AFTER RUSSI A BOMBS OWN CITY, EXPLOSIVE FOUND AT S A ME SITE

“you don’t understand.”

They could no longer watch the news together or “Wonderful Country,” a popular political satire show.

Their four children, including a 21-year-old son who shares his father’s views, all love and respect each other and their parents, she says. But it’s complicated, like “walking on eggshells.”

While Israel typically unites in times of war, seeds of distrust were planted decades ago.

From the country’s earliest days, the Jewish majority was plagued by disagreements over issues such as whether to accept reparations from postwar West Germany, to violent protests by poorer Middle Eastern Jews in the early 1970s, and bitter internal divisions over military fiascos during the 1973 Mideast war and later in Lebanon.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish ultranationalist in 1995 opposed to his peace efforts with the Palestinians. Large protests erupted when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Israel was always a deeply divided society, but somehow it held together,” said Tom Segev, an Israeli author, historian and journalist. “The difference now is that we are really discussing the basic values of this society.”

The protests against Netanyahu’s government show that many are “genuinely frightened” for the country’s future, he said.

Tel Aviv University economist Dan Ben-David, president of the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research, points to two seminal events in Israel’s history – the 1967 and 1973 Mideast wars.

The 1967 war, in which Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, spawned the Jewish settler movement, which has turned into a powerful political force representing some 700,000 people.

The 1973 war, meanwhile, set off a process that would bring the right-wing Likud party to power four years later. The Likud has ruled for most of the time since then, usually in partnership with ultra-Orthodox parties.

These religious parties have used their political power to win generous subsidies and controversial exemptions from military service — angering the broader secular public. The ultra-Orthodox community, and to a lesser extent the religious nationalist community run separate school systems that offer subpar educations with little respect for democratic values like minority rights, Ben-David said.

Because these communities have high birth rates, he said the country needs to go back to a “melting pot” model that includes a core curriculum promoting universal values, he said. “If we are one nation, then we need to teach our children what brings us together.”

Still, many see the 75th anniversary celebrations as a time for joy. Pinhasov said she will host a party for some 100 people at her home in central Israel, many of them members of her husband’s family. It’s our Independence Day,” she said. “It’s still a day for celebrations.”

Associated Press

SEVENTEEN apartment buildings were evacuated Saturday in a Russian city near the Ukrainian border after an explosive device was found at the site where a bomb accidentally dropped by a Russian warplane caused a powerful blast this week, authorities said.

The bomb blast late Thursday rocked part of Belgorod, leaving a large crater and three people injured. The Russian Defence Ministry quickly acknowledged that a weapon accidentally released by one of its own Su-34 bombers caused the explosion.

The ministry said an investigation was underway but did not elaborate on the details of the weapon, which military experts said likely was a powerful 1,100-pound bomb.

The governor of Belgorod province, Vyacheslav Gladkov, reported Saturday that sappers examining the site of Thursday’s blast found and decided to detonate what he called an “explosive object” that was “in the immediate vicinity of residential buildings.”

The precautionary evacuations ended later in the day, according to Belgorod Mayor Valentin Demidov.

“The bomb was removed from the residential area. Residents are being delivered back to their homes,” Demidov wrote on Telegram. Russian authorities did not say if the detonated device was dropped by accident on Thursday and if so, if it was a remnant of or separate from the bomb that exploded in the city.

Belgorod, located about 25 miles east of the Russia-Ukraine border, has faced regular drone attacks since Russia sent troops into Ukraine last year. Russian authorities have blamed those strikes on the Ukrainian military, which refrained from directly claiming responsibility for the attacks.

Late Saturday, the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, said five missiles fired from the Belgorod area hit the region, including one that struck unspecified “civilian infrastructure” in the capital city Kharkiv.

MONDAY, APRIL 24, 2023