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Perspectives Papers

Perspectives Papers provide analysis from BESA Center research associates and other outside experts on the most important issues pertaining to Israel and the Middle East.

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The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has ushered in a new age of global diplomacy. Asian countries are trying, with some success, to turn the global health crisis into an opportunity to enhance their soft power and fill the diplomatic vacuum left by President Trump. South Korea has launched a national campaign to brand itself as the “cutting edge” state in the fight against the virus, and its president is leading an aggressive diplomatic effort focused on the G-20 and Japan. The nations that emerge successfully from the global health crisis will gain influence, strengthen their diplomatic positions, and attract foreign investment—the essential components of soft power.
The South Korean government was forced by coronavirus (COVID-19), which began in China, to take immediate action to avoid losing control over what was rapidly becoming a pandemic. Seoul had to make critical decisions fast: did it want to contain the virus according to the Chinese model by strictly enforcing closure on a danger area, limiting public freedom, and endangering the economy? Did it want to adopt the British model of essentially sacrificing the older generation on behalf of the younger (a policy Britain later changed)? Or did it want to adopt the Israeli model of closing the borders to anyone coming from a state where the virus had appeared? Seoul chose a uniquely Korean model: mapping the illness, maintaining transparency, convincing citizens to adhere to a set of rules and a policy of surveillance, and—perhaps most significantly—quickly testing as many people as it possibly could. 
The many fabrications circulating around the world about coronavirus (COVID-19) are stoking fear and threatening public health. They vary from accusations of biological warfare to myths about the ways the virus spreads and what medications might be helpful to combat it.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed many of the EU’s inherent weaknesses, from its total unpreparedness for the crisis, to the open borders that expedited the spread of the disease, to the lack of solidarity reflected in member states’ refusal to help Italy in the initial critical phase of the pandemic. The union cooperates well in non-crisis situations, but its complacency, lumbering bureaucracy, and sluggish decision-making processes hamper its ability to respond to urgent developments.
After almost a decade of civil war in Syria, the question of who will be in charge of the reconstruction has arisen over and over again (though any practical activity in that direction will have to be suspended during the acute stage of the coronavirus crisis). China’s position on this issue can be discerned by looking at its prewar relations with Syria and the way it has behaved during the war.
A number of conspiracy theories have quickly emerged linking Jews and Israel to the coronavirus pandemic. These are new mutations of historical strains of antisemitic conspiracy theories, including the “poisoning of gentiles” motif and the accusation that the Jews want to control the world. These theories are all linked to the most popular antisemitic conspiracy theory of all, the modern mutation of the ancient blood libel that claims that Israel behaves like the Nazis and has Nazi-esque intentions toward the Palestinians.

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