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What does a swastika mean?
Jews may not agree on much these days, but we all know that a swastika is shorthand for celebrating the Nazi regime, white supremacy and the mass murder of Jews. At least when the intent is clear.
Vandals who sprayed swastikas on a Jewish school in Brooklyn last fall made a clear statement, as did two teens who added antisemitic slogans to the swastika drawn outside a home in suburban Detroit in April, as did those who appended “Heil Hitler” to their graffiti on a Jewish community center in Queens earlier this month.
Other cases are murkier. Sometimes swastikas appear without explanation scrawled in public bathrooms or bus stops. Hikers in Seattle have grown frustrated with recurrent swastika graffiti on a popular trail that in one instance was paired with an ominous, if confusing, message: “He’s waching [sic].”
And then there are the swastikas displayed to condemn fascism. A man in my San Francisco neighborhood liked to wear a shirt featuring an enormous red swastika, which startled me every time I saw it, even though it also said “F— Nazis” and featured a boot stomping on the symbol.
Some Hindu groups have also sought to reclaim the swastika, which originally held meaning for various eastern religions, and argue that the Nazi version of the symbol is better called a Hakenkreuz.
But the most contested contemporary uses of the swastika are those that seek to brand Israel and its supporters as Nazis. Israeli flags featuring blue swastikas in place of the Star of David are not unusual at large pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and a similar but rather odd version of this flag — purple and featuring two swastikas alongside a Jewish star atop the New York University logo — flew over a building on campus last week.
“We are shocked and deeply troubled that this hateful symbol expressing antisemitism was raised on a flagpole overlooking Washington Square Park,” Wiley Norvell, a school spokesperson, told the student newspaper.
That equating Israel with Nazi Germany should be considered be antisemitic is an axiomatic truth for many Jews, and a prohibition on such comparisons is enshrined in the controversial, but widely used, International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.
“It invokes painful collective memories for Jews,” wrote Paul Iganski, a British hate crimes scholar. “Those who play the Nazi-card know exactly what it means.”
***
Beyond the emotional gut punch that displaying a swastika can pack — there have also been incidents of demonstrators taunting Jews with swastikas displayed on their phone screen — many Jewish scholars argue that the comparison is antisemitic because it is meant to diminish the reality of the Holocaust.
Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department’s antisemitism envoy during the Biden administration, has said that people who compare Israeli policy to the Nazis are engaged in “soft-core denial” of the Holocaust.
“They are making a false comparison which elevates by a factor of a zillion any wrongdoings Israel might have done, and lessens by a factor of a zillion what the Germans did,” she told JTA. “That’s not to defend everything Israel does, but you can’t call it a Holocaust unless you want to distort what the Holocaust is.”
A similar strain of argument contends that comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is intended to demonize Israel and is therefore part of the “new antisemitism” that projects longstanding animosity toward Jews onto the Jewish state. “When Israel’s actions are blown out of all sensible proportion; when comparisons are made between Israelis and Nazis and between Palestinian refugee camps and Auschwitz — this is antisemitism, not legitimate criticism of Israel,” Natan Sharansky wrote as part of his “3D Test.”
There is, of course, a tautology at play in the arguments from both Lipstadt and Sharansky: Comparing Israel to the Nazis is antisemitic because it is an outrageous exaggeration. But many of those who make these comparisons argue that there are legitimate parallels to draw between the two governments.
Jean Améry, a Jewish writer from Austria who survived the Holocaust, wrote about his great dismay with the European left’s turn against Israel and Zionism — including Nazi comparisons — but acknowledged disturbing similarities between rumors of Israeli soldiers torturing Palestinian prisoners and his own experience at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust, which he said tested his allegiance to the state. “In my value system, for all that I have experienced the full horror of its concretization, the abstract category ‘human being’ outranks the concept ‘Jew,’” Améry wrote in 1977. “When barbarism begins, even existential commitments must end.”
Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the brilliant Israeli scientist and public intellectual who escaped Europe for Mandate Palestine shortly before the Holocaust, called Israeli judges who allowed Arab prisoners to be tortured “Judeo-Nazis” and warned that the entrenched occupation of the West Bank and Gaza coupled with rising ethno-nationalism among Israeli Jews was sending the country down the same road as Germany.
Then there’s the genocide claim, which is distinct from direct Nazi analogies — the Holocaust was not history’s only case of genocide, though it remains by far the most famous — and has been accepted by many Jewish scholars and political leaders, including Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of dovish but nonetheless Zionist advocacy group J Street.
Norman J.W. Goda, a professor of Holocaust studies at the University of Florida, has spoken out forcefully against the genocide claim, which he argues “encourages what historians call ‘Holocaust inversion’ — the mischaracterization of Israel’s self-defense efforts as genocide.”
The argument that Israel’s opponents are using the Holocaust in offensive ways to score cheap political points is weakened, somewhat, by the kneejerk insistence by many of the country’s supporters that Iran and Hamas are equivalent to the Nazis and that its Oct. 7 attack was an act of genocide. It seems that both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remain stuck in a framework where the Holocaust seems like the most potent point of reference.
Israeli philosopher Omri Boehm has lamented that the Israeli government is “using the memory of the Holocaust to fight human rights” while, at the same time, the global left is dismissing Holocaust remembrance.
“It’s become almost impossible to talk and think about it,” Boehm said.
And this only captures aspects of the Jewish debate. Many Palestinians feel, at a minimum, as though they have been forced to pay the price for the crimes of Nazi Germany through displacement and occupation.
***
I should end on a point of caution. The swastika is at once inflammatory and inscrutable — it can be used to promote fascism and white supremacy, and to condemn it — and is rarely received well, even when it is used by opponents of Nazism.
A few years ago, Kurosh ValaNejad pasted “kinetic art” on the fence of a Los Angeles museum that was meant to look like the Iranian flag from one angle and the Nazi swastika from another. ValaNejad was trying to compare the Iranian government to the Nazis, but most passersby only saw a huge Nazi banner and police announced plans to charge ValaNejad with a hate crime.
And in my reporting on George Washington University, I repeatedly heard a story about a swastika being drawn on a Jewish student’s dorm room. It was true. The vandal had drawn the swastika, along with a Hitler mustache, on photos of Donald Trump and Mike Pence that were taped to the door. But the headline version made it sound like unadulterated antisemitism.
The most famous spate of swastika vandalism also turned out to be far stranger than it initially appeared: The so-called swastika epidemic that began with vandalism at a synagogue in Cologne, West Germany, in 1959 and rapidly spread across the globe — stretching from Rhodesia to the United States and even Israel — was revealed in the past few years to be part of a Soviet propaganda campaign that sought to paint capitalist countries as antisemitic.
Who knows what the perpetrators of the swastika stunt at NYU were trying to communicate. The flag was hoisted over the Steinhardt School, named for Jewish philanthropist and Birthright booster Michael Steinhardt. Was he the target? Was it a Nazi message suggesting that NYU itself was controlled by Jews? Was it an anti-Nazi message equating Israel with the Third Reich? Was it something even more convoluted or strange than either of those options?
The lesson here — in case it needs to be spelled out — is that, while I don’t believe in limiting the parallels or lessons that we can draw from history, anyone who wants their political message to be read in good faith should avoid relying on swastikas to make their point.
The post What does a swastika mean? appeared first on The Forward.
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Netanyahu is facing electoral catastrophe — and could place Israel in existential peril
For much of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current term, Israelis have been told that they are on the verge of a historic military triumph. Netanyahu has been promising “total victory” since early 2024.
Yet the public mood inside Israel has darkened rather than lifted. After nearly three years of war, none of our enemies have actually been vanquished.
The war with Iran may resume at any moment, and the Iranian regime shows no sign of collapse, or of acquiescence to Israeli-American terms. Iran’s proxies — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen — all soldier on, certainly bruised but strangely unbowed.
And in Israel, reservists continue to be called up, and soldiers continue to die. Israel has absorbed devastating reputational damage, and the sense that the country has no positive political horizon has hardened into exhaustion.
As that exhaustion translates into polling that should terrify the prime minister, Israel faces an unprecedented internal danger: that Netanyahu will use a state of permanent emergency he has worked to enshrine to cancel upcoming elections altogether.
Over the weekend, the combined party of former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid passed Netanyahu in many of the polls. Per one poll, the opposition together is now leading him by 71 to 49 seats — a 19-seat swing relative to the current Knesset. And because several small opposition-aligned parties are currently polling below the electoral threshold, the actual anti-government majority in a real election could be larger still.
The direction of travel is clear, the deficit in the polls for the right-religious bloc is huge, and the danger for Netanyahu is real. He faces a plausible future in which he not only loses power in the election that by law must be held by the end of October, but loses decisively.
That’s why many Israelis suspect the election may not occur.
In a recent Hebrew-language column, Haaretz writer Ravit Hecht wrote that when Netanyahu “ is vulnerable and lagging behind, he is at his most dangerous.”.
“Netanyahu will try to ignite an external front — preferably with Iran — in order to manufacture a state of emergency.,” Hecht added. “If he fails to maneuver Donald Trump into renewing the war with Iran, and if that leaves his hands tied in Lebanon or constrains his moves in Gaza, he will inflame the domestic front instead.”
Victory, or emergency
Netanyahu may see two possible lifelines.
The first: political redemption through the kind of overwhelming victory he’s been promising for years. If the Iranian regime were somehow destabilized or collapsed, Netanyahu could argue that history had vindicated him. Enough Israelis who currently view the wars as endless and inconclusive might reinterpret the sacrifices as the painful prelude to a transformative strategic success.
The trouble: years of promising such a victory, with no clear returns, make its likelihood at this late hour very dubious.
The second possibility is darker and more dangerous: capitalizing on a state of permanent emergency.
Israel adopted a siege mentality during the six weeks of war with Iran, weathering mass missile barrages, civilian deaths and profoundly disrupted routines. If those conditions re-emerged under a resumption of war, the government could attempt to argue that national elections are impossible during wartime.
Ministers in Netanyahu’s coalition have spent years preparing the ideological ground for precisely such a claim — and the confrontation it would spark with Israel’s democratic institutions.
Netanyahu’s allies have portrayed the Supreme Court as governed by an illegitimate elite conspiracy. They describe judges not as guardians of the constitutional order but as enemies of the popular will. The current chief justice, Yitzhak Amit, has faced relentless delegitimization campaigns. Senior ministers have openly suggested that court rulings need not be obeyed.
Any attempt to delay or suspend elections would almost certainly trigger intervention by the court. Israel lacks a formal written constitution, but it possesses a dense web of so-called Basic Laws, precedents, and institutional norms that collectively form its constitutional structure. If the government attempted to legislate an indefinite postponement of elections under emergency conditions, the Supreme Court would likely strike the move down.
At that point, Israel could face a constitutional crisis unprecedented in its history: a government claiming emergency authority against a judiciary insisting on democratic continuity.
The government’s position would be strong, because Israel’s institutions are deeply dependent on executive cooperation. If a determined government sought to sabotage the electoral process indirectly while claiming national necessity, the Central Electoral Commission would face immense practical obstacles. At the same time, the Supreme Court lacks any practical enforcement mechanisms
An uncomfortable bargain
None of this means Israeli democracy is doomed. Israeli institutions remain resilient, civil society remains energetic, and public resistance to authoritarian overreach would likely be massive. But it does mean that scenarios once dismissed as hysterical are now being discussed openly by serious observers.
There is, however, another path still faintly visible.
Increasingly, Israeli political circles are discussing the possibility of a negotiated Netanyahu exit from public life. Netanyahu has already sought ways to terminate or freeze his ongoing corruption trial. Under Israeli practice, a presidential pardon generally requires acknowledgment of wrongdoing and some expression of remorse.
If Netanyahu were willing to plead to a reduced offense such as breach of trust rather than the more severe bribery charges, President Isaac Herzog could potentially justify a pardon framed as an act of national reconciliation. Such an arrangement would go against Netanyahu’s pugnacious grain. But he may fear the humiliation of resounding defeat — and the end of any plausible excuses for delaying his trial — even more. It is even conceivable, although far from likely, that he would not choose to cause debilitating harm to Israel.
A bargain — Netanyahu steps back from politics in exchange for a pardon — would outrage many Israelis. Others would see it as a necessary escape hatch from national trauma. And Netanyahu himself would preserve a version of the story he has always wanted to tell: that of a historic statesman stepping aside after defending Israel through existential wars, not a defeated leader dragged from office in disgrace.
His supporters would accept the narrative. His opponents would accept the outcome. Israeli democracy, bruised and deeply damaged, would survive without crossing into outright institutional rupture.
It may be the least destructive option available. Democracies can survive flawed leaders. And Netanyahu, in his obsession with clinging to power, has made the need for this radical option existential.
The post Netanyahu is facing electoral catastrophe — and could place Israel in existential peril appeared first on The Forward.
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Texas Sex Therapist in Congressional Race Calls for Castrating, Incarcerating ‘American Zionists’
Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist running for US Congress in Texas as a Democrat. Photo: Screenshot
The Democratic Party has rushed to condemn one of their own — Maureen Galindo, a candidate for US Congress in Texas’s 35th district — following an Instagram post last weekend in which she threatened Americans who support Israel with castration and internment.
“When Maureen gets into Congress, she’ll write legislation so that all Zionism and support of Zionism is undoubtedly Anti-Semitic, since it’s Zionists harming the Semites,” a post appearing on Galindo’s campaign account read. “She’ll turn Karnes ICE [US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] Detention Center into a prison for American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking. (It will also be a castration processing center for pedophiles which will probably be most of the Zionists).”
The post charged that Galindo’s Democratic primary opponent Johnny Garcia, the public information officer for Bexar County’s Sheriff Javier Salazar, “wants Jews and Mexicans in warehouses.” The campaign asserted that “the billionaire Zionists that control San Antonio and South Texas trafficking networks have coordinated a blitz campaign to propagate the conspiracy that anti-Zionist Maureen Galindo wants Jews in warehouses.”
The Instagram post added that “she would never blame ALL Jews for THE Jews (the Zionists) who have committed genocide on the indigenous Jews (the Semites) of the Middle East. Real Jews are VICTIMS of the Fake Jews (the Zionists).”
Galindo has also claimed that Jews control Hollywood and worship in a “synagogue of Satan,” perpetuating classic antisemitic ideas that have been promoted by both neo-Nazis and far-left extremists.
Democrats have started scrambling to ensure Galindo fails to advance to the general election. The Democratic primary runoff between Galindo, who finished first in the initial vote, and Garcia is scheduled for May 26.
US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA) released a statement blaming Republicans for spotlighting Galindo in an effort to damage Democrats politically.
“House Republican leadership must immediately cease propping up this antisemitic candidacy, pull spending in the race, and forcefully condemn these comments,” they said. “This vile language by her is disqualifying and has no place in American politics, and certainly not in the Democratic Party.”
According to Democrats, Republicans are the true backers of Galindo’s campaign, with almost the entirety of her funding coming from a mysterious group called Lead Left which emerged earlier this month. Researchers found metadata on the website which suggested alleged links to WinRed, a Republican fundraising platform.
On Wednesday, Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) released a joint statement on X warning that “if for some reason, Maureen Galindo wins the congressional election in TX-35, as soon as she is sworn in, we will force a vote to expel her every single day we are here. Maureen’s insane, antisemitic views – including putting Americans in concentration camps – have no place in our party or country.”
Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico has announced that he will refuse to campaign with Galindo.
“This antisemitic rhetoric has no place in our politics,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We need leadership in both parties willing to stand up and call out hate wherever it rears its ugly head.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), called Galindo’s statements “absolutely disgusting.”
“This bigoted garbage and antisemitism should be nowhere near our politics,” she posted on X. “If you’re in TX-35, vote for @johnnygarciatx. And the donors behind the Republican super PAC funding her should be exposed.”
Galindo defended herself in a text exchange with the Texas Tribune, claiming that reports of her Instagram post were “miswording my proposal to sound anti-Jew,” adding, “All politicians who have taken Israeli money should be tried for treason for aiding a foreign national with materials to harm Americans.”
In response to a question about how she felt about Democrats opposing her, she the candidate said that she did not care “what any Zionist-owned politician thinks. They’re exposing themselves as Zionists which will backfire on them.”
Galindo operates a business she has christened Exulted Sex Therapy, which offers to “increase safety, increase pleasure” at rates of $200 hourly for individuals or $250 for couples. She states on her site that “with my judgement-free [sic] and systemic approach to sex and wellness, you’ll learn to navigate various facets of your sexuality: anatomy & physiology, thoughts & emotions, and heart & spirit. Through this integration, you’ll discover the keys that unlock your most authentic pleasures.”
Galindo also encourages her potential clients to “inquire about including an astrology report.” She previously operated Cosmic Kinks Tarot in Bexar County, where she offered “kinky birth chart readings” and “live Tarot therapy” with her goal of empowering individuals “through the exploration of their sexuality, spirituality, and the stars,” according to a report from the Daily Mail.
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Trump Says Negotiations With Iran in Final Stages, Warns of Attacks if Deal Fails
A man holds a flag with a picture of late leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, late Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, during a rally in Tehran, Iran, April 29, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that negotiations with Iran were “in the final stages,” while warning of further attacks unless Tehran agrees to a peace deal.
Six weeks since Trump paused Operation Epic Fury for a ceasefire, talks to end the war have shown little progress. Trump said this week he came close to ordering more attacks but held off to allow time for negotiations.
“We’re in the final stages of Iran. We’ll see what happens. Either have a deal or we’re going to do some things that are a little bit nasty, but hopefully that won’t happen,” he told reporters.
“Ideally I’d like to see few people killed, as opposed to a lot. We can do it either way.”
Speaking later at the US Coast Guard Academy, Trump reprised his either/or rhetoric – “We may have to hit them very hard … but maybe not” – and reiterated his determination not to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.
Tehran, for its part, accused Trump of plotting to restart the war, and threatened to retaliate for any strikes with attacks beyond the Middle East.
“If aggression against Iran is repeated, the promised regional war will extend beyond the region this time,” the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Iran‘s top peace negotiator, said in an audio message on social media that “obvious and hidden moves by the enemy” showed the Americans were preparing new attacks.
‘SUSPICION OVER AMERICA’S PERFORMANCE’
Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei later said the US had to end its “piracy” against Iranian ships – a reference to the US blockade of Iranian ports.
“Despite the negative record of the other side over the past year and a half, Iran is pursuing the path of negotiations with seriousness and good faith, but it has strong and reasonable suspicion over America’s performance,” Baghaei said.
In the latest diplomatic push, the interior minister of Pakistan – which hosted the only round of peace talks so far and has since been the conduit for messages between the sides – was in Tehran on Wednesday.
Baghaei said Washington and Tehran continued to exchange messages through the Pakistani minister’s mediation.
Iran submitted a new offer to the United States this week. Tehran’s descriptions suggest it largely repeats terms previously rejected by Trump, including demands for control of the Strait of Hormuz, compensation for war damage, lifting of sanctions, release of frozen assets, and the withdrawal of US troops from the area.
Trump has said he called off attacks this week at the last minute in response to requests from several of Iran‘s Gulf neighbors. On Tuesday he said he had been an hour away from ordering strikes.
CHINESE TANKERS CROSS STRAIT
Iran has largely shut the Strait of Hormuz to all ships apart from its own since the US-Israeli campaign began in February, causing a massive disruption to global energy supplies. The US responded last month with its own blockade of Iran‘s ports.
Iran says it aims to reopen the strait to friendly countries that abide by its terms. That could potentially include fees for access, which Washington says would be unacceptable.
Baghaei said late on Wednesday that Iran was ready to establish with Oman a mechanism to ensure sustainable security in the Strait of Hormuz.
Two giant Chinese tankers laden with a total of around 4 million barrels of oil exited the strait on Wednesday. Iran had announced last week, while Trump was in Beijing for a summit, that it had agreed to ease rules for Chinese ships.
South Korea’s foreign minister said on Wednesday a Korean tanker was crossing the strait in cooperation with Iran.
Shipping monitor Lloyd’s List said at least 54 ships had transited the strait last week, about double the previous week. Iran said 26 ships had crossed in the past 24 hours, still only a fraction of the 140 per day before the war.
PRESSURE TO END WAR
Trump is under pressure to end the war, with soaring energy prices hurting his Republican Party ahead of congressional elections in November. Since the ceasefire, his public comments have veered from threats to restart bombing and claims that a deal is close.
The fluctuating US stance has sent oil prices swinging. Benchmark one-month Brent crude futures dropped to $105.76 per barrel late on Wednesday, down 4.95% on the day on revived hopes of a deal.
“Investors are keen to gauge whether Washington and Tehran can actually find common ground and reach a peace agreement, with the US stance shifting daily,” said Toshitaka Tazawa, an analyst at Fujitomi Securities.
The US-Israeli bombing devastated Iran’s military capabilities, including its defense industrial base, before it was suspended in a ceasefire in early April.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said when they launched the war that their aims were to curb Iran‘s support for regional militias, dismantle its nuclear program, destroy its missile capabilities, and make it easier for Iranians to topple their rulers.
But Iran has so far retained its stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium, and its ability to threaten neighbors with missiles, drones, and proxy militias, though toa lesser degree. Its clerical rulers, who put down a mass uprising at the start of the year, have faced no sign of organized opposition since the war began.