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      Israel’s Hard-Line Government Takes Office, Testing Bonds With Allies

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      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition will likely test ties with the United States and Europe, amid fears that it will undermine the country’s democracy and stability.Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn in as prime minister of Israel for a sixth time.Amir Levy/Getty ImagesJERUSALEM — Israel’s new government was sworn in on Thursday, returning Benjamin Netanyahu to power at the head of a right-wing and religiously conservative administration that represents a significant challenge for the country on the world stage.Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition will likely test Israel’s ties with the United States and Europe, amid fears that his coalition partners will undermine the country’s liberal democracy and its stability. Mr. Netanyahu dismissed those concerns in a speech in Parliament before a vote of confidence and the swearing-in of his ministers.“There is a broad consensus among us about most of the challenges we face, though certainly not about all of them,” he said. “I hear the constant lamentations of the opposition about ‘the country being over’ and ‘the end of democracy.’ Members of the opposition, losing in elections is not the end of democracy — it is the essence of democracy.”The makeup of Mr. Netanyahu’s government and the policies it has pledged to pursue have raised concerns about increased tensions with Palestinians, the undermining of the country’s judicial independence and the rolling back of protections for the L.G.B.T.Q. community and other sectors of society.Mr. Netanyahu’s return as prime minister for a sixth time comes at a critical moment for Israel as it faces fundamental challenges: Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear weapons; growing international criticism of its handling of the occupied West Bank; and a global tide of antisemitism.The coalition has been clear in its manifesto — hammered out in agreements with various parties as ministries were handed out — about what it intends to do.It has declared the Jewish people’s “exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel” and pledged to bolster Jewish settlement in the West Bank — explicitly abandoning the internationally recognized formula for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Peace talks have been on hiatus for years.Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and its manifesto have raised concerns about increased tensions with Palestinians and protections for L.G.B.T.Q. people.Abir Sultan/EPA, via ShutterstockThe new government is also pressing for an overhaul of the judiciary that Mr. Netanyahu — currently on trial on corruption charges — and his supporters insist will restore the proper balance between the branches of government. Critics say the move would curb the power of the independent judiciary, damaging Israel’s democratic system and leaving minorities more vulnerable.Mr. Netanyahu’s past coalitions have been balanced by more moderate parties, but this time, he had to rely more heavily on far-right parties to form a government. That could complicate Israel’s relations with perhaps its most important ally, the United States, and with American Jews, who have been among Israel’s strongest supporters abroad.What to Know About Israel’s New GovernmentNetanyahu’s Return: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, is set to return to power at the helm of the most right-wing administration in Israeli history.The Far Right’s Rise: To win election, Mr. Netanyahu and his far-right allies harnessed perceived threats to Israel’s Jewish identity after ethnic unrest and the subsequent inclusion of Arab lawmakers in the government.Arab Allies: Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right allies have a history of making anti-Arab statements. Three Arab countries that normalized relations with Israel in 2020 appear unconcerned.Worries Among Palestinians: To some Palestinians, the rise of Israel’s far right can scarcely make things worse. But many fear a surge of violence.President Biden on Thursday said in a statement that he looked forward to working with a prime minister “who has been my friend for decades, to jointly address the many challenges and opportunities facing Israel and the Middle East region, including threats from Iran.”But Mr. Biden also hinted at possible sources of tension with the new government, like L.G.B.T.Q. rights and conflicts with Palestinians. He said “the United States will continue to support the two state solution and to oppose policies that endanger its viability.”Thomas R. Nides, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said the administration would respond to the Israeli government’s actions rather than coalition deals that may not materialize.“We’ve been told over and over by Prime Minister Netanyahu that he has his hands on the wheel and wants to be the prime minister of everyone,” he said in an interview. “He’s a very talented and very experienced prime minister. We want to work closely with him on mutual values we share, and at this point not get distracted by everyone else. So the focus is on the prime minister and the prime minister’s office.”Another concern for many Jews in the United States who identify with more liberal streams of Judaism is the new government’s policies on religion, which give more weight to strict Orthodox demands. Particularly distressing to many Jews outside Israel, the coalition has promised to restrict the Law of Return, which currently grants refuge and automatic citizenship to foreign Jews, their spouses and descendants who have at least one Jewish grandparent, even though they may not qualify as Jewish according to strict religious law.“We are profoundly concerned about the intentions of this government and we are taking their promises and agenda very seriously,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, the largest Jewish denomination in the United States.The coalition partners, he said, also want to narrow who is counted as a legitimate Jew in the Jewish homeland. The “Who is a Jew” debate has surfaced before, but this time, Rabbi Jacobs said, Israelis whose extreme views excluded them from the establishment in the past hold key positions in the government.An ultra-Orthodox man voting in Bnei Brak, Israel, last month. The government’s platform reflects numerous Orthodox demands that liberal Jews in the United States have objected to.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times“Israel doesn’t get to decide alone,” he said of Jewish identity. “In some ways, these policies are meant to push us away. But the result is that we are going to lean in harder because of the importance of the state of Israel in all our lives.”Hundreds of American rabbis have signed an open letter protesting the government proposals.The policies of the new government could also have repercussions with Arab states, even as Israel has in recent years forged diplomatic ties with countries like the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco.King Abdullah II of Jordan said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday that he was “prepared to get into a conflict” if Israel tries — as some coalition members hope — to change the status of a Jerusalem holy site revered by Muslims and Jews, over which Jordan has custodianship. Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty in 1994.Mr. Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party has emphasized the parts of the government’s policies aimed at deepening and expanding Israel’s peace and normalization deals with Arab countries, and he has spoken of Saudi Arabia as his next goal.But other clauses of the coalition’s platform talk of promoting Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank and further entrenching Jewish settlement in the heart of the land Palestinians have envisaged as their state.Bezalel Smotrich, the ultranationalist new finance minister who ultimately wants to annex the West Bank, will also serve as a minister within the defense ministry responsible for agencies dealing with the construction of Jewish settlements and civilian life in the occupied territories. That is likely to increase tensions with Israel’s allies abroad who place a premium on keeping the two-state option alive.Bezalel Smotrich, right, the new ultranationalist finance minister with Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, in Parliament on Thursday. Pool photo by Amir CohenThe Biden administration “is going to do everything possible to minimize friction and focus on areas of agreement,” said Daniel B. Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and now a fellow at the Atlantic Council. “But friction will be impossible to completely avoid over issues related to the Palestinians, the future of two states and possibly the holy sites and the status of the Arab citizens of Israel.”European allies have so far taken a wait-and-see stance similar to the Biden administration’s. Christofer Burger, the spokesman of the German Foreign Office in Berlin, said Wednesday that bilateral relations with Israel “remain unchanged.”But he noted the Israeli plan to retroactively authorize West Bank settlements built without government permission, saying, “We expect the new Israeli government to refrain from such unilateral moves that would undermine the basis of a negotiated two-state solution.”Some Israeli diplomats have taken a stand against the new government. Israel’s ambassador to France, Yael German, resigned on Thursday, stating in a letter that she could “no longer continue to represent policies so radically different from all that I believe in.”And more than a hundred retired Israeli ambassadors and senior Foreign Ministry officials took the extraordinary step of signing a letter to Mr. Netanyahu this week expressing their “profound concern” at the potential harm to Israel’s strategic relations.“The letter was not politically motivated but was written out of pragmatic concern for how you prevent weakening Israel’s standing in the international arena,” said Jeremy Issacharoff, a signatory and former ambassador to Germany.For many Palestinians, the hard-line government is merely exposing what they have said all along about Israel’s true intentions.“Its annexationist agenda of Jewish supremacy is now very blunt and clear,” Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to Britain, said by phone. “The two-state solution was never a Palestinian demand,” he said, “but an international requirement that we have accepted. Now, publicly, this government does not endorse the idea of partition. That’s the heart of it.”Israel’s new national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in the past of inciting racism and support for a terrorist group, has been given expanded powers over the police and additional forces to fight crime in Arab communities.The coalition has also vowed to amend the current anti-discrimination law, which applies to businesses and service providers, allowing them to refuse to provide a service contrary to their religious beliefs in a way that critics say could lead to discrimination against the L.G.B.T.Q. community or others.Mr. Netanyahu seemed to address that fear through Amir Ohana, a Likud member who on Thursday became the first openly gay speaker of the Parliament, and thanked his life partner and their two children from the podium during the inauguration ceremony. Mr. Netanyahu made a point of being photographed sitting next to Mr. Ohana and his family at a toast afterward.Yet an ultraconservative, anti-gay minister has been given wide powers over some programs taught in public schools and the ultra-Orthodox parties in the coalition have secured copious funding for adults who choose full-time Torah study over work.“This is unlike anything we have seen before,” Mr. Shapiro, the former U.S. ambassador, said. “The majority of the coalition and many of its dominant members with a lot of leverage over the prime minister subscribe to a worldview that defines issues of national and Jewish identity, religion and state and democracy unlike any previous Israeli right-wing government.”Jim Tankersley More

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      The Ideal of Democracy in a Jewish State Is in Jeopardy

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      Israeli elections can be dramatic, and its five elections within four years have been full of political surprises and firsts, including the first time an independent Israeli Arab party joined a governing coalition. This series of new governments and the sometimes tumultuous process of forming them are part of Israel’s proud tradition as a boisterous and pluralistic democracy.Yet the far-right government that will soon take power, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, marks a qualitative and alarming break with all the other governments in Israel’s 75-year history. While Mr. Netanyahu clearly has the support of the Israeli electorate, his coalition’s victory was narrow and cannot be seen as a broad mandate to make concessions to ultrareligious and ultranationalist parties that are putting the ideal of a democratic Jewish state in jeopardy.This board has been a strong supporter of Israel and a two-state solution for many years, and we remain committed to that support. Antisemitism is on the rise around the globe, and at least some of the criticism of Israel is the result of such hatred.Mr. Netanyahu’s government, however, is a significant threat to the future of Israel — its direction, its security and even the idea of a Jewish homeland. For one, the government’s posture could make it militarily and politically impossible for a two-state solution to ever emerge. Rather than accept this outcome, the Biden administration should do everything it can to express its support for a society governed by equal rights and the rule of law in Israel, as it does in countries all over the world. That would be an act of friendship, consistent with the deep bond between the two nations.Mr. Netanyahu’s comeback as prime minister, a year and a half after he was ousted from office, can’t be divorced from the corruption allegations that have followed him. He is now doing everything he can to stay in power, by catering to the demands of the most extreme elements of Israeli politics. The new cabinet he is forming includes radical far-right parties that have called for, among other things, expanding and legalizing settlements in a way that would effectively render a Palestinian state in the West Bank impossible; changing the status quo on the Temple Mount, an action that risks provoking a new round of Arab-Israeli violence; and undermining the authority of the Israeli Supreme Court, thus freeing the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, to do whatever it wants, with little judicial restraint.Ministers in the new government are set to include figures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in Israel in 2007 for incitement to racism and supporting a Jewish terrorist organization. He will probably be minister of national security. Bezalel Smotrich, who has long supported outright annexation of the West Bank, is expected to be named the next finance minister, with additional authority over the administration of the West Bank. For the deputy in the prime minister’s office in charge of Jewish identity, Mr. Netanyahu is expected to name Avi Maoz, who once described himself as a “proud homophobe.”These moves are troubling, and America’s leaders should say so. The Biden administration’s main response so far has been a cautious speech by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the liberal advocacy group J Street on Dec. 4, in which he declared that the United States would deal with Israeli policies, not individuals. The new government has yet to be formed, so it is not surprising that the State Department does not yet have a well-defined position, but the administration has already discussed, according to a report in Axios, how to manage its meetings with the most extreme members of the new cabinet and which core interests to focus on.This approach understates the potential consequences of the shift in Israeli politics that this government represents. The cabinet about to take charge is not simply another iteration of the unstable, shifting alliances that followed the past four inconclusive elections. Those coalitions, like many before them, often included fringe religious or nationalist parties, but they were usually kept in check by more moderate political parties or even by Mr. Netanyahu over the 15 years he served as prime minister.All that is now threatened. Right-wing parties have an absolute majority in the Knesset, and Mr. Netanyahu, hoping that the new government will save him from prosecution and potential prison time, is in their power. Among the targets of the new leaders is the Israeli Supreme Court, which, in the absence of a national constitution, has served to weigh government actions against international law and the Israeli state’s own traditions and values. The nationalists would diminish this authority by voting to give themselves the power to override Supreme Court decisions. Not incidentally, they have also proposed eliminating the law under which Mr. Netanyahu faces a possible prison term.As Thomas L. Friedman, a Times columnist who has closely followed Israeli affairs for four decades, wrote shortly after the election results were known, “We are truly entering a dark tunnel.” While Mr. Netanyahu in the past used the “energy of this illiberal Israeli constituency to win office,” Mr. Friedman wrote, until now, he had never given them this kind of ministerial authority over critical defense and economic portfolios.This is not simply a disappointing turn in an old ally. The relationship between Israel and the United States has long been one that transcends traditional definitions of a military alliance or of diplomatic friendship. A body of deeply shared values has forged powerful and complex bonds. A commitment to Israel, both in its security and in its treatment by the world, has been an unquestioned principle of American foreign and domestic policy for decades, even when Mr. Netanyahu openly defied Barack Obama or embraced Donald Trump. As Mr. Blinken said in his speech, the United States will hold Israel “to the mutual standards we have established in our relationship over the past seven decades.”Israel has been moving steadily rightward in recent years. That is, in part, due to genuine concerns about crime and security, especially after violence between Israeli Arabs and Jews last year. Many Israelis also express fear that the peace process has failed because of a lack of interest in peace among Palestinian leaders, a fear heightened by Hamas control in Gaza since 2007 and a sense that Mahmoud Abbas’s grip on the Palestinian Authority is coming to an end without a clear succession plan.Demographic change in Israel has also shifted the country’s politics. Religious families in Israel tend to have large families and to vote with the right. A recent analysis by the Israel Democracy Institute found that about 60 percent of Jewish Israelis identify as right wing today; among people ages 18 to 24, the number rises to 70 percent. In the Nov. 1 election, the old Labor Party, once the liberal face of Israel’s founders, won only four seats, and the left-wing Meretz won none.Moderating forces in Israeli politics and civil society are already planning energetic resistance to legislation that would curtail the powers of the Israeli Supreme Court or the rights of the Arab minority or the L.G.B.T.Q. community. They deserve support from the American public and from the Biden administration.Whatever the contours of the new Israeli government, the United States will continue to be engaged with it on many issues of shared concern. Negotiations on a new nuclear deal with Iran are all but dead, a situation that poses a threat to security across the region. The Abraham Accords, while not a substitute for peace with the Palestinians, normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations. That is welcome progress, and the United States could play an important role in helping to expand them to include other countries, such as Saudi Arabia.While Palestinian-Israeli negotiations have long been moribund, the principle of someday achieving two states remains the bedrock of American and Israeli cooperation. Hopes for a Palestinian state have dimmed under the combined pressure of Israeli resistance and Palestinian corruption, ineptitude and internal divisions. Anything that undermines Israel’s democratic ideals — whether outright annexation of Jewish settlements or legalization of illegal settlements and outposts — would undermine the possibility of a two-state solution.America’s support for Israel reflects our two countries’ respect for democratic ideals. President Biden and Mr. Netanyahu should do everything they can to reaffirm that commitment.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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      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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      Netanyahu Cabinet Choice Has Criminal Convictions, Delaying a Government

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      Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc won Israel’s general election last month. But several issues, including his cabinet choices, have complicated the forming of his government.JERUSALEM — Benjamin Netanyahu, struggling for more than a month to form a coalition government, on Friday was granted another 10 days to do so. But his hopes rest on a contentious quest: shepherding in a new law that would allow convicted criminals who have suspended jail terms to serve in his cabinet.The latest development shows the precariousness of the task ahead for the former Israeli prime minister — who himself faces prosecution. The proposed new law would allow Aryeh Deri — a key Netanyahu ally recently convicted of tax fraud — to hold three ministerial positions, including the important position of interior minister. That would pave the way for Mr. Netanyahu to finally form the government.With a Sunday deadline to form a new government drawing closer, Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, agreed to Mr. Netanyahu’s request for extra time to complete his coalition negotiations.Analysts still reckon Mr. Netanyahu is almost certain to return to power: He has sealed initial agreements with most of the far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties in his bloc, edging him closer to forming the most right-wing government in Israeli history.But the standoff illustrates why Mr. Netanyahu’s critics construe his return as a threat to Israel’s rule of law. His political partners have announced plans to weaken Israel’s system of checks and balances and to derail Mr. Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial.Mr. Netanyahu is set to miss a deadline on Sunday to form his new government.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu has repeatedly pledged to restrain his partners and denied any plans to disrupt his prosecution in a long-running corruption case. But the context to the extension to the negotiating period, coupled with the appointments he has already made, have exacerbated fears over his attitude to the judiciary and legal norms.The extra 10 days he has been given to complete a coalition are expected to give Mr. Netanyahu’s allies enough to time to install a new speaker of Parliament — a move that would let Mr. Netanyahu control the parliamentary process without formally leading the government.This would allow his bloc to overturn legislation that makes it difficult for Mr. Deri — whom Mr. Netanyahu has agreed to appoint concurrently to the interior and health ministries, as well as to the finance ministry in two years’ time — to enter ministerial office given his criminal record.Mr. Deri, a veteran ultra-Orthodox lawmaker who has previously served in the cabinet, was recently given a suspended prison sentence for failing to declare all his income. According to a recent interpretation of the law by Israel’s attorney general, that prevents Mr. Deri from serving as a minister without special dispensation from the elections authority. He also served nearly two years in prison in the early 2000s after being convicted on charges of taking bribes during his time as interior minister, but that no longer officially disqualifies him from office.What to Know About Israel’s Latest ElectionThe country held its fifth election in less than four years on Nov. 1.Netanyahu’s Return: Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s opposition leader, is set to return to power with a new, far-right coalition that will once again make him prime minister.The Far Right’s Rise: To win the election, Mr. Netanyahu and his far-right allies harnessed perceived threats to Israel’s Jewish identity.What’s Next for the Left?: After a near wipeout, the leaders of Israel’s left-leaning parties say they need to change — but disagree on how.Worries Among Palestinians: To some Palestinians, the rise of Israel’s far right can scarcely make things worse. But many fear a surge of violence.To exempt Mr. Deri, his party has drafted legislation to remove that restriction. On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc is expected to install a right-wing speaker who could help smooth the legislation’s passage through Parliament — alarming Mr. Netanyahu’s critics.“The goal of this entire move is to help an elected official to escape justice,” Gilad Kariv, a center-left lawmaker from the departing governing coalition, said in Parliament this week. “The future coalition is a coalition of liars who don’t believe one another,” Mr. Kariv added.Such talk has enraged Mr. Netanyahu’s allies.Mr. Netanyahu has offered so many positions to rival party leaders that he also needs more time to find suitable roles for allies in his own party, Likud. Ronen Zvulun/Reuters“These are venomous statements,” replied Yoav Kisch, a lawmaker from Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing party, Likud. The planned legislation is not aimed at any politician in particular and is instead a fair attempt “to rectify the current reality of lack of legal clarity in the appointment of ministers,” Mr. Kisch added.Before a government can be formed, the new speaker will also need to facilitate a parliamentary vote that would give another ministerial nominee greater control over Israel’s security apparatus.Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right extremist convicted of support for a terrorist group and incitement to racism, has agreed to join Mr. Netanyahu’s government on condition of being made minister for national security — a new role created specifically for Mr. Ben-Gvir that would give him expanded oversight over the police.Though Mr. Ben-Gvir also has a history of criminal convictions, his appointment does not require any change to the legislation that governs ministerial appointments because, unlike Mr. Deri, his convictions occurred more than seven years ago. Instead, the powers he seeks over the police force are so wide-ranging that his role must be ratified by Parliament before Mr. Netanyahu can complete his coalition.The far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir after elections in November.Oren Ziv/Associated PressMr. Netanyahu has offered so many positions to rival party leaders that he also needs more time to find suitable roles for allies in his own party, Likud. Analysts say that much of the next 10 days will also be spent scrambling to stem internal dissent among senior Likud figures, some of whom are set to miss out on appointments to the remaining cabinet posts.Mr. Netanyahu’s negotiations have also been slowed by a dispute with another far-right leader, Bezalel Smotrich.A pro-settlement leader who seeks to annex the West Bank to Israel, Mr. Smotrich initially sought to head the defense ministry, a powerful role that would have given him control of the West Bank occupation. After veiled discomfort was voiced by U.S. officials, who feared such an appointment would mark a final death knell for the concept of a Palestinian state, Mr. Netanyahu declined Mr. Smotrich’s request.But following days of negotiations, Mr. Netanyahu did give Mr. Smotrich’s party control over a defense ministry department that oversees aspects of the occupation, like the process by which Israel issues work permits to Palestinians, and created a job-share mechanism in the interior and finance ministries to allow Mr. Smotrich to take on both roles in tandem with Mr. Deri.The far-right lawmaker Bezalel Smotrich during a rally with supporters in the southern Israeli city of Sderot.Gil Cohen-Magen/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Netanyahu’s willingness to slice up ministries in this way, either by creating job-shares or moving departments from one ministry to another, has prompted concerns that his government, though more ideologically homogeneous than most Israeli governments, will struggle to function coherently.“The education ministry, which is far more important than the foreign ministry, was broken down into four or five different components,” Ben Caspit, a prominent columnist, wrote in Ma’ariv, an Israeli broadsheet, on Friday.“The health ministry was given to Aryeh Deri as a side job,” Mr. Caspit said. “Several powers and sensitive positions have been wrested from the defense ministry for the first time in history. Two ministers who are diametrically opposed to one another will alternate as finance minister.”“Good luck to all of us,” Mr. Caspit added.The departing prime minister, Yair Lapid, wrote in a Facebook post on Friday that Mr. Netanyahu’s recent decisions had left him “weak, squeezed by younger and more determined partners.”Yair Lapid, the departing prime minister, said that Mr. Netanyahu’s far-right bloc is creating a “structure that will be impossible to govern.”Pool photo by Menahem KahanaMr. Lapid added: “They are creating an administrative structure that will be impossible to govern. Likud has become a junior partner in its own government, Netanyahu is at the peak of his weakness, and the extremists are pushing the system into delusional places.”Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly batted away similar criticism in recent weeks, promising that he will personally act as a moderating force on any extreme elements in his coalition.“The main policy or the overriding policy of the government is determined by the Likud and frankly, by me,” Mr. Netanyahu said in an interview last month with Bari Weiss, an American podcaster and commentator.During his previous spells in power, critics often made “these doom projections, but none of them materialized,” he added.“I maintained Israel’s democratic nature,” Mr. Netanyahu said. “I maintained Israel’s traditions.”Jonathan Rosen and Hiba Yazbek contributed reporting. More

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      Naftali Bennett on Being Israel’s Prime Minister

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      A year and a half ago, I made a difficult decision: to break from my political base and form a government with people I couldn’t have imagined working with in my wildest dreams.Israel was at one of its lowest moments, polarized and paralyzed: four rounds of elections in two years, massive riots in Arab and mixed towns, and killings of Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs, plus hundreds injured. The Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas had just shot rockets into Jerusalem after the annual Flag Parade in the Old City.We had near-record unemployment and an unprecedented deficit. We hadn’t passed a budget for three years. Benjamin Netanyahu had failed to form a government, and we were just days away from another round of elections and full-blown chaos.I vividly recall the moment, a Sabbath morning, when I made the decision. I asked my four children to join my wife, Gilat, and me in the kitchen. I told my family, “Your abba is about to attempt something, and I don’t even know if I’ll succeed. A lot of people — including friends — will say a lot of bad stuff about your abba. So I want you to know that I’m doing it for Israel’s sake.”An unrelenting propaganda campaign run by the opposition over social and traditional media tried to break me and my party, Yamina. The pressure worked. Just days before the critical vote, a member of my party bolted. As a result, we were down to the bare minimum necessary to form a new government.On June 13, 2021, the Knesset voted to establish the new government with a majority of 60 votes, with 59 opposing votes and one abstention. At that moment, I became the prime minister of the most diverse government in Israel’s history. Right and left, religious and secular, Jews and Arabs, all working together.We passed a reform-packed budget, brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis back to work and reduced the ballooning deficit to nearly zero. We delivered the quietest year in decades to rocket-battered southern communities close to the Gaza Strip. We blocked a dangerous nuclear agreement with Iran that would have, according to our calculations, poured over $200 billion into the terrorist regime’s coffers while barely restraining its nuclear enrichment abilities. We achieved this while maintaining strong bipartisan support in the United States. And we became the first nation to distribute the third Covid booster shot, paving the way for the rest of the world.How did we do it?I established the 70/70 rule.About 70 percent of Israelis agree on 70 percent of the issues. We all agree that we need better trains and roads, better education, more security and a lower cost of living. However, we disagree on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, religion and state and the desired nature of our legal system.So my government focused on getting the 70 percent done, as opposed to endlessly wrangling over the issues we didn’t agree on. We all agreed that this government will neither insist on Israeli sovereignty for territories nor hand them over to Palestinians. Similarly, we decided we would not legislate on any disputed religious or legal matters.When you neutralize the most politically sensitive issues, ministers from left and right saw each other as decent people working for the good of Israel and not as the demons we had been calling each other.We called ourselves a good-will government. We proved to ourselves and to those outside our coalition that people with radically different political opinions can work incredibly well together. The world is more polarized than ever. The model we presented was one of cooperation and unity. Of transcending your tribe for the good of your nation.Take Mansour Abbas, the leader of the Arab Raam party. The first time I met him was during the weeks before we formed the government.Mr. Netanyahu had been secretly meeting Mr. Abbas in his attempts to form a coalition. Before I met Mr. Abbas, I had a negative opinion of him. I thought he supported terrorism. I heard from many that this wasn’t true. They told me he was genuinely trying to create a pragmatic model for Israeli Arabs.I called him and invited him to a meeting.“Which secret apartment should we meet at?” Mr. Abbas asked me. He was used to huddling with people in secret, as they didn’t want their discussions to be discovered.“We’re going to meet openly at my Knesset office,” I replied. “You are not second-class. I am not ashamed to meet you.”I discovered a brave leader just about my age who turned out to be something of a mensch. We are both men of faith and quickly agreed that whatever theological disagreements may exist between Judaism and Islam, we will let God handle those. We will work together here and now to provide better education, better jobs and safer streets for Israelis and Arabs.After a year of progress, my government collapsed amid nonstop pressure from public protests and on social networks. Arab parliamentarians who joined my coalition in order to improve the socioeconomic future of Israeli Arabs were called traitors in their hometowns, as were members of Yamina in their communities.Organized groups set up tents just meters from the homes of these members of Knesset, relentlessly harassing their families for months, calling them terrorist lovers. One of my party members reported that her husband’s job was at risk and her children were being threatened at school.At the same time, Israel incurred a series of Palestinian terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv and other major cities, taking the lives of about 20 people. The opposition claimed that this was a result of the government’s hands being tied by the Raam Arab party. This is false, given that we’ve seen terrorist attacks in the land for over 100 years and my government was actually tougher than usual on the terrorists.As a consequence, the Raam Arab party suspended its membership in the government. An Arab member of the Knesset from the Meretz party temporarily quit as well. A few members of my party, too, stopped supporting the coalition.My government did a poor job fending off the enormous amount of misinformation that was being spread across Israel and blind sectarianism. This campaign succeeded and brought my government to its end.A new government is now being formed in Israel, and I hope its leaders understand that the single biggest challenge for Israel is keeping all parts of Israeli society together.The State of Israel is the third instance of a Jewish political entity in the Holy Land. During the time of the First and Second Temples, we managed to keep our nation together for only about 80 years, after which internal divisions tore us apart and we ultimately lost our independence. Israel is now in its 75th year. This is our third chance, and we’re determined that this time, we succeed.Though my government operated for only a year, I believe we imprinted a unique image and model of how a highly polarized society can cooperate.That beautiful image, once engraved in hearts and minds, cannot be easily erased.Naftali Bennett was the 13th prime minister of Israel.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 Thursday Briefing: Bombs Kill a Teenager in Jerusalem

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      Plus: Blackouts in Ukraine, Japan’s soccer triumph and an A.I. Thanksgiving menu.Aryeh Schupak, a 15-year-old yeshiva student, was killed in the bombings.Mahmoud Illean/Associated PressBombs explode in JerusalemTwo blasts in Jerusalem yesterday killed a 15-year-old and wounded at least 18 other people. They were the first bomb attacks on Israeli civilians since 2016.The bombs, which detonated at bus stops during the morning rush hour, prompted calls by far-right leaders for the swift formation of a new government that would be tougher on terrorism. Benjamin Netanyahu, who is likely to become the prime minister again, is trying to form Israel’s most right-wing government ever.The blasts were just the latest episode in the deadliest wave of violence to sweep Israel and the occupied West Bank since 2015.Overnight, a Palestinian teenager died during a West Bank firefight between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants. This week, the body of an abducted Israeli teenager was being held. He was taken by Palestinian gunmen from a West Bank intensive care unit; his family insisted that he was alive at the time of the kidnapping and later died. And last week, a Palestinian killed three Israelis at a settlement.Comparison: The bombs were smaller and less sophisticated than those used in attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis during a Palestinian uprising two decades ago. But experts said they departed from recent “lone wolf” episodes.Context: This wave of violence began when Arab assailants killed 19 people in five attacks this spring. The Israeli Army then intensified its raids on West Bank militants, which have left more than 100 Palestinians dead and prompted another surge of Palestinian militancy.West Bank: Rising violence by settlers against Palestinians, coupled with Israeli efforts to evict more than 1,000 Palestinians from their homes, has also compounded Palestinian anger.Ukraine said that Russia launched about 70 cruise missiles. Brendan Hoffman for The New York TimesPower outages blanket UkraineMuch of Ukraine is without electricity after a new wave of Russian strikes targeted critical infrastructure. At least 10 people were killed, including a newborn who died after a Russian rocket hit a maternity ward in the south.The barrage of Russian missiles appeared to be one of the most damaging attacks in weeks, and left Kyiv and other cities without power. Power was also cut in Moldova, whose Soviet-era electricity system is entwined with Ukraine’s system. Three Ukrainian nuclear power plants were forced to shut down, the authorities said.The State of the WarDnipro River: A volunteer Ukrainian special forces team has been conducting secret raids under the cover of darkness traveling across the strategic waterway, which has become the dividing line of the southern front.Evacuation Plans: The Ukrainian government is preparing to help evacuate residents from the southern cities of Kherson and Mykolaiv, where shattered infrastructure has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis when winter sets in.A Race to Rebuild: Ukrainian attempts to stabilize some of the country’s battered electricity supply and make a dent in the seemingly endless task of demining swaths of the country offered a glimpse into the Herculean effort that lies ahead off the battlefield.Visual Investigation: Videos circulating on social media have ignited a debate over whether Ukrainian forces committed war crimes or acted in self-defense as they tried to capture a group of Russian soldiers who were then killed. Here’s what we know.What’s next: Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, said the grid was suffering “colossal” damage. He announced a national drive to prepare thousands of makeshift centers to provide basic services in the event of prolonged blackouts, called “Points of Invincibility.”A hazy day in Delhi this month.Money Sharma/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDelhi’s stubbornly toxic airA decade ago, the capitals of Asia’s two largest countries had some of the dirtiest skies in the world.Beijing pressed ahead with a $100 billion effort to clean its air after China’s government declared war against pollution. Now, the city has 100 more days of clear skies each year.But New Delhi still faces acrid, toxic air, as pollution from millions of vehicles and open fires used for heating and cooking fill the skies. This fall, the haze prompted officials to halt truck traffic, close schools and push for remote work.Context: India — a huge, messy democracy — has lacked both political resolve and public pressure, and is less wealthy than China. Indian politicians use the crisis to attack each other instead of trying to find solutions.Voters: Air pollution has been known to kill more Indians than any other risk factor. But voters ranked air quality as their 17th most urgent concern in a 2019 survey, well behind jobs, health care and infrastructure.THE LATEST NEWSU.S. NewsThere was another mass shooting: A Walmart manager killed six people at a store in Virginia yesterday. The gunman was also found dead.In updates from the mass shooting in Colorado, lawyers for the person accused of killing five people at an L.G.B.T.Q. club said their client identifies as nonbinary.Officials said they anticipated a reduced Covid threat in the coming winter months, but urged people to get updated booster shots.The World CupJapan’s goalkeeper, Shuichi Gonda, makes a save.Petr Josek/Associated PressJapan beat Germany, 2-1, in another defeat of a top team. Before the game, Germany’s players protested FIFA’s decision to stop players from wearing rainbow-colored armbands.Spain defeated Costa Rica, 7-0. Croatia tied with Morocco, 0-0.As we send out this newsletter, Belgium is leading Canada in the second half: 1-0. Here are updates.It’s $200 a night to stay in what is essentially a shipping container.“We got here six beers ago.” After Qatar banned the sale of beer in stadiums, British fans found a solution.Around the WorldAn ambulance drives into a police station in Iran.Iran is using ambulances to infiltrate demonstrations and detain protesters.Rescue workers in Indonesia are still searching for survivors of the earthquake on Monday. The death toll rose to 271.Thieves stole nearly 500 ancient gold coins, which could be worth $1.7 million, from a German museum.Science TimesA farm sanctuary is investigating the inner lives of cows, pigs and chickens — but only if the animals volunteer to be studied.Diagnoses of anxiety disorders are rising among children. Some young patients are trying exposure therapy, which makes them face the situations that cause them distress.Comets, which normally fly in from the far reaches of space, appear to be misplaced in the asteroid belt. Why?A Morning ReadLaundrymen take photos for the poster.Rishi ChandnaOur colleagues on the Opinion desk publish short documentaries. I loved this 20-minute video on the way laundrymen in Mumbai, India, use posters, more commonly deployed by political candidates, to advertise their businesses.The film, by Rishi Chandna, is a wry exploration of the ways religion, politics and science intersect in a ubiquitous poster culture. “No matter how much of a big shot you are, or how much clout you wield, without a poster, you don’t exist,” one man said.Lives lived: Hebe de Bonafini became a human rights campaigner when her two sons were arrested and disappeared under Argentina’s military dictatorship. She died at 93.HOLIDAY SPOTLIGHT“Show me a Thanksgiving menu made for me,” Priya Krishna told the A.I.Timothy O’Connell for The New York TimesHappy Thanksgiving from … A.I.?Artificial intelligence can create art, play “Jeopardy!” and make scientific breakthroughs. But how good is it in the kitchen? Priya Krishna, a Times food reporter, gave an A.I. system the ultimate challenge: a Thanksgiving menu.Priya used a neural network called GPT-3. She fed it information about her family background, her favorite ingredients and flavors that she likes.It was … interesting. GPT-3 produced recipes both plausible and intriguing: pumpkin spice chaat, naan stuffing and roasted turkey with a soy-ginger glaze. But the turkey was dry and flavorless (the recipe called for one garlic clove, no butter or oil). And the naan stuffing, Priya writes, “tasted like a chana masala and a fruitcake that had gotten into a bar fight.”“This technology is not a replacement for people, at least so far,” Priya writes. “It can nudge cooks in one direction or another. But it is still humanity — with its intuition, storytelling and warmth — that drives a good recipe.”For more: In a video, Priya cooks the recipes and asks Times cooking columnists to judge.PLAY, WATCH, EATWhat to CookMelina Hammer for The New York TimesCelebrating Thanksgiving? Here are recipes for turkey, gravy, stuffing, green beans and a pumpkin pie, all of which you can make the day you plan to eat them.What to ReadBrowse our annual list of 100 notable books.What to WatchIn “Leonor Will Never Die,” a comatose genre director in the Philippines becomes trapped in one of her own screenplays.HealthIs it safe to whiten your teeth? And which methods work?EmojisAs tech workers get laid off, they’re saluting in solidarity.Now Time to PlayPlay the Mini Crossword, and a clue: In good spirits (five letters).Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.You can find all our puzzles here.That’s it for today’s briefing. See you tomorrow. — AmeliaP.S. The Athletic plans to double its coverage of women’s sports through a partnership with Google.“The Daily” is about cooking the perfect turkey. And “Still Processing” discusses Beyoncé’s latest album.Email us at briefing@nytimes.com. I read every note. More

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      Far Right’s Rise in Israel Driven by Anxiety and Fear

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      To win election, Benjamin Netanyahu and his far-right allies harnessed perceived threats to Israel’s Jewish identity after ethnic unrest last year and the subsequent inclusion of Arab lawmakers in the government.LOD, Israel — The sectarian unrest between Arabs and Jews that swept across Israeli cities in May 2021 helped end Benjamin Netanyahu’s last term in office. Seventeen months later, fallout from that same unrest has helped put him back in power — at the head of one of the most right-wing coalitions Israel has ever known.Last year’s riots, in places like Lod, a central city with a mixed Arab and Jewish population, helped nudge Naftali Bennett — a onetime ally of Mr. Netanyahu — toward breaking ranks. Mr. Bennett ran on the promise of trying to heal Israel’s sectarian divides, and he formed a rival coalition with centrist, leftist and Arab lawmakers that ousted Mr. Netanyahu from office last June.Right-wing Jewish voters this past week punished Mr. Bennett for that decision, which they grew to see as a betrayal of Israel’s Jewish identity. His party suffered a wipeout in the general election on Monday, while support for a more extreme alliance doubled. And it is that far-right alliance, Religious Zionism, that has given back to Mr. Netanyahu his parliamentary majority.“Nobody who voted for Bennett looked at what happened over the last year and thought, ‘Let’s do that again,’” said Noam Dreyfuss, a community organizer in Lod who voted for Mr. Bennett in 2021.“Most of us voted this time for Religious Zionism,” Mr. Dreyfuss said. With Religious Zionism, he added, “What you vote for is what you get.”An event on Friday that was organized by Noam Dreyfuss, a community organizer in Lod who voted for Naftali Bennett in 2021 but for Religious Zionism this year.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesMr. Dreyfuss on Friday in Lod. With Religious Zionism, he said, “What you vote for is what you get.”Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesIsrael’s rightward shift began decades ago and accelerated after the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in the early 2000s. A wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks at the time swayed many Israelis toward the right-wing narrative that Israel had no partner for peace.Israel’s lurch toward the far right in this election, however, was also born from more recent fears about Israel losing its Jewish identity.The 2021 riots occurred against the backdrop of unrest in Jerusalem and the outbreak of war between Israel and Gazan militants. The unrest saw two Arabs and two Jews killed, hundreds injured and thousands arrested, most of them Arabs. Among Arabs, the fallout fueled a sense of discrimination and danger. Among Jews, it fed fears of an enemy within — Israel’s Arab minority, which forms about a fifth of the population of nine million.Ever since, the riots have become a shorthand among some Jews for wider anxiety about other kinds of threats, including deadly attacks on Israelis and unrest in southern Israel this year.The formation of a unity government last summer that included right-wingers like Mr. Bennett as well as Arab Islamists was partly rooted in political pragmatism, but it also aimed to salve the wounds of the riots and encourage greater Jewish-Arab partnership.Yet to many right-wing voters, it was seen as a betrayal. They perceived the coalition’s dependence on Raam, the Arab party that sealed the government’s majority, as a danger to the state’s Jewish character. The efforts by Jewish-led leftist parties in the coalition to secularize aspects of Israeli public life, like permitting public transportation on the Jewish Sabbath, also exacerbated fears that Israel’s Jewishness was under threat.Mr. Netanyahu’s main far-right ally, Itamar Ben-Gvir, campaigned on a promise to tackle perceived lawlessness, end perceived Arab influence on government and strengthen Israel’s Jewish identity.Itamar Ben-Gvir, Mr. Netanyahu’s main far-right ally, during a night walk with supporters last month in Jerusalem.Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York TimesMr. Ben-Gvir’s main campaign slogan asked: “Who’s the landlord here?”Critics of Mr. Ben-Gvir focus on his history of extremism and antagonism toward Arabs.As a young man, he was convicted of racist incitement and support for a terrorist group. He was barred from army service because Israeli officials deemed him too extremist. He was a follower of a rabbi who wanted to strip Arab Israelis of their citizenship. Until 2020, he hung in his home a large photograph of a Jewish extremist who shot dead 29 Palestinians in a West Bank mosque in 1994. Today, he still wants to deport anyone he deems disloyal to Israel.But many of Mr. Ben-Gvir’s new supporters saw someone else: a straight-talker who recognized their anxieties and proposed a response.“People voted for him, not necessarily because they are racists, but because they thought he might be a strong leader that could bring order to the street,” said Shuki Friedman, the vice president of the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group that focuses on Jewish identity.The streets of Lod on Friday. Sectarian unrest swept across Israeli cities, including Lod, last year.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesHussen Shehada, the father of the former Lod city councilor Fida Shehada, picking olives in his garden on Friday in Lod.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesMr. Ben-Gvir’s rise was propelled by Israel’s “general shift to the right, fears over personal security and fears for the Jewish character of the state,” Dr. Friedman said.Among the Palestinian minority, which fears Mr. Ben-Gvir’s rise, the fallout from the riots also prompted electoral consequences in places like Lod.If the riots briefly raised questions for Jewish Israelis about the future of a Jewish homeland, they also left Palestinian Israelis feeling terrified and discriminated against.Nationally, the vast majority of those arrested in the riots were Arabs, leading to accusations of systemic bias.In Lod, a group of Jews accused of killing an Arab resident were quickly released and acquitted, while several Arabs suspected of killing a Jew were detained and charged with murder.In this past week’s election, this sense of disproportion helped bolster Balad, a small Arab party that won three times more votes in Lod than the other Arab-led parties combined. Its leader, Sami Abu Shehadeh, became known for defending the city’s Arab residents in the riots’ aftermath.Ms. Shehada on Friday outside her home in Lod. She voted this past week for Balad, a small Arab party that won three times more votes in Lod than the other Arab-led parties combined.Amit Elkayam for The New York Times“Sami was here with the people after the events of May,” said Fida Shehada, a former Lod city councilor who voted Balad for the first time. “It’s natural for people here to support him.”Known in Arabic as Lydda or Lydd, Lod’s recent tensions exacerbate longstanding Palestinian trauma. During the wars surrounding the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, after local Arabs and their allies refused the partition proposed by the United Nations, many Palestinian residents of the city were expelled and never allowed to return.Mr. Ben-Gvir’s new supporters say they do not necessarily agree with all of his positions.Rinat Mazuz-Bloch, a youth group leader, voted for Mr. Bennett in 2021 and Mr. Ben-Gvir in 2022 — but not out of a desire for revenge.“People didn’t vote Ben-Gvir because we want to hit the Arabs back,” Ms. Mazuz-Bloch said. “They’re here and we need to relate to them.”But, she added, “We have to say out loud that this is a Jewish state.”Rinat Mazuz-Bloch, a youth group leader, on Friday with her family in their home in Lod. She voted for Mr. Bennett in 2021 and Mr. Ben-Gvir in 2022.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesA game of table tennis on Friday in the backyard of Omri Saar, a city councilman for Likud in Lod.Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesMr. Dreyfuss, the community organizer, said that he was not necessarily opposed to Arab participation in government, and that he accepted that Raam, the small Arab party that formed part of the departing government, made a sincere effort to accept Israel’s status as a Jewish state.But Mr. Dreyfuss still believes that an Arab party should not hold the balance of power in the government, as Raam did.“The mistake is to be dependent on them,” he said. “Once you have a majority, then you can add them.”Mr. Ben-Gvir’s success was rooted not only in his hard-line approach to Arabs, but also in his opposition to the departing government’s moves to secularize aspects of Israeli public life. And some simply voted for him to enlarge his party’s presence in Parliament, making it harder for Mr. Netanyahu’s party, Likud, to form an alliance with centrists.“The vote for Religious Zionism was a vote for a clearer and sharper position,” said Omri Saar, a city councilman for Likud in Lod.After Mr. Bennett’s U-turn in 2021, Mr. Saar said, “There’s no doubt many chose a more extreme party than Likud to make sure that their vote would stay in the right-wing camp.”And to Mr. Saar, that was a positive thing, even if it cost Likud a few votes itself. “It’s good that we have someone who can pull us in the right direction,” he said.Religious Zionism posters affixed to a house on Friday in Lod. Amit Elkayam for The New York TimesMr. Dreyfuss, whose organization was subject to an arson attack during the riots, also denied that Mr. Ben-Gvir’s election would be so harmful to Arabs.By cracking down on lawlessness in Arab neighborhoods, Mr. Ben-Gvir would improve the personal safety of any Arab who was not involved in crime, Mr. Dreyfuss said.“Everyone can live here,” Mr. Dreyfuss said.“But they need to remember that we’re the landlords here,” he added.Reporting was contributed by More