There has always been a tension between Israel's ability to uphold liberal democratic norms while crafting and maintaining a Jewish ethnonational majority to ensure Jews a safe homeland. Many with a strong interest in the success of the Jewish state have believed Israel would be able to handle that tension. But at this point, the Israeli government no longer seems concerned with balancing those goals; rather, it is elevating ethnonationalism and security while relinquishing key norms and institutions of liberal democracy. Now, it seems hard to escape the conclusion that the Israeli government's anti-democratic initiatives are rooted in Israel's control over, and dispossession of, Palestinians, and in its perennial military rule and de facto annexation of occupied land. [...]

In May, YouGov conducted a poll for Yahoo News measuring where Americans put the blame for extremist murders. YouGov asked people to say how many such killings were committed by left-wing or right-wing extremists, finding that only a fraction of Americans viewed one side as more likely to engage in such violence.

Most 2020 Trump voters said that more than half of murders linked to extremism were committed by left-wing actors; most Democrats and Biden voters said the same of right-wing extremists. In total, only 18 percent of respondents said that almost all extremist murders were a function of right-wing actors. Another 21 percent said that more than half were.

Data released by the ADL last week shows the reality. Over the past decade (the period included in YouGov's poll), 96 percent of incidents in which extremists killed someone were committed by people motivated by right-wing ideologies. 

"Is the Azov battalion getting access to US weapons?" Gaetz asked Colin Kahl, the US's undersecretary of defense for policy. The Azov battalion is a far-right nationalist regiment in Ukraine, and some of its members serve in Ukraine's armed forces.

"Not that I'm aware of, but if you have information, happy to hear it," Kahl told Gaetz.

Gaetz then asked to enter the Global Times report into the congressional record and cited from the paper to support his allegation that the Azov battalion was "getting stuff as far back as 2018."

"Any reason to disagree with that assessment?" Gaetz asked Kahl.

"Is this the -- I'm sorry, is this the Global Times from China?" Kahl said.

"No, this is --" Gaetz began, before leaning over to read from the article he was quoting.

"That's what you read," Kahl said.

"Well, it might be," Gaetz said. "Yeah, it might be, yeah."

"As a general matter, I don't take Beijing's propaganda at face value," Kahl replied.

Early in the hearing, Chief Justice John Roberts questioned Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who is defending the program, about the argument by the plaintiffs that Congress needed to approve the debt relief first before it was set in motion. That did not happen in this case.

"Do you think Congress shouldn't be surprised when half a trillion dollars gets wiped off the books?" asked Roberts, who is part of the court's conservative supermajority.

"I think most casual observers would say if you're going to give up that amount of money ... then Congress should" have to approve that, Roberts later said.

A liberal justice, Sonia Sotomayor, echoed that...

As American Jewish organizations responded to Sunday's settler riot in the West Bank, most began with statements of condemnation.