said Crocket. “All but the 34 got up,” he said.

Morgan’s father-in-law and wife were nearby but survived the blast, said Crocket.

The incident stunned the small, tight knit community where most everybody knows everybody, Crockett said.

Aliyah Boston was looking forward to her second professional season.

The 2023 WNBA Rookie of the Year was coming off a successful debut as a television analyst for ESPN at the NCAA Women’s Final Four in April, one made even sweeter by seeing her beloved alma mater, South Carolina, win the national championship after an undefeated season. The delightful approbation given to Boston from her college and national team head coach Dawn Staley showed how beloved both are within basketball. And after witnessing the Gamecocks cut down the nets by getting revenge on Caitlin Clark’s Iowa – the team who had ended her collegiate career a year before – Boston knew she’d soon be playing alongside Clark, with her WNBA team, the Indiana Fever, set to take the 22-year-old with the No 1 overall pick in the upcoming draft.

Fast forward to now. Clark and Boston are indeed teammates but the Fever started their season with five straight losses, before Friday’s narrow win over the Los Angeles Sparks raised the team’s spirits a little. But an even more important, unfortunate storyline has emerged around the team. ESPN’s Holly Rowe revealed, before the Fever’s second regular season game against the Connecticut Sun, that Boston said she has deleted X from her phone and that TikTok is the only social media platform she now feels safe on. And the reason is the disturbing, toxic backlash she and other WNBA players have received from Clark’s wild fans.

Before we start, it’s important to note that this is not Clark’s fault – and she has not done anything to encourage the abuse of her fellow players. There is much to celebrate about Clark’s nascent superstardom and arrival in the world’s best women’s basketball league. Her historic impact on the college game, which led to the highest TV ratings the NCAA women’s Tournament has ever had, appears to be carrying over to the WNBA. Attendance and TV audience numbers for Clark’s preseason and regular-season debuts with the Fever reached zeniths for the 28-year-old league. Although its players had long fought for charter flights in their collective bargaining agreement talks, Clark being at the center of the W’s newfound popularity has undeniably help usher in that long-awaited change. Hell, Clark’s shoe deal with Nike may have led to the best player in league, A’Ja Wilson, finally getting her own signature shoe.

So, Clark has been a good thing for the league and women’s basketball as a whole. Some of her hardcore fans? Not so much.

Some of the tension originated from the matchup between Clark and Angel Reese in the 2023 NCAA title game. Reese’s boisterous personality was attacked by Clark fans at the same time as they praised their own heroine’s cockiness as “competitiveness”.

And a subset of Clark’s fervent fans have become fully unbearable.

Anywhere one turns on social media, Clark fans are blaming the Fever’s early-season struggles – which had been expected – on everyone but her. Disparaging comments about Boston’s weight and game, the rest of Clark’s Fever teammates and calls for head coach Christie Sides to get fired are constant. Yet those same Clark fans don’t demand accountability from the point guard when it comes to her setting a WNBA debut-record 10 turnovers, her below average defensive play and her zest for perimeter shooting, something she had free rein to do at Iowa but needs to scale back until she improves her consistency at the WNBA level. Clark’s occasional volatile temper, which earned her a rare technical foul last Monday night, is glossed over by her rabid supporters who treat her as an infallible celebrity instead of a still-developing professional player.

Added to this, many Clark fans have never been WNBA fans, and show a significant level of ignorance by not respecting the league’s quarter-century history of producing great athletes. The arrogance of pretending that Clark is the sole reason for any interest in the WNBA, or the high level of play it has long possessed, or believing that her fellow professionals are envious of her, are traits her ardent supporters must rid themselves of. That will not be an easy task though, thanks to NBA legends LeBron James and Charles Barkley only enabling the fans’ childish antics.

On the latest episode of his Mind The Game podcast with JJ Redick, James said that Clark “is the reason why a lot of great things are going to happen in the WNBA”. The Lakers forward even Clark’s early-season struggles to his son Bronny’s NBA draft process, claiming that both are getting “a lot of hatred and animosity”.

Barkley’s take was even more dreadful, as the Inside the NBA luminary claimed that her WNBA counterparts were being “petty” to Clark.

“LeBron, you are 100% right on, these girls hating on Caitlin Clark,” Barkley rambled. “I expect men to be petty because we’re the most insecure group in the world. Y’all should be thanking that girl for giving y’all ass private charters, all the money and visibility she is bringing to the WNBA. Don’t be petty like dudes. What she has accomplished, give her, her followers.”

James and Barkley failed to cite specifically who has been giving hate to Clark, exemplifying how counterproductive their surface-level takes are to an honest conversation around Clark, whose stumbles are entirely understandable for a player in their rookie season. And though James gave a shout out to Boston, he did not mention how awful some of Clark’s rambunctious loyalists have been to the forward. His apparent ignorance of that makes his comments all the more dreary.

Barkley meanwhile shows why Clark’s toxic fans and casual WNBA followers need to educate themselves about the league. The coddling of the talented Clark has been insulting and offensive to the great women of the W who have, despite all the misogynist, racist and homophobic attacks they’ve faced, carried the league to sustainability before her arrival. They aren’t going to just make it an open lay-up line and three-point shooting contest for Clark, something no one would expect any other league, male or female, to do. And the first person to admit that would be Clark herself.

Hopefully Clark’s more toxic fans can change before things get really ugly, something that would be unfortunate in what is supposed to be a golden period in women’s basketball. A period in which Clark, Boston and all who love the WNBA should be able to celebrate instead of squirm.

Since its inception, the international criminal court (ICC) has charged 50 people, 47 of whom were African. Its investigations have also been overwhelmingly focused on war crimes and crimes against humanity in African nations. What has long been understood but never stated is that the court and its processes, to put it bluntly, target a certain type of political leadership that is easier to go after. “The court is built for Africans and thugs like Putin,” is what one appalled elected senior leader reportedly told the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, when his team made a recent application for arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, its defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders.

Again, blunt, but not revelatory. At least not to the parts of the world that are more familiar with the court and its investigations. The lineup of suspects and defendants has long solidified the impression below the equator that the ICC is a court for Africans, and lately maybe Russians. How can that not be the takeaway when, in the years since the court was founded, the US – often with British support – has calamitously invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, established an extrajudicial prison for terror suspects, and created a CIA torture and detention network? African conflicts are seen as intimate, tribal and intentional in a way that those in other places are not. The underlying suggestion is that civilians in western wars are killed and illegally detained by accident, while other countries do this on purpose.

It would take a particularly gullible person to believe that it is only the actions of African or Russian leaders that meet the threshold for breaking the rules of engagement in conflict. But there was always a veneer of plausibility. That is now being stripped away by the US and Britain’s indignant rejection of the court’s move against Netanyahu, and the instruction from the international court of justice (ICJ) that Israel ought to protect Palestinians from genocide and halt its offensive in Rafah. Israel has sent its troops to invade another territory, causing the deaths of civilians in the process, yet we are encouraged to think of its campaign as falling along the same lines as all those other “good wars” the west has waged – another of those defensive moral missions during which unfortunate things have happened. Things that somehow never amount to the criminal, because the awfulness of war apparently can’t be avoided.

And besides, Israel is a democracy. The countries that don’t belong in the dock are the ones that investigate themselves, and are seen as not requiring the paternal oversight of global courts. The US Senate delivered a report and indictment of the CIA’s detention and interrogation techniques, while the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war condemned Britain’s military campaign and found that the legal basis was dealt with in an unsatisfactory way. That’s as far as the investigations went. The result was apologies (and unrepentant defiance from Tony Blair), and the performance of oversight was enough to maintain a veneer of justice.

Israel’s record obliterates all these exceptions. Its actions have failed to meet the standards set by its own allies for immunity from judgment. Civilian casualties in Gaza are too large to be written off as necessary collateral. Seven months in, and the goal of defeating Hamas is neither closer nor outlined in a coherent way. The famine and forced displacement of civilians are too systemic to be regarded only as unfortunate byproducts of the campaign. Israel’s reputation as a reliable democracy is shot. Its capacity to credibly investigate itself is too compromised by the short history of its pugnacious rightwing government that will brook no criticism, and its longer history of ignoring international law by allowing the expansion of settlements in occupied territories.

In continuing to treat Israel as a country that is responsible but whose actions are sometimes humanly flawed, its allies are making a perilous calculation that in the long run will undermine their own interests. Their support for Israel’s actions weakens not only international law, but the ability to hold their enemies to account and maintain red lines against belligerent countries in a world where the tools of the international system are becoming ever more important. Rising political and economic forces in Asia, the Middle East and South America are challenging Anglo-American models of power, and making their agenda harder to deliver.

Take the United Arab Emirates, a political player that was nowhere on the map 30 years ago. Today, it is an economic powerhouse and ally of the US, but it has also exchanged high-level meetings with Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine, and it continues to enable Russia to circumvent sanctions. There’s little the US can do about this. According to the Soufan Center, a global security and foreign policy research organisation, there is “little appetite in Washington” to do more than dish out warnings to the UAE.

The same goes for Qatar, which the US can only “urge” to expel Hamas’s political leadership from Doha. I’m old enough to remember a time when that language would have sounded unimaginably feeble. Rising volumes of trade between economies in the global south also increasingly cushion countries against the effect of punitive western sanctions. Chinese companies recently sanctioned for helping Russia belong to an economy that is Africa’s second-largest trading partner after the EU. Networks between sanctioned countries outside the regulated financial system are thriving. Gold, an unfreezable asset, has become a crucial part of how countries such as Russia, Venezuela and Iran engage in an international barter system.

In this new context, enforcement becomes crucial, but may be impossible. After their dismissal of the ICC and ICJ calls on Israel to comply with international law, how can the US and its partners make a convincing case again that their rules are fair and universal, and so must be followed by all? It is brazenly clear that the rules-based order is not about democratic values, the rule of law and the sanctity of human lives, but the observance of a global hierarchy in which some lives are sacred and others are not.

One day, the Gaza war will be over. And what will confront Israel’s allies is a world in which that logic, now plainly stated, is rejected once and for all. The stakes are higher than they realise. They will reap not only moral disgrace, but the crumbling of their entire postwar world order.

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