Hello, and happy new year!
I hope your holidays were restful, because goodness knows we’re going to need our strength. 2024 is set to be a truly shambolic year, marked by at least 65 elections in some of the world’s biggest and most influential countries (including a seemingly inevitable Biden v. Trump rematch), to say nothing of the ongoing wars in Gaza and Ukraine, the Summer Olympics and Euros—and that’s just the stuff we know about.
And where better to kick things off than the Magic Mountain? I’ll be heading back to Davos later this month to cover the 54th annual World Economic Forum meeting for TIME. Expect a snowy dispatch in your inboxes on Jan. 19.
What I’ve written
2024 has barely begun, and yet it already stands to be the most significant election year in modern history. Around the world, at least 65 countries spanning more than half of the world’s population will hold national elections. These contests will determine who wins or loses power in the U.S., the world’s oldest democracy; in India, the most populous country; and in the E.U., the largest trading bloc. My colleague Astha Rajvanshi and I unpack what’s at stake in this make-or-break election year:
Elections are no guarantee of democracy. That much we know from who holds them. Even full-blown tyrants crave the legitimacy that, in the modern era, can be provided only by the ballot box—margins of victory doubling as one more tool of intimidation.
But it’s also true that democracy does not exist without elections, which is why the year ahead carries such significance. In 2024, more than half the world’s population will go to polls—4.2 billion citizens across approximately 65 countries in what, from a distance, at least appears to be a stirring spectacle of self-government. At closer range, however, the picture is cloudier, and warning lights flash red from the murk. Keep reading here
In November, I interviewed renowned Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer to discuss how Palestinian society in Gaza was responding to the deadliest and most destructive war to hit the enclave in living memory. He had a lot to say on the subject, and told me he planned to write on the topic.
But he never got the chance. On Dec. 7, the 44-year-old was killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza alongside six members of his family.
So for my final piece of the year, TIME published transcripts of the voice notes Alareer sent me. He spoke about Palestinian society, its resilience in the face of destruction, and his enduring belief in the spirit of generosity, even in the darkest moments.
The sense of community, the sense of coming together, that we all can be killed at any moment—this sense is bringing us closer and closer. This is not to romanticize war. War is horrible. This sense of doom, the sense of death coming and the gunpowder and the non-stop bombardment. I’m talking to you and the tanks are probably 300 or 400 meters away from where we are in Gaza City. We could die anytime.
But we’re clinging to our humanity, and this is what I keep saying. This could end up with the destruction of Gaza. Israelis promised to send Gaza back 150 years, to turn it into a city of tents. We could end up being displaced; a second Nakba, a more horrible Nakba than the first Nakba because this is being televised, streamed online, and on social media.
As Palestinians, no matter what comes of this, we haven’t failed. We did our best. And we didn’t lose our humanity. Keep reading Alareer in his own words here
What I’ve read
Masha Gessen’s essay on the politics of memory in Europe (The New Yorker)
An excerpt simply won’t do. Read the whole thing
This piece about hope amid despair in Gaza (The Atlantic)
It pains me greatly that Gaza is exponentially worse off now than it was when I said goodbye to my father in 2005. Instead of coming back to a prosperous territory that is part of a Palestinian state, I live with the knowledge that my childhood homes are gone, half my family is dead, my people are displaced, and a just peace seems more elusive than ever. Yet it is precisely out of this desperate reality that my hope emerges for Palestinians and Israelis to embrace a fundamentally different path forward.
This story on how Joe Biden became America’s top Israel hawk (Mother Jones)
Much of Biden’s deference to Israel is deeply personal. As his supporters have put it, he identifies with the nation in his kishkes—his guts. That can be seen in the highly emotional and graphic way in which he has talked about victims of the Hamas attack being massacred, sexually assaulted, and taken hostage.
Both before and after October 7, the empathy Biden is known for has rarely extended to Palestinians. Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, said such statements are missing “to the degree that I don’t really think he sees the Palestinians at all.” In contrast, Khalidi added, Biden sees Israelis “as they are very carefully presented by their government and their massive information apparatus.”
What I’m thinking about
How I can smuggle more of Trader Joe’s addictive Chili & Lime Flavored Rolled Corn Tortilla Chips into London. Please advise.
Until next time,
Yasmeen