2024-09-04
10 分钟The Economist. Hi, John Priddo here.
I host Checks and Balance, our podcast on US politics.
Welcome to Editors Picks.
Here's an article from the latest edition of The Economist,
handpicked by our team and read aloud.
I hope you enjoy it.
Drive along Highway 60, which traverses the West Bank from north to south.
and it feels like a real estate road trip.
It is festooned with signs in Hebrew offering two last apartments in Mitzpe Levonah and promising that your grass can be greener seen from a villa in Zofim.
These are boom times for Israel's settlers who are gaining land,
military influence and political power.
The war in Gaza has emboldened them.
Benjamin Netanyahu's government depends on settler-backed parties for its majority,
giving them huge sway over the prosecution of the conflict and,
some fear, a veto power over any truce.
Meanwhile,
the fighting has boosted the influence of settlers over the army and provided a smokescreen for more land grabs in the West Bank.
As a member of the government puts it, with everyone distracted,
last year by the protests over the legal reform and now by the war,
we've done unprecedented things for the settlements.