ISRAEL AND UKRAINE : TWO COUNTRIES ON THE BRINK

Two countries have an existential bound with the West: Israel and Ukraine. Time is running out with the former and running short with the latter.

The protest against Netanjahu shows that the democratic dialectic is still alive in Tel Aviv but it remains that there is also something rotten in the country.

In a future that becomes more uncertain--presidential elections in the US, "fatigue" in the West, Russian intentions towards Georgia, Moldova, etc--Kiev races against time and winter. 

There are no easy choices for either.

The Jewish intelligencia in America starts to question Israel's moves regarding its (uneven) democratic framework, or the Palestinians. The streets in Tel Aviv  are packed with protesters who do not want to stay idle when their core values are being sold out. Even The New York Times is running out of patience.

Ukraine gets undiminished but nevertheless calibrated support, mostly from the Biden administration, which will enter the pre-election nightmare this coming winter. The EU fears more a possible change of administration in Washington than the Americans do. Under a Republican leadership, China, NATO, trade, Russia i.a. would all arrive in a correction course.

Time is running short. Israel must return to its former age of (partial, disputable) innocence. The Ukranian drama cannot continue for much longer. Time is Putin's ally and Zelensky's foe. Around this stalemate a lot is happening, out of view but on the mind of some. China, the BRICS, freelancers like Turkey today, France tomorrow, might make inroads into this hardly confined hell, with unpredictable consequences.

Dr. Kissinger was in Beijing. He can hardly be considered a professor of morals, but his more creative approach to power and influence remains undiminished. He will have found in President Xi an acute listener. Some hope he might also remind the Israelis of the value of this two-state approach in the heydays of his unsurpassed shuttle diplomacy.

There is little time left before one country sells out its soul while the other might lose the war.