War and Armed Conflicts

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Emmanuel Macron cuenta sobre su reunión con Vladimir Putin

      by

      El líder francés relató su cara a cara con Vladimir Putin y desestimó el intercambio de cartas de Washington con Moscú, apostando a que su diplomacia podría dar frutos antes de las elecciones de abril.PARÍS — La semana pasada, en una mesa mucho más pequeña que la ovalada de más de 6 metros de largo en la que el presidente de Francia, Emmanuel Macron, se sentó frente al presidente de Rusia, Vladimir V. Putin, en Moscú, el mandatario francés reunió a algunos periodistas. Ahí dijo que la crisis en Ucrania le estaba ocupando “más de la mitad de mi vida, la mayor parte de mi tiempo” porque el mundo se encuentra “en un momento crítico” de la historia.Esta mesa estaba a unos diez kilómetros de altura, en el avión presidencial que la semana pasada llevó a Macron con prontitud a Moscú; a Kiev, la capital de Ucrania, y a Berlín, donde alertó de un daño “irreversible” si Rusia invadía Ucrania y señaló que era crucial “no aceptar la fatalidad”.Macron está convencido de que la crisis actual —marcada por el revanchismo de Rusia tras su aparente humillación por parte de Occidente— significa que la seguridad colectiva de Europa no se ha podido repensar desde el fin de la Guerra Fría. Parece que, al menos en eso, coincidieron Macron y Putin. El enorme desafío que se le presenta a Macron es determinar cómo podría suplirse, y convencer a los demás, entre ellos a Estados Unidos, sobre sus beneficios.Para el final de la semana pasada, el estancamiento con Rusia, que derivó en maniobras militares cerca de las fronteras de Ucrania, parecía más amenazante que nunca. Sin embargo, a solo ocho semanas de las elecciones presidenciales en Francia, Macron ha tomado la arriesgada apuesta de intentar convencer a Putin de que recurra al diálogo y de que los electores franceses estén más complacidos con su autoridad a nivel global que enfadados por su falta de atención.Si fracasa, no solo se arriesga a perder sus votos y su confianza, sino a dañar su prestigio y el de su país al ser visto en el extranjero como un líder que fue demasiado ambicioso.Consciente de esa percepción, se ha esmerado mucho en coordinar sus esfuerzos con los de otros dirigentes europeos, algunos de ellos escépticos, y con Joe Biden, el presidente de Estados Unidos. El viernes, en una conversación de 75 minutos entre los líderes de Occidente, se activó un frente unido para convencer a Rusia de “distender la crisis y optar por el camino del diálogo”, manifestó la Comisión Europea.Una imagen satelital que muestra el despliegue de viviendas y vehículos militares en Rechitsa, Bielorrusia.Maxar Technologies, vía ReutersCuando cayó el Muro de Berlín, Macron tenía 11 años y Biden, 46, por lo que tal vez es inevitable que haya ciertas divergencias de opinión. Macron no ve ninguna razón para que la estructura de la alianza que prevaleció sobre la Unión Soviética sea eterna.“El asunto no es la OTAN, sino cómo creamos una zona de seguridad”, dijo. “¿Cómo podemos vivir en paz en esta región?”. Macron insinuó que parte de su objetivo en Moscú había sido sugerirle a Putin que abandonara su obsesión por la OTAN —que Ucrania no debe unirse nunca a esta organización— y se concentrara en otro “esquema”. Mencionó que le había dicho al dirigente ruso que “el esquema que usted propone es falso”.Understand Russia’s Relationship With the WestThe tension between the regions is growing and Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly willing to take geopolitical risks and assert his demands.Competing for Influence: For months, the threat of confrontation has been growing in a stretch of Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Threat of Invasion: As the Russian military builds its presence near Ukraine, Western nations are seeking to avert a worsening of the situation.Energy Politics: Europe is a huge customer of Russia’s fossil fuels. The rising tensions in Ukraine are driving fears of a midwinter cutoff.Migrant Crisis: As people gathered on the eastern border of the European Union, Russia’s uneasy alliance with Belarus triggered additional friction.Militarizing Society: With a “youth army” and initiatives promoting patriotism, the Russian government is pushing the idea that a fight might be coming.Macron advirtió que era necesario presentarse en el Kremlin y enfrentar al hombre que le ha puesto una pistola en la cabeza a Occidente con 130.000 soldados congregados en la frontera con Ucrania. Se ganaba tiempo al abrir otra ruta diplomática, más flexible que el intercambio de cartas entre Rusia y Estados Unidos, que en repetidas ocasiones Macron rechazó por considerarlas inútiles, y programar próximas reuniones. Los dos líderes se reunieron durante más de cinco horas el lunes pasado. Macron dijo que insistió tanto en “las garantías que podía darme sobre la situación en la frontera” que, en algún momento, Putin dijo que estaba siendo “torturado”.Putin, con la misma insistencia, atacó la expansión hacia el este de la OTAN desde 1997 y la agresión que esto implicaba.Marinos ucranianos en la región oriental de Donetsk el miércoles de la semana pasada.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesCuando le preguntaron acerca de esa mesa tan larga y ridiculizada, Macron dijo: “Bueno, para nada era algo fraternal”.El Kremlin no ha aceptado que Macron haya obtenido alguna concesión, pero dijo que su enfoque tenía “simientes de razón”, a diferencia del intento de diplomacia por parte del Reino Unido, el cual fue tachado por el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores, Serguéi Lavrov, de una conversación entre “sordos y mudos”.No se sabe bien cuál podría ser el nuevo esquema propuesto por Macron para la seguridad de Ucrania y de Europa. Pero, al parecer, de alguna manera ofrecería garantías inquebrantables a Ucrania de su soberanía e independencia en una forma en la que su ingreso a la OTAN quedara como un espejismo; al tiempo que Rusia permanecería satisfecha de que la seguridad de Ucrania no se hubiera reforzado a expensas de Moscú.En la práctica, Macron cree que es posible hacer un truco de prestidigitación que logre al mismo tiempo dos cosas: que los ucranianos permanezcan libres y seguros para mirar hacia Occidente para su futuro y que Putin siga pensando que ambos países forman un “espacio histórico y espiritual”, como lo llamó el líder ruso en una reflexión de 5000 palabras publicada el verano pasado sobre “la unidad histórica de los rusos y los ucranianos”.Se trata de una maniobra híbrida, pero que no es inusual en el presidente francés. A través de los años, Macron se ha dado a conocer como el mandatario de “al mismo tiempo” por sus constantes malabares de diferentes aristas de los asuntos —primero a favor de disminuir la dependencia de Francia en la energía nuclear, ahora a favor de aumentarla— y por su intrincada disección de los problemas que a veces deja a los analistas preguntándose qué es lo que él cree en realidad.Es incuestionable que cree apasionadamente en la Unión Europea y en el desarrollo de Europa como una potencia más independiente. Es un tema en el que nunca ha vacilado, y ahora parece pensar que ha llegado la hora de rendir cuentas/jugársela/arriesgarse por esa convicción.Al menos, con la reunión del canciller de Alemania, Olaf Scholz, con Putin en Moscú esta semana, Macron ha hecho que el papel de Europa cuente en esta crisis, junto con Estados Unidos. Eso es más de lo que se puede decir del Reino Unido.El presidente de Rusia, Vladimir V. Putin, durante una reunión con el presidente de Francia, Emmanuel Macron, en Moscú la semana pasada.Foto de consorcio por Thibault Camus“Europa, a través de sus principales Estados, ha regresado de una etapa de la que parecía haber sido marginada”, dijo Michel Duclos, exembajador de Francia, en un artículo publicado recientemente por el Institut Montaigne.Macron ha tenido que trabajar mucho para mantener alineados a los gobiernos europeos indecisos, sobre todo los que solían vivir bajo el yugo soviético, con sus esfuerzos diplomáticos. Puesto que ahora Francia tiene la presidencia rotatoria del Consejo de la Unión Europea, ha tratado de comunicarse con todos, lo cual es una de las razones por las que Ucrania le está consumiendo su tiempo.Sus horarios tendrán que cambiar de alguna manera las siguientes semanas. Macron todavía no anuncia su candidatura para ser reelegido como presidente, pero es casi seguro que tenga que hacerlo en el transcurso de las próximas semanas. La fecha límite es el 4 de marzo y la primera ronda de votaciones es el 10 de abril.Por ahora, Macron lidera las encuestas, que le dan alrededor del 25 por ciento de los votos, con tres candidatos de derecha que le siguen y los partidos de izquierda divididos muy por detrás. Entre los rivales a su derecha hay un apoyo importante a la imagen de caudillo de Putin y su denuncia de la “decadencia” occidental, por lo que un vínculo con el líder ruso también beneficia políticamente a Macron.Aunque es el favorito para ganar, la probabilidad de una alta tasa de abstención entre los franceses desilusionados con la política y el atractivo poderoso de la extrema derecha hacen que la reelección de Macron no sea segura. Si Putin ignora sus esfuerzos diplomáticos e invade Ucrania, las certezas desaparecerán.Partidarios de Éric Zemmourl, candidato presidencial de extrema derecha, en Lille, FranciaChristophe Petit Tesson/EPA vía ShutterstockÉric Zemmour, candidato de la extrema derecha, dijo el mes pasado que Putin “debe ser respetado”, y agregó que “los argumentos y demandas de Putin son completamente legítimos”. También dijo: “Creo que la OTAN es una organización que debió haber desaparecido en 1990”.Marine Le Pen, la perenne candidata nacionalista y antiinmigrante, dijo el año pasado que “Ucrania pertenece a la esfera de influencia de Rusia”.“Al intentar trastocar esta esfera de influencia”, agregó, “se crean tensiones y miedos, y se llega a la situación que estamos viendo hoy”. Le Pen se negó a firmar una declaración emitida el mes pasado por partidos de extrema derecha reunidos en Madrid porque criticaba a Putin.Sus posturas revelan el abismo que separa la admiración de la extrema derecha francesa por Putin de los esfuerzos de Macron. A la convicción del presidente francés de que Rusia necesita ser parte de una nueva arquitectura de seguridad europea se une la determinación de que Ucrania mantenga su soberanía.Aunque Macron haya provocado malestar por sus críticas a la OTAN, se ha mantenido firme en no ceder a las demandas de Putin.Al preguntarle cuándo se dedicaría a anunciar su candidatura, señaló: “En algún momento tendré que ponerme a pensar en ello. Nada se puede hacer con premura. Tiene que ser en el momento adecuado”.Si Macron no encuentra ese momento ideal, su diplomacia y sus ideas de una seguridad europea reinventada pueden quedar en nada. Lo que puede ser factible en un segundo periodo de cinco años al frente de Francia, seguramente no lo será antes del 24 de abril, la fecha de la segunda ronda de las elecciones.Roger Cohen es el jefe del buró de París del Times. Fue columnista del diario de 2009 a 2020. Ha trabajado para el Times durante más de 30 años y se ha desempeñado como corresponsal y editor en el extranjero. Criado en Sudáfrica y Gran Bretaña, es un estadounidense naturalizado. @NYTimesCohen More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Elections

      Germany’s ‘Invisible’ Chancellor Heads to Washington Amid Fierce Criticism

      by

      Olaf Scholz will try to repair Germany’s credibility in the Ukraine crisis when he meets President Biden on Monday. Next on his agenda: Kyiv and Moscow.BERLIN — One headline asked, “Where is Olaf Scholz?” A popular magazine mocked the German chancellor’s “art of disappearance.” And his ambassador in Washington wrote home that Germany was increasingly seen as an unreliable ally in a leaked memo that was all the buzz this past week and began with the words: “Berlin, we have a problem.”With the threat of war hanging over Europe and rising tensions in the standoff with Russia over Ukraine, Mr. Scholz is headed to Washington on Monday for his first meeting with President Biden since taking over as chancellor in December. Foremost on his agenda: Show the world that Berlin is committed to the Western alliance — and, well, show his face.Less than two months after taking over from Angela Merkel, his towering and long-serving predecessor, Mr. Scholz is drawing sharp criticism at home and abroad for his lack of leadership in one of the most serious security crises in Europe since the end of the Cold War.His Social Democrat-led government, an untested three-way coalition with the Greens and Free Democrats, has refused to send arms to Ukraine, most recently offering 5,000 helmets instead. And it has been cagey about the type of sanctions that could be imposed in the event of a Russian invasion.As for the chancellor, he has made himself conspicuously scarce in recent weeks — so scarce that the newsmagazine Der Spiegel described him as “nearly invisible, inaudible.”While President Emmanuel Macron of France and Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy have been busy calling President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Scholz has so far neither picked up the phone to Moscow nor visited. He has not gone to Kyiv, Ukraine, yet, either, and his visit to Washington, some note, took almost two months to organize.Ukrainian soldiers on Saturday on the front line in eastern Ukraine. While the United States and other NATO countries rushed military aid to Ukraine, Germany offered 5,000 helmets.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesLast week, Emily Haber, Germany’s ambassador to the United States, sent a memo to Berlin, warning of “immense” damage to Germany’s reputation. It was not just the news media but many in the U.S. Congress who questioned Germany’s reliability, she reported. In the view of many Republicans, she wrote, Berlin is “in bed with Putin” in order to keep the gas flowing.It has not helped that since then, Gerhard Schröder, a former German chancellor from Mr. Scholz’s Social Democrats, accused Ukraine of “saber rattling” and just on Friday announced that he would join the board of Gazprom, Russia’s most prominent energy company.“Scholz’s central mission for his Washington visit has to be restoring German credibility,” said Thorsten Benner, a founder and the director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin.“It’s not how Mr. Scholz envisaged his first U.S. trip as chancellor,” Mr. Benner added. “But international security was never near the top of his agenda.”Mr. Scholz, 63, has been a familiar figure in German politics for more than two decades. He was general secretary of his party and mayor of the northern port city of Hamburg before serving in two governments led by Ms. Merkel’s conservatives, most recently as her finance minister.A labor lawyer and lifelong Social Democrat, Mr. Scholz narrowly won the election last fall on a platform promising workers “respect” and a higher minimum wage, while nudging Germany on a path to a carbon-neutral future.Foreign policy barely featured in his election campaign, but it has come to dominate the first weeks of the new administration. Rarely has a German leader come into office with so many burning crises. As soon as Mr. Scholz took over from Ms. Merkel in early December, he had to deal not just with a resurgent pandemic but with a Russian president mobilizing troops on Ukraine’s borders.Russian infantry vehicles during drills in January in the Rostov region of Russia. The standoff with Russia over Ukraine has proved particularly vexing for Mr. Scholz.Sergey Pivovarov/Reuters“It wasn’t the plan,” said Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, the vice president of the Berlin office of the German Marshall Fund. “This is a government that has huddled around an ambitious plan of industrial transformation, but the reality of a crisis-ridden world has interfered with their plans.”Of all of the crises, the standoff with Russia has proved particularly uncomfortable for Mr. Scholz. His Social Democrats have traditionally favored a policy of working with Moscow. During the Cold War, Chancellor Willy Brandt engineered “Ostpolitik,” a policy of rapprochement with Russia.The last Social Democratic chancellor, Mr. Schröder, is not just a close friend of Mr. Putin’s, he has also been on the payroll of various Russian energy companies since 2005, notably Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, the two gas pipelines connecting Russia directly with Germany under the Baltic Sea.It was not until last week, after Mr. Schröder’s comments about Ukraine, that Mr. Scholz felt compelled to publicly distance himself from the former chancellor.“There is only one chancellor, and that is me,” he told the public broadcaster ZDF.His party’s divisions over Russia are one way to explain why Mr. Scholz has shrunk away from taking a bolder lead in the standoff with Russia, prompting some to lament the loss of leadership of his conservative predecessor.Mr. Scholz won the election last year primarily by convincing voters that he would be very much like Ms. Merkel. Terse, well briefed and abstaining from any gesture of triumph, he not only learned to sound like the former chancellor, he even emulated her body language, holding his hands together in her signature diamond shape.But now that he is running the country, that is no longer enough. German voters are hungry for Mr. Scholz to reveal himself and increasingly impatient to learn who he is and what he actually stands for.The receiving station for the $10 billion Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which connects Russia directly with Germany. If Russia invades Ukraine, Mr. Scholz will be under enormous pressure to close it down. Sean Gallup/Getty ImagesAs the current crisis unfolds, Mr. Scholz’s imitation of Ms. Merkel is also less and less convincing. She was understated and studious, and often kept her work behind the scenes, but she was not invisible.In the spring of 2014, after Mr. Putin invaded Crimea, Ms. Merkel was on the phone to him almost every day. It was Berlin that united reluctant European neighbors behind costly sanctions and persuaded President Barack Obama, distracted by domestic affairs, to focus on a faraway conflict.At that point, of course, Ms. Merkel had already been chancellor for nine years and knew all of the protagonists well.“The crisis came very soon for Scholz,” said Christoph Heusgen, a veteran diplomat and Ms. Merkel’s foreign policy adviser during the last Ukraine crisis.Mr. Scholz’s advisers have been taken aback by the level of criticism, arguing that Mr. Scholz was merely doing what Ms. Merkel had so often done: Make yourself scarce and keep people guessing while engaging in quiet diplomacy until you have a result.When Mr. Scholz has spoken up on the current crisis — referring to the Russia-owned gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 as a “private-sector project” before pivoting to saying that “everything” was on the table — he has conspicuously recycled language that Ms. Merkel used before.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Chancellor Angela Merkel in Deauville, France, in June 2014. In the spring of 2014, after Mr. Putin first invaded Ukraine, Ms. Merkel was on the phone to him almost every day.Sasha Mordovets/Getty ImagesBut given the escalation in the current crisis, that language is long outdated, analysts say.“He’s overlearned the Merkel style,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff of the German Marshall Fund said. “He’s Merkel-plus, and that doesn’t work in a crisis.”After facing mounting criticism from Kyiv and other Eastern European capitals, Mr. Scholz’s leadership is increasingly being questioned at home, too.In a recent Infratest Dimap poll, Mr. Scholz’s personal approval rating plummeted by 17 percentage points, to 43 percent from 60 percent in early January, the sharpest decline for a chancellor in postwar history, the firm says. Support for his Social Democrats fell to 22 percent, lagging the conservatives for the first time since last year’s surprise election victory.Mr. Scholz’s team announced that after returning from Washington, the chancellor will pivot to a full schedule that he hopes will shift German diplomacy into high gear. Following his meeting with Mr. Biden, he will meet with Mr. Macron; the Polish prime minister, Andrzej Duda; and the three leaders of the Baltic States. The week after, he will travel to Kyiv and Moscow, in that order.Senior diplomats say it is high time for such a pivot, starting with Monday’s visit to the White House.Mr. Scholz has a seeming center-left ally in Mr. Biden, who has so far refrained from publicly criticizing Berlin. Not since President Bill Clinton’s second term have both the White House and the German chancellery been in the hands of center-left leaders, and for all of the wavering on the German side, the two administrations have been in close contact throughout.Mr Scholz, right, listening to President Biden, left, at the start of the virtual Summit for Democracy in December. Mr. Biden has so far held off on publicly criticizing Berlin.Michele TantussiBut patience is running thin, and Mr. Scholz will have to bring something to the table.“There has to be a visible sign of commitment to the alliance,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said. “That’s what other allies are doing: The Spanish, the Baltic countries, the Poles, the Brits — everyone has offered something to strengthen deterrence on the eastern flank.”German lawmakers have started preliminary conversations about beefing up their troop presence in Lithuania, officials say. Other options include more naval patrols in the Baltic Sea and more air patrols in Bulgaria and Romania.As important as any material commitment may be the words Mr. Scholz uses — or does not use — to publicly communicate that commitment.“Maybe for the first time he could mention Nord Stream 2 by name when talking about possible sanctions,” Mr. Kleine-Brockhoff said. “He needs to make a clear statement that Germany gets the situation and will stand with its allies in a language that appeals to people in the U.S. and ideally not in his usual flat language,” he added. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Ethiopia's Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, Is Tearing the Country Apart

      by

      Ahead of Ethiopia’s general election on Monday, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been laying out his grand ambitions for the country. He wants it to be “comfortable for all Ethiopians,” he recently told a TV interviewer, “where every Ethiopian moves around relaxed, works and prospers.” The country, he said, should be one whose “sovereignty is respected and feared, and whose territorial integrity is preserved.”He’s going about it in a horrifying way. For eight months, Mr. Abiy’s government has been waging brutal war on one of its regions, Tigray, killing thousands of people, displacing over two million and creating a disastrous famine. Comfort, relaxation, work and prosperity could not be farther away. Far from respect, the act has brought international outcry. And as for territorial integrity, the war effort has relied on Eritrean soldiers, whom Isaias Afwerki, the country’s leader, refuses to withdraw.But the war in Tigray, though exceptional in its brutality, is not an isolated case. Since he came to power on a wave of enthusiasm in 2018, Mr. Abiy has consistently demonstrated his tendency to ruthlessly centralize power. Political opponents, set against the creation of a new ruling party in Mr. Abiy’s image, have been sidelined, even jailed. Many have been shocked by this behavior — after all, Mr. Abiy was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 — but in fact, he’s following a coherent philosophy and strategy. Elaborately explained in his book “Medemer,” a word coined by the prime minister to mean togetherness, the approach seeks unity among the people of Ethiopia and cohesion in its state.And it’s tearing the country apart.For the disasters he’s unleashed, look no further than Tigray. Since Mr. Abiy announced the assault in November as a “law enforcement” mission, it has metastasized into all-out war. Numerous corroborated reports have revealed the horrific scale of violence, including massacres, endemic sexual violence and a famine that threatens the lives of more than 350,000 Tigrayans. While the world has yet to learn the real death toll, the region, with a population of more than six million, has been decimated. And there is no end in sight.Eduardo Soteras/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe war, which has become a gruesome byword for ethnic cleansing, is Mr. Abiy’s punishment for Tigray’s refusal to accept his authority. (The precursor to the assault was the region’s decision, in defiance of the government, to hold an election in September.) But Tigray is not alone in paying the price for challenging Mr. Abiy’s centralizing moves. In Oromia, where he’s from, Mr. Abiy has overseen a brutal crackdown — responsible, in 2019 alone, for over 10,000 arrests and a number of extrajudicial executions — in the name of countering a rebellion led by the Oromo Liberation Army, an armed opposition group.After the assassination of a popular Oromo musician, Hachalu Hundessa, in June of last year, repression became yet more violent. In protests against the killing, whose perpetrators are still unknown, at least 123 people were killed, including 76 by security forces. In the aftermath, numerous opposition politicians — including Mr. Abiy’s former ally, Jawar Mohammed — were jailed. In response, the two main opposition parties withdrew from Monday’s election, leaving Mr. Abiy’s party to run the country’s largest region all but uncontested.Against this baleful backdrop, the election — which is expected to coronate Mr. Abiy and his party, cementing his power — is distinctly underwhelming. Not only is Tigray completely excluded, but logistical difficulties have also hampered the voting process. After problems with security, voter registration, defective ballots and legal challenges, the election has been postponed to September in two other regions as well as in dozens of constituencies. And about half a million internally displaced Ethiopians are unlikely to be able to vote.It’s a far cry from the free and fair election Mr. Abiy promised when he became leader three years ago: The much-vaunted transition to democracy is not very evident. Far from supplying legitimacy to the government and stability to the country, the election — boycotted by opposition parties and undertaken amid a war — is likely to pull Ethiopia further apart, to calamitous effect.But that doesn’t seem to bother Mr. Abiy. Ignoring international entreaties to end the war in Tigray and agree to an inclusive political settlement, he is instead determinedly preparing to govern an Ethiopia neither respected nor whole. His legacy, at least, is secure. Mr. Abiy will forever be the Nobel Peace laureate who refused to give peace a chance.Tsedale Lemma (@TsedaleLemma) is the founder of the Addis Standard, an English-language monthly magazine based in Ethiopia.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

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      From Nobel Hero to Driver of War, Ethiopia’s Leader Faces Voters in Election

      by

      Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed plunged Ethiopia into a war in the Tigray region that spawned atrocities and famine. On Monday, his country goes to the polls.ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — As war raged in northern Ethiopia, and the region barreled toward its worst famine in decades, a senior American envoy flew to the Ethiopian capital last month in the hope of persuading Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to pull his country out of a destructive spiral that many fear is tearing it apart.Mr. Abiy, though, wanted to go for a drive.Taking the wheel, the Ethiopian leader took his American guest, the Biden administration’s Horn of Africa envoy, Jeffrey D. Feltman, on an impromptu four-hour tour of Addis Ababa, American officials said. The prime minister drove him past smart new city parks and a refurbished central plaza and even crashed a wedding where the two men posed for photos with the bride and groom.Mr. Abiy’s attempt to change the channel, showcasing economic progress while parts of his country burned, was just the latest sign of a troubled trajectory that has baffled international observers who wonder how they got him so wrong.Not long ago Mr. Abiy, who faces Ethiopian voters on Monday in long-delayed parliamentary elections, was a shining hope for country and continent. After coming to power in 2018 he embarked on a whirlwind of ambitious reforms:  freeing political prisoners, welcoming exiles home from abroad and, most impressively, striking a landmark peace deal with Eritrea, Ethiopia’s old foe, in a matter of months.A light rail and rapid transit train, the first in sub-Saharan Africa, traveling past skyscrapers under construction in Addis Ababa in 2019. Mr. Abiy is pushing his vision of a modernized, economically vibrant Ethiopia.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesA worker with the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia explaining ballots last week in Addis Ababa before Monday’s general election.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesThe West, eager for a glittering success story in Africa, was wowed, and within 18 months Mr. Abiy, a one-time intelligence officer, had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.But in just nine months Mr. Abiy’s halo has been brutally shattered. The civil war that erupted in the northern region of Tigray in November has become a byword for atrocities against Ethiopian citizens.Mr. Abiy’s forces have been accused of massacres, sexual assault and ethnic cleansing. Last week a senior United Nations official declared that Tigray was in the throes of a famine — the world’s worst since 250,000 people died in Somalia a decade ago, he said.Elsewhere in Ethiopia, ethnic violence has killed hundreds and forced two million people to flee their homes. A smoldering border dispute with Sudan has flared into a major military standoff.Even the election on Monday, once billed as the country’s first free vote and a chance to turn the page on decades of autocratic rule, has only highlighted its divisions and fueled grim warnings that Ethiopia’s very future is in doubt.“These elections are a distraction,” said Abadir M. Ibrahim, an adjunct law professor at Addis Ababa University. “The state is on a cliff edge, and it’s not clear if it can pull back. We just need to get past this vote so we can focus on averting a calamity.”The prime minister’s office did not respond to questions and an interview request.An October 2019 street scene in Badme, the disputed town over which the border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea was fought from 1998 to 2000. Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesAn Afar militiaman on the salt flats of the Danakil Depression in 2019. In the past month, 400,000 people have been forced from their homes in the Amhara and Afar regions.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesMr. Abiy’s Prosperity Party, formed in 2019 from the rump of a former governing coalition, is widely expected to win the election easily. But there will be no voting in 102 of Ethiopia’s 547 constituencies because of war, civil unrest and logistical failures.Senior opposition leaders are in jail and their parties are boycotting the vote in Oromia, a sprawling region of about 40 million people that is more populous than many African countries.Mr. Abiy has put a brave face on his nation’s problems, repeatedly downplaying the Tigray conflict as a “law and order operation” and pushing his vision for a modernized, economically vibrant Ethiopia. The United States, which gave Ethiopia $1 billion in aid last year, is pressuring him to shift focus immediately.After being chauffeured around Addis Ababa by Mr. Abiy in May, Mr. Feltman wrote a detailed analysis of his trip for President Biden and other leaders in Washington, even mentioning a sudden jolt by the vehicle that sent coffee spilling on the envoy’s shirt.Weeks later, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken imposed visa bans on unnamed Ethiopian officials.Other foreigners have left Ethiopia concerned that ethnic cleansing was underway. Pekka Haavisto, a European Union envoy who visited in February, told the European Parliament last week that Ethiopian leaders had told him “they are going to destroy the Tigrayans, that they are going to wipe out the Tigrayans for 100 years.”Ethiopia’s foreign ministry dismissed Mr. Haavisto’s comments as “ludicrous” and a “hallucination of sorts.”Global condemnation of Mr. Abiy, 44, most recently at last week’s Group of 7 summit, represents a dizzying fall for a young leader who until recently was globally celebrated.The whirl of reforms he instituted after being appointed prime minister in 2018 were a sharp rebuke to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a party of rebels turned rulers who had dominated Ethiopia since 1991 in an authoritarian system that achieved impressive economic growth at the cost of basic civil rights.After coming to power in 2018, Mr. Abiy freed political prisoners and welcomed exiles home.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesJawar Mohammed, a media baron, is  one of Ethiopia’s most prominent opposition figures.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesMr. Abiy promised a new way. He allowed once-banned opposition parties, appointed women to half the positions in his cabinet and struck the peace with Eritrea that earned him a Nobel Prize.But in moving swiftly, Mr. Abiy also unleashed pent-up frustrations among ethnic groups that had been marginalized from power for decades — most notably his own group, the Oromo, who account for one-third of Ethiopia’s 110 million people. When mass protests erupted, he reverted to the old playbook: arrests, repression and police brutality.At the same time, tensions escalated with the T.P.L.F., which resented Mr. Abiy’s swaggering reforms. The party leadership retreated to Tigray where, last September, it defied Mr. Abiy by proceeding with regional elections that had been postponed across the country because of the pandemic.By early last November, word reached Washington that war was looming in Tigray. Senator Chris Coons, who has a longstanding interest in Africa, phoned Mr. Abiy to warn about the perils of resorting to military force.Mr. Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, said he reminded the Ethiopian leader that the American Civil War and World War I had started with promises of swift military victory, only to drag on for years and cost millions of lives.Mr. Abiy was undeterred. “He was confident it would be over in six weeks,” Mr. Coons said. Days later, on the evening of the American presidential election, fighting erupted in Tigray.Mr. Abiy has given few interviews. But people who have dealt with him describe a man brimming with self-confidence, even “messianic” — a description encouraged by Mr. Abiy’s own accounts that his ascent to power was preordained. When he was 7, Mr. Abiy told The New York Times in 2018, his mother whispered into his ear that he was “unique” and predicted that he would “end up in the palace.”Watching a television newscast showing Mr. Abiy shortly after he won the Nobel Peace Prize, at a roadside restaurant in the northern Afar region in 2019.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesRiot police officers, in a show of force, marching Saturday in a parade in Addis Ababa.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesA former adviser said that a strong Christian faith also guides Mr. Abiy. He is a Pentecostal Christian, a faith that has soared in popularity in Ethiopia, and is a staunch believer in the “prosperity gospel” — a theology that regards material success as God’s reward — said the former adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals. It is not a coincidence, the adviser added, that the party founded by Mr. Abiy in 2019 is called the Prosperity Party.Mr. Abiy’s evangelical faith has attracted influential supporters in Washington, including Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, who told the Senate in 2018 how he first met Mr. Abiy at a prayer meeting where “he told the story of his journey and faith in Jesus.”Last month, Mr. Inhofe traveled to Ethiopia to show his support for Mr. Abiy against the American sanctions.Another crucial relationship for Mr. Abiy is with the dictatorial leader of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki. Eritrean troops who flooded into Tigray to support Mr. Abiy’s campaign have been accused by the United Nations and rights groups of the worst atrocities of the conflict. Now they are a major factor in the region’s famine.Eritrean soldiers “using starvation as a weapon of war” are blocking aid shipments headed for the most vulnerable parts of Tigray, Mark Lowcock, the top U.N. humanitarian official, told the Security Council last week.The Eritrean issue is Mr. Abiy’s largest international liability, and some analysts describe him as being manipulated by Mr. Isaias, a veteran fighter with a reputation for ruthless strategic maneuvering. By other accounts, Mr. Abiy has little choice — were the Eritreans to leave suddenly, he could lose control of Tigray entirely.The election is likely to highlight the mounting challenges in the rest of Ethiopia. In the past month alone, 400,000 people have been forced from their homes in the Amhara and Afar regions, Mr. Lowcock said. The military has taken control in several parts of Oromia, where an armed rebellion has erupted.Weighing sheet metal at a recycling depot in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia is grappling with daunting economic and social challenges.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesDowntime at a coffee kiosk in a market in Addis Ababa. Washington said last month that it was cutting security and economic assistance to Ethiopia.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York TimesMr. Coons, sent by Mr. Biden to reason with Mr. Abiy in February, warned the Ethiopian leader that the explosion of ethnic hatred could shatter the country, much as it did the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.Mr. Abiy responded that Ethiopia is “a great nation with a great history,” Mr. Coons said.Mr. Abiy’s transformation from Nobel Peace Prize laureate to wartime leader has prompted quiet soul-searching among some of his allies. The glitter of the Nobel Prize, and a burning desire for a success story in Africa, blinded many Western countries to his evident faults, said Judd Devermont, a former U.S. national intelligence officer for Africa, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.With limited interest in Africa, the West too readily categorizes the continent’s leaders as “good” or “bad” with little room for nuance, he added.“We have to acknowledge that we helped to contribute to Abiy’s view of himself,” he said. “We papered over these challenges very early. We gave him a blank check. When it went wrong, we initially turned a blind eye. And now it may be too late.”An urban park where letters spell “Addis Ababa” in Amharic.Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Armenia’s Governing Party Wins Election Seen as Vote on Peace Deal

      by

      The party of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan won a snap parliamentary election in which rivals had talked of renegotiating his unpopular settlement with Azerbaijan.MOSCOW — The party of Armenia’s prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, won a snap election over the weekend that also signaled at least grudging acceptance by Armenians of a peace settlement negotiated last fall with Azerbaijan.Forced on Armenia by battlefield losses and negotiated by Mr. Pashinyan, the settlement remains deeply unpopular. It ended a six-week war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic-Armenian area inside Azerbaijan, but at a steep cost for the Armenian side. The deal ceded territory that included centuries-old monasteries that are a touchstone for Armenian national identity.In the immediate wake of the deal in November, nationalist protesters stormed Mr. Pashinyan’s office and tore his nameplate from the door. It seemed unclear whether he could remain in power to enforce the tentative peace in the South Caucasus, a region where Turkey and Russia compete for influence.But the election results announced on Monday showed Armenian voters apparently willing to accept Mr. Pashinyan’s agreement, and with it a cleareyed view of their country’s difficult security challenges.Election officials said Mr. Pashinyan’s party, Civil Contract, had won 53.9 percent of the vote. Mr. Pashinyan celebrated the win as a “mandate of steel” from voters. In a video address, he said it would “restore social and national consolidation” after the war.A bloc of parties headed by a former president, Robert Kocharyan, came in second with 21 percent of the vote. Mr. Kocharyan said on Monday that the results were tainted by fraud.Mr. Kocharyan and other opposition candidates had criticized the peace settlement and suggested they might renegotiate the Russian-brokered deal through more forceful diplomacy.But this line of criticism, based largely on wishful thinking that Azerbaijan, Turkey and Russia might accept changes, failed to resonate with voters, said Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Center, a research group in Yerevan.Mr. Kocharyan and other opposition candidates had not suggested abrogating the agreement and did not directly criticize Russia’s role in the negotiations or the deployment of peacekeeping troops to Nagorno-Karabakh.The reluctance to criticize Russia’s role also highlighted Moscow’s growing sway in Armenian politics. No candidates ran in open opposition to Russia’s military presence in the region.“The net outcome of the war for Armenia means that Armenia is in the Russian orbit ever more firmly,” Mr. Giragosian said. “Armenian politicians across the board are pro-Russian.”Other factors in Armenian politics also helped Mr. Pashinyan: The opposition was divided by infighting and Mr. Pashinyan’s domestic policies of fighting corruption and focusing on road building and rural development remain popular, opinion polls have shown. The surveys suggested Armenians were more focused on economic issues than on the lost territories.In the fighting last fall, Azerbaijan captured districts it had lost in a conflict during the breakup of the Soviet Union three decades ago. Turkey’s role was pivotal, supplying drones and other assistance, and tipping the scales against Armenia.Turkish intervention also stirred worry of a wider war in the South Caucasus region that might draw in Turkey and Russia, because Moscow has a defense pact with Armenia.The settlement ended the fighting but also brought a greater Russian military presence to the South Caucasus, a region of mountains and multiple ethnic groups that has been an intersection of Turkish and Russian influence for centuries. It left Russian peacekeepers in de facto control of Nagorno-Karabakh, facing Azerbaijan’s Turkish-backed troops over a shaky line of control where the fighting ended. More

    • 50 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      The War in Tigray

      by

      Listen and follow The DailyApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherThis episode contains descriptions of sexual violence.Ethiopia is about to hold a major election — something that would normally have been a cause for celebration.Just a few years ago, the country was coming to be seen as a great democratic hope for Africa. Its leader, Abiy Ahmed, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for brokering a deal with Eritrea.However, the nation is now in the grips of a civil war, as Mr. Ahmed undertakes a military campaign that has killed thousands and displaced millions.In the northern region of Tigray, there have been widespread reports of massacres, human rights abuses and a looming famine.How did Ethiopia get here?On today’s episodeDeclan Walsh, the chief Africa correspondent for The New York Times.Ethiopian refugees in Sudan in December waited near a U.N. compound for many hours in the hope of receiving supplies.Tyler Hicks/The New York TimesBackground readingThousands of Ethiopians have fled the country and given accounts of a devastating and complex conflict. A U.S. report found that officials are leading a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing in the northern region of Tigray.United Nations agencies have said the crisis in the Tigray region has plunged it into famine. It’s a starvation calamity bigger at the moment than anywhere else in the world.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.Transcripts of each episode are available by the next workday. You can find them at the top of the page.Declan Walsh contributed reporting.The Daily is made by Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Annie Brown, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Wendy Dorr, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Austin Mitchell, Neena Pathak, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Daniel Guillemette, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Kaitlin Roberts, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Soraya Shockley, Corey Schreppel and Anita Badejo.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Theo Balcomb, Cliff Levy, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Nora Keller, Sofia Milan, Desiree Ibekwe, Erica Futterman and Wendy Dorr. More

    • 88 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Netanyahu’s Road Through Israel’s History, in Pictures

      by

      “Bibi, King of Israel!”That is a shout from his fervent supporters that might have given pause to King David, let alone King Solomon. But Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has finally lost his job, unable to cobble together a final majority in the Knesset after four elections in the last two years.The government that has now replaced him is fragile, however. Little holds it together except a desire to get Mr. Netanyahu out of office, where he will no longer be immune from punishment, if convicted, over charges of corruption.But Mr. Netanyahu still appears to rule Israel’s largest party, Likud, and given Israel’s riven politics, his fall may only be a sort of sabbatical.Whatever the criticism of his actions and political cynicism, Mr. Netanyahu’s career represents an extraordinary accomplishment for a man who grew up in the shadow of a difficult and demanding father and a hero brother, killed at the age of 30 in command of one of Israel’s most storied military ventures, Operation Entebbe. The 1976 operation rescued hostages held at Entebbe Airport in Uganda.Both brothers served in the military’s elite commando unit, Sayeret Matkal. But Bibi survived to put a more lasting stamp on the young state through his political and economic policies, his toughness toward rivals. He has an instinctive sense of what drives Israelis — the search for security in one of the most unstable regions of the world, a Jewish state built on the remnants the Nazis left behind, in the midst of an Arab and Iranian sea.Mr. Netanyahu, right, during a training exercise as a member of the Israeli Army’s Sayeret Matkal commando unit.Israeli Government Press OfficeIsraeli troops patrol fields around a hijacked Sabena aircraft in Tel Aviv in 1972. Mr. Netanyahu’s commando unit, led by Ehud Barak, another future prime minister, rescued the passengers from hijackers.Associated PressMr. Netanyahu with his daughter Noa in 1980.Israeli Government Press OfficeMr. Netanyahu’s path to leadership was not an obvious one. Born in Israel, he grew up partly in the United States, where his father, a deeply conservative scholar of Judaic history, was teaching.He returned to Israel after high school, fluent in English, to make a distinguished career as a commando in Sayaret Matkal, where he rose to captain and was wounded several times.He then returned to the United States, using the more Anglicized name Ben Nitay (later changed to Benjamin Ben Nitai) to get degrees in architecture and business management. By 1978, he was already appearing on American television, where his English made him an ideal guest to discuss Israel.He found his way into diplomacy and politics in the early 1980s, when he was appointed deputy chief of mission to the Israeli Embassy in Washington. He then served as ambassador to the United Nations before returning to Israel to enter politics in earnest.He joined the Likud in 1988 and was elected to Parliament.Mr. Netanyahu, accompanied by Government Secretary Elyakim Rubinstein, on a flight from New York to Washington in 1989, when Mr. Netanyahu served as deputy foreign minister.Israeli Government Press OfficeRight-wing activists pasting campaign posters for Mr. Netanyahu over campaign posters for Prime Minister Shimon Peres in May 1996, before the election that would bring Mr. Netanyahu to power.David Silverman/ReutersBenjamin and Sara Netanyahu in Jerusalem on election day in 1996.Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBy 1993, he was the leader of Likud and was a strong critic of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of the Labor party and his willingness to give up territory to reach peace with the Palestinians in the Oslo accords. After Mr. Rabin was assassinated in 1995, Mr. Netanyahu was criticized for language approaching incitement, a charge he said he found deeply wounding.But he defeated Washington’s favorite candidate, Shimon Peres, in the 1996 elections by pushing the theme of security in the midst of a badly managed conflict with Lebanon and a series of terrorist bombings by Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. He became the youngest prime minister in Israeli history and the first to be born in the independent state.That same year, 1996, Mr. Netanyahu represented Israel for the first time in summit meetings organized by President Clinton, who was eager to build on Oslo to create a more lasting peace.Then and later, in the 1998 Wye River summit, Mr. Netanyahu proved a difficult partner. He was willing to appeal to American Jews and Israel supporters in Congress to heighten political pressure on Mr. Clinton not to press Israel to go farther than he judged wise.His relations with the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, were always tense, and the two never came to trust one another enough to reach the peace that Mr. Clinton thought was within grasp.Vice President Al Gore watching as Yasir Arafat, King Hussein of Jordan, President Clinton and Mr. Netanyahu leave the Oval Office after a Middle East summit meeting in 1996.Paul Hosefros/The New York TimesThe Israeli and Palestinian leaders failed to resolve any of their differences during the two-day summit.Doug Mills/Associated PressSurrounded by security personnel, Mr. Netanyahu, with his wife Sara and son Avner, spent a holiday at the beach in Caesarea in August 1997.Shaul Golan/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhile Mr. Netanyahu did much to reform Israel’s economy, charges of corruption, both large and petty, surrounded him and hurt his popularity.After the failure of his Labor Party successor, Ehud Barak, to reach peace with the Palestinians at long meetings at Camp David and again, just before Mr. Clinton left office, Mr. Netanyahu returned to politics. But he lost out to Ariel Sharon, then went on to serve in his cabinet. After a period in opposition, Mr. Netanyahu became prime minister again in 2009 and has remained in office since.But his relations with American presidents continued to be fraught, and he and President Obama developed a deep mutual disdain.Mr. Obama pushed too hard too early to try to get Israel to stop settlement building in the occupied West Bank, while Mr. Netanyahu believed that Mr. Obama was putting Israel at an existential risk by trying to do a deal with Iran to curb its nuclear program.While Iran denied it was aiming to develop nuclear weapons, Mr. Netanyahu compared the threat of Iran to Israel and the Jews to the late 1930s in Europe, when Hitler took power.He tried to defeat the deal in every setting, from the United Nations, where he famously held up a cartoon bomb with a thick red line representing Iranian uranium enrichment, to the U.S. Congress itself, where he remained very popular, especially among Republicans.During his second tenure as prime minister, Mr. Netanyahu had an icy relationship with President Obama.Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesThe Iron Dome defense system being used to intercept incoming missiles fired from Gaza by Hamas militants in 2012.Tsafrir Abayov/Associated PressMr. Netanyahu, famous for his use of visual aids, displaying his red line for Iran’s nuclear program at the United Nations in 2012.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu also dealt with the aftermath of Mr. Sharon’s decision to pull Israeli troops and settlers out of the Gaza Strip, a step he opposed. Mr. Sharon dumped the keys to Gaza in the street, but they were picked up by the more radical Hamas, which seized control of the Palestinian territory from the more moderate Fatah faction led by Mr. Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas.Under Mr. Netanyahu, Israel made regular raids and airstrikes to try to stop rockets from Gaza hitting southern Israel, prompting criticism about the deaths of Palestinian civilians in a place many compared to an open-air prison, largely sealed off from the world by Israel and Egypt.But Mr. Netanyahu has refrained from any comprehensive re-invasion of Gaza and has had quiet talks through Egyptian mediators with Hamas to try to keep Gaza from imploding and dragging Israel into a larger war, especially another one with the Iranian-armed Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon.In the occupied West Bank, however, Israel continued to build a separation barrier between the Palestinians and ever-expanding settlements beyond the so-called Green Line, which delineated Israel’s boundaries under the 1949 armistice until the 1967 Arab-Israeli war..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-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.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-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 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:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Netanyahu increasingly depended on political support from Israelis who supported the settlement expansion and their eventual annexation, which he threatened but never carried out.At the same time, he has been making inroads with other Sunni Arab nations despite the continuing decline in relations with the Palestinians, pushing Israel’s solidarity with them against Iran. One of his great accomplishments, working with President Trump, were the Abraham Accords, which opened normal diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.Those accords survived the most recent exchange of fire last month with Hamas in Gaza, an 11-day clash that seemed, for now, to put the Palestinian issue back on the table. But even that conflict did not save Mr. Netanyahu.An Israeli tank near the town of Sderot at the border with Gaza during the seven-week war with Hamas in 2014.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu at the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament.Lior Mizrahi/Getty ImagesMr. Netanyahu visiting the border fence between Israel and Jordan in 2016.Pool photo by Marc Israel SellemSome say that Mr. Netanyahu has sought his whole life to grow out of shadow of his brother and to make his own mark on Israeli history. There are streets all over Israel named after Yonatan Netanyahu.Only when Mr. Netanyahu’s father, hawkish and dominating, died in 2012 at the age of 102, Israelis said the prime minister could feel liberated enough to try to make peace with the Palestinians.But that has been a hope long deferred, as previous efforts at peace have proven hollow. Both the Israelis and Palestinians have pulled back from the deeply difficult compromises, both territorial and religious, that would be required for a lasting settlement of the unfinished war of 1948-49.Mr. Netanyahu, with his father, Benzion Netanyahu, visiting the grave of his brother Yoni at Mount Herzl in 2009 in Jerusalem. Yoni Netanyahu was killed during military operations in Uganda in July 1976.Amos Ben Gershom/Government Press OfficeHar Homa, a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, has more than 25,000 residents.Tomas Munita for The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu used one of the most prominent platforms in the world, the United States Congress, to warn against what he called a “bad deal” being negotiated with Iran to freeze its nuclear program in 2015.Doug Mills/The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu was an early supporter of Mr. Trump and his presidency was a triumph for the Israeli leader. Having the support of an American president is crucial for Israelis and Mr. Netanyahu campaigned on his strong relationship with Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran deal and, in an obvious effort to help Mr. Netanyahu in this latest campaign, moved the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in the 1967 war.But Mr. Trump’s defeat was a blow to Mr. Netanyahu. President Biden is trying to restore the Iran nuclear deal over fierce Israeli objections, intervened to press Mr. Netanyahu to bring an end to the latest Gaza clash and has repeated his support for a negotiated, two-state solution to the Palestinian issue.After President Trump’s election in 2016, Mr. Netanyahu found an ally in the White House.Stephen Crowley/The New York TimesProtesters seen through a banner showing Mr. Netanyahu in 2018.Oded Balilty/Associated PressMr. Netanyahu visiting a market in Jerusalem in 2019 during his campaign for a fifth term as prime minister.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu remained in power so long not because Israelis think he is the nicest or cleanest man in the kingdom, but because they believed that he kept them safe and made them wealthier, and that he has succeeded in maintaining Israel’s security while reducing its isolation in the region.Mr. Netanyahu celebrating an election victory in 2020.Dan Balilty for The New York TimesMr. Netanyahu, right, with his lawyer at the Jerusalem district court in February during a hearing in his corruption trial.Pool photo by Reuven CastroIsrael’s Iron Dome missile defense system lights up the sky over Tel Aviv as it tries to intercept rockets fired from Gaza during the war last month.Corinna Kern for The New York TimesWhether or not he ever returns to power again, after Mr. Netanyahu dies, there will be many streets named after him, too.Benjamin Netanyahu shakes hands with the new prime minister, Naftali Bennett, after the Knesset approved the new coalition government on Sunday.Ronen Zvulun/Reuters More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

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

      by

      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