The motivations that could support a negotiation between the United States, Israel, and Iran are blocked by a profoundly asymmetric structural dynamic: Israel acts out of existential hatred towards Iran, while the United States lacks strategic vision and allows itself to be dragged along by its ally without defining its own objectives. Instead of the international community creating frameworks that incentivize negotiation, Washington ends up legitimizing Israeli military objectives without having made them its own, ceding its autonomy to Tel Aviv's emotional urgency. The need for security is subordinated to the Israeli logic of eliminating the adversary. The United States, without an articulated doctrine, does not lead but accompanies, becoming complicit in an escalation whose consequences it has not rigorously calculated. This absence of a possible area of agreement is in itself an indicator that neither side has made the necessary mental transition from the logic of military victory to the logic of political compromise.

In the Mahane Yehuda market, Jerusalem smells of coffee and freshly baked bread. Vendors shout offers from behind piles of shining fruit, some tourists stop to take photos in front of the sweet stalls, and young people dodge the crowds with headphones. At first glance, nothing seems very different. But the city has long learned to seem normal even when it is not.The war against Iran, which began in February and was followed by a ceasefire as fragile as it was unpredictable, has left a lasting mark. Since the beginning of the truce, on April 8, the country has experienced days of relative calm, but also the threat of a resurgence of attacks, which materialized this weekend with the return of Iranian bombs on Israeli territory. For now, relative calm has returned, but no one knows what to think anymore. Israel is not in an open war with Iran, but neither is it at peace. This, on the street, translates into one word: weariness.“I was one of those who considered victory a given from day one,” says Eitan, as he tries to sell some souvenirs to the few tourists who are timidly returning to Jerusalem. “At first, we all said this would end quickly, that Israel would show its strength. Now we only talk about how much longer this will all last.” The conflict, he says, “no longer surprises anyone.”The change in mood is also visible in the data. Recent polls show a society that continues to support confrontation with Iran, but is increasingly less convinced of the outcome of the war. According to the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), one of Israel's leading security and strategy research centers, only 41% of Israelis today believe that Israel has won or will eventually win, while nearly half consider that the country is trapped in a stalemate with no clear end.In March, during the full-scale military operation "Roaring Lion", Jewish support for the war exceeded 90%, while among the Arab Israeli population it was around 25%. Furthermore, three-quarters of Israeli Jews stated they trusted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to lead the offensive. Three months later, confidence in the government has eroded. Now, according to the INSS, only between 25% and 30% of Israelis fully trust the government.In a cafe on a side street off the market, Ayala stirs his coffee without completely taking his eyes off a screen displaying new reports about the attacks in the north of the country. “It’s not peace,” he says. “It’s just a pause between things that aren’t over yet.”The sentence summarizes the general feeling quite well. While the front with Iran remains frozen, tension with Hezbollah in Lebanon has intensified again. In this context, almost six out of ten Israelis continue to be in favor of further hardening the fighting in the north, and a majority support establishing a permanent security zone within Lebanese territory. “Israel must continue to change the region,” says his partner, Yosef. “This is an existential war and Israel’s enemies are receiving the strongest blows in decades, even if many here don’t want to see it.” There is an idea that has never stopped being present among broad sectors of Israeli society: Iran and its allies represent a direct threat to the country’s survival. This is one of the main reasons why support for the war remains relatively stable, even after weeks of missiles, air raid shelters, and constant mobilizations."The one who really rules is Trump"

But precisely because fear remains so present, many Israelis expected the results against Iran to be more decisive. And this has ended up fueling criticism of the Israeli prime minister, both from the opposition and from some sectors of the nationalist right. Military analysts and veteran commentators also openly question the objectives achieved and, above all, the growing dependence on Washington.The perception that Israel has been conditioned by the United States appears again and again in conversations. “Who really is in charge here is Trump,” says one of the few shopkeepers in East Jerusalem, the majority Arab part of the city, who have opened during the festival of Eid al-Adha Mubarak – one of the great festivals of the Muslim calendar, in which families gather and the sacrifice of Abraham is remembered –.According to the Israel Democracy Institute, one of the main centers for public opinion analysis in Israel, 51% of Israelis believe that the Trump administration today has more influence over the country's defense decisions than the Israeli government. It is curious, however, that from Washington the population is beginning to think differently: they feel that Netanyahu has embarrassed Trump, especially this past weekend.Three months later, the underlying feeling is that the decisive offensive against Iran, whose main objectives were the destruction of the Iranian nuclear and ballistic program and the fall of the ayatollah regime, has, for the moment, yielded partial results. Israel has struck Iranian military infrastructure and weakened part of the so-called "axis of resistance" led by Tehran, but neither the regime has fallen nor has the sense of threat disappeared.

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United States forces have attacked a ship attempting to break Washington's blockade on Iranian ports near the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Central Command (Centcom) reported this Saturday. The ship M/V Lian Star was sailing under a Gambian flag through international waters and was heading to a port in the Gulf of Oman, according to the same source. The United States issued "more than twenty warnings and informed the ship that it was violating the American blockade." However, the vessel did not stop, and it was then that an American aircraft fired on its engine room, leaving it out of service.

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The Japanese have been able to verify in recent days that Calbee's potato chip bags have suddenly changed their design. Where previously there were bright colors, eye-catching illustrations and intense orange tones, now more sober, almost bare packaging appears, dominated by black and white. The gesture, seemingly minor, responds to a decision that is unusual in the world of food marketing: to minimize ink usage to ensure continuity of supply.

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The oil sector has lost the hope that the war in Iran will be shortThe fuel sector is, it must be said, a sector with many intricacies. "Every gas station is a world unto itself," observes Ramon Fitó, owner of the Fitó service station in Badalona, the oldest in Catalonia. The experience, therefore, is not the same for an operator with commercial and storage capacity as it is for a small local chain. Even so, everyone who does not have their own refineries has seen their margins tighten. "We pass on the prices day by day. And, evidently, we have been forced to buy a more expensive product," observes Payá.has left Brent around $110 this weekAnomalous competition

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A Japanese food company has announced that it is removing the color from the packaging of its products due to a shortage of the material used for ink in But because they say that a picture is worth a thousand words, it is very suggestive where black and white can lead us. Because this combination can be either very elegant or very mothballed, with that included smell of this chemical product that in the colorful world is already practically out of use. So let's forget the elegance of black and white and focus on that black and white that smells of a dingy past that refuses to leave. A good example is Florentino's press conference and the fact of addressing a journalist as "little girl

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When it is said that something can happen, it is likely to end up happening. This expression, used to refer to self-fulfilling prophecies, is common in the economic world. Throughout history, the belief that an event will occur has precipitated events. The list of examples is long: stock market crashes, compulsive consumer purchases, or deposit withdrawals are just a few. And citizens' expectations for controlling inflation are also a factor to consider.

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Trump in his element: “Only the truly relevant leaders, those who have the most impact, are targeted.” Trump knows that violence feeds on itself and seeks to capitalize on attacks like the one at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. A criminal act by a poor man, Cole Thomas Allen, who has forged his delusions in a country with maximum tolerance for gun use.

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It is already known that the first victim of a war is truth and that, for governments, especially in times of war, doing journalism is unpatriotic because certain sensitive information cannot be revealed to the enemy. Media outlets always face this dilemma in times of war, as part of their readership may buy into this message, and therefore, the New York Times has been forced to educate its readers.

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1. The war is not over yet. We are waiting to see if the US will consolidate its power in the Strait of Hormuz, to gain an advantage over China in this strategic region, and if they will clear the way to build the Persian Gulf - Mediterranean oil pipeline, to isolate Russia. These two elements would imply moving from the containment phase of Iran to its complete paralysis. We are also still waiting to see if Israel will destroy what remains of the Iranian infrastructure and if it will be able to overthrow the Shia totalitarian theocracy.

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In the regal auditorium of Tsinghua University, one of China's most prestigious, the Spanish Prime Minister has initiated the official visit to the Asian giant with a clear statement of intent in the form of a speech. Pedro Sánchez has advocated for strengthening multilateralism and, at the same time, reforming it to have a more representative and democratic UN Security Council that gives more power to southern countries. Although he has acknowledged China's efforts in defending international law, he has assigned it homework, for example, to get involved in ceasing conflicts in Lebanon, Iran, Gaza, the West Bank, and also in Ukraine. He has not forgotten about the economy and has demanded more balanced relations, recalling the large trade deficit with the Asian giant: "We need China to open up so that Europe does not have to close itself off".

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Sometimes, a good social response is not a good political response. Lowering VAT on fuels is one of the most common responses –and best received by citizens– when the cost of living rises, as we are experiencing due to the outbreak of the war in Iran. Its effect is immediate and visible and, for this very reason, it often becomes one of the options taken by governments. However, as Brussels has warned, which has questioned Sánchez's reduction, not only its legality but also its effects must be called into question. To what extent have these types of measures become an almost automatic response to episodes of inflation without taking into account their costs and benefits, compared to other less conspicuous, but perhaps more effective, political alternatives?It is not difficult to understand why VAT reductions are attractive. In a context like the current one, marked by rising fuel prices, reducing VAT translates directly into a lower price at the petrol station. It is an easy-to-explain measure, which reaches everyone and is immediately perceived, making it particularly tempting for governments. But this same simplicity is also its limit: not all households benefit equally, and they often end up benefiting those who consume the most. Furthermore, by artificially lowering the price, the measures reduce the incentives to adjust consumption in a context where energy prices remain high and with no clear prospects of reduction., the measures reduce the incentives to adjust consumption in a context where energy prices remain high and with no clear prospects of reduction.They are not, therefore, isolated cases. Our tax system has been accumulating a set of benefits – reduced and super-reduced VAT rates, deductions and exemptions – which, far from forming a coherent system, reduce its revenue and the system's redistributive capacity. They are mechanisms that reach many but often redistribute little, and that end up functioning more as generalized discounts than as instruments of social policy. In this context, there is growing consensus on the need to review these tax benefits and strengthen more direct and better-oriented instruments.The problem is not the lack of instruments, but how we use them. We prioritize visible measures that help diffusely, while the most effective ones often do not arrive. The challenge is not to add more aid, but to ensure that those that work are the ones that are applied. Whether they are popular or not.

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Pope Leo XVI sent a message this Friday to the North American president, Donald Trump. "God does not bless any conflict," stated the pontiff, who assures that those who are "disciples of Christ" are never on the side of those who "launch bombs." In a meeting at the Vatican with members of the Synod of the Chaldean Church of Baghdad, he declared that "it will not be military actions that create spaces of freedom or times of peace, but those of the people."In a harsh speech, the Pope told the bishops that they are signs of hope "in a world marked by absurd and inhumane violence," driven "by greed and hatred." These attributes, he added, "extend with ferocity precisely to the lands that saw salvation born, to the sacred places of the Christian East, profaned by the blasphemy of war and the brutality of business, without any consideration for the lives of people, considered, in the best of cases, as a collateral effect of their own interests."With a focus on the "sacred places of the Christian East, profaned by the blasphemy of war and the brutality of business," the pontiff made a call for "true religious freedom" to be enjoyed throughout the region, without being treated "as guests or second-class citizens."

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The real problem with what has happened in recent times in the Near East and Middle East is the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his permanent ultranationalist and militaristic forward flight to stay in power and thus evade the judicial cases that plague him. After the genocide perpetrated in Gaza in response to Hamas's terrorist attack, Israel has pushed the United States of Trump into a war against the ayatollahs' Iran and has taken advantage of the military escalation to unashamedly execute its expansionist ambitions in the region. The objective: to gain security space by destroying its historical enemies.

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The meticulous account by the journalists of The New York Times published by l’ARA confirms what was obvious from three hours away: it was Netanyahu who dragged Trump into the war against Iran. The Israeli prime minister enthusiastically sold him a product of the type “What could go wrong?”, tailored to the scattered and capricious attention span of an egomaniacal president. And it worked.

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The scope of the consequences of the war in Iran are still unpredictable. The joint attack by Israel and the United States against the Islamic Republic on February 28, and the reactivation of Tel Aviv's offensive in Lebanon, have left thousands dead, have set the Middle East ablaze, and have caused an earthquake in the world economy. But how did we get here? Why have the US embarked on a conflict that has lasted almost six weeks? And above all: at what point did Trump decide it was a good idea?

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Markets have already reacted to the news of the ceasefire between the US and Iran, which includes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's consumed oil and natural gas circulates. Asia's main stock markets have led the green trend in this last session, a trend that European and North American stock markets have subsequently followed.

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The live conversation with the head of International at el ARA and special envoy to Dubai, Francesc Millan, is postponed due to current events. We will announce a new date.

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Supporters of Trumpism and the MAGA movement (we have plenty of them right here) find it a little more difficult each day to maintain their stance. According to them, both Trump and the young lions of his administration (Hegseth, Rubio, Vance) represent an advanced elite, which in no way can be reduced to the criticisms and caricatures of leftists and progressives, who are always clueless and outdated. These ringleaders of the new American right have pursued, with academic success, rigorous study plans at prestigious universities; they handle information that ordinary citizens can only dream of; they have a broad and sophisticated geopolitical vision, and they follow a well-designed plan to end the old order that emerged from World War II and the Cold War to establish a new one. Such are the grand, ambitious, and impressive goals that the new leaders of the world aim to achieve, who are also ironic, fun, cool, and politically incorrect guys. This is the picture that, in broad strokes, their defenders paint. The problem is that, as always when someone proposes a real revolution and truly overturns the established order, many do not understand it.Reality, however, seems to be something else. The latest diplomatic expression from the current US president is a tweet addressed to the Iranian regime with these exact words: “Open the damn strait, you crazy bastards, or you will live in hell (...) Praise be to Allah.” Tavern insults, copying the style of the recently deceased patriot Chuck Norris, followed by a religious allusion that is perhaps intended to be ironic but only comes across as crude. This does not seem like the communication of a US president with a vanguard vision of the geopolitical chessboard, nor do these even seem like phrases spoken by a sane person. For his part, the secretary of the Trump administration they call the War Department, Pete Hegseth, supposedly an intellectual who combines refined university training with solid military knowledge, is someone who insists on appearing in public describing apocalyptic images of fire and destruction falling from the sky upon Iran: he says this in these words, and with notably dilated pupils. Both he and his commander-in-chief (Trump) are incapable of recognizing what everyone knows: that they went to war with Iran dragged along by Israel, partly because it served as a smokescreen for both Trump and Netanyahu: for the repugnant Epstein scandal in the American's case, for the genocide in Palestine in the Israeli's case.This Tuesday, the ultimatum expires for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz, which is strangling the world economy as a consequence of the turpitude of the absurd and bloodthirsty Trump/Netanyahu couple. It remains to be seen whether all this rhetoric of unleashed hells and falling fires from the sky translates into a concrete military order. It could happen (there have been warnings to this effect) that the American military disobeys the presidential order. If it is an illegal or unconstitutional order, they have a duty to do so.

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Since Pete Hegseth was appointed Secretary of Defense of the United States, a name that would later change to Secretary of War, he has dismissed more than a dozen high-ranking military officials, including several four-star generals. The latest case occurred this very Friday, when Hegseth forced the early retirement of the chief of staff of the army, Randy George, right in the middle of the Iran war. But Trump and Hegseth's purge of the military goes back much further, to the beginning of their term, so they have ended up shaping a tailor-made military leadership.

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