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‘A battle of Jews against Jews’? Arab Israelis debate whether and how to join Israel’s democracy protests
TAYIBE, Israel (JTA) — Prominent figures among Israel’s Arab minority are calling on its members to join the mass protests against the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul plan, arguing that Arabs will be the first victims of any weakening of the Supreme Court.
“If the government succeeds it will make our chances for equality and a just peace more remote,” said Suheil Diab, former deputy mayor of Nazareth, Israel’s largest Arab city, and one of the organizers of a nonpartisan push to get Arabs to demonstrate alongside their Jewish counterparts.
“If we don’t repel the attack on the judiciary, we can’t go forward with our agenda,” Diab went on. “I want Arabs to participate and to know that participating is in their interest.”
The proposed reforms would give the Knesset — now controlled by a right-wing coalition — the power to override Israel’s Supreme Court, in a move that proponents say is needed because, in their view, the court has grown too liberal and out of step with popular sentiment. Leaders of some of the parties in the coalition have called for curbing rights of LGBTQ Israelis, non-Orthodox Jews and Arab Israelis. At least one of them has openly suggested that Arab citizens who are “disloyal” should be deported.
Diab and other Arab leaders fear that without the protection of the Supreme Court, the Arab minority might face measures limiting funding, access to jobs and opportunities and even their political representation. Even expulsion feels like a realistic concern given the far-right influence in the government, he said.
”We need to convince a distinct share of the Jewish majority that both of us are threatened,” Diab told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The only way is a shared Jewish-Arab struggle.”
But while massive protests including tech entrepreneurs, army reservists, academics and others have shown the extent of determination among Jews to stop the government’s bid to legislate what it terms “judicial reform,” Arab Israelis, who make up one-fifth of the population, have hardly turned out.
This dynamic has been true in the Knesset as well as in the streets. Mansour Abbas, the leader of the Arab Ra’am Party, has said he opposes the changes, but when he was invited to participate in a press conference with other leaders of the political opposition, he declined.
Palestinian flags were seen at some of the early pro-democracy protests in Israel, such as at this one in Tel Aviv Jan. 14, 2023, but have appeared less frequently since. (Gili Yaari/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A push to get Arabs to participate in the protests began Friday with publication of a petition calling for public activism, inked by more than 200 Arab personalities, including retired judges. A gathering here on Saturday sought to work through thorny questions about what Arab participation might look like, and what demands it might make.
Getting Israeli Arabs to the protests that have become a recurring feature of life in cities across Israel every Saturday night won’t necessarily be easy. The push is likely to run up against perceived disenfranchisement on the part of Arab Israelis, whose political parties have rarely been part of governing coalitions and whose participation in electoral politics has been portrayed in the past as illegitimate by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies.
Another likely obstacle is a narrow focus for the protest organizers, almost all Jewish.
In the first weeks of the protests in January, Palestinian flags raised by protesters drew criticism from right-wing and pro-government pundits. National Security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for a ban on the flag in public and warned that those waving Palestinian flags in future demonstrations would be arrested. Fewer Palestinian flags were seen in the following weeks, and issues relating to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank or to the new government’s attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were all but dropped from the agenda. An Israeli activist who asked to carry a Palestinian flag while speaking was declined.
The organizers do not seem interested thus far in broadening the agenda, and only a few Arab speakers have been featured in the demonstrations. Just hours after the Tayibe meeting on Saturday, Reem Hazzan, a leader of the predominantly Arab Hadash party in Haifa, was told by organizers who reviewed a copy of her planned speech to make changes to it. She refused and there was no Arab speaker.
Haaretz quoted unidentified organizers as saying the problem was that Hazzan refused to call in her speech for the Arab public to turn out for the protests. But Hazzan, in remarks to JTA, said she sees a deeper problem.
“We want to change the rules of the game, not just preserve what exists. What exists is not good,” she said. “We need to speak about the occupation and about discrimination. If you want Arabs to participate you must take into account that Arabs have an agenda.”
Exactly what that agenda should be was under debate during the gathering in Tayibe, a sprawling town in central Israel that like many Arab municipalities suffers from spiraling crime and violence.
“People say it’s a battle of Jews against Jews; others say they don’t want us there so why should we go and others point to times when the court sided against us,” said Mohammed Ali Taha, 82, former head of the Arab Writers Association, who spoke at the Tayibe gathering.
Arab Israelis cast their vote at a voting station in Tayibe, Nov. 1, 2022. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)
“It’s all true,” he continued. “But still we must join the protests because we will be the primary losers. When the far right rises, it strikes against the weak. We are the weak.”
With no constitution, Israel lacks any explicit guarantee of equality for all its citizens. Some laws, including those ensuring the right for immigration, advantage Jews. To the extent that Arabs have been able to challenge discrimination in recent decades, it has been largely through the Supreme Court inferring equality on them based on liberal legislation such as the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom, passed in 1992, which specifies, “Every human being is entitled to protection of his life, body and dignity.” Critics of the proposed reforms warn that they could result in the rollback of that basic law.
The court has also at times ruled against Arab Israeli interests, such as when it refused to consider petitions against the 2018 Nation State Law, which enshrines Jewish settlement as a national value, declares that national self-determination in the state of Israel is “unique to the Jewish people” and demotes Arabic from an official language.
Tayibe’s deputy mayor, Malik Azzem, said that despite its mixed record, an independent Supreme Court is essential for Israeli Arabs.
“The High Court is our last defense for our rights as a minority,” he said. “The struggle for our rights is not separate from this struggle. We need to mobilize the public.”
He added that as an elected official, he fears that without the court’s oversight, the government would simply cut the budgets of Arab municipalities.
”People need to raise their voices and join,” Azzem said. “We should be at the center of the demonstrations. We are already late in dealing with this.”
Taha, the writer, whose works often focus on the Nakba, an Arabic term meaning catastrophe that is used to describe the plight of Palestinians after Israel’s 1948 War of Independence and which he lived through as a child, told the gathering: ”Without Jewish-Arab cooperation we cannot achieve anything. This is an opportunity for cooperation.”
He said he believes Arab Israelis are today more vulnerable than they have been at any time since the period that they lived under military rule, from 1948 to 1966. At that time they were so restricted that they could not travel within Israel without permits. The danger today, he says, is due to the clout of far-right ministers Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have expressed anti-Arab views and, in Ben-Gvir’s case, even called for the expulsion of “disloyal” citizens.
“If they succeed it will be worse for us than military rule was,” Taha said. To avert this, he argued, Arabs need to join the protests alongside Jews even if it means not raising Palestinian flags.
”It’s not the time and place for a protest about a Palestinian state,” he said. “This could cause conflict among the protesters.”
But to others, the idea of protesting without highlighting the need to end both the occupation and inequality is akin to denying one’s very identity.
“I’m against participating in any demonstration that is embarrassed to talk about context and the occupation. I support something broader,” said Sondos Saleh, a former member of Knesset for the Arab Ta’al party.
Sondos Saleh, an Arab Israeli politician then on the Joint List Party candidate list, speaks during a press conference in Tel Aviv, Feb. 23, 2021. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Merav Ben-Ari, a legislator for the largest opposition party, Yesh Atid, told JTA she would welcome greater Arab participation in the protests. ”Anything that strengthens the protests is excellent,” she said.
But she showed little enthusiasm for talking about many of the topics that animate Israeli Arabs in the political sphere, including the core one that liberal critics of the protest movement say is being given short shrift.
“How is the occupation connected?” Ben-Ari asked. “What is needed is to talk about the reform. Everyone who loves the country and cares about it has to fight against the reform and the harm to the Supreme Court.”
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Iran’s Internet Blackout Hits Record Length as Regime Tries to Crush Dissent in Digital Darkness
People attend the funeral of the security forces who were killed in the protests that erupted over the collapse of the currency’s value in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 14, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran’s internet blackout became the longest such nationwide shutdown ever recorded over the weekend, as the regime continued to face mounting military pressure, internal unrest, and growing isolation.
According to NetBlocks, an internet-monitoring watchdog that tracks global connectivity disruptions, Iran’s blackout entered its 37th consecutive day on Sunday, making it the longest nation-scale internet shutdown on record after authorities severed internet access as the war with the US and Israel broke out in late February.
The blackout continued on Monday, with the general public cut off from international networks for over 888 hours.
With the regime attempting to suppress internal opposition and silence domestic dissent, the blackout has effectively cut millions of Iranians off from independent reporting on the war and access to global news.
“We constantly find ourselves searching for ways to reconnect, just to be able to hear reliable news,” a 47-year-old woman in the central city of Isfahan told AFP on Saturday.
“Being without internet feels like being without oxygen to me. I feel trapped and suffocated,” a 53-year-old man in Tehran also said.
Iranian authorities have even warned that citizens suspected of accessing internet through virtual private networks (VPNs) — tools that bypass government censorship — could face arrest or imprisonment.
According to state media reports, Iranian security forces have arrested several citizens in recent weeks for using the Starlink satellite internet system, which allows users to bypass state-controlled terrestrial infrastructure.
Iran’s latest internet shutdown marks the second nationwide blackout in less than two months, after authorities previously imposed an 18-day outage in January during mass anti-government protests, which security forces violently crushed, leaving tens of thousands of demonstrators tortured or killed.
Human rights groups warn the regime has repeatedly used nationwide internet shutdowns as a tool to intensify its crackdown on opposition movements and conceal ongoing abuses from international scrutiny.
In recent years, Iranian authorities have accelerated efforts to sever the country’s reliance on the global web by advancing the regime-backed “National Internet” project aimed at consolidating state control over digital communications and information flows.
Meanwhile, the Islamist regime continues to face relentless pressure from US and Israeli strikes as the conflict escalates and prospects for negotiations become increasingly fragile.
In one of its latest attacks, Israel announced that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence chief Brig. Gen. Majid Khademi and Quds Force special operations commander Asghar Bagheri were both killed over the weekend.
This latest strike on leadership represents a “significant blow to Iran’s intelligence leadership at a time when the regime is already under sustained pressure,” an Israeli security official told Fox News.
According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Khademi orchestrated overseas terrorist operations and oversaw surveillance targeting Iranian civilians during the regime’s brutal crackdown on protests.
Part of Iran’s elite military force, Bagheri coordinated the recruitment of terrorist operatives across the Middle East and directed deadly attacks against US and Israeli targets abroad.
On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced the IDF also struck Iran’s largest petrochemical facility in Asaluyeh, a blow that has effectively taken offline the two plants responsible for roughly 85 percent of the country’s petrochemical exports, crippling a key pillar of Iran’s economy and export capacity.
Katz described the strikes as “a severe economic blow to the Iranian regime, amounting to tens of billions of dollars.”
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have instructed the IDF to continue to attack the national infrastructure of the Iranian terror regime with all its might,” the Israeli defense chief said.
“The Iranian terror regime will discover that the continued aggression against Israel and the cowardly and criminal fire at Israeli citizens will lead to the deepening of the economic and strategic damage it is paying and the collapse of its capabilities,” he continued.
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Pressure Mounts on UK Government to Ban Kanye West After Festival Backlash
Rapper Kanye West holds his first rally in support of his presidential bid in North Charleston, South Carolina, US, July 19, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Randall Hill
The British government was under growing pressure on Monday to bar US rapper Kanye West from entering the country after he was named as the headline act for the Wireless Festival of rap and hip-hop music set for July.
West, now known as Ye, has been criticized in the past for antisemitic remarks and celebration of Nazism, which have led on several occasions to his social media accounts, including X, being barred.
The decision to book Ye prompted several companies to pull their sponsorship of the festival, while the main opposition Conservative Party wrote to Home Secretary [interior minister] Shabana Mahmood urging her to ban him from coming to Britain.
Asked by Reuters for comment, a Home Office source said ministers were currently reviewing his permission to enter the country.
The Home Office does not usually comment on individual cases, but Mahmood has powers to personally request Ye to be excluded from the UK. In January, the department revoked the Electronic Travel Authorization of Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch far-right activist for spreading false information.
Festival organizers and Ye’s representative did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
The Jewish Leadership Council last week condemned the organizers for booking Ye after a rise in attacks on Jewish people and Jewish targets.
‘DEEPLY CONCERNING’
Prime Minister Keir Starmer also described as “deeply concerning” the decision to book Ye for the London festival.
“Antisemitism in any form is abhorrent and must be confronted firmly wherever it appears,” Starmer said in comments first reported by the Sun on Sunday.
“Everyone has a responsibility to ensure Britain is a place where Jewish people feel safe and secure.”
A spokesperson for London mayor Sadiq Khan said the rapper’s comments did not reflect the city’s values and that the decision had been made by festival organizers.
Australia cancelled the rapper’s visa last July after he released “Heil Hitler,” a song promoting Nazism. The ban came a few months after Ye advertised a swastika T-shirt for sale on his website.
Ye took a full-page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal in January to apologize for his antisemitic remarks, attributing his behavior to an undiagnosed brain injury and an untreated bipolar disorder. He also apologized for his past expressions of admiration for Adolf Hitler and use of swastika imagery.
The 48-year-old has not performed in Britain since he headlined Glastonbury in 2015.
Drinks companies Diageo and Pepsi, a long-running sponsor, said they had withdrawn their support for the Wireless event over the decision to invite Ye. Pepsi-owner PepsiCo also confirmed its Rockstar Energy brand had pulled its sponsorship.
A spokesperson for PayPal told Reuters on Monday its branding would not appear in any future Wireless festival promotional materials.
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Iran Rejects Ceasefire as Deadline Nears on Trump ‘Hell’ Ultimatum
President Donald Trump arrives from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. Photo: Alex Brandon/Pool via REUTERS
Iran said on Monday it wanted a lasting end to the war with the US and Israel, and pushed back against pressure to swiftly reopen the Strait of Hormuz under a temporary ceasefire as the Americans and the Iranians weighed a framework plan to cease their five‑week-old conflict.
Iran conveyed its response to the US proposal for ending the war to Pakistan, rejecting a ceasefire and emphasizing the necessity of a permanent end to the war, the official IRNA news agency said on Monday. The Iranian response consisted of 10 clauses, including an end to conflicts in the region, a protocol for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, lifting of sanctions, and reconstruction, the agency added.
President Donald Trump, who has threatened to rain “hell” on Tehran if it did not make a deal by 8 pm EDT Tuesday (midnight GMT) to open the vital route for global energy supplies, rejected the Iranian proposal on Monday and said his deadline was final.
“They made a proposal, and it’s a significant proposal. It’s a significant step. It’s not good enough,” Trump told reporters at an annual White House Easter event, referring to Iran.
Trump, who had extended his initial deadline, gave no indication he would do so again.
“Highly unlikely. They’ve had plenty of time. In fact, they asked for seven days. I said, I’m going to give you 10. But at the end of 10, all hell’s going to break out if you don’t get there,” he said.
Iran responded to US and Israeli attacks in February by effectively closing Hormuz, a conduit for about a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supply. The waterway’s stranglehold on the global economy has proved a powerful Iranian bargaining chip and on Monday it showed reluctance to relinquish it too easily.
The Pakistani-brokered framework for ending the war emerged from intense overnight contacts and proposes an immediate ceasefire, followed by talks on a broader peace settlement to be concluded within 15 to 20 days, a source aware of the proposals said on Monday.
Pakistan’s army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, was in contact “all night long” with US Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the source said.
Iran‘s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday that Tehran’s demands “should not be interpreted as a sign of compromise, but rather as a reflection of its confidence in defending its positions.” He added that earlier US demands, such as a 15-point plan, were rejected as “excessive.”
CEASEFIRE PROPOSAL ‘ONE OF MANY IDEAS’
Trump later told reporters that Iran could be taken out in one night, “and that night might be tomorrow night,” warning Tehran it had to make a deal by Tuesday night or face the consequences.
“The entire country can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night,” he told a White House press conference.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the briefing that the largest volume of strikes since day one of the operation against Iran would take place on Monday and warned Tuesday would have even more.
A White House official told Reuters that the president is considering multiple options for how to proceed but that military operations will continue.
“This is one of many ideas, and [Trump] has not signed off on it. Operation Epic Fury continues,” they said, referring to the US name for the operation against Iran.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 were up 0.5% to $109.60 a barrel at 1545 GMT.
In a post laden with expletives on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, Trump threatened further strikes on Iranian energy and transport infrastructure if Iran failed to make a deal and reopen the Strait by Tuesday.
Anwar Gargash, an adviser to the president of the United Arab Emirates, said any settlement must guarantee access through Hormuz. He warned that a deal that failed to rein in Iran’s nuclear program and its missiles and drones would pave the way for “a more dangerous, more volatile Middle East.”
Fresh aerial strikes were reported across the region on Monday, more than five weeks since the US and Israel began pounding Iran in a war that has killed thousands and damaged economies by sending oil prices surging.
Iranian state media said the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence chief, Majid Khademi, has died. Israel on Monday claimed responsibility for his death.
A US-Israeli attack hit the data center at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, damaging infrastructure underpinning the country’s national artificial intelligence platform and thousands of other services, Fars News Agency said on Sunday. According to US and Israeli officials, the Iranian regime has used the facility for military purposes.
ISRAEL VOWS TO DESTROY IRAN‘S INFRASTRUCTURE
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz in a statement issued on Monday threatened to destroy Iran’s infrastructure and hunt down its leaders “one by one.” The Israeli military also said they had targeted Iran‘s air force through a series of strikes on the Bahram, Mehrabad, and Azmayesh airports over the previous night.
Iran said on Monday two of its petrochemical complexes were attacked.
Emergency and firefighting teams brought a blaze under control at the South Pars complex in Asaluyeh, Iran‘s National Petrochemical Company said. No casualties were reported.
An Israeli attack in mid-March on the South Pars gas field that Iran shares with Qatar prompted an escalation in the war, with Iran striking energy targets across the Middle East.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the strike on the petrochemical facility in southern Iran was part of dismantling Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards “money machine.”
“Iran is no longer the same Iran, and Israel is no longer the same Israel. Israel is stronger than ever, and the terrorist regime in Iran is weaker than ever,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
Trump has repeatedly warned Iran he could expand US strikes to include civilian infrastructure, such as power plants and bridges. Critics have said such actions would be war crimes, while others have noted that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an internationally designated terrorist organization, has embedded itself in such infrastructure to enrich itself and fuel its operations.
IRAN CONTINUES TO FIGHT BACK
Iranian weekend strikes on petrochemical facilities and an Israeli-linked vessel in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE underscored the country’s ability to fight back despite Trump‘s repeated claims to have knocked out its missile and drone capabilities.
Israel saw a heavy day of rocket volleys on Monday, with the sounds of sirens and missile interception booms ringing out across the country throughout the day.
Israel’s military told Reuters there had been 20 missile launches from Lebanon and five from Iran during the day. Several of the attacks resulted in impacts, although it was unclear whether it was from falling missile debris or direct strikes. A missile hit Haifa overnight tearing a building apart and killing four under the rubble, taking the death toll in Israel to 23, according to Israel’s ambulance service.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Monday that they also carried out missile and drones attack against Israel.
About 3,540 people have been killed in Iran in the war, including at least 244 children, said US-based rights group HRANA.
Israel has also invaded southern Lebanon and struck Beirut in a fight against Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists, who initially launched rockets at northern Israeli communities, that has become the most violent spillover of the war on Iran.
Lebanon’s heavy casualties include 1,461 killed, including at least 124 children, Lebanese authorities say.
Thirteen US service members have died, and hundreds of others have been wounded.