Sorry you feel that way: why passive aggression took over the world - The Economist   

Aaron was winding up a work call as his partner Jim waited at the dinner table. “I’ll just be a minute or two here,” Aaron whispered, cupping his phone. “No probs,” Jim whispered back.

Minutes passed and Aaron was still pacing around the apartment with the phone to his ear. Turning to Jim, he pointed to the phone with a roll of the eyes, mouthing the word “Sorry”. Jim waved away the apology with a good-natured shake of the head.

Five minutes later, Aaron was on the call, but seemed to have zoned Jim out. He spoke volubly, dusting his talk with the jargon of “leverage”, “buy-ins” and “scalability” that he knew Jim, a musician, hated with a passion. The carbonara Jim had made began to congeal.

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The “war schizophrenia” of Israel’s peaceniks - The Economist   

It became too much when they published David’s name, address, phone number and photograph along with the words: “The next one to get it.” He left his home and borrowed a house from a friend. “I deleted all my social-media accounts,” he told me. “I don’t answer my phone to any number I don’t know.” David is a film-maker living in Tel Aviv, who describes himself as “ultra-progressive, left-wing, anti-Zionist, pro-peace”. His views were minority ones before Hamas’s attack; now they have provoked threats. After his personal information was published on a right-wing Israeli Telegram channel, David was forced into hiding. “If you dare to show solidarity or compassion towards the Palestinian people in Gaza nowadays you are literally risking yourself in Israel. It’s serious shit,” he said.

David wanted it made clear that he was appalled by Hamas’s rampage. He volunteers as a driver for Road to Recovery, an organisation that ferries Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to Israeli hospitals for treatment. More than a dozen volunteers and their family members were killed or kidnapped by Hamas on October 7th. “You are talking to a devastated man. I know some of those killed and kidnapped and injured. I have been to funerals and memorial services. I have seen people I know who have lost everything they had. My heart is broken for them.” But, he added, “My heart is broken for the [thousands of] Palestinians in Gaza who have lost their lives and the more than [hundreds of thousands] who have had to leave their homes. For me there is no contradiction.”

It’s an irony not lost on peace activists in Israel that those who suffered most from Hamas’s atrocities – the inhabitants of the kibbutzim on the border and the young people dancing at the Nova music festival – tended to be left-wing. Many prominent voices in Israel, including Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister who leads a far-right coalition, have called for Hamas to be destroyed. Some have even demanded Gaza be razed. Advocates for human rights and dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians now find themselves challenged by the unfolding events – emotionally, morally, even physically. “It’s very heavy,” Yuval Roth, the founder of Road to Recovery, told me. “It’s very complicated to experience this war from two points of view. It’s like war schizophrenia. You have to work hard all the time to keep your moral compass.”

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Life in Gaza is a series of calculations. How much water do you really need? - The Economist   

My phone battery is on 30%. My laptop died a few days ago. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep communicating with the outside world. I’ve been able to charge my phone until now because someone in the neighbourhood had a generator. For two hours a day he would let people charge their phones on it – he wouldn’t accept any money. Money doesn’t mean anything any more anyway. You can’t buy fuel. Now my neighbour has run out of fuel for his generator.

Life is an endless series of calculations. Such as: how much water do you really need? I moved my family away from air strikes in the north of Gaza city to my uncle’s two-bedroom flat after the war started. There are 17 of us living here now. When we ran out of bottled water I had to walk 5km to an outpost run by an aid agency, pick up the ration, which was three gallons per family, and carry it home. Being on the streets is dangerous. So we try to go to the outpost just once every few days, even though we don’t have very much water.

One of our neighbours had spare water from his father’s well. When people started to run out he drove a giant bottle of water around on a donkey cart, giving it away to people. I offered to pay him but he refused to accept money, even though he’s from a poor family. A couple of days ago he stopped – he’d run out of fuel to draw water from the well.

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How to save China’s economy - The Economist   

EARLIER THIS year a Chinese publisher released a translation of “In Defence of Public Debt”, a book by Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley, and several others. Reaching deep into history, the book seeks to restore balance to the debate on government borrowing by emphasising its neglected benefits. Mr Eichengreen argues that indebted countries can get into trouble when they turn to fiscal restraint too soon, neglect growth or succumb to deflation, which only makes debt harder to service. The arrival of the translated edition was timely. Many economists believe the Chinese government’s fiscal caution this year has contributed to disappointing growth and the danger of falling prices.

Thankfully, China’s government has now begun to loosen the purse strings. It has taken the rare step of revising its budget-deficit target from 3% of GDP to 3.8%. It has allowed provinces to issue “refinancing bonds”, which will help them repay some of the more expensive debt owed by affiliated infrastructure firms known as local-government financing vehicles. Financial regulators have urged banks to meet the “reasonable” financing needs of the less rickety property developers, without discriminating against private ones. Officials also talk more often about “three major projects”: affordable housing; leisure facilities that can also help China cope with disasters and emergencies; and efforts to renovate “urban villages”, or formerly rural enclaves.

But these steps by themselves will not be enough. Houze Song of MacroPolo, a think-tank, worries that the “stimulus is not big enough to reflate the economy”. The government seems to fear an excessive response more than it fears an inadequate one. Many in China view public debt as suspect despite the arguments in its favour. Even defenders of public borrowing are careful not to appear too strident. The Chinese edition of Mr Eichengreen’s book is not called “In Defence of Public Debt”. It carries the more anodyne title “Global Public Debt: Experience, Crisis, Response”.

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