分类： politics

On a recent Saturday in central Jerusalem, two competing crowds of Israelis faced off on a sidewalk outside Cafe Basimta, a small coffee shop whose decision to open on Shabbat — the weekly Jewish day of religious rest — has turned it into a flashpoint for decades of simmering tension between the country’s secular majority and growing ultra-Orthodox minority. For Alma Ronen, a 20-year-old soldier who has served continuously on Israel’s frontlines in Gaza and southern Lebanon for more than two years, the confrontation was personal. Dressed in casual civilian clothes rather than military uniform, she came to the counter-protest to demand the simple right to enjoy an outdoor coffee on her day off, pushing back against ultra-Orthodox objections to the cafe’s operating hours.

Since June, weekly protests have become a routine outside Cafe Basimta, which sits just a short distance from an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood. Dozens of ultra-Orthodox men and boys, clad in the traditional modest black garb of their community, march toward the shop each week, chanting “Shabbat!” as they go. Younger protesters often amplify the outrage, screaming and making dramatic gestures to signal their disapproval of the business opening on the holy day. Secular activists have shown up in equal force each week to counter the demonstration: they blow whistles to drown out religious chants, wear provocative pink pins displaying a middle finger, and hold up banners declaring “Our Holy Right to Drink Coffee.”

This public street feud is far more than a local dispute over a coffee shop. It lays bare the deep cultural and political divides splitting Israeli society, just weeks ahead of the country’s October 27 parliamentary elections, which will serve as a critical referendum on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decade-long leadership. For nearly 20 years, Netanyahu — though personally secular — has built his political power on a coalition alliance with ultra-Orthodox parties. As leader of the most right-wing government in Israel’s history, he has steadily expanded the community’s political influence and policy clout across the country.

The most explosive point of tension for secular Israelis right now is the long-standing exemption of ultra-Orthodox students from mandatory military service, a policy that has been expanded under Netanyahu’s watch, and grants generous government stipends for full-time religious study. This exemption has become far more bitter in the year since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, which left Israel in a sustained regional conflict that has stretched its military thin and required widespread service from secular Israelis. “I feel anger in my heart that only some people must go to the army and serve,” Ronen said. “These people only care about their own lifestyle and are not open to any opinion but their own.”

Amit Yair, a 77-year-old secular Israeli waiting in a growing line to order coffee at the shop, echoed that frustration in blunter terms. “The Orthodox are parasites. You can’t say any other word for this,” he said. “All they want is money from the government. They say it’s God’s land but they want to kill everything that is here to make it a Halachic state,” a government ruled exclusively by Jewish religious law.

While the cafe was founded by a supporter of missionary activity aimed at converting Jews to Christianity, a movement widely condemned across Jewish communities, its secular customers say the owner’s identity is irrelevant to their fight. What matters, they say, is the principle of individual choice.

For the ultra-Orthodox protesters, the fight is equally rooted in principle. One protester, who stopped to debate a counter-demonstrator, explained that his community chose to settle in the area to live a religious lifestyle, and public businesses open on Shabbat threaten that way of life. “I don’t want my kids to leave the house and see a coffeeshop open,” he said. “It’s not a matter of not respecting you, but this is attacking my family’s faith. When you say you’re a Jew, that means a commitment.” Most ultra-Orthodox protesters declined to speak to journalists, noting that engaging with media would itself violate the rules of Shabbat.

Demographic and cultural shifts are amplifying this tension, experts say. A 2023 study from the Jewish People Policy Institute found that 53 percent of Jewish Israelis identify as either somewhat or fully secular, and Israeli society has gradually grown more liberal in recent decades: more businesses operate on Shabbat, public transit runs on the holy day in more areas, and LGBTQ rights have gained wider public acceptance. But at the same time, the ultra-Orthodox community has one of the highest birth rates in the developed world, meaning it makes up a growing share of Israel’s total population, shifting the demographic balance sharply in the opposite direction.

Shlomit Ravitsky Tur Paz, head of the religion and state program at the Israel Democracy Institute, explained that public anger toward the ultra-Orthodox has surged because of their role in Netanyahu’s government. The prime minister pushed through a controversial plan to weaken the country’s judiciary last year, and has overseen the ongoing regional war since October 7. “The ultra-Orthodox sit in the government and they are part of the decision to keep the war going, but they’re not paying the price with their children being drafted or the blood of their children,” she said.

Netanyahu’s main opposition challengers, led by former Israeli military chief Gadi Eisenkot, have made ending ultra-Orthodox military exemptions a central campaign promise, tapping into widespread secular anger over the policy. Aya Lewkowicz, an activist with the secular Pink Front movement who traveled from the overwhelmingly secular city of Tel Aviv to support the cafe, summed up the opposition’s position: “Everyone should have the freedom to rest the way they want to rest and not have it be dictated by a small minority that gets backing from the government,” she said.

After hours of noisy confrontation, the ultra-Orthodox protesters departed the area, with plans to return for another demonstration next Saturday. But as the cafe’s standoff gains national attention, the line of secular customers waiting to buy coffee grows longer every week, a quiet signal of how this local clash has galvanized resistance to growing religious influence across the country.

Australia’s federal parliament has welcomed a new representative from Tasmania, with former senior Liberal Party staffer Chris Gatenby formally sworn in to fill a vacant Senate seat on Monday morning. His appointment comes as the conservative Tasmanian Liberal branch navigates a period of leadership transition, triggered by the recent announced departures of two long-serving Tasmanian senators from national politics.

Gatenby’s path to the Senate began earlier this month, when he was tapped to replace outgoing Senator Wendy Askew. At the time of his selection, he was serving as a senior adviser to Tasmanian state Premier Jeremy Rockliff, bringing deep experience in both state and federal politics to the new role. This is not Gatenby’s first foray into elected politics: he previously ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives seat of Bass in the 2025 federal election, and built his career over years of senior advisory roles for federal Liberal figures, including a stint as chief of staff for former federal sports minister Richard Colbeck.

The vacancy that Gatenby fills is one of two Senate departures from Tasmania’s Liberal parliamentary contingent. In addition to Askew’s exit, prominent Coalition frontbencher Jonno Duniam announced his plans to step down back in June, bringing a close to 25 years of public service. In his June statement, Duniam explained that his decades in politics had required placing his career ahead of family life, and it was time to reverse those priorities. “Twenty-five years is a long time in any vocation and, when you take your role seriously, it always comes first,” Duniam said. “It is time I reversed my priorities and I can’t do that if I am to stay in politics.”

Along with taking up the vacant Senate seat immediately, Gatenby has been selected to lead the Tasmanian Liberal Party’s Senate election ticket for the 2028 federal contest. Joining him on the ticket will be Sarah Courtney, a former senior Tasmanian state minister who led the island state’s public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and Jacki Martin, a sitting Latrobe local government councillor.

Tasmania’s sitting Liberal Senator Claire Chandler publicly welcomed Gatenby’s preselection earlier this month, praising his decades of experience delivering outcomes across diverse policy portfolios. A father of two, Gatenby brings a pragmatic, problem-focused approach to the federal Parliament, Chandler said. “He will bring his pragmatic, solutions-oriented mind to the Liberal senate ticket,” she noted. “I have no doubt Chris, Sarah, and Jacki will work hard to ensure success for the Liberal Party’s Tasmanian team at the next federal election.”

The swearing-in of Gatenby stabilizes the Liberal Party’s Senate representation for Tasmania as the party prepares for upcoming national electoral contests, following a period of transition prompted by two high-profile retirements from long-serving incumbents.

Just days ahead of the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea, former and current US President Donald Trump has announced sweeping cutbacks to the long-planned drills, opening a new chapter of friction in alliance politics and reshaping regional security dynamics on the Korean Peninsula.

In a public post shared to his Truth Social platform Sunday, Trump laid out his rationale for the order, tying the decision directly to his self-proclaimed positive personal relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, agreed to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea,” he wrote.

Trump argued that the costly drills, which the US has shouldered a large share of the financial burden for for decades, send an unnecessarily hostile signal to Pyongyang, which he claimed has remained unthreatening and respectful during his current presidential term. With the exercise set to kick off Monday, Trump said a full cancellation was no longer logistically feasible, so he directed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to implement a substantial scaling back of the drill’s scope.

The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercise is a core annual defense training event for South Korean and US forces, designed to prepare troops to defend against potential aggression from nuclear-armed North Korea. This year’s iteration, which was already planned to involve around 18,000 South Korean troops alongside US forces stationed in the country, was set to place an unprecedented focus on emerging modern threats, including drone warfare, GPS jamming, and large-scale cyber attacks. When contacted for comment following Trump’s announcement, South Korea’s defense ministry confirmed that the drills would “proceed as previously notified and scheduled,” leaving unclear how the US cutbacks will impact on-the-ground execution.

North Korea has for decades decried these joint drills as invasion dress rehearsals, routinely responding with heightened military posturing and diplomatic outrage. The current presence of roughly 28,500 US troops in South Korea dates back to the 1950-1953 Korean War, which concluded with an armistice agreement rather than a formal peace treaty, leaving the Korean Peninsula technically divided in a state of ongoing conflict.

Trump’s announcement is not an isolated shift, but rather part of a broader pattern of challenging long-standing US alliance commitments that has defined his second term. Just as he has repeatedly criticized NATO allies for failing to meet defense spending commitments and aligned his foreign policy against Iran in an ongoing military conflict that has dragged on for six months without any path to a negotiated resolution, Trump used Sunday’s post to publicly call out South Korea for declining to join the US-led effort to denuclearize Iran. “I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’” he wrote.

Regional security experts note that North Korea has significantly expanded its nuclear and missile capabilities since Trump’s first-term talks with Kim collapsed, with their last in-person meeting taking place in 2019. In the years since that breakdown, Pyongyang has also deepened its strategic partnership with Russia, following Moscow’s full-scale 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Analysts widely confirm that North Korea has supplied thousands of troops and large stockpiles of munitions to support Russia’s stalled war effort, in exchange for much-needed economic aid, food supplies, energy exports, and advanced military technology.

Weeks ahead of the exercise, Combined Forces Command spokesman Colonel Ryan Donald noted that this year’s drill would specifically prepare troops to counter North Korean forces that have gained combat experience through their deployment alongside Russian troops in Ukraine. The shift in training priorities comes as new South Korean President Lee Jae Myung, who took office in June 2025 after defeating his hawkish predecessor, has made outreach to Pyongyang a core policy priority. Lee has repeatedly offered to hold unconditional denuclearization and peace talks with North Korea, but as of yet, Pyongyang has not responded to these overtures.