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As Orthodox Union and other Jewish groups condemn settler rampage, many avoid mentioning Benjamin Netanyahu
WASHINGTON (JTA) — As American Jewish organizations responded to Sunday’s settler riot in the West Bank, most began with statements of condemnation.
One began with a question: “How can such a thing happen?”
“How could it come to this, that Jewish young men should ransack and burn homes and cars?” continued the statement from Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, who added that “we cannot understand or accept this.”
He concluded with a note of desperation: “What happened yesterday must never, ever happen again.”
Hauer’s anguish was all the more notable because it came from a group whose constituency, American Orthodox Jews, has historically sympathized with the movement to create Jewish settlements in the West Bank. And Hauer’s statement did something else that many other groups did not: It appeared to question the leadership of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Attacking a village does not deserve to be called ‘taking the law into your own hands,’” Hauer’s statement said. “This is not the law; this is undisciplined and random fury. Actions like these demonstrate the critical need for clear and strong leadership.”
While Hauer didn’t mention Netanyahu by name (and didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment) the implication was clear: On Sunday, in response to the riot in the town of Huwara, Netanyahu said, “I ask – even when the blood is boiling – not to take the law into one’s hands.”
The Orthodox Union has for years criticized U.S. pressure on Israel to accept a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians or to share Jerusalem. In 2007 it stood out among Jewish groups leading criticism of the then Israeli government for contemplating a Palestinian role in Jerusalem.
Beyond the O.U, Jewish groups decried the actions of the settlers but mostly avoided mentioning the Israeli government or its leader. Instead, some looked to Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial but who has sought to broker compromise amid the current contentious government. He had issued a “forceful condemnation” of the rioting on Sunday, saying that security forces, not civilians “committing violence against innocents,” should respond to terrorism.
Affirming and quoting the Israeli prime minister was once a reflex for legacy groups when commenting on crises in Israel. But times have changed. Israel’s government includes far-right parties and ministers who are themselves settlers and have long advocated harsher measures in response to Palestinian terror.
One official, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, was once convicted of incitement to violence. And some coalition members have sympathized with the rioters in the wake of the rampage. Against that backdrop, Netanyahu did not feature in many American Jewish organizations’ statements. Others condemned the prime minister for his links to the far right or what they saw as his government’s tepid response.
“Though some Israeli leaders, including the prime minister, called for restraint, the government failed to prevent or quickly curtail this unacceptable violence,” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said in an emailed statement. “Those responsible must be held accountable and safety and security for Jews and Palestinians alike must prevail.”
The Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee both cited Herzog’s statement, and declared, respectively, their “outrage” and condemnation of “this violence in the strongest terms.”
The AJC declined further comment, and the ADL, asked to elaborate on its statement, condemned lawmakers who incite violence, while avoiding mentioning the fact that they are members of Israel’s governing coalition.
“There is also no excuse for the incitement to violence we heard from a few political leaders, including some Israeli Knesset Members,” a spokesman said in an email. “We join Israeli President Herzog’s call for a de-escalation of violence, and urge Israeli law enforcement to ensure that those involved in the Huwara violence are held accountable.”
Asked for a statement, William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, did not mention the government or Netanyahu. “I condemn without reservation the riots and violence in Hawara,” he said in an interview. “There is no excuse for lawless vigilantism.”
In a statement later, Daroff suggested that if Israeli politicians fail to condemn the settler violence, there could be consequences for the relationship with Jews overseas.
“These criminal acts of violence and vandalism harm Jewish sovereignty and Israel’s relationship with the global Jewish diaspora,” he said. “We urge Knesset members to speak out against these attacks while pursuing a peaceful resolution.”
The Jewish organizations approached for this story did not reply when asked what they planned to do if Netanyahu fails to take action. A number of regional Jewish organizations and rabbis have previously called for boycotts of far-right coalition members if and when they tour the United States.
Israeli authorities arrested a number of the rioters, and then let them go. No plans for prosecution have been reported yet.
The Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly stood out for extending its condolences to both Jewish and Arab victims of violence on Sunday — an equivalence that is extremely rare in Jewish groups’ statements. The group’s message, written in English and Hebrew, mentions both the family of the two Israelis who were shot while driving through Huwara, and the family of the Palestinian who reportedly was shot dead while pleading with settlers to leave his village alone.
“We are in pain and join the condolences to the families of those killed, among them the Yaniv family and the Al-Aqtash family and wish a speedy and full recovery to all who were injured,” the group said, referring to the Israeli and Palestinian victims, respectively. “We expect our government, the IDF, and the police, to act to prevent harm to people and to property, and to try any person who has chosen to harm another person.”
Americans for Peace Now and J Street both called on the Biden administration to use its leverage to get Netanyahu to take action.
“Netanyahu’s extremist coalition is demonstrating that it will not be stopped by polite protestations or vague agreements,” J Street said. “Only by setting clear redlines and tangible consequences can the US hope to deter this government.”
Americans for Peace Now similarly called on Biden to “hold the government of Israel accountable for both its unrestrained settlement activity and its enabling of settler violence,” while the liberal rabbinic human rights group T’ruah said the Israeli government “has fueled the incitement that led to this attack.”
The Israel Policy Forum, a group that backs a two-state outcome, decried the lack of accountability for the rioters for the attacks on the Hawara residents. “Their only crimes were being Palestinians living in proximity to a spot where a different Palestinian committed a terrorist attack, and the settlers who rampaged through their homes and streets unimpeded, without any real consequences, represent the daily injustice that Palestinians face as non-citizens on their land with no recourse to any responsible higher authority,” it said in a statement.
Some organizations praised Netanyahu’s government for speaking out against the riot. The Jewish Federations of North America commended “the Government of Israel for speaking out quickly to lower tensions.” And the American Israel Public Affairs Committee appeared to tie the settlers’ vigilantism to Palestinian terrorism.
“As Israel’s Prime Minister and President clearly indicated, vigilante action cannot be tolerated,” its spokesman said. “Terrorism will not decline as long as the Palestinian leadership continues incitement, rewards terrorism with payments to terrorists and their families, and encourages the public celebration of Israeli fatalities.”
At least one organizational leader echoed the sentiments of Israeli officials who sympathized with the rioters. Morton Klein, CEO of the Zionist Organization of America, said in an interview that he condemned the rioters, but also understood what drove them.
“I don’t believe that civilians should be taking the law into their own hands,” he said. “I oppose civilians taking on their own hands, that’s for sure, but you know, after constant murder of people, you know, people lose control.”
Klein said Israel needed to “put enormous pressure in every way you can” on Palestinians in order to quell violence in the West Bank. Asked whether Israel also deserved pressure to bring the settler rioters to justice, Klein said that was not a concern of his.
“Arabs care more about Arabs than they do about non-Arabs and Jews care more about Jews than they do about non-Jews,” said Klein, who met in person with Ben-Gvir last week in Israel. “It’s a natural human trait.”
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India’s Modi Visits Israel, Expresses Support for Jewish State as US-Iran Tensions Mount
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend a welcome ceremony upon Modi’s arrival at Ben Gurion International Airport in Lod, near Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Shir Torem
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Israel on Wednesday for a two-day visit that both countries have cast as a chance to deepen relations, as regional concerns mount over the risk of military conflict between the United States and Iran.
In an address to the Israeli parliament, Modi told lawmakers that India stood with Israel “with full conviction” as he shared his nation’s condolences over the October 2023 Hamas attack.
“Like you, we have a consistent and uncompromising policy of zero tolerance for terrorism, with no double standards,” he said.
Both Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also addressed the parliament, spoke of terrorist attacks that their nations had faced, with Netanyahu saying India and Israel both faced the challenge of confronting “radical Islam.”
Some opposition lawmakers briefly walked out of the special session, protesting at the speaker’s decision not to invite the head of the Supreme Court, but returned for Modi‘s remarks.
Netanyahu’s right-wing government, which the speaker belongs to, has had a confrontational relationship with the court.
Modi, a Hindu nationalist, became the first prime minister in India’s history to visit Israel in 2017, during which he and Netanyahu took a barefoot stroll on a beach in the northern port city of Haifa.
Both still in power nearly nine years later, the two leaders, who describe one another as friends, are expected to hold talks on artificial intelligence as well as defense at a time when Israel is seeking to increase its military exports.
An Israeli government official said Modi‘s visit would “pave the way for new partnerships and collaborations across many fields.” Bilateral ties were on the cusp of a significant upgrade, an Israeli foreign ministry official said.
US MILITARY BUILDUP NEAR IRAN
Modi is visiting as the United States deploys a vast naval force near Iran‘s coast ahead of possible strikes on the Islamic Republic, with the two countries at an impasse in talks over Tehran’s nuclear program. The Pentagon has also deployed an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean, bound for Israel‘s coast.
A US attack on Iran could draw Iranian retaliation against Israel as well as US military facilities in Gulf Arab countries, where millions of Indians live and work and send home billions of dollars of remittances each year.
In his speech to lawmakers, Modi vaguely spoke about the challenges facing stability in the region, acknowledging that the landscape had become more challenging in recent years, but made no mention of the US military build-up, or of Iran.
He backed the US plan to end the war in Gaza, telling the parliament that it could lead to peace “for all people of the region, including by addressing the Palestinian issue.”
“The road to peace is not always easy. But India joins you and the world for dialogue, peace, and stability in this region,” Modi said.
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CIA Launches Fresh Social Media Push to Recruit Iranians as Trump Threatens Military Action
The seal of the Central Intelligence Agency is shown at the entrance of the CIA headquarters in McLean, Virginia, US, Sept. 24, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
The US Central Intelligence Agency has posted on social media new Farsi-language instructions for Iranians wishing to securely contact the spy service.
The CIA recruitment effort comes amid a massive buildup of US military forces in the Middle East that President Donald Trump could order to attack Iran if talks with the US set for Thursday fail to reach a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Trump began laying out the case for a possible US operation in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, saying he would not allow the Islamic Republic, which he called the world’s biggest sponsor of terrorism, to have a nuclear weapon. Iran denies seeking a nuclear arsenal.
“They [Iran‘s leaders] want to start all over again, and are, at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions,” he said, accusing Iran of restarting its nuclear program, working to build missiles that “soon” would be capable of reaching the United States, and of being responsible for roadside bombings that have killed US service members and civilians.
“The [Iranian] regime and its murderous proxies have spread nothing but terrorism and death and hate,” the Republican president said about 90 minutes into his annual address to a joint session of the Senate and House of Representatives.
The CIA posted its Farsi-language message on Tuesday on its X, Instagram, Facebook, Telegram, and YouTube accounts.
The message is the latest in a series by the CIA aimed at enlisting sources in Iran, China, North Korea, and Russia.
The agency urged Iranians wishing to make contact to “take appropriate action” to protect themselves before doing so and avoid using work computers or their phones.
“Use a new, disposable device, if possible” and “be aware of your surroundings and who may be able to see your screen or activity,” continued the message, adding that those who make contact, provide their locations, names, job titles and “access to information or skills of interest to our agency.”
Those individuals, said the message, should use a trusted Virtual Private Network “not headquartered in Russia, Iran, or China,” or the Tor Network, which encrypts data and hides the user’s IP address.
The CIA declined to comment. Iran’s delegation to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are scheduled to meet Iranian officials led by Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in Geneva on Thursday for a new round of negotiations on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Trump has threatened military action if the talks fail to reach an agreement, or if Tehran executes people arrested for participating in nationwide anti-government demonstrations in January.
Rights groups say thousands of people were killed in the government crackdown on the protests, the worst domestic unrest in Iran since the era of its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
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UK Green Leader Backs Proposed ‘Zionism Is Racism’ Party Platform
A Green Party march in London. Photo: Alan Stanton/Flickr
The top official in the United Kingdom’s Green Party has come out in support of a “Zionism Is Racism” motion to be debated at the party’s March conference which could shift the leftist political organization’s official position to full-scale removal of Israel off the map, to be replaced with “a single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital.”
Lubna Speitan, a British-Palestinian Green Party member who serves in the Greens for Palestine Steering Group and the Greenwich Palestine Alliance, on Tuesday announced she had submitted Motion A105, creatively titled “Zionism Is Racism,” for debate at the UK Green Party’s Spring Conference on March 28.
The measure has received the support of Green Party Leader Zack Polanski.
“I’ll wait to hear the debate, but absolutely, if the definition of Zionism is what is happening right now by the Israeli government, then yes, absolutely, that’s racist and I’ll vote for it,” he said on Times Radio.
However, Speitan’s proposal goes much further than condemning Zionism — the national movement of the Jewish people to reestablish a state in their ancient homeland — as an allegedly racist ideology, a slander which the Soviet Union’s espionage agencies began promoting in the 1970s, most notably and successfully at the United Nations General Assembly with the passage of Resolution 3379 on Nov. 10, 1975. The infamous measure, which asserted that Zionism was “a form of racism and racial discrimination,” was ultimately overturned in 1991.
The Soviet Union’s effort to link Zionism to racism drew arguments from the notorious “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” and argued that Judaism’s concept of “the chosen people” promoted racial superiority.
“This deliberate slur interpolated and distorted the real meaning of Judaism which explains the Jewish people are ‘chosen,’ or set apart, for special and burdensome religious and social obligations,” according to the American Jewish Committee.
Speitan’s measure calls for the Green Party to adopt Hamas’s position of eliminating Israel from the map, to replace the Jewish state with a Palestinian state.
The motion offers eight points, the third of which appears to call for either the mass expulsion or genocide of the Israeli people: “Following from Motion E05, which affirmed that Israel is an apartheid State committing genocide, and Motion E07 supporting reparations and accountability, the Green Party supports the establishment of a single democratic Palestinian State in all of historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital, equal rights for all, and the right of return for Palestinians and their descendants.”
Speitan connects this call for “the right of the return” with announcing an end of a Jewish state. This longstanding Palestinian demand insists that potentially millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees should return to the land of Israel, a step that, according to many pro-Palestinian activists, would result in the abolition of the world’s only Jewish state.
The measure also advocates explicit support for terrorism against Israel, with point four stating that the Green Party would affirm “the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination, including the right of the Palestinian people to resistance and liberation from Israeli occupation, domination and subjugation, and acknowledges that the struggle to achieve that liberation by all available means under international law is legitimate.”
This apparent advocacy of violence aligns with statements made last year by Speitan in support of terrorism against the Jewish state.
“The only way forward for the liberation of any people is going to be by force, what was taken by force must be returned by force and this comes with military intervention, and for me I support our right to the armed struggle. We must never deny that,” Speitan said in a September 2025 speech. “I will refuse to condemn the resistance of any repressed or occupied people because we have that right. Only we can claim self-defense, not the occupier.”
Speitan continued, “The moment we rise, we call for resistance, [they say] ‘you terrorist.’”
John Mann, the UK government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, labeled Speitan’s anti-Zionist proposal “support for terrorism and overt racism against Jews. There is no ambiguity. It’s from the extreme margins of politics.”
He went on to invoke former UK Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose time at the helm of the party was marked by a succession of scandals involving antisemitism, to show how extreme the Green Party has become.
“This is well beyond anything that happened during Labour under Jeremy Corbyn,” Mann declared. “This makes Corbyn look like a moderate. The crank element that even Corbyn was worried about has entered the Greens en masse.”
Speaking to Britain’s Daily Mail, Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel labeled the motion “one of the most hateful and racist documents I’ve ever read.”
“It calls for the destruction of Israel and seeks to justify terrorism against Israel,” Haskel added, referring to the proposal. “Its intent is to justify the destruction of the Jewish homeland and deny the right of Jews to a national home. The double standards are extraordinary as they demand a national home for Palestinians but not Jews.”
Haskel added, “I completely condemn this horrific document and hope the people of the UK see the Greens for what they are – a racist and hateful political party.”
The group Jewish Greens has urged voting against Speitan’s proposal.
“This is not your run-of-the-mill motion opposing Israel’s actions (something that Jewish Greens would have no problem with), but something much more problematic that is likely to make Jews feel unwelcome in the Green Party,” the group stated. “We urge Green Party members to listen to their Jewish comrades within the party, and consider whether this motion is appropriate for the type of party they want to be in.”
The statement urged for a broader understanding of Zionism, explaining that “calling all forms or interpretations of Zionism ‘racism’ is painting a very diverse group of people with a very broad brush and in effect, it accepts the most extreme right-wing version of Zionism (aka – Kahanism) peddled by the far right as definitive. This is like accepting the EDL’s definition of Englishness. Or like banning all forms of USA nationalism based on the horrendous crimes of the Trump administration.”
Reflecting on the degree with which the party had shifted in recent years, Mann called Speitan’s measure “about as far away as from Green politics of the past as is possible. Greens used to be about stopping fossil fuels and nuclear power and building wind farms. Now hate is bringing members surging into the Green party.”
On Oct. 19, 2025, the Green Party of England and Wales announced that “membership has surged past the Conservative Party, making the Greens the third largest party in the UK. From this position, and with Labour’s clear shift to the right, it’s clear that the Greens are now the Party of choice to counter Reform and their brand of divisive politics.”
The party stated that “membership now stands at over 126,000. This latest milestone marks an 80 percent increase since Zack Polanski was elected Leader of the party last month. The Greens now have more than double the reported members of the Liberal Democrats.”
Polanski said then that British politics “is changing and support for old-style parties built on privilege and power is shrinking. Increasing numbers of people are walking away from the politics of austerity, inequality and division and choosing a new kind of politics that offers a bold, hopeful vision of prosperity, equality and unity. Our membership boom reflects growing public frustration with the political status quo and a hunger for genuine alternatives.”
According to the UK’s Jewish News, Polanski has faced mounting pressure to support the latest anti-Zionist motion from a new group of hardline anti-Israel activists within the party. “Supporting the motion would effectively mean declaring his own mother and other members of his Jewish family — staunch supporters of Israel who have criticized pro-Palestine marches — as racists,” the outlet noted.
A YouGov poll of UK party preferences conducted Feb. 9-10, 2025, placed the Greens as the fifth most popular party in the country coming in at 9 percent support compared to the Liberal Democrats (14 percent), Conservatives (21 percent), Labour (25 percent), and Reform UK (26 percent). A total of 21 percent of Britons polled said they would consider voting for a Green candidate with higher levels of support among those 18-24 (36 percent) and 25-49 (27 percent).
In Britain’s House of Commons, Green politicians currently occupy four seats compared to 404 controlled by Labour, 116 to the Conservatives, 72 to Liberal Democrats, 13 independents, 9 members of the Scottish National Party, and 8 members of Reform UK. Pollsters in the UK have found considerable crossover between the Liberal Democrats and the Greens with 51 percent of the members in each party supporting a merger with the other.
The Jewish Greens explained the practical implications of what adoption of the “Zionism Is Racism” position would entail for the party, noting that any member supporting Zionism could then potentially be expelled, a position which the Democratic Socialists of America (a group with 78,000 members) explicitly adopted last year.
“Most Jewish institutions in the UK have some sort of connection to Zionism. Some closer, some less so. The motion proposers – in a response to a question from Jewish Greens – have made it clear that they will expect the motion to proscribe Zionists,” the Jewish Greens stated. “This gives the party the option to expel almost any Jew involved in organized communal life or who has ever been, including our party leader. Meaning that most Jews in the party – whether they define themselves as Zionists or not – are one grudge away from being dragged through the disciplinary process on spurious charges of ‘Zionism.’”