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      Israelis Have Put Benjamin Netanyahu Back in Power. Palestinians Will Likely Pay the Price.

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      HAIFA, Israel — As the prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu finalizes the formation of Israel’s most extreme right-wing government to date, I, along with other Palestinians in Israel and in the occupied territories, am filled with dread about what the next few years will bring.Every day since the elections, Palestinians wake up with a what-now apprehension, and more often than not, there’s yet another bit of news that adds to our anxiety. The atmosphere of racism is so acute that I hesitate to speak or read Arabic on public transportation. Palestinian rights have been pushed to the back burner.We Palestinians live knowing that a vast majority of Israeli politicians don’t support an end to Israel’s military rule over the West Bank and Gaza Strip nor equality for all of its citizens. We are made to feel as though we are interlopers whose presence is temporary and simply being tolerated until such time as it is feasible to get rid of us.According to a 2016 Pew Research Center survey, 48 percent of Jewish Israelis agree that “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.” I look around in my mixed Haifa neighborhood and wonder which of my neighbors voted for the extremist candidates who have voiced similar opinions. “It is only a matter of time before we are gone,” my friends tell me. To add insult to injury, Israelis blame Palestinians for the rise in extremism and racism, rather than looking at how racism has become normalized in Israeli society. It is blaming the victim rather than the aggressor.Since his recent election, Mr. Netanyahu has been offering important positions in government to vocal anti-Palestinian politicians. The incoming governing coalition includes the extremist and racist Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power, party, whose leaders have a history of supporting violence against Palestinians.Itamar Ben-Gvir, a settler who leads the Jewish Power party, has been convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist group. Earlier this month, Mr. Ben-Gvir reportedly hailed an Israeli soldier who fatally shot a Palestinian young man in the West Bank during a scuffle — an act caught on video and widely circulated on social media — by remarking, “Precise action, you really fulfilled the honor of all of us and did what was assigned to you.” Israel’s current police chief blamed him for helping ignite the surge in violence in May 2021. He will now be minister for national security, putting him in charge of Israel’s domestic police and border police in the occupied West Bank, home to roughly three million Palestinians.Over the course of decades, and especially since the erection of the wall along the West Bank, Israelis seem to have become immune to how Palestinians live under Israeli military rule and what it is to be Palestinian in Israel. Conversations with neighbors in Haifa about the nakba — or “catastrophe,” in which hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled or were expelled with the creation of Israel in 1948 — or Israel’s military occupation that amounts to apartheid or even racism in Israel are always met with denial or with justification, so we have learned never to speak to one another.On Dec. 1, Mr. Netanyahu inked a coalition agreement with Bezalel Smotrich, another settler and head of the Religious Zionism party, naming him minister of finance and giving him control over a Defense Ministry department. Mr. Smotrich has called himself a “proud homophobe” and has said that the 2015 firebombing of a Palestinian home in the West Bank by suspected Jewish militants in which an 18-month-old child and his parents were burned to death was not a terrorist attack. In 2016, he said that he was in favor of segregation between Jewish and Palestinian women in Israeli hospital maternity wards.Last year, Mr. Smotrich mentioned that David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, didn’t “finish the job” of expelling Palestinians in 1948. He has also promoted a subjugation plan in which Palestinians (who accept the plan) would be considered “resident aliens” while those who do not would be dealt with by the Israeli Army. As part of his Defense Ministry post, Mr. Smotrich will have unprecedented authority over the policy on Israeli settlements in the West Bank and over Palestinian construction, and will be able to appoint the heads of the administration responsible for the government’s civil policy in the West Bank.Both the Jewish Power and the Religious Zionism party platforms are almost exclusively focused on Palestinians and about ensuring that Jewish supremacy reigns. The Religious Zionism party aims to retroactively legitimize settlements in the West Bank.I fear that Israel’s violent repression of Palestinians will only increase in the near future as I consider the record of Mr. Netanyahu and his previous coalitions — a history of relentless race-baiting and incitement of prejudice against Palestinians in Israel, the passage of the Jewish Nation-State law (which enshrines the privileging of Jewish citizens), the open fire policy, Israel’s policy of destroying Palestinian homes, its continued colonization of the West Bank and repeated mass bombings of Gaza.With Mr. Ben-Gvir, Mr. Smotrich and other extremists in his coalition, Mr. Netanyahu will very likely continue in this path, particularly since he has been the enabler of so many of these policies. Jewish Power and Religious Zionism are natural extensions of Mr. Netanyahu’s policies. Failing to recognize this is akin to putting one’s head in the sand.If there is any silver lining to our grim situation it might be that the rise of Mr. Ben-Gvir and his fellow extremists will open the eyes of more Americans. Some former State Department officials and diplomats have already called upon the Biden administration not to deal with the most extreme members of the new Israeli coalition. American Jewish groups have also expressed alarm at the new coalition. But American policy is unlikely to change in response to these dark tidings. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken of “equal measures of freedom, security, opportunity, justice and dignity” for Israelis and Palestinians, but what guarantees will he be offering to ensure that Palestinians live in freedom and security with this new government?As Israel lurched further to the right, the United States and other Western governments continued to normalize and legitimize extremists once deemed beyond the pale — from the notorious former general Ariel Sharon, when he became prime minister, to the race-baiting ultranationalist and settler Avigdor Lieberman when Mr. Netanyahu, during his second run as prime minister, made him a cabinet minister in 2009.At the time, the appointment of Mr. Lieberman — who had called for loyalty oaths for Israel’s Palestinian and Jewish citizens and a redrawing of borders that would strip Palestinians of their Israeli citizenship — was widely criticized. But soon enough American and European officials were meeting with Mr. Leiberman.There is little hope that this won’t happen this time, too, and what was unthinkable but a few years ago will become a reality, with Palestinians inevitably paying the heaviest price for Israel’s electoral choices.Diana Buttu is a lawyer and former adviser to the negotiating team of the Palestine Liberation Organization.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Kyrsten Sinema’s Exit From the Democratic Party

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      More from our inbox:As History Shows, Incumbents Have the EdgeBlack HomeownershipAn Opera Fan’s DreamAlone, and FreeKyrsten Sinema, the Arizona senator, plans to keep her committee posts.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Leaving Party, Sinema Rattles a Race in 2024” (front page, Dec. 10):Senator Kyrsten Sinema is being deceitful in justifying her decision to leave the Democratic Party in favor of being an independent. This isn’t a principled decision. It’s a self-serving and strategic move on her part.Ms. Sinema is unpopular with Democrats in her home state, many of whom feel betrayed by her failure to support the progressive agenda she led them to believe she was committed to. In fact, she’s been a self-absorbed political opportunist primarily serving special interests and not the good of average citizens whom she pretends to care so much about.She claims that she wants to escape the partisanship and extremism that afflicts Congress, creating a false equivalency between the two parties. Reality check: It’s only the Republican Party under the thumb of Donald Trump that has sunk into corruption, hyperpartisan conduct and extremism.Ms. Sinema has been an obstacle to even the most widely popular and beneficial legislation, playing games with the Senate leadership and trying to position herself as someone needing to be courted for her support again and again.If she cared half as much about the citizens she represents as she cares about her wardrobe styling and need for attention, she might be more credible in declaring herself an independent.T.R. JahnsHemet, Calif.To the Editor:Senator Kyrsten Sinema officially ditched the Democratic Party and announced that she has registered as an independent. The move wasn’t entirely a shocker, yet it was still a gut punch for Arizona Democrats who worked hard to send a Democrat to Washington.I understand that she is ditching the Democratic Party because she knows that she can’t win a primary as a Democrat. Her past behavior suggest she’s adept at ditching anyone or anything no longer useful to her.She began her public life as a Green Party activist. She ran for the State Legislature as an independent, which didn’t work. Her big break came when she became a Democrat. In that role she created all sorts of drama and attention-grabbing stunts such as her thumbs-down vote on raising the minimum wage for hardworking Americans.Her antics were guaranteed to garner attention and annoy. For example, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Friday ripped into Ms. Sinema: “Not once in this long soliloquy does Sinema offer a single concrete value or policy she believes in. She lays out no goals for Arizonans, no vision, no commitments.”Kyrsten Sinema appears to be the wrong person at the wrong place at the wrong time.Richard A. FrenchPasadena, Calif.To the Editor:Kyrsten Sinema’s decision to go independent may be a healthy sign for U.S. politics. The Australian federal election in May saw a decline in the vote for both major parties, and a historic wave of votes for independents who were capable, professional women. Their presence is injecting new vigor and accountability into our Parliament.Ray EdmondsonKambah, AustraliaTo the Editor:The only politician more self-centered, selfish and self-aggrandizing than Kyrsten Sinema is Donald Trump.Michael K. CantwellDelray Beach, Fla.As History Shows, Incumbents Have the Edge Kriston Jae Bethel for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Strong Election Showing Eases Democrats’ Fears of Biden ’24,” by Katie Glueck (Political Memo, front page, Nov. 28):A key reason that Democrats should support President Biden for re-election is that history shows that a sitting president has the best chance of winning. Several recent Democrats have run again despite low approval ratings halfway through their first terms, including Harry Truman in 1948, Bill Clinton in 1996 and Barack Obama in 2012. Each was re-elected.In contrast, incumbent presidents who voluntarily give up the White House or are subject to a primary challenge are almost always a political disaster for the party in power. L.B.J.’s 1968 decision not to run left the nation in political turmoil, resulting in a Nixon presidency that undermined Americans’ faith in government. Jimmy Carter faced a primary challenge from Ted Kennedy in 1980 and never recovered. George H.W. Bush was weakened by Pat Buchanan in 1992, then lost to Bill Clinton.In any event, America needs Mr. Biden to deal with a series of problems, including an increasingly authoritarian Republican Party, a delicate U.S. economy, Russia’s war on Ukraine and the growing climate crisis — problems that he has proved well qualified to address.As long as Mr. Biden remains healthy and able to perform as president, Democrats would be crazy to nominate anyone else.Paul BledsoeWashingtonThe writer is a lecturer at American University’s School of Public Affairs and served as a staff member for the Senate Finance Committee and Clinton White House.Black HomeownershipNearly 45 percent of Black households own their homes, compared with more than 74 percent of white households, a new report has found.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “The Racial Gap Begins at the Mortgage Application” (Real Estate, Dec. 4):It’s encouraging to see The Times cover the continuing racial discrimination in homeownership. As your headline aptly states, our unacceptable disparities result from discrimination in every aspect of home buying for Black people — from loan approval to interest rates to home appraisals.In New Jersey, like across the U.S., this problem stubbornly persists. About four in 10 Black families in the state own their homes, compared with more than three-quarters of white families. High-income Black families are more likely to be denied a loan than low-income white applicants.Appraisal discrimination, one piece of the puzzle, is finally getting due attention in the Garden State with the Legislature poised to pass a bill to combat it early next year.If there’s one thing we’ve learned in the past few years, it’s that racism is baked into our policies. It’s time for the federal government, as well as states like New Jersey, to step up and design policies that root out ongoing barriers to homeownership and other drivers of wealth for Black and other households of color.Laura SullivanNewark, N.J.The writer is director of the economic justice program at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.An Opera Fan’s Dream Sinna Nasseri for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Reviewing the Opera? Nah, I’m in It” (Arts, Dec. 8):I send my deepest gratitude to the critic Joshua Barone for the immersive and entertaining account of his experience as an extra in the Metropolitan Opera’s extravagant production of “Aida.”Some little kids dream of being an astronaut, a U.S. president, a famous movie star. But since first being brought to the opera at age 4 to see “Tosca,” and staying awake through its entirety, I’ve had the fantasy dream of somehow being on the Metropolitan Opera’s stage (or, alternately, in the orchestra pit).I’ve been a lifelong operagoer since then, and now, well past middle age, I found myself in a state of complete vicarious joy reading Mr. Barone’s “inside scoop.” Bravo!Jane Garfield FrankQueensAlone, and Free Ben WisemanTo the Editor:Re “I Live Alone. Really, I’m Not That Pathetic,” by Frank Bruni (Opinion, nytimes.com, Dec. 9):I am someone who grew up with seven siblings. My own “alone home,” for me, represents freedom and euphoria.To cope with societal expectations, we one-member households need to remember: The most important thing about living alone is that it’s not your job to worry about what other people think.Ted GallagherNew York More

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      Meet Kyrsten Sinema, Former Democrat of Arizona

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I hope I’ve succeeded in turning you into a World Cup fan. In the meantime, any choice words about, or for, Kyrsten Sinema, former Democrat of Arizona?Gail Collins: Well, Bret, you’ve at least turned me into a fan of the Times coverage of World Cup … activities. I also sorta like times like this when there are a billion different games on TV — not just soccer — and for a while every day, people don’t feel obliged to think about the rest of the world.Bret: Such as …Gail: Such as Kyrsten Sinema. Not a fan of hers from the get-go. Always seemed as if her compulsive effort to prove she wasn’t really a loyal Democrat was less about political independence and more about making wealthy donors happy.Bret: And this is on the theory that other politicians don’t care for what their wealthy donors think?Gail: But her official spin is that the two-party system is broken, and virtue lies in standing outside as an independent. I hate that kind of thinking.Bret: Whereas I love it. To me, the choice these days between Republicans and Democrats is about as appealing as a dinner invitation from Hannibal Lecter: Either you get your heart cut out or your brain removed, and both get served with a side of fava beans and a nice Chianti.Seriously, you don’t see any virtue to wanting to break this awful political duopoly?Gail: Virtue, for me, lies in fighting to make the two parties better. Pick the one that’s closest to your beliefs and get busy. Fight for the good local leaders and nominees.It’s way easier to just announce you’re superior to both of them and start your own group. The new gang probably won’t last long, and even if it does, its big achievement will most likely be to draw votes away from the major party candidates you most agree with.Never recovered from Ralph Nader’s Green Party candidacy for president in 2000 — a noble quest on the issues front that wound up costing Al Gore the job.Bret: A few years ago I would have agreed with you. But the Republican Party is pretty much irredeemable, while the Democrats are … just not the team I’m ever going to bat for.Gail: Come on in. Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries are waiting with open arms …Bret: Not so sure the Dems would ever want me in the first place: I heart Texas not taxes.As for Sinema, having her join someone like Maine’s Angus King as an independent shows it’s at least possible to have an alternative. I realize she has some very self-interested political reasons for doing so, since the move will spare her a primary challenge from the left if she runs for re-election in 2024. But it also reminds the party establishments that they shouldn’t take their centrist voters for granted. Now I wish a few sane-minded Republicans might go ahead and join her. Lisa Murkowski, hello?Gail: Hey, weird that of the two of us, I’m the one who thinks somebody should try to save the Republican Party.Bret: Raising the dead is beyond our powers, Gail.Gail: You know I don’t do foreign affairs, but I do feel obliged to ask you about Brittney Griner. Do you think Joe Biden did the right thing in making the trade that got her out of prison in Russia?Bret: Well, obviously I’m happy for Griner and her family that she’s back after her 10-month ordeal. And it says everything about the moral difference between the United States and Russia that they will take a harmless person hostage so they can trade her for one of their most notorious gangsters.On the other hand, I don’t understand why we didn’t prioritize the release of Paul Whelan, an American who has been wrongfully detained in a Russian prison for four years but doesn’t have the benefit of Griner’s celebrity. Nor should we forget Marc Fogel, a 61-year-old American teacher trapped in one of Putin’s prisons. My advice to the Biden administration is to tell Russia that $1 billion of its foreign reserves will be seized for every additional day these two stay in prison.Gail: Hope they’re listening.Bret: Oh, and speaking of dealing with gangsters — your thoughts on the current crop of legal cases against the former guy?Gail: I’ve never thought — and still don’t — that a former president is going to go to jail, even for stealing federal documents or rousing violent crowds to march on the Capitol.Bret: Agree. Alas.Gail: But I’ve always had a yearning that he might wind up bankrupt and, say, living in a Motel 6. Knew that was impossible — told myself to remember all the money he can make just on speaking tours or hosting parties at Mar-a-Lago.Bret: Pretty depressing how American culture has descended from “My Dinner With Andre” to that dinner with Kanye.Gail: Now, though, I’m sort of wondering. Is there going to be a market for this guy — chooser of terrible Senate candidates and breaker of bread with neo-Nazis — even just as a celebrity?Bret: I had nearly lost hope that the day would ever come, but I think we are finally watching Trump self-destruct before our eyes even faster than anyone else can destroy him. The midterm results seem to have persuaded a critical mass of Republican voters and politicians that he’s toxic for their chances. Dinner with his antisemitic pals seems to have been the icing on the cake — or whatever the exact opposite of “icing on the cake” is. Toxic algae in the cesspool?Gail: Rotting rutabaga in the refuse? Sorry, that doesn’t actually make much sense. I was seduced by all the R’s.Bret: Gail, would you mind if I rant for a minute?Gail: Bret, I love it when you rant. Even when I hate it.Bret: There’s a special place in hell for the Paul Ryan Republicans — let’s call them PRR’s. What I mean is a certain type of well-heeled, intellectually minded conservative who never liked Trump’s person or politics and who occasionally tut-tutted at his vilest excesses, but who consistently made excuses for him and his presidency while heaping scorn on Never Trumpers as a bunch of virtue-signaling prigs. These Trump-appeasing PRR’s were prepared to defend and vote for him again until the day after the midterms, when they finally realized that he was a titanic political liability.Gail: Well, I truly do love this rant. Go on.Bret: To adapt something Winston Churchill purportedly said to Neville Chamberlain after Munich in 1938: In 2016 conservatives were given the choice between electoral defeat and personal dishonor. They chose dishonor. In the end, they still got defeated.Gail: You know I’m going to ask who’s a Churchillian pick in the Republican world. For instance, Ron DeSantis was never a huge Trump pal, but I think that was only because he was eyeing his job.Bret: So, weirdly, I have much less of a moral objection to those Republicans like DeSantis who liked Trump to begin with, whether because they agreed with most of his policies or appreciated his thumb-in-the-eye personality, or both. At least they came about their support for Trump honestly, without convoluted rationalizations and self-exculpations and various suspensions of disbelief. Of course I don’t agree with them, but I long ago stopped disdaining them.Speaking of disdain, any views on all of these disclosures about Twitter’s speech policies?Gail: Is there any way we can make it illegal for the richest man in the world to own one of the largest social networks? Guess not, huh?Bret: Probably not, though I doubt Musk will profit from the acquisition.Gail: Definitely felt sorry for the Twitter workers who discovered that Musk was putting beds in their work space. And his wild political seesawing would ruin the influence of anybody who wasn’t closing in on a quarter of a trillion dollars.But here we are, and I don’t have any great strategy for making him behave in a more responsible way when it comes to things like … keeping violent hatemongers off his platform. Do you have one?Bret: Violent hatemongers aside, I thought it was pretty appalling to see the lengths to which pre-Musk Twitter went to ban legitimate news stories, like The New York Post’s scoop about Hunter Biden’s laptop, and to downplay views that went against conventional wisdom, like the Stanford professor of medicine who warned about the ill-effects of lockdowns, and to coordinate its decisions with the Biden team — and then mislead the public about what it was doing. Even progressives like Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley in Congress, warned Twitter about its anti-free speech attitude, which is entirely to his credit and not at all to theirs.Gail: Bret scores …Bret: I guess the point is, we don’t want giant corporations banning political speech, whether it comes from the left or the right, and that goes especially for companies whose entire business model relies on the principle of free speech. For exposing this, I have to give Musk credit.Gail: We’ll pick this up again, Bret. Somehow I suspect Elon Musk will follow us into the new year.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Root Cause of Violent Crime Is Not What We Think It Is

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      There is a prevailing narrative about crime that positions bad people as the problem and toughness — in the form of police and prisons — as the solution. It’s emotionally powerful, enough to make politicians allocate money for more cops and more jails in order to avoid being labeled weak, or worse, pro-crime. The recent decision by Mayor Eric Adams of New York to get more homeless mentally ill people involuntarily committed — which shocked even the N.Y.P.D. — is just the latest example.But policies like this have little if any effect on violent crime, in part because they do not address what causes the problem.The 2022 midterm elections, in which the Republican Party poured considerable sums into a tough-on-crime message and did far worse than expected, offers hope that change is at last possible. Candidates with the courage to do so can run — and win — on a promise to reduce the causes of violence, addressing it before it occurs instead of just punishing it when the damage is already done.If throwing money at police and prisons made us safer, we would probably already be the safest country in the history of the world. We are not, because insufficient punishment is not the root cause of violence. And if someone is talking about how tough they are and how scared you should be, they care more about keeping you scared than keeping you safe.The tough-on-crime narrative acts like a black hole. It subsumes new ideas and silences discussions of solutions that are already making a difference in people’s lives. And it provides bottomless succor to politicians who are more interested in keeping themselves in power than keeping people safe.I have seen the message of “strong communities keeping everyone safe” open the minds of Republican voters, Democratic voters, and many in between. It is backed up by science. Academics, government commissions and even many police chiefs have agreed with the substance behind the message for decades. And there is evidence, including the results of last month’s midterms, that it can work politically on a larger scale.Local successes can be harder for national and statewide candidates to take credit for. But they are still better off telling a story about solutions than trying to out-punish their opponents. Senator-elect John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, often advertised his efforts to eliminate shooting deaths as the mayor of Braddock, Pa.In contrast, many New York State Democrats defaulted to a defensive posture. In the closing weeks of the midterms, Gov. Kathy Hochul cut an ad highlighting stricter bail terms and trumpeted increased police presence in New York City. Sean Patrick Maloney sought (and received) the endorsement of the powerful Police Benevolent Association of New York City even though his district is not in the city. It didn’t work. Hochul survived an unexpectedly close race, but Maloney lost his seat, as did many other Democrats in the state.Even in areas that have doubled down on punishment, the police are finding it exceedingly difficult to solve crimes. This is particularly true of homicides. In New York City, by contrast, the decision to end the unconstitutional tactic of stopping and frisking hundreds of thousands of mostly young Black and brown men did not lead to a spike in crime.Meanwhile, local policies that get closer to the cause are showing results. Dozens of communities are demonstrating how to ensure safety and, in many cases, save money along the way. In Austin, Texas, a 911 call from a person reporting a mental health emergency used to get directed to the police. Now, if there is no immediate danger, dispatchers have the option to transfer the call to a mental health clinician. In the first eight months after the program’s 2019 launch, 82 percent of calls that were transferred were handled without police involvement, which resulted in savings to the taxpayer of $1,642,213. By the 2021 fiscal year, the program was involved in almost 2,000 calls. In Brooklyn, young people who completed an alternative program for illegal gun possession had a 22 percent lower rearrest rate than peers who went to prison. In Olympia, Wash., a new unit of the Police Department that provides “free, confidential, and voluntary crisis response assistance” has responded to 3,108 calls since 2019, all while minimizing arrests and with zero injuries to responders.Communities that have adopted these approaches have not done away with enforcement; they have just required less of it. In Denver, a five-year randomized control trial of a program that provides housing subsidies to those at risk of being unhoused found a 40 percent reduction in arrests among participants. These kinds of results are why localities from New Jersey to New Mexico are restructuring their local governments to invest in the social determinants of health and safety.And yet, as I have learned over more than two decades of work in this field, the black hole narrative cannot be changed by statistics alone. If you want policies that actually work, you have to change the political conversation from “tough candidates punishing bad people” to “strong communities keeping everyone safe.” Candidates who care about solving a problem pay attention to what caused it. Imagine a plumber who tells you to get more absorbent flooring but does not look for the leak.Because the old narrative is so ingrained, candidates often assume that voters agree with it. But common sense and recent polling show that a majority of voters are concerned about crime and also supportive of changes in how we keep communities safe. This has fueled thousands of local innovations across the country. City governments, community groups and nonprofits are comparing notes on what works. And organizations like One Million Experiments are tracking innovations aimed at producing scalable solutions that do not rely on punishment. Reducing crime and reducing reliance on punishment only seem incompatible if you accept, as the narrative black hole dictates, that police and prisons are the only solution.Voters know the status quo does not work. In the run-up to 2024, for the sake of public safety, candidates need to give them real alternatives. That is the only way to get out of the black hole and into the light.Phillip Atiba Goff is the chair and Carl I. Hovland professor of African American studies and professor of psychology at Yale University. He is also the co-founder and C.E.O. of the Center for Policing Equity, a nonprofit that focuses on making policing less racist, less deadly and less omnipresent.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Gretchen Whitmer Rejected False Choices. All Democrats Should.

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      For years, the so-called Blue Wall states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — have been not just politically but also emotionally important for Democrats. With the party poised to enact a new primary lineup that includes Michigan in an early slot, the state has grown even more important for Democrats.In many ways, Michigan offers a microcosm of American politics. It includes a diverse population of over 10 million people and a mix of big, medium and smaller urban areas, along with diverse suburbs and rural areas.For Democrats, much of the debate about running in and winning big northern industrial states is that we have to choose a style of campaign. Either we talk to blue-collar voters about issues like economics and manufacturing, or we talk to suburban women about abortion. Either we use progressive issues to turn out our base, or we take moderate positions on issues to persuade people in the middle.There is a model for running an effective campaign in Michigan and states like it — and it involves rejecting many of these false choices.Gretchen Whitmer illustrated that model in Michigan this year. With her midterm victory, she has now had two decisive general-election wins in a critical Blue Wall state. Last month, she won by 10.6 points (a margin bested by only two Democratic presidential candidates in the last 50 years, Barack Obama in 2008 and Bill Clinton in 1996).She ran on economics and abortion, increased Democratic turnout and persuaded swing voters, all while connecting with the party’s largest base: Black voters. She embodied the way smart campaigns in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and around the country operated this cycle, and she gave a blueprint for Democrats in 2024.The first lesson of Ms. Whitmer’s campaign is that economic good news and development — especially building things — really make a difference. Democrats should run on American manufacturing: Whether it was a new semiconductor plant (to help ease the chip shortage facing the auto industry) or generational-level investments from G.M. in electric-vehicle battery plants (to make sure the critical supply chains for electric cars will be based in Michigan, not China, where many E.V. batteries are currently built), Ms. Whitmer fought to bring them to Michigan.In in multiple TV ads, she told voters, “I can’t solve the inflation problem, but we’re doing things — right now — to help.” She listed tangible benefits that she proposed or got done, like more affordable community college, insurance refunds and tax cuts for seniors. She passed four balanced, bipartisan budgets with no tax increases, and she let voters know about that.A lot of Democrats talked about economics across the country, but few did so as consistently and effectively as Ms. Whitmer. And it wasn’t just talk: When businesses opened, she was often there to celebrate them.This was paired with a pocketbook attack. Her opponent, Tudor Dixon, took millions of dollars from the wildly unpopular (in Michigan) billionaire Betsy DeVos and her family. For months her campaign highlighted Ms. Dixon’s connections to Ms. DeVos and how Ms. Dixon’s tax plan would benefit Ms. DeVos and hurt the middle class — working-class tax hikes, cuts to schools and the like. Ms. Whitmer also highlighted abortion rights as a vote-deciding issue for swing voters. Again, this was not just talk. Through a ballot initiative, Michigan voters faced the decision on whether to place abortion protections in the state Constitution. Voters approved changing the state Constitution with strong support (57 percent).Months before the Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and could have effectively banned abortion in Michigan (because of a dormant law from the 1930s), Ms. Whitmer sued and got courts to block enforcement of that law. No doubt the issue helped Michigan Democrats and progressives to catalyze turnout. Estimates from the U.S. Elections Project show overall turnout in 2022 was down about 6 percent from the 2018 midterm, but in Michigan, turnout was up nearly 5 percent.Ms. Whitmer also developed a deep connection with Black voters well before she picked as her running mate and governing partner the state’s first Black lieutenant governor, Garlin Gilchrist. After winning Black voters decisively with high turnout in 2018, she deepened that connection. The “Big Gretch” song (“We ain’t even about to stress/we got Big Gretch”) and memes that came out of Black Michigan spoke to a deep appreciation Black voters had for her decisiveness in the pandemic to keep people safe.This was on top of a lot of other work to help Black voters, things like bringing the first new auto plant to Detroit in 30 years and making sure Detroiters had a first crack at the plant’s jobs.This did not come at the expense of talking to white voters: She won Macomb County, ground zero for voters who cast ballots for Barack Obama, then switched to Donald Trump, by about 60 percent more in 2022 from 2018.What Ms. Whitmer has done in Michigan can be done by Democrats across the country. We can talk about economics and abortion, we can invest in turnout and persuasion, and we can strengthen our appeal to voters of color while winning over white voters.Brian Stryker (@BrianStryker) is a partner at Impact Research and a strategist for Gretchen Whitmer, Tim Ryan and Mandela Barnes, among others.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Your Monday Briefing: The World Cup Semifinals Loom

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      Plus, China’s sluggish economy and the arrest of the Lockerbie bombing suspect.Argentina’s players celebrated after beating the Netherlands in a penalty shootout.Matthias Hangst/Getty ImagesGet ready for the semifinalsFour countries will compete in the World Cup semifinals this week, after a weekend of surprises sent two favorites and two underdogs to the next round. Argentina will play Croatia tomorrow, and France will play Morocco on Wednesday.Argentina is driven by the belief that winning this World Cup is Lionel Messi’s undeniable destiny. But Croatia has its own undeniable sense of purpose after beating Brazil, a top contender.France knocked England out to advance. Morocco upset Portugal to become the first country in Africa and the Arab world to reach the semifinals. Its stout defense will be challenged by the tournament’s leading scorer, Kylian Mbappé, the most gifted player on the planet.Qatar: The country is poised to become a critical energy source for Europe as the continent pivots from Russia. Play our game: Where’s the ball?Other updates:Belgian authorities detained five people, including current and former members of the European Parliament, in an inquiry into possible bribes by Qatar.The soccer journalist Grant Wahl died after collapsing at the Argentina match.China is making a high-risk bet that its vaccination rates will prevent a severe outbreak.Ng Han Guan/Associated PressChina braces for a Covid surgeChina is rolling back its Covid-19 restrictions. Now, Beijing is bracing for a surge in cases.In near-freezing weather last week, residents of China’s capital lined up at hospitals and pharmacies. They sought help for fevers or waited to buy up dwindling stocks of at-home tests. The reported number of cases is unreliable and probably a significant undercount now that the government has moved away from mass testing.The pivot has left many confused and anxious. The government is suddenly playing down the threat of the coronavirus, after three years of relentless propaganda. But to conserve resources, it is also urging residents not to seek help unless necessary.Part of the challenge for the Communist Party: Less than 1 percent of China’s population have been infected through November, so many are vulnerable. After pushing shots last year, China has not yet moved on to administering fourth doses. And China’s vaccines are less effective than mRNA shots.Unrest: Many young people are still unemployed and have few job prospects. And the protesters who forced the pivot say their fight is bigger than Covid controls.Understand What Is Happening in ChinaA Victory for Protesters: Beijing’s costly policy of lockdowns pummeled China’s economy and set off mass public protests that were a rare challenge to its leader, Xi Jinping.A Messy Pivot: The Communist Party cast aside many Covid rules after the protests, while playing down the threat of the virus. The move could prove dangerous.A ‘Tipping Point’: For the protesters, public dissent was unimaginable until recently. We asked young Chinese about what led them to take the risk.Tracking Protesters: The authorities in China used the country’s all-seeing surveillance apparatus to track, intimidate and detain those who marched in the protests.From Opinion: The Chinese government’s response to protests against Covid measures doesn’t address the larger yearning for an end to autocracy, Nicholas Kristof writes.In other news: China plans to cooperate with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in the fields of nuclear energy, nuclear security and space exploration, President Xi Jinping said on Friday.Martin Cleaver/Associated PressLockerbie suspect arrestedA Libyan intelligence operative charged in the 1988 bombing of an American jetliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, was arrested by the F.B.I. He is being extradited to the U.S. to face prosecution for one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in U.S. history.The arrest of the operative, Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud, was the culmination of a decades-long effort by the Justice Department to prosecute him. It is unclear how the U.S. government negotiated the extradition of Mas’ud.He was being held at a Libyan prison for unrelated crimes when the Justice Department unsealed the charges against him two years ago. He is accused of building the explosive device used in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 270 passengers, including 190 Americans.Background: Mas’ud confessed to the bombing in 2012 to a Libyan law enforcement official. His suspected role in the bombing received new scrutiny in a three-part documentary on “Frontline” on PBS in 2015.What’s next: Extradition would allow Mas’ud to stand trial. But legal experts have expressed doubts about whether his confession, obtained in prison in war-torn Libya, would be admissible as evidence.THE LATEST NEWSAsia PacificHuman rights activists denounced Jimmy Lai’s punishment as the latest blow to freedom of expression in Hong Kong.Kin Cheung/Associated PressJimmy Lai, the pro-democracy media tycoon in Hong Kong, was sentenced to more than five years in prison.Bangladeshi authorities arrested two senior opposition leaders last week, capping off a week of political tensions.Vanuatu wants the world’s highest judicial body to weigh in on whether nations are legally bound to protect against climate risks.The War in UkraineAs of yesterday afternoon, some 300,000 of the Odesa region’s residents were still without electricity, an official said.ReutersRussian strikes knocked out power to more than 1.5 million people in Odesa on Saturday. Moscow used Iranian-made drones in the attack on infrastructure.Russian strikes have damaged all of Ukraine’s thermal and hydroelectric power plants, Ukraine’s prime minister said yesterday.Ukraine struck the Russian-occupied city of Melitopol on Saturday as part of its campaign to recapture the south.Nobel Peace Prize winners from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine decried Russian aggression at the award ceremony.Around the WorldDeepening poverty and hopelessness in Cuba have set off the largest exodus since Fidel Castro rose to power.Confidential records show that Saudi Arabia’s golf tour, LIV, is far off-track from success.Highbrow movies aimed at winning Oscars are falling flat at the box office.SpaceSpaceX launched a lunar lander made by a Japanese company. Its cargo, which includes a rover from the United Arab Emirates and a robot for the Japanese space agency, could be the first successfully carried to the moon’s surface by a private company.NASA’s uncrewed test flight of its Artemis I moon mission was successful. The capsule splashed down in the Pacific yesterday.A Morning ReadThe Walshes bought their house for $180,000 in 2005.Tony Cenicola/The New York TimesOctagonal houses became a 19th-century fad after an amateur architect claimed they had better ventilation and more windows. They’re certainly quirky, but devotees gush about their panoramic views and all-day sunshine.Lives lived: Hamish Kilgour, a founding member of the New Zealand band the Clean, died at 65.ARTS AND IDEASWhy North Korea wants dollarsNorth Korea is scrambling for American dollars and other hard currency, not just to feed its people, but also to finance the military and economic ambitions of Kim Jong-un, its leader.The country is also trying to squeeze every bit of cash from the public. State-run stores sell smartphones and other imported goods to the moneyed class, especially to North Koreans who have accumulated savings in foreign currency by smuggling goods from China.The Times obtained a video of such a store in the capital, Pyongyang, where customers can use U.S. dollars to pay for international brands of instant noodles, deodorant, diapers and shampoo. Change is returned in North Korean won.Kim has positioned Pyongyang as a model of urban development, while other cities remain far behind. Pyongyang has become brighter. New apartment towers dot the skyline. And to attract spenders with foreign savings, department stores are filled with Rolex and Tissot wristwatches and Dior and Lancôme cosmetics — all luxury items banned under U.N. sanctions.But Kim’s economic reforms have done little to improve economic prospects. North Korea crawled out of the catastrophic impact of the famine of the 1990s, growing an average 1.2 percent annually between 2012 and 2016. But the economy began contracting again in 2017. And Kim seems to have reached the conclusion that delivering on his promise of military strength is his best hope for economic gains.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookLinda Xiao for The New York Times. Food stylist: Brett Regot. Prop stylist: Megan Hedgpeth.Make fancy popcorn at home.What to ReadBooks to take you through Kingston, Jamaica.What to Listen toEvery Friday, our pop critics weigh in on that week’s most notable new songs and videos. Here’s the playlist.The News QuizHow well did you keep up with last week’s headlines?Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: A shirt or a sport (four letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. Have a great week! — Amelia and WhetP.S. Reading aloud is essential for these Times reporters.Start your week with this narrated long read about Ukraine’s rail system. And here’s Friday’s edition of “The Daily,” on gerrymandering in the U.S.I’m back from vacation. Questions? Concerns? Email us at briefing@nytimes.com. More

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      The Election Is Over. Now Comes the Battle for Voting Rights in 2024

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      Voters rebuffed the most aggressive efforts to weaken democracy in the midterms. But battles over election districts and ballot restrictions that could prove crucial in 2024 have already resumed.WASHINGTON — With Raphael Warnock’s victory in the Georgia Senate race on Tuesday, the major midterm elections are over.But the battles over voting rules, restrictions and political boundaries that will help determine who wins the next ones barely paused for ballot-counting before resuming in force.Indeed, the day after Mr. Warnock’s election, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a potentially seismic case brought by Republicans in North Carolina that could give state legislatures significantly expanded power over election laws — and virtually unlimited authority to draw gerrymandered maps.The landscape is familiar. Democrats who took control of state legislatures in Michigan and Minnesota are preparing legislation to to broaden voting access, including measures in Michigan that would mandate absentee ballot drop boxes.Republicans, who control a majority of legislatures across the country, are proposing new restrictive legislation they say would combat election fraud, though it remains exceedingly rare. And though both parties have benefited from gerrymanders, Republicans are far more likely to make it a centerpiece of their electoral strategy.In the Ohio Legislature, Republicans are poised to pass bills that would stiffen the ID requirement for casting a ballot, limit the use of drop boxes and end automatic mailings of absentee-ballot applications to voters.In North Carolina, a Republican sweep of state Supreme Court races last month makes it likely that the State Legislature will be able to gerrymander existing nonpartisan maps of congressional and legislative districts before the 2024 elections.In Wisconsin, both parties are girding for an April election that will determine partisan control of the state’s already politicized Supreme Court — and either open or shut the door on a legal challenge to an impregnable Republican gerrymander of the State Legislature.Some of that jockeying for power always goes on beneath the radar of most voters. But in the wake of more direct attacks on democracy by insurrectionists at the U.S. Capitol and by election deniers in last month’s vote, the divergent legislative priorities of the two parties — and particularly Republican reliance on restrictive voting measures and supercharged gerrymanders — reflect what has become a ceaseless tug of war over the rules of American politics and governance.“It’s not the same thing as throwing out the vote count and putting in the wrong count,” said Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “But it’s a form of unfair gaming of the system to gain electoral advantage, in a way that shuts out legitimate voters.”The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      Brittney Griner Swap Puts Spotlight on Americans in Russia

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      Westerners in Russia have to weigh the risks of living and working in the country against professional and financial opportunities there.MOSCOW — After almost 10 months of war, sanctions, nuclear threats and the constant monitoring of the Russian security state, some American and European citizens continue to live and work in Russia, drawn in many cases by professional opportunities and higher salaries.Some Western athletes, businesspeople and artists chose to stay even as the Russian authorities arrested and jailed the American basketball player Brittney Griner in February on a minor drug charge. On Thursday, she was freed and sent back to the United States in a prisoner exchange for a notorious Russian arms dealer, Viktor Bout, in a move that some Republican politicians and analysts have said puts other Americans at risk of being wrongfully detained for political gain.Ms. Griner’s detention has injected a complex new factor into the calculation of whether to travel to, or work in, Russia, an already fraught decision with the war in Ukraine as a backdrop.More than 1,000 multinational companies have curtailed their operations in Russia since the invasion, with foreign managers often being the first to go. Most Western universities have halted student exchange programs with Russian peers. And most major European and American cultural institutions have ended collaborations with Russian theaters and museums, including the Bolshoi in Moscow and the Mariinsky in St. Petersburg, two of the world’s most storied houses for opera and ballet.But in other areas the numbers of Westerners have held steady or even grown since Ms. Griner’s arrest. Most choose to come or stay to advance careers, but there are also examples of Americans who made Russia their home for political reasons. Most famously, they include the actor Steven Seagal and the former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, who just this month took an oath of Russian citizenship.The actor Steven Seagal watching a military parade in the Red Square in Moscow, in 2015.Sergei Ilnitsky/European Pressphoto AgencyAthletes have long provided one of the biggest streams of prominent Westerners to Russia. Players “whose careers were declining went there to maintain the same level of income that they were accustomed to,” said Bill Neff, an agent with clients across the world.After the outbreak of the war, the Russian teams in the Continental Hockey League, which includes Russia and its neighbors, lost nearly half of its foreign players. Finns and Swedes led the exodus, largely abiding by their countries’ hard-line stance toward Russia’s aggression.But after the initial outflow, some of the European vacancies are being filled by American and Canadian players. They include Scott Wilson, a Canadian who won N.H.L. championships with the Pittsburgh Penguins, and an American, Alexander Chmelevski, both of whom joined Russian teams this fall.There are now an estimated 42 Americans playing or planning to play in Russia’s premier men’s basketball league, up from 30 a few months ago, according to tallies by American sports agents. An analysis of team rosters shows that there are an additional 29 American and Canadian hockey players who are signed to premier Russian teams this season, with some joining after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. There is even an American playing for the Russian woman’s basketball team that Ms. Griner represented before her arrest.The Release of Brittney GrinerThe American basketball star had been detained in Russia since February on charges of smuggling hashish oil into the country.Anxiety Turns to Relief: Brittney Griner’s supporters watched with dismay as her situation appeared to worsen over the summer. Now they are celebrating her release.The Russian Playbook: By detaining Ms. Griner, the Kremlin weaponized pain to get the United States to turn over a convicted arms dealer. Can the same tactic work in the war in Ukraine?A Test for Women’s Sports: The release was a victory for W.N.B.A. players and fans, who pushed furiously for it. But the athlete’s plight also highlighted gender inequities in sports.These athletes have stayed despite warnings from the State Department, which is advising all Americans to leave Russia immediately, weighing the risks of playing in Russia against professional and financial opportunities in a major sports market.Alexander Chmelevski playing for the San Jose Sharks last year.Jae C. Hong/Associated PressMany agents representing American athletes did not respond to queries about Ms. Griner’s detention in Russia. Those who did said the prisoner swap that brought her home had no effect on their work or their clients.“Griner’s case has to do with things that have nothing to do with basketball,” said David Carro, a Spanish sports agent representing four male American basketball players in Russia. “We never had any problems when Brittney Griner was there, and now, even less so.”“Our Americans get paid promptly and are living very well in Russia,” he added.Many American basketball players come to Russia to make money in the off-season or to prolong their careers. Because Russia covets top-level “name’’ players, they often pay high salaries. Athletes can take in more than $1 million and often receive free housing and cars.Mr. Neff, who represents about 30 professional basketball players, said Ms. Griner’s freedom did not lessen his caution in sending players to Russia during the conflict with Ukraine. He has discouraged his clients from going there and does not currently have any players in Russia.“I don’t think it changes anything,” Mr. Neff said of her release. “If you send someone to Russia, you know there are risks. Is the increased money worth the risk? That’s the choice you’re making.”The American basketball player K.C. Rivers, 35, came to Russia in August, while Ms. Griner was on trial, to play for the team of Samara, a provincial capital more than 500 miles east of Moscow.“At this point I didn’t really have so many options coming my way,” Mr. Rivers said in an interview in September. “What’s the best thing for me right now, towards — I ain’t going to say the end of my career — but in my career at this point? Financially, what makes sense?”K.C. Rivers playing for Zenit St. Petersburg during a Euroleague basketball game in Athens last year.John Andreou/EPA, via ShutterstockThe Russian basketball clubs are playing fewer games this season because of their suspension from Euroleague competition, a penalty that has diminished the quality of players the league has attracted, Mr. Neff said. And Russia’s hockey league voted this month to slash the number of foreigners that will be allowed on each team starting next season, an example of wartime nationalism sweeping the country.There are still a few Americans imprisoned in Russia. One is Paul Whelan, who was detained in December 2018, convicted of espionage and sentenced to 16 years in a penal colony; the U.S. State Department says he has been wrongfully detained. Marc Fogel, a 60-year-old history teacher, was detained in 2021 for having about half an ounce of medical marijuana. He was sentenced in June to 14 years in a penal colony.During a visit to Kyrgyzstan on Friday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia commented on the possibility of new prisoner exchanges with the United States.“Everything is possible and contacts continue through the special services,” he said at a news conference.George Beebe, a former director of the C.I.A.’s Russia analysis and a Russia adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, said that while there were risks for Americans in Russia, he did not think the Bout-Griner swap had increased the chances of an American’s being arrested on trumped-up pretexts.Paul Whelan, an American imprisoned in Russia, in a Moscow courtroom in 2020.Maxim Shemetov/Reuters“For American citizens that are living and working in Russia, I wouldn’t say that there is no danger,” Mr. Beebe, the program director at the Quincy Institute think tank, said in a telephone interview. “Certainly there is. The Russian government is not likely to be at all lenient in dealing with Americans. They’re not going to give any Americans the benefit of the doubt.”However, he said, “I don’t think it increases the likelihood that the Russian government is going to arrest Americans.”Andrei A. Soldatov, a Russian journalist who specializes in the security services, said it was hard to make predictions when the rules of the game are constantly changing. During the Cold War era, he said, the rules were defined and predictable. But with the war in Ukraine continuing to escalate, diplomacy is entering uncharted territory.“We all have this temptation always to compare this to the Cold War, but this is nothing like that,” he said in a telephone interview.“The Cold War was a period when nobody wanted or was actually interested in a hot war. And now we have a really big war which might get bigger,” he said. “Nobody can actually rationalize or predict and develop a strategy accordingly — that’s a problem.”Valerie Hopkins More