When a news story leaked last month that Washington is helping Ukraine kill Russian generals through United States intelligence tips, Pentagon officials quickly took to the podium to clarify a few things. 

“We do not provide intelligence on the location of senior [Russian] military leaders on the battlefield, or participate in the targeting decisions of the Ukrainian military,” Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby told reporters in a May 5 briefing.

The U.S. does indeed share secrets with Kyiv, which are “timely” as well as “useful,” to help the country defend itself, he said.

“Certainly there is an element of curation” also involved before this classified information is passed along, to protect America’s spies and their methods.

Beyond that, U.S. officials declined to give more details – including refusing to answer a question about whether the intelligence involves Russian logistics or even weather forecasts – other than to say that Ukraine is “under no obligation to tell us how they’re going to use” this American information.  

The episode is an illustration of the tricky line that the U.S. must walk in its intelligence sharing with Ukraine: providing enough to bolster Kyiv’s military defenses – and to satisfy U.S. lawmakers who complain that the Biden administration should be doing more – but not enough to reveal sensitive U.S. sources or goad Russian President Vladimir Putin into expanding the conflict to include NATO. 

“This is administration policy: We’re telling Ukrainians ‘This is where Russian units are’ so they can defend themselves, not so they can kill Russian generals,” says Daniel Hoffman, who served as Moscow station chief for the CIA.

For Mr. Putin, this may be “a difference without a distinction,” he adds. “His generals are dead – but it’s not enough to start a nuclear war.” 

AP

A woman walks past a tomb of Maj. Gen. Vladimir Frolov at the Serafimovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg, Russia, Monday, May 23, 2022. He was killed in April in Ukraine, as the Russian army has lost several of its senior officers during the invasion of Ukraine.

“Pre-bunking” versus Russia

Though the U.S. has no desire to give Moscow a license to escalate, “We’re constantly signaling to Russia that we’re supporting the Ukrainians,” says Emily Harding, deputy director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former analyst at the CIA.

While not without risks, this is designed as a deterrent, she adds. “It’s saying to Putin, ‘We’re not going to make this easy, we’re going to keep the fight going, and it’s going to be disastrous for you and your military.’” 

In the run-up to the Russian invasion, this included efforts to “pre-bunk” rather than scramble to debunk Moscow’s more outrageous claims. In the process, the U.S. has turned on the spigots of intelligence, sharing it with Kyiv and also with the press.

It marked a shift in thinking from earlier, more close-lipped policy of previous administrations and “seems to have been quite useful,” says Kristian Gustafson, deputy director of Brunel University’s Center for Intelligence and Security Studies in London.

Prior to the Russian invasion, U.S. officials warned of concerning troop formations, for example, which might normally be classified secrets, and also that Russia was producing a “very graphic” deep-fake video intended to drum up support for Mr. Putin’s invasion. 

U.S. officials made intelligence public in the hopes of convincing allies that Mr. Putin was indeed planning to wage war in Ukraine – an event that British and American intelligence agencies were forecasting, but French officials were not.

At the same time, the U.S. has taken great care not to give away its own secret methods of collection to Ukrainian agencies that, though tenaciously fighting Moscow, are also riddled with Russian spies. 

Russian Defense Ministry Press Service/AP/File

The Russian navy missile cruiser Moskva, shown on patrol in the Mediterranean Sea in 2015, had been the flagship of the Russian fleet. It was destroyed in April by Ukrainian missiles, after the U.S. reportedly helped identify, but not target, it.

“That’s a serious concern with the Ukraine, because it’s been an [espionage] target of the Russians for decades,” Ms. Harding of CSIS says. “And the Russians are very good.” 

“The question,” she adds, “is always how much can you share – in as much detail as possible – without sharing exactly how you know it.” 

Intelligence officials faced just such a puzzle with the April sinking of the Moskva, the flagship of the Russian fleet, Dr. Gustafson says. 

Russia claimed it was destroyed in a shipboard fire caused by detonated ammunition before it became clear it was struck by Ukrainian missiles – a severe blow to Russian pride.

Reports later emerged that U.S. intelligence had helped identify, though not target, the Moskva. “How did we or they know the ship was there? How did we or they know that the ship’s targeting radars were broken?” says Dr. Gustafson.

A lesson from World War II

After breaking German Enigma encryptions, Allies in World War II faced a similar challenge: how to act on intelligence while also ensuring that Berlin stayed in the dark about this new ability to intercept their coded communiques. 

This meant, say, not attacking Axis convoys before flying a highly-visible Allied plane overhead, Dr. Gustafson notes. 

In this way, Axis powers could conclude it was aerial reconnaissance, and not decrypted Enigma code, that gave their movements away.

In the case of the Moskva, a U.S. human intelligence source could have been talking to a chatty Russian shipyard worker who happened to mention that the Moskva’s tracking radars were working poorly or not at all, he adds. “That’s a nice bit of intelligence, but you have to come up with multiple ways of knowing things.”

This might mean, among other things, putting out word that the Americans had spotted the ship through satellite imagery or sentinel aircraft to conceal another targeting system they don’t want Russians to know they have.

In the wider war, although U.S. intelligence officials do not, as they have stressed, give Ukraine targeting information, “They might say, ‘We happen to have seen an awful lot of radio traffic emanating from this place just to the west of town X,” Dr. Gustafson says.

Ukraine might then decide to send an electronic warfare unit to have a quick listen. They might then determine the building is a headquarters with generals in it.

“Is that targeting information? No, you haven’t told them anything other than that.” 

At the same time, not all Ukrainian intelligence coups are due to sophisticated tradecraft. 

Much is the result of Russian forces making rookie mistakes that allies are using to their advantage, notes Javed Ali, associate professor at the University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and a former intelligence officer with the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency. 

“Intelligence doesn’t always have to be on the clandestine side – especially when Russian military commanders are using unsecured phone lines and social media platforms to communicate on the battlefield or back to Moscow,” he says.

Such intercepted communications, in particular when it comes to low-ranking Russian soldiers, are painting a picture of “young kids who are scared and not equipped and who hate fighting,” Mr. Ali adds. 

Given this, when Russian soldiers are captured by Ukrainian forces on the battlefield, U.S. officials could help provide questions “that really smart analysts flush out” to come up with intelligence derived through empathetic, or at least thoughtful, interrogations. 

“If you’re hearing the same story from soldiers in 20 different units, then you start to see patterns and trends emerge,” he says.

And as the war morphs from frequently changing battle lines to an increasingly entrenched slugfest, tactical intelligence becomes less important than understanding Mr. Putin’s strategic thinking, Mr. Ali says. 

“What is Putin thinking? What will his next moves be? How will all this lead to an end-state that is satisfactory to both sides? That is where I think the role of intelligence is going to be very important,” he adds. 

“And those are also the kind of insights that are hardest to get.”

Denis Balibouse/Reuters

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet attends the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 13, 2022. Her visit to China last month sparked controversy around her framing of China's human rights record.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet has unleashed a firestorm of criticism from rights advocates and scholars – and praise from China’s government – after stepping into the gaping divide over human rights between authoritarian China and the liberal West.

Ms. Bachelet traveled to China late last month on the first visit by a U.N. human rights commissioner in nearly two decades. Her visit to a region known for abuses against minority groups, and her end-of-trip remarks echoing Chinese state rhetoric, angered rights groups. Scores of organizations representing Uyghur and Tibetan ethnic minorities and Hong Kongers have called on Ms. Bachelet to resign, accusing her of “whitewashing” abuses and “squandering” an opportunity to hold Beijing accountable during her trip to China, including the northwestern region of Xinjiang. 

China’s government, meanwhile, has hailed the visit for highlighting China’s human rights achievements. It afforded an opportunity for Ms. Bachelet to “observe and experience firsthand a real Xinjiang,” said Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu, denouncing as “palpable lies” the charges of rights violations in the region.

On Monday, in her annual report before the 50th Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Ms. Bachelet seemingly tried to adjust course, toughening her language on China. She pointed to “human rights violations” impacting ethnic and religious minorities, and raised concerns about the human rights of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, “including broad arbitrary detention and patterns of abuse” in detention facilities. She also announced that she will not be seeking a second term as high commissioner.

The controversy sparked by Ms. Bachelet’s trip has brought into sharp relief China’s efforts to blunt criticism of its record and advance its own, state-centric global rights agenda, in contrast with universal human rights principles endorsed by the United Nations, experts say.

“China has really got the bit between its teeth on … human rights,” says Rosemary Foot, author of “China, the UN, and Human Protection: Beliefs, Power, Image.” “It’s much bolder [than it used to be] in challenging ideas of universality and indivisibility of human rights. It’s bolder in the Human Rights Council.” China has strained relations with the Council, narrowly winning reelection in 2020.

Deng Hua/Xinhua/AP

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (second from right) meets with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet (left) in southern China's Guangdong Province on May 23, 2022. China opposes “politicizing” human rights and imposing double standards, its foreign minister said in comments at the start of Ms. Bachelet's visit. International observers and academics say China has a proven track record of abusing Muslim minority groups.

Starting the conversation

Beijing is advancing an alternative model of human rights that prioritizes a strong, sovereign state, economic development, and security, whereas the U.N. focuses on protecting individual rights, Dr. Foot says. The challenge for Ms. Bachelet, therefore, was how to engage productively with China’s leadership, while also upholding the integrity of the U.N. mission.

Ms. Bachelet said the main achievement of her trip – the first in 17 years by a U.N. high commissioner for human rights – was to open up a structure for regular discussions between the U.N. human rights office and China’s government, and to create a working group to “facilitate substantive exchanges and cooperation.”

“The visit was an opportunity to hold direct discussions – with China’s most senior leaders – on human rights … and pave the way for more regular, meaningful interactions in the future,” Ms. Bachelet told a press conference on May 28, the last day of her six-day China trip.

To be sure, some experts stressed that it is imperative for the top U.N. human rights official to engage with China’s government, and called her meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping an accomplishment.

Yet in pursuing this long-term outreach with Beijing, others say Ms. Bachelet appeared to veer too far toward endorsing China’s framing of human rights, rather than upholding independent U.N. values.

“Maybe she thinks getting a foot in the door is more important than actually saying the right things,” says Dr. Foot, a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations. But, she says, public statements are “really important in human rights accountability, and my fear is all these other things will be behind closed doors and not really productive at all.”

Missed opportunity in Xinjiang

Traveling inside what she called a “bubble” of government COVID-19 restrictions, Ms. Bachelet made clear she was not in China to investigate charges of rights abuses in Xinjiang or elsewhere. Yet, although her movements were controlled, she did have a high-profile opportunity to give voice to human rights concerns raised by U.N. bodies and nongovernmental organizations. 

Ms. Bachelet’s choice, instead, to echo the Chinese government’s framing of the problem in Xinjiang as counterterrorism, struck experts and rights advocates alike as at best a missed opportunity, and at worst a blow to her credibility.

“Violent acts of extremism have terrible, serious impact on the lives of victims, including those tasked to protect the community,” Ms. Bachelet said at the press conference in May. “But it is critical that counterterrorism responses do not result in human rights violations.”

In an open letter this week, dozens of prominent international scholars of Xinjiang said Ms. Bachelet’s remarks “ignored” a large body of evidence, including leaked and online Chinese documents, survivor testimony, and satellite imagery, showing that China has conducted a policy of extra-legal confinement and other abuses of Uyghurs and other primarily Muslim minorities in Xinjiang.

“We were deeply disturbed,” the scholars wrote, explaining that Ms. Bachelet’s words “echo the Chinese state’s claim that their atrocities in Xinjiang are all part of a ‘counterterrorism’ effort, a claim that our research and the Chinese state’s own documents show to be false.” The letter noted that Ms. Bachelet also used the government phrase “vocational education and training center” to describe what human rights groups and independent investigators have documented as mass internment facilities.

Denis Balibouse/Reuters

U.N. Human Rights Council attendees listen to the address of High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 13, 2022.

The controversy has intensified pressure on the United Nations to release a major investigation into rights abuses in Xinjiang – a report it has withheld without explanation since last year. On Monday, Ms. Bachelet said the report in Xinjiang is “being updated” and will be shared with China’s government “for factual comment before publication.” 

Ms. Bachelet suggested the report would include evidence gathered inside and outside Xinjiang from “survivors and their family members and civil society representatives,” calling their information and perspectives “vital.”

“There is a strong cost to their credibility if a strong and detailed report doesn’t emerge from all of this,” says Philip Alston, who undertook an official mission to China in 2016 as a U.N. Human Rights Council special rapporteur and is now a professor at New York University’s law school.

“It’s important to reflect the sort of justifications that China offers for its policies,” he says. But “it’s then of the utmost importance to have a frank reckoning in terms of acknowledging the nature of the violations.”

I awoke early on the morning of March 21, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, and headed straight for Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was scheduled to speak there at the start of a long-planned voting rights march to the State Capitol in Montgomery, 54 miles away. It was the third attempt.

From the steps of the church, the future Nobel Peace Prize winner told us that, as participants, we would be helping make Alabama “a new Alabama” and America “a new America.”

It was exactly what I wanted to hear – a young college student from the North who had come south to change the world. So I didn’t think much about a building called Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church. I only saw it as a backdrop to one of this country’s most powerful orators.

Since then, I have returned to Selma many times to celebrate the promise of that march, which concluded in Montgomery on March 25 and led to the enactment several months later of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. Each visit, I have made it a point to spend time at Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church – sacred ground in the continuing struggle for racial justice.

The red brick building, with its distinctive twin bell towers, has served Selma’s African American community since it was constructed in 1908 under the stewardship of Black architect and contractor A.J. Farley.

Over the years, the church has been a sanctuary for activists fighting African American disenfranchisement. Defying a 1964 court injunction against civil rights gatherings, the Rev. P.H. Lewis, then pastor, welcomed activists into the church. Among them was Dr. King, who used the church to plan strategy and mobilize support for the Selma-to-Montgomery march.

The church normally hosts thousands of visitors every year and offers weekly worship services and outreach programs to the local community. But it is now closed to the public for the foreseeable future, following the discovery of significant termite and water damage to the wooden beams supporting the balconies, the bell towers, and many other areas. A major effort is underway to restore the building to its former glory.

Kevin Glackmeyer/AP/File

A statue of Martin Luther King Jr. stands outside Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church in Selma, Alabama, March 8, 2009, a day after the 44th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. On March 21, 1965, Dr. King helmed the Selma-to-Montgomery march, which led to the enactment of the Voting Rights Act later that year.

To raise public awareness of the building’s plight, the National Trust for Historic Preservation last month named the church one of America’s 11 most endangered historic places, along with several other sites of social and cultural significance. In announcing the designation, the NTHP noted that discrimination and oppression have been “long and difficult threads throughout American history. But an equally powerful thread is the history of people standing against such injustices.” Places like Brown Chapel, it said, are “physical reminders of a complex past,” and they help ensure “we as a society do not forget or deny the truths of our past.”

Alabama Democratic Rep. Terri Sewell, who grew up attending Brown Chapel, sees the church as “critical to understanding our nation’s ongoing struggle for equality and justice. ... If we don’t tell our story, someone else will, and they may not get it right.”

An important part of that story took place a couple of weeks before the Selma-to-Montgomery march I participated in. Several hundred protesters, led by John Lewis (who would go on to serve in Congress), tried to walk the 54 miles from Brown Chapel to Montgomery. But that day, March 7, they were viciously beaten back by Alabama state troopers and sheriff’s deputies at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, a short distance from downtown Selma. The day has become known as Bloody Sunday.

Mr. Lewis, who suffered a fractured skull in the attack, told me before his death in 2020 that he and the other injured marchers were brought back to Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church and treated there.

“The Selma-to-Montgomery march had a profound impact on the psyche of all Americans,” Mr. Lewis said. “It transformed American politics.”

Selma Mayor James Perkins Jr. says he was 12 years old at the time, and while his parents did not permit him to participate in the planned march, he tells of later sneaking away to the church and seeing the aftermath.

“I was here as the marchers were returning,” he said at a recent press briefing in Selma. “I witnessed firsthand adults with tear gas in their eyes, people crying and weeping who were in shock of what had taken place. Those memories are etched in my mind, being at Brown Chapel on March 7, 1965.

“We are not just celebrating a building [by restoring it]. ... This is really about the history [of] this community. It’s about the people of this community. It’s about the movement that is still a movement today.”

Next spring, I plan to return to Selma again to celebrate the promise of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. And I will again spend time at the red brick building that I now see differently from how I did more than 50 years ago. It is my hope that by then – if not sooner – Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church will have been brought back to life for both visitors and the local community to experience the spirit of progress it embodies and urges.

In southwest Saudi Arabia, menswear is blooming – literally.

Here in the mountainous areas of Al Dayer and Asir along the Saudi-Yemeni border, tribesmen proudly wear outfits symbolizing the green mountains where they have lived for centuries and the fierce fighting prowess they use to defend them.

Curved janbiya daggers, must-have accessories in the southern Arabian Peninsula, hang from the middle of their leather belts like sharpened, deadly belt buckles.

But no warrior’s outfit is complete without a splash of color.

“You got to have the flowers,” says a vendor, Mufleh, who gave only his first name.

Marigolds, daisies, and wild basil – flowery wreaths are the go-to headwear for tribesmen here, showing off a flair for fashion and an eye for color. If the knives signal toughness, these wreaths are their swagger.

With men of all ages sporting full-on peacock blooms as they farm, shop, or attend weddings, floral garlands are part and parcel of daily life in these hardscrabble mountain villages where a daisy is just as important as a dagger.

Rather than contradict or clash, they insist bravery and beauty here go hand in hand.

Although now Instagrammable destinations, many of these remote villages nestled in the mountains of Al Dayer and Asir in the Jazan region had long been largely closed off due to poor roads.

Taylor Luck

Gebran al Maliki, founder and curator of the Jabal Tallan museum, which showcases area artifacts and culture, stands at the museum outside Al Dayer, southern Saudi Arabia, in the traditional dress of tribesmen along the Saudi-Yemeni border: a janbiya dagger and wreath of aromatic herbs, May 25, 2022.

But investment and improved infrastructure in recent decades have paved the way for a tourism boom, with Saudis over the past six years discovering both these lush mountains and the tribesmen’s headwear.

Nature as inspiration

Unlike the arid expanse of central and northern Saudi Arabia or the hot and humid Red Sea coast, this mountainous region has a temperate climate, with dry air alternating with misty rains. That allows dozens of varieties of wild flowers to flourish for most of the year, making them available as a natural headwear for tribes straddling both sides of the Saudi-Yemeni border for centuries.

“When people decorated their homes or dressed up, they looked to their surroundings for inspiration,” says local historian and heritage expert Gebran al Maliki. “They were surrounded by greenery, flowers, and bright colors, so they incorporated them into their outfits.”

As they have for centuries, locals weave different combinations of sagebrush, wild basil, rue shrubs, fenugreek, and other scented plants into a sturdy crown, and then place strings of vibrant flowers loosely atop.

Those in a hurry place a small bouquet of aromatic herbs and flowers in their shirt pocket like a boutonniere.

But the flowers are not an indication of frivolity.

Up until the 1960s, young men embarked on at-times deadly public tests of pain and strength as a rite of passage. Bravery and honor are paramount; locals still brandish rifles and proudly help guard the border region as they have since the 1930s – even as war rages in Yemen a few miles away.

Taylor Luck

Stands of flowers, wreaths, and herbs, which will be bought as headwear, in the city of Abha in southern Saudi Arabia, May 29, 2022.

The intimidating arson of weapons carried by these tribes is on display at Mr. Al Maliki’s Jabal Tallan cultural museum in Al Dayer Bani Malik, from spears and daggers to modern rifles.

“Weapons and flowers are both important parts of daily life,” he says.

Wearable aromatherapy

But how do the flower men of southern Saudi Arabia choose which flowers to wear?

“It’s all down to a person’s individual tastes and sense of style,” Mr. Al Maliki says, pointing to the flowerless wreath of wild basil and rue atop his head.

“Just as people pick out a certain outfit in the morning, people here pick out the color combination of flowers they feel best represents them and makes them look good.”

But flowery wreaths are not just about looks. These garlands are prized for how they make you feel.

“When you put the wreath on your head, you feel calm,” says Ibrahim Fathy, a tour guide and historian who hosts visitors in a traditional stone home overlooking the center of the gingerbread town of Rijal Almaa in Asir.

The sage, wild basil, fenugreek, and other herbs give off a soothing scent throughout the day, acting as wearable aromatherapy.

“The wreaths give off a pleasant aroma and a calming sensation, relaxing your scalp and elevating your mood. It’s decoration, but it is also pleasing to the other senses.”

Taylor Luck

Salim (left) and a friend sell flower wreaths to out-of-towners near the Sawda mountain in Asir, southern Saudi Arabia, on May 29, 2022.

Traditionally, tribes in Al Dayer and Asir grew flowers and aromatic plants around their home and farms specifically for their daily crowns, a system that could not keep pace with the surging demand for flower headwear driven by population growth and domestic tourism.

Now farms an hour’s drive away cultivate marigolds, chrysanthemums, tulips, rue, and other herbs for area vendors to sell to residents and visitors alike year-round.

A rush on wreaths

The business has made Mufleh’s roadside flower van on the outskirts of Al Dayer the hottest spot in town.

Pickup trucks rumble in and peel off from his roadside spot like a drive-thru hamburger joint or gas station, yelling out their order from the driver’s side window: Add some yellow flowers to my wreath. Give me a string of white.

Hurry up, brother! I have a dinner to attend.

Staking out from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Mufleh gets the morning rush of farmers and commuters starting their day and the late afternoon crowd looking to spruce themselves up ahead of an evening out.

“If there is a wedding or celebration in town, I will have hundreds of orders,” Mufleh says as he gingerly threads a string of marigolds to add to a customer’s wreath. “People want to look their best – especially when there is a crowd.”

It is a desire that has caught on with visitors.

Many of the thousands of out-of-town Saudis who drive up to the misty mountains of Asir each weekend to escape the summer heat buy wreaths of yellow and orange flowers from vendors, with men and women proudly wearing them throughout their stay as they picnic in nature reserves, explore cliff-rock villages, sit in trendy cafes, and take evening strolls along the promenade.

The flower wreaths sold by Salim and his friends at the Jabal Sawda mountain are so eye-catching that they launched their own TikTok channel showcasing their flowery wares.

“People like to look beautiful, smell something nice, and wear something that is from the area,” Salim says.

“After all, who doesn’t like flowers?”

AP

Leader of the United Arab List Mansour Abbas speaks during a Knesset session in Jerusalem June 13, 2021.

In its historic role as a template for democracy for the Middle East, Israel celebrated a milestone Monday. Over the past year, it has been governed by a once-unimaginable constellation of parties. The eight-party partnership includes not only right- and left-wing Jewish parties but also the first Arab party to be an active member of a ruling coalition.

This melding of political identities for a greater cause – democracy as an equalizer in a diverse society – has not always been easy. Israeli politics are famously raucous. Threatened defections of a few of the coalition’s members almost brought it down. But by hitting the one-year mark, this political “experiment” now shows how a democracy can work.

“The point is to listen to each other, hear different perspectives and sometimes find compromises,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told Agence France-Presse.

The coalition’s steadfast inclusion of the party known as the United Arab List – representing one-fifth of Israeli citizens who are Arab – has set a precedent in putting the value of equality into practice. An Israeli government is finally focused on accommodating the interests of its poorest and most neglected ethnic minority, one that has suffered discrimination in part for not being Jewish.

“The discourse now is very respectful and there is less talk and more action, with good intentions,” Dr. Nasreen Haddad Haj-Yahya, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute, told The Media Line news agency.

A more significant precedent is that Israel is demonstrating that a democracy can survive by finding a political center, one that provides both stability and a measure of results for many. For Israeli Arabs, two results have been fewer murders in their community over the past year and more government spending targeted at their local interests.

“Every country, let alone Israel, is formed from big contradictions: state vs religion, Judaism vs democracy, free market vs compassion, and security vs civil rights,” Foreign Minister Yair Lapid told The Jerusalem Post. “The business of the government is to balance those. This is why we need the center ... to rule and arrange everything for people to be able to live.”

For Israel, that center has meant the emergence of a shared civic identity between Arabs and Jews as well as among Jews. After a remarkable year of trying, the coalition has shown what is possible.