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Amid all the contention of the last few days, sparked by Elon Musk's virtue-signaling, the noise-to-signal ratio around the crypto market's energy use has gone to '11' on the Spinal Tap amplifier of social justice.

However, those darn 'facts' and 'science' keep getting in the way of the 'bitcoin = bad guy destroying the earth' narrative and new research by crypto firm Galaxy Digital (founded by former hedge fund manager Michael Novogratz) has shown that both the traditional banking system and the gold industry consume much more energy than the bitcoin network.

According to the report, compiled by Galaxy’s mining arm, bitcoin’s annual electricity consumption stands at 113.89 TWh (terawatt-hours). That includes energy for miner demand, miner power consumption, pool power consumption, and node power consumption. The amount is at least two times lower than the total energy consumed by the banking system, which is estimated to reach 263.72 TWh per year globally. 

Galaxy Digital Mining said that bitcoin’s energy consumption is transparent and easy to track in real time using tools like the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, while the evaluation of energy usage of the traditional financial system and the gold industry is not that straightforward.

As Galaxy Digital notes, energy utilization is not necessarily a bad thing. As Vaclav Smil writes, energy is the only universal currency. Humans will continue to find new technologies that require more energy that challenge the status quo. Bitcoin is yet another example.

So, in their view, returning to the defining question of our time (this week): Is the Bitcoin network's electricity consumption an acceptable use of energy?

Galaxy's answer is definitive: yes.

As they conclude, subjective views on the Bitcoin network's importance vary, but Bitcoin's properties do not. Anyone can use Bitcoin. Anyone can hold bitcoins for themselves. And Bitcoin transactions can provide probabilistically final settlement in an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days per year.

These features can offer financial freedom to people around the world without the luxury of stable and accessible financial infrastructure. The network can benefit the energy sector by creating perfect use cases for intermittent and excess energy. And the network will only scale further if network adoption warrants it.

Notably this morning, ARK weighed in on the Elon drama, and as Bloomberg's Eric Balchunas notes, ARK comes down firmly for 'Team Bitcoin'...

So, the question now is, how long before Elon Musk abandons the energy-sapping traditional banking-system for Tesla payments?

*  *  *

Read the full report below:

Submitted by Christophe Barraud

After being mostly in negative territory over the past 15 years, the correlation between stocks and bonds jumped to the highest level since 1999. According to Bloomberg data, the 60-day correlation between S&P 500 Futures and 10-Year U.S. Treasury Note Futures spiked to 0.533 on Friday, the highest since September 1999.

This strong and positive relationship confirms that equities are now more sensitive to the bonds market and more especially to inflation. In other words, it seems that the previous macro regime of contained inflation — well below policymakers’ target — came to an end.

Earlier this week, we saw that both equities and bonds reacted negatively to the spike in U.S. CPI, with bond-market gauges of future price pressures reaching multiyear highs. The Consumer Price Index increased by 0.8% MoM in April, smashing consensus forecast of 0.2%. It was the largest jump since June 2009. In the meantime, the so-called core CPI — excluding food and energy — rose 0.9% MoM, the most since April 1982.

???? U.S. Consumer Prices Jump Most Since 2009, Outpacing Estimates - Bloomberg
*Excluding the volatile food and energy components, the so-called core CPI rose 0.9% from March, the most since 1982.
*Link: https://t.co/PLb5kXsyjg pic.twitter.com/cobbnugIAH

— Christophe Barraud?? (@C_Barraud) May 12, 2021

On a YoY basis, the CPI figure grew by 4.2% in April, the most since September 2008. In addition, the core index rose 3% YoY, the largest since January 1996. The trend will accelerate again in May amid a positive base effect. It will probably exacerbate the debate about the strength of the current inflation shock and how long it will persist. It will be a key focus for market participants especially in a context where several indicators already suggest that the current shock could be more than transitory.

???? #Biden Aides See Political, Not Economic, Peril in #Inflation Data - Bloomberg
*Link: https://t.co/VUagc9om8q pic.twitter.com/7eCppNyN87

— Christophe Barraud?? (@C_Barraud) May 15, 2021

Not that it will come as a surprise to anyone, but on Monday morning Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida said during a Q&A after his speech at the Annual Financial Markets Conference, sponsored by the Atlanta Fed's Center for Financial Innovation and Stability, that the weaker-than-expected April payroll report shows “we have not made substantial further progress” on the central bank’s goals for employment and inflation laid out as thresholds to begin scaling back the central bank’s massive monthly bond purchases.

Seeking to comfort markets on edge over the recent inflationary spike, Clarida said that “we will certainly give advanced warning before scaling back those purchases.” Putting this in context, last week Morgan Stanley chief US economist Ellen Zentner said she expects the Fed to signal its intention to taper asset purchases at the September FOMC meeting, to announce it in March 2022 and to start tapering from April 2022. Morgan Stanley also expects that rate hikes will begin in 3Q23, after inflation remains at or above 2%Y for some time and the labor market reaches maximum employment. Goldman's own stylized tapering/liftoff forecast is shown below.

There were also no surprises in Clarida's pick up of the familiar party line saying there that upward pressures on inflation are likely to be transitory due to mismatches between supply and demand as economy reopens from pandemic lockdown; he added that the Fed will have to be “attuned and attentive” to incoming data, although it's unclear how since the Fed continues to dismiss any upside inflation as one-off events.

Still, should inflation hit what Kaplan last week hinted as the Fed's new and improved redline of 4%, Clarida said that he has "no doubt we would use our tools to address that situation” if inflation expectations got unanchored.

 

The Biden administration is unable to effectively track illegal immigrants released into the United States while they await asylum hearings, according to Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Tae Johnson.

In a Thursday appearance before the House Appropriations Committee, Johnson admitted to Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) that there are "some gaps" in the government's ability to track released illegals, adding "for individuals that are just released with a notification to report to ICE or to show up to court, our ability to track those folks closely is much more limited."

Johnson then acknowledged that ICE is unable to tell Iowa (or any state, we assume) how many illegal immigrants are residing in the state, or have been released into the country.

??Acting ICE Administrator Johnson just admitted that ICE is not tracking illegal immigrants once they're in the US & that ICE has no idea how many illegal immigrants are currently in Iowa or planning to go to Iowa once released from federal custody at the border. Unacceptable. pic.twitter.com/NutPqeuavx

— Ashley Hinson (@RepAshleyHinson) May 13, 2021

During the hearing, Johnson also defended the Biden administration's decision to maintain several Trump-era policies, including the CDC's so-called Title 42 rule, which requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to give immigrants medical examinations before they're released into the United States. Over 650,000 migrants have been expelled under Title 42 since its inception in March 2020. The Biden administration has used Title 42 to extensively deport single adults and even families, however unaccompanied children are exempt following a late 2020 ruling.

"ICE is concerned that the loss of Title 42 could create additional pressure on our immigration system," said Johnson, calling the rule "critical" to maintaining social distance in border facilities.

"I don’t think it’s a situation where it’s going to just be lifted electively. We would be mandated by some sort of court order to lift it," he added.

Johnson also answered questions over ICE agreements with local law enforcement agencies which allow officers to carry out immigration and enforcement duties - which Biden pledged to repeal while on the campaign trail. The agreements, expanded under Trump, have come under renewed scrutiny by Democratic lawmakers.

"It is unfortunate that the prior administration’s aggressive interior enforcement policies placed demands on many local law enforcement agencies that have compromised the trust they work so hard to nurture in their communities," said Subcommittee Chairwoman Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA).

Johnson replied that the policy was useful, but that it did not need to be imposed on cities and states which object to it.

"It doesn’t have to be signing up for [the] 287(g) program but we just want to keep those lines of communication open," he said, adding that there "is lots of middle ground out there."

"I certainly recognize the issues associated with some that think that it just results in certain folks being apprehended and potentially targeted, which is certainly something I don't think any of us want to see."

By Michael Every of Rabobank

The Deep, Dark Bretton Woods

To summarize, the US economy’s state of play at the moment is: a record number of jobs opening up; yet far fewer people being employed than expected; consumer, producer, and import prices all going up much more than expected; yet nominal (and real) retail sales less so; as is industrial production; and consumer confidence - because inflation is seen soaring ahead. We can all argue about what happens next, but there are three intersecting stories worth nothing.

First, Elon Musk (again) getting into a vicious crypto Twitter battle (again), and implying Tesla may be dumping Bitcoin ahead. The result: Bitcoin trading at USD46,000 at time of writing when it was USD63,000 a month ago. Nice store of value there, while its means of exchange is still minimal, and accounting is done in the US Dollar. But don’t Tweet at me about it too, please.

Second, the Bank of Canada saying the quiet part out loud when admitting: "QE can boost wealth by increasing the value of assets such as the investments Canadians have in their registered retirement savings plans or company pension plans. But of course, these assets aren't distributed evenly across society. As a result, QE can widen wealth inequality. We will look closely at the outcomes of QE here and elsewhere and will work to more fully understand its impact on both income and wealth inequality." Yeah, go work on that impact-study while your pension pot and house price soars. No need to acknowledge heterodox economists such as Kalecki established that QE needed to be joined with fiscal stimulus to work decades ago, eh? Ignorance is bliss.

Third, we have a plaintive cry from The Guardian: “Why the landmark Bretton Woods deal is as relevant today as in 1944.” This may seem old hat when Bretton Woods 1 went defunct in the 1970s when the USD went off gold, and the Eurodollar Bretton Woods 2 is under sustained attack by America First, the US-China Cold War, and everything from the eCNY to Dogecoin. Yet the article underlines that under BW: “Out went the beggar-my-neighbour approach that had marked the 1930s. In came cooperation to ensure the rebuilding of economies devastated by war and the goal of full employment…The participating nations didn’t wait for the war to end before coming up with their plans for reconstruction. Nor did they think that the financial cost of achieving victory meant they had to rein in their ambitions. On the contrary, the experience of everything that had happened in the previous decade and a half – the Wall Street Crash, mass unemployment, the rise of fascism, the second world war – made a compelling case for radicalism. The feeling was that the system was broken and had to be fixed.”

Doesn’t that sound Build Back Better? Indeed, the Guardian hopes June’s G7 summit and the Cop26 climate change conference in November will “shape the world for the next decade and beyond.” However, as has been repeatedly pointed out here, it’s all very well having the lightbulb moment and realizing QE only makes rich people richer, and that it needs to be joined by fiscal policy; but it’s another to then do that without a trade-deficit/inflationary spiral – as we see; and that involves running a trade surplus, which in turn means on-shoring and/or automation, and less worry about global supply chains - and that is still essentially zero sum, just like the 1930s was.

Bretton Woods 1 and 2 only worked because the US was there to mop demand up. That is no longer the case, politically. Covid-19 has only underlined the political desire for change.

This means more than just slogans. Any true new Bretton Woods would logically need to include capital controls, like the first – which would massively disrupt markets. It would also need to have what the first did not, at US behest - a mechanism that punishes countries that run current-account surpluses as well as those that run current-account deficits.

We all know what policies the warm, humanitarian IMF rams down the throat of deficit countries, and how this ends up. Logically, we would need to see the IMF have the same power to order countries to stop being selfish and save less –e.g., via more investment driven by foreign inputs and/or tax cuts-- in order to ensure a more harmonious global environment.

There’s just one big problem: it is never going to happen. Can you imagine Germany being forced to slash taxes because its trade surplus is too high? (“Sein Geld auf die Straße werfen!”) Or China forced to invest in IMPORTED goods to lift all boats, rather than producing a new warship every few weeks, when a recent PBOC working paper rubbishes the idea of lower national savings and trade deficits as ‘historic national weaknesses’? Moreover, here is a Twitter anecdote from a US economics professor: “I gave a talk a few years ago to industrial leaders about this topic. I laid out a few scenarios of how to turn the Midwest into a competitor of Far East manufacturing, especially in critical components. They were all short-term focused (1-2 quarters out). One guy said he did not want to lose his frequent flier miles to China where he could shop.” Ruder comments were also made that recent developments show should reflect back on those leaders rather than the intended targets.

For those getting excited about the G7, world history is replete with key conferences that do not achieve anything, even with storm clouds on the horizon. The London Economic Conference of 1933, for example, during the Great Depression, with all sides racing to the bottom could not agree on a compromise; not even when the German delegation proposed a program of colonial expansion in Africa and Eastern Europe as the best way of reflating the economy!

So what does this mean for markets?

Tactically, we are still stuck with QE for now, even as it is recognized that it could never, can never, and will never achieve what it claims to do. The trading response to that is more of the same (“Buy all the things”), regardless of how ridiculous and dangerous our paradigm is. Yet this only inflames and polarizes societies, ultimately driving Western politics in a new direction.

Strategically, if/when we swing towards Bretton Woods, it will likely be to bifurcate the world between those building too many boats and those not, rather than to lift all of them. The UK is talking about the G7 transmogrifying into a D10 of democracies, for example. Yes, this may well be a slow process; and US industry “leaders” may not be doing any; but if the national security types who recall the 1930s, and are already echoing those fears, give them all a push, things may yet change faster than some imagine.

That’s likely to be bad for many net exporters and good for many net importers, and imply considerable changes in the structure of both sets of economies – and markets. To repeat, the prime years of Bretton Woods 1, which built the Western middle class now running on fumes, saw key bond yields capped, FX rates fixed for years/decades, and tight capital controls. Those are some deep, dark Woods for a 24/7, microsecond, crypto-Twitter focused society to contemplate wandering into.

While debate rages among Wall Street strategists and pundits whether the current burst of US inflation will prove to be merely transitory as the Fed and Biden admin want consumers to believe (despite UMich showing that 5-10 year consumer expectations for inflation had climbed a 10 year high of 3.1%), or, as even Goldman tentatively cautions, may lead to sustained higher prices over the long term, things in China are simpler: the credit tsunami unleashed in 2020 to offset the covid shutdowns is fading fast, local economic growth is fading fast and the deflationary shockwave triggered by China's shrinking credit impulse is about to sweep across the globe.

Overnight we had the latest China’s economic data dump for the month of April, which included a large retail sales miss with a print of +17.7% yoy (vs. +25% yoy expected). There were also marginal misses for industrial output (at +9.8% yoy vs. +10% yoy expected) and YtD fixed investment (+19.9% yoy vs. +20% yoy expected).

The bad news was good enough for local stock traders and the Shanghai Comp closed up 0.8% as the weaker retail sales print might lead to a slower wind down of stimulus by the authorities.

But the bigger news is that China appears to be suffering from a growing credit hangover, as last week's April credit aggregated data revealed. The latest sequential growth of total social financing (TSF) moderated in April, and was weaker than the average in recent months. Loans growth also slowed in April from a very strong pace in March, but it was the contraction in shadow lending and low government bond issuance that was the major drag. As a reminder, this is what the PBOC reported:

• New CNY loans: RMB 1470bn in April vs. consensus exp: RMB 1600bn. Outstanding CNY loan growth: 12.3% yoy in April down from 12.6% in March.

• Total social financing RMB 1850bn in April, vs. consensus exp: RMB 2290bn.

Some more details on China's rapidly slowing Total Social Financing from Goldman:

Among major TSF components, Rmb loans slowed from a very strong growth rate in March, but remained robust, broadly similar to the average in recent months. Medium-to-long term loans to corporates moderated, while short-term bill financing rebounded significantly. Household medium-to-long term loan growth remained broadly robust, while short-term household loans weakened notably, probably related to regulations on consumer credit... Shadow lending and banks' undiscounted acceptance bills contracted and continued to be the drag.

Bottom line: China's total social financing and money data again came in vastly below market's low expectations in April. TSF growth slowed by 0.5pp to 11.7% yoy, a 12-month low and nearly 2pp below the cyclical peak back in October 2020. This means that the 6-month pace of deceleration has picked up to somewhere close to that at the height of the deleveraging cycle back in 2017/18.

This also means that China's credit impulse (the 2nd derivative of the credit stock) just turned negative. From peak to negative it only took 7 months this time, compared with 9-10 months in the past . Partly it is because of the large volatility in GDP (which is used as a base for calculating the impulse), but more importantly, Chinese policymakers are quick at scaling down easing this time, definitely much quicker than any of the three post-GFC cycles.

Perhaps even more ominously, China's broader M2 annual growth slumped to just 8.1% Y/Y, far below the consensus print of 9.2%, and just off the all time low of 8.0%, the post-covid burst now a fading memory.

The slowdown in China's credit should not come as a surprise after we reported one month ago that China’s central bank had asked the nation’s major lenders - which are all at least partially state-owned which means it wasn't 'asked' but rather 'ordered' - to "curtail loan growth for the rest of this year after a surge in the first two months stoked bubble risks."

Specifically, in a meeting with the People’s Bank of China on March 22, banks were told to keep new advances in 2021 at roughly the same level as last year. The directive targeted not only domestic lenders but also "some foreign banks" which were also urged to rein in additional lending through so-called window guidance after ramping up their balance sheets in 2020.

While we urge readers to go over some of our big level (and correct) observations laid out last December in "In Historic Reversal, China's Credit Impulse Just Peaked: What This Means For Global Markets", the latest Chinese credit data means that SocGen's forecast for sharply lower credit impulse in the coming years will be validated. And as this all too critical metric fades, virtually every asset across the globe will be affected (especially if it is joined by the double whammy of the Fed also tapering in late 2021/early 2022).

And speaking of SocGen's accurate predictions, we pull up the latest comments from the bank's China watcher Wei Yaho who last week wrote that the implication of China's rapid credit impulse reversal is mounting downward pressure on China economic growth and inflationary impulse/spillovers later in the year: "Just earlier this week, the market was spooked by China's PPI surge to close to 7%. However, today's credit data point to a peak of PPI soon and a clear downtrend afterwards. Implicitly a quickly falling credit impulse in China has never been kind to industrial metal prices, among other inflation-sensitive assets. So in the current inflation cycle, China for once is quickly conceding its role."

Or, as SocGen's Albert Edwards summarizes, "Wei suggests that while the market is currently spooked by recent data like the US CPI or China’s PPI or indeed surging copper prices, as we move into H2 things are set to cool."

Edwards also grabs two charts from Macro Markets which show the China Credit impulse as a 6 month change below rather than a 12m change as in the chart above. "The charts speak for themselves" Edwards notes and adds that "important though the US is, China also needs to be watched closely, especially with regards to global commodity prices and  the  role  they  have  played  in  driving  inflation  higher. In that sense, maybe the current commodity driven inflation fears will dissipate just like they did in the aftermath of the 2008 GFC."

One final reminder: the credit impulse first reaches assets that are driven primarily by the Chinese economy (Chinese bond yields and industrial metals). Next to be impacted are inflation breakevens and sovereign yields in Western economies. The peak correlation for other growth-sensitive assets such as eurozone banks and AUD/JPY arrives with bigger lag of around 4-5 quarters. This result, while logical, is quite significant, as it gives us a playbook for the ebb and flow in Chinese credit impulse.

The table above shows the correlation between different assets and Chinese credit impulse for varying lag times. The extent of the differences between lags in correlations is exemplified in the left-hand chart below. While peak correlation for Chinese interest rate swaps arrives with an eight-month lag, the peak correlation for eurozone banks manifests itself with a lag of 14 months (read more here "In Historic Reversal, China's Credit Impulse Just Peaked: What This Means For Global Markets").

Looking ahead, with high correlations and short lag times, Chinese interest rate swaps and industrial metals should be the first assets to be adversely impacted by the topping of the Chinese credit impulse. Australian house prices and US 5Y forward 5Y inflation will likely also be hit in this first group.

The mining and industrial sectors also have short lag times, but their correlation is slightly lower. The other highly correlated group of assets, including eurozone banks, also gets strongly affected by credit impulse, but the rather large lag time opens the door for other factors to influence the price action of these assets as well.

Low correlation with certain assets suggests that Chinese credit, while being one of the drivers, may not be the main driver of price performance for these assets (e.g. semis/software ratio, sovereign yields in the West and value/quality ratio).

Bottom line: China's credit impulse is now officially in contraction, and while there is delayed impact across the globe, with the lag on various assets ranging between 1 and 22 months, the fact that China is now an active headwind to inflation suggests that in the very near future the market's fears about soaring inflation will soon transform into worried about disinflation or outright deflation, similar to what happened in the post-2011 episode although addressing just this concern, Morgan Stanley said today that it doesn't see a repeat of the 2012-2015 type of global slowdown as the risk of a secular stagnation environment is diminishing for this cycle.

As bitcoin has been battered lower in recent weeks, the original 'alternative' currency has soared to its highest since January.

Bitcoin dropped below $45,000 for the first time since February amid Elon Musk's comments, back at the levels before Musk's initial bitcoin comments...

Source: Bloomberg

And Gold futures just touched $1865, its highest since January 31st...

Source: Bloomberg

Another 'great' rotation?

Source: Bloomberg

Gold still has a long way to go to catch up with Bitcoin...

Source: Bloomberg

So the barbarous relic is trumping new digital gold once again... for now.

In the latest evolution of creeping Universal Basic Income, Biden administration officials said on Monday that a poverty-fighting measure included in the COVID-19 relief bill passed this year will deliver monthly payments to households including 88% of children in the United States, starting in July. The Democratic-backed American Rescue Plan, signed into law by President Joe Biden in March as a response to the coronavirus pandemic, expanded a tax credit available to most parents.

Treasury and the IRS also announced the increased CTC payments, will be made on the 15th of each month allowing families who receive the credit by direct deposit to plan their budgets around receipt of the benefit. Eligible families will receive a payment of up to $300 per month for each child under age 6 and up to $250 per month for each child age 6 and above.

Eligible recipients will get up to $3,000 per child between 6 and 17, or $3,600 for each child under the age of 6, in 2021, subject to income restrictions. The benefit will reach 39 million households, many automatically and by direct deposit every month, starting on July 15. It is one of several measures the administration says could lift more than 5 million children out of poverty, half of the total number of U.S. youngsters in that situation, according to Reuters.

Officials are trying to help the economy recover from the pandemic. Yet recent signs of higher inflation have raised concern that those costs could eat away at incomes and exacerbate inequality, which has been supercharged ever since the global financial crisis by the Fed's actions, a point we have been making since 2009 and which was underscroed by Stanley Druckenmiller in a recent discussion in which he said that "There's Been No Greater Engine Of Inequality Than The Fed"

Biden has asked Congress to extend the tax credit through 2025.

Over the weekend thousands across the United States attended pro-Palestinian marches and demonstrations on the streets of New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles - calling for an immediate end to the Israeli airstrikes which have killed about 200 people, many of them children.

Large demonstrations also popped up in Europe, including Paris despite authorities imposing a blanket ban on street protests through the French capital. Berlin and London also saw significant protest activity, with signs like "Free Palestine" and chants of "Long live the Intifada!". Events were also held in some large Canadian cities like Toronto. But in numerous places counter-protesters were present, waving Israeli flags while in some cases calling Palestinians "terrorists" - and that's where things got violent...

As seen in the US after Trump rallies, groups of people would look for stragglers walking to their cars to mob & assault. In Toronto yesterday, some people with #Palestine symbols went after those who had #Israel flags or signs. pic.twitter.com/9vXZcc5Qym

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) May 16, 2021

In a number of instances it appeared that Antifa groups merged with the pro-Palestine demonstrations, and proceeded to attack individuals that were part of pro-Israel counter-protests.

Pro-Palestine protestors surrounded a smaller group of Israel supporters & hurled projectiles. At one point, they brutally assaulted an elderly Jewish man. Reporting for @TPostMillennial by @PuffinsPictures: https://t.co/dMTZHVBHDI

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) May 16, 2021

Toronto: Large lines of police keep the peace by separating pro-Israel & anti-Israel protesters. pic.twitter.com/PoNjlb3y1l

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) May 16, 2021

In another instance, in Winnipeg, Canada - police had to form a barrier to prevent two rival protest groups from clashing.

And in London over the weekend...

Pro-Palestine protesters clash with pro-Israel demonstrators and police during a demonstration in central London against Israel.

Violence erupts as police attempt to escort away a small group of pro-Israel demonstrators https://t.co/REdUAitsBf pic.twitter.com/xtJ4hNqXBN

— The National (@TheNationalNews) May 12, 2021

One viral video from London showed an apparently Muslim man spewing hatred for Jews, calling on people to "rape their daughters"...

Finchley Road. North London. 2021.

Genuinely terrifying. pic.twitter.com/8I4puROGeA

— Spotify fan JB™? (@gunnerpunner) May 16, 2021

In some instances protesters took over roads and freeways - or at least attempted to...

Another angle from the #antifa & pro-Palestine event in Los Angeles yesterday where rioters tried to stop the California Highway Patrol from driving on the road. pic.twitter.com/Ef3EAMv4if

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) May 17, 2021

Pro-Palestine marchers on the highway here in Dearborn this afternoon #Dearborn #Michigan pic.twitter.com/2h0mF5D1Kc

— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) May 16, 2021

Large protests as well as pro-Israel counter protests were held in Los Angeles. Near the court house the two groups were separated by barbed wire.

#FarLeftExtremists #Antifa counter protest pro #Israel supporters in #LosAngeles pic.twitter.com/nGkjKK7Gvk

— Antifa Public Watch official (@UnmaskedAntifa) May 16, 2021

Pro Palestinian demonstrators have arrived and are chanting “Allahu Akbar!”
LAPD officers are keeping them separated pic.twitter.com/5rO97yGceA

— James Klüg (@realJamesKlug) May 16, 2021

Such fierce demonstrations and counter-demonstrations are triggered every time there's a major fight between Gaza and Israel, particularly during the 2014 war.

“Shove your Holocaust up your ass!”

A man shouts about the Holocaust to protest #Israel at a Muslim demonstration in Vienna, Austria. pic.twitter.com/zbE3pIHhUj

— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) May 17, 2021

Multiple thousands marched in Washington D.C. over the weekend, with most holding flags representing the Palestinian Authority.

Thousands marching on Congress for Palestine pic.twitter.com/oel3ft5Ei5

— Kei Pritsker (@KeiPritsker) May 15, 2021

Passions and tensions will continue to remain on edge into this week...

1. Arriving at the pro-Israel rally. #losangeles #california #israel #palestine #middleeast #photojournalism #streetphotography pic.twitter.com/5jDoCqvryl

— Erik Herrera (@DuvalinPapi) May 17, 2021

Such protest scenes are expected to continue, especially as Israel's leaders have vowed to continue airstrikes on Gaza, with one Israeli general over the weekend saying the army is capable of sustaining its operations "forever". 

Pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets across the U.S. on Saturday to demand an end to Israeli airstrikes over the Gaza Strip. https://t.co/BPq0DzTod3

— WDRB News (@WDRBNews) May 16, 2021

Fighting has entered its second week, after about 3,000 total missiles launched on Israel from Gaza, killing at least ten Israeli civilians.

About 200 Palestinians, meanwhile, have been killed by airstrikes on Gaza - with up to one-third of these tragically being children.