The Cauldron Boils Over: As Israel Fights Hamas and Other Militants, It Fights Itself
NEED TO KNOW
The Cauldron Boils Over: As Israel Fights Hamas and Other Militants, It Fights Itself
ISRAEL
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been fighting some bruising internal battles lately. On the surface, it looks like he’s winning, according to author David Horovitz, the founding editor of the Times of Israel:
“Coalition restabilized? Check.
Far-right ideologue (National Security Minister Itamar) Ben Gvir again helming the police force he had been busily brutalizing? Check.
Independently-minded security service chief Ronen Bar, inconveniently insistent on documenting all the failures related to October 7, on the way out? Check.
Independently-minded Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, unwilling to let the government play fast and loose with the law, discredited ahead of dismissal? Check.
Judiciary subjugated? In progress.”
“But what of the price?” he added. “Well, the nation is roiling.”
As Israel continues to fight a war in Gaza and conduct missions in Lebanon, Syria, and elsewhere, trouble at home has been growing.
For months now, Netanyahu has faced weekly protests – including some of the largest since the war began in October 2023 – court injunctions, open revolt from the military and intelligence services, a corruption probe, a criminal trial, a scandal involving aides, and other issues.
“Israel’s ‘King Bibi’ has trouble in his palace,” wrote the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The most recent headache for Bibi, as the prime minister is known, is coming from the military.
Earlier this month, almost 1,000 air force pilots – some reservists, some retired – urged the military in a letter to make a deal with Hamas to release the remaining hostages, even if it means withdrawing completely from Gaza.
“As has been proven in the past, only a deal can bring back the hostages safely, while military pressure mainly leads to the killing of the hostages and the endangerment of our soldiers,” the pilots wrote. “Currently, the war serves mainly political and personal interests, not security interests.”
The document, which ignited a political uproar in Israel, urged all Israelis to demand an end to the war.
The Israel Defense Forces responded by promising to fire the signatories. Netanyahu backed their dismissal, and criticized the pilots as “a marginal and extremist group that is once again trying to break Israeli society from within,” and topple the government.
Upset at the government’s reaction, more than 10,000 Israelis responded with new missives critical of the war in solidarity with the pilots. The signatories included paratroopers and tank corps reservists, doctors, educators, academics, veterans, former diplomats, and about 250 former Mossad spies and three former chiefs.
“We were all part of this war, and we all felt that it was just that we needed to be part of the military effort to crush Hamas,” Or Goren, 51, a reserve medical officer who served in the war and helped organize one of the letters, told the Washington Post. “But now people have come to understand that the military goals of the war were achieved a long time ago.”
“We are saying we are at the edge, and that we can’t take it anymore,” he added. “We believe the war is just being kept alive to serve Netanyahu’s political purposes.”
Critics have accused Netanyahu of prolonging the war in a bid to keep his administration intact and remain prime minister. The far-right ministers in Israel’s government want the war to continue, saying Hamas is not defeated, putting pressure on Netanyahu, who needs the far-right parties for his political survival.
At the same time, the war had delayed his corruption trial. It resumed in March after judges refused his plea for another delay. Netanyahu is facing charges of fraud, bribery, and breach of trust in three cases.
The renewed fighting has also delayed the launch of a state commission to investigate the failures of the government, military, and security services regarding the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,200 people and left about 250 more as hostages of Hamas. Netanyahu has resisted such an inquiry, saying it would be a distraction from the war.
Still, families of Israeli captives, former captives, and their supporters have been urging Netanyahu to reach a ceasefire with Hamas and pave the way for the hostages’ release. Those calls are growing.
“Instead of stopping everything and bringing them home, this government chooses to turn its back, chooses to abandon (the hostages),” said Ilana Gritzewsky, who was captured with her partner but released alone in November 2023, speaking at a large protest in Tel Aviv this month. “And I ask you: How can this be? How can a state founded in the wake of the Holocaust forget its sons and daughters who are being held in Holocaust conditions?”
“The government has given up, but we’ll fight,” she added. “Because it’s not a political issue. It’s a matter of life and death.”
According to polling by the Israel Democracy Institute in April, support for prioritizing “the release of the hostages has been increasing steadily over time over continuing the war, with 68 percent prioritizing the hostages and 25 percent prioritizing toppling Hamas,” it wrote.
However, it added that the public is “divided” on the issue of whether achieving both war goals simultaneously is possible.
Meanwhile, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Monday that while returning the hostages is important, “it’s not the most important goal.”
What the public isn’t divided on, the institute added, is rolling back democracy and the rule of law. That’s why protests erupted over the firing of Bar, the chief of the internal security service Shin Bet, in March because of a “loss of trust,” analysts said, with many seeing the termination by the prime minister as a conflict of interest. A majority wants Bar held responsible for failing to prevent the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, just not by Netanyahu, analysts said.
The push to replace Bar started after his agency began investigating members of Netanyahu’s staff accused of improperly accepting influence payments from Qatar, in a scandal known as Qatar-gate. Those staff members have been detained.
The Supreme Court of Israel has temporarily halted Bar’s termination, which also caused angry protests, with supporters of the government saying the court was interfering in government business.
This week, Bar’s affidavit to the court was made public and detailed instances in which the prime minister pressured the Shin Bet chief to “abuse” the agency’s powers to serve Netanyahu’s political needs. That set off new calls for an investigation by the attorney general, who is responsible for prosecuting elected officials.
However, the government moved to fire Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara weeks ago because she opposed the firing of Bar, the government’s controversial changes to the judicial system, the appointment of Aryeh Deri, who has a conviction, to the cabinet, and interference by the national security minister in police investigations.
More protests followed that attempted termination.
Meanwhile, Netanyahu says he’s being targeted because of politics.
“In America and in Israel, when a strong right-wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will,” Netanyahu wrote on X.
Researchers say that many in Israel are worried about Israeli democracy, as they were before the war broke out.
Then, mass protests went on for months over the government’s controversial judicial overhaul that would have reduced the power of the Supreme Court.
Now the government is trying again, specifically attempting to change how the attorney general and senior judges are appointed in order to assert more government control over the judiciary. Meanwhile, the justice minister had refused to recognize the election of a new chief justice or fill three vacancies on the court’s bench.
“The red flags could not be bigger,” wrote constitutional law professor Suzie Navot of the Israel Democracy Institute. “Those keen on protecting the security and democracy of the state of Israel should heed the warning.”
At the same time, some Israelis are concerned that Israeli unity is hanging by a thread.
“Israel is very close to civil war,” former chief justice Aharon Barak told Israel broadcaster Channel 12. “The rift in the nation is enormous – no effort is being made to heal it, and everyone is trying to exacerbate it.”
Netanyahu disputes that Israel’s democracy or Israel itself is in trouble.
“You recycle the same worn-out and ridiculous slogans about ‘the end of democracy,’” he told his opponents. “Well, once and for all: Democracy is not in danger … Perhaps you could stop putting spanners in the works of the government in the middle of a war. Perhaps you could stop fueling the sedition, hatred, and anarchy in the streets.”
THE WORLD, BRIEFLY
Jordan Bans the Muslim Brotherhood
JORDAN
The Jordanian government declared a complete ban on the Muslim Brotherhood this week after authorities accused the regionwide Islamic group of planning terror attacks, a move that observers said could also affect Jordan’s main opposition party, the Middle East Eye reported.
On Wednesday, Interior Minister Mazin Al-Farrayeh said the group’s activities posed a threat to national unity and public order, adding that all offices and assets linked to the Muslim Brotherhood will be confiscated.
He also said that individuals or entities that have interacted with the group or promoted its ideology would face sanctions.
The minister claimed the group had been operating secretly, despite being ordered to dissolve in a 2020 court ruling, and accused it of training operatives domestically and abroad, manufacturing weapons, and hiding explosives in residential areas.
The ban follows the arrest by authorities last week of 16 people linked to the organization for allegedly plotting terror attacks involving rockets and drones inside Jordan.
The Brotherhood denied any links to the alleged plot and insisted that it was committed to Jordan’s security.
In 2016, Jordan banned the Brotherhood but allowed a splinter group to operate in the country and tolerated the political party linked to the regional organization, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the Associated Press noted.
But the recent ban could result in the shuttering of the IAF, now Jordan’s largest opposition party. The party won the most seats in the country’s September parliamentary elections, capitalizing on widespread anger over the Gaza war.
IAF officials said the party has followed Jordanian law.
Meanwhile, analysts told the AP that the ban marks a “pivotal moment” for Jordan, noting that “the relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood has fundamentally changed and will not return to its previous state.”
Originally founded in Egypt in 1928, the Muslim Brotherhood has been banned in a number of Middle Eastern countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
While the organization says it promotes peace and wants to participate in politics democratically, critics – including many autocratic governments in the region – see it as a major threat because of its popularity.
Crushing the Seeds: Guatemala’s Indigenous Leader Arrested
GUATEMALA
Guatemalan police on Wednesday arrested Luis Pacheco, the country’s deputy energy minister and an Indigenous leader, who the attorney general has accused of terrorism and illicit association, a move that opponents say is in retaliation for his support for the president, Reuters reported.
Pacheco, a member of the K’iche community, led an Indigenous group, Los 48 Cantones de Totonicapán, in nationwide protests in October 2023 to support the transition to power of the then President-elect Bernardo Arévalo and push for the resignation of the country’s attorney general, María Consuelo Porras, according to the Associated Press.
The demonstrations were to ensure that Arévalo could actually take office after his landslide victory in August that year: He was continually being blocked by Porras, who relentlessly initiated investigations into the election and members of his Movimiento Semilla (Seed Movement) to prevent his inauguration. Party members, for example, were accused of unlawfully gathering the required number of signatures to form the party, an accusation analysts call baseless and politically motivated.
The US government has sanctioned Porras for obstructing corruption investigations.
Arévalo, a little-known former Guatemalan diplomat, won a shock victory against the establishment candidate, former first lady Sandra Torres. Since then, the powerful political, military, criminal, and business groups, along with corrupt judges, prosecutors, and the attorney general – collectively known as Pacto de Corruptos (the Corrupt Pact) – that have long controlled the country, have done everything they can to stymie him and his administration.
Meanwhile, Arévalo called the arrest of Pacheco baseless and a “cruel blow” to the people of Guatemala. Pacheco also denied the accusation, saying, “I have done nothing wrong.” Meanwhile, Pacheco’s legal representatives have not been allowed contact with him since his arrest.
Hector Chaclan, former treasurer of the Indigenous group, was also detained.
Dozens of French Media Outlets Sue Meta For ‘Unfair’ Practices
FRANCE
Dozens of French media companies this week filed a joint lawsuit against Meta – Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – alleging illegal data collection and unfair practices in digital advertising, the latest case facing American tech giants who are coming under increasing legal pressure in Europe, France 24 reported.
Sixty-seven media companies representing 200 publications, which include TV, radio, and print outlets such as France TV, Radio France, and Le Figaro, filed the lawsuit Wednesday at a Paris court arguing that, by ignoring the European General Data Protection Regulation, Meta stripped French media outlets of advertising revenue that would have otherwise been earned by these companies, wrote Le Monde.
Plaintiffs say that Meta’s market dominance in the digital advertising sector is mostly due to the company employing illegal practices, including the mass collection of users’ personal data, done without their consent or knowledge – which is illegal in the European Union – and then used to provide readers and viewers with personalized ads.
Lawyers for the French media companies noted that Meta and Google dominate the online advertising market, together accounting for 75 percent of the market and 90 percent of its growth. They added that without Meta’s use of allegedly illegal practices, French media would have seen much larger digital advertising returns.
Meta has not commented on the case.
In October, the company will go on trial in Spain in a case filed by more than 80 companies accusing it of employing unfair competition practices in advertising.
Meanwhile, earlier this week, the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, fined Meta and also Apple for breaching the EU’s new digital rulebook, wrote Politico.
Apple was fined $571 million for breaching the rules for app stores, which dictate that Apple must allow developers to inform customers about alternative offers outside the App Store, according to CNBC News. Apple plans to appeal.
Meta was fined $228 million for their “pay for privacy” system that forces Facebook and Instagram users to pay to keep their data private from the company, or pay for an ad-free service. Meta’s chief global affairs officer, in response, accused the European Commission of wanting to halt the success of American businesses “while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards.”
The EU’s decisions against Meta and Apple risk triggering retaliation from US President Donald Trump, who has been vocal about his displeasure with how the EU applies its rules to US tech companies operating overseas.
DISCOVERIES
Life in the Green Sahara
The Sahara today is known for its endless sand seas of dunes under a scorching hot sun.
But that region didn’t always look like that.
Between 5,000 and 14,000 years ago, the Sahara hosted lush vegetation, with rivers and lakes, and was home to a variety of animals, including humans.
Now, researchers say they may have found details of the lives of those who lived in this landscape after successfully analyzing the DNA of two naturally mummified livestock herders who lived there 7,000 years ago, explained the Smithsonian Magazine.
In the early 2000s, researchers found the skeletons of 15 ancient humans in what is now southwestern Libya in a rock shelter named Takarkori, along with pottery shards and rock art. They theorized that these people survived by hunting, fishing, and herding animals.
According to a new study, this population of ancient humans was previously unknown, largely genetically distinct from others, whose remains have been studied, and didn’t show significant genetic influence from sub-Saharan populations to the south nor from Near Eastern and prehistoric European groups to the north, study co-author Johannes Krause told Reuters.
The two skeletons researchers analyzed were remarkably well-preserved, with skin, ligaments, and soft tissue still intact. Researchers believe they come from two women in their 40s who died around 5,000 BCE, according to CNN.
Initially, only mitochondrial DNA was recovered, which is passed down from mothers, but full genome sequencing later provided a clearer picture of the mummies’ ancestry: Researchers say it is likely that so-called Green Sahara individuals split from the ancestors of sub-Saharan Africans around 50,000 years ago.
From there, they somehow managed to remain genetically isolated for tens of thousands of years – a finding that surprised researchers.
They resemble “living fossils,” Krause told the BBC. “If you’d told me these genomes were 40,000 years old, I would have believed it,” he added.
More research is needed to have a better representation of those who lived in the Green Sahara at the time, but the study is an important contribution to the understanding of human ancestry.
“Research is just beginning to reveal Africa’s complex population history, uncovering lineages barely detectable in the genomes of present-day people,” wrote Mary Prendergast, an anthropologist not involved in the study, in Nature.