Abir Sultan/AP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a press conference at the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Oct. 28, 2023. Some analysts see him maneuvering to ensure his political survival despite the calamity of the Oct. 7 attack and ensuing war with Hamas.

Amihai Eliyahu, a far-right politician from Israel’s Jewish Power party and a junior minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, gave his strategy for the ongoing Gaza war when interviewed on local radio earlier this week.

“There’s no such thing as uninvolved [noncombatants] in Gaza,” he said, arguing against the entry of humanitarian aid to the besieged coastal enclave.

Then he took it a stunning step further, surmising that the use of a nuclear weapon was “one of the options” for destroying Hamas, the militant group behind the devastating Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.

The condemnation from inside and outside Israel was immediate and overwhelming, and Mr. Eliyahu’s later clarification that he was speaking “metaphorically” did little to lessen the uproar – not least his cavalier disregard for the survival of some 240 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.

Yet Prime Minister Netanyahu refrained from firing him.

As the conflict with Hamas enters its second month, with global anger mounting over the death toll in Gaza, the Israeli far right, in both word and deed, appears to be actively undermining the country’s war effort.

In the wake of Hamas’ assault, which led to the heaviest death toll in the Jewish state’s history, most officials from Mr. Netanyahu’s ruling coalition disappeared from public view.

Yet in recent weeks the far-right ministers have apparently refound their political footing and confidence.

Mr. Eliyahu’s comments were not an outlier. Other right-wing politicians and activists, even from Mr. Netanyahu’s own Likud party, have begun calling for the resettlement of Gaza, returning the territory to the situation that existed before Israel withdrew its military and over 7,000 Jewish settlers in 2005. And a report last month from Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence, which is considered a toothless entity that was constructed with no real authority and is led by a peripheral Likud minister, advocated for the forced relocation of Palestinians in Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

Yet the Israeli war cabinet prosecuting the campaign against Hamas, including Mr. Netanyahu, has made it clear that Israel does not seek to reoccupy Gaza and that its goal isn’t to transfer the population to Egypt, and it’s insisted it is doing everything possible to minimize civilian casualties on the Palestinian side.

And although aid groups deem it inadequate, the Israeli military has made a point of highlighting the humanitarian supplies that are entering Gaza daily through Egypt.

Senior Biden administration officials have raised all these points publicly as U.S. priorities as well. On Thursday, the United States said Israel had agreed to daily pauses to allow humanitarian aid in and for Palestinian civilians to flee the battle zone.

Hussein Malla/AP

Black smoke rises from an Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab, a Lebanese village on the border with Israel, Nov. 4, 2023. The border region has been the site of regular clashes between Israeli forces on one side and Hezbollah and Palestinian armed groups on the other since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war.

“In Israel we know they’re fringe radicals,” says one former Israeli official, referring to the various far-right politicians. “But the world doesn’t understand that and doesn’t know they lack any real power or influence. All it sees is Israeli ministers saying these things.

“Instead of being quiet and helping the war effort, they’re actively harming our international legitimacy,” the former official says.

More than words

Yet the problem, according to analysts and international officials, is not just deleterious far-right rhetoric, but actions.

Since Oct. 7, armed Jewish extremists have killed at least eight Palestinians in the West Bank, according to Israeli human rights groups. Several hundred Palestinians in rural villages have been forced off their land due to Israeli settler intimidation and violence, per the United Nations.

This is on top of an ongoing and expansive Israeli military operation in the West Bank targeting militants, especially Hamas members, that has already claimed the lives of more than 170 Palestinians in the past month.

“The settlers are taking advantage of the attention being focused on Gaza ... to take over vast swaths of West Bank land,” says one foreign diplomat based in Israel. “They’re scaring Palestinians away.”

The Israeli military has called for the settlers to respect Israeli law and the role of the army as the “sovereign” in the occupied territory. Yet according to human rights groups, only a handful of settlers have been detained, and no indictments have yet come down.

Defense analysts say this is harming Israel’s primary military campaign, drawing forces and attention away not just from the Gaza theater but also from the country’s northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire take place daily with the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia.

“This is not just morally abhorrent but also undermines our national security,” says the former senior Israeli official.

Senior ministers within Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition, however, seem undaunted.

Maya Alleruzzo/AP/File

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a leader of the settler movement, speaks at the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 10, 2023. Amid a rise in settler violence in the West Bank, the head of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, reportedly urged far-right leaders, including Mr. Smotrich, “to take responsibility and calm things down.”

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the far-right Religious Zionism party, issued a letter to Mr. Netanyahu this week demanding an “end to the neglect of settlers’ security” in the West Bank and the establishment of Palestinian-free “sterile security zones” around settlements and on roadways. He also demanded that Palestinians be stopped from accessing their olive trees for the season’s harvest, lest that also threaten the security of nearby settlements.

Analysts deem the request tantamount to further Israeli annexation of the territory, which the Biden administration and other Israeli allies have long opposed.

The head of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Bet, late last month reportedly warned the government that settler violence could “set the area alight” and urged far-right leaders, including Mr. Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, “to take responsibility and calm things down.”

Yet last week, too, Mr. Smotrich ignited a political fight inside the Netanyahu government over the transfers of taxes that Israel collects to the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank. The monthly disbursement makes up the largest portion of the PA’s budget, which it then uses to pay civil servant salaries, including for its security forces.

Mr. Smotrich insisted that the tax transfers be halted completely, calling the PA a “terror authority.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant shot back that Israel had an interest in “maintaining stability” in the West Bank, “always and especially during these times,” and that the PA security forces were working to “prevent terrorism.”

The Netanyahu government, under U.S. pressure, ultimately disbursed most of the money, though the PA in protest said this week it was rejecting the entire amount.

Fears of escalation

Israeli security officials and analysts fear that the ongoing violence in the West Bank may escalate into yet another front in what is already a war that has extended beyond Gaza. The future of the PA itself, with the rising West Bank death toll and near-nightly demonstrations in support of Hamas, is also in jeopardy.

Nearly every credible plan for postwar Gaza, including the broad outlines put forward by Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week, calls for a major role to be played by a strengthened PA and a resumption of diplomacy aimed at a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both elements are anathema to the Israeli far right.

Yet Mr. Netanyahu seems to have larger concerns, in particular his own political survival.

He refrained from firing Mr. Eliyahu, the junior minister, and only “suspended” him from cabinet votes. And he has mostly stopped short of publicly rejecting the incendiary comments of his political allies.

“Netanyahu’s political future is dependent on these people; he’s basically a hostage to them,” says Tal Schneider, a political and diplomatic correspondent for The Times of Israel. “And he definitely thinks he has a political future” despite the calamity of Oct. 7 and the ongoing war.

On Wednesday night Mr. Netanyahu convened the war cabinet at the Israeli military’s Central Command, responsible for the West Bank, where he finally denounced the rising settler violence, calling it the work of a “tiny handful of people ... who take the law into their own hands.”

“I condemn it and we will act against it,” he added.

Invited to the meeting were the heads of all the West Bank settler councils, a point Ms. Schneider says was revealing. Mr. Netanyahu is only meeting later this week, and for the first time, with local officials from southern Israel whose communities were either destroyed by Hamas or subsequently evacuated due to the war.

“He has no courage to deal with a public that didn’t vote for him or that might yell at him,” Ms. Schneider says. “He’s still acting like the prime minister of only one side.”

Israeli military raids in towns and villages, checkpoints on the roads, the threat of settler attacks at any moment – Palestinians across the occupied West Bank say they now face potentially deadly violence every few hours.

Amid Israel’s tightened military crackdown here in the West Bank – part of its security response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack from Gaza – this occupied territory has endured its deadliest month in two decades.

The violence has disrupted Palestinians’ daily lives and created a foreboding environment in which a life-or-death situation or obstacle may be just around the corner.

“We are not under missiles like Gaza or in a war, but there is no safe space in the West Bank either, even when it’s calm,” says Mohammed, whose Ramallah home was stormed by Israeli forces last week in search of a suspect.

“Since Oct. 7, we have gone from an occupation to complete domination,” he says.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Israel Defense Forces killed 147 Palestinians across the West Bank from Oct. 7 to Nov. 8, including 44 children – more than in all of 2022. The U.N. reports that eight additional Palestinians, including one child, were killed in the West Bank by settlers. Clashes and Israeli military raids on Wednesday and Thursday pushed the West Bank death toll to 181, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.

A series of scattered attacks by Palestinian gunmen on settlements and Israeli outposts killed one Israeli reserve soldier on leave in the northern West Bank last week and injured two settlers with gunshot wounds late Wednesday. 

Wide-ranging Israeli raids have arrested 2,200 Palestinians across the West Bank as of Thursday, in what the Israel Defense Forces says are preemptive arrests of militants and cells planning attacks.

Palestinian officials, activists, and families say the crackdown has also arrested moderate Fatah leaders, student activists, and average citizens whose relatives say their only perceived threat was posting about the Israel-Hamas war on social media. Those detained are being held in undisclosed locations with little information available to families or lawyers, families say.

Palestinians say they feel surrounded by all sides, at all times.

“We are being suffocated by the occupation, Israeli military raids, by checkpoints and now settlers,” says Hussein, a university student in Ramallah, who felt safe having only his first name in print. “It’s like breathing is a crime.”

The most visible symbols of this remilitarized life in the West Bank are checkpoints.

Raneen Sawafta/Reuters

Israeli troops control the crossing after settlers' attack in Deir Sharaf, near Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Nov. 2, 2023.

“This is collective punishment”

Since Oct. 7, old Israeli checkpoints and roadblocks from the second intifada have been revived; hastily piled earthen berms now cover central roads leading into Ramallah and other towns.

Post-Oct. 7 checkpoints feature concrete blocks and shiny new yellow gates.

Israeli flags now hang from overpasses and fly from checkpoint blocks, poles, and towers on roads linking West Bank towns and villages. One can be forgiven if they think they are driving in Israel. 

Back in August, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs counted 645 physical obstacles and checkpoints in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, an 8% increase from January. Since Oct. 7, the office has documented dozens of additional checkpoints across the West Bank.

At the entrances and exits to Jericho, the only point of entry for Palestinians, visitors, and cargo from Jordan into the West Bank, checkpoints erected in February are now fully manned. Every single vehicle is inspected, slowing traffic to hourslong waits.  

“Last check: Everybody, erase your photos!” taxi driver Abu Abed calls to three passengers as they near the checkpoint after a two-hour wait. He says this is what now counts as “an open road on a good day.”

“The first thing we do each morning is erase the photos and videos on our phones,” explains Abu Abed, who, like others in this story, goes by a teknonym, a common practice referring to people by the names of their children, to protect his safety. “If there is any photo or video of victims in Gaza, or any video shared in a WhatsApp group purporting to be from Hamas or showing the war, you’re going to jail,” he says, noting two of his fellow drivers have been arrested.

At West Bank checkpoints, Israeli security personnel spend several minutes inspecting passengers’ phones.

“This is collective punishment,” says driver Abu Yassin, whose Ramallah-Saffa route now goes through multiple checkpoints that can make a 40-minute commute take half a day. “With these checkpoints, the Israelis are punishing every woman, child, and man who have nothing to do with militants, who are just trying to go about their lives and go to school, work, and get health care on what is supposed to be their land.”

Mohammed Abu Yusuf’s vegetable shop at the edge of Birzeit, a town north of Ramallah, is now sandwiched between two checkpoints. 

Raneen Sawafta/Reuters

Palestinians clash with Israeli troops after settlers' attack in Deir Sharaf, near Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Nov. 2, 2023.

A previously abandoned watchtower from the second intifada 50 meters uphill from his shop is now manned by the Israeli military, closing off the road. A new checkpoint has been erected 50 meters down from his shop on the main road. Settlers attacked his shop last week.

“We are worried that increased interaction with the Israeli military and settlers means we could be shot and killed any day,” Mr. Abu Yusuf says. “But what can we do? We have to try to live.”

History repeating

Veterans of the second intifada – in which 6,371 Palestinians and 1,083 Israelis were killed, spurring Israel’s erection of the hulking concrete barrier along much of the Israel-West Bank border – recognize the dynamic.

But for those born around or after the 2001 uprising, who have no memory of the Israeli military occupation and incursions at that time, it has been a shock. According to the U.N., 30% of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are under the age of 20 and half are under the age of 29.

“I have never seen anything like this,” 18-year-old Mashur Zaher says as he unloads a vegetable delivery. “Checkpoints everywhere and Israeli tanks entering villages were stories I heard from my parents and older brothers, but I thought that was history. I never thought it would happen again, and happen to me.”

Checkpoints and settler attacks have forced West Bank universities to close campuses and switch to remote learning. Several international organizations and businesses have instructed West Bank employees to work from home, implementing pandemic protocols.

Some young Palestinians have responded with protests and riots, leading to deadly confrontations with the Israeli military.  

One such flashpoint is a grouping of roadblocks and a manned Israeli checkpoint at the northern entrance to Al-Bireh, a main entry point into Ramallah, the West Bank capital, enforced after Oct. 7.

The road is littered with burn marks from burnt tires and Molotov cocktails from nighttime clashes.  

In this pressured environment, events can escalate quickly even in the sleepiest and calmest of West Bank neighborhoods.

A reported Israeli military raid on an apartment building in Al-Bireh last Thursday to arrest two university students ended in violence when local youths allegedly threw rocks at the Israeli military jeeps, prompting Israeli forces to open fire, killing one young Palestinian man and a 14-year-old boy.

“Even when you are sitting at home minding your own business, the conflict comes to you,” says Umm Mohammed, a resident who watched the raid. “We avoid checkpoints, avoid travel between towns, and now avoid going out at night. And the violence and the Israelis still come to us.”

U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths warned Thursday that “we cannot lose sight of the deteriorating situation in the West Bank,” where incidents of violence “are the worst they have been in years.”

Palestinian officials are more blunt.

“Anyone who thinks the West Bank will remain calm and quiet under all these obstructions, arrests, attacks, and deaths,” says senior Palestinian Authority official Ahmed Majdalani, “is either delusional or stupid.”

Raneen Sawafta/Reuters

Israeli troops stand guard after an attack by Jewish settlers in Deir Sharaf, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Nov. 2, 2023.

The headline news from the Middle East is, understandably, about Gaza: The escalating violence and the mounting humanitarian crisis as Israel strikes back against Hamas’ Oct. 7 surprise attack are compelling and urgent subjects.

But a second front in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a few dozen miles to the northeast, has also seen rising violence in recent weeks.

And what happens there could have an even greater impact on the political future of Israel, the Palestinians, and the wider Middle East once the war in Gaza is over.

That second front is the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the Jordan River. Fifteen times larger than Gaza, it is home to 3 million Palestinians, along with some 600,000 Israelis in dozens of settlements.

Crucially, the West Bank would form the core of the Palestinian state envisaged by Washington in an eventual two-state peace treaty with Israel.

Raneen Sawafta/Reuters

Women mourn Moath Odeh, a Palestinian resident of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, who was killed during clashes with Jewish settlers and security forces.

That may help explain the surge in violence there since Oct. 7.

On one hand, the Israeli military has launched a crackdown to head off protests in support of Hamas’ message of “resistance.” But there has also been a major surge in attacks by armed Israeli settlers on Palestinians in nearby towns, hamlets, olive groves, and grazing land.

The violence, which United Nations officials this week said had killed nearly 160 Palestinians, including 45 children, has prompted growing alarm not just in Washington but also among America’s allies in the Arab world, in Europe, and beyond.

They are concerned the settler attacks, unchecked so far by the government or the military, are a deliberate signal of Israel’s determination to retain, indeed tighten, its hold on the West Bank despite international calls for a return to negotiations on a two-state peace agreement.

They are especially worried by the fact that far-right Israeli government ministers, who are key to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s parliamentary majority, favor outright Israeli annexation of the West Bank.

One of them, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, this week signaled support for the settler attacks, advocating the establishment of “no-go areas” for Palestinians to ensure the security of Israeli settlements.

In the days following Oct. 7, Washington privately conveyed to Israel its concern over the West Bank violence.

But as the United Nations reported an increasing number of such incidents, Mr. Biden went public.

In comments to reporters when welcoming Australia’s prime minister to the White House late last month, he reiterated his support for Israel’s right to attack Hamas in Gaza. But he also urged a “concentrated effort” after the war to negotiate two-state Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Amir Cohen/Reuters

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich advocates banning Palestinian residents of the Israeli-occupied West Bank from their land near Jewish settlements.

And he concluded his remarks by voicing “alarm” over “extremist settlers attacking Palestinians on the West Bank,” adding that “they have to be held accountable. And it has to stop now.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken reinforced that message on his recent visit to Israel, and foreign ministers of the G7 countries repeated it this week.

The Biden administration foresees a range of obstacles to achieving the two-state peace envisaged under the Oslo Accords of 1993. The nearest it came to fruition was at the Camp David summit seven years later, when U.S. President Bill Clinton hosted Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

But the negotiations failed. A campaign of Palestinian violence erupted soon afterwards. And under Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership over the past 15 years, there has been no serious attempt to revive the talks.

Predicting the political picture in Israel after the Gaza war, U.S. officials recognize, is impossible. For one thing, the future of Mr. Netanyahu, whom many Israelis blame for the lack of preparedness on Oct. 7, is highly uncertain.

And many Israelis across the political spectrum may resist any early move toward peace with the Palestinians in the wake of the most deadly attack on civilians in their country’s history.

But the tension between Washington and the current Israeli government over the West Bank violence highlights a question sure to dominate relations after the war, no matter who is governing Israel.

What lessons should be drawn by the terrible violence of Oct. 7 and its aftermath?

The current Israeli government’s response, Mr. Biden worries, may well be to close down, rather than expand, efforts to negotiate a lasting peace with the Palestinians.

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer said as much this week in a U.S. television interview. He argued that serious prospects for a political resolution would require “generational” change.

Washington, on the other hand, regards a rapid and serious new peace push as vital to its ambitions to build long-term Middle East stability on the foundations of normalized relations between Israel and key Arab states, including Saudi Arabia.

It is essential, Mr. Biden has said, to give Palestinians a credible alternative to Hamas’ message – a political horizon that holds out the prospect of self-determination in a state of their own.

And also, in his words, the prospect for both Palestinians and Israelis of “safety, dignity, and peace.”

The Republican debate Wednesday night in Miami did nothing to change the trajectory of the party’s 2024 presidential nomination race. Former President Donald Trump, who staged a rally nearby rather than spar with primary challengers, remains the prohibitive front-runner.

But the debate was still revealing, laying bare deep divides and uncertainties in a GOP dominated today by Mr. Trump but still with strong strains of old-school Republicanism. These discussion points are likely to carry on into the post-Trump era. 

Isolationism vs. internationalism 

“The world is on fire,” said former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, arguing for a strong U.S. posture around the world – in Ukraine, the Middle East, and potentially China. Ms. Haley’s position, echoed by former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, contrasted sharply with that of tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who presented a Trumpian “America First” view on Ukraine, in particular, which could mean a sharp pullback in aid. 

Social Security

“Under no circumstances should Republicans cut entitlements,” Mr. Trump has said. But some Republicans appear willing to touch what has been called the “third rail” of politics, in light of an expected shortfall beginning in 2032. Ms. Haley and Mr. Christie said they’d increase the retirement age, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott said they would not. Ms. Haley highlighted her fiscal hawkishness, blaming Mr. Trump for adding $8 trillion to the national debt. 

Abortion

Republicans were stung Tuesday by election losses in races and a ballot measure in which reproductive rights were center stage. This issue, which Mr. Trump generally avoids, could be the GOP’s Achilles’ heel in 2024. While no GOP candidates presented themselves as favoring abortion rights, they differed in approach and tone. 

Governor DeSantis, who trails Mr. Trump in distant second place for the nomination, asserted his support for “a culture of life” and blamed abortion opponents for being “flat-footed” on an Ohio referendum. Ms. Haley, who is gaining traction and tied Mr. DeSantis for second place in a key poll, emphasized her desire for consensus. She called herself “unapologetically pro-life” but struck a note of realism, noting that a nationwide ban on abortion at 15 weeks’ gestation cannot realistically pass the Senate unless Republicans somehow gain a filibuster-proof majority.

So given Mr. Trump’s dominance in GOP primary polls, was Wednesday night’s debate pointless? Not necessarily. It’s not impossible that something could shift the dynamics of the race. And many of these candidates – Ms. Haley and Mr. Desantis, in particular – could try again in 2028.

Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP

Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice speaks at the Republican Party of Florida Freedom Summit, Nov. 4, 2023, in Kissimmee. Candidates affiliated with the group lost in numerous school board elections on Election Day, in a sign that voters are wearying of book bans.

The showdown over book bans and how students are exposed to information about racism and gender identity moved from school board meetings to the ballot box, where voters on Tuesday delivered a sizable blow to far-right agendas.

From Iowa to Pennsylvania, many conservative school board candidates – some of whom were linked to the controversial Moms for Liberty group – lost to their more moderate or liberal competitors. Their defeats, experts say, signal a growing disenchantment with how much time so-called culture war topics have dominated school board discussions.

“In many cases, parents are saying that they’re tired of talking about book bans and bathrooms and flags and pronouns, and that they want their district leaders to be focusing on the core work of teaching and learning,” says Julie Marsh, a professor of education policy at the University of Southern California.

One of the more prominent examples occurred in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, where a blue wave swept the Pennridge School Board races. Five Democratic candidates, who ran as an alliance, captured more votes than their five Republican competitors, one of whom was an incumbent.

The existing Pennridge School Board had come under mounting public scrutiny, especially after approving a new curriculum recommended by a consultant who previously worked at Hillsdale College. The private Christian school in Michigan has been at the forefront of K-12 instructional debates while promoting its conservative 1776 curriculum, which emphasizes a patriotic view of U.S. history.

Mary Jo Carlson/AP

Signs promote four school board candidates who defeated Moms for Liberty-backed candidates in the Linn-Mar Community School District in Iowa, Nov. 8, 2023. Voters largely rebuked culture war candidates in school board races.

Leah Foster Rash, one of the candidates who won in Pennridge this week, grew up in the community and has two children who attend school in the district. Though she never considered Pennridge a progressive area, Ms. Foster Rash thought it generally embodied a neighborly spirit. She worried that recent school board decisions, however, were unraveling the sense of community and causing hurt for people of color and LGBTQ+ residents.

“I felt like this is not Pennridge,” she says.

Ms. Foster Rash says she knows that healing divisions with the four remaining board members won’t be an easy task. But the soon-to-be board member is leaning into what she consistently heard while door-knocking on the campaign trail: People want less fighting and better treatment of teachers.

“I think everyone’s tired of like, ‘The [Democrats] are all this and the Republicans are all that,’ and recognizing that all of us are some of both,” she says.

Conservatives’ school board losses did not surprise Dr. Marsh, who pointed to far-right losses in both the spring elections this year and last fall’s midterms. And even if the political winds are shifting, she expects school boards to remain a place where rigorous debate occurs.

“We might shift to focusing on teaching and learning, and there, too, might be some interesting debates and controversies and tensions,” she says. “But in my mind, at least that would be focused on the right issues.”

The more telling sign of where the American populace stands on public education may come a year from now when a presidential election increases voter turnout, says Jonathan Collins, assistant professor of political science and education at Brown University.

But for now, this week’s election outcomes suggest that “we should pump the brakes on accepting the premise that the culture wars have completely taken over the politics of education,” Dr. Collins says.

It’s easy to understand why Marvel might have once thought itself invincible on the silver screen. Beyond the pitch-perfect castings of Chris Evans as Captain America and Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man, the iconic comic book brand found remarkable success at the movies with “Black Panther” and “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Something happened after Evans and Downey’s Avengers swan song in the aptly-named “Endgame.” Marvel’s Phase 4 sought to tap lesser-known properties such as Ms. Marvel, about a Pakistani American teen, or reinterpret household names such as Thor and the Hulk. Drama behind the scenes and uncertainty with the pandemic stalled some of that. The latest big-screen offering, “The Marvels,” opening this weekend, may bring more ambivalence from fans. A recent report from Variety assessed the brand’s current situation in three words: “Crisis at Marvel.” 

It’s ironic to read about the franchise’s problems while watching the remarkable “Loki” – a Disney+ series about Thor’s brother, the ever-changing god of mischief – which wraps up its second season today. Marvel initially turned the silver screen into a gold mine through character development and fan investment. “Loki” does the same. 

For all of the Avengers’ laser-blasting and shield-hurling, there was also the internal conflict between Captain America and Iron Man, friends who periodically became rivals. Their battles often became the moral heart of the franchise. “Loki” offers a similar dynamic.

Over the course of the first season, the titular character, played by Tom Hiddleston, creates a connection with one of his minders, Mobius (Owen Wilson). We learn early on about Mobius’ employer, the Time Variance Authority (TVA), an entity that basically serves as the time police. The TVA is interested in pruning timelines that feature versions, or variants, of Loki – who in the past has had no difficulty thinking up ways to make the universe suffer. Besides his bond with Mobius, the god of mischief also develops a strained relationship with a female variant, Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino). What emerges is a more nuanced view of “victor” and “villain.”

Marvel Studios

Mobius (Owen Wilson, left) and Loki (Tom Hiddleston) star in the second season of “Loki.” The friendship between the characters is at the heart of the series.

As the second season comes to a close, with the TVA – and time itself – fracturing in the penultimate episode, Sylvie presses Loki about why he chooses to play the role of hero. His response? “I just want my friends back. I don’t want to be alone.”

I teared up at the end of the third “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie – not because of Rocket Raccoon or Star-Lord. It was because of a fatherly gesture made by Drax, played by Dave Bautista. Essentially, over the course of three movies, the character went from “destroyer” to dad.

The individual failures of Loki have yielded a similarly dynamic character. And Hiddleston’s run as Loki has placed him in the Marvel air reserved for the likes of Evans, Downey, and the late Chadwick Boseman, forever the Black Panther. Connection to these characters and their journeys leads to why we watch these movies and shows in the first place – emotional payoff.

Even with Marvel’s recommitment to compassion in the midst of conflict, the brand isn’t entirely in the clear. The first season of “Loki” ended with He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors) – an iteration of Kang from the comics – stealing not only the show, but also quite possibly the multiverse. Majors is set to stand trial for misdemeanor assault and harassment charges in November. The Variety report also revealed considerations for Majors’ character to be replaced with an iconic Marvel foe – Dr. Doom.

Whichever way Marvel decides to move, it should do so in a way that considers not just the value of money, but also the value of time, especially as it relates to creativity and storytelling. What makes “Loki” so good – and made Marvel so great – is vision and attention to detail. At the height of its powers, Marvel seamlessly added characters into the uncertainty of tomorrow. Boseman’s first appearance as the Black Panther in 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War” comes to mind here. While Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan might not get a stand alone movie, his supplementary role in “Loki” as author and inventor Ouroboros adds value to the fundamental relationships already at play. 

It was long thought that all Marvel executives had to do to build a successful project was to throw money at it. Clearly, that’s been proven false. The brand is made of stronger fabric, specifically the ties that bind the characters. Marvel, like “Loki,” is burdened with glorious purpose. 

AP

Colombian High Commissioner for Peace Ivan Danilo Rueda, left, and Andrey Avendano, a member of the Central General Staff of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, smile during peace talks in Tibu, Colombia, Oct. 8. The FARC group is an an armed faction that broke away and never signed the 2016 peace agreement by the government.

Whoever governs Gaza after Israel ends its military operations in the Palestinian enclave will have to address what gave rise to Hamas and its extremist ideology. One place to look for that sort of discernment is Colombia, where the government’s year-old Total Peace plan shows signs of curbing the violent radicalization of many armed groups.

South America’s second-most populous country has long tried to end decades of ideology-based warfare and violence driven by guerrilla groups, gangs, and drug cartels. The current government’s all-at-once strategy has plenty of doubters, but it has led to negotiating peace agreements with as many as 26 armed groups simultaneously.

The government’s main assumption in the talks: Equality and trust are building blocks not only for negotiations but also for creating a just and gentle society.

Even setbacks can provide lessons. Last weekend, for example, one armed group broke off negotiations, accusing the government of bad faith. Yet the group said it would honor a joint cease-fire that began in September and even acknowledged a need for self-criticism. “I do not believe that we are perfect,” one of the group’s leaders, Jaime Muñoz Dorado, told EFE, a Spanish news agency. “If there is a will for peace from the Government, the most coherent thing is that we prolong it.”

Mr. Dorado’s comments underscore the idea that a vision of peace can create its own momentum as it relies on humility to listen and an assumption of goodwill by the other side. That idea is well practiced in Colombia, notably in a landmark 2016 accord between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a movement that had waged guerrilla warfare for half a century.

President Gustavo Petro has vowed to engage all armed factions in a similar way as well as lift the economy to prevent young people from joining such groups. Since taking office last year, he has increased public investments in education and agriculture. And his initial framework for talks with Mr. Dorado’s faction was dubbed an “agreement on respect for the civilian population.”

Yet in raising expectations about curbing violence and poverty, Mr. Petro has also stirred impatience. The one-on-one negotiating tracks with individual armed factions have been disrupted by kidnappings, extortion, and car bombings. Within months of taking office last year, the president saw his public approval ratings plummet. His party took a drubbing in local elections last month.

Such disruptions, however, have not diminished his initiative. The president expects armed groups to take “maximum responsibility” for building a peaceful future. The armed groups, as one gang leader told The Associated Press, expect the government to nurture trust “not with words, but through actions.” For many Colombians, such forward-looking expectations are the language of reconciliation that they want the world to note.