After over a year of political stalemate, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main political rival, Benny Gantz, have signed a coalition agreement, saving Israel from a fourth election in less than two years. The new government will be supported by about 70 of the 120 members of the Knesset, which might bring stability not found in razor-thin majorities. According to the terms of the agreement, Netanyahu will hold onto the premiership for eighteen months, after which Gantz will have his turn. Shmuel Rosner comments on the other details:

[Gantz] agreed that Netanyahu could initiate annexation of parts of Judea and Samaria in the early summer. . . . Netanyahu wants [annexation], but also understand that there are risks involved. He will not make a final decision until the actual time comes. If circumstances allow—the coronavirus crisis, relations with the Trump administration, and other factors—Israel might be on track to annex parts of the West Bank.

The debate concerning the legal system and its responsibilities was one of the main stumbling blocks during the [most recent] round of negotiations. Within Likud there are people who believe that the time has come for reforming this system. [Gantz took the opposite position.] Ultimately, the parties reached a compromise for a simple reason: Netanyahu never made the fight against the court his highest priority. In fact, for many years he was one of the most conservative leaders within Likud when it comes to the court. Similarly, Gantz is not fully convinced that all of the complaints against the legal system are completely off the mark. This was more a fight over pretense than content.

But, Rosner concludes, the most important outcome is that Israel won’t have a fourth election, and will get a much-needed reprieve from political chaos.

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.