Politics

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...

When House Republicans in January chose Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker, that was bad enough: The highest ranking official under the Capitol dome was someone who’d been complicit in then-President Trump’s stoking the worst attack on that very building since its burning by the British in 1814. Replacing the Bakersfield Republican with Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan would be so much worse. Opinion Columnist Jackie Calmes Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress. Here’s the key difference between them: Trump’s “My Kevin” McCarthy played along as the defeated president spun up his MAGA militia with false claims of Democrats’ election steal. But Jordan — he plotted along with th...

JERUSALEM — Their eyes red from exhaustion and worry, Jonathan Polin and his wife, Rachel Goldberg, sat Tuesday in a corner of their Jerusalem living room, now converted into a makeshift command center with one aim: finding their son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin. It had been five days since Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old California native, left a family dinner celebrating the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah to meet up with his best friend. Goldberg kissed her son goodbye, expecting to see him the next day, Saturday. The following morning, however, air-raid sirens reverberated throughout Jerusalem shortly after 8 a.m. — the first sign there of the massive Hamas operation that would swiftly grow into the deadliest attack on Israel in 50 years. Stepping out of her apartment building’s underground she...

Sooner or later, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s destructive political magic, which has kept him in power for 15 years, was bound to usher in a major tragedy. A year ago, he formed the most radical and incompetent government in Israel’s history. Don’t worry, he assured his critics, I have “two hands firmly on the steering wheel.”But by ruling out any political process in Palestine and boldly asserting, in his government’s guidelines, that “the Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right to all parts of the Land of Israel,” Netanyahu’s fanatical government made bloodshed inevitable.Admittedly, blood flowed in Palestine even when peace-seekers such as Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak were in office. But Netanyahu recklessly invited violence by paying his coalition partners ...

A coach from the Mexican National Rhythmic Gymnastics Team is pleading for help after the war in Israel stranded her and her team during an overseas training trip.“The situation has taken an unexpected and disturbing turn,” said Blajaith Aguilar, the team’s coach, in an Instagram video posted Monday. Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel over the weekend, killing hundreds of people, including many civilians, and trapping others in their homes. Israel responded by hammering the Gaza Strip, reducing whole Palestinian neighborhoods to rubble and cutting off access to food and other supplies. Several American tourists — including New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker — were in Israel when the attacks started, and many are still trapped. Aguilar said her team was preparing for the upcoming Pan Ameri...

Like the Dodgers, the Baltimore Orioles are playing a division series Game 3 on the brink of elimination.Unlike the Dodgers, the Orioles’ starting pitcher will have been drafted and signed by the Dodgers. And he broke ground as the first Israeli pitcher selected in the MLB draft when he was taken by a team other than the Dodgers.Dean Kremer‘s groundbreaking journey to becoming an established big leaguer is singular, but he will take the mound Tuesday against the Texas Rangers with a heavy heart and no small amount of anxiety. Kremer, who holds Israeli and American citizenship, has many family members living in Israel, where he still spends two months a year.After a surprise attack Saturday by the militant group Hamas, Israel declared war on Hamas and launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip t...