Usually, Israel does not choose when to launch a war. A surprise operation, as swift as possible, can restore Israel’s deterrence. The question of the appropriate character of a military operation in Gaza has long been overlooked in the public discourse.

How far this round of fighting will go and how it will end remains to be seen. Many Israelis from left, right and center are calling for a full-fledged military operation to destroy the thousands of missiles stockpiled in Gaza. They are aware of the damage that Hamas could cause by firing these weapons and by killing Israeli soldiers if a ground war becomes necessary.

This war began, in some measure, because of Palestinian miscalculations. As Israel retaliates, the White House and the State Department should ensure that Hamas and Fatah understand their mistake.

…nuance is everywhere because, as the Pew study puts it, “U.S. Jews do not have a single, uniform answer to what being Jewish means.” Some things most of them do, such as having a Seder (62%). Some things very few of them do, such as keeping Kosher (17%). Jews agree that some things are essential, such as remembering the Holocaust (76%). But there are other things on which there is no such broad agreement, such as caring for Israel (45%).

The data indicate that 17% of U.S. Jews live in households where at least one person — adult or child — is Hispanic, Black, Asian, another (non-White) race or ethnicity, or multiracial; this includes household members who may not be Jewish. The Jewish American family is more diverse than it has ever been.

…young American Jews are increasingly likely to say they do not identify with the Jewish religion, participate less in Jewish customs, and have less attachment to the Jewish people. At the same time, intermarriage is rising rapidly, with Jews who got married in the last decade significantly more likely to be married to a non-Jew than a Jew and the rate of intermarriage increasing significantly over the previous decade.

There is a chance that the new government — which includes diverse ideological groups, is younger and more liberal than previous governments, and is not committed to the grave mistakes of Netanyahu vis a vis Iran or American politics — will bring a temporary end to Israel’s legislative gridlock…

A Lapid-Bennett arrangement would begin on the shakiest of ground and would in some ways remind us of the ill-fated Netanyahu partnership with his rival, Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, last year. Gantz was no match for Netanyahu’s political gamesmanship and never got close to the prime minister’s office.

Yamina Party chairman Naftali Bennett and Yesh Atid Party leader Yair Lapid want the deal done this week because the Shavuot holiday is next Monday, and Bennett is under intense pressure from the Right to not give into Lapid… Coalition agreements must be submitted 24 hours ahead of a vote, so they would have to be completed by Wednesday to vote in the government on Thursday.

…the sick thing is, that wasn’t an unusual explosion of violence for the U.S. In fact, it was the 196th mass shooting — incidents in which at least four people other than the gunman are wounded or killed — since the start of the year, a pace of well more than one mass shooting a day.

In just two days, more than 260 shootings across the United States killed 94 people and injured 236, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive. They happened in 37 states, from Washington to Florida and from Arizona to New Hampshire, shaking both big cities and small towns. And they account for only a 48-hour snapshot of gun violence in America.

This weekend’s shootings provide a glimpse into the rise in violence that began last year and that has continued ever since. Criminology experts have pointed to a perfect storm of factors, including economic collapse, Covid’s severing of social connections and mistrust in police.

…many are having either to come up with new and creative ways to vaccinate the hard to reach and the hesitant or to start cutting back on supplies, even though 43 percent of Americans have not received any vaccinations.

Don’t fight the obvious: Average daily vaccinations peaked the very same day—or, perhaps, the day after—U.S. health officials warned about the Johnson & Johnson vaccines.

There’s another twist to the vaccination slowdown: the data strongly suggest that an increasing number of people are only showing up for their first dose of the two-shot Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, and forgoing their second shot.

Without the major reform that is so obviously needed, we can already anticipate the headlines and tweets that will likely come out of next year’s ceremony: #GlobesSoWhite. When you add this to the fact that people aren’t tuning into awards shows these days anyway, largely because of the pandemic, the decision not to broadcast was a no-brainer for NBC.

The HFPA has long been granted legitimacy it never really earned—both as a faulty Oscars precursor and an organization with glaring ethical and diversity issues that haven’t exactly popped up overnight. If the latest controversy and a one-year NBC broadcasting hiatus is the Golden Globes’ death knell, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has only themselves to blame.

The collapse of this self-congratulatory season should be an opportunity, not a calamity. The Globes ought to be the first domino. It’s time for pop culture to rethink its reliance on awards shows entirely.