With only a few months left until the elections, the trial against Benjamin Netanyahu has entered a new phase. The Israeli prime minister concluded his testimony before the court at the end of June, after 98 sessions that lasted a year and a half. But the process is still far from over: defense testimonies, final reports from the parties, and the judges' deliberations are still pending before a verdict. What future awaits a case that has marked Israeli politics in recent years and that will mark the country's electoral pre-campaign?The process that began in 2020 has advanced through marathon declarations, postponements for political and security reasons, constant calendar changes due to the different wars Israel has experienced in recent years, and an increasingly open confrontation between the prime minister and the country's judicial system. This is an unprecedented episode in Israeli judicial history: it is the first time that a prime minister in office has faced a criminal trial and has testified for so long in court. True to the strategy he has maintained since the beginning, Netanyahu has denied all accusations and has once again presented the case as a political persecution.The judicial proceeding focuses on three open cases, known as cases 1000, 2000, and 4000, in which the prosecution alleges there are indications of bribery, fraud, and abuse of power. Case 1000 investigates the receipt of gifts valued at approximately 260,000 euros from businessmen such as Arnon Milchan and James Packer, in exchange for possible political favors. For now, Netanyahu has admitted they were friends, but argues that the gifts were part of a personal relationship and not an exchange of favors.Case 2000 analyzes the conversations held with Arnon Mozes, editor of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, about a possible improvement in media coverage in exchange for limiting the influence of the rival newspaper Israel Hayom. The legal discussion now focuses on whether those conversations constituted a real negotiation or a political maneuver without intention of materializing.Case 4000, the most serious, focuses on the alleged granting of regulatory favors to businessman Shaul Elovitch in exchange for favorable coverage on the Walla portal. It is the only case in which Netanyahu is accused of bribery, but where the judges have reiterated that they have difficulty seeing where this crime lies. The prosecution maintains the accusation.

The US President, Donald Trump, and the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, are two allies of Vox who have been a constant pain in the neck for the far-right party. Until now, Santiago Abascal's formation had responded timidly to the US president's outbursts, which had allowed the rebel former leaders or left-wing formations to accuse Vox of being Trump's "slaves". However, this week the party has slightly raised its voice to distance itself from the US president's threat to cut trade with Spain or Trump's harassment of the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, to whom, with an ironic tone, he said he wanted "a restraining order". The objective is to consolidate a shift that has been debated for some time in the Vox leadership to put an end to the meek image the party had projected until now. The culmination was between March and April, when Israel carried out attacks against Christians. It was then that the national leadership made a decision, according to sources familiar with the matter consulted by ARA: "We have to distance ourselves, like Meloni".

Israel has taken an unprecedented step in its institutional history. The government has announced that it will not obey a Supreme Court ruling that allows the Council of the Second Authority for Television and Radio, the regulatory body for private television and radio channels, to resume its activity. A decision that has reopened the tug-of-war between the executive and the judiciary with only a few months left until the elections in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is playing for his future.

Among the reasons for President Donald Trump to offer a memorandum of understanding to the Shiite Totalitarian Theocracy of Iran (STTI) were: saving the Soccer World Cup in the United States (he did not want to disturb this great business with the sound of missiles), lowering fuel prices before the November mid-term elections, and finding a dignified way out of the quagmireof the Persian Gulf after failing to overthrow the regime as an electoral asset.

US Vice President J.D. Vance said this week that after the midterm elections in November he will announce whether or not he will run in the next presidential elections. This would be very bad for Israel, especially after the unprecedented public comments he made on Thursday against the entire government of Benjamin Netanyahu, calling it "unacceptable" that Israel, in its bombings of Beirut, kills "people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah".

As the hours pass and more details emerge about the memorandum agreed between Iran and the United States, it seems clearer that it represents a victory for Persian diplomacy over American diplomacy. The agreement, which will be signed on Friday, has been received with joy by the markets as it foresees the immediate reopening of the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic, but the fine print leaves Donald Trump in a very bad light. One only needs to look at the reaction of the Israeli media, which consider it practically a surrender to the ayatollah regime.

Israel finds itself in a very complicated moment, perhaps the most difficult in the history of the country, founded in 1948. At the helm we have Benjamin Netanyahu, a controversial prime minister not only because of the situation derived from the war with Iran and its uncertain consequences, but also because of the deep religious, social and political division that shakes Israel.

The f-word (“the efa word”) is the euphemism with which in English they refer to the word fuck, which undoubtedly is the most popular curse word —or swear word, or blasphemy— in this language and the touchstone of all its vulgar registers. It can be translated as merda, collons, puta (the variant puto, very widespread lately, is a Hispanism) and still a series of other possibilities, depending on the context of the sentence.Trump likes to use the f-word and its derivativeswhen he wants to act tough and politically incorrect. This Sunday he used it against Netanyahu, because the Israeli prime minister was once again on the verge of derailing, with a new bombing of Beirut, the agreement between the US and Iran to stop the war and open the Strait of Hormuz. Trump lamented this in a telephone interview with the digital Axios: “Why did Bibi have to do a fucking attack? I was so pissed off. I let him know. He has no fucking judgement” (“Why did Bibi have to carry out a shit attack? I got very angry. I let him know. He has no sense, damn it”). Trump calls Bibi Benjamin Netanyahu because deep down there is an affection. The degradation of language, the normalization of crude language within politics, is, do not doubt it, another tactic and tool of the far-right: they pass off as a sign of supposed “authenticity” what is nothing more than an impoverishment and coarsening of public debate. This suits populists, never democrats.The fact is that Trump's agreement with the ayatollah regime —still pending signature, on Friday in Switzerland— hangs by a thread of Israel's intentions and maneuvers against Lebanon, which the chief of staff of the Israeli army, Eyal Zamir, confirms as the country's “main strategic priority”, as you can read in the information by Ethel Bonet and Núria Vila Masclans in this newspaper. Trump had announced this agreement as imminent on numerous occasions and, in the end, has achieved a preliminary agreement in which he must present as a great triumph having managed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which would not have been closed if he and Netanyahu had not started an illegal war (one more) against Iran. They have managed to return to the point where things were before February 28, when they launched the first attack against Tehran. Of course: with a toll of thousands of deaths and with a global energy, economic, and financial crisis about to be unleashed as a consequence of the brilliant maneuver of these geopolitics speculators.Trump, however, has to present it as a success, and for that he celebrated it with a tweet on his network, Truth Social, which said: "Let the oil flow!"(“Let the oil flow!”). Trump's presidency, in effect, is becoming a succession of invasions, wars, and coups d'état with the purpose of stealing the oil reserves of other countries. Or perhaps he was referring to the oil with which the wrestlers who performed at the White House to celebrate its eightieth anniversary are greased. Be that as it may, a very oily president.

The decision to start a war with Iran, led by Israel on February 28, is proving to be a real trap for Donald Trump, who more than 100 days later has still not found a way out. Far from the speed and military success of the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, the ayatollahs' regime has proven to be a much more formidable adversary, capable of regenerating itself from the blows it has received.

“You are crazy”, “if it weren’t for me, you would be in prison”, “everyone hates you”. These were some of the words that the President of the United States, Donald Trump, addressed to the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, last week. He told them directly in a phone call, and then he himself confirmed it to the media.

It has gone around the world, like everything related to the toxic twins of international politics, the row that a few days ago Trump gave Netanyahu over the phone: "You are a son of a bitch," he told him. "You would be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass." A possible subject of study is the identification between leaderships that claim to be strong and the brothel language that floods Western politics and media.In any case, for once, Trump fell short. When it came to Netanyahu, he could have continued to hurl insults and curses, and whatever he said would have been justified: on the condition, of course, of also reversing the insults against himself. Trump blamed Netanyahu and the attacks by the Israeli army against Lebanon for Trump's repeated failures in negotiations with Iran, and with good reason. But he could also blame himself and his administration, which insist on pursuing the productive strategy of combining negotiations with bombings over Tehran. Trump has been announcing an agreement for weeks that, in his words, is always imminent and desired by the ayatollahs' regime with a desperation that, for now, is only evident in Trump himself (the latest announcement, quite doubtful, is for this coming weekend; Netanyahu, meanwhile, says he has agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon, but his ceasefires are so elastic that they include massacres of civilians, as in Gaza). Let's remember that Trump announced the supposed victory of the US and Israel over Iran eleven days after the first unannounced attack: "Our army has practically destroyed Iran. Its air forces are finished." Almost three months later, Iranian aviation, drones, and missiles continue to torture American armed forces that are short of resources. The warlike fury of the Trump administration generates profits in the form of spoils obtained in piratical actions against international law (for example, Venezuelan oil, which the US is now plundering with the collaboration of Delcy Rodríguez and the same elites who already parasitized the country with Maduro; there has been no regime change, nor anything similar), but it also depletes budgets and armaments.

Tensions in the Persian Gulf have flared up again this Wednesday, following a bombing of Kuwait International Airport, with one person dead and at least 63 injured, according to health sources, seven of whom required surgical interventions. The United States has attributed authorship to Iran, accusing it of a "deliberate, calculated, and unjustified attack." But Tehran insists that the detonation was a consequence of the impact of an American missile interceptor on the airport. This is the deadliest attack exchanged between the US and Iran in recent days, and moreover, it occurred at a civilian infrastructure, further jeopardizing Donald Trump's attempt to reach a new ceasefire agreement with Tehran to save face.

We often say that politics seems like a schoolyard, and we say it to indicate childish attitudes on the part of leaders, who precisely if they have to seem like anything to us, it should be "parents", not "children". We've said it lightly and we've said it more times than we should. But here it is, today I open the ARA and I come across the words that leader Trump dedicates to leader Netanyahu. And I tell myself yes, that the phrase to define him had never made so much sense. He told him this (we translate as best we can): "You are a fucking crazy person. If it weren't for me, you'd be in jail. I'm saving your ass. Everyone hates you. Everyone hates Israel for what you're doing".

Despite de-escalation promises from Washington, in southern Lebanon nothing seems to have changed this Tuesday. The inhabitants of Nabatiyeh have barely had time to process the ceasefire announcements when sirens, evacuation orders, and Israeli bombings have once again imposed themselves over any expectation of calm.

The Beaufort Castle, a fortress from the time of the 12th-century crusades, has become the new symbol of the Israeli offensive in southern Lebanon. This Sunday, the Israeli army conquered this castle, which theoretically allows it to control a wide strip of territory largely controlled by Hezbollah, which, despite strong pressure, still launched attacks against Israeli positions again on Saturday. It is still too early to tell, but the gesture of planting the flag there has been seen as a turning point in this conflict, as it has been accompanied by a strong propaganda campaign –photographs of the Israeli flag on the hill and the announcement by Benjamin Netanyahu calling it a "crucial milestone" and urging the continuation of the military incursion– to show how the invasion of Lebanon was progressing beyond the Litani River to establish, in principle, a new "security" border 10 kilometers further north, reaching the Zahrani River.

The fragile ceasefire that since April had partially contained the violence in Lebanon is once again faltering following a strong Israeli escalation that began Monday night, the most intense since the first weeks of the offensive. The new troop movements respond to the call of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to "press the accelerator even harder" against Hezbollah. While Donald Trump tries to keep indirect negotiations with Iran open, and Washington insists on the possibility of a regional agreement – despite the United States' bombings of Iranian positions this Tuesday in the early morning –, on the ground the weapons do not fall silent. Israel has expanded operations, mobilized reservists and multiplied attacks from the south to the Bekaa Valley, in the east of the country, a key area for Lebanese agriculture. In parallel, the Shiite militia Hezbollah has responded in recent hours with 22 drone and rocket attacks on Israeli positions. Their targets have included Israeli soldiers, tanks, barracks and buildings. Direct combat has also been recorded north of the Litani River. The Shiite organization continues to carry out a dynamic that, according to analyst Lina Khatib, associated with Chatham House's Middle East and North Africa program, also responds to directives from Iran, interested in keeping Lebanon within the broader negotiation framework with the United States.

It seems that the current war will end up strengthening Iran. Perhaps it will end up returning, more or less and under a different name, to Obama's 2015 JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), which limited Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting the imposed sanctions. A situation that would weaken the almost unconditional support of the US for Israel and that would question the Greater Israel project shamelessly defended by the Netanyahu government.

In an Israel marked by months of war with no end in sight, the country will hold elections this fall, the first in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will face the polls since the Palestinian attacks of October 7, 2023. The prospect that, despite his weariness, he may win again has led the opposition to unite against him. Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, two of the prime minister's main rivals, have announced a coalition to unseat him after 25 years of almost uninterrupted dominance of Israeli politics. The alliance responds to a clear political logic: the two former prime ministers are trying to rebuild a broad central space capable of attracting voters from both the moderate right and the center. Bennett, a former army commander and a reference for the ultranationalist right, has gained weight as a credible figure on security matters – a key factor in full regional confrontation –, while Lapid, leader of liberal centrism and a former television presenter, maintains strength in the urban and secular vote. However, the union has generated doubts regarding its political viability and the power to be a real alternative to Netanyahu.The most recent poll by the Israeli media Walla places the new candidacy, baptized as Junts (Beyahad in Hebrew), around 27 seats, one less than Netanyahu's Likud, which would remain the leading force with about 28 seats. Even more decisive is the bloc's configuration. Parties opposed to Netanyahu are around 59 seats, below the 61 needed for a parliamentary majority. Even in favorable scenarios, the opposition bloc needs the support of other parties. The parties representing Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, who make up 20% of Israel's population, would maintain about a dozen seats, but Lapid and Bennett have ruled out forming a coalition with them.

In an infrequent reaction, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apologized and issued a condemnation "with all his might." A few hours earlier, his Foreign Minister had done so, admitting that the act had been "serious and shameful." And both have assured that "harsh" and "strict" disciplinary measures will be taken against the perpetrator. What big thing happened? Well, the photo of an Israeli soldier in southern Lebanon hitting the head of a crucified Jesus Christ with a hammer, lying upside down after being taken down from the cross, an image that has caused the usual tearing of clothes on social media.

The controversy has been so strong that Benjamin Netanyahu has been forced to apologize publicly. It all began over the weekend, when a photograph showing an Israeli soldier in southern Lebanon hitting the head of a crucifix with a hammer, lying upside down after being taken down from the cross, caused a major controversy on social media. In an unusual move, this Monday the Prime Minister of Israel condemned the acts "with all his might" and announced an investigation into the incident, as well as "harsh disciplinary action" against the soldier.