2026-03-20
29 分钟Hello and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist.
I'm Rosie Bloor.
And I'm Jason Palmer.
Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.
Many in the West used to think that as people got richer, they'd become less religious.
Recent history suggests that may be wrong.
Our correspondent considers the rise of Islam in Southeast Asia.
And for seven decades, Jürgen Habermas worried about democracy.
How to align the fickle needs of a polity through civil, rational discourse.
Our obituaries editor reflects on his life.
First up, though.
In Beirut, Lebanon's capital this week, an Israeli strike took down an entire building.
Israel obviously has one eye on Iran, its biggest regional foe for decades.
But while that war rages, it has another eye on Hezbollah,
a loyal proxy of the Iranian regime just over its northern border.
Hezbollah has been weakened, its top ranks thinned out, and now its patron Iran is embroiled in war.
By now, more than 900 Lebanese people have been killed by Israeli bombardment.
A million more have fled the south of the country.
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's finance minister, promised
that Dahiya, a southern suburb of Beirut, would look like Khan Yunus in Gaza when we're done.