In my musings about world politics on this personal website I have not said much about the UK. Part of it is because the UK is our strongest ally and its politics in the world are very much aligned with ours. Part of it is because I admire the UK for many reasons, which many reasons will take us astray from the main topic.
One thing has become clear though, in the absence of clarity in much of the rest of the world (even the BBC took about two weeks to finally refer to Hamas as a terrorist organization). It is the royals who stood out in the moral clarity of their messaging. This particular instance of moral clarity in support of Israel shows that the British monarchy, free from the constraints of political posturing, plays a much needed role not just in the UK but in the world at large.
To their credit, the royals have also made declarations of solidarity with the innocent parties in the conflict, Israelis and Palestinians, who are going through the worst flare of violence in many years. In a republic like the US, the head of the state always has to juggle many conflicting political requirements and the messaging tends to become more blurry, especially when we get close to elections. But more on this below.
Political disfunction in the US does not help us to achieve clarity
The conflict is covered extensively in many places and there is no need to elaborate on the main facts here. For example, Reuters has been mapping the conflict on a daily basis, you can see it here. It is unfortunate that the current flareup finds the US in deep political turmoil, because American involvement and mediation are more needed than ever.
The US House of Representatives is in limbo, without a Speaker, mostly because the Republican party is in limbo. The Democrats aren't doing much better, especially on the far left, as the confused NYC rally in support of the uprising is showing. At this time of turmoil in the Middle East, there is no US ambassador in place in Israel, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon or Oman. The state department usually has a coordinator for counter-terrorism, a position tasked with defeating terrorism overseas. That position has been awaiting confirmation for almost two years now.
Overlapping this political disfunction and exacerbating it is the appalling disinformation making a mockery of social media. Same video clips and photos are shown over and over, with completely conflicting narratives, without the people posting them even bothering to see if these narratives are truly related to the clips or images. I am so disgusted by this that I don't even want to spend time on it. There is no way that we can continue our embrace of social media much longer without serious regulatory action for combating disinformation.
I am liberal in my political views and a registered Democrat. The confusion about the conflict in Israel among the more progressive wing of the party with which I identify on most issues is staggering. And not just within the progressive wing. Centrist people whom I admired in the past have rushed to speak about the conflict in tone deaf ways. Despite their horrific promotion of the lies about the "stolen 2020 election" I began to watch Fox News for a more realistic coverage of the conflict. We are in a funk, globally, but especially here in the US.