President Biden is on the move in the Middle East in the hopes of a “new and more promising chapter of America’s engagement there.” It’s his first trip to the region as head of state, and is always an act of highwire diplomacy for any president. 

• The four-day trip has a number of ambitious goals: increasing energy security (that’s statesman speak for “more oil”), easing tensions with Saudi Arabia and bringing them closer together with Israel, advancing a truce in Yemen, and assuaging regional fears about next steps regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Biden will spend two days meeting with Israeli leaders like Prime Minister Yair Lapid, Israeli president Isaac Herzog, and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank on Friday. This is significant because it restores communications between the U.S. and Palestine that were cut off during the Trump administration. Biden restated his support for the two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

• Despite initial hopes for Biden after the disasters of the Trump administration, Palestinians are not expecting much from the visit. The U.S. has stalled on fulfilling key promises, like rolling back Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, which had previously been Tel Aviv. Biden will meet with the wildly-unpopular Abbas, as well as representatives of Palestinian civil society organizations. He rejected Israeli requests to send a government representative to the meeting, a subtle gesture that the Biden administration doesn’t recognize Israeli sovereignty in East Jerusalem. Biden has restored $500 million in financial aid to the Palestinians that Trump rescinded, and said Palestinians are entitled to the same measure of “freedom, security and prosperity” Israelis enjoy, but Palestinians under Israeli occupation suffer from limited freedom of movement.

• So President Biden arrived in Israel today, nearly 50 years after his first trip there as a newly-elected senator. The trip got off to a rocky start as Israeli police detained a member of his Secret Service detail Monday after a “physical encounter,” ahead of the president’s arrival. But when he touched down in Jerusalem, Biden was greeted warmly by Israeli leaders. In a speech, Lapid called Biden, “one of the best friends Israel has ever known.” Biden visited Yad Vashem, Israel’s holocaust memorial for a remembrance ceremony, and he and his delegation met with two holocaust survivors. He sought to calm Israeli fears of a potential nuclear deal with Iran, saying he would not acquiesce to a key Iranian demand, and would use force if necessary to prevent the nation from developing a bomb. A key goal of this trip is further integration of Israel in Middle East politics. Biden will be the first U.S. president to fly directly to Saudi Arabia from Israel (the former does not officially recognize the existence of the latter). The White House hopes to act as a liaison in a possible future normalization of relations between the two countries.

In an already-delicate trip, diplomacy with Saudi Arabia is expected to prove the most precarious.

• From the beginning, this diplomatic expedition to the Middle East was expected to be a particularly thorny voyage for Biden. He talked tough against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during his candidacy, vowing in 2019 to treat the nation as “the pariah that they are,” and vocally criticizing their widely documented human-rights abuses, including the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the Biden administration and official U.S. intelligence attribute to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It’s no surprise that Biden’s choice to travel to Saudi Arabia has proved controversial. When asked about Biden’s planned meeting with the Crown Prince, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said, “I wouldn’t go, I wouldn’t shake his hand.” Back in March, when Biden tried to reach out to the Crown Prince and the head of the United Arab Emirates in an attempt to stem oil prices, both men refused to take his calls. But in a Washington Post op-ed he published Saturday called “Why I’m Going to Saudi Arabia” (thanks for not burying the lede, Joe) Biden walked back some of his more bullish rhetoric, arguing that “from the start, my aim was to reorient — but not rupture — relations with a country that’s been a strategic partner for 80 years.” I have a hunch that the Kingdom being the world’s biggest oil producer might have something to do with this change of heart. 
   

• But the ball isn’t entirely in Saudi Arabia’s court. Biden has some leverage, mainly that the Saudis want him to give them an ironclad commitment to secure their airspace. But that would put the United States in the difficult position of sending American lives to defend a dictatorship for purely selfish interests (not that we haven’t done that many times before). This puts Biden between a rock and a hard place, as a strong relationship with the Saudis, specifically with the crown prince, is vital to maintaining U.S. influence in the region, and in strategic alliances in other conflicts abroad.

The Biden delegation has had an exhausting travel schedule over the past two weeks, all to the admirable end of improving human and civil-rights crises in other parts of the world. When he returns, he'll have our own to contend with.

On this week's Pod Save The World, Tommy & Ben are joined by Daniel Russel, Vice President of International Security & Diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute to discuss the shocking assassination of Japan’s former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. 

Listen to new episodes of Pod Save The World each Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts.

A new GLAAD report issued today suggests that social media networks are not doing enough to protect LGBTQ users from harassment and hate speech. GLAAD says in its report that instead of protecting their vulnerable users, social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTube withhold information about how they respond to those attacks, revealing few details about how often they take down posts or accounts that push hate speech or harass queer and gender non-conforming users. Jenni Olson, GLAAD’s director for social media safety, authored the report and said, “The reality is, there’s very little transparency and very little accountability.” In a high-profile example last month, extremely whiny, often-jaundiced conservative snowflake Jordan Peterson sent his legions of followers to harass transgender actor Elliot Page by misgendering him and using his deadname—the name he used before coming out as trans. Elliot’s deadname was even a trending topic on Twitter for over 45 minutes before the site stepped in. Peterson was eventually suspended under the company’s hateful conduct policy, but now he’s back. YouTube also has a long history of being slow to respond when users flag videos and comments for hate speech, if they respond at all. Hateful or violent speech is often explicitly prohibited on these platforms, but inconsistently and insufficiently enforced. And it’s worth noting that if Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter goes through, restrictions on hate speech might loosen, rather than tighten.

A shocking new national tracking poll published by Politico shows that 60 percent of Republicans oppose state laws that would ban all abortions (with no exceptions for instances of rape, incest, or threat to the life of the mother).

U.K. rail workers will go on strike again on July 27, one month after an initial nationwide strike to resolve an ongoing dispute over jobs, pay and working conditions. 

A Georgia woman has filed a federal lawsuit for wrongful termination after being harassed by her co-workers for being transgender. 

The Euro hit parity (a one-to-one exchange rate) with the U.S. dollar for the first time in 20 years, highlighting fears about the overall strength of the European economy. 

A Seattle man was arrested on suspicion of a hate crime for threatening to kill Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the first Indian American woman elected to the House. 

The June U.S. inflation report logged the sharpest Consumer Price Index increase since 1981, though is substantially out of date already as gas prices have declined for 28 days straight. 

As temperatures soar throughout Europe, cities and towns across France have canceled Bastille Day fireworks over wildfire concerns.

Environmental activists have long argued that rich countries bear the brunt of climate responsibility, and a new study conducted by two Dartmouth scientists published in the research journal Climate Change confirms that. Of course, the United States comes in first for cumulative carbon emissions (“We’re #1!!”), but we have also done eye-popping environmental damage abroad. The data shows that the U.S. caused more than $1.9 trillion in climate damage to other countries from 1990-2014, including $310 billion to Brazil, $257 billion to India, $124 billion to Indonesia, $104 billion to Venezuela, and $74 billion to Nigeria. That’s…a lot of damage! Carbon emissions have been tracked for decades on the national levels and damages have been calculated, but the study’s co-authors said this is the first study to draw a line from the countries producing the emissions to countries affected by them. These astonishing new figures could be used in future climate negotiations surrounding payments from wealthy countries that burn more coal, oil, and gas, to poorer countries hurt by emissions, as it’s often the countries that have emitted the least that are disproportionately harmed by increases in global warming.

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Pope Francis named three women to serve as members of the Vatican office that oversees bishop nominations today, in another first for women appointed to Catholic Church governance. If a 2,000 year old institution can get with the times, maybe there's hope for our dads after all.

A Maryland man who used a lacrosse stick attached to a Confederate flag to shove a police officer at the January 6 insurrection was sentenced to five months in prison today. Congrats to the Justice Department on that sweet behind-the-back shot into the goal.  

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) signed a sweeping gun-control bill into law today requiring manufacturers, distributors, and dealers of guns and ammunition to abide by new state standards. The law also allows state and local governments, as well as individuals, to sue companies in violation of those standards. Two can play at Texas’ game.

A statue of civil-rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune now stands in the Capitol, making her the first Black American represented in the National Statuary Hall collection. Her statue replaces the bust of a Confederate general. 

The Department of Health and Human Services released a new statement today instructing pharmacies that they cannot prevent patients from accessing prescribed medication that terminates pregnancy, as some heartburn, cancer, and autoimmune medications do. So back OFF, reactionary pharmacists!