By Abdelmonem Fawzi
Recent mass demonstrations and counter-protests across Israel highlight deep institutional and societal splits following elections and prolonged political deadlock.
Renowned Jewish-American billionaire Ronald Steven Lauder – president of the World Jewish Congress, former US ambassador to Austria, and long-time confidant who played a key role in Benjamin Netanyahu’s political rise – broke a long silence in a lengthy interview with Haaretz.
He revealed that he sold his Tel Aviv apartment and donated his house in Beersheba to the Jewish National Fund, which he heads.
“I essentially severed my ties there because the situation has become…,” Lauder said, pausing as his facial expression turned to one of deep disgust accompanied by a gesture of vomiting.
He added that he no longer intends to return to Israel for his usual annual visits, describing life there as “unbearable.”
In the same interview, Lauder emphasised: “Israel is in a very, very difficult situation today, more difficult than they realise. Israel has lost not only Europe and other places, but also the Diaspora.”
Warning of deteriorating relations with Washington, he told Israelis: “You have lost the Democratic Party, and you are losing the Republican Party. And all of this is because of your own stupidity.”
He strongly criticised Netanyahu’s reliance on extremist figures like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, arguing that Netanyahu prioritised personal and political survival over the state’s interests.
Lauder noted his criticism stemmed from “love and concern”, feeling “the house was on fire” and wanting to record his testimony before it was too late.
Meanwhile, Pulitzer Prize winner Nathan Thrall offers a deeply human perspective on the struggle over Israel and Palestine in his book, A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy.
Thrall, a Jerusalem-based analyst and former director of the Arab-Israeli Project at the International Crisis Group, highlights the broader shifts in public sentiment: “We can observe waves of Jewish emigration back to the countries of their citizenship, amidst rising global anger towards Israelis, the contempt they face everywhere in the world, and a decline in popular support that has led them to admit they have lost the battle of narratives”.
As US influence gradually erodes in the Middle East alongside these developments, the global balance of power undergoes profound shifts while the world hurtles towards explosive flashpoints.
Thrall’s bestselling book, translated into over 30 languages and selected as a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, expanded on his astonishing 20,000-word 2021 essay detailing a terrible West Bank accident.
His previous collection, The Only Language They Understand: Forcing Compromise in Israel and Palestine, also earned critical acclaim.
In A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, Thrall uses the tragedy of an overturned bus carrying Palestinian schoolchildren on a poorly maintained highway – which killed most of the children and injured others – as an entry point
into the broader systemic tragedy.
He examines the horrifying iniquities Arab inhabitants endure, delving into the chain of events that led Salama’s son, Milad, to be on that bus. Rather than following a strict timeline, the narrative oscillates around the crash at its dark heart.
Everything leads towards that moment: the traumatic repetition of a horror that simple policy changes and better leadership could easily have prevented.
The book’s great virtue is exposing this reality through the eyes of Abed Salama, a resident of Anata, an isolated Palestinian enclave near Jerusalem. As Thrall explains:
“To understand what really happened, I have to first describe where Abed and Milad live. The place they live in is an enclave – one of many. Part of it sits within the Jerusalem municipality, separated by a 26-foot-high grey wall that Israel calls the ‘separation barrier’ and others call the ‘apartheid wall.’
This barrier surrounds densely populated Palestinian communities on three sides, including the Shuafat refugee camp for
Palestinians displaced during the 1948 war.
They must pass through military checkpoints to reach their own city centre. Even though they pay taxes as Jerusalem residents, they are treated like enemy forces entering another country.
Israel completely neglects this area: there are virtually no services, no law enforcement, and the streets lack sidewalks. It is truly a ghetto.”
He warned that political leaders remain narrowly focused on parliamentary seats and coalition manoeuvring while the country marches towards an abyss, largely ignored by a complacent leadership and public.
Abdelmonem Fawzi
Writer and expert on international relations
