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A chaotic response to Israel’s turmoil a reveals a fraught new dilemma for Jewish legacy organizations
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Major American Jewish organizations that hoped to send a unified message about the turmoil in Israel yesterday instead found themselves tussling, partly in the public eye, about what exactly they wanted to say.
Should they praise the massive anti-government protests that have taken shape in recent months? Should they criticize Israel’s sitting government? What, if anything, should they endorse as a next step in the ongoing crisis?
Five large Jewish organizations — all known for their vocal pro-Israel advocacy — began Monday afternoon trying to answer those questions in a unified voice that sent a positive message: praise for a decision to pause the government’s divisive judicial overhaul.
Instead, in a somewhat messy process that unfolded over the course of the afternoon, they ended up sending out a number of different statements that contrasted in subtle yet telling ways. The scramble to publish a statement reflecting consensus — and the resulting impression that consensus was lacking — was a reflection of how Israel’s politics have created a rift in the U.S. Jewish establishment.
For decades, large American Jewish groups have publicly supported Israel’s foreign policy, and mostly stayed quiet on its domestic conflicts. Now, a domestic policy issue threatening to tear Israel apart has compelled at least some of them to do two unusual things: opine on Israel’s internal affairs, and publicly chide the government that, in their view, is responsible for the crisis.
“For a long time any criticism of Israel, even criticism of very difficult policies, was thought to be disloyal, and couldn’t be spoken out of love,” said Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, which was not a signatory to the statement but is a constituent of the group that organized it. “I think we now understand that there’s plenty of legitimate criticism and activism that comes from that very place.”
The five groups that began composing the statement together were the Jewish Federations of North America, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. All have historically been seen as centrist, pro-Israel and representative of the American Jewish establishment, speaking for American Jews in international forums and in meetings with elected officials. All have annual budgets in the tens of millions of dollars, if not more.
Any vocal criticism from those groups has largely been limited to Israel’s treatment of non-Orthodox Jews. Because most American Jews are themselves not Orthodox, American Jewish groups have felt more comfortable advocating for policies that, they believe, will allow more of their constituents to feel welcome in the Jewish state.
But events this year have prompted the groups to speak out on another Israeli domestic issue: the judicial overhaul being pushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which aimed to sap the Israeli Supreme Court of much of its power and independence. The court has, in the past, defended the rights of vulnerable populations in Israel such as women, the non-Orthodox, Arabs and the LGBTQ community.
“The recognition that what happens in Israel, the policies of the Israeli government and a broader range of issues in this particular case — on judicial reform, the perception of Israel as a vibrant democracy for all of its citizens — that perception has a significant impact on American Jewish life and American Jewish engagement,” said Gil Preuss, CEO of Washington, D.C.’s Jewish federation.
Most of the five groups had previously endorsed calls for compromise on the judicial reform proposal. The federations had also come out against one of its key elements. So when Netanyahu announced on Monday — in the face of widespread protests and dissent from allies — that he would pause the legislative push to allow time for dialogue, they all hoped to express their support.
What to write after that sentiment, however, proved contentious. A version of the statement put out by the American Jewish Committee included sharp criticism of Israeli politicians that was not in the other statements.
The Jewish Federations of North America sent out an addendum to the statement that was sympathetic to anti-Netanyahu protesters.
And the American Israel Public Affairs Committee ultimately opted out of the statement altogether — but not before a version had already been released in its name.
None of the five groups responded to requests for comment on the process behind the statement, but insiders said the differences between the statements, and AIPAC’s opting out, had little to do with policy differences. Instead, they blamed the confusion on missteps in the rush to get the statement out in the minutes after Netanyahu’s remarks, which aired in Israel at 8 p.m. and in the early afternoon on the East Coast, where all of the groups are based.
The statement that ultimately appeared, after declaring that the groups “welcome the Israeli government’s suspension” of the reforms, said that the raucous debate and protests over the legislation were “painful to watch” but also “a textbook case of democracy in action.”
A key line included rare advice to Israel from the establishment Jewish groups: “As a next step, we encourage all Knesset factions, coalition and opposition alike, to use this time to build a consensus that includes the broad support of Israeli civil society.”
The Conference of Presidents was the first to release the statement, just past 2 p.m., less than an hour after Netanyahu had completed his remarks. It listed its co-endorsers as the AJC, the ADL and JFNA.
Five minutes later, the AJC put out a version of the same statement that added AIPAC to the endorsers. It included the same sentence offering advice, plus another two that added criticism and a caution: “Israel’s political leaders must insist on a more respectful tone and debate. A hallmark of democracy is public consensus and mutual consideration.”
Statements from JFNA and ADL, which went out subsequently, hewed to the Conference of Presidents version. An AIPAC official told JTA that the group did not want to sign onto the statement because it had wanted more time to add edits.
Just before 3 p.m., more than 40 minutes after its initial email, AJC sent out an email advising recipients that its inclusion of AIPAC was an error.
But its new statement still included the line criticizing politicians, which the other groups had eschewed. In the end, AJC removed that line, too: It is absent from the version of the statement posted on the group’s website.
AIPAC ultimately settled on posting a tweet that stuck to praising Israel for its democratic process, without further comment.
“For many weeks, Israelis have engaged in a vigorous debate reflective of the Jewish state’s robust democracy,” it said. “Israel’s diverse citizenship is showcasing its passionate engagement in the democratic process to determine the policies that will guide their country.”
JFNA, in an explanatory email to its constituents attached to the joint statement, was more pointed in its criticism of Netanyahu. On Sunday night, the prime minister had summarily fired his defense minister, Yoav Galant, for publicly advocating a pause on the legislation. That decision sparked protests across Israel, which in turn prompted Netanyahu to announce exactly the same pause and compromise that Gallant had proposed.
“The response across Israeli society was immediate and angry,” said the email signed by Julie Platt, the chairwoman of JFNA, and Eric Fingerhut, its CEO. “Spontaneous protests gathered in the streets and commentators expressed shock at a decision to fire a Defense Minister for having expressed concern about the risks to the country’s military position … Netanyahu’s own lawyer in his corruption trial announced that he could no longer represent him.”
The groups weren’t alone in releasing pained statements about Israel’s volatility — which has also stirred anguish among groups that have previously defended the Israeli right.
This week, Rabbi Moshe Hauer of the Orthodox Union, who met earlier this month with far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, praised Israel’s leaders for “the recognition of the value of taking time, engaging with each other with honesty and humility, and proceeding to build consensus.” (Smotrich, for his part, supports the overhaul and opposed pausing the legislation.)
“Our Sages taught, ‘Peace is great; discord is despised’,” Hauer, the group’s executive director, said in an emailed statement to JTA. “We are deeply shaken by the upheaval and discord that has gripped our beloved State of Israel. In recent weeks, the Jewish tradition and the democratic value of vigorous debate have been replaced by something very dangerous and different.”
The two largest non-Orthodox movements were open about their opposition to the overhaul. “We believe ardently that the proposed judicial reform is fraught with danger and goes against the principles of democracy,” the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly said in a statement Tuesday.
A statement from the leadership of the Reform movement, including Jacobs, castigated Netanyahu for agreeing to create a national guard under the authority of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, and for being “willing to risk the safety and security of Israel’s citizens to keep himself and his coalition in power.”
That strong language, Jacobs suggested, reflects the wishes of those who fund establishment Jewish groups and congregations. He said those groups were hearing from donors whose frustration with the Netanyahu government is reaching a boiling point.
“I hear of donors telling organizations, ‘I have to tell you, I don’t hear your voice, speaking out in favor of Israel’s democracy at this very vulnerable moment. So I’ll tell you what, why don’t you hang on to my phone number when you find your voice?’”
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The post A chaotic response to Israel’s turmoil a reveals a fraught new dilemma for Jewish legacy organizations appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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She’s a Democratic Socialist who affirmed Israel’s right to exist. Can she be LA’s next mayor?
LOS ANGELES – City Councilmember Nithya Raman won the backing of two very different organizations the last time she ran for office. One of them was Democrats for Israel Los Angeles, a liberal Zionist group. The other was perhaps the most overtly anti-Israel collective in town — the local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America. Raman’s politics divided both groups, but the unconventional coalition helped lift her to re-election.
Two years later, Raman hopes to recapture that broad appeal in her bid to be the city’s next mayor. The 44-year-old DSA member, who represents parts of the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and Silver Lake, surprised her colleagues and incumbent Mayor Karen Bass earlier this month with her late entry into the June 2 primary race. And while political observers on both coasts have noted her similarities to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose 50,000 campaign volunteers drew from a slew of progressive groups, Raman hopes her tenure on city council — and the Jewish allies she’s made along the way — can attest to the differences.
“Mamdani is clearly a very popular politician, and so to be compared to a popular politician who is very good at communication — it’s a good thing,” Raman told the Forward in a phone interview. “I will also say that I am my own person, and I have a record of service here — five years of service to the city and to my district that clearly lay out who I am, how I have governed, and my approach.”
Raman’s relationship with DSA is something of a rocky symbiosis. In 2020, she became the first member of the movement to win a seat on LA’s city council, with left-wing grassroots organizers helping turn out a record number of voters to defeat an incumbent. Raman has since broken with DSA on votes and in public comments, on both Israel-related issues — for one, she does not support the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement — and municipal ones. Yet even as three other DSA members have joined her on city council — and another, Rae Huang, runs for mayor — Raman remains the chapter’s biggest star as well as its strongest candidate in the race.
Her community outreach and her openness to engaging on Israel and antisemitism have endeared her to some Jewish voters in LA’s 4th council district, and she won re-election in 2024 despite a redistricting that largely subtracted the progressive base that put her in office. She touts her second victory as proof of her broadly effective governance. But some Jewish constituents remain ambivalent about or opposed to Raman due to politics they deem insufficiently pro-Israel or because of her affiliation with DSA.
Interviews with 10 local Jewish leaders, including five who live in her district or whose institutions predominantly serve her constituents, underscored both the inroads Raman made with Jewish communities during her tenure and the difficulty she may have winning over voters citywide. (The top two primary finishers advance to a November runoff if no candidate receives a majority of the vote.)
“I know if I had a need, she would take my phone call and would do her best to be of assistance,” said Rabbi Sarah Hronsky, who leads Temple Beth Hillel, a Reform synagogue located just outside her district in Valley Village. “I think she genuinely cares about humanity. I just don’t think it is very clear to the Jewish community where she stands on the topic of Israel, and where she stands in terms of the increase in antisemitism.”
Those positions are well documented, and in some cases Raman has volunteered them. And though they were a wedge issue inside DSA, they also offer a point of departure from Bass, an establishment Democrat whose handling of Jewish issues — especially on anti-Israel protests — has been called into question.
Building a track record — and Shabbat-friendly crosswalks — in Jewish areas
Even as Raman, a Harvard-educated urban planner, soared from obscurity into office in 2020 on a groundswell of progressive activism, she did not neatly map onto DSA politics.
The national organization calls for an end to U.S. aid to Israel in its national platform, and the 90% of the LA chapter — some 2,000 dues-paying members, according to one longtime organizer — voted in 2017 to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Raman, with DSA’s endorsement already in hand, took a softer tack that summer on a Democrats for Israel questionnaire. In a written response, she affirmed Israel’s “right to exist” and said she did not support BDS, though adding her view that such efforts are protected by the First Amendment.
“I personally am deeply upset by policy decisions in India, my own country of origin, and while I have not participated in a boycott, I understand the argument for withholding economic activity,” she wrote. (Raman moved to the U.S. when she was 6.)
With Raman an outsider candidate for the council seat and not favored in the election, the responses attracted little attention outside of DSA. She eventually won in an unusually shaped jurisdiction that included Jewish and Israeli neighborhoods like Hancock Park and Sherman Oaks and young, progressive pockets like Koreatown and Silver Lake.
“I don’t think she’s afraid to diverge from the points of view of the DSA.”
Gregg SolkovitsPresident, Democrats for Israel Los Angeles
Once in office, Raman became a regular guest at Jewish community functions in and around her district. She joined Stephen Wise Temple for High Holiday services and the Silver Lake JCC for a Passover seder. Hronsky noted that Raman often stayed for the nearly two-hour duration of Valley-wide “Shabbat in the Park” gatherings, rather than the perfunctory photo-op-and-handshakes some might expect of a busy politician.
“When I ran, I actually didn’t know that this would be such a big part of my job,” Raman told the Forward. “But it’s been really good to be able to be a small part of the bigger Jewish community.”
Outside Chabad of Sherman Oaks, she helped push through the addition of a timed traffic signal that enabled Orthodox Jews to cross a busy thoroughfare on Shabbat — an improvement the synagogue’s rabbi, Mendel Lipskier, said he had sought for more than a decade.
The Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, in which around 1,200 people in Israel were killed and another 250 taken hostage into Gaza, thrust her connection to DSA into the spotlight.
That day, as Raman issued a statement “condemning the horrific violence by Hamas and praying for a peaceful end to this conflict,” the national DSA in its statement called the massacre a “direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime.” Raman, who had attended an Oct. 9 vigil at Stephen Wise, soon released a longer second statement in which she rejected DSA’s missive as “unacceptably devoid of empathy.”
Split constituencies
Her politics continued to defy easy categorization as the war in Gaza wore on. During a temporary ceasefire in November 2023, Raman adjourned a session of city council by memorializing the 11,000 Palestinians who had reportedly died to that point in Gaza. “My pain is unspeakable,” she said, closing the message by calling for “urgent action to stop these civilian casualties and bring the hostages home.”
The following June, she introduced a municipal resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and release of hostages. The resolution, which never reached a vote, was slammed by the local Jewish federation and other mainline Jewish groups as “fostering hostility toward the Jewish community.” (The federation declined to comment for this article.)
The ceasefire calls put her at odds with much of her Jewish constituency, which leans heavily pro-Israel. One Jewish leader said his synagogue, which serves many of her constituents, had had to keep Raman at arm’s length because not declaring Hamas entirely responsible for the devastation in Gaza meant Raman failed some congregants’ pro-Israel litmus test.
Yet as her term wound down, Raman found the support of DFI-LA, a Democratic Party club that considers local Jewish issues in addition to candidates’ stances on Israel. Gregg Solkovits, the organization’s president, said the combination of Raman’s public statements on Israel and her community engagement outweighed the ceasefire calls.
“She had reached out to the Jewish community and made clear indications that she was willing to be educated on our issues and to work with us,” Solkovits explained in an interview, “and she has continued to do that as she’s taken office.”
The vote of confidence had been controversial within the organization. “There were members of our executive board that are very bothered by anyone who comes out of DSA world,” he said. But Raman, Solkovits added, was not as ideologically rigid as other DSA politicians.
The independent streak cost her some fans in DSA, whose LA chapter endorsed Raman but also censured her for pursuing the pro-Israel club’s support. Though Council District 4 lost DSA-friendly Koreatown in the redistricting process, Raman won reelection with a majority of votes in the first round of voting.
“I don’t think she’s afraid to diverge from the points of view of the DSA,” Solkovits said. “In fact, I think she’s broadened her base. Which is one of the signs of a smart politician.”
Raman continued to tackle Jewish issues after her re-election. After a pair of Israeli diplomats in Washington, D.C., were assassinated in 2025, allegedly by a pro-Palestinian gunman, Raman issued a statement condemning the attack as a “horrific act of antisemitism.” And when vandals spray-painted antisemitic graffiti in her district, Raman and a staffer went to paint over it.
“Ultimately, my role is to make sure that my residents feel safe, to make sure that my residents know that issues related to violence or antisemitism are being taken seriously — that our response will be aggressive, proactive, preventative,” Raman said.
But not everyone finds her record as convincing as Solkovits does — or feels as heard as Temple Beth Hillel’s Hronsky. Lindsey Imber, who sits on the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council, said Raman dodged her question about pro-Palestinian encampments on college campuses and never returned to the neighborhood council meetings after that.
But Imber, who is Jewish, suggested that Raman’s approach to homelessness — which included her opposition to a rule that banned encampments less than 500 feet from schools — may be just as problematic to Jewish voters as any other issue.
“That was one of the things that really created a schism between the council member and the and the actual constituency of the district,” Imber said.
Others outside the district say Raman’s DSA connections are inherently disqualifying. Nate Miller, an LA-based public relations executive who specializes in Jewish affairs, said that while he was frustrated with Bass, he could not vote for a member of the movement.
“I understand those concerns, and I respect those concerns,” Raman said. “But I think that I have been able to really, really work to make sure that the Jewish community in my district knows that I am there for them in the ways that a council member would need to be. And that is exactly the way that I would show up for them if I were to be the mayor.”
Senior leaders of several synagogues in her district — including Stephen Wise, Valley Beth Shalom and Temple Israel of Hollywood — declined to speak on the record for this story. (Lipskier, of Chabad of Sherman Oaks, said he did not follow city politics and that his interactions with Raman were limited but that “whatever we asked for, she was nice, she was available. I don’t have nothing negative to say.”)
Crossing to victory
The incumbent Raman wants to supplant is fighting to retain her own Jewish backing. Bass, who attended public high school in heavily Jewish West Los Angeles, has long enjoyed a broad base of support that includes labor unions, the liberal donor class and a coalition of legacy progressive groups.
But her approval rating has plummeted since the January 2025 wildfires, which wiped out the Pacific Palisades, a wealthy and heavily Jewish enclave. Two candidates running to her right — Adam Miller and Spencer Pratt — may siphon off some votes in the primary.
Jewish leaders also said Bass failed to deliver on commitments she made after a 2024 protest outside a West Los Angeles synagogue descended into chaos. One of those commitments was to establish buffer zones outside synagogues where protesting would be legally prohibited.
Raman told the Forward she was not sure where she stood on the issue. “The idea of protesting outside a religious institution is troubling to me,” she said, “but I also have voted to uphold First Amendment rights to speak up and to protest in the past. I think that we can find a way to balance people’s needs for safety with that First Amendment right.”
Raman will want to reignite the grassroots support that propelled her candidacy in 2020. But her late entry into the mayor’s race isn’t helping.
Raman admitted she had entered the fray too late to seek most primary endorsements, a reality underlined by Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez — himself a DSA member — declining to switch allegiances from Bass after her announcement. And Solkovits said he was not sure whether DFI-LA would support Raman this time around. (Bass received its support in 2024, but the group sometimes supports multiple candidates in the same race.)
And her positions on Israel make up only part of the frustrations that may be lingering among her DSA peers.
Raman broke with DSA council members on Measure ULA, a so-called “mansion tax” that had been a major progressive legislation but which Raman said hamstrung multifamily housing construction. She also voted against a $2.6 billion convention center upgrade supported by Soto-Martinez and fellow DSA member Eunisses Hernandez, who represent union-heavy districts. (Raman said the city was already under huge financial pressure and could not afford it.)
If that makes it harder to rally the base that first put her in office — and replicate the massive wave of progressive turnout that got Mamdani elected in New York — Raman says she isn’t worried.
“My goals here are centered around Angelenos, their safety and their ability to thrive in a city that is deeply unaffordable and in a city that is struggling to deliver basic services,” she said. “That’s the message that I think will activate voters.”
The post She’s a Democratic Socialist who affirmed Israel’s right to exist. Can she be LA’s next mayor? appeared first on The Forward.
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Epstein Files Spark Global Surge in Antisemitism on Social Media, Study Finds
Late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is seen in this image from the US Justice Department’s file of Epstein, released by the House Oversight Committee Democrats Washington, DC, US, on Dec. 18, 2025. Photo: House Oversight Committee Democrats/Handout via REUTERS
The public release of millions of files related to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has ignited a storm of antisemitism online, with social media platforms becoming flooded with Nazi glorification, anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, and coordinated hate campaigns, according to a new report.
On Tuesday, the Germany-based nonprofit Democ — an association of journalists, academics, and media professionals dedicated to documenting and countering anti-democratic movements — published a new study exposing the scope, narratives, and tactics fueling unprecedented online antisemitism, while revealing the systemic failure of platform moderation to stop it.
Following the US Justice Department’s release last month of millions of documents collected in the criminal cases against Epstein and his associates, Democ reported an explosive surge in antisemitic content across multiple social media platforms, fueling a massive and coordinated wave of online hate.
According to the study, antisemitic users are exploiting Epstein’s Jewish heritage as a pretext to openly express hatred toward Jews, amplifying conspiracy theories that falsely attribute the sex abuse scandal entirely to the Jewish community.
For example, the report found that just 55 Instagram Reels offering explicitly antisemitic takes on the Epstein scandal were viewed 114.4 million times, receiving over 6.7 million likes and more than 82,000 comments.
“On Instagram, we are seeing an unprecedented and seemingly endless stream of antisemitic videos related to the Epstein case,” Grischa Stanjek, managing director of Democ, told the German newspaper Die Welt.
With antisemitic videos traced to the US, Pakistan, Spain, and Germany, Stanjek warned that the phenomenon has become a global surge, constantly fueled by new posts and hateful comments — some even openly glorifying Adolf Hitler.
“The views on explicitly antisemitic videos and comments about Hitler now exceed the reach of major media outlets,” she said.
“The Epstein scandal could unleash a wave of antisemitism on a scale comparable to the coronavirus pandemic or the events of Oct. 7,” Stanjek continued, referring to the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Democ’s analysis reveals that the Epstein case, which has captured international media attention, is being twisted to fuel dangerous conspirative narratives rooted in long-standing myths of Jewish control and influence.
For example, one video cited in the report, with over 17.8 million views, falsely identifies Epstein as Israeli, suggesting a connection between his identity and his crimes.
The newly released report also explains that online users exploit subtle references to glorify Hitler or spread antisemitic content undetected, and some avoid directly sharing swastikas by combining them with other symbols.
“If the Austrian painter had won, we wouldn’t be in this timeline,” wrote one user, whose post received 127,772 likes.
According to Democ, referring to Hitler as “the painter” — a nod to his early artistic ambitions — is a tactic used to bypass social media platforms’ automated filters and detection systems.
Given the alarming algorithmic amplification of hate speech and systemic moderation failures, Stanjek urges social media platforms to take decisive action against antisemitic content, including its removal.
“The algorithm detects interest in antisemitic takes on the scandal and amplifies it,” Stanjek said. “It becomes increasingly common: Epstein as the devil, Hitler as a hero.”
“Meta aims to promote more freedom of expression … But fear of overregulation should not let open antisemitism and glorification of Hitler reach millions of viewers,” he continued.
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Hamas-Linked Nonprofit Launches Wikipedia Training Program to Smear Israel
Avishek Das / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
A human rights organization with alleged links to Hamas has launched a new initiative to train Palestinians to edit Wikipedia pages about Israel and the war in Gaza, fueling ongoing concerns that the popular online encyclopedia promotes anti-Israel propaganda and antisemitic narratives.
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, a Switzerland-registered nonprofit founded in 2011, announced last week the third round of its “WikiRights” project in the Gaza Strip. According to the group’s official press release, the program will train 12 young Palestinians in human rights documentation and professional Wikipedia editing in both Arabic and English, with a focus on what it calls documenting “genocide in Gaza.”
The organization says participants will conduct field interviews with victims and witnesses and produce what it describes as “documentation-based articles” to be uploaded or incorporated into Wikipedia. The aim, according to the group, is to fill what it characterizes as “knowledge gaps” and to counter narratives it believes marginalize Palestinian accounts.
“Training young people to edit Wikipedia content seeks to transform victims of genocide in Gaza from mere statistics into storytellers, especially given the recent failures of some platforms or their complicity in not conveying the scale of genocide,” said Euro-Med Monitor’s Chief Operations Officer Anas Jerjawi.
But the initiative is drawing scrutiny in Israel and among watchdog groups who argue it represents an organized effort to shape one of the world’s most influential information platforms during an ongoing war.
NGO Monitor — an independent Jerusalem-based research institute that tracks anti-Israel bias among nongovernmental organizations — published a profile on Tuesday raising concerns about Euro-Med Monitor’s leadership and transparency. The watchdog notes that founder and chairman Ramy Abdu and former chair Mazen Kahel were listed by Israeli authorities in 2013 among individuals and entities allegedly associated with Hamas operatives in Europe. Abdu was later sanctioned by Israel under its counter-terrorism regulations.
Euro-Med Monitor has presented itself as an independent human rights body and states that it does not receive government or factional funding. However, NGO Monitor says the group does not publicly disclose detailed financial documentation, raising questions about funding transparency.
Israeli officials have long argued that Hamas and affiliated networks operate not only militarily but also through political, legal, and media channels to influence international opinion.
The WikiRights program focuses on training participants to create and edit entries related to the Israel-Hamas war, including content framed around allegations of genocide and systemic human rights violations.
Wikipedia, one of the most widely accessed reference websites globally, claims it operates under strict neutrality and verifiability policies. However, conflict-related pages, particularly those involving Israel and the Palestinians, have frequently been the subject of intense “edit wars,” coordinated campaigns, and administrative interventions.
Investigations by websites such as Pirate Wires have exposed intricate efforts by ideologically motivated Wikipedia editors to insert explosive language in reference to Israel with the implied goal of weaponizing the website’s reputation as a neutral source of information to launder biased viewpoints about the Jewish state. For instance, Wikipedia asserts that the war in Gaza is a so-called “genocide.” Editors have also softened language regarding Hamas and its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, seemingly to depict the terrorist group in a more positive light.
Euro-Med Monitor’s press release states that the latest round of the program emphasizes “live field documentation,” encouraging trainees to interview people and incorporate firsthand accounts into articles. The organization says the goal is to transform victims “from mere statistics into storytellers.”
Critics argue that such framing signals a predetermined narrative rather than a neutral research effort.
Euro-Med Monitor’s announcement comes six months after the US House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform opened an investigation into the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates the Wikipedia website, demanding answers over concerns that hostile foreign actors are exploiting the online encyclopedia to insert anti-Israel or antisemitic framing designed to sway audiences.
Earlier last year, the US Justice Department warned the Wikimedia Foundation that its nonprofit status could be jeopardized for possibly violating its “legal obligations and fiduciary responsibilities” under US law. Specifically, the department expressed concern about accusations that the online encyclopedia has spread “propaganda” and allowed “foreign actors to manipulate information” while maintaining a systemic bias against Israel.