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WASHINGTON —  The Palestinian militant offensive against Israel on Saturday — possibly the deadliest and largest ever — will dramatically alter diplomatic and political calculations in the Middle East and deprive Washington of whatever leverage it has in influencing Israel, diplomats and analysts say. Vowing “mighty vengeance,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched massive airstrikes on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in response to the militant attacks that left hundreds dead and many abducted. Netanyahu declared his country at war and a full-scale but perilous ground incursion, 18 years after Israel withdrew from Gaza, is not out of the question, experts say.The looming and urgent question then will be whether fighting extends farther into the volatile region, involving Lebanon o...

Local leaders in Southern California swiftly denounced Hamas militants and increased security around Jewish institutions Saturday hours after a deadly attack killed at least 700 Israelis in the Middle East, with more than 400 in Gaza killed in counterattacks.“I join voices across the nation condemning this horrific attack on Israel,” Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said Saturday in a statement. “The Los Angeles region has the second largest Jewish population outside of Israel, and many families are anxiously awaiting developments as they unfold. My thoughts are with those families this morning. Angelenos stand with those under siege mourning loss. May their memories be a blessing.”Los Angeles Police Chief Michel Moore said Saturday that the department added extra patrols to areas of the city...

Who would have thought, back when the women’s media landscape was dominated by Ladies’ Home Journal and Good Housekeeping, that a magazine born of the second great American feminist wave would be around 50 years later?Certainly not the late Harry Reasoner, who, as the anchor for ABC Evening News, personified the white male media establishment. Opinion Columnist Robin Abcarian “After you’ve done marriage contracts, role-changing, female identity crisis, what do you do next? Organize foods for Christmas dinner, I expect,” proclaimed Reasoner after paging through the first issue of Ms. magazine in 1972.Five years later, his portrait appeared in a full-page New York Times ad celebrating Ms.’ fifth anniversary. You couldn’t see the egg on his face, but it was ther...

MEXICO CITY —  The Biden administration has been dedicating a significant amount of time to its prickly ally and neighbor to the south, Mexico.High-level meetings have taken place in both countries over the last two weeks, with the two sides speaking of their determination to cooperate on vexing issues including migration and cross-border smuggling of fentanyl and weapons.But even as America’s top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, extolled what he judged to be the countries’ “closest cooperation” in decades, Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, was excoriating the U.S. for its foreign policy.Late last month, as Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Alicia Bárcena met with Blinken in Washington ahead of his arrival in Mexico City last week for more talks, López Obrador con...

It’s often said that Donald Trump has a cultlike following. But that’s far too benign.“Star Wars” has a cultlike following. Taylor Swift has her cult of “Swifties.” A political organization that has no platform other than loyalty to the leader is not a cult, it’s an autocratic movement.The tragicomic chaos in the House in the last week is the natural result of a political party that has lived under Trump’s thumb. It should end any pretense that the current Republican Party is a serious governing party.As Hannah Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism”: “Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise. The totalitarian movements, each in its own way, have done their utmost to get rid of the party prog...