The gap between what is being inflicted on Palestinians and the appropriate reaction on the part of the international community has always been vast. But now it yawns so wide that it swallows reality itself. As arms export licences for Israel from states such as Germany surge, talk of harsher measures and sanctions on the part of other European countries remains talk. People continue to be killed in Gaza, Palestinian families remain besieged in the West Bank, and the Israeli political right has been removing all doubt that these violations are intentional, by telling the world of its hopes and plans.

Parecen una ola, un maremoto. Estados Unidos, Italia, Argentina, Francia, España, Colombia, El Salvador y siguen firmas: cada uno de esos países —y otros más— intentan convencernos de que forman una suerte de internacional facha y que, por lo tanto, el poder de cada uno se multiplica por el poder de los demás, de todos juntos.

No es cierto, por supuesto: esto tampoco. El choque entre el proteccionismo atrincherado de Trump y la apertura comercial sin tasa de Milei o Bukele, por ejemplo, alcanzaría para varias guerras. Pero hoy quería mirar, sobre todo, la diferencia de modelos personales. Porque creo que cada uno de ellos es un digno representante indigno de la cultura que tristemente lo parió: una síntesis de su sociedad.

As farmers grapple with soaring diesel and fertilizer prices and the Department of Agriculture yanks support for cheaper, renewable forms of energy, the agency’s chief, Brooke Rollins, is carrying millions in highly profitable oil and gas investments.

In disclosure reports filed in July, Rollins indicated that she and her husband, Mark Rollins, an oil and gas industry executive, together hold as much as $2.5 million in fossil fuel investments. At least $1 million of that is in HKN II, a limited partnership with oil and gas interests in the Kurdistan region of Iraq; another $1 million, at least, is in Hillwood Energy New Ventures, which has interests in oil and gas operations in Texas, Rollins’ home state. Rollins also disclosed that she holds between $250,000 and $550,000 in investments in operating companies that own oil and gas assets in Texas.