JERUSALEM – A massive double crisis is emerging between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority are confronting internal challenges that have cast shadows over their respective futures, and fast-rising tensions between the two sides are approaching a breaking point.
In Israel, Binyamin Netanyahu has returned to power by allying himself with extreme ultra-Orthodox and right-wing parties that are determined to change the very nature of Israel’s constitutional order. Among other things, the government is pursuing reforms that will politicize the judiciary and strip it of its most important powers, as well as threatening to eliminate any remaining possibility of achieving a sustainable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian question.