Iran said that its retaliation for Israel’s April 1 attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus would be “deemed concluded,” while Biden reportedly told Netanyahu that the U.S. would not back an Israeli counterattack.

The Israeli state sees violent settler mobs as challenging its monopoly over violence. This puts right-wing ministers like Itamar Ben-Gvir in a bind: settlers facilitate the settlement project, but the state wants to control it.

While tensions rise at the Al Aqsa compound in anticipation of a broader Israeli crackdown, settlers burned down a Palestinian home near Ramallah and continued the organized assault on Huwwara.

Smotrich’s genocidal pronouncements take inspiration from a long history that belongs to the left as much as it does to the right, beginning with the Labor Zionism of David Ben Gurion.

The New York Times barely mentions that the latest settler rampage in Huwwara was a state-sponsored pogrom, presided over by the Israeli army. They don’t want to destroy the two-state illusion.