(JTA) — JERUSALEM – The United Kingdom threatened to sanction Israelis involved in West Bank settlement expansion after the Jewish state’s Lands Authority opened bids for 1,234 homes in the largely underdeveloped E1 section of the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.

Construction in E1 “would cut across the heart of Palestine and risks separating the West Bank from East Jerusalem, which would endanger the viability of a two-state solution,” the British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said in a special statement he posted on X on Thursday.

Targeted sanctions, Miliband wrote, would be part of a series of measures his government would take. His office also summoned Israel’s charge d’Affaires Thursday to demand a closure of the bidding process, which first opened on Tuesday, and a withdrawal of the construction project altogether.

“Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution,” he wrote. Miliband has held his position for a month and is part of the new leadership Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham appointed when he took office in July.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar attacked Miliband on X, stating that Britain’s “decision to damage the relationship between our countries is deeply unfortunate.”

He said that the U.K. government’s “systematic policy of blaming only Israel while ignoring Palestinian extremism has already contributed to a massive wave of antisemitic hatred and attacks against the British Jewish community.”

The Jewish people have the same right to “live throughout the Land of Israel” just as the British people have a right to live anywhere in the U.K., Sa’ar wrote.

Plans to expand the built-up area of Ma’aleh Adumim settlement by constructing some 3,400 housing units on a largely underdeveloped hilltop within the city’s boundaries have been in place since 1994 when Yitzhak Rabin was prime minister.

Israel mostly froze those plans under pressure from the international community, including the U.S., with many countries warning that building homes in E1 would harm their diplomatic ties with Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began to advance the project in earnest in 2012 to protest the United Nations General Assembly decision to grant the Palestinians the status of a non-member state and has since pushed the project forward in spurts, particularly during election seasons.

The publication of the bidding process for the homes was first announced on Tuesday and is set to close on Oct. 19, one week shy of the Israeli elections on Oct. 27. Opening the bids is a move that plays well with Netanyahu’s right-wing voter base, which opposes Palestinian statehood and believes that settlements like Ma’aleh Adumim and the E1 area should be annexed into sovereign Israel.

But the move reverberated globally, with the U.K. signing onto a joint condemnation by France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, in which they warned that settlement building in E1 distanced peace and undermined the country’s international standing.

They also reminded businesses who might bid for E1 construction that they could face legal or reputational consequences, given that such companies could be in breach of international law.

Palestinian Authority Vice President Hussein Al-Sheikh said he welcomed the condemnation, explaining on X that such a position “reflects the importance of the international role in confronting settlement activity and safeguarding the two-state solution.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

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(JTA) — An Argentine federal judge was removed from office Tuesday for a series of antisemitic posts on his social media accounts that constituted misconduct incompatible with his role, an impeachment panel ruled.

Alfredo Eugenio López, who headed Federal Court No. 4 in the coastal city of Mar del Plata, was removed by Argentina’s Jury of Impeachment, a special panel composed of judges, lawmakers and lawyers.

It is the first time in Argentina’s history that a judge has been removed over antisemitic remarks.

In López’s social media posts, the judge referred to the Jewish people as “a brood of vipers,” Israel as a “fictitious state” and Argentinian Jews as “foreigners.” He has also used such terms as “Zionist” and “gay” as insults.

According to the panel, the judge committed acts of “discrimination and the denial of equal rights against the Argentine Jewish community. For the purposes of these proceedings, it is particularly significant that, by acting in this manner, he shattered public confidence in his continued fitness to administer justice impartially.”The case reached the panel through Argentina’s Council of the Magistracy, based in Buenos Aires, the constitutional body responsible for the selection and discipline of federal judges.

The first complaint against López was filed in February 2025 by the Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas, which is the umbrella organization representing Argentina’s Jewish community. One month later, the Argentine Forum Against Antisemitism  also filed a complaint. In July 2025, attorney Yamil Santoro from Apolo Foundation added another one.

In his defense, López argued that his messages were “ subjective and decontextualized interpretations of exchanges on social media, which in no way affect the administration of justice or his impartiality” as a judge. He added that his remarks were unrelated to any pending case and that he had never been recused or removed from any judicial case.

Neither Lopez nor his attorney were immediately available for further comment.

“He was removed because he simply would not stop engaging in hate speech,” jury member Alberto Maques said during a live interview Tuesday on the  A24 news channel. “It is absolutely disgraceful for a federal judge to engage in this kind of conduct.”

Maques said there were 15 social media posts that he acknowledged, but more than 50 posts in which he said “outrageous things that are not worth repeating because they truly constituted hate speech.”

“This is not merely an issue of hate speech against the Jewish community. This is someone who lacks common sense,” he added, interviewed by A24 news channel.

Prosecutors in the impeachment proceedings argued that the messages were not isolated political comments but reflected a pattern of hostility toward Jews, Zionism, and the State of Israel.

“No position of authority can shield hatred. This is not a matter of punishing an opinion. It is about sanctioning repeated conduct involving antisemitism, hostility and dehumanization, conduct incompatible with the impartiality, dignity and public trust required of the judiciary,” DAIA said Tuesday in a statement.

“This case sets a precedent: for the first time in more than a century, DAIA initiated proceedings of this nature against a judge. No office is above democracy.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

The post Argentina removes federal judge over antisemitic remarks in historic first appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — When Democratic socialist Angie Nixon, an ardent critic of Israel, secured a surprise win in Florida’s U.S. Senate Democratic primary Tuesday over Jewish former Soviet refugee Alex Vindman, pro-Israel advocates expressed alarm that even in the South, Democratic momentum seems to be shifting toward the party’s farthest-left flank.

Nixon is expected to face an uphill battle against her GOP competitor Ashley Moody. Given Florida’s status as a red state, Moody is likely to retain the seat, which she won last year after Marco Rubio, also a Republican, stepped down to become U.S. secretary of state. She and Nixon will vie to complete the last two years of that term, in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 2019. The Cook Political Report currently rates the race as “solid” Republican.

Nixon’s triumph in the primary, however, marks the first democratic socialist victory in a Senate contest this year, with all other democratic socialist wins in federal elections occurring in House races. She won over establishment favorite and Israel supporter Vindman, who dominated the spending game and was widely predicted to win the nomination.

Her victory also comes as other candidates on the left flank of the party have claimed the Senate nomination in Maine, Michigan and Minnesota. Florida is the first red state to have gone with a Senate candidate this far to the left, and it raises the question of why Nixon prevailed and what it says about the larger dynamics among Democratic voters. But analysts caution that Nixon’s win may be more connected to local political dynamics, including the miscalculations by Vindman and his staff, than to the country as a whole.

“They did not take her candidacy seriously,” Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

Emphasizing that Vindman and his team members “are certainly kicking themselves,” Jewett stressed that while Nixon had wanted a debate, her opponent had refused.

“I don’t know that he knew what he was getting into,” added Jacob Perry, a Democratic strategist who had at one point been in discussions to join Vindman’s campaign.

Vindman, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant-colonel, served on the White House’s National Security Council and was influential in Trump’s first impeachment. Born in Kyiv, he left the former Soviet Union for the U.S. as a refugee with his father and siblings in 1979.

One obstacle that Vindman faced in this race, according to Perry, was his newcomer status in Florida. Having moved to the Sunshine State just three years ago, after retiring from the Army, Vindman was unfamiliar with its political and cultural dynamics, he added.

“He knows about as much about Florida politics as I know about Ukrainian politics,” Perry said.

Reflecting on the loss on Tuesday night, Vindman credited Nixon for her “strong campaign” against him, noting in a post on X that he “will be standing by her side in the fight against Ashley Moody.”

“Who would’ve ever thought that a Jewish refugee would make it to the U.S. Army, to the White House, and to becoming a candidate for the U.S. Senate,” he added.

President Donald Trump celebrated Vindman’s defeat on Wednesday, describing the outcome on Truth Social as “the most gratifying loss last night” and calling Vindman “a real treasonous creep.”

The president lashed out about Vindman’s decision to testify in Congress over concerns about a Trump request from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate former President Joe Biden. Trump described the conversation as a “routinely recorded” and “perfect call,” stressing that he was “completely innocent.”

“Vindman should be prosecuted for what he did,” added Trump, who also described Vindman’s opponent, Nixon, as “a radical left lunatic” who will face a “certain defeat at the hands of Ashley Moody.”

Nixon on Tuesday thanked Vindman for his service and for his “efforts to make sure that Florida voters know what is going on right now is not normal in Washington, D.C.”

“I look forward to working with Lieutenant Colonel Vindman and others to bring the people of Florida together,” she said.

Nixon, a state lawmaker from Jacksonville, has been an outspoken voice against Florida Republican efforts to redistrict congressional voting boundaries, which will likely result in fewer Democratic seats in the U.S. House.

Although Nixon joined the Democratic Socialists of America this year, she didn’t earn the group’s endorsement. She did, however, gain the support of young Florida progressives, as well as Michigan U.S. House Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who are top DSA voices and Israel detractors. Nixon spoke at a controversial rally on Friday in Fort Lauderdale, where Tlaib was a featured guest, the Miami Herald reported.

Regarding Nixon’s lack of DSA endorsement, Politico said it had obtained an internal Discord chat that had raised concerns about Nixon being “opportunistic” because she joined DSA only recently. At the time, a DSA spokesperson explained that the message came from a specific DSA chapter and that Nixon hadn’t filed an endorsement request. The group did not immediately respond to a request from JTA for further comment.

Nixon has repeatedly accused Israel of committing genocide and criticized Vindman for staying silent on Israel. In Florida’s legislature, she introduced a bill calling for a “de-escalation and ceasefire in the state of Israel and occupied Palestine.” She also voiced support for cutting U.S. aid for the Jewish state and declared that she doesn’t take AIPAC money.

“Together we went up against a political establishment against millions of dollars of out of state spending,” Nixon said on Tuesday. “We were outspent 16 to one, and we won.”

Over the course of the primary race, Nixon brought in less than $1 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Vindman, on the other hand, amassed more than $16 million, a sizable sum in a conservative-leaning state. Records available thus far do not link these funds to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, while the Track AIPAC website describes Vindman as “pro-Israel” but lists his “Israel lobby total” as “TBD.”

Regardless of the funding sources, Jewett pointed out that Vindman still has millions of dollars left in his campaign chest.

“He had millions left that he could have spent buying more ads or developing a better ground game, recruiting more volunteers to go knock on doors,” Jewett said.

The ads he did run focused less on Nixon and more on introducing himself and attacking Moody, with “the presumption that he was going to win,” Jewett added.

Meanwhile, Perry observed that Vindman’s social media photos throughout the campaign usually featured meetings with people who “look like him.” These groups, he explained, often included veterans who weren’t registered Democrats and who weren’t “going to vote for him in a primary.”

Nixon, on the other hand, was capitalizing on her skills as a community organizer and was out hustling, Perry added.

“Angie understood the Democratic primary voter better than Alex or his team,” he said.

Stephen Sussman, a professor of public administration at Barry University, said he was unsurprised that Nixon ended up beating Vindman because her platforms “resonated with the progressive left and the Democrats.”

Her messages, Sussman added, struck a chord “with the Democrats on the ground,” while Vindman had the reputation of being “more of a national figure.”

Jewett echoed these sentiments, noting that the reason political scientists had “called him the frontrunner was because of his national notoriety and name recognition, and his role in bringing Trump to the first impeachment.”

In a general election, that national notoriety could have given him a slight advantage. Swing voters, Jewett explained, might have appreciated his overall moderate agenda, his military vet status, his pro-Israel stances and the fact that he still owns a weapon.

While recognizing that Vindman could have had “a little better chance than Nixon” in the general election, Jewett stressed that Moody is the “clearly the favorite” in this red state.

“She’s always a top vote-getter,” Perry added. “There’s nothing really particularly interesting or that stands out about her. But she somehow brings in the votes.”

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

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