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A Golda Meir biopic starring Helen Mirren avoids politics. It premiered as Israel’s government faces widespread scrutiny.
(JTA) — When a film about a group of Israeli youths who visit former concentration camps in Poland premiered on Sunday at the Berlin Film Festival, its Israeli producer took the microphone after the screening to decry the state of his nation.
“The new far-right government that is in power is pushing fascist and racist laws,” said Yoav Roeh, a producer of “Ha’Mishlahat” (“Delegation”) on stage after the film’s premiere. He was referring to lawmakers in Israel’s government who have long histories of anti-Arab rhetoric and their new proposals to limit the power of the country’s Supreme Court, which critics at home and around the world deem a blow to Israel’s status as a democracy.
“Israel is committing suicide after 75 years of existence,” Roeh added.
The next day brought the premiere of “Golda,” a highly-anticipated Golda Meir biopic starring Oscar winner Helen Mirren about the former Israeli prime minister and her decisions during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Hours earlier, Israel’s government took another step closer to passing its controversial judicial reforms, and when asked about the political situation, Mirren didn’t mince words.
“I think [Meir] would have been utterly horrified,” she told AFP. “It’s the rise of dictatorship and dictatorship was what has always been the enemy of people all over the world and she would recognize it as that.”
That was the heated backdrop for the debut of “Golda,” which will not hit U.S. theaters until August. But an onlooker wouldn’t know that from the film’s own introductory press conference with Mirren, director Guy Nattiv and other stars from the film. The headlines that have emerged from it have been dominated by the film’s place in the “Jewface” debate, about who should play Jewish characters on screen. Mirren is not Israeli or Jewish.
“Let’s say that we’re making a movie about Jesus Christ. Who’s going to play him?” Mirren’s co-star Lior Ashkenazi stepped in to answer in response to a journalist, eliciting laughter from the press corps.
The film is framed by Meir’s testimony to the Agranat Commission, which investigated the lead-up to the war. As the film shows through flashbacks, Meir appears to have not acted quickly enough on Mossad intelligence about a possible attack from Egyptian and Syrian forces. Israeli forces were surprised on the holiday and initially lost ground; both sides lost thousands of troops, and the war is seen as a major trauma in Israeli history — the moment when the state’s conception of its military superiority over its Arab neighbors was shattered. The film is claustrophobic, shot mostly indoors — in bunkers, hospital rooms and government offices — and offers an apt visual encapsulation of the loss the war would bring.
Mirren walks the red carpet at the Berlin Film Festival, Feb. 20, 2023. She spent time on a kibbutz in 1967. (Courtesy of Berlinale)
Though Meir has historically been lionized as a tough female hero in the United States and in Jewish communities around the world (even non-Jewish soldiers in Ukraine took inspiration from her in the early days of the Russian invasion last year), her legacy is more complicated in Israel and the Palestinian territories. In addition to being associated with the trauma of the war for many Jewish Israelis, she is remembered as an inveterate enemy by Palestinians.
In recent years, the representation of Meir has shifted more favorably in Israel, said Meron Medzini, Meir’s former press secretary and one of her biographers. He said that historians have begun to view her favorably in comparison to some of the political leaders who followed her.
“I consider the film [‘Golda’] part of this effort to rehabilitate her name,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I think she is now gaining her rightful place in the history.”
“Golda” fits into Medzini’s narrative by emphasizing the intractability and pride of her Cabinet ministers as the prime reasons for Israel’s surprise. It affirms Meir’s honor by portraying her as attempting to protect the ministers from criticism — all men — and to promote national unity.
At the press conference, Nattiv gave the briefest of nods to Meir’s complex legacy but like Medzini compared her to Israel’s current slate of leaders, who he reserved brief criticism for.
“Golda is not a super clean character in this movie,” said Nattiv, who is best known for directing “Skin,” a 2018 film about a neo-Nazi. “She had her faults. She made mistakes. And she took responsibility, which leaders are not doing today.”
Meir has long enjoyed a kind of star status in the United States. She was interviewed by Barbra Streisand in 1978, close to the Israeli leader’s death from cancer, for a TV special on Israel’s 30th anniversary.
“She clearly is the great-grandmother of the Jewish people [in the special] and Streisand is very reverential toward her,” Tony Shaw, a history professor at the University of Hertfordshire and the author of “Hollywood and Israel: A History,” said about the Streisand interview. “She just comes across as very humble, slightly out-of-date, out-of-time.”
“Of course, it’s very different from what we now know Golda Meir was really like,” he added, referring to her strong character and political pragmatism, which the film seeks to convey.
Since William Gibson’s critically-panned 1977 play also titled “Golda,” there have been a number of representations of Meir. Most famous among them is Ingrid Bergman’s final performance in “Golda Meir,” a four-hour-long television biopic from 1982. That production “was very much in keeping with Hollywood’s treatment of Israel in that period,” said Shaw, “which was very sympathetic towards Golda Meir, towards Israel and the troubles it was having in the first 30 years of its life.” More recently, Meir appears in Steven Spielberg’s more ambivalent 2005 film “Munich,” in which she helps to recruit the film’s protagonist to track down the figures behind the 1972 Munich Olympics attacks.
Golda Meir meets with Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan and troops on the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War, Oct. 21, 1973. (Ron Frenkel/GPO/Getty Images)
Nattiv’s work, which has received mixed early reviews, focuses on the war as reflected in Meir’s character, forgoing engagement with broader politics or history.
“My inspiration was ‘Das Boot,’ in the way that she is in the trenches,” said Nattiv, referencing the revered World War II movie from 1981 set in a German U-boat. “She is very alone in the mayhem of war around these men.”
“This is the Vietnam of Israel,” he explained. “It is a very tough and hard look at the war and every soldier that died…Golda takes it to her heart.”
Despite the “Jewface” questioning, Nattiv compared Mirren to an “aunt” figure who, for him, had the “Jewish chops to portray Golda.” Mirren explained to the AFP that she has long felt a connection to Israel and to Meir, especially after a stay on a kibbutz in 1967, not long after the Six-Day War, with a Jewish boyfriend.
“She was at her happiest on the kibbutz actually,” Mirren said. “Their idealism, their dream of the perfect world. And I did experience that which was great.”
Sanders Isaac Bernstein contributed reporting from Berlin.
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Iranian Lawmakers Compare Trump to ‘Pharoah,’ Judiciary Chief Vows to ‘Punish’ US President
Cars burn in a street during an anti-regime protest in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 8, 2026. Photo: Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Amid soaring tensions with the United States, Iranian lawmakers on Monday cast President Donald Trump as a modern-day Pharaoh and hailed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Moses, framing the nation’s worst domestic crisis in years as a battle of biblical proportions.
During a parliamentary session, Iranian lawmakers vowed that Khamenei would “make Trump and his allies taste humiliation.”
“Our leader would drown you in the sea of the anger of believers and the oppressed of the world, to serve as a lesson for the arrogant world,” Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was quoted as saying by local media.
Ghalibaf also described the widespread anti‑government protests that have swept the country for weeks as an American‑Israeli plot and a “terrorist war,” claiming the unrest was being orchestrated to destabilize the state.
Tensions between Tehran and Washington have surged sharply in recent weeks, as Iranian security forces struggle to quell anti-regime protests and officials face mounting international pressure over the government’s brutal crackdown.
The nationwide protests, which began with a shopkeepers’ strike in Tehran on Dec. 28, initially reflected public anger over the soaring cost of living, a deepening economic crisis, and the rial — Iran’s currency — plummeting to record lows amid renewed economic sanctions, with annual inflation near 40 percent.
With demonstrations now stretching over three weeks, the protests have grown into a broader anti-government movement calling for the fall of Khamenei and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and even a broader collapse of the country’s Islamist, authoritarian system.
On Sunday, Pezeshkian warned that any attempt to target the country’s supreme leader would amount to a declaration of war, accusing the United States of stoking mass protests that have thrown the nation into turmoil amid reports that Washington is weighing moves against the regime’s leadership.
“If there are hardship and constraints in the lives of the dear people of Iran, one of the main causes is the longstanding hostility and inhumane sanctions imposed by the US government and its allies,” the Iranian leader said in a statement.
The regime has escalated its threats following repeated statements by Trump, who has called for an end to Khamenei’s nearly four decades in power, labeled him “a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people,” and warned of possible strikes if the government’s brutal crackdown continues.
In response to Trump’s threats and mounting pressure, Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, has declared that authorities will seek to prosecute not only individuals accused of fueling the recent unrest but also foreign governments he blames for backing the protests.
“Those who called for it, those who provided financial support, propaganda or weapons — whether the United States, the Zionist regime or their agents — are all criminals and each of them must be held accountable,” Ejei told local media.
He even threatened to target Trump specifically.
“We will not abandon the pursuit and prosecution of the perpetrators of the recent crimes in domestic courts and through international channels,” the judiciary chief posted on the social media platform X. “The [resident of the United States, the ringleaders of the accursed Zionist regime, and other backers and supporters — both in terms of armaments and propaganda — of the criminals and terrorists behind the recent events are among the perpetrators who, in proportion to the extent and scale of their crimes, will be pursued, tried, and punished.”
Iranian officials have also dismissed Trump’s claims about halting execution sentences for protesters as “useless and baseless nonsense,” warning that the government’s response to the unrest will be “decisive, deterrent, and swift.”
Meanwhile, government officials have hailed victory over what they called one of “the most complex conspiracies ever launched by the enemies of” the country, while expressing deep gratitude to the “smart, noble, and perceptive” Iranian people.
However, the protests have not ceased, with violence continuing and tensions escalating.
The US-based group Human Rights Activists in Iran has confirmed 4,029 deaths during the protests, while the number of fatalities under review stands at 9,049. Additionally, at least 5,811 people have been injured the protests, and the total number of arrests stands at 26,015.
Iranian officials have put the death toll at 5,000 while some reports indicate the figure could be much higher. The Sunday Times, for example, obtained a new report from doctors on the ground, which states that at least 16,500 protesters have died and 330,000 have been injured.
The exact numbers are difficult to verify, as the regime has imposed an internet blackout across the country while imposing its crackdown.
On Monday, National Police Chief Ahmad-Reza Radan issued an ultimatum to protesters involved in what authorities called “riots,” warning they must surrender within three days or face the full force of the law, while urging young people “deceived” into the unrest to turn themselves in for lighter punishment.
Those “who became unwittingly involved in the riots are considered to be deceived individuals, not enemy soldiers, and will be treated with leniency,” Radan was quoted as saying by Iranian media.
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Former Biden Antisemitism Envoy Condemns Harris Campaign’s ‘Antisemitic Inquiry’ of Jewish Gov. Josh Shapiro
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro delivers remarks at a bill signing event at Cheyney University, an HBCU in Cheyney, Pennsylvania, US, Aug. 2, 2024. Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers via Reuters Connect
The Biden administration’s deputy special envoy for combating antisemitism accused Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign of antisemitism following new revelations that the vetting process to determine her running mate for vice president involved grilling Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, on whether he was a “double agent” for Israel.
Jews should be “treated like any other American, regardless of religion, ethnicity, or race. That Gov. Josh Shapiro wrote that he was asked if he was a double agent of the world’s only Jewish state is an antisemitic inquiry,” Aaron Keyak, who also served as the “Jewish engagement director for the Biden-Harris presidential campaign in 2020, said in a statement.
Keyak suggested that Shapiro was “targeted by the staff of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee” because of his religion, lamenting that the accusation represents a long line of incidents in which federal officials filling roles have “applied a double standard to American Jews during the vetting process.” He added that he had “personal experience” with being asked similar questions and that he has “heard from too many being asked similar questions over many years.”
The statement came after it was revealed that Shapiro was asked during the 2024 Democratic vice-presidential vetting process whether he had ever acted as a “double agent” of the Israeli government, a question he described as deeply offensive and emblematic of a broader problem in how pro-Israel views are sometimes treated in US politics.
In his forthcoming memoir, Where We Keep the Light, Shapiro reflects on being questioned by members of then-US Vice President Kamala Harris’s vetting team about his ties to Israel, including questions of whether he had ever communicated with Israeli intelligence or acted as a “double agent.” Shapiro writes that he immediately pushed back, telling the vetting aide that the question was “offensive” and echoed long-standing antisemitic tropes questioning Jewish Americans’ loyalty.
According to Shapiro, he was told the questions were standard procedure. But the governor, one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent Jewish elected officials, says the experience left him unsettled, particularly because of the historical baggage attached to such accusations.
Shapiro portrays the encounter as “unnecessarily contentious” and suggests in is memoir that no other candidate would be asked whether their faith or foreign policy views made them a secret agent of another country.
“Had I been a double agent for Israel? Was she kidding? I told her how offensive the question was,” Shapiro writes.
“Remus was just doing her job. I get it. But the fact that she asked, or was told to ask that question, by someone else, said a lot about some of the people around the VP,” the governor continues, referring to Dana Remus, a former White House counsel and member of the vetting team.
Shapiro claims that he felt bothered that the Harris team pressed him on his overarching worldview rather than the substance of his positions.
“It nagged at me that their questions weren’t really about substance,” Shapiro writes. “Rather, they were questioning my ideology, my approach, my world view.”
Shapiro also alleges that the Harris team asked whether he would be willing to apologize and walk back condemnations of pro-Hamas protesters on Pennsylvania college campuses. In the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel, activists organized demonstrations celebrating the massacre and venerating the Palestinian terrorist group. Shapiro vigorously denounced the protesters, comparing them to the Ku Klux Klan. His response drew strong criticism from progressive corners of the Democratic Party, which accused him of harboring “anti-Palestinian racism.”
The controversy comes amid heightened political tensions in the Democratic Party over Israel following the Oct. 7 atrocities and the ensuing war in Gaza, which has intensified scrutiny of pro-Israel politicians, especially within progressive Democratic circles.
“The more I read about [Shapiro’s] treatment in the vetting process, the more disturbed I become,” Deborah Lipstadt, the former antisemitism envoy in the Biden administration, said in a post on X/Twitter. “These questions were classic antisemitism.”
Former longtime leader of the Anti-Defamation League Abraham Foxman echoed these condemnations on social media, calling the episode “very disturbing.”
“Aides focused on Israel to the extent he found it offensive. Something very troubling about our current political culture,” he wrote.
Shapiro ultimately was not selected as Harris’s running mate. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was chosen instead.
Harris, who served as vice president in the administration of former US President Joe Biden, lost the 2024 election to Donald Trump.
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‘Hands on Our Weapons’: Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq Threatens to Hit US Bases if Trump Strikes Iran
A vehicle carries the coffin of a commander from Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah armed group who was killed in what they called a “Zionist attack” in the Syrian capital Damascus, during a funeral in Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Thaier Al-Sudani
Kataib Hezbollah, a US-designated terrorist group based in Iraq, has threatened to attack American military bases in the Middle East if President Donald Trump follows through on his threats to strike the Iranian regime in response to state violence against anti-government protesters.
“Kataib Hezbollah is part of the conflict between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we will not stand on the sidelines. Our hands are on our weapons,” Abu Talib al-Saidi, a senior commander in the Iran-backed militia, told Shafaq News on Friday. He made the comments during a protest outside Iran’s embassy in Baghdad opposing Trump’s threats of military intervention against Tehran.
“During the 12-day war that America waged against Iran, there was a directive and mandate from [Iranian] Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei that we should not interfere in this war, but the situation now is completely different,” al-Saidi continued, referring to the Iran-Israel war last June, when the US struck Iranian nuclear sites following a devastating Israeli air campaign.
“The resistance’s missiles and drones are ready,” he added. “We have a high level of readiness and definitely in case the United States directs strikes on Iran, US bases in Iraq and neighboring countries will not be immune from our missiles and our planes.”
Kataib Hezbollah is part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, a group of militias that are part of an official Iraqi security institution. According to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the Shiite terrorist group is “the premier militia in Iraq, operating under Iran’s direct command and fielding a wide range of cells responsible for kinetic, media, and social operations, some bankrolled by the Iraqi state.” The US government listed the organization as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group on July 2, 2009, following a strike on troops in Iraq.
Al-Saidi’s warning followed repeated threats by Trump to target Iran in some manner in response to the regime’s deadly crackdown on protests, which began on Dec. 28 over economic hardships but quickly swelled into nationwide demonstrations calling for the downfall of the country’s Islamist, authoritarian system.
“We’re watching [the protests in Iran] very closely,” Trump told journalists aboard Air Force One on Jan. 4. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States.”
The president’s top military advisers reportedly warned him that additional time would be needed to prepare for a potential attack on the regime.
On Jan. 11, Trump said that the US was willing to meet with Iranian officials and in touch with opposition leaders. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said at the time that “the communication channel between our Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi and the US special envoy [Steve Witkoff] is open and messages are exchanged whenever necessary.”
Two days later, Trump called on Iranian protesters to “take over your institutions” and suggested the US was prepared to take strong action against the regime.
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” he posted on social media. “Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have canceled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA [Make Iran Great Again]!!!”
Last Wednesday, an anonymous US official told Reuters that the military had chosen to withdraw some personnel from military bases, a decision mirrored by the United Kingdom which pulled people from their posts in Qatar.
On Friday, Trump denied reports that pressure from Israel and Gulf Arab monarchies to reject a strike on Iran had influenced his decision not to strike yet. He told reporters on the White House lawn that “nobody convinced me. I convinced myself. You had yesterday scheduled over 800 hangings. They didn’t hang anyone. They canceled the hangings. That had a big impact.”
Khamenei and other Iranian officials have blamed Trump for the demonstrations.
The US-based group Human Rights Activists in Iran has confirmed 4,029 deaths during the protests, while the number of fatalities under review stands at 9,049. Additionally, at least 5,811 people have been injured the protests, and the total number of arrests stands at 26,015.
Iranian officials have put the death toll at 5,000 while some reports indicate the figure could be much higher. The Sunday Times, for example, obtained a new report from doctors on the ground, which states that at least 16,500 protesters have died and 330,000 have been injured,
Some Iraqi militia fighters, including members of Kataib Hezbollah, have reportedly aided the Iranian regime with the crackdown against protesters.