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What We're Watching: Israel's strange bedfellows, Mali's isolation, Open Skies closed
Israel's new, weird government: Israel's political class never misses an opportunity for dramatic effect. And that's exactly what happened Wednesday when Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party informed Israel's president that he had successfully cobbled together a coalition government just minutes before a procedural deadline at midnight. It's an historic outcome, ending the political reign of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after 15 years in power. The new coalition government will be rotational: Naftali Bennett, head of the rightwing Yamina party, will serve as PM until 2023, at which point he will switch roles with Lapid, who will serve as foreign minister until then. The government will be one of the most ideologically and religiously-diverse in Israel's history, including Jewish nationalist parties, right wing politicians who defected from Bibi's camp, left-wing parties, as well as Raam, an Islamist Arab party. Plenty of challenges await the new government, and Bibi is surely going to be a thorn in its side as head of the opposition in the Knesset. But after endless election cycles, many Israelis are rejoicing that they finally have a (fractious) new government.
African groups isolate Mali: The African Union (AU) on Wednesday suspended Mali from membership following a coup last week, the second in the West African country in just nine months. The AU, an umbrella group of 55 African nations representing the continent, threatened to impose sanctions if Mali does not move to reinstall the previous joint civilian military government. This comes a week after the 15-member Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) also suspended Mali and threatened to impose sanctions (ECOWAS, which established a free trade area, has the mandate to impose hard-hitting regional trade restrictions.) Last August, Mali's democratically elected government was toppled in a coup led by Col. Assimi Goita, who emerged from that dustup as interim vice president. Now, he has detained the transitional president, prime minister and defense minister for not consulting him before forming a new government and seized power himself. Economic sanctions would be devastating for Mali, a poor, landlocked country that has been battling an Islamic insurgency in the north that's displaced half a million people in recent years. Nine months ago, the junta caved and agreed to hold elections in 2022 in exchange for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions. Will Goita buckle this time?
Attention passengers, Open Skies is now closed: The Russian upper house has voted to ditch the decades-old Open Skies Treaty, a major post-Cold War arms control pact that permits the US, Russia, and 32 other (mostly European) countries to conduct short-notice, unarmed surveillance flights over each other's territory. The Trump administration withdrew the US from the agreement last year, over concerns that Russia was blocking US and NATO-member flights. While then-candidate Joe Biden criticized that move as "short-sighted," he changed his mind once in office, deciding last week not to re-enter the pact for the very same reasons. Russia has long complained that the US, for its part, blocks flights over Alaska, and most NATO members are keen to preserve the treaty, which is viewed as an important confidence-building measure. But Russian President Putin is almost certain to sign the withdrawal order, likely ahead of his upcoming summit with President Biden on June 16 in Geneva.
What We’re Watching: Guatemala slips into crisis, Bibi slips into Saudi Arabia,Trump slips out of Open Skies
Guatemala in crisis: In the latest unrest to hit the streets of a Latin American capital, a group of demonstrators — angry about a controversial new budget — set fire to the Guatemalan parliament building over the weekend. The budget, negotiated largely in secret while the country reels from the impact of the pandemic and back-to-back hurricanes, cuts funding for healthcare, education, and human rights organizations while boosting money for infrastructure and — get this — adds more than $50,000 for lawmakers' meal stipends. The mostly peaceful protesters, along with the Catholic Church, are demanding at a minimum that President Alejandro Giammattei veto the budget, but some on the streets are calling for him and his whole government to step down entirely. Vice President Guillermo Castillo has offered to do just that, but only if the president jumps ship with him. Can Giammattei find a solution or is this a rerun of 2015, when mass protests unseated the government of then-President Otto Perez Molina? With its economy battered by the pandemic and natural disasters, Guatemala can ill afford a prolonged crisis.
Bibi goes to Saudi: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly travelled to Saudi Arabia over the weekend for direct talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Although Riyadh has formally denied that any meeting took place, the reports come as speculation swirls about the possibility of a normalization of ties between the two countries. Israel and Saudi Arabia have grown closer in recent years, in part because of a shared interest in containing Iran, but Riyadh's formal position is that it cannot establish formal ties with the Jewish State until Israel and the Palestinians reach a peace accord. In recent months, Israel has pulled off a flurry of normalization deals with Arab states — the UAE, Bahrain, and Sudan — but a pact with Saudi Arabia would be a much more dramatic achievement, given the country's size, economic clout, and its role as the custodian of Islam's holiest sites.
Trump closes Open Skies: Six months after giving notice, the US has now officially exited the Open Skies treaty, a 30-year old agreement with Russia that permits both sides to conduct unarmed reconnaissance flights over each other's territory. The pact was intended to increase transparency and reduce the risk of war by giving each side a window into the other's military movements, but the Trump administration had complained that Russia wasn't living up to its side of the bargain, by refusing US access to certain areas in the former-Soviet sphere. US President-elect Joe Biden, for his part, has said he supports maintaining the Open Skies treaty and would prefer to address Russia's violations via the agreement's dispute resolution mechanisms. But even if he wanted to rejoin the treaty after he becomes president in January, he'd have a problem: the Trump administration is retiring the specialized surveillance planes that are used in the program, and stripping them for parts (paywall). If you are in the market for a highly sophisticated wet-film surveillance camera, call the Pentagon.