Unfortunately, this is exactly what happened tonight. Jewish mobs seriously beat Arabs. Arab mobs seriously beat Jews. Terrible, but also completely predictable. Police completely absent in most cases.
There were plenty of heroes tonight. Arabs who put out synagogue fires started by arson in Jaffa. Jewish workers at a petrol station in northern Israel hiding Arab colleagues from a racist mob.
But the night doesn't belong to the heroes. A Jew in Acre was hit by rocks from an Arab mob and is in critical condition. An Arab man in Bat Yam was beaten by a Jewish mob and is also seriously wounded.
There's talk in the air of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. That would end the rocket fire and airstrikes that are killing people on both sides. But this ethnically-driven mob violence is harder to stop.
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So from media reports, it looks like Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett and Ra'am's Mansour Abbas have done a deal:
1. Bennett pulls out of the new coalition because "we can't have a Government that depends on Mansour Abbas", and backs Netanyahu again.
2. Bennett and Netanyahu have reportedly convinced Mansour Abbas to back a "direct election" bill. The winner of the election would get 90 days to form a Government in this Knesset.
If the conflict hadn't erupted, Naftali Bennett would probably be replacing Netanyahu as Prime Minister today. If this report pans out, Netanyahu will survive to fight a fifth election.
I don't think Netanyahu deliberately caused this escalation. On the contrary, he overruled the police and ordered the Jerusalem Day Flag March out of the Muslim Quarter. He asked the courts to shelve the Sheikh Jarrah evictions. But he's benefiting from it anyway.
When I wrote this last week I didn't expect the situation to arise even before the new government was sworn in arieh.substack.com/p/will-a-rainb…
Some Arab residents of the mixed town of Lod have been rioting tonight. But this Arab family in Lod was hit by a Hamas rocket. A parent and 7-year old child, one in critical condition, one serious.
The House of Commons slams the door in the face of Black Rod, approaching with a summons from the Queen.
No photo this year of Black Rod knocking on the door with her rod of office three times, because of scaled back pandemic coverage But there's a lovely notch there from past ceremonies.
Because if you're going to have a monarchy, it's important that the Queen remembers her place and that the Commons are in charge.
The Arizona legislature, which commissioned the "audit", will surely accept its conclusions however wild they are. Perhaps they'll do that via a motion rejecting the 2020 result?
That might also mean a criminal investigation against innocent election officials in Maricopa. No convictions will follow but it'll take months.