For many Americans the prospect of travel to the Holy Land is reason enough for an Israel at peace with its neighbors. And that’s no trivial thing. Religious sites for Jews, Christians, and Muslims helped bring 4.5 million visitors to Israel in 2019, pilgrimages driven by Israel’s history and its Western-style welcome. 

Street-level perspective helps to understand the geopolitics driving the Arab world’s move to normalize relations. It’s an issue as important as Arab worry over Iranian aggression and falling oil prices.

EUROPE: Six months after Italy’s coronavirus crisis became an ominous signpost to the West, the World Health Organization is warning of “a very serious situation” unfolding again across Europe.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Armed attackers in eastern Congo killed an aid worker with U.S.-based World Vision and held two others hostage on Wednesday. Their convoy came under attack as the group returned from delivering food to war-ravaged communities in North Kivu province.

UNITED STATES: The leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are signing a peace accord with Israel on Tuesday at a White House ceremony. Bahrain joined UAE on Friday in agreeing to normalize relations with the Jewish state, long a pariah in the Arab world for its treatment of Palestinians.

LEBANON: A massive fire broke out Thursday at Beirut’s port near the site of an explosion last month that leveled a third of the city. About 100 firefighters are battling the blaze. The Lebanese army said it is tires and oil burning and sent helicopters to help douse the blaze. Beirut residents said they were instructed to close windows due to smoke, but they feared having them shut due to the possibility of an explosion.

Give it to the Washington press corps that it was a Friday afternoon heading into a holiday weekend when the Trump administration announced a foreign policy breakthrough. Standing in the Oval Office on Sept. 4, President Aleksandar Vucic of Serbia and Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti of Kosovo—two states at war for more than 20 years—announced they’d reached an agreement toward economic normalization. 

TURKEY: The Turkish Islamic Foundation destroyed the historic St. Georgios Greek Orthodox Church in Bursa on Wednesday, seven years after local officials transferred the property to the group’s control. Authorities emptied Bursa of its Greek Orthodox population a century ago, and the church became a mosque in the 1920s.