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There’s a lot of racism, a lot of hatred’: Far right gains predicted as Israel heads to the polls

Four decades ago, when the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane won a single seat in Israel’s Knesset, other legislators passed a law to prevent him running again, left the chamber when he rose to speak and worked together to block discussion of his ethnonationalist proposals. These ranged from mass expulsions of Palestinians to apartheid provisions such as segregated beaches and the criminalisation of sex between Jews and gentiles. This month, Kahane’s political heirs may claim more Knesset seats in national elections than the remains of the once mighty Labor party, home of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Golda Meir. At an election rally this week, Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, mixed calls for ethnic cleansing and jokes about starving Palestinian prisoners with a proud anecdote about his conviction in 1998 over bumper stickers that read “Rabbi Kahane was right”. A poll for the Israel Hayom newspaper, published on Friday, forecast his Jewish Strength party would win nine seats in the 27 October election. The Democrats, successor to the Labor party led by former general Yair Golan, were predicted to claim eight seats. Ben-Gvir’s rise is one of the more extreme manifestations of a broad shift to the right among Jewish citizens of Israel. It is particularly pronounced among the young and will shape the country’s next government, regardless of who becomes prime minister after closely fought elections. More than 500,000 Israelis have reached voting age since the last election in 2022, and three-quarters of first-time Jewish voters define themselves as right or centre-right, a recent poll for Channel 12 television found (it did not survey Palestinian citizens of Israel). The generation voting for the first time came of age after the Oslo process collapsed, when the prospect of negotiating a political resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict seemed to be fading. They were teenagers during the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians. Militants took 251 living hostages and dead bodies to Gaza, leading to a two-year hostage crisis. “There’s a lot of people, especially young people, who think that there is no solving the conflict, that we’ll always be at war. There’s a lot of racism, a lot of hatred, but most of all, there’s fear,” said Erez Uzan, vice-chair of the Young Democrats. Bucking global trends, young Israelis are more rightwing than older generations and are likely to vote in a new Knesset with more rightwing members than the current chamber, said Dahlia Scheindlin, a political analyst and public opinion researcher. Consistently rightwing ultra-Orthodox and nationalist religious communities make up a growing proportion of Israel’s Jewish population but still account for only around a quarter of the electorate, so demographics alone do not explain the growing age gap on political issues. “All Israelis, and particularly younger people, have been living in a political environment where not only is the government rightwing but the general terms of debate are really populist and ultra-nationalist. That’s all they know. They’re socialised into it,” Scheindlin said. “There’s been a real downplaying of anything to do with democracy, universal values or human rights. Those are seen as weak, if they’re discussed at all, possibly as bad as betrayal. And very few politicians talk about peace, concessions, negotiations, Palestinian self-determination, or even Palestinian wellbeing.” A consistent majority of Israeli polls show prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current coalition bloc with the ultra-Orthodox and the far right will fall well below the threshold of 61 seats needed to form a government. The opposition has a clear path to power through an alliance with parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, known as Arab parties inside the country. But the political shift right means most of the Jewish-led parties have ruled out such a coalition, although similar promises have been broken after past elections. Particularly when it comes to Palestine, most offer little challenge to Netanyahu’s claim that security can only be pursued through military domination and annexation of territory from Gaza to Syria and Lebanon. The peace deals that secured Israel’s borders with Jordan and Egypt, once seen as no less an existential threat than Iran is today, do not feature in political debate as an alternative path. Their campaigns focus on other issues, from promises to tackle corruption and bring accountability for the 7 October attacks to improving schools and stopping ultra-Orthodox draft dodging. The man leading the field to replace Netanyahu, Gadi Eisenkot, is a former head of the Israeli military who formulated the notorious Dahiya doctrine of using “disproportionate force” to cause damage and destruction. Naftali Bennett is a former prime minister and former chair of the settler council, who supports annexing much of the West Bank. Avigdor Lieberman wants to dismantle the Palestinian Authority and replace it with an Israeli-Jordanian confederation (though apparently he did not consult the Jordanians about this plan). No Jewish-led party backed a future Palestinian state and only the Democrats opposed settlement expansion, the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported, after seeking all parties’ positions on the future of the occupied West Bank. Eisenkot’s Yashar party pledged to strengthen and expand settlements, which are legal under Israeli law. All settlements are illegal under international law. The Democrats, the only remaining political home for Israel’s Zionist left, are led by Golan, a former general and deputy head of Israel’s military who personally rushed to border communities under the Hamas attack on the morning of 7 October to rescue civilians. Golan rejects a two-state solution and is campaigning on a policy platform that would be solidly centrist in much of Europe. Yet even so, Israel’s political shift to the right is so pronounced that the party’s campaigners have been repeatedly attacked – physically and verbally – as a radical fringe. Last week, rightwing thugs assaulted Democrats volunteers manning a stand at Jerusalem’s historic Mahane Yehuda market, kicking, hitting and spitting at the group and stealing a phone while police stood by and watched. The scale of abuse prompted the party to train campaigners in non-violent direct action, “so they know how to handle themselves in a situation where they can keep safe and de-escalate,” said Uzan of the Young Democrats. The far right is on the rise globally, but Israeli politics that “revolve round constant conflict” heighten the appeal of ethnonationalist messages, Uzan said. “We grow up in fear, seeing war all around us – and that leads to a certain perspective. In the last 20 years, our leadership in the centre-left camp has avoided talking about security issues,” Uzan said, adding they had ceded that ground to the right. Now he and fellow campaigners are trying to tackle that failure at a grassroots level, including speaking to young people about the peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan that were unpopular when signed but have brought lasting stability. The process is slow but effective, he says, pointing to an active young membership several thousand strong, well above parties who attract more young voters. Comedian turned activist Lior Schleien has been trying to have similar conversations with groups of young Israelis about the deadly futility of pursuing “total victory” in endless wars. He posts footage of some of the most shocking exchanges, featuring smiling teens advocating on camera for the mass killing or expulsion of Palestinians. “Lots of Arabs live here. They were born here, they are citizens like you and me. What will you do with them?” Schleien asks one group. “Kill them … give me a knife and I’ll murder them,” says one young man. Ben-Gvir is particularly adept on social media, where posts like a recent AI video laying out plans for ethnic cleansing have helped build more engagement with young voters than any Israeli politician except Netanyahu. But he is not an outlier for extremism among allies of the prime minister. Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich is a messianic settler who recently called to “wipe out Gaza”, and has vowed to “bury” a future Palestinian state. For this election, Smotrich has joined forces with Moshe Feiglin, a fundamentalist who has long called for the mass expulsion of Palestinians and the construction of a biblical Jewish temple where the al-Aqsa mosque compound now stands. The rise of the far right and religious fundamentalism, combined with Netanyahu’s assault on institutions protecting Israel’s partial democracy (Palestinians living under Israeli military rule in the occupied West Bank do not have the rights of citizens), mean many Israelis on the centre and left see this vote as existential. David Harel, the president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, says the country’s current path leads towards a bleak future as a corrupt, impoverished pariah state, dominated by messianic fundamentalists maintaining a “violent, cruel occupation”. “We are already in ‘stoppage time’. If we lose this time, there will be no second chance. The country we love so dearly will breathe its last. Plain and simple!” he told a rally in the northern city of Haifa. “That is why I have come here today, to ask and to implore. And if necessary, I will get down on my knees and beg. Please, please, please! Just go out and vote!”

Is sisterhood the secret to a long life? The Sardinian village that could hold key to women’s longevity

When Giovanna Marras opens the door to her home in Bolotana, a mountain village in central Sardinia, her eyes are bright with curiosity as she sizes up her visitors. Her sister, Mariangela, peeks out too, soon ushering her guests inside and handing out dishes of ice-cream. The sisters are full of life, talking animatedly. Giovanna is 101 and Mariangela is 99. Sitting in their living room, Giovanna swiftly recaps her life story: she excelled at school before moving to Cagliari, the capital of the Italian island, at 18 to train as a seamstress. The sisters went on to run a successful tailoring business in Bolotana before travelling the world after retirement. Neither married. “Someone did come to the house and ask my parents for my hand in marriage,” Giovanna said. “I told them to tell him to go away – I mean, a woman should at least know her future husband.” Mariangela is equally as feisty in her response. “I didn’t want to get married … I walk my own path, I don’t need support.” The details of their lives are now being examined as part of a broader pattern of exceptional longevity in Bolotana, where women are driving a trend that could put the village, population 2,266, in the running to be the world’s sixth “blue zone” – geographic areas with unusually high concentrations of centenarians. Sardinia was home to the first such zone, identified more than 25 years ago. A study by professors at the University of Sassari and the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the US, published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Aging last week, found that 13.8% of women in Bolotana who reach the age of 70 will live to 100 – placing it second in the world for female longevity after Hong Kong. Giovanna is the third eldest of six female centenarians in Bolotana, after Tonia Giglio and Maddalena Falchi, both 102. By the end of this year, two other women are expected to reach the milestone, and in 2027 two more, including Mariangela. The last male centenarian, Giovanni Madau, died in July, a few months short of his 102nd birthday. Tore Pedde, the president of Orminas, a cultural association, played a crucial role in uncovering Bolotana as a potential longevity hotspot after painstakingly searching its demographic archives, even tracking down centenarians born in the village who had long since moved overseas. Records of people born in Bolotana between 1900 and 1925 showed that 38 had lived beyond 100, putting their longevity rate at 57% higher than the Italian national average. “Up until the early 1900s, Bolotana followed a trend whereby men significantly outnumbered women among the elderly,” Pedde said. “From the early 20th century onwards, however, the trend shifted and women began to outnumber men. Later, the number of female centenarians started to far exceed the male ones, and this trend continues today.” While it has already been well established that women live longer for biological reasons, scientists behind the study are tracing family trees in search of genetic clues to Bolotana’s female longevity. They are also exploring the roles of diet, physical activity and social connections. A striking characteristic of Bolotana’s female centenarians is their independence. The Marras sisters still cook for themselves, eating a varied but clean diet without forsaking meat, cheese or wine. Mariangela does the shopping, which entails a walk down a hilly street and back. The women have grit and are remarkably lucid. Filomena Scarpa, a former language teacher who turned 100 in January, began learning German in her 90s and was a voracious reader before a problem with her left eye started to hinder her. “It saddens me not to be able to read with the same level of consistency,” she said. She goes to a personal trainer twice a week. “Because I can’t sit around all day.” Scarpa, who has two sons, is a childhood friend of Falchi, who now lives with her daughter about an hour away in Oristana. The pair speak often. Falchi is notorious in Bolotana for smoking like a trooper. “I told her to quit because it’s not good for her health,” Scarpa said. “But she said: ‘It hasn’t got me so far, so I shall carry on.’” Bolotana is situated in Sardinia’s Marghine mountains, about 70 miles (110km) from the island’s original blue zone – a cluster of villages nestled on the slopes of the central and eastern provinces. “What’s special here is that for the first time we’ve identified an area where women live to a great age, whereas the original blue zone was predominantly male,” said Giovanni Mario Pes, who led the study and is a co-creator of the blue zone concept. “We therefore need to explain why longevity specifically affects women here.” Unlike the original villages, Bolotana is relatively close to cities, including Sassari and Alghero on the west coast. Still, its streets are steep, providing residents with unavoidable exercise. The environment is unspoiled and most people still eat fruit and vegetables grown in their gardens. One thing Pes noted among its female residents was a “strong sense of sisterhood”. “This felt quite unusual and is something I’d like to explore scientifically,” he added. Francesco Manconi, the mayor of Bolotana, believes the sociality is key. “There is an abundance of natural affection, whether from family members, neighbours or friends, towards our elderly,” he said, adding that the village placed “a great importance” on ensuring they could stay in their own homes. Betti Uda, who runs a tourism business, said the village’s elderly women were determined and still tried to live purposefully. “If they want to do something, they will – nothing holds them back.”

Revealed: French police used UK-funded 4x4 vehicles to charge student protesters

French police have used 4x4 vehicles paid for by British taxpayers to charge at student protesters during the school protests that have swept the country. The French government has confirmed that an investigation has been launched into why the cars, funded by the UK government specifically to prevent asylum seekers crossing the Channel, were used during a protest involving school students in Dunkirk. School protests have been taking place across France for a third week with an estimated 160,000 people involved, with protesters raising concerns about crumbling schools and teacher shortages. Demonstrators have criticised policing tactics after teargas was fired at protesters in two areas. The incident involving the UK-funded 4x4, a land cruiser known as Masstech VEZI (Vehicule d’Eclairage de Zone d’Intervention), was reported by French media outlet BFM TV on 10 October. The report included footage of the VEZI driving at speed, reversing then driving forwards again with a bin caught under a front wheel being dragged along. Students can be heard screaming as they scatter from the path of the vehicle. According to reports, a 14-year-old girl was injured by the vehicle and was taken to hospital, sustaining a haematoma. She was later discharged from hospital. She is now recovering, but she told reporters that what happened to her was “unacceptable”. The VEZI was earmarked for UK-funded operations on French beaches to stop asylum seekers boarding dinghies, part of an Anglo-French border agreement signed in January 2018 and known as the Sandhurst treaty. This treaty specifies cooperation between France and the UK in combatting irregular immigration and secures UK financial support for French efforts through the “Sandhurst funds”. These funds enable France’s national gendarmerie (police service) to acquire additional resources such as all-terrain vehicles suited to dunes and beaches, including the VEZIs, which are reinforced with grilles. According to a recent French parliamentary cross-party inquiry into Anglo-French border agreements, nine of these specialised VEZI vehicles have been bought under the terms of the Sandhurst treaty. The inquiry report states that to be eligible for Sandhurst funding, the equipment must contribute directly to combatting illegal migration in the UK. A spokesperson from the office of Laurent Nuñez, France’s minister of the interior, when asked why a vehicle funded by the UK and specifically earmarked for border control was used to counter a schools protest, said: “We can confirm the opening of an investigation into this.” Sources close to the investigation said: “I don’t think the British are aware that their money is being used to beat French kids.” Another expressed concern about the expanding militarisation of French policing to support authoritarian policies. A spokesperson for Utopia 56, a French association that provides support to asylum seekers in northern France, said: “In Dunkirk, the 4x4 that ploughed into high school students during the protests is a vehicle funded by the British Sandhurst fund – money earmarked for combatting Channel crossings. “The practice of using 4x4s to chase people in the student protest is the same one used on the beaches. “Disproportionate force is employed to silence, intimidate and deter. The repressive tactics being tested at the border to prevent crossings should serve as a warning to everyone. “These are surveillance, control and repression methods that will be replicated in other contexts. The incident involving the vehicle in the student protest is proof of this.” The UK Home Office declined to comment.

Trump’s pause on Russia sanctions is ‘reward’ for Putin, Zelenskyy says

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described Donald Trump’s decision to roll back sanctions on Russia as a “reward” for Vladimir Putin and warned it will embolden the Russian leader and intensify the Kremlin’s war, as Moscow launched one of its worst strikes yet on Ukraine’s power plants in an attempt to black out the country’s cities before winter. The Ukrainian president also said he expected the Trump administration to lift more sanctions against Russia in the future and called for Europe to establish its own negotiations with Moscow as the US has sought better ties and business deals with the Kremlin. “Unfortunately, the lifting of sanctions will continue, and I believe that the ‘diesel deal’ is the first step,” said Zelenskyy on Saturday. “Unfortunately, it seems to me that this cannot stop Putin; on the contrary, he feels joy and happiness that he has such support.” In a social media message, Zelenskyy wrote: “A US ⁠sanctions blackout, easing pressure on the aggressor, financial rewards for Putin – all of this only encourages him to keep attacking. We must not give up ground. “We must keep trying to end the ‌war. To end it, not give Putin every reason to continue it indefinitely.” In the Trump administration’s latest effort to reduce tensions with Russia, the US president announced on Friday that he would put a hold on a sweeping new sanctions package targeting the Russian economy, telling Congress the pause on the legislation passed by both chambers was in the national interest. The act, named after the late senator Lindsey Graham, who championed the legislation, would have introduced tough new sanctions on Russia including a 100% tariff on major importers of Russian oil such as China and India, as well as sanctions on Russia’s energy sector, financial institutions and shadow fleet of oil tankers. On Saturday, Zelenskyy said the decision to waive the sanctions would encourage Vladimir Putin to intensify the war in Ukraine and called for support in the US to resurrect the bill. “At the time when the Russians launched such a massive strike against our energy sector, in America, regrettably, a decision was made to completely ignore the Lindsey Graham law, which was supposed to impose truly effective pressure on Russia to end this war,” he wrote in a statement. “This law could have – and still can! – help a great deal. But the law needs to actually work, and every voice in support of it matters.” US secretary of state Marco Rubio on Saturday said Trump’s sanctions waiver would be a 60-day pause to “analyse” their impact on the global economy. “The president wants to take the 60-day period of time to sort of analyse what imposing both sanctions and tariffs will mean to the global economy and even to the US economy,” Rubio said, noting that the economic restrictions involved a number of countries, not just Russia. The move was greeted by the Russian presidential envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, who wrote on social media: “The Trump administration’s suspension of the Graham Act is an important and truly historic moment.” The legislation, which sanctions Russian officials, banks and a shadow fleet of tankers that keeps the country’s energy supplies moving, was due to be implemented in two days. It also directs Trump to impose up to 100% tariffs on the top five importers of Russian oil or natural gas, with an exception for countries that import less than 15% of Russia’s natural gas exports and have taken significant steps to reduce those imports. Zelenskyy also said the military-grade Starlink terminals used by Ukrainian forces still had limited functionality, and would disconnect from the network when travelling at more than 161km/h (100mph), interfering with drone operations. The service was throttled inside Ukraine without warning on Tuesday, and Zelenskyy said his government had determined that the restrictions were a “deliberate operation … to prevent us from defending ourselves”. By sending vehicles with the terminals into EU countries, the Ukrainians found they operated at speeds of more than 180km/h, in effect proving that the terminals were only experiencing restrictions in Ukraine. “The conclusion is clear: the restrictions are in effect within Ukraine but do not apply within the European Union,” he said. “In other words, this is a planned operation.” Trump’s announcement that he would pause US sanctions came a week after he said Washington had agreed to purchase diesel from Russia to try to bring down global energy prices, upending years of US and western pressure on the Kremlin to end its war against Ukraine. Trump said last week that Russia would immediately supply more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000 tonnes in November and 1m tonnes “immediately thereafter”. Russia would deliver an additional 3m tonnes “within a short period of time” after that, he wrote. The Trump administration’s decision to waive the sanctions is the latest consequence of a brutal quarrel between Trump and Zelenskyy. Several times this week, the US did not provide intelligence of impending ballistic missile attacks to Ukraine, in addition to the White House reportedly ordering the Pentagon to throttle the military-grade version of the Starlink satellite internet network used by Ukraine’s armed forces. “We very much hope – and I personally hope – that the president of the United States of America will do everything so that Putin stops the killings, stops the strikes on our energy infrastructure, and stops this war,” Zelenskyy said. “But once again, you cannot achieve this by restricting Ukraine’s responses to Russia for killing our people. And even less so by lifting sanctions.” Trump has demanded that Ukraine halt its strikes on Russian oil refineries, as he has blamed the war in Ukraine, rather than the closure of the strait of Hormuz, for the worldwide spike in diesel prices. Ukraine unilaterally halted the strikes after Trump declared an “energy ceasefire” last week, but resumed them when it became clear that Russia was stepping up its attacks on Ukrainian power plants and substations. Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Russia had launched one of its worst strikes yet against the country’s energy infrastructure, hitting more than 15 critical power generation and transmission facilities and causing “severe consequences”. He also indicated that Ukraine’s dwindling stock of anti-air weapons made it difficult to shoot down many of the loitering munitions, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles being launched each night at Ukraine. “Although our warriors are shooting down a significant number of them,” he said, the “sheer scale and unrelenting pace of Russia’s strikes, specifically against our energy sector, are unfortunately having severe consequences.”

Pope Leo discharged from hospital after cancer operation

Pope Leo has been discharged from hospital in Rome after undergoing an operation to remove a cancerous tumour from his lung. Leo, 71, was deemed “fit for discharge”, his doctors, Luigi Carbone and Stefano Margaritora, said in a statement published by the Vatican. He walked unaided from the hospital on Saturday afternoon, to cheers from well-wishers. Leo, who in May last year became the first US-born leader of the Roman Catholic church, has been in the Gemelli hospital since Tuesday, when doctors removed part of his right lung in order to extract the tumour. “Considering the blood tests, the chest X-ray done this morning, and evaluating the clinical picture, the Holy Father has been deemed fit for discharge,” the statement said. Doctors said on Wednesday that Leo’s recovery from the operation was progressing normally. They are waiting for the results of tests to determine whether the cancer has spread and if more treatment will be needed. Leo was diagnosed with the most common kind of lung cancer – adenocarcinoma. The pontiff celebrated mass in his room on the 10th-floor of the Gemelli hospital in the north-west of the Italian capital before being discharged. The Vatican said he would recite the Angelus prayer on Sunday “from the window of the papal apartment”. It was during his angelus last week, in a rare moment of Vatican transparency, that Leo made the shock announcement to the crowd gathered in St Peter’s Square that a small nodule on his lung had been detected during a check-up. The pope has worked from hospital, including making a phone call on Friday to Vladimir Putin, during which he urged the Russian president to call a ceasefire in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky. The Vatican had originally estimated a week-long stay in hospital. The pope’s appointments had been cancelled until 20 October. However, the pope’s surgeon told Vatican media on Saturday that there were “no clinical reasons” to prevent him from traveling to Latin America as scheduled from 6 to 17 November. Dr Stefano Margaritora said that “the Holy Father has put his heart and soul into his recovery” and that he expected the pope to recover fully from surgery “in another 10 days or so”. “As for a long trip involving air travel in about three weeks, I would say there are no clinical reasons why it should not take place,” he told Vatican News. Before the cancer diagnosis, Leo, who enjoys sports, especially playing tennis, was generally believed to be in good health. He often makes use of the papal retreat in Castel Gandolfo, close to Rome. The Gemelli, located in the north-west of the Italian capital, is renowned for treating reigning popes. Pope John Paul II stayed there so many times that the Vatican worked with the hospital to establish a high-security papal suite.