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Avi Maoz, Israeli politician and ‘proud homophobe,’ resigns from deputy minister role
(JTA) — Anti-LGBTQ politician Avi Maoz has resigned from the Israeli cabinet, claiming that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu balked on letting him launch an initiative to shape Jewish identity.
Maoz heads the Noam Party, one of three in the far-right Religious Zionist bloc that helped return Netanyahu to office. For the past two months, he has served as a deputy minister in Netanyahu’s cabinet, and was placed in charge of a proposed National Jewish Identity Authority. His resignation letter, sent on Monday, said he is not withdrawing his support of the coalition, which still holds a majority of 64 lawmakers in the 120-seat Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
Maoz said in his letter that he had hoped to “cancel the policies of the [previous government] in the ministries of Education, Labor and Health, policies that were aimed at changing our basic concepts of the people of Israel and the Jewish family.”
He continued, “To my amazement, I discovered there was never any serious intention to fulfill the coalition agreement regarding the National Jewish Identity Authority.” Maoz’s letter was posted to Twitter by Times of Israel reporter Tal Schneider.
Maoz is one of a number of Netanyahu allies who have pursued profound shifts in multiple spheres, including by overhauling the judiciary and making significant changes to Israeli West Bank settlements and the country’s education system, among other spheres. The proposed changes Netanyahu’s coalition has advanced have drawn international criticism and massive public protests. Maoz is one of several coalition partners accusing him of slow-walking some of the changes.
Maoz has called himself a “proud homophobe” and has sought to scrub perceived foreign influences from Israeli education. His position as deputy minister came with an office and staff that was intended to shape Israel’s Jewish identity. The agreement he signed with Netanyahu gave Maoz responsibility for extracurricular activity at Israel’s schools, and sparked protests at school districts across the country.
But Maoz said Netanyahu and the Education Ministry have stalled on transferring those responsibilities. Moreover, he said, his efforts to further restrict the rights of non-Orthodox groups to pray at the Western Wall and to force Israeli government forms to have spaces for “Mother” and “Father” (rather than gender-neutral spaces for each parent) “have not been fulfilled as of this writing.”
But in a post to his party’s Facebook page, Maoz wrote that he still supported the Netanyahu government, which he called “100 times better” than its predecessor. He portrayed his decision as a strategic move to maximize his impact in Knesset, where he believes he will be more effective as a lawmaker who can propose laws and sit on parliamentary committees.
“I did not quit the coalition led by Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu,” he wrote. “I haven’t moved to the opposition and I certainly do not mean to act against the government or coalition. The step I’ve announced is essentially a move from the executive branch to the legislative branch within the coalition.”
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The post Avi Maoz, Israeli politician and ‘proud homophobe,’ resigns from deputy minister role appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. 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,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.