Meron Rapoport

Meron Rapoport is an editor at Local Call.

Recent Articles

Israeli soldiers operating in Gaza city, July 28, 2024. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)

A plan to liquidate northern Gaza is gaining steam

As Israeli ministers, generals, and academics bay for a decisive new phase in the war, this is what Operation Starvation and Extermination would look like.

By Meron Rapoport September 17, 2024

Demonstrators outside the Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv, September 2, 2024. (Itai Ron/Flash90)

To sacrifice or free the hostages? Israeli protesters have chosen a side

Fearing for the remaining captives, the mass rallies that erupted across Israel were essentially demanding an end to the war — and Netanyahu knows it.

By Meron Rapoport September 4, 2024

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses Congress in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

‘This is also America’s war’: Why the U.S. isn’t stopping Israel’s Gaza onslaught

Israelis and Palestinians are making a terrible mistake by looking exclusively to Washington to solve their problems, says former negotiator Daniel Levy.

By Meron Rapoport September 2, 2024

Palestinians mourn the death of their relatives in an Israeli airstrike at the Al-Awda School in Abasan, east of the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 10, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Israeli society’s dehumanization of Palestinians is now absolute

In the past, Israel’s moral debate about its military actions may have been narrow and hypocritical, but at least it existed. Not this time.

By Meron Rapoport August 23, 2024

Anti-government protesters gather outside the Likud's headquarters in Tel Aviv, calling for elections and for a hostage deal, June 22, 2024. (Oren Ziv)

As Netanyahu abandons the hostages, Hamas may seek to extend the war

The growing rift between the Israeli government and army — along with the prospect of all-out war in Lebanon — could push Hamas to continue fighting.

By Meron Rapoport June 24, 2024

Minister Benny Gantz speaks during a press conference at the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, December 16, 2023. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

What Gantz’s exit reveals about Israel’s failed Gaza strategy

October 7 collapsed Israel’s decades-old ‘separation policy’ toward Gaza. Gantz and Gallant know it; Netanyahu and the far right still won’t admit it.

By Meron Rapoport June 11, 2024

ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan sworn in at the seat of the International Criminal Court, 16 June 2021. (ICC-CPI)

Surveillance and interference: Israel’s covert war on the ICC exposed

Top Israeli government and security officials have overseen a nine-year surveillance operation targeting the ICC and Palestinian rights groups to try to thwart a war crimes probe, a joint investigation reveals.

By Yuval Abraham and Meron Rapoport May 28, 2024

An Israeli tank seen near the Israel-Gaza fence, southern Israel, January 21, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Why do Israelis feel so threatened by a ceasefire?

Halting the Gaza war means recognizing that Israel’s military goals were unrealistic — and that it cannot escape a political process with the Palestinians.

By Meron Rapoport March 29, 2024

Ministers and MKs dance during the 'Victory Conference' for the resettlement of Gaza at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem, January 28, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The Israeli public is dispirited. So why is the right euphoric?

The mantra of national unity has abetted the Israeli right’s sense of historic victory. But much of the public appears to be realizing some hard truths.

By Meron Rapoport March 20, 2024

Israeli soldiers from the 646 Battalion of the Paratroopers Brigade operating in Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza, during an Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, January 2, 2023. (Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)

‘Change in Israel will only happen when there are costs that force our eyes open’

Oct. 7 has ‘broken a contract’ between the army and gov’t, but has yet to shake key parts of Israeli society into a different paradigm, says scholar Yagil Levy.

By Meron Rapoport February 13, 2024