'Israelis should not be trusting the judgement of a megalomaniac'

Israel's leaders have been eternally judged. What are they thinking now?

Rogel Alpher in Haaretz 

Israel Defense Forces (IDS) Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi is to blame "for the most serious military failure in the history of the country", says Rogel Alpher in Haaretz, but Benjamin Netanyahu is "ultimately responsible". The prime minister's "legacy is lost" following the surprise full-scale attack by Hamas. And "we should not be trusting the judgment of a megalomaniac" who "must now realize that his dreams of greatness have been shattered and his life’s work has gone down the drain".

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Starmer's Labour is leaving my generation feeling politically homeless

Fran Boait in The Guardian 

For people who "entered the world of work at around the time of the financial crash", the next election may present "the first opportunity in our working lives to not be living under Tory rule", writes banking campaigner Fran Boait for The Guardian. Yet on issues from "economic breakdown to the climate crisis and racial injustice", Keir Starmer has "little to say", leaving many "politically homeless" and "unsure about the route towards a progressive UK".

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Most Americans yearn for a third party. Don't hold your breath

Paul Waldman in The Washington Post

That most Americans want to see a third party "should be unsurprising", says Paul Waldman in The Washington Post, as the country braces for a Biden-Trump rematch in 2024. But the polarised political system means those hoping for an alternative "won't be getting what you want anytime soon". While third parties are "too often seduced by the siren song of the presidential race", they can only function as spoilers, which "wins them nothing but resentment".

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Ozempic can't fix what our culture has broken

Tressie McMillan Cottom in The New York Times 

Weight-loss jab Ozempic has become "shorthand for our coded language of shame, stigma, status and bias around fatness", says sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom in The New York Times. Recent supply problems revealed a "grim picture of inequality", with wealthy slimmers buying up the drug "while people who needed it struggled to fill their prescriptions". Solving obesity "will require more than drugs". We must also address "the conditions for making some people undesirable" that are still "lurking in the shadows". 

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