JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opponents on Wednesday announced they have reached a deal to form a new governing coalition, paving the way for the ouster of the longtime Israeli leader.

The dramatic announcement by opposition leader Yair Lapid and his main coalition partner, Naftali Bennett, came shortly before a midnight deadline and prevented the country from plunging into what would have been its fifth consecutive election in just over two years.

“This government will work for all the citizens of Israel, those that voted for it and those that didn’t. It will do everything to unite Israeli society,” Lapid said.

Under the agreement, Lapid and Bennett will split the job of prime minister in a rotation. Bennett will serve the first two years, while Lapid is to serve the final two years. The historic deal also includes a small Islamist party, the United Arab List, which would make it the first Arab party ever to be part of a governing coalition.

The agreement still needs to be approved by the Knesset, or parliament, in a vote that is expected to take place early next week. If it goes through, Lapid and a diverse array of partners that span the Israeli political spectrum will end the record-setting 12-year rule of Netanyahu.

Netanyahu, desperate to remain in office while he fights corruption charges, is expected to do everything possible in the coming days to prevent the new coalition from taking power. If he fails, he will be pushed into the opposition.

Netanyahu has attempted to put pressure on hard-liners in the emerging coalition to defect and join his religious and nationalist allies. Knesset Speaker Yariv Levin, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, may also use his influence to delay the required parliamentary vote.

Lapid called on Levin to convene the Knesset for the vote as soon as possible.

Netanyahu has been the most dominant player in Israeli politics over the past three decades — serving as prime minister since 2009 in addition to an earlier term in the late 1990s.

Despite a long list of achievements, including last year’s groundbreaking diplomatic agreements with four Arab countries, he has become a polarizing figure since he was indicted on charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in 2019.

Each of the past four elections was seen as a referendum on Netanyahu’s fitness to rule. And each ended in deadlock, with both Netanyahu’s supporters as well as his secular, Arab and dovish opponents falling short of a majority. A unity government formed with his main rival last year collapsed after just six months.

The new deal required a reshuffling of the Israeli political constellation. Three of the parties are led by hard-line former Netanyahu allies who had personal feuds with him, while the United Arab List made history as a kingmaker, using its leverage to seek benefits for the country’s Arab minority.

“This is the first time an Arab party is a partner in the formation of a government,” the party’s leader, Mansour Abbas, told reporters. “This agreement has a lot of things for the benefit of Arab society, and Israeli society in general.”

Lapid, 57, entered parliament in 2013 after a successful career as a newspaper columnist, TV anchor and author. His new Yesh Atid party ran a successful rookie campaign, landing Lapid the powerful post of finance minister.

But he and Netanyahu did not get along, and the coalition quickly crumbled. Yesh Atid has been in the opposition since 2015 elections. The party is popular with secular, middle-class voters and has been critical of Netanyahu’s close ties with ultra-Orthodox parties and said the prime minister should step down while on trial for corruption charges.

Bennett, meanwhile, is a former top aide to Netanyahu whose small Yamina party caters to religious and nationalist hard-liners. Bennett was a successful high-tech entrepreneur and leader of the West Bank settler movement before entering politics.

It is far from certain that their coalition will last that long. In order to secure the required parliamentary majority, Lapid had to bring together eight parties that have little in common.

Their partners range from a pair of dovish, left-wing parties that support broad concessions to the Palestinians to three hard-line parties that oppose Palestinian independence and support West Bank settlements. Lapid’s Yesh Atid and Blue and White, a centrist party headed by Defense Minister Benny Gantz, and the United Arab List are the remaining members.

The coalition members are hoping their shared animosity to Netanyahu, coupled with the agreement that another election must be avoided, will provide enough incentive to find some common ground.

“Today, we succeeded. We made history,” said Merav Michaeli, leader of the dovish Labor Party.

The negotiations went down to the wire, with Labor and Yamina feuding over the makeup of a parliamentary committee.

Earlier this week, when Bennett said he would join the coalition talks, he said that everyone would have to compromise and give up parts of their dreams. During the recent election campaign, Bennett had publicly vowed never to share power with Lapid or an Arab party. But facing the prospect of another unwanted election, Bennett, like the others, found flexibility.

In order to form a government, a party leader must secure the support of a 61-seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset, or parliament. Because no single party controls a majority on its own, coalitions are usually built with smaller partners. Thirteen parties of various sizes are in the current parliament.

As leader of the largest party, Netanyahu was given the first opportunity by the country’s figurehead president to form a coalition. But he was unable to secure a majority with his traditional religious and nationalist allies.

Netanyahu, who in the past has incited against Israel’s Arab minority, even attempted to court the United Arab List but was thwarted by a small ultranationalist party.

After Wednesday’s coalition deal was announced, that party, the Religious Zionists, angrily accused Bennett of betraying Israel’s right wing.

“We won’t forget and we won’t forgive,” said Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionists.

After Netanyahu’s failure to form a government, Lapid was then given four weeks to cobble together a coalition. That window was set to expire at midnight.

Lapid already faced a difficult challenge bringing together such a disparate group of partners. But then war broke out with Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip on May 10. The fighting, along with the eruption of Arab-Jewish mob violence in Israeli cities during the war, put the coalition talks on hold.

But after a cease-fire was reached on May 21, the negotiations resumed, and Lapid raced to sew up a deal. He reached a breakthrough on Sunday when Bennett, a former ally of Netanyahu, agreed to join the opposition coalition.

Last month, Republican lawmakers decried critical race theory, an academic approach that examines how race and racism function in American institutions.

“Folks, we’re in a cultural warfare today,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said at a news conference alongside six other members of the all-Republican House Freedom Caucus. “Critical race theory asserts that people with white skin are inherently racist, not because of their actions, words or what they actually believe in their heart — but by virtue of the color of their skin.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., added: “Democrats want to teach our children to hate each other.”

Republicans, who are fighting the teaching of critical race theory in schools, contend it divides Americans. Democrats and their allies maintain that progress is unlikely without examining the root causes of disparity in the country. The issue is shaping up to be a major cultural battle ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

Academics, particularly legal scholars, have studied critical race theory for decades. But its main entry into the partisan fray came in 2020, when former President Donald Trump signed an executive order banning federal contractors from conducting certain racial sensitivity trainings. It was challenged in court, and President Biden rescinded the order the day he took office.

Since then, the issue has taken hold as a rallying cry among some Republican lawmakers who argue the approach unfairly forces students to consider race and racism.

“A stand-in for this larger anxiety”

Andrew Hartman, a history professor at Illinois State University, described the battle over critical race theory as typical of the culture wars, where “the issue itself is not always the thing driving the controversy.”

“I’m not really sure that the conservatives right now know what it is or know its history,” said Hartman, author of A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars.

He said critical race theory posits that racism is endemic to American society through history and that, consequently, Americans have to think about institutions like the justice system or schools through the perspective of race and racism.

However, he said, “conservatives, since the 1960s, have increasingly defined American society as a colorblind society, in the sense that maybe there were some problems in the past but American society corrected itself and now we have these laws and institutions that are meritocratic and anybody, regardless of race, can achieve the American dream.”

Confronted by the Black Lives Matter protests of last summer, as well as the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1619 curriculum, which roots American history in its racist past, Hartman said many Americans want simple answers.

“And so critical race theory becomes a stand-in for this larger anxiety about people being upset about persistent racism,” he said.

Legislative action

States such as Idaho and Oklahoma have adopted laws that limit how public school teachers can talk about race in the classroom, and Republican legislatures in nearly half a dozen states have advanced similar bills that target teachings that some educators say they don’t teach anyway.

There’s movement on the national level too.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., has introduced the Combating Racist Training in the Military Act, a bill that would prohibit the armed forces and academics at the Defense Department from promoting “anti-American and racist theories,” which, according to the bill’s text, includes critical race theory.

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said he is co-sponsoring legislation that would prevent federal dollars from being spent on critical race theory in schools or government offices.

“The ideas behind critical race theory and [its] implementation is creating this oppressor-oppressed divide amongst our people,” Donalds told NPR. “And so no matter how you feel about the history of our country — as a Black man, I think our history has actually been quite awful, I mean, that’s without question — but you also have to take into account the progression of our country, especially over the last 60 to 70 years.”

Donalds said the country’s history, including its ills, should be taught, but that critical race theory causes more problems than solutions.

“It only causes more divisions, which doesn’t help our union become the more perfect union,” he said.

A post-racial country?

Nearly half of the speakers at the Republican news conference in May invoked Martin Luther King Jr., expressing their desire to be judged “by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.”

But Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a sociology professor at Duke University, said King’s dream was about the future. “He didn’t say, ‘We are now in a colorblind society,’ ” he said.

Bonilla-Silva, whose book Racism Without Racists critiques the notion that America is now “colorblind,” says he too shares King’s dream, “but in order for us to get to the promised land of colorblindness, we have to go through race. It’s the opposite of what these folks are arguing.”

He says the idea that American society is post-racial is nonsense.

“We are not, because we watched the video of George Floyd, and we are not because we have the data on income inequality, on wealth inequality, on housing inequality,” he said.

As an example, Bonilla-Silva noted the opposition of whites to affirmative action in the post-civil rights era.

“Many whites said things such as, ‘I’m not a racist. I believe in equal opportunity, which is why I oppose affirmative action, because affirmative action is discrimination in reverse,’ ” he noted.

“That statement only works if one believes that discrimination has ended,” he added. “But because it has not ended, claiming that you oppose affirmative action because it’s presumably discrimination in reverse ends up justifying the racial status quo and the inequalities.”

Motivator for the midterms?

The fight over critical race theory will likely continue to be a heated issue ahead of next year’s midterm elections. Although November 2022 seems a long way away, Christine Matthews, president of Bellwether Research and a public opinion pollster, says pushback to anti-racism teaching is exactly the kind of issue that could maintain traction among certain voters.

“I think it’s just one more addition to the culture war that the Republicans really want to fight and it’s what they want to make the 2022 midterms about,” she said.

Matthews noted that Biden’s approval ratings, in the mid-50s, are significantly higher than Trump’s were throughout his term in office, “so Republicans are wanting to make this about othering the Democrats and making them seem as extreme and threatening to white culture as possible.”

“If Republicans can make [voters] feel threatened and their place in society threatened in terms of white culture and political correctness and cancel culture, that’s a visceral and emotional issue, and I do think it could impact turnout.”

These issues could be used to galvanize conservative voters and increase their numbers at the polls.

“We have seen evidence that the Republican base is responding much more to threats on cultural issues, even to some degree more than economic issues,” Matthews said.

But Rep. Donalds said the Republican Party doesn’t need to rally the base to get it to show up to vote.

“When it comes to the ’22 elections, we don’t need additional ammunition,” he said, pointing to what he views as a list of failures from the Biden administration, from budget and taxes to shutting down the Keystone pipeline.

Doug Heye, the former communications director for the Republican National Committee, said in some ways, the attempts to mandate what schools can or can’t teach highlights just how far the GOP under Trump has moved away from traditionally conservative principles — like wanting less federal involvement in schools.

“A lot of what we might have described as conservative policy five years ago, 10 years ago, now just isn’t that case,” he said. “If we’re pushing what is a current priority for the Trump base, that’s defined as conservative, whether or not that’s a federal top-down policy or not. So the old issues of federalism has really been upended under Donald Trump’s reign as the leader of the party.”

Heye said at this point, critical race theory is still politically a “niche issue” among conservative voters, but he expects it to play a larger role in state assemblies, governors races and school boards rather than in national politics.

He said he believes it’s an issue some candidates will raise “to further rile up the base that is already pretty riled.”

“So the question will be then for Republicans: What else are they really emphasizing?” he said.

From a strategy perspective, Matthews says she thinks it will all come down to messaging.

“The Republicans are trying to make it a bad thing,” she said, “but I feel like if the Democrats got the messaging right, they could make it a good thing.”

Both sides have a little more than a year to do that.

Michael Flynn, a onetime national security adviser to former President Donald Trump, was videotaped in Texas over the weekend pushing talking points of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory and also seeming to endorse a coup in the United States, though he later said he doesn’t back a coup.

Flynn is one of many Trump acolytes who, along with the former president himself, continue to push the lie that Trump actually won the 2020 election.

Flynn’s claims on the issue are just one way in which Trump allies are trying to maintain the MAGA movement. A review of what Trump alums are up to shows that there are two distinct groups: those who are going all-in on Trump and MAGA, often creating new entities to institutionalize the movement outside of established GOP circles; and those who are going more traditional conservative routes.

In that way, the split echoes how Trump has created a rift in the Republican Party, with more establishment figures sidelined.

Like Trump himself, many of the people around him during his presidency were unorthodox. A number of his aides and nominees were outside mainstream politics, came from various walks of life — like his family — and fell in and out of favor with the former president at various points.

Some former aides and campaign officials are still close to Trump. Dan Scavino, for example, who ran his social media accounts, is a senior adviser, as is Jason Miller, a former campaign adviser.

Others have an eye on the next crop of candidates. Among their efforts, Kellyanne Conway, the 2016 campaign manager and White House adviser, is on board a Senate candidate’s campaign in Ohio; and Bill Stepien, who was campaign manager for Trump’s 2020 run, is working the campaign of a Senate candidate in Missouri.

Some, like Brad Parscale, are keeping a foot in both worlds. Parscale was Trump’s digital director in 2016 and campaign manager for a short time in 2020 before a domestic incident sidelined him. Parscale is reportedly helping Trump set up a new social media platform, which has not yet materialized, and he is advising a gubernatorial candidate in Ohio and boosting another in New Jersey.

And in all, at least four new Republican-aligned groups have cropped up, involving at least two dozen Trump alums and surrogates, with the goal of raising money, pushing Trump’s policies and message to the public and in the courts, as well as backing candidates in the mold of the former president.

But there are also about half a dozen former Trump world officials waiting in the wings and taking steps in case Trump doesn’t run for president again in 2024, hoping to capitalize on the movement for themselves. Others are engaged in conservative media or gone more traditional routes.

Here’s a glimpse at some of those key players and where they are now:

Formalizing MAGA

America First Legal: Stephen Miller, former White House adviser and hard-liner on immigration; Mark Meadows, former chief of staff; Russ Vought, ex-budget director (now also president of the Center for Renewing America); and Matthew Whitaker, former acting attorney general, are all working together at the new group. It vows to take court action against the “Radical Left.” Consider it the legal arm of defending the Trump legacy, and it has Trump’s stamp of approval.

America First Policy Institute: Many former officials have signed up with the group, which says its goal is to “conduct research and develop policies that put the American people first.”

Its founder is Brooke Rollins, the former head of Trump’s Office of American Innovation. The chair of the board is Linda McMahon, Trump’s small business administration administrator and wife of the head of WWE, Vince McMahon. Larry Kudlow, who now has his own Fox Business show and was Trump’s director of the National Economic Council, is vice chair. It includes former Cabinet secretaries and heads of agencies, is being advised by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, and even includes Paula White-Cain, a former White House spiritual adviser who went viral for her sermon after Election Day calling on angels in Africa and South America, and deriding “demonic confederacies” who were trying to steal the election from Trump.

American Greatness PAC/American Greatness Fund: Parscale founded the American Greatness PAC and a nonprofit offshoot, the American Greatness Fund. Right up Trump’s alley, the group has formed an Election Integrity Alliance and claims to want to strengthen “election safeguards.” The board of the group includes former Trump attorney Jenna Ellis, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and disgraced former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik.

Fight Back Now America: Corey Lewandowski, another former Trump campaign manager from the 2016 campaign, created the group, which tests the limits of the fighting metaphor. The top image on its website is an empty boxing ring. It’s seeking to raise money, it says, to defeat Democrats and fund primary opponents of candidates who are presumably not Trumpy enough, like Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.

If the fighting imagery wasn’t enough, the combativeness even runs deep into its philosophy. “The time for niceties, spin and nuance is over,” the site reads. Like an Elizabeth Warren campaign speech, the word “fight” appears 23 times on the site’s front page. Of course, what they’re fighting for is very different.

Waiting in the wings

Mike Pence, the former vice president, who was targeted during the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection because his boss continued to say he wouldn’t block certification of President Biden’s victory, is forming a policy fundraising committee. The former radio host joined the conservative Young America Foundation, where he will launch a podcast. And he has has a multimillion-dollar book deal; he’s set to write two books, including an autobiography due out in… 2023, which just so happens to be right when a GOP presidential primary would be kicking off.

Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, took a position with the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, and was named a Fox News contributor. He’s staying engaged in politics, though. Among his efforts he’s reportedly planning a trip to Israel on the heels of one by his successor.

Nikki Haley, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, created a group called Stand for America, and while its stated goal is to promote conservative issues and ideas, the website looks more like it’s promoting her. There are lots of photos of Haley — including with Trump, someone she’s had a hot-and-cold relationship with — on what could be a presidential campaign site-in-waiting.

Ben Carson, the former housing secretary, created a think tank (the American Cornerstone Institute) and political action committee (Think BIG America PAC). The group, Carson says, will also look to fund candidates. “We’ll be very interested in who are the people who are advocating visions that are logical and that make sense,” Carson has said. Before you think that the low-key former brain surgeon isn’t likely to run, remember he was one of only a few candidates who took over the lead (even if briefly) from Trump during the Republican presidential primary in 2015.

Donald Trump Jr., Trump’s eldest child, continues the fight on Twitter, where his father is banned, trying to trigger and own the libs. But Trump Jr. can’t be dismissed as simply an amplifier for his father. During his father’s presidency, Trump Jr. distinguished himself politically, arguably more than either of his siblings.

While Ivanka was a White House adviser, Don Jr. appears poised to be the political heir apparent of the MAGA movement. His natural affinity for the Trump base has won him the adoration of the rank and file, and it’s made him a draw on the campaign trail, not just for his father, but down-ballot candidates. He’s still running the Trump Organization with his brother, but once someone catches the political bug, it’s hard to shut it off. His problem, though, is that he has no natural place to run — yet. He has recently moved to Florida, but there’s no race open there at the moment. And there’s that criminal probe to deal with in New York.

The rest of the family

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former White House adviser, is reportedly founding the Abraham Accords Institute to facilitate trade between Israel and other accords signatory countries. Also on board are former White House envoy Avi Berkowitz; Haim Saban, a major Democratic donor; former UAE and Bahrain ambassadors to the U.S., as well as an Israeli foreign minister.

Ivanka Trump still lists herself on Twitter as “advisor to POTUS,” despite her father being out of office for more than five months now. What she does next is still an open question. Eric Trump continues to run the Trump Organization, though that has become more complicated given the New York criminal investigation. He also moved to Florida earlier this month. Tiffany Trump mostly avoided the spotlight during her father’s time in office, but during it she graduated from Georgetown Law school and on the final day of Trump’s presidency, she announced that she’s engaged.

Lara Trump, Eric’s wife, always seemed to be the bigger hit with the Trump crowds than her husband — and she seemed to enjoy the political limelight more. There had been speculation that she could run for the Senate in her home state of North Carolina, but with her recent move to Florida, there was talk she might challenge Sen. Marco Rubio in a primary. That was put to rest, however, when the former president endorsed Rubio.

They’re running…

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, former White House press secretary, is running for governor of Arkansas, a job her father once held. She asked for and got Trump’s endorsement.

Ryan Zinke, the former Interior secretary, rode in on a horse but left under the cloud of investigations. He joined an investment firm, joined the board of a gold mining company and is now running again for Congress in Montana.

Ronny Jackson, the former White House physician, is now a congressman from Texas, despite a Pentagon inspector general’s report finding that he bullied subordinates, harassed women and smelled of alcohol while serving in the White House.

In the media

Steve Bannon, the former Trump campaign chairman, got new life with a presidential pardon after being charged last year with allegedly defrauding Trump supporters in a scheme he claimed was to help finish the southern border wall. Now, the former Breitbart founder is back in the media with an influential online show and podcast called War Room and… selling supplements.

Kayleigh McEnany, former White House press secretary, signed on as a Fox News contributor.

Sean Spicer, the former and first White House press secretary of “largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period” fame, Spicer got spicy with the dance moves and fashion choices on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. He now hosts a show on the right-wing cable channel Newsmax.

Show me the money

Steven Mnuchin, former treasury secretary, started an investment fund. He’s landed in controversy already for it because he is reportedly seeking funding from Persian Gulf countries, many of which he traveled to as treasury secretary. He also is reportedly looking to hire Israel’s current director of Mossad, its spy agency. He’s also charging upwards of $250,000 a speech. If that’s too steep for you, he’s happy to give you a discount for virtual speeches, which will only cost you $75,000.

Mick Mulvaney, former chief of staff, budget director and envoy to Northern Ireland, started a hedge fund.

Wilbur Ross, Trump’s former commerce secretary, is back on Wall Street with a $345 million “blank check” fund, groups that help raise cash for initial public offerings.

Anthony Scaramucci, the 11-day White House communications director, went back to his investment firm SkyBridge.

A class of their own

Betsy DeVos, the former education secretary, was a villain to the left during Trump’s presidency, and she’s continued in that role. DeVos started a group called the American Federation for Children, a school choice and private school advocacy group. As secretary, DeVos was at odds with teachers unions, and even the name of her new group seems a direct response to the teachers unions, the largest of which is the American Federation of Teachers. She has continued to criticize teachers, saying school closures during the pandemic fall “at the feet of the teachers’ unions and all of their allies.” She got some bad news recently, though, as a judge in California ruled she has to sit for a three-hour deposition about her role in not issuing student-loan forgiveness to students who said their for-profit colleges defrauded them. It’s part of a class-action lawsuit.

Bill Barr, the former attorney general, is writing a book.

Gone traditional

Gen. John Kelly, former chief of staff, joined the board of Caliburn, a defense contractor that also operates four shelters for migrant children.

Gen. James Mattis, former defense secretary, joined the board of General Dynamics, a defense contractor, and is a senior counselor at The Cohen Group, a business consultant group.

Don McGahn, former White House counsel, has rejoined the law firm Jones Day. He is slated to testify on Capitol Hill Friday in relation to the Mueller investigation. It comes two years after the House Judiciary Committee first requested his testimony, but was blocked by the Trump administration.

Kirstjen Nielsen is a former homeland security secretary whom Trump loyalists referred to as “Nurse Ratched” behind her back because of her rigid style. Ironically, she left the administration after Trump didn’t see her as sufficiently tough enough. Post-Trump, she’s advises on security threats and risk management.

Reince Priebus, former chief of staff, is president and chief strategist at Michael Best Law.

Andrew Wheeler, former EPA administrator and former coal lobbyist, joined the Heritage Foundation.

Iran’s largest Navy vessel caught fire in the Gulf of Oman Wednesday and sank, according to the Tasnim News Agency.

A fire broke out on the IS Kharg while the ship was near Iran’s port of Jask, southeast of Tehran, according to the Iranian Navy. All crew on board were able to flee the burning ship and were transferred to safety on the coast. The Kharg — sometimes spelled “Khark” — was one of Navy’s few ships capable of replenishing other ships at sea.

Military and civilian responders tried for 20 hours to extinguish the fire that gradually spread throughout the vessel, reported the Tasnim News Agency. Photos and videos shared online show the entire ship out at sea engulfed in thick black smoke.

“All efforts to save the vessel were unsuccessful and it sank,” the Fars news agency reported, according to Reuters.

The Kharg was being deployed to international waters for training operations when one of its systems caught fire, according to the Iranian Navy. No cause for the blaze was given.

The Iranian Navy has experienced a spate of disasters in recent years. Last year, a missile mistakenly struck a naval vessel also near the port of Jask during a training exercise. Nineteen sailors died and 15 others were injured. In 2018, an Iranian destroyer sank in the Caspian Sea.

The Kharg had been in service for more than 40 years. It was built by Swan Hunter in the U.K., launched in 1977 and delivered to Iran in 1984, according to The Associated Press.