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Late Edition
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VOL. CLXIV . . . No. 56,810

$2.50

NEW YORK, THURSDAY, MARCH 19, 2015

2015 The New York Times

Decisive Win in Israel

Sets Netanyahu on Path
To Rebuild and Redefine
White House Ties Coalition to Lean
May Be Past
Right, but With
Mending
New Focus
By HELENE COOPER
and MICHAEL D. SHEAR

HASSENE DRIDI/ASSOCIATED PRESS

A victim was evacuated on Wednesday from the National Bardo Museum in Tunis after gunmen in uniforms killed 19 people.

Fed Creeps Closer to Higher Rate Fatal Museum Attack Is a Blow

That May Not Arrive for Months
To Tunisias Democratic Shift
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM

WASHINGTON The Federal

Reserve on Wednesday moved to
the verge of raising interest rates
for the first time since the economy fell into recession more than
seven years ago, even as officials
suggested that the Fed might not
pull the trigger until well into the
second half of the year.
In a statement released after a

CHIP SOMODEVILLA/GETTY IMAGES

Janet L. Yellen, the Feds chief.

By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK

two-day meeting of its policymaking committee, the Fed said

that it would consider raising its
benchmark rate as early as June,
and it removed from the statement a promise that it would be
patient.
Yet the Fed tempered that
message on Wednesday, including the release of economic forecasts by its senior officials that
showed they now think the unemployment rate can still fall significantly without setting off higher
inflation. That conveyed an impression that Fed officials may
feel less urgency about raising interest rates so soon.
Just because we removed the
word patient from the statement doesnt mean were going
to be impatient, Janet L. Yellen,
the Feds chairwoman, said at a
news conference after the statements release. Ms. Yellen said
Continued on Page B2

CAIRO Gunmen in military

uniforms killed 19 people on
Wednesday in a midday attack on
a museum in downtown Tunis,
dealing a new blow to the tourist
industry that is vital to Tunisia as
it struggles to consolidate the
only transition to democracy after the Arab Spring revolts.
Tunisian officials had initially
said that the attackers took 10
hostages and killed nine people,
including seven foreign visitors
and two Tunisians. When security forces retook the museum
about four hours later, however,
the death toll more than doubled,
raising questions about how and
at what point the hostages had
died.
Prime Minister Habib Essid
said in a news conference that security forces had killed two gunmen inside the museum but that
two or three accomplices might
still be at large. He said 17 foreign

visitors including Polish, Italian, Spanish and German tourists

as well as two Tunisians, one of
whom was a member of the security forces, had been killed in the
attack. At least 22 others were
wounded.
Mr. Essid urged national unity,
calling the attack the first operation of its kind ever to occur in
Tunisia because it struck the
crucial tourist economy. We will
show no compassion and no mercy in defending our country, he
said.
The two gunmen killed were
believed to be Tunisians, he said.
Yet their identities and motivations were not immediately clear,
and there was no claim of responsibility.
Tunisia is the Arab worlds
most successful democracy, and
it recently completed its first free
Continued on Page A10

By JODI RUDOREN

WASHINGTON President
Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel had a
poisonous relationship long before Mr. Netanyahu swept to victory on Tuesday night in elections watched minute-by-minute
at the White House.
But now that Mr. Netanyahu
has won after aggressively campaigning against a Palestinian
state and Mr. Obamas potential
nuclear deal with Iran, the question is whether the president and
prime minister can ever repair
their relationship and whether
Mr. Obama will even try.
On Wednesday, part of the answer seemed to be that the president would not make the effort.
In strikingly strong criticism,
the White House called Mr. Netanyahus campaign rhetoric, in
which he railed against Israeli
Arabs because they went out to
vote, an attempt to marginalize
Arab-Israeli citizens and inconsistent with the values that bind
Israel and the United States. The
White House press secretary,
Josh Earnest, told reporters traveling with Mr. Obama on Air
Force One on Wednesday that
Mr. Netanyahus statement was
deeply concerning and it is divisive and I can tell you that these
are views the administration intends to communicate directly to
the Israelis.
And with Mr. Netanyahus lastminute turnaround against a Palestinian state alongside Israel,
several administration officials
said that the Obama administration may now agree to passage of
a United Nations Security Council resolution embodying the
principles of a two-state solution
Continued on Page A12

JERUSALEM Israelis emboldened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a clear mandate in balloting on Tuesday, paving the way for him to lead a
right-leaning and religious coalition that could be far easier to
control, since his own party holds
many more seats now.
But despite the resounding victory after Mr. Netanyahus hardline statements in the campaigns
final days, the direction he will
take in what would be his fourth
term is as much a mystery as the
man himself. While the new coalition will almost certainly be more
purely conservative, it is also
more narrowly tailored, potentially freeing its leader of the constraints that often guided his last
government.
As he puts together a government in the next few weeks, Mr.
Netanyahu may no longer have
the center-left factions that he relied on to ease Israels relations
with the world and that pushed
him back into negotiations with
the Palestinians in 2013. But he
also has gotten rid of extremists
in his own party, Likud, and
shrunk the Jewish Home party,
which he often placated over the
last two years by expanding settlements in the occupied West
Bank.
Analysts said Mr. Netanyahu
would undoubtedly continue his
strong opposition to the Iranian
nuclear program, but might well
limit settlement construction and
make other gestures to soothe
the Palestinian situation, while
also seeking to address calls to
lower the cost of living. Crucial
players in the coming coalition
are a new center-right party and
two ultra-Orthodox factions,
whose kitchen-table concerns are
Continued on Page A13

OVERNIGHT SURPRISE Looking for answers after Israeli exit polls failed

to detect a lopsided lead. Video and an article at nytimes.com/world.

New York Citys Unlikely Voice

For Religion: A Secular Mayor
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM and SHARON OTTERMAN

Growing up, Mayor Bill de Blasio was the only child on his block
who did not attend Mass on Sundays. Everyone else was at
church, and I wasnt, he recalled
in an interview last week. Some
of the kids envied me.
His mother, a lapsed Catholic,
had little interest in organized religion, and Mr. de Blasio inherited
her skepticism. To this day, he belongs to no church, and prefers to
call himself spiritual rather
than religious.
Yet as the leader of a famously
secular city, Mr. de Blasio has
been emerging as something unexpected: a champion of religion

YANA PASKOVA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Mayor Bill de Blasio being

blessed at a Mass last year.

whose administration has advanced the cause of faith groups

in the unlikeliest of public
squares.
In Mr. de Blasios New York,
public prekindergarten classes
will soon be able to include a midday break for observant students
to pray. Schools will be closed
citywide for two Muslim holy
days. He is poised to relax health
regulations governing a controversial circumcision ritual that is
favored by some ultra-Orthodox
Jews. And the mayor says he is
intent on finding a way for
church groups to continue holding services in public schools on
weekends, even as the United
States Supreme Court could decide as early as next week to take
up a case about whether the city
has the right to prohibit the practice.
In finding novel ways to commingle church and state, Mr. de
Blasio, a Democrat, has carved
himself a niche as a more inclusive kind of liberal, one who is
willing to embrace religious
groups rather than treat them as
adversaries.
His moves have put him at
odds with some of his usual allies,
like civil libertarians, who are inContinued on Page A24

JIM WILSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Napa County sheriffs office personnel looking for evidence in the vineyard where a fatal shooting took place on Monday.

A Vineyard Dispute, $800,000 in Cash, and Two Dead in Napa

By RONNIE COHEN
and MICHAEL WINES

YOUNTVILLE, Calif. Perhaps it began with the red Adidas

gym bag stuffed with $800,000 in
cash.
Then came the trail of overhyped and failed wine ventures
here in the heart of Napa Valley,

and the furious court battles between Robert Dahl, who ran a
struggling vineyard, and his chief
investor, Emad Tawfilis, who had
willingly handed over the gym
bag to offer the vintner seed capital.
Their dispute, in a region
where money flows like, well,
wine, climaxed Monday in the
style of a pulp fiction thriller,

with a wounded Mr. Tawfilis racing frantically through the grapevines as Mr. Dahl, carrying a silencer-equipped .22-caliber semiautomatic pistol and driving a
black sport utility vehicle, methodically pursued and then
killed him in sight of arriving
sheriffs deputies.
Mr. Dahl, 47, a former Minnesotan with a checkered back-

ground, later shot himself to

death as officers closed in after a
chase up a twisting valley road.
The Napa County sheriffs office said Wednesday that it was
still sorting out Mondays events.
But Mr. Tawfilis, who had given
Mr. Dahl the $800,000 and more
to finance another winery that
Continued on Page A18

NATIONAL A14-18

INTERNATIONAL A6-13

BUSINESS DAY B1-13

SPECIAL TODAY

G.O.P. Discord on Defense Cap

Rethinking Model Figures

Wave of Criticism for Starbucks

Museums

The coffee chains attempt to start a national conversation on race relations

one customer at a time met with a casPAGE B1
cade of negativity.

Through electronic media, it is possible

to survey an extraordinary number of
masterworks and zoom in on details.
But what is being lost by not putting
those filters aside and just standing in
front of the thing itself? Also, seeking
new ways to welcome young people and
SECTION F
visitors from abroad.

Senate Republicans released an austere

budget that maintains strict caps on military spending, sending a rebuff to their
PAGE A16
House colleagues.

Fast Action on Runaways

In Chicago, a special force seeks to
speed up the response when children in
PAGE A14
state care disappear.

French lawmakers are

debating legislation that
would set minimum
weights for women and
girls to work as models
as a way to combat the
persistence of anorexia.
PAGE A6

The Problem With Gigaom

The fall of the tech site Gigaom does not
offer easy lessons for media start-ups,
PAGE B1
Farhad Manjoo writes.

Battlefield to Sidelines
NEW YORK A19-24

Fatal Debris on a Windy Day

A real estate agent in Manhattan died
after she was struck by plywood fencing
blown from a construction site. PAGE A20

An Afghan warlord, now a

vice president, has said he is
marginalized in government,
acting out his frustrations
with tears, outbursts and
rambling speeches. PAGE A6

SPORTSTHURSDAY B14-19

ARTS C1-8

Africa Center, 6 Years Later

The long-delayed center in Manhattan
has a new leader, Michelle D. Gavin, but
PAGE C1
still no opening date.

Looking for a Livelier Game

The Epic in the Everyday

As the N.C.A.A. tournament begins,

mens college basketball teams are playPAGE B14
ing slower and scoring less.

In two new books, the rapper and poet

Kate Tempest trafficks in the mundane
PAGE C1
and the mythic. A review.

EDITORIAL, OP-ED A26-27

Gail Collins

PAGE A27

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