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Proposal to elevate Netanyahu’s son shatters fragile concord at World Zionist Congress
JERUSALEM — An early sign of moderation and compromise among the delegates here this week for the 39th World Zionist Congress appeared to shatter late Wednesday amid revelations that supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to install his son Yair in a key leadership role.
The drama is roiling the high-stakes gathering that is often described as the “parliament of the Jewish people,” taking place against the backdrop of heightened antisemitism around the world and war in the region.
Delegates from more than 40 nations have converged in Jerusalem, with the U.S. delegation the largest in the congress’ history: 155 delegates and about 100 alternates, representing 22 states and a wide age range (18-87), including 75 rabbis of various streams.
The congress, which opened Tuesday, is expected to determine the allocation of more than $1 billion annually toward Zionist institutions, appoint the leadership for the movement, and set the tone for Israel-Diaspora relations.
In his opening remarks, Israeli President Isaac Herzog underscored the enduring purpose of Zionism in an era of rising antisemitism.
“Those who once called us ‘Yids’ or ‘kikes’ now call us ‘Zios’… These ‘Zios’ are us,” he said. He invoked the founding vision of Theodor Herzl for a pluralistic Zionist movement that gathers multiple voices under one roof.
Yet beneath that message of unity, fissures have been visible, perhaps most notably in the absence of Netanyahu, marking the first time since Israel’s founding that a sitting premier has skipped the gathering.
Senior delegates said his absence reflected friction inside World Likud and his long-running dispute with its chair U.N. envoy Danny Danon, with whom he has sparred over internal appointments, as well as concern he would face a hostile reception from delegates.
Kenneth Bob, newly elected chairman of the World Labor Zionist Alliance, said that given that “half the congress are not fans,” Netanyahu’s decision to skip the convening was unsurprising.
“He’s afraid of the response he’d get from the delegates. He knows he’ll be greeted rudely,” he said.
But Netanyahu’s presence is still being felt. As delegates deliberate policy and funding, the congress is also navigating intense power-sharing negotiations. A deal reportedly struck between center-left and center-right Zionist blocs to rotate leadership of major institutions was thrown into jeopardy after word emerged that Yair Netanyahu — son of the prime minister — would take a senior role at the WZO. That revelation sparked the collapse of the agreement and forced the extension of the congress by two weeks.
Yair Netanyahu is a divisive figure in Israel. Unlike many other Israelis his age, 34, he spent the war living in Miami and did not serve in the reserves during the war in Gaza. He is known for his social media posts backing his father’s politics and advancing far-right conspiracy theories.
Yair Netanyahu with his father, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem, Jan. 23, 2020. (Alexei NikolskyTASS via Getty Images)
The deal that collapsed was notable for excluding only a single party from power-sharing: Otzma Yehudit, run by the far-right politician Itamar Ben-Gvir, currently Israel’s national security minister. The congress is the first to include delegations representing extremist parties.
The deal was also notable because it would have installed Doron Perez as the World Zionist Organization’s next chair. Perez’s son Daniel was murdered on Oct. 7 and his body was held hostage in Gaza until earlier this month.
Herbert Block, executive director of the American Zionist Movement, which represents U.S. Jewry at the congress, said the days of coalition bargaining had exposed familiar frictions among religious, right-wing, and liberal Zionist factions over control of budgets, appointments, and ideological priorities within the national institutions. Referring to the negotiations process, he quipped that it recalled the adage about how “laws are like sausages.”
“Enjoy the end product but not how they’re made. You don’t want to see them shechting the cow in the slaughterhouse,” he said, using the Hebrew term for ritual slaughter.
Block added that he hoped the final agreement would lead to “more involvement of the Diaspora communities” and “a greater voice for Diaspora Jewry” in the WZO and the national institutions.
This year’s elections brought a surge of ultra-Orthodox representation: Eretz HaKodesh captured 19 seats, giving it leverage in committee appointments and budgets. The growing presence of haredi parties — many of whose members historically rejected the Zionist label — has upended the traditional ideological balance.
Bob said the development is “frustrating because they have not identified as Zionist,” adding that while inclusion was welcome, “it has to be with the right intentions.” He cited alleged irregularities in delegate elections as “really shocking.” (Voters had to certify themselves as Zionists to cast ballots.)
Tensions deepened Wednesday ahead of planned protests over Israel’s forthcoming draft of haredi Orthodox men into the military, which prompted the congress to reschedule some sessions.
Many delegates spoke of a movement in flux.
“The Congress has become more like Knesset-style arm-wrestling — who’s bigger, who writes the narrative, who gets another seat,” said Gusti Yehoshua-Braverman, a senior executive at the World Zionist Organization. “We need a new charter for Zionism that restores a shared sense of purpose and updates our values for the realities of today’s Jewish world.”
Beneath the jousting, delegates were voting on a set of resolutions, some with practical consequences and others whose impact is symbolic. One such resolution calls for an official state inquiry into Oct. 7, a move supported by a majority of Israelis that Netanyahu has rebuffed. Another that passed, following a reportedly heated debate, bars the World Zionist Organization from using its funds to support Jewish settlement in Gaza.
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Heeding a Saudi plea, Trump says he canceled a joint U.S.-Israel assault on Iran
(JTA) — President Donald Trump said he canceled at the last minute a planned joint assault with Israel on Iran’s energy infrastructure at the behest of Saudi Arabia, which feared the war blowing up into a wider conflict.
The U.S. alerts over the weekend warning citizens to evacuate the Middle East and then Trump’s announcement late Saturday that he was canceling the planned strike appeared to catch Israel off guard. It undercut Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim last week that he and Trump were in lockstep on Iran.
“The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II,” Trump said on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns.
“Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to,” he said. “This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.”
Saudi Arabia’’s official news agency confirmed that Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince who has close business and personal ties with Trump and his family, appealed to the U.S. president to stand down.
“The Crown Prince stressed the need to prioritize dialogue to reduce escalation and the importance of making every possible effort to achieve calm that paves the way for diplomatic solutions, preserves the region’s security and stability, and prevents a wider conflict whose repercussions would affect regional and international security and stability,” the Saudi Press Agency said.
Iran disputed Trump’s claim, instead saying that it was ready to respond to any attack on the country.
“The Iranian Foreign Ministry vowed that Tehran will use all means at its disposal to exercise its inherent right of self-defense in the face of the United States’ ongoing violations against the Islamic Republic,” the Fars News Agency said.
Fars, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – the principal power in Iran since the war began – denied any stand-down on Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz.
“Iran’s Armed Forces have staged uncompromising retaliation in the face of each instance of violation, including those taking place in support of illegal vessel movement in the waterway,” the agency said.
The waterway is critical to the passage of a fifth of the world’s petroleum. Iran has asserted control of the waterway in the wake of the war the United States and Israel launched in February.
Trump’s statement came after CBS News reported on Saturday that the United States and Israel were set to attack Iran’s energy infrastructure, which would substantially escalate the war. The State Department put out a security alert advising Americans in the region to leave if they could, and to cancel plans to enter it.
Regional media reported that Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, conveyed warnings through Turkey and Pakistan to regional U.S. allies that it would hit back hard if the U.S.-Israel attack went through.
Israel appeared to be caught off guard both by the planned escalation and by Trump’s stand-down. “Israel is unaware of a decision to restart full military operations, nor has been requested of Israel to join any military actions against Iran,” CBS News quoted an Israeli official as saying – even as it quoted U.S. officials as saying that Israel was coordinating with the United States.
Israel’s government had no comment on Trump’s reported plan to attack the infrastructure, or his stand-down. Flights in and out of Ben Gurion Airport were unaffected. In his Truth Social statement, Trump said, “The Country of Israel joins me in this commitment.”
Trump has multiple times since the war’s launch threatened to escalate the war only to retreat at the last minute, something the Fars news agency noted in a sardonic tone.
“This narrative seems familiar and repetitive,” it said in a separate report on bin Salman’s appeal. “Every time Trump has made serious threats against Iranian infrastructure in the past, after Tehran has not backed down, he has claimed that friendly countries have asked him not to do anything.”
Trump escalated his rhetoric last week as Iran continued to attack ships attempting to transit Hormuz. “We’re going to beat the f***ing s**t out of them,” he told Fox News.
Trump has since the tentative signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Iran in mid-June asked Israel to stay out of the conflict – including in the wake of the resumption of fighting on July 13.
Netanyahu, facing a tough reelection in October, has in recent weeks sought to allay any perceptions in Israel that he had been sidelined by Trump. He met with the president last week.
“I just finished an excellent meeting with President Trump,” he told Israeli reporters after the meeting. “And when I say excellent, it’s not lip service – a conversation with full cooperation, with mutual support, with the understanding of the joint goal to ensure that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, and other goals.”
The roller-coaster ride appeared to unsettle Netanyahu’s colleagues in his Likud Party. “You can say ‘no’ to Trump,” Knesset member Amit Halevi told Kan Reshet Bet, the government-run radio station. “Our commitment is to the security of the state.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Heeding a Saudi plea, Trump says he canceled a joint U.S.-Israel assault on Iran appeared first on The Forward.
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Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention
(JTA) — Local and national Jewish Democrats say they are sympathetic after Michigan’s Jewish attorney general, Dana Nessel, said she would skip the state Democratic Party’s nominating convention over concerns about antisemitism and harassment.
“I don’t blame AG Nessel for not wanting to go and basically put herself in situations that feel untenable in this moment of time and don’t add any value politically, personally,” Jessica “Decky” Alexander, the Michigan Jewish Democratic caucus chair, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Friday.
Alexander’s comment came a day after Nessel announced during a televised antisemitism roundtable that she would be skipping the convention next month, where party leaders will finalize the state’s Democratic candidate for Senate following a divisive primary that has focused in part on Israel and antisemitism.
“I don’t feel safe going. I feel like my presence isn’t going to be welcome. I don’t want to get chased around. I don’t want to get harassed. I don’t want to get yelled and screamed at. I don’t want to get booed off the stage, irrespective of what I’m saying,” Nessel said during the roundtable. “And I believe that if I go, that is what will happen because it’s been happening to me.”
She said she had filed a formal complaint within the party about a party official who had called her a neo-Nazi because of her beliefs. “Why is this person more accepted in our party than me?” she asked without naming the official. Her office responded to a request for comment by referring to the recorded livestream of the antisemitism roundtable.
Nessel’s declaration comes in the final days of the primary between Rep. Haley Stevens, a pro-Israel stalwart, and Abdul El-Sayed, a democratic socialist who is deeply critical of Israel. El-Sayed is surging in polls despite a reported $30 million spent against him by AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, and its supporters, whom he has made a target of criticism from the campaign trail.
Nessel’s comments also follow turmoil at the Michigan Democratic Party’s endorsement convention in April, where Stevens was booed by attendees. A third primary candidate who later dropped out of the race, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, said a convention attendee had targeted her Jewish husband with an antisemitic slur.
The incident has fueled alarm among Jewish Democrats, according to Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
“She’s not alone,” Soifer told JTA about Nessel on Friday. “We’ve heard from other Jewish Democrats who attended the Democratic Party convention earlier this year in Michigan, and there was a sense of discomfort amid what felt like a pro-Palestinian protest [that] may have even blurred the line for some into antisemitic sentiment — and it’s really concerning.”
Nessel has raised the alarm about antisemitism within the party for years, alleging in 2024 that Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a prominent pro-Palestinian voice, had been antisemitic when criticizing charges Nessel filed against pro-Palestinian protesters at the University of Michigan.
For her part, Alexander said she would be participating in the nominating convention and said she believed the chair of the state Democratic Party, Curtis Hertel, had been “very accessible and very open to making sure that we, including our Jewish elected officials, feel safe in that space.” But she said she understood why Nessel was staying away.
“It would never even occur to me, but I’m not an elected official,” Alexander said. “It’s a different stake for me than it is for Dana. I understand her completely.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jewish Democrats back Michigan AG Dana Nessel’s decision to skip state party convention appeared first on The Forward.
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Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’
(JTA) — Every congregational rabbi in Maine has signed onto a statement calling for peace and urging the state’s political leaders to stop using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza, following a Democratic primary in which several candidates used the label for the first time.
But the rabbis also indicated that they, too, were unsatisfied with conditions in the Middle East and called on Israeli and Palestinian leaders to work toward a peaceful future.
“We call upon Maine’s leaders, and particularly its political leaders, to reject the irresponsible usage of the term in describing the Israel-Hamas War,” said the statement released on Friday. “We also call upon Israeli and Palestinian leaders to end the cycle of violence and to create a better world for both Palestinian and Israeli children.”
The statement, titled “A Call for Peace and Responsible Rhetoric,” argues that using the term as a “political slogan does not advance peace in the Middle East.” The term “erases essential moral and legal distinctions, diminishes the meaning of genocide, and inflames hatred for the local Jewish community,” the rabbis say.
“Compassion for Palestinians does not require the adoption of hateful and misleading language,” they continue. “Advocating for peace does not require participation in a ‘Holocaust inversion’ against the Jewish community. And political leadership does not require demonizing one community in the service of another.”
The statement comes days after Troy Jackson, a former logger and state Senate president, secured the Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nomination Saturday at the party’s nominating convention to replace Graham Platner, a staunch Israel critic who dropped out of the race earlier this month. Platner faced a sexual assault allegation, which he denies. Jackson now faces Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins in November’s general election.
Platner’s romp to the primary victory featured routine use of “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions. And ahead of the convention to replace him, Jackson and several other Democratic hopefuls who later exited the race began using the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s war in Gaza for the first time, a shift that drew scrutiny from some Jewish leaders and voters in the state.
The use of the term has become a “currency for acquiring power and position in Maine’s Democratic party,” Rabbi Rachel Isaacs, the leader of Beth Israel Congregation in Waterville, who also signed the statement, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“Too many Maine Democrats are cynically willing to trade in that currency at the expense of our safety and dignity,” she said in an emailed statement. “We decided we needed to say something collectively, both about the specious and dangerous nature of the claim, and about how much damage has been done to our families and congregants.”
The statement Friday was spearheaded by the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine and signed by every congregational rabbi in the state, including Rabbi Bill Siemers of the Conservative Congregation Beth Israel in Bangor and Rabbi Erica Asch of the Reform Temple Beth El in Augusta. (Rabbis affiliated with the Chabad movement in Maine did not appear on the signatory list.)
Zach Schwartz, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council at the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine, said the federation hoped the “unity displayed here in Maine can inspire Jewish communities across the US to also unite against the extremist rhetoric harming our community and our children.”
Rabbi Josh Stanton, the associate vice president of interfaith and intergroup initiatives for Jewish Federations of North America, also hailed the joint statement.
“Maine’s Jewish clergy are setting an important example with their call to put aside inflammatory rhetoric and look to the common good,” Stanton said in an emailed statement. “At a time of rising polarization and declining civil discourse, the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine’s efforts to unify the community around this important message are a mark of true leadership.”
Isaacs told JTA that she hoped Jackson would “support, understand, and advocate for all of Maine’s citizens, including the totality of Maine’s diverse Jewish community.”
“Work with us to figure out how to express outrage and legitimate critique of Israel’s government without succumbing to language that you might not know is an ancient antisemitic trope, or dismissing the security needs of Israel’s citizens,” Isaacs said of her message to Jackson. “Please have the courage to forge your own path, and not follow in the footsteps of Graham Platner, a man who should have never been normalized, endorsed, or empowered.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Maine rabbis call for peace, urge politicians to stop calling Gaza war a ‘genocide’ appeared first on The Forward.
