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☆ Israelis Head to Polls in Fifth Election Since 2019
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Dov Lieber | Aaron Boxerman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Supporters of Israel’s Likud party and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, campaigning in Jerusalem on Monday. TEL AVIV—A deeply divided Israeli electorate is casting ballots Tuesday in the nation’s fifth election since 2019, with polls predicting an extremely tight vote that gives neither Prime Minister Yair Lapid nor opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu a clear path to power. Some of the most recent polls showed Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition with a slight edge of 61 seats needed for a majority in the 120-seat parliament, the Knesset. Other polls showed a 60-60 tie. Mr. Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party, is polling at around 27 seats.

SHABTIN, West Bank—When an Israeli military patrol was secretly filmed beating two young Palestinian men in August, the 14-second video posted on TikTok triggered a new furor for Israel. The soldiers were quickly suspended from duty. Israel’s top military officer denounced the men as unworthy of wearing their uniforms after the army opened a criminal investigation. And a prominent Israeli minister called for the battalion whose members were responsible for the beating to be dissolved.

JERUSALEM—As Israel heads to its fifth election in four years, Benjamin Netanyahu has been relentlessly campaigning across the country from the back of a delivery truck outfitted as a mobile campaign stage, imploring voters to come out on election day. Some call it the Bibi-bus, using Mr. Netanyahu’s famous nickname. “Come and vote,” he told supporters in the central Israeli city of Rehovot this month. “Convince your friends, family and neighbors.”

☆ Israel’s Far-Right Itamar Ben-Gvir Poised to Become Political Force
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-23 | by ( Dov Lieber | Aaron Boxerman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

TEL AVIV—In a new campaign ad for Israeli right-wing parliamentary candidate Itamar Ben-Gvir, a frightened woman tells her husband in Hebrew over the phone that men are outside their apartment with knives to kill her and their children. Implying that the men are Arab, the ad then warns that the ethnic riots that took over the streets of Israel last year could return. “It’s time to be the masters of the house,” the ad says. “It’s time for Ben-Gvir.”

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the final status of Jerusalem should be decided between Israel and the Palestinians through talks. Australia dropped its recognition of West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, sparking a diplomatic spat between the two U.S. allies over the longstanding Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The decision by Australia’s center-left government, which came to power after an election in May, reverses a 2018 move by the previous center-right government to recognize West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Australia’s Embassy is still in Tel Aviv.

The violence in Jerusalem has come amid a period of intense unrest in the occupied West Bank. JERUSALEM—Israel said Thursday it was beefing up the security arrangements in Jerusalem after violent overnight clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians, as recent unrest in the West Bank spread to the holy city during an important Jewish festival. Israeli police fired tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinians who threw stones, firecrackers and Molotov cocktails in one of the fiercest clashes in the contested city in recent months. Israeli police said they arrested 23 Palestinians over the past 24 hours for violent rioting, which included the burning of trash cans and tires to block roads.

☆ In Israel’s Election, Arab Voter Turnout Could Play Key Role
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Dov Lieber | Aaron Boxerman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

TAMRA, Israel—Looming over a main square in this Arab city in northern Israel hangs a massive sign in Arabic that implores: “Either we vote or we’ll regret it.”Such messaging comes as many Arab Israelis in places like Tamra say they are planning to stay home on Israel’s election day on Tuesday.

☆ Ukrainian City Attracts Thousands of Jewish Pilgrims Despite War
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-25 | by ( Aaron Boxerman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Even as Ukraine and Russia remain at war, thousands of Hasidic Jews plan to travel to the central Ukrainian city of Uman for an annual pilgrimage to visit the grave of an 18th-century rabbi over Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, which begins Sunday at sundown. “The experience, the path one travels in Uman, is so meaningful that one is willing to pay a great price,” said Abraham Rabinovitch, 34, a Jewish Israeli who arrived in the Ukrainian city on Thursday.

NABLUS, West Bank—For young Palestinians in the Balata refugee camp, sleep begins after dawn. Rising in the afternoon, they wolf down a meal, grab their rifles and disperse to hide-outs down narrow alleys to wait for the arrival of Israeli troops. After sunset, the gunfights begin. It is a routine that both Israeli military forces and the Palestinian Authority see as a growing danger—young, armed militants in the West Bank who have no affiliation with known groups such as Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Leaderless and angry, they have proved difficult for Israeli and Palestinian authorities to suppress, resulting in one of the bloodiest years in the West Bank in a decade and threatening to undermine the fragile Western-backed Palestinian rulers.

RAMALLAH, West Bank—Palestinian Authority security forces clashed with armed groups and gangs of young men who were hurling stones in the city of Nablus on Tuesday, as unrest intensified in the West Bank amid a series of Israeli military raids and arrests of militants. The early-morning gunbattles left at least one Palestinian dead and demonstrated how the Western-backed Palestinian Authority is losing control of northern parts of the West Bank, where officials say there is a growing but diffuse movement that is hostile to both the Israeli occupation and a Palestinian governing body seen by many of its subjects as corrupt and ineffective.

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