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      Netanyahu Outfoxed His Rivals For Years. Here's What Changed.

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      Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel failed to win a majority in the past three elections — but still held onto power. The ground has shifted.JERUSALEM — Naftali Bennett, the leader of a hard-right political party, stood before television cameras and pledged never to share power with Yair Lapid, a centrist, and Mansour Abbas, an Islamist. It was March 22, the day before Israel’s fourth election in two years.Yet late Wednesday night, just 72 days later, there was Mr. Bennett, sitting down beside both Mr. Abbas and Mr. Lapid and signing a deal that, pending a confidence vote in Parliament later this month, would see all three unite in the first government since 2009 that won’t be led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Through three consecutive elections between April 2019 and March 2020, Mr. Netanyahu had kept them all at bay. He may have failed to win an overall majority himself, but he clung to power by exacerbating divisions within Israel’s ideologically diffuse opposition, ensuring that they, too, would fail to build a majority coalition.The question of what changed since a fourth inconclusive election in March — and why — has several answers, both systemic and circumstantial.Mr. Lapid’s dexterity in constructing a somewhat gravity defying coalition has certainly been a factor. But Mr. Netanyahu himself played a crucial role, alienating former far-right allies and causing concern with his refusal to step down while facing trial on corruption charges. Yair Lapid, the centrist architect of the deal, in Tel Aviv last month.Oded Balilty/Associated PressThe reasons are also rooted in a combination of personal and political judgments by nationalist power brokers like Mr. Bennett. Even if Mr. Bennett had stuck by Mr. Netanyahu, his support would not have been enough to give Mr. Netanyahu a majority. That meant that Mr. Bennett was left with either joining the opposition or sending Israel to a fifth election in little more than two years — a vote that some analysts predict would deal a serious blow to his party.Hard-right parties have also been tempted by the prospect of senior positions within a new government; Mr. Bennett will be the prime minister, despite leading a party with only seven seats in the 120-seat Parliament.“There is a mix of national duty, and also political and sometimes personal considerations,” said Dani Dayan, a former Israeli ambassador who ran unsuccessfully in the election for New Hope, a hard-right party led by former allies of Mr. Netanyahu, that is part of the new coalition. “You know, politics is not always free of cynical considerations.”But right-wing leaders have also made patriotic arguments for finally replacing Mr. Netanyahu. In the face of sustained intimidation and anger from their base, they have said that they have a responsibility to work with their ideological opposites in order to wrest Israel from a cycle of endless elections and entropy. The country has suffered in a limbo that has left Israelis without a state budget for almost two years, and with several crucial civil service positions unfilled.Sitting in her office in Parliament this week, Idit Silman, a lawmaker from Mr. Bennett’s party, flicked through hundreds of recent text messages from unknown numbers.Some were laced with abusive language. Some warned she was going to hell. All of them demanded that her party abandon the coalition, accusing her of giving up her ideals by allying with leftists, centrists and Islamists to oust Mr. Netanyahu.And it has not just come by phone.When Ms. Silman turned up at her local synagogue recently, she found several professionally designed posters outside, each with her portrait overlaid with the slogan: “Idit Silman stitched together a government with terror supporters.”For days, protesters have also picketed her home, shouted abuse at her children and trailed her by car in a menacing fashion, she said.Right-wing protesters rallying in Tel Aviv on Thursday against the formation of a new government. A sign reads: “Don’t give your hand to a left-wing government.”Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressOn a personal level, it would be easier to pull out of the coalition, Ms. Silman said. But she felt it was patriotic to remain within it.“I’m sure that we are doing something that is very important for our country,” she said.The level of aggression directed at Ms. Silman and her allies on the right highlighted how Mr. Netanyahu has very much not given up hope of remaining in office, and could still ward off this challenge to his leadership.Part of the anger is organic. But part of it has been encouraged by Mr. Netanyahu and members of the Likud party themselves. On Thursday, Likud tweeted the home address of Ayelet Shaked, a leading member of Mr. Bennett’s party, Yamina, and encouraged its supporters to protest outside.Likud members themselves acknowledge that the aim is to persuade enough members of the coalition to abandon it before the confidence vote in Parliament.“Behind the scenes,” said a senior Likud official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, “the Likud party is ramping up the pressure, particularly on the weakest links.”The pressure was already taking hold on Thursday, as an official from the Yamina party said that one of its seven lawmakers, Nir Orbach, had asked for his signature to be removed from the list of those seeking to replace the speaker of Parliament, a Likud member, with a member of the new coalition. That decision could allow the speaker, Yariv Levin, to remain in his position, which will allow Likud to control parliamentary proceedings throughout the crucial next week, and potentially delay the confidence vote on the new government until Monday, June 14.Once the opposition’s full agreements are disclosed publicly, Likud will also create another obstacle by subjecting them to legal scrutiny and potentially to legal challenge, said Miki Zohar, chairman of the Likud parliamentary faction.Yariv Levin, Israel’s parliament speaker, remains in office for now.Pool photo by Alex KolomoiskyFew in the hard-right might have countenanced working with leftist, centrist and Islamist lawmakers without the diplomacy of Mr. Lapid, the linchpin of the coalition negotiations.While Mr. Bennett will be the formal leader of the coalition, it could not have been formed without Mr. Lapid, who has spent months cajoling its various incompatible components toward an 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a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}To secure Mr. Bennett’s involvement, Mr. Lapid even gave him first go at the premiership, even though Mr. Lapid’s party won 10 more seats than Mr. Bennett’s.“Lapid gets the most credit here out of everyone,” said Mitchell Barak, a political analyst and pollster. “He’s really pulling all the strings here, and he’s the one who’s compromised, personally, many times.”But for some, the real architect of Mr. Netanyahu’s potential downfall is Mr. Netanyahu himself.Three of the eight parties in the new coalition are led by hard-right lawmakers who were once key allies of the prime minister. Two of them — Mr. Bennett and Avigdor Liberman — were even chiefs of staff to Mr. Netanyahu.A third, Gideon Saar, is a former senior Likud member who left the party following prolonged disagreements with Mr. Netanyahu last year. Mr. Saar took with him a small but pivotal number of Likud voters — winning just six seats in the recent election, but enough to prevent Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc from winning a majority.Mr. Bennett and Mr. Liberman fell out with Mr. Netanyahu for personal reasons, but Mr. Saar left in protest at the prime minister’s refusal to step down despite standing trial on corruption charges.“If you look at Netanyahu’s greatest nemeses in this whole thing, they are people that worked for him,” one former aide said.Alex Wong/Getty Images“If you look at Netanyahu’s greatest nemeses in this whole thing, they are people that worked for him,” said Mr. Barak, himself a former aide to Mr. Netanyahu who parted ways in the 1990s. “It’s not just the public who are tired,” he said. “It’s people that worked for him who are tired.”And it was Mr. Netanyahu who made other political factions feel it was acceptable to work with Arab politicians like Mansour Abbas, the Islamist leader, without whom the coalition could not have been formed.For years, parties run by Palestinian citizens of Israel, and their constituents, were seen as unworthy and untrustworthy partners by the Jewish political establishment.In 2015, Mr. Netanyahu cited the threat of relatively high Arab turnout to scare his base into voting. And in 2020, he goaded a centrist rival, Benny Gantz, into refusing to form a government based on the support of Arab parties, painting them as extremists.But desperate for votes during the election campaign in March, Mr. Netanyahu changed course, vigorously campaigning in Arab towns.That has given hard-right politicians like Mr. Bennett, who never previously considered allying with Arab lawmakers, the political cover to join forces with them, said Ofer Zalzberg, director of the Middle East Program at the Herbert C. Kelman Institute, a Jerusalem-based research group.“A certain taboo is broken” that will have long-term consequences, Mr. Zalzberg said. “It will be very difficult to backpedal from that. And it opens the door for new scenarios of Israeli coalition building in the future.”Irit Pazner Garshowitz and Isabel Kershner contributed reporting. More

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      in Elections

      If Netanyahu Goes, Israel's New Prime Minister Faces a Big Mess

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      After four election cycles, two years and one man in power since 2009, Israel appears to be on the brink of change. On Wednesday evening, eight wildly ideologically different political parties announced that they would establish a coalition, aligning behind Yair Lapid of the centrist party Yesh Atid (“There Is a Future”) and Naftali Bennett — a former leader of a council of West Bank settlers — of the nationalist party Yamina (“Rightward”) to remove longtime Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.But the new government is not yet a reality. The coalition still faces procedural and political hurdles. Ideological differences nearly killed the coalition in the negotiation stage. Mr. Netanyahu reportedly has no plans to resign and has big plans to sabotage his opponents.Despite all these vulnerabilities, Israel has the first chance in 12 years at a transition of power. And even if the new government has a short life expectancy, it must not settle for limited policies. New leadership means bold vision on the toughest issues in Israel. If it doesn’t provide a substantive vision behind the “anti-Bibi” brand, voters in the next elections, sooner or later, might decide there truly is no alternative.Three guiding values would lead Israel toward genuine change — not only a break from Netanyahu’s leadership, which Mr. Bennett recently described as being “dictated by personal and political considerations” while “creating a smoke screen of personality worship,” but also a new path for the future. To get there, this government must shun a nationalist, illiberal governing style, re-embrace democratic norms and articulate a policy to end the occupation.Setting out these values at the start is the new coalition’s most urgent task. The precarious government will struggle against time and tension to carry out policy — at the very least, it needs a vision.Most immediately, the new government must make a clean break from the divisive rhetoric that Mr. Netanyahu used to poison Israeli society. It won’t be easy. Mr. Bennett, who is designated to serve as the first prime minister in a rotation agreement with Mr. Lapid, and Ayelet Shaked, No. 2 in Mr. Bennett’s party, have been key actors in Israel’s far-right nationalist politics, as was Avigdor Lieberman, another coalition partner.But when Mr. Bennett announced his intentions to join Mr. Lapid’s government on Sunday, he spoke of unity and friendship, team spirit and compromises. For his part, Mr. Lapid has consistently projected calm and conciliation since receiving the mandate to form a government.Reconstituting Israeli leadership is not just about words, but also about Israel’s global orientation. Which leaders does Israel cultivate? Mr. Netanyahu courted the world’s authoritarians and ultranationalists, like Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Viktor Orban of Hungary, Donald Trump and Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan. A “change” government should ally with leaders who favor pragmatism and reason — like Joe Biden, Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and Jacinda Ardern.Reversing the illiberal nationalism that thrived under Netanyahu is merely the first step to stanch the bleeding of Israeli democracy. The new government must also embrace democratic values and institutions. But that requires this hodgepodge of ideological bedfellows to actually agree on what those democratic values are.Israel’s democratic erosion has involved numerous aspects, including the passage of undemocratic legislation such as the nation-state law, a law legitimizing de facto housing discrimination, as well as a law to curtail public calls for boycott and one restricting free speech. Even the right-wing parties in the new government can, and must, refrain from this type of legislation. Ending incitement against Palestinian citizens in Israel, such as Mr. Netanyahu’s 2019 accusations that Arab Knesset members are terror supporters who want to destroy Israel, would be one step toward healing democracy.More complex for this government will be defending democratic checks and balances, particularly the independence of the Israeli judiciary. The farthest-right coalition leaders — mainly Ms. Shaked and Mr. Bennett — have made attacks on the Israeli judiciary central to their political mission in recent years. Gideon Saar, now slated to be justice minister, has demanded judicial reforms in line with their views.But Israel’s democracy is ailing not because the judiciary has overstepped its bounds, as the right wing argues. The problem with Israeli democracy is its refusal to define what Israel is: a theocracy, an aspiring democracy or an occupying power. All of which means nothing can be clarified if the government fails to address a third core issue: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Israel’s identity and democracy have been ambiguous since the birth of the state. But from 1967, the fog of Israel’s intentions regarding the occupied Palestinian territories became a scourge.Gershom Gorenberg’s classic book “The Accidental Empire” documents Prime Minister Levi Eshkol’s striking ambiguity about how much he would tolerate, or support, the settlement project at first. (He eventually did.) The country developed a long tradition of obfuscating its ultimate aim for the fate of those territories. Mr. Netanyahu was no different; in 2009 he announced support for a muddled vision for two states, then worked for years against such a solution, ultimately campaigning for West Bank annexation from 2019 to 2020, only to drop the plan when it no longer served him politically. Meanwhile the occupation deepens, Palestinian independence disintegrates, and the consequences accelerate: In March, the International Criminal Court announced it would be investigating Israel and Palestinian militant groups for possible war crimes; foreign and domestic human rights groups have charged the country with apartheid. A fresh conflict exploded just weeks ago, sparking shocking ethnic violence among Israel’s own citizens.Neither of the first two aims — ending illiberal nationalism, nor strengthening democracy — can happen without a vision of how to end occupation. And there are only two real routes.One option is to revive the commitment toward a two-state solution — preferably in the updated, more humane form of a two-state confederation based on open borders and cooperation rather than hard ethnic partition. The other is to acknowledge the reality of permanent Israeli control and begin handing out full rights to all people under Israel’s control, equally, by law.Here the future coalition can easily run aground, with two right-wing parties — Yamina and New Hope — that broadly reject either approach. But these two parties hold just 13 seats out of 61 in the coalition. Yair Lapid heads the largest party in the new government, which he created. He needs to push this new government to set a new course on ending the conflicts.Without a permanent government, budget or substantive lawmaking on large-scale policy for two years, the country is at a standstill. The escalation with Hamas may flare again. Israel’s election nightmare has been a manifestation of the country’s deepest disagreements. If the new leaders are serious about their promised “change coalition,” they need to start with a vision even if they don’t complete the job.After all, Moses didn’t enter the promised land either, but at least he showed the way.Dahlia Scheindlin is a political analyst living in Tel Aviv and a policy fellow at the Century Foundation.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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      in Elections

      As Israelis Await Netanyahu’s Fate, Palestinians Seize a Moment of Unity

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      Seeing little hope for major change from a new Israeli government, Palestinians are focused on an internal generational shift toward a campaign for rights and justice.JERUSALEM — When Israelis opened their newspapers and news websites on Tuesday, they encountered a barrage of reports and commentary about the possible downfall of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving leader.When Palestinians in the occupied West Bank unfolded the territory’s highest-circulation broadsheet, Al-Quds, they found no mention about Mr. Netanyahu’s fate until Page 7.Mr. Netanyahu’s political future hung in the balance on Tuesday night, as opposition leaders struggled to agree on a fragile coalition government that would finally remove him from office for the first time in 12 years. The deadlock set the stage for a dramatic last day of negotiations, which the opposition must conclude by Wednesday at midnight or risk sending the country to another round of early elections.To Israelis, Mr. Netanyahu’s possible departure constitutes an epochal moment — the toppling of a man who has left a deeper imprint on Israeli society than most other politicians in Israeli history.But for many Palestinians, his putative removal has prompted little more than a shrug and a resurgence of bitter memories.During his current 12-year term, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process fizzled, as both Israeli and Palestinian leaderships accused each other of obstructing the process, and Mr. Netanyahu expressed increasing ambivalence about the possibility of a sovereign Palestinian state.But to many Palestinians, his likely replacement as prime minister, Naftali Bennett, would be no improvement. Mr. Bennett is Mr. Netanyahu’s former chief of staff, and a former settler leader who outright rejects Palestinian statehood.Instead, many Palestinians are consumed by their own political moment, which some activists and campaigners have framed as the most pivotal in decades.The Palestinian polity has long been physically and politically fragmented between the American-backed Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank; its archrival, Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza; a Palestinian minority inside Israel whose votes have increasingly counted for making or breaking an Israeli government; and a sprawling diaspora.Yet alongside last month’s deadly 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and the worst bout of intercommunal Arab-Jewish violence to have convulsed Israel in decades, these disparate parts suddenly came together in a seemingly leaderless eruption of shared identity and purpose.In a rare display of unity, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians observed a general strike on May 12 across Gaza, the West Bank, the refugee camps of Lebanon and inside Israel itself.“I don’t think whoever is in charge in Israel will make a great deal of difference to the Palestinians,” said Ahmad Aweidah, the former head of the Palestinian stock exchange. “There might be slight differences and nuances but all mainstream Israeli parties, with slight exceptions on the extreme left, share pretty much the same ideology.”But the strike in mid-May, Mr. Aweidah said, “showed that we are united no matter what the Israelis have tried to do for 73 years, categorizing us into Israeli Arabs, West Bankers, Jerusalemites, Gazans, refugees and diaspora. None of that has worked. We are back to square one.”A pro-Palestinian rally last week in the Queens borough of New York City.Stephanie Keith/Getty ImagesThe hard-right presence within the would-be Israeli coalition — a fragile marriage between up to seven poorly compatible parties — is hardly reassuring, said Ahmad Majdalani, a minister in the Palestinian Authority, which exerts limited autonomy in slightly less than 40 percent of the occupied West Bank.“But there are other forces and parties who have compromise programs,” Mr. Majdalani said. “We will see what happens. We do not want to prejudge, and we will decide how we will deal with this government after we see its program.”Among the Arab minority in Israel, many of whom define themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel, the prospect of a new government has divided opinion. While the government would be led by Mr. Bennett, and packed with lawmakers who oppose a Palestinian state, some hoped the presence of three centrist and leftist parties in the coalition, coupled with the likely tacit support of Raam, an Arab Islamist party, might moderate Mr. Bennett’s approach.“It’s complicated,” said Basha’er Fahoum-Jayoussi, the co-chairwoman of the board of the Abraham Initiatives, a nongovernmental group that promotes equality between Arabs and Jews. “There are cons and pros. The biggest pro is getting rid of Netanyahu. But it’s a huge bullet to bite in order to achieve that.”The cabinet is expected to include at least one Arab, Esawi Frej, of the left-wing Meretz party. Raam’s leader, Mansour Abbas, has said he will support the new government only if it grants more resources and attention to the Arab minority. And the likely appointment of a center-left minister to oversee the police force might encourage officers to take a more restrained approach to Palestinians in East Jerusalem, where clashes between the police and protesters played a major role in the buildup to the recent war in Gaza.But others doubted much could be achieved in that regard.“It doesn’t matter who the minister for police is,” said Sawsan Zaher, the deputy general director of Adalah, a campaign group that promotes minority rights in Israel. Police behavior is “embedded within the police as an institution, and not a decision by Minister X or Minister Y.”Palestinian Muslim worshipers praying outside Damascus Gate at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in 2017, as they protested the metal detectors placed at the entrances to the mosque.Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOf far more consequence for many Palestinians inside and outside Israel is a generational shift within Palestinian society, which has posed a new challenge to an already weak and divided Palestinian old guard and jolted the traditional paradigms of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Among younger Palestinians, the discourse has changed from discussion of possible borders of a putative Palestinian ministate bordering Israel, which few now believe will come about, to a broad and loose agenda for the pursuit of rights, freedom and justice inside both the occupied territories and Israel itself.“I think the key to what has changed is Palestinian agency,” said Fadi Quran, campaigns director at Avaaz, a nonprofit that promotes people-powered change, and a West Bank-based community organizer.“In the past, when Palestinians were interviewed on television, the key line was ‘When is the international community coming in to save us, when will Israel be held accountable, or when will the Arab countries come and rescue us?’” Mr. Quran said. “Now the discourse of the young is, ‘We’ve got this, basically. We can do it together.’”The generational shift is partly a response to the failures of the Palestinian old guard to make good on the promise of the 1990s, when the signing of diplomatic agreements known as the Oslo Accords appeared to put a Palestinian state within reach. But Palestinian and Israeli negotiators failed to seal a final deal, and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, once considered temporary, is now more than a half-century old.In recent years, Palestinian gloom deepened because of the policies of the Trump administration, which favored Israel and helped entrench its hold.Mr. Trump’s administration helped broker a series of historic normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco, which bypassed the Palestinians and ruptured decades of professed Arab unity around the Palestinian cause.Inside Israel, Arab citizens, who make up a fifth of the population, have suffered decades of neglect and discrimination in state budgets and housing and land policies. They were further humiliated by the passage of an incendiary Nation State Law in 2018 that enshrined the right of national self-determination as being “unique to the Jewish people,” rather than to all Israeli citizens, and downgrading Arabic from an official language to one with a special status.More recently, far-rightists entered Israel’s Parliament with the help of Mr. Netanyahu, who had legitimized them as potential coalition partners.The Palestinians have been aided by the international awakening and momentum of movements like Black Lives Matter, speaking the language of rights and historical justice, according to experts.Torah scrolls, on which Jewish holy scriptures are written, are removed from a synagogue that was torched during a spasm of intercommunal violence between Arabs and Jews in the Israeli city of Lod, on May 12.Ronen Zvulun/ReutersAt the same time, the official Palestinian structures have been crumbling. The once monolithic Fatah party led by the founders of the Palestinian national cause, and the dominant force in the Palestinian Authority, splintered into three competing factions ahead of a long-awaited Palestinian general election that had been scheduled for May 22.In a measure of the popular excitement about what would have been the first ballot in the occupied territories since 2006, more than 93 percent of eligible Palestinians had registered to vote, and 36 parties with about 1,400 candidates planned to compete for 132 seats in the Palestinian assembly. Nearly 40 percent of the candidates were 40 or younger, according to the Palestinian Central Elections Commission.Then Mr. Abbas postponed the election indefinitely, depriving the Palestinians of expressing their democratic choice.All this helped spur a wave of grass roots protests in East Jerusalem that grabbed world attention, the general strike by Palestinians across the region and a burst of online support from international celebrities.Some analysts say they doubt that this recent flash of Palestinian unity will have any immediate, profound impact on the Palestinian reality. But others argue that after years of stagnation, the Palestinian cause is back with a new sense of energy, connectivity, solidarity and activism.The events of the last few weeks were “like an earthquake,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a seasoned Palestinian leader and former senior official. “We are part of the global conversation on rights, justice, freedom, and Israel cannot close it down or censor it.” More

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      in World Politics

      It’s All About Al-Aqsa

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      AP journalist Joseph Krauss reports that “Israeli police escorted more than 250 Jewish visitors Sunday to a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem.” That flashpoint was the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the scene of clashes initiated by Israeli police that earlier this month helped trigger an 11-day war.

      Considered the third holiest site in the world by Muslims after Mecca and Medina, Al-Aqsa was originally built a little over 1,400 years ago. Buffeted by earthquakes throughout its history, it was repeatedly restored. It remains an important symbol linked to the narrative of the life of Prophet Muhammad. After the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, the Israelis agreed to maintain it as a place of Muslim worship, but the authorities today claim the right to monitor and restrict access to the compound.

      The Future of Jerusalem Matters to Us All

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      The Israeli raid inside the Al-Aqsa compound on May 7 and a campaign of expulsions of Palestinian inhabitants of East Jerusalem were the twin precipitating causes of the latest conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The symbolic significance of the attack on Al-Aqsa became immediately clear across the Arab and Muslim world, recently reputed by pundits and politicians to have become indifferent to the plight of the Palestinians. 

      The mystique surrounding former US President Donald Trump’s celebrated Abraham Accords in August 2020 — touted as a “strategic realignment” generously amplified by the media — led many to believe that Arab solidarity with the Palestinians was a thing of the past. The oil-rich nations of the Middle East — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and even Saudi Arabia — were deemed to be looking at a future of normalized relations with Israel. For most observers, that implied their silent acceptance of pariah status for Palestinians in the Jewish state.

      The armed struggle this month has had its own effect of amplification. It has radically increased understanding across the globe of the humiliating conditions of daily life for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and even inside Israel. In the US, for the first time in recent memory, expressions of sympathy for the Palestinian cause have come to the fore. Even a Fox News collaborator, Gerardo Rivera, who calls himself a “Zionist Jew,” pleaded the case of the Palestinians on the air, to the profound displeasure of the non-Jewish, pro-Israeli Fox hosts.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In other words, there is a hint that the tide of public opinion may be shifting. The disproportionately brutal behavior of the Israeli government has become too evident to justify dismissing any criticism of Israel as proof of anti-Semitism (despite Bret Stephens’ absurd insistence). The expectation is growing that in the aftermath of the conflict, adjustments will have to be made for a clearly desperate situation to evolve in a positive direction.

      The actions of the Israeli authorities in the past few days cast doubt on that expectation. Inviting Israeli Jews, visibly with a settler mentality, to enter the mosque compound with the symbolic intent of claiming it as a possession of Israel rather than as a universal religious site can only be seen as a provocation. The Israeli authorities required Palestinian Muslims to surrender their ID at the door and barred those under 45 years old from entering.

      Just as the Israeli government had dismissed the expulsions of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, calling it an isolated “real estate dispute” to be settled by the courts, enforcing policy concerning access to Al-Aqsa appears to the outside world for what it is: a hostile act targeted at Palestinians. Krauss cites police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, who justified the policy by claiming that “the site was open for ‘regular visits’ and that police had secured the area.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Regular visits:

      In the context of Al-Aqsa Mosque, planned and organized intimidation, monitored and enforced by the Israeli government to ensure that Palestinians understand that they must on all occasions feel humiliated by their political masters

      Contextual Note

      What does Rosenfield mean by “regular visits?” The word “regular” has several meanings in English. In this context, we would assume it means in accordance with the rules. But regular can also mean happening in a repetitive fashion or at an established frequency. As such, it may even be a synonym for often. It can also simply mean normal, making it a synonym of unremarkable. 

      So, what should Palestinians and indeed the rest of the world understand when Rosenfield evokes Israeli visits that are “regular”? He wants listeners to think that it’s both natural (normal) and legal (according to the rules). But many Palestinians view the reality of Israeli “visits” to Al-Aqsa as normally and repetitively provocative. They also see them as strategically designed by right-wing Israeli visitors as an act of intimidation that serves as a prelude to the glorious day in the future when Jewish culture will have so overwhelmed Arab culture in East Jerusalem that the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound will function more as a museum or public monument than as a holy site for Muslims.

      Or perhaps worse. Al Jazeera reports that in the immediate aftermath of last week’s ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, “hardline Israeli settler groups have raised calls on social media for Jewish worshippers to enter the premises. The groups’ objective is to rebuild the Third Jewish Temple on the grounds of Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to their websites.” That’s why the Israelis must frequent the mosque compound as “regularly” as possible. They are seeking to erase 1,400 years of history.

      Historical Note

      Although the Israeli government claims it has no intention of calling into question the status quo that grants Muslims the right to pray at the site, Al Jazeera notes that in the recent past, “increasing numbers of religious and far-right Israelis have visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.” Palestinians have noticed the trend, sparking their fear that Israel may be seeking to take it over or partition it.

      Should such fears be taken seriously? Having witnessed Israeli encroachment on designated Palestinian territories through its relentless, decades-long settlement campaign and its direct attacks on Palestinian culture, Palestinians feel that their trepidation is justified. The expulsions in Sheikh Jarrah are but one recent example among many. Some have been more dramatic and economically destructive than others, such as the building of the West Bank separation wall, an act that should have evoked, in some people’s minds, the historical memory of the wall that surrounded the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw during World War II.

      Regularity requires regulation. If “regular” behavior is to be encouraged, there is an absolute need for regulation, the establishment of rules and respect of the same. Without regulation, resolution will be impossible. The United Nations has repeatedly attempted to use its largely unenforceable resolutions as a means of regulation, but to no avail. The US veto at the Security Council has provided Israel with a foolproof insurance policy. This has allowed Israel to violate not only past treaties and dozens of UN resolutions with impunity, but also to escape scrutiny of the countless alleged cases of human rights abuses and even war crimes in recent decades.

      The latest conflict demonstrates that any hope of stabilizing the asymmetric situation characterized by a nation committed to colonial domination and content with institutions that merit comparison with South Africa’s institution of apartheid will be illusory. The asymmetry and disequilibrium have suddenly become both too visible to neglect and too deep to maintain. A return to the precarious balance achieved since 2014 seems untenable. The Kushner peace plan promoted by Donald Trump, when it finally emerged after three years of being billed as the “deal of the century,” turned out to be the joke many of us expected it would be. That kind of improvisation is no longer conceivable.

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      The Americans and Europeans have steadfastly embraced the ideal of a “two-state solution” initially launched in 1974 and ratified by the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993. Most realistic observers today dismiss it as illusory. Historical events since 1993 have created a situation in which neither side now believes the kinds of rules that would apply to a viable two-state solution could be respected, let alone formulated.

      Something must be done at the international level. Perhaps the next step will require “regular visits” by serious diplomats — especially American ones — willing for once to assume the role of honest brokers. Given the state of American democracy and the apparent indifference of the Biden administration to the Palestinian drama, that appears unlikely to happen any time soon. 

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Israel Is Falling Apart, Because the Conflict Controls Us

      by

      Our politics are stalled. Our democracy is in tatters. Blame it on the occupation.TEL AVIV — For a few days in early May, Israel appeared close to establishing a new government. After four elections in two years that failed to produce a decisive result, the country was poised for a surprising partnership of ideologically diverse parties including, for the first time, an independent Arab party — Raam. Such a government would have been fraught, even shaky, but it would have ended the two years of political chaos and replaced Israel’s right-wing prime minister, a man currently standing trial for corruption.What happened instead followed a grim pattern: The Israeli-Palestinian conflict flared yet again. Within days of the start of the military escalation between Hamas and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu that was sparked in Jerusalem and compounded by Jewish and Palestinian violence in Israeli cities, the crisis had put political change on hold.Although many Israelis scoff at the left-wing tendency to blame the occupation for the country’s problems, and Mr. Netanyahu has insisted for years that the conflict doesn’t control our lives, reality says otherwise. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dominates Israeli politics, muscling out sound policymaking in other critical areas of life. The conflict is suffocating liberal values, eroding Israel’s democratic institutions. Israeli leadership at large is collapsing under its weight.It is time to accept that it’s not just that Israel controls Palestinians in the conflict. Palestine also controls Israel. The occupation and the festering political conflict since 1948 have permeated every part of our society, political and social institutions, and well-being. If Israel and its supporters can view the situation in this light, they might reach different conclusions about what’s best for the country.The political system is a key starting point. In Israel, left, center or right-wing ideology is grounded in attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: support for or opposition to a two-state solution; support for expanding or dismantling settlements and/or land concessions. These attitudes and levels of (Jewish) religious observance strongly predict which ideological camp a voter will choose.In Israeli elections, it is nearly impossible to woo a significant number of voters across the main ideological political camps with shared problems such as economic concerns, investment in education, L.G.B.T.Q. rights or even the highly emotional question of disentangling religion and state. While the elections in March demonstrated that some centrists voted for the right-wing parties, right-wing voters in particular almost never move to the left.There is nothing wrong with voting for parties that reflect one’s ideology. But right-wing parties, especially under Mr. Netanyahu, have a longstanding pact with religious parties that share their ideology regarding the conflict. The religious parties block other urgently needed changes in Israeli society, such as laws proposing an end to the longstanding exemption of ultra-Orthodox Jews from conscription, which is required for all other citizens; civil marriage, which is not available in Israel (sending many Israelis abroad to tie the knot); and widespread access to public transportation on the Sabbath. Ordinary Israelis have been angry for decades about inequality of army service, about Sabbath privileges for those who own cars and about religious authority over family law, which is a bitter source of gender inequality.At times, Israel has appeared to lay the groundwork for a more a liberal democratic society, which would advance broader progressive values. In the early 1990s, Israel passed two new Basic Laws, guaranteeing a series of basic individual rights and protections. These became a stand-in for a Bill of Rights since Israel has no formal one. An increasingly activist Supreme Court advanced some human rights protections and individual freedoms.For example, in 1993 Israel repealed its restriction on gay men serving openly in certain defense forces positions, and the next year the Supreme Court issued its first ruling against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. In 1998, Israel passed its first dedicated law against sexual harassment.Yitzhak Rabin’s government sought to redress discrimination against Palestinian citizens and signed the Oslo Accords in 1993. When Mr. Rabin was assassinated in 1995 for his nascent efforts to end the conflict, progressive change on certain social issues continued, but liberal interpretations of the law and the Supreme Court itself would eventually come under intense attacks from the Israeli right wing.The failure of another peace process in 2000 gave way to a violent second intifada, pushing Israeli society farther to the right and paving the road for Mr. Netanyahu’s return to power in 2009. Mr. Netanyahu has worked assiduously to undermine a two-state solution. And he and other right-wing nationalists and populist leaders set about undermining the institutions of Israeli democracy itself.Since 2009, Mr. Netanyahu’s governments have passed discriminatory legislation against Palestinian citizens, laws targeting left-wing political activities and laws constraining civil society. These laws have roots in the conflict over national identity or occupation. They elevate the status of Jews over Palestinians, or they are tailored to constrain criticism of the occupation.The motive for this effort is no mystery: It is aimed at ensuring that Israel remains a Jewish-dominated state, with minimal political opposition. Both would be essential if Israel were to advance West Bank annexation, which would alter the state’s demographic makeup and spark challenges to the character of the state and its undemocratic governance of Palestinians.The Israeli right’s most ambitious campaign for about a decade has been a sustained attack on the judiciary. Right-wing leaders speak of correcting the balance of power among the branches of government and restoring sovereignty to “the people,” rather than the elites, referring to judges — especially Supreme Court justices. The chief proponents of this cause are overwhelmingly committed to settlements and annexation. Naftali Bennett, leader of the right-wing Yamina party and a former defense and education minister, once served as head of the Yesha settlers’ council. Ayelet Shaked, justice minister from 2015 to 2019, is outspoken in favor of both aims. Simcha Rothman, a firebrand anti-Supreme Court crusader and a settler from deep inside the West Bank, entered the Knesset in 2021 with the Jewish-ultranationalist Religious Zionist party.Undermining the judiciary has nothing to do with repairing institutions; it will assist what right-wing leaders call “governability” — a word that also appears in the name of the organization Mr. Rothman founded. The term is a euphemism, and a mantra, for government power unrestrained by courts, which enables both continuing rule over the Palestinian territories and an increasingly undemocratic Israel.Last, the conflict is directly tied to Israel’s chaos of leadership. Mr. Netanyahu retains stable support from nearly one-quarter of voters, largely because of his image as the man who won’t make concessions to “Arabs” (many right-wing Israelis avoid the word “Palestinian”). He used the most recent escalation with Hamas to burnish his image as the master of security. The crisis also persuaded Mr. Bennett of the Yamina party to withdraw from negotiations to join the would-be alternative government and revive the option of yet another Netanyahu coalition.Once again, with help from the conflict, Israel has normalized a leader standing trial for corruption charges in three cases, who refuses to resign. (He has pleaded not guilty). Since a sufficient number of parties over the past two years have refused to join a government led by Mr. Netanyahu, his recalcitrance is the reason Israel has had no permanent government despite four elections. He has also opportunistically joined the attacks on Israel’s judiciary in an effort to undermine the court cases against him.Decades of Palestinian suffering should have brought Israel’s occupation to an end by now. But the folly of territorial conquest and international realpolitik has been stronger.Perhaps a cleareyed view of how the conflict is suffocating Israel can add urgency. There is certainly no easy or ideal solution. But the “stand back” approach, or any “not now” complacency, is definitely the wrong one.Dahlia Scheindlin is a political strategist and a public opinion expert who has advised eight national campaigns in Israel and worked in 15 other countries. She is also a policy fellow at the Century Foundation.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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      in World Politics

      White America’s Burden in the Holy Land

      by

      Earlier this week, an Israeli military official evoked “a worst-case scenario” conducted by three Israeli infantry brigades that would amount to crushing Gaza on the ground rather than just bombarding it. Some observers have noticed that the current worse-than-ever-before-but-not-as-bad-as-what’s-to-come scenario has miraculously permitted Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to hang on to power after the March 23 election deprived him of the hope of heading a new coalition.

      The Future of Jerusalem Matters to Us All

      READ MORE

      Washington Post reporter Steve Hendrix notes that “the escalation of fighting brought a last-minute reprieve from what could have been the end of [Netanyahu’s] record run at the top of Israeli politics.” Hendrix quotes Gayil Talshir, a professor at Hebrew University: “The riot came just in time to prevent the change of government in Israel.” Despite this “coincidence,” Hendrix avoids suggesting what some suspect: that Netanyahu’s policies and recent actions may have been designed to provoke the current crisis.

      Rather than delve into history, reflect on the meaning or explore possible hidden motives, Hendrix prefers the approach that Western media have long preferred: presenting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a combined violent chess game and political popularity contest between two obdurate parties whose leaders are unwilling to compromise. Hendrix reduces an enduring historical drama of vast geopolitical dimensions to a petty game of leaders seeking electoral advantage by appealing to their base, à la Donald Trump. He calls the new wave of violence “a boon to the leaders of both camps — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas militants — who have been struggling and scraping to salvage their political standing.” That’s the kind of narrative that appeals to The Post’s readers living in their bubble within the Beltway. History be damned; this is electoral politics.

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      The New York Times came closer to signaling Netanyahu’s implication in the current troubles. Isabel Kershner cites centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid, who “blamed the prime minister for the spiraling sense of chaos.” Kershner focuses on the likelihood that Israel will at some point in the near future have a coalition government including Mansour Abbas’ Islamic Raam party, which would mark a monumental change in Israeli politics. In the end, however, Kershner appears to believe that it’s still Netanyahu who will emerge from the rubble as the leader of whatever unstable political coalition he can cobble together.

      As the violence escalates, the world wonders what US President Joe Biden intends to do. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was the first to express the administration’s take, which for the moment sounds like an endorsement of the status quo: “There is, first, a very clear and absolute distinction between a terrorist organization, Hamas, that is indiscriminately raining down rockets, in fact, targeting civilians, and Israel’s response, defending itself.” The idea that Biden’s administration might try, for once, to play the role of honest broker would seem dead in the coastal waters of Gaza.

      Blinken’s recognition of Palestinian suffering only appeared when he claimed that Israel has “an extra burden.” This, of course, implies that its main burden consists of “targeting terrorists” in response to indiscriminately launched rockets. The “extra burden” consists of trying “to prevent civilian deaths, noting that Palestinian children have been killed in Israeli strikes.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Extra burden:

      A responsibility supplementing the one Rudyard Kipling famously identified as “the white man’s burden,” which consisted of dominating “sullen peoples, Half devil and half child,” the kind of people who for their amusement launch rockets indiscriminately at white people.

      Contextual Note

      Thanks to the growing realization that Israel is firmly set on maintaining an apartheid state, for the first time in decades, US politicians have begun to wonder whether it makes any sense to continue the nation’s unconditional support of every Israeli government. Israel has continued expanding its illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in direct violation of UN resolutions and the Geneva Convention. The current troubles began with Israel’s brazen attempt to evict Palestinian families from their homes in East Jerusalem and replace them with Jewish settlers, followed by the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque.

      For Blinken, the social and historical context of these events simply doesn’t exist. He wants people to believe it all started with the launching of rockets by the Palestinians. Nor do context and historical reality interest Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III, who insisted that details are irrelevant when the US has vowed “‘ironclad support’ for Israel’s right to defend itself.” This is totally consistent with Biden’s promise, in a phone call this week to Netanyahu, of “unwavering support” for Israel’s “right to defend itself.”

      Blinken showed less concern for the possible war crimes now taking place than for the bad PR they might generate. “[W]henever we see civilian casualties, and particularly when we see children caught in the crossfire losing their lives, that has a powerful impact,” he said. Blinken worries about what “we see” and its  “impact” in the media. This implies that if we didn’t see it and if the impact was reduced, all would be well. Ignorance is bliss.

      Biden reinforced everyone’s expectation that there would be nothing new under the shining sun of US diplomacy when he offered this comment: “My hope is that we will see this coming to a conclusion sooner than later.” What conclusion is he thinking of? And why is an American president just hoping that something good will happen? Why isn’t he intervening to facilitate not a “conclusion” but a resolution? Some will point out that every US president’s hands are tied by a status quo that holds as its first commandment, thou shalt never criticize Israel, its leaders or its policies.

      Historical Note

      Following World War II, Western nations assumed the entire civilization’s shame at the crimes of Nazi Germany. The British used the newly created United Nations as the instrument by which the West could atone for Germany’s racist sins through the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. 

      Once that was done, the die was cast. The West, led by the British — who had assumed “responsibility” for the region of the former Ottoman Empire — decided how and at whose expense (not their own) the surviving European Jews might be rewarded. Giving them Palestine seemed like the easy way out for the Western world as a whole. The British wanted out anyway. It also had the advantage of establishing a state in the Middle East whose culture would be basically Western and European.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Neither the British, the Americans nor the French — all in various ways implicated in the new order to be established in the Middle East — imagined that Israel would evolve to become an aggressive nation increasingly focused on bullying its neighbors and claiming its own particular version of exceptionalism. French President Charles de Gaulle was the first to notice it, on the occasion of the Six-Day War in 1967. Western leaders may have naively believed that the same Arabs who allowed themselves to be bullied by the Turks for centuries would accept with docility the rule of their new masters, who claimed to be building a modern nation on socialist and egalitarian principles.

      In the first decade of Israel’s existence, the US refused to identify with the new nation’s interests, notably during the Suez Crisis in 1956 in which the Eisenhower administration countered the Franco-British alliance. It also viewed with hostility the presumed socialist ideology of Israel. At the time, the WASP (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) elite maintained a lingering anti-Semitic bias. But as the Cold War evolved and the importance of the oil economy grew, leading to increasing tensions between the West and the Muslim world, by the 1980s, the US was on track formulating its current “unconditional,” “iron-clad” alliance with Israel.

      This gradual evolution toward a position of increasingly blind support of Israel has had a profound influence on Western media in its reporting on the enduring, increasingly unresolvable conflict between the Jewish state and its Arab inhabitants. Western news media have largely accepted the role of encouraging their audience to sympathize with white, essentially European and American Israelis who feel threatened in an alien, hostile Orient.

      Greg Philo in The Guardian shows that an analysis of Western media in its reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has, for decades, reflected “a strong emphasis on Israeli perspectives.” What better illustration than yesterday’s Washington Post: “Israeli jets strike Gaza; Hamas launches rockets as Israeli ground troops stand by”?

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in Elections

      Israel Ground Forces Shell Gaza as Fighting Intensifies

      by

      The surge in fighting left Israel in an unprecedented position — fighting Palestinian militants on its southern flank as it sought to head off its worst civil unrest in decades.Israeli ground forces carried out attacks on the Gaza Strip early Friday in an escalation of a conflict with Palestinian militants that had been waged by airstrikes from Israel and rockets from Gaza.It was not immediately clear if the attack was the prelude to a ground invasion against Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza.An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, initially said that “there are ground troops attacking in Gaza,” but later clarified that Israeli troops had not entered Gaza, suggesting the possibility of artillery fire from the outside. He provided no further details.The surge in fighting highlighted the unprecedented position Israel finds itself in — battling Palestinian militants on its southern flank as it seeks to head off its worst civil unrest in decades.It followed another day of clashes between Arab and Jewish mobs on the streets of Israeli cities, with the authorities calling up the army reserves and sending reinforcements of armed border police to the central city of Lod to try to head off what Israeli leaders have warned could become a civil war.Taken together, the two theaters of turmoil pointed to a step change in the grinding, decades-old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. While violent escalations often follow a predictable trajectory, this latest bout, the worst in seven years, is rapidly evolving into a new kind of war — faster, more destructive and capable of spinning in unpredictable new directions.In Gaza, an impoverished coastal strip that was the crucible of a devastating seven-week war in 2014, Palestinian militants fired surprisingly large barrages of enhanced-range rockets — some 1,800 in three days — that reached far into Israel.Israel intensified its campaign of relentless airstrikes against Hamas targets there on Thursday, pulverizing buildings, offices and homes in strikes that have killed 103 people including 27 children, according to the Gaza health authorities.The funeral of members of Hamas after they were killed in an Israeli bombardment in Gaza City on Thursday.Samar Abu Elouf for The New York TimesSix civilians and a soldier have been killed by Hamas rockets inside Israel.Egyptian mediators arrived in Israel Thursday in a sooner-than-usual push to halt the spiraling conflict.Most alarming for Israel, though, was the violent ferment on its own sidewalks and streets, where days of rioting by Jewish vigilantes and Arab mobs showed no sign of abating.The unrest in several mixed-ethnicity cities, where angry young men stoned cars, set fire to mosques and synagogues, and attacked each other, signaled a collapse of law and order inside Israel on a scale not seen since the start of the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, 21 years ago.The violence follows a month of boiling tensions in Jerusalem, where the threatened eviction of Palestinian families from their homes coincided with a spate of Arab attacks against Israeli Jews, and a march through the city by right-wing extremists chanting “Death to Arabs.”The jarring violence this week caused Israeli leaders, led by President Reuven Rivlin, to evoke the specter of civil war — a once unthinkable idea. “We need to solve our problems without causing a civil war that can be a danger to our existence,” Mr. Rivlin said. “The silent majority is not saying a thing, because it is utterly stunned.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Lod, a working-class city with a mixed Arab-Israeli population that has emerged as the center of the upheaval. Hulks of burned-out cars littered the streets where, a few nights earlier, Arab youths burned synagogues and cars, threw stones and let off sporadic rounds of gunfire, before gangs of Jewish vigilantes counterattacked and set their own fires. .Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking in the city of Lod on Thursday.Pool photo by Yuval ChenOn Thursday, a Jewish man was stabbed as he walked to a synagogue there, but survived.“There is no greater threat now than these riots,” said Mr. Netanyahu, who vowed to deploy the Israel Defense Forces to keep the peace in Lod. A day earlier, he described the violence as “anarchy” and said: “Nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs, and nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews.”To secure Lod, the government brought in thousands of armed border police from the occupied West Bank, and imposed an 8 p.m. curfew, but to little effect.Arab residents, who account for about 30 percent of the town’s 80,000 people, continued a campaign of stone-throwing, vandalism and arson, while Jewish extremists arrived from outside Lod, burning Arab cars and property. Arab protesters erected flaming roadblocks.As night fell there were signs that the violence might escalate when a large convoy of armed Jews in white vans moved into town.Palestinian leaders, however, said the talk of civil war by Jewish leaders was a distraction from what they called the true cause of the unrest in Lod — police brutality against Palestinian protesters and provocative actions by right-wing Israeli settler groups.“The police shot an Arab demonstrator in Lod,” said Ahmad Tibi, the leader of the Ta’al party and a member of Israel’s Parliament. “We don’t want bloodshed. We want to protest.”Israeli security forces on patrol in Lod on Thursday night.Ahmad Gharabli/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Tibi said that Mr. Netanyahu, who has frequently aligned with far-right and nationalist parties to stay in power, had only himself to blame for the political tinderbox that has exploded with such ferocity across Israel.On Thursday evening, the State Department urged American citizens to reconsider traveling to Israel and warned against going to the occupied West Bank or Gaza. In an advisory, the department noted rocket attacks that could reach Jerusalem, protests and violence throughout Israel and a “dangerous and volatile” security environment in the Gaza Strip and on its borders.The trouble started on Monday, when a heavy-handed police raid at Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque — the third-holiest site in Islam, located atop a site also revered by Jews — set off an instant backlash.But beyond the images of police officers flinging stun grenades and firing rubber bullets inside the mosque, Palestinian outrage was also fueled by much wider, decades-old frustrations.Human Rights Watch recently accused Israel of perpetrating a form of apartheid, the racist legal system that once governed South Africa, citing a number of laws and regulations that it said systematically discriminate against Palestinians. Israel vehemently rejected that charge. But its security forces are now confronted with a swelling wave of fury from the country’s Arab Israeli minority, which complains of being treated as second-class citizens.“‘Coexistence’ means that both sides exist,” said Tamer Nafar, a famous rapper from Lod. “But so far there is only one side — the Jewish side.”The rocket attacks from Gaza are also quantitatively and qualitatively different from the last war in 2014. The more than 1,800 rockets Hamas and its allies have fired at Israel since Monday already represent a third of the total fired during the seven-week war in 2014.A house that was hit by a rocket fired overnight from Gaza in Petah Tikva, Israel.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesIsraeli intelligence has estimated that Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups have about 30,000 rockets and mortar projectiles stashed in Gaza, indicating that despite the Israeli-Egyptian blockade of the coastal territory, the militants have managed to amass a vast arsenal.The rockets have also demonstrated a longer range than those fired in previous conflicts, reaching as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.They have also proven more effective. In the 2014 war, they killed a total of six civilians inside Israel, the same number killed in the last three days.Those casualties appeared to be a product of Hamas’s new tactic of firing more than 100 missiles simultaneously, thwarting the American-financed Iron Dome missile-defense system, which Israeli officials say is 90 percent effective at intercepting rockets before they land inside Israel.Israeli’s Iron Dome air defense system launching to intercept rockets fired from Gaza on Thursday.Ariel Schalit/Associated PressGaza residents have no such protection against Israeli airstrikes, which crushed three multistory buildings in the strip after residents were warned to evacuate. Israeli officials said that the buildings housed Hamas operations and that they were striving to limit civilian casualties, but many Gaza residents viewed the Israeli attacks as a form of collective punishment.Thursday was supposed to be a day of celebration for Palestinians as they marked the end of the holy month of Ramadan, a day when Muslims typically gather to pray, wear new clothes and share a family meal. In Jerusalem, tens of thousands of worshipers gathered at dawn outside the Aqsa Mosque, some waving Palestinian flags and a banner showing an image of Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas.Muslims gathered for prayers outside the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on Thursday.Mahmoud Illean/Associated PressIn Gaza, though, it was a somber day of funerals, fear and missile strikes. Some families buried their dead, others laid out prayer mats beside buildings recently destroyed in Israeli airstrikes, and still others came under attack from Israeli drones hovering overhead.“Save me,” pleaded Maysoun al-Hatu, 58, after she was wounded in a missile strike outside her daughter’s house in Gaza, according to a witness. An ambulance arrived moments later, but it was too late. Ms. al-Hatu was dead.American and Egyptian diplomats were heading to Israel to begin de-escalation talks. Egyptian mediators played a key role in ending the 2014 war in Gaza, but this time there is little optimism they can achieve a quick result.Israeli military officials have said their mission is to stop the rockets from Gaza, and the military moved tanks and troops into place along the border with Gaza on Thursday in preparation for a possible ground invasion.A residential building that was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Thursday in Gaza City.Hosam Salem for The New York TimesThe decision to extend the campaign is ultimately political. Analysts said that a ground operation would likely incur high casualties, and it was unclear if the troop deployment was anything more than a threat.But the political calculation grew more complicated on Thursday after the collapse of negotiations between opposition parties seeking to form a new government.Naftali Bennett, an ultranationalist former settler leader who opposes Palestinian statehood, pulled out of the talks, citing the state of emergency in several Israeli cities.His withdrawal increases the likelihood of Israel holding a general election later this summer — in what would be its fifth in just over two years. And the collapse of the talks appears to benefit Mr. Netanyahu, making it impossible for opposition parties to form an alliance large enough to oust him from office.Mr. Netanyahu, who is on trial on corruption charges, is serving as caretaker prime minister until a new government can be formed.On the Palestinian side, the indefinite postponement last month of elections by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, created a vacuum that Hamas is more than willing to fill.Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Lod, Israel; Iyad Abuheweila from Gaza City; Patrick Kingsley, Irit Pazner Garshowitz and Myra Noveck from Jerusalem; Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel; Mona el-Naggar and Vivian Yee from Cairo; Megan Specia from London; Steven Erlanger from Brussels; and Lara Jakes from Washington. More

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      Yang Walks Back Stance on Israel After Drawing Criticism

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      Mr. Yang said his initial statement in support of Israel, which drew criticism from progressives, “failed to acknowledge pain on both sides.”As the Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted this week, Andrew Yang issued a statement on Monday that in years past might have seemed politically unremarkable, perhaps even expected, from a leading candidate to be New York City’s next mayor.“I’m standing with the people of Israel who are coming under bombardment attacks, and condemn the Hamas terrorists,” Mr. Yang said. “The people of N.Y.C. will always stand with our brothers and sisters in Israel who face down terrorism and persevere.”Then came the backlash.At a campaign stop in Queens, Mr. Yang was confronted about his statement and its failure to mention the Palestinians, including children, who were killed in the airstrikes. Mr. Yang was uninvited from an event hosted by the Astoria Welfare Society to distribute food to families at the end of Ramadan.Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who has condemned the “occupation of Palestine,” called Mr. Yang’s statement “utterly shameful,” noting that it came during Ramadan.And Mr. Yang acknowledged that volunteers with his own campaign were upset by his statement, prompting him to release a new one on Wednesday admitting that his first was “overly simplistic” and “failed to acknowledge the pain and suffering on both sides.”“I mourn for every Palestinian life taken before its time as I do for every Israeli,” he said.Mr. Yang’s clarification reflects the reality that what was once a given in New York City politics — unquestioning support for Israel — has become a much more complicated proposition for Democratic candidates.New York City has the largest Jewish population in the world outside of Israel. While the mayor has no formal foreign policy powers, the position often affords opportunities to showcase New York’s posture toward Israel.Mayor Robert F. Wagner in 1957 barred a welcome for a Saudi king he deemed anti-Jewish. Mayor Edward I. Koch zealously expressed support for Israel and had an argument at City Hall with the Austrian foreign minister in 1984 about whether the Palestine Liberation Organization served as the voice of Palestinian people.But wholehearted, uncritical support for Israel is no longer automatic among officials or candidates.In recent years, many members of a growing progressive left have criticized the Israeli government for its treatment of Palestinians and are pushing for public acknowledgment of Palestinians’ suffering.The shift mirrors the way that on a national level, some Democrats have challenged the decades-long norm of blanket support for Israel, while many liberal American Jews have become increasingly vocal about their discomfort with the policies of the Israeli government.The differing views were apparent among the mayoral contenders.Among those considered to be more centrist candidates, some maintained a stance similar to that of Mr. Yang’s initial statement. Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and another leading candidate, said on Monday, “Israelis live under the constant threat of terrorism and war, and New York City’s bond with Israel remains unbreakable.”Asked on Wednesday if he had anything to add to his original statement, Mr. Adams said that “no act of aggression can justify the deaths of innocent children.”“Never again should religious sites be targeted — whether it be a synagogue or a mosque,” he said. Raymond J. McGuire, a former Citi executive, interrupted a news conference in Times Square on Monday to make a statement of support for Israel.“There’s clearly terrorism that has taken place in Jerusalem. Hamas just claimed credit for rocket attacks aimed at Jerusalem,” Mr. McGuire said. “We stand with our brothers and sisters from Israel.”But others offered more nuanced statements. Dianne Morales, a former nonprofit executive, said on Tuesday that the “world needs leaders who recognize humanity and the dignity of all lives. Whether in N.Y.C., Colombia, Brazil or Israel-Palestine, state violence is wrong. Targeting civilians is wrong. Killing children is wrong. ”Asked on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC on Wednesday about whether Israelis or Palestinians should bear more of the blame, Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner, said it was not appropriate for the mayor “to be doing foreign policy.” But she said she wanted to support the diverse communities in New York City that have ties to the parts of the world embroiled in conflict.“Clearly the state of Israel needs to exist,” she said. “We have strong partnerships with them. They’re like our fourth largest trading partner with the City of New York. But this escalation of violence is incredibly sad to see.”In a statement on Wednesday, Shaun Donovan, a former federal housing secretary, criticized Mr. Yang’s remarks, saying that they lacked “responsibility and empathy.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“Kids are not terrorists, and whatever our differences on this emotionally challenging issue, we should at least display a common humanity,” Mr. Donovan said, referring to the fact that children were among those killed in the conflict. Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller and only Jewish candidate in the race, said he condemned recent “horrific acts of terrorism against innocent Israelis” in Jerusalem and said he supported Israel’s right to defend itself from extremist groups.But Mr. Stringer, one of three candidates consistently characterized as progressive, also urged the Israeli government to stop “wrongful evictions of Palestinian families, and for all parties to exercise caution and restraint to prevent further suffering and loss of precious life.”“And as we near the end of Ramadan, we must recognize and mourn the Israeli and Palestinian lives that have been so tragically lost,” Mr. Stringer said.The city’s Orthodox Jewish community has long been considered a politically salient voting bloc and has been courted by both Mr. Adams and Mr. Yang, who has been endorsed by several ultra-Orthodox leaders.The endorsements came after Mr. Yang defended the yeshiva education system, which has faced criticism over the failure of some schools to provide a basic secular education: A 2019 city report found that roughly two dozen Hasidic yeshivas had fallen short of city standards in math, science and English education.In a race where voter interest has so far been low, the endorsement of influential religious leaders could be a boon to any campaign. But even in neighborhoods with large ultra-Orthodox populations, like Borough Park, Brooklyn, there were mixed feelings about Mr. Yang’s initial statement and subsequent turnaround.“If you’re talking about the Jewish community, if someone is pro-Israel, that will always be seen as a plus,” said Yoel Greenfeld, 22, as he left a synagogue on Borough Park’s main shopping street at midday. “But then for Yang to say something else a day later because of A.O.C.? Let me tell you something, people around here think A.O.C. is a complete joke.”The Astoria Welfare Society rescinded its invitation to Mr. Yang because his tweet felt like an insult to Muslims in New York City, the group’s secretary general, Mohamed Jabed Uddin, said.“It is like he is blatantly saying to Muslim New Yorkers that he does not care about us, our issues, the attacks on our houses or worship,” said Mr. Uddin. “He will only take a principled stand when it will pay off politically. That is not the type of leadership that we want for this city.”Assemblyman Ron Kim of Queens, a progressive who has endorsed Mr. Yang for mayor, said that he thought Mr. Yang’s initial statement was “inhumane,” and he said he had called Mr. Yang on Tuesday to relay his concerns. “He came off as taking a one-sided, 100 percent pro-Israel dominating position, with no nuance, and I know that that’s not what he believes and I know that those aren’t the values that guide him, especially when there are innocent people dying,” he said.Jeffery C. Mays and Michael Gold contributed reporting. More