'No peace until Israelis and Palestinians can appreciate each other's grief'

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Catherine Philp in The Times
Ayesha Hazarika in The i Paper
Paul Krugman in The New York Times
Bobby Gillespie in The Guardian

published 8 December 2023

An empathy void divides the Middle East

Catherine Philp in The Times

Until Israelis and Palestinians can "appreciate each other's grief", peace will be "a struggle", argues Catherine Philp in The Times. Images of what is happening in Gaza "are absent from Israeli television screens", while in the "wider Arab world, denialism over the Hamas atrocities has taken root". A peaceful future "feels impossible when neither side will even entertain the other’s version of the past".

Ayesha Hazarika in The i Paper

Boris Johnson "brought all the worst people, behaviour and practices into the heart of Downing Street", writes Ayesha Hazarika in The i Paper, and he "gave permission to all around him to be their worst selves". The Covid inquiry "provides a slice of justice" and his "momentary embarrassment and discomfort" is some consolation. "Let's hope this is the last we see of him anywhere near power."

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Paul Krugman in The New York Times

"There are two big questions" about the US economy, writes Paul Krugman in The New York Times. "One is why it's doing so well. The other is why so many Americans insist that it's terrible." As well as Republicans, there seems to be a "significant number of progressives unwilling… to accept the good news". Biden's America isn't a "progressive paradise" but there has "nonetheless been real progress".

Bobby Gillespie in The Guardian

Shane MacGowan's best songs "made you cry and raise a clenched fist at the same time", writes Bobby Gillespie, the Primal Scream frontman, in The Guardian. Writing on the day of the Pogues singer's funeral, Gillespie remembers finding MacGowan "a gentle soul, quite shy actually, not like I’d imagined him at all". And his greatest songs "help the rest of us get through our lives".

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