Protests against Netanyahu intensified

Thousands of people gathered outside Israel’s Parliament yesterday in one of the largest demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since the start of the war in Gaza.

He has faced increasing pressure, abroad and at home, over Israel’s handling of the war, and many Israelis are calling for him to resign. Close allies like the U.S. have criticized the war’s heavy civilian toll and have urged Israel to allow more aid into Gaza. And many Israelis have demanded that Netanyahu prioritize the release of the hostages held by Hamas as part of a cease-fire deal. Thousands demonstrated against Netanyahu’s government in Tel Aviv on Saturday.

The protests in Jerusalem, which were expected to continue through Wednesday, came as in-person talks about a potential cease-fire resumed in Cairo.

Context: Protests against Netanyahu over his plan to overhaul the judiciary largely subsided after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack on Israel, but public dissatisfaction with the war has now driven Israelis back into the streets.

Another issue: Netanyahu also faces a dispute over a bill to extend ultra-Orthodox Jews’ exemption from compulsory military service, with his right-wing governing coalition at stake. If the state does not extend the exemption, ultra-Orthodox lawmakers might leave the coalition; if it does, secular members could walk out.

A Russian defector’s killing raised fears of hit squads

The men who killed Maksim Kuzminov wanted to send a message. The killers shot him six times in a parking garage in southern Spain, then ran over his body with their car. Investigators at the scene found casings from ammunition that was commonly used in the former Communist bloc.

Kuzminov defected from Russia to Ukraine last summer, flying a military helicopter into Ukrainian territory with secret documents. He committed the one offense President Vladimir Putin of Russia has said he will never forgive: treachery.

His killing in the seaside resort town of Villajoyosa in February has raised fears that Russia’s European spy networks continue to operate and are targeting enemies of the Kremlin, despite concerted efforts to dismantle them after Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022.

No evidence of direct Kremlin involvement has emerged. But Russia has made no secret of its desire to see Kuzminov dead, and senior police officials said that the attack resembled similar ones by the Kremlin.

Angry farmers are reshaping Europe

Farmers are protesting across Europe, enraged by tightening E.U. environmental regulations, reduced farm subsidies and cheap grain and poultry imports from Ukraine.

Their discontent threatens to do more than change how Europe produces food. Farmers are blunting climate goals, reshaping politics ahead of elections for the European Parliament in June and shaking European unity against Russia, as the war in Ukraine increases costs. The turmoil has emboldened a far right that thrives on grievances and rattled a European establishment forced to make concessions.

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As tensions fester between China and Taiwan, one elder politician from the island democracy is getting an effusive welcome on the mainland: Ma Ying-jeou, a former president.

Mr. Ma’s 11-day trip across China, which was set to begin on Monday, comes at a fraught time. Beijing and Taipei have been in dispute over two Chinese fishermen who died while trying to flee a Taiwanese coast guard vessel in February, and China has sent its own coast guard ships close to a Taiwanese-controlled island near where the men died.

Taiwanese officials expect China to intensify its military intimidation once the island’s next president, Lai Ching-te, takes office on May 20. His Democratic Progressive Party rejects Beijing’s claim that Taiwan is part of China, and Chinese officials particularly dislike Mr. Lai, often citing his 2017 description of himself as a “pragmatic worker for Taiwan’s independence.”

On the other hand, China’s warm treatment of Mr. Ma, 73, Taiwan’s president from 2008 to 2016, seems a way to emphasize that Beijing will keep an open door for politicians who favor closer ties and accept its conditions for talks.

“Beijing’s policy toward Taiwan will definitely be using more of both a gentle touch but also a hard fist,” Chang Wu-yue, a professor at the Graduate Institute of China Studies of Tamkang University in Taiwan, said in an interview about Mr. Ma’s visit.

Officials from Mr. Ma’s Nationalist Party have hinted that later in his trip, he may meet with China’s top leader, Xi Jinping. That would echo groundbreaking talks that the two held in 2015. China has frozen high-level official contacts since Taiwan’s current president, Tsai Ing-wen, took office in 2016. She and the president-elect, Mr. Lai, belong to the same party, usually known by its initials, D.P.P.

Mr. Lai has said that there will be no drastic change in Taiwan’s status, and that he wants talks with China. But his party rejects Beijing’s conditions for official talks, especially a formula under which each side accepts there is “one China,” even if they differ on what that means. The Democratic Progressives call that a rhetorical trap to advance China’s claim over Taiwan.

Nationalist Party officials argue that they help Taiwan by talking to senior Chinese officials.

“What if an accident happens? There’s no dialogue, no communication channel, between the D.P.P. government and the Communist government in China,” Sean Lien, a vice chairman of the Nationalist Party, said in an interview before Mr. Ma’s trip. “The fact that he’s visiting China in early April, and probably will meet with Xi Jinping — I actually think that will help reduce the mounting tensions between Taiwan and mainland China.”

For Mr. Xi, a meeting with Mr. Ma may be a way of trying to show Chinese people that Taiwan is not slipping irretrievably beyond hope of unification.

“For Beijing, it’s in Xi’s interest to show that time is on mainland China’s side, and maybe he can spin a meeting with Ma — if it happens — to convey that narrative to the domestic audience,” said Bonnie S. Glaser, managing director of the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “That might ease some of the pressure that is rising internally.”

In part, Mr. Ma’s trip is another move in the contest between his Nationalist Party and Mr. Lai’s incoming administration.

Mr. Lai won 40 percent of the presidential vote, prevailing in a three-way race. But the Nationalists won the most seats in the legislative election. Both the Nationalists and Chinese officials have said that those results showed that Mr. Lai does not represent mainstream Taiwanese opinion, a message Beijing is likely to amplify during Mr. Ma’s visit.

But Mr. Ma’s visit to China has risks for his party. He represents a wing of the Nationalists committed to Taiwan’s reconciliation with Beijing as part of one Chinese nation, an idea that other sectors of his party, and Taiwanese voters, are wary of. In the final days of Taiwan’s presidential race, the Nationalist candidate, Hou Yu-ih, distanced himself from Mr. Ma over comments that the former president made about Taiwan’s military vulnerabilities.

“No matter how much you defend yourself, you can never fight a war with the mainland; you can never win,” Mr. Ma told Deutsche Welle. Unification with China could be acceptable to Taiwan, he added, if achieved peacefully and democratically.

According to a poll of Taiwanese people by the Election Study Center of National Chengchi University in Taipei, about 1 percent support unification “as soon as possible.” Nearly 90 percent favor some version of Taiwan’s current ambiguous status quo: self-ruling, separate from China, but short of full formal independence.

The D.P.P. has accused Mr. Ma of selling out Taiwanese interests by going to China.

“The Chinese Communists are trying to use Ma Ying-jeou’s visit to frame the terms for political discussion on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” Wang Ting-yu, a Democratic Progressive lawmaker, said in an interview. Mr. Ma does not represent mainstream views within his own party, Mr. Wang said: “He has lost the mandate of public opinion.”

As president, Mr. Ma expanded economic ties with China, including tourism. But his plans for a more ambitious trade pact ran aground in 2014 after protesters occupied Taiwan’s legislature, arguing that the agreement would undermine Taiwan’s economic autonomy.

Mr. Ma first visited China last year, though he did not meet with Mr. Xi. This time, he will lead a group of Taiwanese students to Guangdong Province in southern China and to Shaanxi Province in the northwest, there to attend a ceremony honoring the Yellow Emperor, the mythic forefather of Han people. Finally, they will visit Beijing, where the meeting with Mr. Xi may take place.

Taiwan’s Nationalist Party issued a statement defending Mr. Ma’s trip and expressing “hope that this visit will contribute to cross-strait peace and stability.” It also noted that Mr. Ma no longer held any senior posts in the party.

“They are setting up some protection,” said Dennis Lu-Chung Weng, an associate professor at Sam Houston State University in Texas who studies Taiwanese politics. “If anything goes wrong in Beijing, or Ma Ying-jeou mentions something unacceptable to the Taiwanese people, the party will indicate that they are not with Ma Ying-jeou on that.”

Thousands of Israelis filled the streets outside the Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, in Jerusalem on Sunday to call for early elections, in one of the most significant demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Sunday’s protest in Jerusalem got underway just one day after thousands took to the streets of Tel Aviv in a separate anti-government protest, and as Mr. Netanyahu faces mounting anger from Israelis who believe he has put his political survival ahead of the broader interests of the Israeli people. It also comes as he goes into surgery to treat a hernia Sunday night.

The protest in Jerusalem is expected to last four days, with some demonstrators planning to stay in a cluster of tents near Parliament. On Sunday, several carried signs calling for Mr. Netanyahu’s “immediate removal” while others held posters calling for elections, saying “those who destroyed can’t be the ones to fix.”

Elad Dreifuss, a 25-year-old student, said protesting against the government in the midst of wartime was a difficult decision. But, he added, “if the government can’t live up to its responsibility, something has to change.”

Many Israelis have refrained from rallying against the government in the middle of Israel’s military campaign against Hamas.

“We held back for six months,” said Michal Begin, a physician from Jerusalem. “At the beginning, there was a sense that we had to be united for the sake of the war effort.”

But now “many of the reservists are back home, many soldiers have left Gaza,” she added. “Our need to mobilize for the intensive war effort has diminished. Now we can say that this government cannot continue to serve.”

At a news conference in Jerusalem on Sunday night ahead of his scheduled surgery, Mr. Netanyahu hit back at the criticism and demands being made by the protesters.

“Calls for elections now during the war, a moment before victory, will paralyze Israel for at least six months; in my estimate, for eight months,” he said. “They will paralyze the negotiations for the release of our hostages and in the end will lead to ending the war before achieving its goals, and the first to commend this will be Hamas, and that says it all.”

Mr. Netanyahu has come under sharp criticism for refusing to take responsibility for the failures that preceded the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 and for failing thus far to strike a deal with Hamas to bring home the remaining hostages held by militants in Gaza.

But some worried that the protests could revive conflicts inside Israel that the war had temporarily smoothed over. In the months preceding Oct. 7, Israel had experienced immense domestic strife over a plan backed by Mr. Netanyahu to limit the influence of the judiciary. Massive protests against the effort had been taking place on a weekly basis, with demonstrators accusing the prime minister of trying to undermine the balance of powers and democracy in Israel.

Eitam Harel, a 23-year-old reservist from Jerusalem, watched flag-waving demonstrators gather near Israel’s Supreme Court with mixed feelings.

“Protest is a legitimate and praiseworthy thing,” Mr. Harel said. But he added: “The protests could drag us back to the negative discourse we had before the war.”

Organizers said they were hopeful the protest could shake up the Israeli political system.

“I believe Israel is facing one of the most difficult moments in its history,” Moshe Radman, an entrepreneur who is helping organize the four-day protest, said in an interview. “We need a government that will act for the betterment of the nation, not in the interest of political and personal considerations of a prime minister.”

Despite being on trial for corruption charges, Mr. Netanyahu became prime minister again in late 2022 after spending more than a year in the opposition. His critics have said that the court cases have influenced his decision-making.

Mr. Netanyahu has consistently repelled criticisms of his administration, including its handling of the war. He has asserted that his government was seeking a “complete victory” over Hamas, even though the militant group was still believed to have thousands of fighters nearly six months into the war.

As the first night of the Jerusalem sit-in wore on, some protesters set up tents to sleep in. The Israeli police said they had dispersed a crowd of protesters blocking traffic, making one arrest.

Jonathan Reiss contributed reporting from Tel Aviv.