Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is gearing up for yet another political battle as the Israeli Knesset weighs dissolving early ahead of elections expected this fall. For many Israelis, the coming vote will be another referendum on Netanyahu himself.  After years of political chaos, repeated elections, war, and deep internal divisions, the campaign is shaping up less as a debate over policy and more as a simple question facing the country yet again: whether Israelis want the Bibi era to continue. Netanyahu is facing political pressure from multiple directions ahead of the upcoming election. His coalition is fracturing over the controversial issue of military exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Israelis, public anger over the failures surrounding the October 7 attacks continues, and opposition parties are attempting to unite. Netanyahu is no stranger to political survival. Even before the October 7 attacks, Israel had already gone through four elections in just a few years as coalition governments repeatedly fell apart. Netanyahu himself served as prime minister from 1996 to 1999 and then again from 2009 to 2021, becoming the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history. His current government is now approaching the end of his four half term in office, which is the maximum allowed under Israeli law and a rare achievement in Israel’s notoriously unstable parliamentary system. Elections must legally be held by October 27 at the latest.  While the Israel Netanyahu governs today is different from the country that existed before October 7, focus is shifting back to deep domestic divisions. Just prior to the Hamas attacks, Israel was consumed by internal division over Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reforms, with massive protests rocking the country and raising fears of a constitutional crisis.  Then came October 7, the deadliest terrorist attack in Israeli history, followed by war in Gaza and escalating regional conflict involving Iran and its proxies. In the aftermath, a wartime coalition government was formed, temporarily muting some political tensions while all focus was on ensuring the Jewish state’s defense and survival.  Now, even as negotiations with Iran continue to stall and fears of a broader regional war remain, Israeli domestic tensions are once again exploding ahead of a possible election. At the center of the immediate political crisis is one of the most sensitive issues in Israeli society: military service exemptions for the Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, community.  Netanyahu’s coalition included and depended on Haredi political parties that oppose drafting young men studying in religious seminaries, or yeshivas, into the Israel Defense Forces. Many ultra-Orthodox leaders fear military service could pull students away from religious studies, expose them to secular and forbidden lifestyles, or place them under non-religious authority structures.  But after nearly three years of war, support has grown significantly among the broader Israeli public for requiring Haredi Israelis to serve alongside their peers. Many Israelis argue the military needs additional manpower to alleviate reservists who have carried an unsustainable burden through repeated deployments since October 7. Others say it is unfair that Haredi communities receive significant economic assistance without their young people serving in the military. That is not to say that no Haredi Israelis serve in the military. While still a minority, some ultra-Orthodox men do enlist, including in the IDF’s all-ultra-Orthodox Hasmonean Brigade. The brigade, founded after October 7 in response to the needed manpower and the sense of duty that some Haredi men felt to protect their nation, operates as an all-male unit with religious accommodations for its soldiers.  According to Ynet, the brigade has recently carried out raids targeting weapons and terrorist infrastructure in Lebanon, while its first class of soldiers also recently completed officer training courses. If the Knesset dissolves this week, the timing itself would only move elections up by a matter of weeks, but it would create one significant complication. Israel will enter what is known as a caretaker government, in which the outgoing government continues governing with limited powers until a new coalition is formed after elections in order to avoid a vacuum in leadership.  During that period, key appointments cannot easily be confirmed, which has become a major issue because Israel has still not finalized confirmation of a new Mossad director, a priority Netanyahu reportedly wants completed. At the same time, caretaker governments can be advantageous to sitting prime ministers by giving them greater operational flexibility with an inactive Knesset. Dissolving the government early could also help ensure elections take place several weeks before the third anniversary of October 7, when public anger and emotions surrounding the attacks could intensify even further.  The opposition is already preparing to make the next election a referendum on accountability for October 7. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has pledged that if he forms the next government, the very first cabinet meeting would establish a formal commission of inquiry into the failures that led to the October 7 massacre. Several opposition figures argue Israel must fully investigate what went wrong militarily, politically, and institutionally.  Bennett is attempting to rebuild a coalition spanning the Israeli political spectrum. Politically, he is trying to convince centrist and left-leaning voters that he can pull support away from Netanyahu while also reassuring conservatives who abandoned him after he previously partnered with left-wing and Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Arab parties in 2021 to remove Netanyahu from power.  Former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot is also emerging as a major political figure. Viewed as a centrist with strong national security credentials, Eisenkot has become increasingly attractive to voters seeking military credibility without Netanyahu’s polarizing political baggage. His recently-founded Yashar political party has already caught the eye of many Israelis. Polling shows the opposition could become significantly stronger if alliances form. According to a recent Maariv poll, 55% of Israelis surveyed said Netanyahu should retire from political life, while only 38% said he should continue running. The same poll found that if Eisenkot joined Bennett and left-wing opposition leader Yair Lapid on a joint list, the alliance could potentially win 49 seats in the Knesset. A minimum of 61 seats is needed to form a governing coalition. It’s important to note that Israeli polling remains notoriously unreliable at this stage because the final political alignments remain unclear. A political insider compared the current numbers to early American presidential straw polls conducted before candidates officially announce their campaigns.  Another insider added that the upcoming election will likely be another referendum on “Bibi,” with many voters sorting themselves into camps that are pro-Netanyahu, anti-Netanyahu, or anti-anti-Netanyahu — meaning voters who may not personally support Netanyahu but are exhausted by what they see as relentless political opposition to him.  One insider described it as a type of political infection similar to Trump derangement syndrome. “They will do anything to get rid of Bibi, even allying with those they have far deeper ideological disagreements with politically.” Some of Netanyahu’s supporters see him as advantageous both because he is feared by his country’s enemies and because of his close relationship to President Donald Trump. While some Americans believe removing Netanyahu from power could significantly alter Israel’s wartime posture, many analysts believe an opposition government would prosecute the wars in Gaza and against Iran-backed forces in largely similar ways.  The bigger question may be whether a government without Netanyahu may be more open to international pressure for a Palestinian state in Gaza and parts of the West Bank, also known as Judea and Samaria. Especially if expanding the Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia required concessions on Palestinian statehood. Some Israelis also believe that a different leader could repair their country’s relations with leaders in Europe and Democrats in the United States. Netanyahu’s age and health may also become factors in the campaign. The 76-year-old prime minister has dealt with heart-related health issues in and recently underwent treatment for prostate cancer.  For now, it appears Netanyahu intends to run again. It’s never been his nature to back down from a fight, especially one that could protect his legacy. But after years of political dominance, coalition maneuvering, and survival, the next Israeli election may become the clearest test yet of whether the country is ready to move beyond the Netanyahu era.

Leave it to New York rookie socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani to lecture Americans on hardship while taking aim at one of the most popular and economically successful presidents in history. During a press conference on Monday, Mamdani mockingly referenced former President Ronald Reagan’s iconic 1986 quip: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” Mamdani, thinking himself a master of rhetoric, countered: “I think nine more terrifying words are actually ‘I worked all day and can’t feed my family.’” MAMDANI: “Ronald Reagan…famously said ‘The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I’m from the government and I’m here to help’…I DISAGREE.” pic.twitter.com/cAXqjRz9iI — Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) May 18, 2026 It’s a cute line, but it’s completely untethered from historical reality. Mamdani is attacking a man whose conservative policies actually rescued the American worker, all while Mamdani practices a brand of fiscal theft today that guarantees future generations will pay the price tomorrow. Let’s look at the facts. When Reagan took office in 1981, the American economy was being suffocated by Carter-era “stagflation” — a toxic mix of double-digit inflation and high unemployment. Reagan didn’t use big-government handouts; he crushed inflation from 13.5% down to 4.1%. He slashed the astronomical 21.5% prime interest rate in half, sparked a 92-month peacetime economic expansion, and oversaw the creation of over 16 million new jobs. Reagan’s supply-side miracle didn’t just help the wealthy; it lifted everyone. Real median family income rose by 12.6%, and poverty rates plummeted. Minority communities thrived, with black unemployment at a near all-time low and black-owned businesses expanding by nearly 38%. Reagan knew that the American taxpayer didn’t exist to fund bureaucratic overreach. As he noted in his 1980 GOP acceptance speech, any program representing a “theft from their pocketbooks” had to go. Contrast that economic boom with Mamdani’s current high-wire balancing act in New York City. Mamdani recently took a rooftop victory lap, boasting that he magically closed a $12 billion budget deficit without resorting to “austerity.” But a look under the hood reveals that Mamdani’s “solution” is just a massive shell game of short-term gimmicks and fiscal procrastination. To patch the hole for fiscal year 2027, Mamdani relies on roughly $2.8 billion in one-time measures. He is implementing a punitive “pied-à-terre” tax and clawing back unincorporated business tax credits that hit self-employed New Yorkers making as little as $142,000 — giving productive citizens an explicit incentive to flee the city. Worse yet, he is extending the amortization period for unfunded pension liabilities, pushing hundreds of millions in city obligations well into the 2030s. By kicking the pension can down the road and relying on temporary state aid infusions from Albany, Mamdani isn’t saving New York; he’s merely loading up a fiscal time bomb. Fiscal experts note that these gimmicks leave the city dangerously exposed to massive multi-billion-dollar deficits in the years ahead — topping out at an estimated $9.8 billion by 2030. Mamdani wants to pretend he’s the champion of the working class. In reality, Reagan’s free-market policies allowed families to feed themselves through dignity and work. Mamdani’s progressive playbook simply steals financial stability from the future to fund big-government hubris today.

If Democrats regain control of the United States government, the insanity of the Biden era is only the beginning. On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected Virginia Democrats’ emergency request to revive their congressional maps. You’ll recall that Virginia Democrats tried to draw a congressional map that basically reduced Republican representation to nil, a map with just one Republican seat in the entire state. Then the Virginia Supreme Court decided that it was unconstitutional. Because of the process that had been followed, the Supreme Court declined to interfere with the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling. While Democrats immediately jumped into action to claim that this is all just part of the broader evil racism of the American system, Governor Abigail Spanberger suggested that the Supreme Court had chosen to nullify an election, which is not true. No election was nullified. In fact, this entire referendum was an attempt to nullify future elections by destroying the congressional map that would have allowed some Republicans to get representation in Congress. She said, “The Supreme Court of the United States has now joined the Supreme Court of Virginia in choosing to nullify an election and the votes of more than three million Virginians.” This is part and parcel of the goal of Democrats, which is to falsely claim that there is gigantic voter suppression of Democrats happening all over the country. This quickly turned racial. Kamala Harris stated, “They’re basically back-dooring racism through politics. They know the power of the people, and it scares them because if they thought on merit that they would win, they wouldn’t have to resort to this cheating.” They’re being deprived of the vote, you understand. It’s all part of the American project to deprive black people of the vote. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) said that the Trump administration would rather have black Americans pick cotton than pick the president. The Democrats’ goal is to ramp up the rhetoric so as to get the vote out for minority voters. Famed intellectual Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warbled: It is not a coincidence and our whole country must understand that it was not until voting rights were ratified in this country that we got the Great Society, because when black Americans have the right to vote and that vote is protected, our schools get funded. When voting rights are protected, health care gets expanded. When voting rights are protected, our country moves forward. And Montgomery, that’s what they’re actually afraid of. They’re afraid of us coming together. They’re afraid of us protecting one another. Alabama is the crucible. Georgia is the crucible. Tennessee, Louisiana. Mississippi is the crucible. So if you are not from here, it is time to pull up. Because what they thought was the final blow is actually just the opening silo. Opening “silo”? I think she means “salvo.” Maybe she means a grain silo? Is she going to open a grain silo? By the way, she’s totally wrong on the facts. The idea that the Voting Rights Act preceded the Great Society programs is not true. That is a falsehood. The Great Society programs began in 1964 with the Food Stamp Act and the Economic Opportunity Act, but the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965. Voting rights are great. I’m very, very glad that black people can vote in outsize numbers in the United States as they do, which is why it is so stupid that we keep hearing that black people are somehow not represented in the United States government. That is incredibly dumb. Senator Cory Booker showed up with his angry eyes in tow. He popped them in, and he got very angry. He shouted: Because if we in our generation do not now do our duty, we will lose the gains and the rights and the liberties that our ancestors afforded us. Now is our generation’s time to prove worthy of the blessings. Now is our generation’s time to respond to the assaults. You see, we have seen this before, where some people in black robes try to deny or take away our rights. We saw it with Dred Scott. We saw it with Plessy versus Ferguson. We even saw it with Korematsu. But the solution in those days was not to sit back and agonize. It was to stand up and organize and mobilize, because we still live in a democracy, no matter how much they try to undermine it. We still live in a nation where the power of the people is greater than the people in power. His history is flawed. Comparing what the Supreme Court has said about the drawing of particular districts in the South in 2026 to Dred Scott, which ruled that under the Constitution, black Americans weren’t people, or Plessy v. Ferguson, which ruled that segregation was legal, or Korematsu v. United States, which argued that Japanese Americans could be interned in times of war, is not quite the same thing. They’re all addicted to the Obama program. From 2008 to 2012, Barack Obama posed as a liberal who was going to bring Americans together without regard for race. Then, in 2012, he decided he was going to create a majority-minority coalition with some college-educated white ladies. That was the new majority going forward. Democrats can never let go of it. They will not let go of it. And so they continue to push this forward. This whole racial narrative is false. It’s not true on the merits. Black Americans are not deprived of the vote in the United States. That is a silly contention. There is no statistical evidence that black people are being deprived of the vote in the United States. But you know what’s even sillier? The idea that Democrats are wholesale in favor of pure democracy. California uses an open primary system. The way it works is that the top two candidates advance to the runoff. Right now, there’s a possibility that Chad Bianco and Steve Hilton, both Republicans, end up at the top of the heap because there are myriad Democrats running. California Governor Gavin Newsom is openly saying that the process must be thwarted. As we all know, the “pro-democracy” party is not so pro-democracy when it comes up against their priors.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it would seek the death penalty in the case of Elias Rodriguez. On May 21, 2025, Rodriguez is alleged to have opened fire outside the Capital Jewish Museum, killing Israeli embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, apparently without knowledge of their place of employment and attacking them as random attendees of an AJC ACCESS Young Diplomats Reception organized by the American Jewish Committee. ACCESS is a leadership development program for young Jewish professionals in which, per their website, “participants play an active role in AJC’s vital work to combat antisemitism and strengthen Israel’s standing in the world — while building meaningful leadership skills along the way.” Apparently, the attack was, like Anders Breivik’s 2011 attack on the summer camp at Utøya in Norway, an effort to weaken the next generation of the alleged perpetrator’s political enemies. Unsurprisingly, given the popularity among lefties of cheering assassinations, some people supported the double homicide. The hard left pro-Palestine group Unity of Fields (formerly the US branch of Palestine Action) issued a statement calling the murders  “a legitimate act of resistance” and “fully justified.” The DSA’s Liberation Caucus quote-tweeted the statement, adding, “Excellent statement that we are proud to add our name to. Free Elias Rodriguez and all political prisoners.” For those unfamiliar, DSA has a number of internal caucuses (read: cliques) of varying sizes and ideological stripes. Some of these are associated with outside groups or publications; some are large, and some are fringe. DSA’s Liberation Caucus is actually Maoists. The DSA is a big tent. When the larger DSA balked, condemning the murders, the Liberation Caucus agreed that their position was within the DSA but did not represent the organization. Obviously, that made everything all right. Not only did the DSA take no action against the Liberation Caucus for cheering people being murdered in the street, but its governing National Political Committee (yes, righty meme traffickers: their governing body is in fact called the NPC) voted against removing a member of that caucus who fiercely advocates such murders from its security committee, a situation Stu Peterson wrote up admirably in City Journal. Nothing happened to the caucus, either, but while members can be expelled and chapters closed, there’s no actual mention of caucuses in the DSA bylaws, so short of expelling all their members, it’s hard to deal with them. Which raises the question: if championing murder isn’t enough, what do you have to do to get removed from the DSA, anyway? You can (in theory) be a Zionist. In August 2025, the DSA passed a resolution to become “a fighting anti-zionist organization.” In theory, this meant that, to give specific examples listed in the resolution, saying “Israel has a right to defend itself” or writing op-eds against Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions would be grounds for expulsion from the DSA. In practice, it’s functioning as a chilling effect for however many Zionists there still are in DSA and perhaps a deterrent to too many mainstream liberals coming in; nobody’s gotten the bum’s rush for it yet. You can be insufficiently anti-Zionist. In 2021, Jamaal Bowman let his membership lapse after DSA committees called for his expulsion for voting for additional funding for Israel’s Iron Dome. In 2023, the Detroit DSA and Congressman Shri Thanedar disagreed over whether he had resigned from his local chapter or been expelled following his turnaround on Israel (an enlightenment that followed a pro-Israel PAC spending over $4 million against him). You can work for the wrong sort of union. Danny Fetonte was a lifelong union organizer and a member of the DSA’s National Political Committee. What he neglected to mention when he ran for office was that he had worked for a police union. In 2017, this caused a social(ist) media firestorm and an effort to remove him from office. The NPC’s vote did not meet the necessary threshold for expulsion. Fetonte was censured. Amusingly, for those who remember the soundbites of red-baiting Congressional hearings, the NPC’s statement about the affair went on to note that Fetonte “is not, and never has been, a police officer.” Fetonte died of cancer in 2022. You can endorse a sitting governor. In 2023, Massachusetts state representative Mike Connolly left the Boston DSA ahead of a vote on expulsion on grounds that included endorsing officials (including the governor) who were opponents of the DSA’s brand of socialism. (Connolly pointed out there was no issue with this at the time he did it.) Formally, though, whether National or Local, the governing body — the National Political Committee at the national level, the Steering Committee at the local level — needs a two-thirds majority to expel someone. Criteria for expulsion in the national DSA bylaws list “substantial disagreement with the principles or policies of the organization” or consistent “undemocratic, disruptive behavior.” Local chapters may be more specific; DSA-LA, for example, notes in its bylaws that a lengthy misconduct policy may also decide who gets the boot, and both DSA-LA and DSA-East Bay contain language specifically stating that members can be expelled from their chapters for entryism for the benefit of another organization — that is, joining the DSA as part of another group in a subversive effort to gain power; you know, the thing that hard lefties like the DSA do to everyone else, everywhere, and all the time. In March of 2024, DSA-LA informed one member of the Just Break Already caucus that he was being expelled for entryism; in January 2025, Just Break Already stated that a colleague had been expelled from DSA-East Bay. It is unclear whether the same individual was involved in both cases. The irony is that the modern DSA is the product of entryism. It just goes to show you: when some people reach the top, the first thing they do is pull the ladder up after them. No entryism. No undemocratic, disruptive behavior. No substantial disagreement with the principles or policies of the organization. Cheering and advocating murder, on the other hand, is apparently not “substantial disagreement with the principles or policies of the organization.” Which is important to know for those not in the DSA. *** David Hines has a background in forensic science and international human rights, has written for the Federalist and the American Conservative, and loves books. Possibly even yours.

The latest ad for Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt is a send-up of the theme song from the 90s sitcom, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.” The hit show, which first aired in 1990, followed Will Smith’s character as he moved from the dangerous streets of West Philadelphia to live with his well-off aunt and uncle in their Bel-Air mansion. The new ad followed Pratt on a slightly more political journey. Pratt’s long-shot campaign to unseat Democratic Mayor Karen Bass has seen a dramatic groundswell of support, thanks in part to a number of AI-generated viral ads and a televised debate, and the former reality star posted his latest effort with the caption, “Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down …” Now this is a story all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down pic.twitter.com/Zes4VRdZxX — Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) May 18, 2026 “…And I had to take a minute to run for mayor, I’ll tell you how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air,” Pratt said, stepping out of the Airstream trailer that has replaced his Palisades home that burned to the ground in early 2025. “In West Los Angeles, Palisades, in my backyard is where I spent most of my days,” Pratt sang. The graffiti on the fence behind him screamed “THEY LET US BURN!” in reference to the deadly Palisades fire. “Feeding hummingbirds, relaxing all cool, avoiding all the bums outside of the school, when a couple politicians that were up to no good, started making trouble in my neighborhood.” “I got in one little fire, my mom got scared, and said, ‘You’re moving in with Harvey Levin in Bel-Air,'” Pratt continued, name-checking the founder of entertainment site TMZ. “I pulled out from my lot about seven or eight, and I yelled to the rubble, ‘Yo home, smell ya later,'” he added. “I moved to my kingdom, I was finally there, to sit on my throne as a prince of Bel-Air.” The scene finished with Pratt, sitting on the bumper of his trailer as it was parked outside in front of the Hotel Bel-Air, in another dig at TMZ over a recent hit piece about the former star of MTV’s “The Hills.” The piece had criticized Pratt, who has been vocal about the issues he and others have had getting approvals and permits to rebuild in the Palisades, for living in a hotel instead of the trailer he said he was living in. Pratt pointed out the recent threats against him had made living in the trailer — along with his wife and two young boys — an unacceptable risk. He also reminded everyone that the fire that destroyed his home, in addition to prompting his run for office, was the only reason he wasn’t still living there.