内容摘要：Their prognostications on the fate of white farmers got nearly as much screen time as South Africa's democratically elected president, who largely restricted himself to quiet, short interventions.

Their prognostications on the fate of white farmers got nearly as much screen time as South Africa's democratically elected president, who largely restricted himself to quiet, short interventions.

The announcement also did not come with a formal opinion - only a single page that read: "The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court."Court watchers viewed the case as a test of the US Constitution's religious boundaries.

The 1st Amendment prohibits the government from taking any action to establish a dominant religion. Taxpayer funds, such as those earmarked for public schools, have long been considered off limits to religious institutions.The two sides of the case presented dueling views of religious freedom.Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a Republican, had sued the board to force it to rescind the school's charter. He welcomed the court's decision in a statement on Thursday.

He had long criticised the school as illegal and said it opened the state to having to fund other kinds of religious schools."The Supreme Court's decision represents a resounding victory for religious liberty and for the foundational principles that have guided our nation since its founding," he said.

"This ruling ensures that Oklahoma taxpayers will not be forced to fund radical Islamic schools, while protecting the religious rights of families to choose any school they wish for their children."

The school, however, had argued that denying it charter funding as a Christian institution amounted to discrimination on basis of religion. In a statement, officials said they were disappointed in the ruling."Relocation", the word used by Smotrich, will be seen both by his supporters and political enemies as another reference to "transfer", an idea discussed since the earliest days of Zionism to force Arabs out of the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea.

Netanyahu's Israeli critics say prolonging the war with a new offensive instead of ending it with a ceasefire is about his own political survival, not Israel's safety or the return of its hostages. In the days after the 7 October attacks there were lines of cars hurriedly parked outside military bases as Israelis rushed to volunteer for reserve duty to fight Hamas.Now thousands of them (some estimates from the Israeli left are higher) are refusing to do any more reserve duty. They argue the prime minister is continuing the war because if he doesn't his hard right will bring down the government and bring on the day of reckoning for mistakes and miscalculations Netanyahu made that gave Hamas an opportunity to attack.

Inside Israel, the sharpest criticism of the planned offensive has come from the families of the hostages who fear they have been abandoned by the government that claims to be rescuing them. Hamas still has 24 living hostages in the Gaza Strip, according to Israel, and is holding the bodies of another 35 of the 251 taken on 7 October. The Netanyahu government has claimed repeatedly that only as much military pressure as possible will get the survivors home and return the bodies of the dead to their families.In reality, the biggest releases of hostages have come during ceasefires. The last ceasefire deal, which Trump insisted Israel sign in the final days of the Biden administration, included a planned second phase which was supposed to lead to the release of all the hostages and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.