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Far-right Israeli minister urges loyalty as his US visit draws protests, boycotts and arrests
WASHINGTON (JTA) — For more than a week, American Jewish groups have debated how and whether to welcome Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, as he visits Washington, D.C.
On Sunday night, that debate culminated in protests, arrests, boycotts — and a speech by Smotrich urging American Jews to remain loyal to the Jewish state.
Inside the Grand Hyatt Washington, Smotrich spoke to Israel Bonds, a U.S. organization that encourages investment in Israel. In the lobby of the hotel, left-wing groups protested, sang songs and, in some cases, were escorted out in handcuffs. And outside the hotel, in the cold rain, hundreds of liberal Jews gathered to declare their dedication to the Jewish community — and to protest Smotrich and Israel’s government.
“This is a moral emergency,” said Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, in a speech at the protest. “We must name this deep pain that so many of us feel for what’s happening in Israel right now, a place that we love. It is with that love that we come here tonight, standing with our Israeli siblings, saying there is nothing normal, nothing acceptable about this moment.”
The Israeli government is advancing legislation that would transform Israel’s system of government and has drawn sweeping protests across the country as well as concern by foreign investors and financial watchdogs. But little sense of emergency was present in the remarks given by Smotrich, who called on his audience to stay the course. The event was closed to press.
“This moment in the history of Israel is a miracle,” he said in remarks released by his office. “And for more than 70 years, Israel Bonds investors like you have helped make our Jewish State a reality. But, there is still work to be done, so don’t stop investing!”
Outside the conference room where Smotrich spoke, the left-wing Jewish group IfNotNow protested by singing and reciting maariv, the Jewish evening prayers. The group said seven of its members were arrested by police. The anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace also protested.
The dueling speeches and actions on Sunday came at a time when even the staunchest advocates for Israel are publicly criticizing its government. They serve as the latest evidence that the coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is upending the Diaspora’s relationship with Israel like no government before it.
Much of the criticism has surrounded the government’s signature legislative effort, which would sap the Supreme Court of much of its power and independence. And a fresh round of criticism came this month after Smotrich called for a Palestinian village to be wiped out — a statement he has since walked back repeatedly and at length, including during his Israel Bonds address. In the past, Smotrich has also made statements denigrating LGBTQ people and Arabs.
Major Jewish establishment organizations and leaders, once loath to publicly criticize Israel, are expressing alarm about the judicial legislation as well as Smotrich’s incendiary rhetoric. They are watching as the country is roiled by frequent massive demonstrations that have brought hundreds of thousands of Israelis into the streets.
That criticism has manifested itself in a widespread boycott of Smotrich’s visit — a change of pace for Jewish organizations that are generally eager to meet with senior Israeli officials. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is snubbing Smotrich, and so is the Biden administration. His only known quasi-governmental interaction this week will be a guided tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Aside from his Israel Bonds appearance, Smotrich is meeting with officials from just two Jewish organizations, the Orthodox Union and the right-wing Zionist Organization of America, one of the few U.S. groups to support the judicial reform.
“The hateful views long expressed by Minister Smotrich are abhorrent, are opposed by a majority of Israeli citizens, and run contrary to Jewish values,” the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington said in a statement. “No public servant should ever condone or incite hatred or hate-motivated violence, and when they do, they will be fiercely condemned by a wide swath of American Jewry.”
Those comments were echoed by the speakers at the protest outside the Grand Hyatt, which was organized by an array of progressive Jewish groups. Despite their attitude toward the Israeli official speaking inside the hotel, the event was suffused with patriotic fervor, with piles of Israeli flags for protesters to wave. It finished with a rendition of the Israeli national anthem, “Hatikvah.”
“Anybody who has authority in the community has to be ne’eman, to be faithful, has to be somebody who the community can trust like Moshe,” said Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of the liberal rabbinic human rights group T’ruah, using the Hebrew name for Moses and quoting a rabbinic teaching.
Jacobs, who is a longtime proponent of curbing Americans’ giving to right-wing extremist groups in Israel, went on: “We’re here to say that the current leadership of Israel — including, of course, Bezalel Smotrich, speaking inside this hotel — they are not ne’eman, they are not people we can trust, they are not people who are leading Israel in the right direction.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich addresses Israel Bonds in Washington D.C., March 12, 2023. (Office of the Finance Minister)
Smotrich emphasized the same themes — Jewish unity and mutual responsibility — but toward different ends. He thanked his audience of investors in Israel bonds “for the unquestionable connection between Israel and Diaspora Judaism.”
“We must not forget that we are brothers,” he said. “Despite all of the differences, despite the many colors that make up the Jewish mosaic, we are one.”
He also once again apologized for his call to “wipe out” Huwara, a Palestinian West Bank village where Israeli settlers rioted recently after a Palestinian gunman there killed two Israelis. He said his words “created a completely mistaken impression.”
“I want to say a few words about the elephant in the room,” Smotrich said. “I stand before you now as always committed to the security of the state of Israel, to our shared values, and to the highest moral commitment of our armed forces to protect every innocent life, Jew or Arab.”
If anyone is finding new allies, it is not Smotrich but his opponents, who run the gamut from the Jewish left to once-reliable mainstays of the right. Miriam Adelson, the widow of casino magnate, Republican kingmaker and pro-Israel donor Sheldon Adelson, said on Sunday that Netanyahu’s rush to enact judicial reform was “hasty, injudicious and irresponsible.”
Those changes galvanized the protesters. “We are the Jewish establishment!” Jacobs said.
Jacobs said later in an interview that the “grounds are shifting” among American Jews. “Some of us here and in Israel have been on the ground fighting against the occupation and the attacks on democracy for years and years, and now it’s becoming clear to more and more American Jews and Israeli Jews that that was the right message,” she said.
The issue of whether to raise Israel’s occupation of the West Bank has been a matter of debate amid the protests in Israel, where there have been reports that organizers have discouraged the display of Palestinian flags, fearing that Netanyahu will weaponize any sign of solidarity with the Palestinians.
The tension over whether the Palestinians should be mentioned played out before the protest in Washington as well, at a press conference featuring philanthropists and Israeli businessmen who said the judicial reforms were threatening Israel’s economic standing.
The event started with a rendition of “Oseh Shalom,” the Jewish prayer for peace, composed by the Israeli Jewish Renewal group Nava Tehila.
Susie Gelman, a philanthropist who chairs the Israel Policy Forum, which supports the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, said one of the key roles of the Israeli Supreme Court in recent years has been to protect some Palestinian rights and slow Israeli efforts to increase sovereignty in the West Bank.
“You can’t entirely separate judicial overhaul from the question of what’s happening with Palestinians in the West Bank in particular,” she said.
But Offir Gutelzon, a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur who helped found UnXeptable, an anti-Netanyahu protest movement by Israelis living abroad, differed, saying the protesters’ top priority should be to save the courts’ independence. Achieving that goal, he said, required maintaining unity across the Israeli political spectrum.
“We have to save our Israeli democracy and then we can move on and talk about” the Palestinians, Gutelzon said.
Still, at the protest, speakers spoke of the occupation and its effect on the Palestinians, and there were no objections. Gutelzon led an Israeli contingent in registering cheers for every pronouncement by American liberals.
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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.