The Intelligence from The Economist: Diplomacy up in smoke: Biden visits Israel

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Hello and welcome to the intelligence from the Economist. I'm your host Aurea Ogumbi.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

You cannot overstate the historical and economic significance of cricket for India.

But as the country hosts the World Cup this year, the increasing meddling of politicians

is far from sportsman-like and is having worrying consequences.

And when Michael Jackson died, I cried so much at school. I'd never met the man,

but I still felt like he was a very, very important part of my life.

And I don't think I was alone. Our correspondent explains why we grieve for dead artists so hard.

First up though.

An explosion at a hospital in Gaza where Palestinians were receiving treatment or

sheltering has killed hundreds of people.

A civil defence chief gave a death toll of 300

while health ministry sources put it at 500.

Videos show a chaotic and distressing scene.

Hamas laid the blame with Israel, which in turn said the explosion was caused by

a failed rocket fired by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a militant group.

President Joe Biden, who touched down in Tel Aviv this morning, seemed to agree with the Israeli

assessment. I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday.

And based on what I've seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.

Whoever is responsible, the blast has made an already tense situation worse,

and thrown Mr. Biden's visit to the region into disarray.

It is very rare for an American president to travel to a war zone, and so I think the fact that

Joe Biden is visiting Israel today is a sign of just how strong American support for Israel is.

Greg Castrum is a Middle East correspondent for The Economist.

He gave it early and unequivocal support after the Hamas attack on October 7th, and

his actions were very popular with Israelis, and he's going to need that goodwill to try

and achieve his goals in the region. And Greg, why is Biden heading to the region? What's the

purpose of this visit? I think there's both a public and a private rationale for it. The public

reason, again, is to show support for Israel. And I think that's something that the president

wants to do personally, but also something that he thinks he needs to do politically.

The more interesting part of this visit is what he will say behind closed doors, and I think

there are two messages that he wants to carry to the Israelis. The first is a short-term need for

humanitarian access in Gaza to allow the flow of aid into Gaza, where food, water, fuel,

electricity have all basically been cut off for the past 12 days. And the second thing is to try

and talk through Israel's broader military strategy, how it intends to get out of what seems

like a looming ground offensive, what its exit strategy is after that offensive, and also how

to head off the, it seems, growing possibility of a broader war in the region. This was supposed

to be one of two stops on the trip. Biden was supposed to go after Israel to Jordan, where he

would meet King Abdullah, President Sisi of Egypt, and President Abbas of Palestine. But

that summit has now been canceled because of the strike at the hospital.

Okay, so what do we know about this strike at the hospital?

We know that it has led to hundreds of deaths. That is about all we know at this point. Hamas

has blamed this on Israel. It says Israeli jets carried out an airstrike on the hospital. The

Israeli army denies that it was an airstrike. And it says that the explosion at the hospital was

caused by misfired rockets from Islamic Jihad, which is another militant group in Gaza. They

have denied that it was their rockets. I can say that the Israeli army has lied in the past. I can

also say that Hamas has lied about things that rockets it fires at Israel do routinely

misfire and land inside of Gaza. We don't have hard evidence about what happened.

We're also almost at a point where hard evidence doesn't matter because the belief across the

Middle East is that this was an Israeli airstrike and it has brought the region to a boil. There

were protests in the West Bank last night in Jordan, protests in Lebanon, where demonstrators

went to the American Embassy and protested elsewhere in the country. And the strike has

also exacerbated an already difficult humanitarian situation in Gaza, where hospitals were running

on fumes. They were overcrowded with people killed and injured in Israeli strikes. And since Israel

issued a warning last week for residents to leave the northern part of the Gaza Strip,

hundreds of thousands of people have fled. There have been Israeli strikes along the evacuation

route that they were told to use and thousands of people have died. So given this level of outrage,

do you think Biden will have any chance of achieving his goals to ease tension in the region?

I think it's an increasingly long shot before Biden arrived. Anthony Blink in the

Secretary of State made 10 stops in seven countries over five days doing a very intensive

round of shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East. On one of his stops in Israel, standing beside

Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, he tried to appeal to Israel's values.

We democracies distinguish ourselves from terrorists by striving for a different standard,

even when it's difficult, and holding ourselves to account when we fall short. Our humanity,

the value that we place on human life and human dignity, that's what makes us who we are.

But one thing that we're seeing is that America does not have much influence over most of the

countries in the region when it comes to this conflict. The only country that it really has

influence over is Israel. The fact that Biden isn't able to have this summit in Jordan, which is

the most pliant, I would say, of America's Arab allies as a sign of just how high the tensions

are across the Middle East right now. But I think this attack on the hospital will have

severely hampered the prospect of trying to de-escalate things in the region, and

there are some parties in the region, most notably Iran, that are working to escalate things.

Let's talk a bit more about that. How are these other regional players like Iran impacting the

situation? Iran has made a number of threats over the past week, which could mean the involvement

of Hezbollah, the Shia militant group in Lebanon that is extremely close to Iran. It has already

been firing missiles across the border from Lebanon in recent days. It's killed several Israelis.

Several people in Lebanon have been killed in retaliatory airstrikes. Hezbollah has a much

larger arsenal than Hamas and a much better trained military force. And so if it were to really

enter this war and try to open a second front on the Israeli-Lebanese border,

it would make this already heated situation much worse. There's also the possibility of other

groups in Syria, for example, trying to attack Israel or of other Iranian-backed militias in

places like Iraq, for example, trying to attack American targets or other targets there. Beyond

Iran, I think the other country that a lot of people are focused on right now is Egypt, which

controls the only border with Gaza that is not controlled by Israel. And so there has been a

big push to try and get aid into Gaza via Egypt that has been blocked so far by Israel. And there's

also a push to get Egypt to accept Palestinians fleeing Gaza to provide a sort of safe haven for

people for the duration of the war. But there has been staunch opposition to that in Egypt. There's

a fear that if Palestinian refugees are allowed in, Israel will never allow them back and they will

become permanently stranded in Egypt. So very big, very weighty questions that Biden is trying to

deal with here. And it's not clear whether he or any foreign leader can make much headway on them.

And if Biden is unsuccessful in calming these regional tensions and in tempering the Israeli

response, what might that mean going forward? I think there are two very bad possible outcomes

that you could see here. One is the possibility that Israel proceeds with a large ground defensive

in Gaza but doesn't have an exit strategy for it. And so you end up either with a situation where

Israel has to reoccupy Gaza, which will spark more anger in the Palestinian territories,

or it goes in, tries to decapitate Hamas and then leaves and leaves behind a power vacuum that

could be filled by even more radical elements in Gaza. Neither of those are good outcomes,

really, for anyone. And of course, the other fear, the bigger fear is that this doesn't stay

limited to Israel and Gaza, that this does turn into some kind of a regional conflict. And you

hear people are nervous. There are concerns in some of the Gulf states that because they have sought

to normalize relations with Israel that Iranian-backed groups in Yemen, for example, Houthis, might

lash out at Gulf states on the orders of Iran. So there is a real concern, not just that this

could be a quagmire for the Israelis, but that this could be something that shakes the entire region.

Greg, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you.

To hear more about America's Middle East strategy, listen to our most recent episode of

Checks and Balance, our weekly feature show on American politics. From October 24th,

you'll need to subscribe to our brand new service, Economist Podcast Plus, to enjoy these kinds of

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show notes or search Economist Podcast Plus online to find out more.

I've just returned from India, where I was very fortunate to be able to attend the India-Pakistan

Contest in the Cricket World Cup that's being held in India. James Astor is the Economist's

Asia editor and author of The Great Tamasha, Cricket Corruption and the Turbulent Rise of

Modern India. It was an extraordinary occasion held in a stadium, newly built to seat 130,000

people. It's a tremendous symbol of the enormous multitudinous enthusiasm that hundreds of millions

of Indians have for the game of cricket. And the contest against India's arch-rival Pakistan

was every bit as dramatic and dramatically followed as one would have expected. The crowd was enormous,

exceptionally partisan and exceptionally loud and enthusiastic.

And what does the World Cup mean to Indians? The one-day Cricket World Cup has a very, very special

place for Indians because they won the tournament in 1983 as Rank Underdogs. It was a startling

victory, which was India's sort of greatest achievement on the world stage in sport or

otherwise, back in the 80s when it was still a much poorer, more modest, more insecure country

than it is today. The tournament has been held in India three times since then and every time

the tournament has returned to India. It has shone a very, very clear and revealing light on

India's emergence and the growth of the national economy, all of which can be seen

through India's cricket obsession and cricket economy with a special clarity.

Now James, how is the Indian government getting involved?

Because of the incredible popularity of cricket in India, Indian politicians have tried to control

cricket in their various state associations and nationally, but this government, the government

of Narendra Modi has been far more systematic in that effort. Cricket has become a property of the

central government. The Bharatiya Janata Party central government in Delhi has control over the

national cricket association. It has essentially moved the capital of Indian cricket to the

Prime Minister's home state of Gujarat through the building of an enormous cricket stadium,

the world's biggest, of course, named after the Prime Minister. It's the Narendra Modi Cricket

Stadium. Never before has the association between the national government, national pride, and

national hopes for the cricket team been more closely aligned than they are currently in this

World Cup tournament. So James, why is cricket so important to India's politicians?

It's partly about money. The cricket economy is an enormous revenue generator. Indian cricket now

is responsible for 80, 90 percent of all the revenues generated in World Cricket. So that

access to those riches has certainly over the decades been appealing to Indian politicians,

but I don't think that's the major political appeal of cricket and especially not so today.

For politicians, cricket gives an extraordinary opportunity to be seen by millions of Indian

voters. Cricketers are the most revered celebrities in India, more so than Bollywood stars even. So

politicians that can associate themselves with cricket be seen presiding over really big cricket

games as they invariably do. If India reached the final of this World Cup, the Prime Minister and a

host of cabinet ministers will all be there watching. That's really powerful political currency

in Indian democracy. Is the politicization of Indian cricket good for the game? It would depend

who you ask. The politicization of Indian cricket reflects the prestige of Indian cricket, its

association with India's national power. And for many Indians, that's a positive thing. But I think

those who are closer to the game care more about the game are generally extremely critical of the

way it gets politicized. And the way that India sees power in cricket is just an extension of

national power. It has meant that India really bullies the rest of the cricketing world to get

its way. It sees its revenue generating power as essentially a license to dictate how and

where cricket gets played around the world. And that's an enormous and rather traumatic change

to the way that the global game of cricket has been run for the previous many decades.

And it's had some very negative implications for many of those other cricketing powers. The West

Indies, a great cricketing tradition, has seen its national cricket side effectively gutted

because its best players can earn more money playing domestic cricket in India than they can

playing for their national side. And that problem, just an example of a broader problem,

doesn't seem to generate much concern amongst India's highly politicized cricket administrators.

And James, you went to the India-Pakistan match. Tell me a bit about the mood there.

For context, let me just say already that encounters between India and Pakistan

have always had this uber political significance. In the early decades after partition,

the players on both sides were so afraid of losing that they would play these very tedious

games and resulting in very boring draws. And all of that tremulous national significance

and politicization is as true or truer today than it was then. And what I saw in Ahmedabad,

where India trounced Pakistan in this World Cup, was the great asymmetry in the relationship now

in cricket and, of course, in other ways too. The Indian crowd was completely confident that

their team would beat the Pakistanis as they did. They were not a friendly crowd towards

the Pakistanis. And those that I spoke to didn't regret in any way this striking development,

the refusal of the Indian government to let Pakistani fans visit India to watch their

national side play, which is a big departure from the policy of previous Indian governments.

They have not been given bazaars. People who have come from the UK or the US as Pakistanis,

they can come. But do you think it's a shame that there are no Pakistanis?

No, no. No, I don't think so. Pakistanis will be afraid to come to Ahmedabad.

That's what they feel. But between the two countries, everyone hates them. Sorry.

Many of the Indian fans knew nothing whatsoever about Pakistan,

though they professed to hate it or express contempt for Pakistan. And I found this very

depressing, frankly. Previously, there was, amidst all of the rivalry, a great sense of

broken family kinship on the subcontinent of a sort of aching for peace, a degree of mutual

understanding. There was nothing of that in the crowd in Gujarat. And it was sad to see.

So what does the future of the game look like under this kind of dominance of India's politicians?

There is little doubt that India's enthusiasm for cricket will be sustained, that the size of the

Indian cricket economy will continue to grow, that that will bind Indian politicians ever more

closely, if that's even possible, to the game and to the management of the game, both in India

and beyond India. And I think it follows, we'll see more and more Indian dominance of how cricket

is played globally. Indian domestic tournaments will spread their arms around the cricket calendar,

international cricket, which was previously dominant in cricket and the sport is

rather distinctive in that way, will retreat as India's domestic semi-privatized cricket

tournaments expand. Changes that will be resisted by many fans of the game in India and outside

India, but there's nothing that they'll be able to do about it. This process of the great juggernaut

of Indian commerce and politics unleashed through cricket is sure to continue.

James, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, it's a pleasure.

After Alexander Pushkin was shot in a duel in 1837, crowds of mourners gathered outside his home

in St Petersburg. Russia's nervous authorities whisked his body away in the middle of the night

and secretly moved the funeral service to a new location.

Andrew Miller writes a backstory, a column on culture.

Just a bit on the safe side, they mustered 60,000 troops.

When the wagon bearing the poet's body reached Peskov province where Pushkin was to be buried,

some of his devotees tried to unharness the horses and pull the wagon themselves.

Rudolf Valentino, that silent movie idol died in 1926, mounted police had to be drafted in

in New York to restrain his fans. They mobbed the funeral parlor where his body lay on view.

This song, There's a New Star in Heaven Tonight, was recorded 10 days after Valentino's death.

Today morning for artists and celebrities is a little bit less fanatical and it's mostly done

online rather than in person, but it can still be pretty passionate.

And if you think in the past few months of the deaths of the writers Martin Amis and Cormac

McCarthy, or of the singers Tina Turner and Jimmy Buffett, or going back a few years to those of

Prince and David Bowie, anguish and tributes rolled around the internet and social media was full

of digital ululations by fans mourning the passing of these greats. And, you know, sad as they are

if you stop to think about it, these outpourings of grief are in a way kind of irrational.

Unlike most kinds of grief, this one isn't the result of personal intimacy.

The truth is if you ever interacted with your favourite author, it was probably during a

book tour when they signed a copy of your book and misspelt your name. And you may have been

to a gig where you deluded yourself, that you locked eyes with your favourite frontman,

and he smiled only for you, but the reality is you didn't really know them and they certainly

didn't know you. Truth be told, you wouldn't necessarily have liked them if you had known them.

Their books and songs might be touching and wise, but it's a biographical fallacy, as critics put

it, to assume that the work reflects an artist's own life or beliefs. Maybe they were lovely people,

or maybe they were money grubbers and consumed by rivalry with other artists. The truth is you

rarely know for sure. And the reality is whilst the artists may be gone, the are-you prize and the

are-you prize and the reason you came to love them is still there. Death doesn't delete their art.

On the contrary, it often publicises it. David Bowie's only number one album in America was

Blackstar, which was released just days before he died. It's true that The Dead can't write

any more books or record any more songs, but many artists, in truth, did their best work

quite a long time before their demise. It's different, of course, when you feel sorrow for

someone who's died young or violently. Who knows, for example, what music Amy Winehouse might have

added to her oeuvre had she lived beyond 27? Deaths like Buddy Holly's In The Plane Crash,

or Madigliani's Who Died of Tubercula meningitis at 35, or of the poet Wilfred Owen,

who was killed in action in the First World War a week before the Armistice.

These are tragic, but objectively, the death of a long-lived and fulfilled artist

is far from the saddest item in most days' headlines.

Given all that, why are we so sad when artists and celebrities die? Well, there are a few

possible explanations. One of them is maybe the most obvious one, is that the departed celebrities

are merely the messengers, and the real news is death itself, which comes for everyone,

even the most glamorous and fated of stars. As Jim Morrison sang before he too died at 27,

no one here gets out alive. Another possible explanation is that, when your favourite singer

or writer dies, part of your own past, the past in which the singer was the soundtrack,

or the writer was your main ally, can seem to fade away and be lost with them.

Or you could see this version of grief as a kind of gratitude for the solidarity and the joy that

these artists have given you. In a digital age, when we feel often atomised and so much communication

is full of spite and strife, there are a chance to share benign feelings and memories with strangers

about people who've mattered to us all, and in that sense, they are these artists' parting gifts to their fans.

Don't worry, we aren't going anywhere. Everyone will be able to listen to our

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up yet, chop chop, follow the link in our show notes to find out more, and we'll see you back here tomorrow.

Oh, that would be so beautiful. I could use that. I appreciate it.

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