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What you need to know as Israel’s Supreme Court begins debating law limiting its power
(JTA) — For almost nine months, Israelis have been fighting over the future of their Supreme Court. Today, that battle has moved into the Supreme Court itself.
In July, Israel’s hardline right-wing governing coalition passed a law to weaken the court. Opponents of the law then filed legal challenges against it. That put the court in the uncomfortable, and unprecedented, position of ruling on itself: It can decide to uphold the law, strike it down, or send it back to parliament to be amended.
When Israelis on both sides of the debate warned that the country was headed to a constitutional crisis, this is what they meant. Today’s hearing is raising questions no one knows the answer to: What happens if the court strikes down the law, and the government doesn’t respect the court’s ruling? Who takes precedence — the court or the coalition?
For weeks, Israelis have been fiercely debating that question — and even members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government are split on the issue. And while a decision won’t be handed down today (it could take four months), matters are already coming to a head on Israel’s streets, and in its halls of power.
While the Supreme Court’s activities are often closely watched, today’s hearing appears to be riveting many of the Israelis who have been fighting over the legislation on trial. Renewed protests in Jerusalem, where the court meets, flooded streets on Monday, and in a sign of hearing’s reach, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art waived admission fees and is showing a livestream of the court proceedings today.
Here’s what you need to know.
How did we get here?
Soon after Netanyahu’s government came to power, it unveiled a sweeping plan to limit the power of Israel’s judiciary. The Israeli right sees the courts as an unelected bastion of left-wing Ashkenazi secular elites that stymies the right-wing government from passing laws that reflect the will of the electorate.
The plan, in its original form, would have given the governing coalition complete control over the appointment of judges. It also would have let Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, override Supreme Court decisions with a bare majority, among other provisions.
That plan sparked a historic protest movement that has brought hundreds of thousands of people to the streets to oppose the law. The protesters say the judicial overhaul will undermine Israeli democracy by removing the most significant check on the power of the government and by leaving minorities vulnerable to discriminatory laws. In addition to the protesters, world leaders including President Joe Biden have come out against the overhaul, as have large Jewish groups in the United States.
In July, after failed negotiations over the plan and months of civil unrest, the Knesset passed one component of the overhaul along party lines. The law barred the Supreme Court from striking down government decisions it deems unreasonable — a tool the court had used to check the government’s power.
What’s the Supreme Court’s role in the controversy?
One of the roles of Israel’s Supreme Court is to hear petitions against laws that, their opponents say, are unconstitutional. Israel doesn’t have a constitution, but it does have a set of “Basic Laws” that act as a kind of substitute.
Soon after the “Reasonableness” law was passed, a handful of good-government groups and professional guilds submitted petitions against it, arguing that it undermines Israel’s democratic system or that there were procedural problems with its passage. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the petitions all together during the hearing today.
But here’s the twist: The law that was just passed is itself a Basic Law. The Supreme Court has never struck one of those down. That’s one of the main reasons why Netanyahu and his allies are saying the law needs to be upheld.
But opponents of the law note that the process for passing a Basic Law is no different than the process of passing an ordinary law. Therefore, they say, the law shouldn’t be immune from judicial review.
The court is hearing the arguments today — and early signs indicate its sympathy to the government’s opponents. In court today, several justices are arguing strenuously that just because they haven’t struck down a Basic Law before, they have the right to review laws designated as such. They said their power to do so rests in the country’s Declaration of Independence, which has taken on increased symbolic weight during the political fight.
The court must render a decision by Jan. 16 — either dismissing the petitions, sending the law back to Knesset for revision or striking it down. And in parallel, Netanyahu and his opponents are again negotiating over a compromise on the remaining overhaul legislation that has not yet passed.
Why are the stakes of one court decision being seen as so high?
Israelis on the right and left are attaching so much significance to the court hearing — and the resultant decision — because they agree on one thing: This is about way more than the “reasonableness law.” This is about the future of Israeli democracy.
In recognition of the hearing’s gravity, all 15 justices on the Supreme Court will hear the petition — the first time that has ever happened. The justices have also received added security.
On the right, supporters of the law say that the Supreme Court would be breaking with precedent, and further overstepping its bounds, by striking down a Basic Law. On the left, opponents of the law feel the court is the final bulwark of liberal democracy in Israel. In another sign of the unusual times, Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara (whose position, unlike in the United States, is independent of the governing coalition), has publicly sided with the petitions against the law. She is sitting out the hearing because of her public stance.
Dueling protests have taken to the streets, and politicians have issued dire statements. But they’re not only disagreeing over whether the law is legitimate — they’re divided over what should happen if the court strikes the law down.
What happens if the court strikes the law down?
If the court says the law is unconstitutional, the coalition that passed it would have to decide whether to obey the court or not. If it were to obey the court, it would be delivering a major blow to its base, who would see a law limiting the Supreme Court’s overreach stricken down by that very same court.
But if the coalition were to defy the court, it would mean a major break with precedent, and would trigger a constitutional crisis — where different branches of the government conflict with each other, and the state lacks laws to resolve the dispute.
That’s why some of Netanyahu’s most senior allies have gone public saying that the government has a fundamental duty to respect court decisions. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has tried to act as a moderating force on the judicial overhaul, said, “The State of Israel is a democratic country with a rule of law. I will honor any Supreme Court ruling,”
Other Netanyahu allies have taken the opposite tack. Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana gave a speech last week in which he said the court has no right to strike down Basic Laws and, if it does so, would be acting “against the Knesset and against Israeli democracy.”
Netanyahu, in interviews, has remained noncommittal about whether he would respect a court ruling striking down the law. But he retweeted Ohana’s video.
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The post What you need to know as Israel’s Supreme Court begins debating law limiting its power appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Haaretz Claim That IDF Was Ordered to Fire on Unarmed Gazans Refuted by Translation Discrepancies, Contradictions, and Eyewitness Accounts
Gazans receiving humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. Photo: Col. Richard Kemp
A recent Haaretz exposé accusing the Israeli military of ordering troops to fire at unarmed civilians near food aid sites in Gaza relied on mistranslation, selective quotes, factual omissions, and contradictions to construct a narrative of unprovoked Israeli violence, according to independent observers interviewed by The Algemeiner.
Debunking the claim of indiscriminate fire by the IDF, the experts instead described widespread fear of Hamas, not the Israeli military.
The Haaretz report quickly gained traction in international media. Titled “’It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid,” it was cited by outlets such as NPR, CNN, and Reuters, .
British military analyst Andrew Fox criticized the article for its framing and language. One of the discrepancies he pointed to was the shift in the English version of the story from soldiers firing “towards” civilians, as stated in the Hebrew original, to “at” them. The original Hebrew subheader also specified that soldiers were told to fire “towards” crowds “to distance them” from the aid sites, suggesting the shooting took place as a means of crowd control.
“It’s a matter of intent,” Fox told The Algemeiner. The phrase “‘at civilians’ means they are trying to kill them. It’s misleading because they’re firing warnings to avoid harm rather than shooting to cause harm.”
“Warning shots are something all armies do — we did in Afghanistan — but when you pull the trigger there’s always a risk of harm, and that’s not great,” explained Fox, a think tank researcher and former British Army officer. “Still, there’s a huge difference between that and deliberately targeting civilians.”
Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said that “shooting towards,” as in the original Hebrew, was “quite reasonable as a means to exercise crowd control in a war zone.”
“It is highly unlikely the IDF would be ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians unless they directly endangered them,” Kemp told The Algemeiner, citing Israel’s interest in the success of US-backed humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza. “The IDF rigidly follows laws of war. It makes no sense for the IDF to want to damage aid efforts. They cooperate with and facilitate [the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] and want it to succeed. The ones who want it to fail are Hamas because it deprives them of control and funds. If anyone has been doing this shooting, it would be Hamas. They have the motive the IDF do not.”
There were other discrepancies in the original headline and its translation. Whereas the Hebrew version reads “Soldiers testify: IDF deliberately shoots towards Gazans near aid collection points,” the English version not only omitted any reference to mediating testimony or attribution, but also framed the event as an empirical fact: “IDF soldiers ordered to shoot deliberately at unarmed Gazans waiting for humanitarian aid.” Further, the phrase “waiting for humanitarian aid” may carry specific legal implications under international law, suggesting heightened vulnerability, whereas the Hebrew version referred more vaguely to crowds “near aid collection points.”
The subheader — which claimed soldiers were ordered to fire at unarmed civilians “even when no threat was present” — conflicted with the body of the text, which acknowledged that Israeli soldiers were wounded near the aid distribution zones. One sentence, appearing for the first time in the 21st paragraph, stood out: “There were also fatalities and injuries among IDF soldiers in these incidents.” The piece offered no explanation for how such casualties could occur if, as the article claims, no one else present was armed.
Elsewhere in the article, a soldier is quoted describing the IDF creating a “killing field,” supposedly involving heavy machine guns, mortars, and grenade launchers. But if such weapons were used with lethal intent, as Fox pointed out in a Substack post, the casualty rate would be far higher than the one to five reported per day. “That’s not a massacre,” he wrote, going on to quip that the only massacre to take place was one of “journalistic standards by Haaretz.”
“Could some soldiers accidentally miss and hit someone?” Fox wrote. “Yes. That is tragic and warrants investigation. However, the article itself acknowledges that the IDF is already examining those incidents. To jump from that to ‘deliberate killing fields’ is not responsible reporting. It is narrative laundering.”
The lack of video footage of the alleged mass shootings near GHF sites raises questions, given the large volume of media typically produced from Gaza, according to Fox, who noted that Hamas has repeatedly circulated images and clips for propaganda purposes.
“Every Gazan has a mobile phone, and numerous videos of other events have been released,” he wrote. “Why is there a total absence of any credible footage of these supposed IDF combined arms assaults on queuing civilians?”
Kemp, who visited two of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s distribution sites in the days following the report’s publication, described hearing distant gunfire but reported that the aid operation proceeded mostly without disruption.
Col. Richard Kemp at humanitarian aid site with Gazans. Photo: Provided
“None of the Gazans there showed any concerns [about the IDF] whatsoever,” he said. Many of the civilians identified Hamas, not the IDF, as the main threat to the aid effort — a dynamic not acknowledged in the Haaretz report — telling Kemp they could not return home for fear of being recognized and targeted by Hamas.
“I must have spoken to at least 50 Gazans at each site,” he said. “Many told me they feared Hamas and Hamas threatened them if they used the sites.”
Kemp added that the atmosphere was chaotic but manageable, with GHF workers — most of them local Gazans — interfacing directly with the crowds. He described people smiling, holding up food packages, and expressing gratitude for the aid.
“The overwhelming impression was how grateful they were to be getting free aid for once, as opposed to buying aid looted by Hamas and sold at a premium,” he told The Algemeiner.
Many Gazans at the GHF sites who spoke to Kemp voiced hatred for Hamas and praised the US-backed aid effort, with some chanting “kill Hamas” while others said “I love America” or expressed admiration for President Donald Trump. The alignment between Hamas and UN criticism of the food program was “shocking,” Kemp added, particularly given the visible gratitude expressed by many recipients.
“They associate this aid program with the US,” he said. “They seem to like it, whereas Hamas and the UN seem to be its greatest enemies.”
The post Haaretz Claim That IDF Was Ordered to Fire on Unarmed Gazans Refuted by Translation Discrepancies, Contradictions, and Eyewitness Accounts first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Former Australian Nurses Charged Over Threatening Viral Video Banned from NDIS
Illustrative: Supporters of Hamas gather for a rally in Melbourne, Australia. Photo: Reuters/Joel Carrett
Two former Australian nurses who were charged over a viral video in which they allegedly threatened to kill Israeli patients have been banned from working under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), four months after being suspended from their jobs at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney.
Earlier this year, Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, both 27, gained international attention after they were seen in an online video posing as doctors and making inflammatory statements during a night shift conversation with Israeli influencer Max Veifer.
The widely circulated footage, which sparked international outrage and condemnation, showed Abu Lebdeh declaring she would refuse to treat Israeli patients and instead kill them, while Nadir made a throat-slitting gesture and claimed he had already killed many.
Following the incident, New South Wales authorities suspended their nursing registrations and banned them from working as nurses nationwide. They are now also prohibited from working with or providing any services — paid or unpaid — to NDIS participants for two years.
This latest ban, which took effect on May 9, applies nationwide and prohibits Nadir and Abu Lebdeh from working with NDIS participants or performing any role for or on behalf of NDIS providers in any Australian state or territory.
Abu Lebdeh was charged with federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass. If convicted, she faces up to 22 years in prison.
Nadir was charged with federal offenses, including using a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offense, as well as possession of a prohibited drug.
Currently, both of them remain free on bail and have not yet entered any pleas, with a court appearance scheduled for July 29. They’ve been prohibited from leaving Australia or using social media while their cases proceed.
According to Nadir’s lawyer, the video was captured “without the consent and knowledge” of his client, and he intends to argue for its exclusion from court.
“We will be challenging the admissibility of the video recording because it was a private conversation which was recorded by the person overseas without my client’s consent and without his knowledge,” Nadir’s lawyer said. “That video recording was made secretly overseas and was unlawfully obtained.”
This incident, which drew international attention, occurred amid a surge of antisemitic acts across Australia since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began in October 2023, with Jewish institutions targeted in arson attacks and businesses defaced.
Antisemitism spiked to record levels in Australia — especially in Sydney and Melbourne, which are home to some 85 percent of the country’s Jewish population — following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, with the escalation continuing amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.
According to a report from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the country’s Jewish community experienced over 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, more than quadrupling from 495 in the prior 12 months.
The number of antisemitic physical assaults in Australia rose from 11 in 2023 to 65 in 2024. The level of antisemitism for the past year was six times the average of the preceding 10 years.
The post Former Australian Nurses Charged Over Threatening Viral Video Banned from NDIS first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Boulder Firebomber Charged With Murder Following Death of Victim
Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman poses for a jail booking photograph after his arrest in Boulder, Colorado, June 2, 2025. Photo: Boulder Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
A victim of the antisemitic Boulder, Colorado firebombing died on Monday, prompting local law enforcement to charge suspect Mohamed Soliman with murder in the first degree.
“Severe injuries” caused the death of Karen Diamond, 82, the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office (BCDA) said on Monday in a statement. She was one of 13 people injured when Soliman hurled Molotov cocktails into a crowd of Jewish people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. Her death adds five new charges to the over 200 federal and state criminal charges which could lock Soliman away for over 600 years.
“These additional charges, including the counts of First Degree Murder, are being filed after consultation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Boulder Police Department,” said the DA’s office, adding that it “continues to work closely with federal, state, and local partners in the strong response to this attack. We stand united against acts of antisemitism and hate.”
“This horrific attack has now claimed the life of an innocent person who was beloved by her family and friends,” said Michal Dougherty, district attorney of Boulder County. “Our hearts are with the Diamond family during this incredibly difficult time. Our office will fight for justice for the victims, their loved ones, and the community. Part of what makes Colorado special is that people come together in response to a tragedy; I know that the community will continue to unite in supporting the Diamond family and all the victims of this attack.”
Prosecutors said in May that Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack, and, according to court documents, told investigators that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people.”
That incident came less than two weeks after a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, also yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
In Garret Park, Maryland, a middle-aged man, Clift A. Seferlis, was recently arrested by federal authorities for sending a series of threatening messages to Jewish organizations in Philadelphia. Seferlis referenced the war in Gaza in his communications.
“The Victim Jewish Institution 1 received numerous additional messages since April 1, 2024, which contained a threat to physically destroy the institution,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said in a statement. “Prior to the receipt of the May 7, 2025, mailing, Victim Jewish Institution 1 and its employees had received very similar-looking letters, believed to have been sent by Seferlis, which referenced Victim Jewish Institution 1’s ‘many big open windows,’ ‘Kristallnacht,’ ‘anger and rage,’ and a future need to ‘rebuild’ the institution following its destruction.”
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where Juan Diaz-Rivas, Alejandro Flores-Lamas, and others law enforcement is working to identify, allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and Flores-Lamas, along with their associates, approached the victim while shouting “F—ck the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to the office of the San Francis district attorney.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
According to data released by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) latest Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in April, antisemitism in the US is surging to break “all previous annual records.”
In 2024 alone, the ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, an eruption of hatred not recorded in the nearly thirty years since the organization began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
“In 2024, hatred toward Israel was a driving force behind antisemitism across the US, with more than half of all antisemitic incidents referencing Israel or Zionism,” Oren Segal, ADL senior vice president for counter-extremism and intelligence, said when the report was released. “These incidents, along with all those documented in the audit, serve as a clear reminder that silence is not an option. Good people must stand up, push back, and confront antisemitism wherever it appears. And that starts with understanding what fuels it and learning to recognize it in all its forms.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Boulder Firebomber Charged With Murder Following Death of Victim first appeared on Algemeiner.com.