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For Israeli protesters in NYC, Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit is a chance to ‘constantly be in his face’
(New York Jewish Week) — Steven Lax awoke at 3 a.m. on Tuesday to greet Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrived in New York City — enough time for Lax to brew coffee and await the Israeli prime minister at the Loews Regency Hotel in East Midtown with about 100 others.
Lax is the board chair and owner of Naot Worldwide, the Israeli sandal company that has become a recognizable brand across Israel and among American tourists. But before sunrise on Tuesday, Lax wasn’t waiting to talk business or branding with Netanyahu. He and his fellow protesters were there to jeer the prime minister and his ongoing effort to weaken the Israeli judiciary — a legislative package Lax likened to the darkest chapters of Jewish history.
“I’m the son of a Holocaust survivor,” Lax told the New York Jewish Week. “And during the Holocaust, American Jews knew what was going on and stayed silent. We can’t anymore.”
Netanyahu arrived at the hotel a bit before 5 a.m., escorted by a caravan of nearly 30 vehicles, as the crowd of protesters chanted “busha” — the Hebrew word for “shame” that has become a mainstay of the anti-judicial overhaul protests in Israel and abroad.
Those protests have occurred weekly in Israel, drawing hundreds of thousands of people to the streets to oppose the legislative package, which in its original form would have stripped the Israeli Supreme Court of much of its power and independence — and, in the view of many protesters, would pave the way for entrenching the polices of the current government, which includes far-right partners. Protests in solidarity with the Israeli demonstrations have occurred in New York City and elsewhere for months as well.
During Netanyahu’s visit this week, the demonstrations have occurred daily in locations ranging from Times Square to the United Nations to his hotel. Netanyahu met with President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the U.N. on Wednesday, and will address the U.N. General Assembly on Friday before meeting with American Jewish leaders.
But while the demonstrations have been happening week after week, and have dogged government officials as they’ve come to town, Lax and others say that they’re not experiencing protest fatigue.
Rather, they view this week as the culmination of months of organizing and as a way to unite an expanding coalition of Israeli expatriates and American Jews in opposition to Netanyahu and his policies. Lax said that the first protests he attended drew about 50 people. Now, he said, they’re attracting hundreds to oppose Netanyahu.
“We are determined to constantly be in his face,” said Smadar Harush, an Israeli psychoanalyst who has lived in Brooklyn for 24 years, and who has been attending the New York protests since February despite being diagnosed with cancer in March. “We will never stop reminding him that we are not going to give up. We are not going to back off until he backs off.”
The protest movement suffered a blow in July when Netanyahu’s coalition passed the first piece of overhaul legislation, limiting the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down government decisions. But far from deflating the overhaul’s critics, protest organizers say, that moment was a turning point that led to American Jewish leaders taking a more active role in the demonstrations.
“This was a moment of change and people started to reach out to me from the American Jewish community, and not just from me to them,” said Shany Granot-Lubaton, a leader of UnXeptable, an Israeli expatriate group organizing many of the protests. “And I feel like there is a new step in this bridge that we are building towards each other, both communities, because they have been really amazing allies for the fight for Israeli democracy in the past month since the law passed.”
Granot-Lubaton noted that American rabbis in particular have gotten more involved in the protests. Rabbis from across the city have been or are scheduled to be at different events throughout the week, including Rabbi Jill Jacobs, CEO of T’ruah, the liberal rabbinic human rights group; Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove of Park Avenue Synagogue, a Conservative congregation; Rabbi Michelle Dardashti of Kane Street Synagogue, a Reform congregation; Rabbi Josh Weinberg, the Union for Reform Judaism’s vice president for Israel and Reform Zionism; and Rabbi Rick Jacobs, URJ’s president.
“I feel like I got to know a whole new side of my people that I’ve never known,” Granot-Lubaton said. “I never had rabbis on my side. I never quoted from the Bible when I talked about democracy, or women’s rights, or LGBTQ rights, and now I have these amazing partners in this fight…”
Weinberg spoke on Tuesday during a rally in Times Square, and alluded to a famous passage from Pirkei Avot, a rabbinic ethics text: “On three things the world stands: on judgment, on truth and on peace,” he said.
“I couldn’t be more proud of those who have neither slept or slumbered in showing up for 37 weeks to fight for our values — the same values laid out by Israel’s founders and enshrined in its Declaration of Independence… the values of freedom, justice, and peace,” he said.
Jill Jacobs, who is slated to speak at a rally on Thursday evening, also plans to allude to Jewish text — and particularly to the fact that Netanyahu’s visit is occurring during the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, a period associated with repentance. In her prepared remarks, Jacobs calls it “a time when Jews reflect on our past wrongs and resolve to do better.”
“This moment reminds us that all is possible, that the past need not determine the future,” Jacobs plans to say. “It is not too late for Israel to recommit to the principles in its declaration of independence, and to commit to democracy and human rights for all.”
Anti-occupation activists protest outside of the Loews Regency Hotel in East Midtown on September 19, 2023. (Tori Luecking)
Jacobs is one of a contingent of protesters who are demonstrating against both the judicial overhaul and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, issues she sees as linked. Harush, the psychoanalyst, agrees.
“How can we be democratic while occupying another people? We can’t. It’s a contradiction,” said Harush, who attended a rally on Tuesday outside of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that was dubbed an “Artistic Protest,” hosted by UnXeptable and Brothers and Sisters in Arms, a protest group made up of Israeli combat veterans. She carried a poster depicting Netanyahu as the subject of a painting that looked similar to Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring.”
Decades ago, Harush worked for the International Center for Peace in the Middle East in Israel, but feels that hope for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict largely faded after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. She sees the current protest movement as a potential way to raise the subject again in mainstream Jewish Israeli society.
“It’s a topic that now, finally, in the last eight months, moved from the left margin to a little bit in the center,” she said. “A lot of my friends didn’t even want to talk about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and now more and more understand.”
Before the protest at the Met, a group of about 50 anti-occupation activists held their own protest outside Netanyahu’s hotel, denouncing what they describe as his government’s “Jewish supremacist” policies.
Emily Miller, an MFA student who attended the protest, and who immigrated to Israel in 2018, said she didn’t “feel aligned” with the anti-overhaul protest movement, but added, “I am very proud of the liberal Zionist people coming to the streets, and they are close to realizing the obvious elephant in the room, which is that the root cause of all these issues is the occupation.”
Anti-overhaul protesters are now gearing up to rally ahead of Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations on Thursday night and Friday morning.
Thursday will also see right-wing groups, such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and Zionist Organization of America, gather to rally in support of Netanyahu and Israel. Although some right-wing American Jewish leaders, such as ZOA President Mort Klein, have vocally supported the overhaul, a flier for the rally says the legislation will not come up in speeches.
“Thousands will attend this rally as we support Israel and its right to defend itself against Palestinian terror,” said the flier, which also banned Palestinian flags from the rally. “Speakers will not speak in favor or against judicial reform.”
Netanyahu is not expected to focus on the judicial overhaul in his U.N. address, but his coalition may return it to the agenda when Israeli lawmakers come back from a recess this fall. Batell Blaish-Sultanik, a leader in Brothers and Sisters in Arms and one of the first female cadets to graduate from the Israeli Naval Academy, wants to make sure that her fellow demonstrators don’t lose focus while the fate of their cause remains uncertain.
“Speaking as a naval officer, we’re taught that the most dangerous moment is when land comes into sight,” said Blaish-Sultanik. “At that moment when land comes into sight you can relax, you can take a step back, you can become indifferent. But this is exactly the moment when we must redouble our efforts and go the extra mile to stay vigilant.”
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Haaretz Claim That IDF Was Ordered to Fire on Unarmed Gazans Refuted by Translation Discrepancies, Contradictions, and Eyewitness Accounts
Gazans receiving humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. Photo: Col. Richard Kemp
A recent Haaretz exposé accusing the Israeli military of ordering troops to fire at unarmed civilians near food aid sites in Gaza relied on mistranslation, selective quotes, factual omissions, and contradictions to construct a narrative of unprovoked Israeli violence, according to independent observers interviewed by The Algemeiner.
Debunking the claim of indiscriminate fire by the IDF, the experts instead described widespread fear of Hamas, not the Israeli military.
The Haaretz report quickly gained traction in international media. Titled “’It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid,” it was cited by outlets such as NPR, CNN, and Reuters, .
British military analyst Andrew Fox criticized the article for its framing and language. One of the discrepancies he pointed to was the shift in the English version of the story from soldiers firing “towards” civilians, as stated in the Hebrew original, to “at” them. The original Hebrew subheader also specified that soldiers were told to fire “towards” crowds “to distance them” from the aid sites, suggesting the shooting took place as a means of crowd control.
“It’s a matter of intent,” Fox told The Algemeiner. The phrase “‘at civilians’ means they are trying to kill them. It’s misleading because they’re firing warnings to avoid harm rather than shooting to cause harm.”
“Warning shots are something all armies do — we did in Afghanistan — but when you pull the trigger there’s always a risk of harm, and that’s not great,” explained Fox, a think tank researcher and former British Army officer. “Still, there’s a huge difference between that and deliberately targeting civilians.”
Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said that “shooting towards,” as in the original Hebrew, was “quite reasonable as a means to exercise crowd control in a war zone.”
“It is highly unlikely the IDF would be ordered to shoot at unarmed civilians unless they directly endangered them,” Kemp told The Algemeiner, citing Israel’s interest in the success of US-backed humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza. “The IDF rigidly follows laws of war. It makes no sense for the IDF to want to damage aid efforts. They cooperate with and facilitate [the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] and want it to succeed. The ones who want it to fail are Hamas because it deprives them of control and funds. If anyone has been doing this shooting, it would be Hamas. They have the motive the IDF do not.”
There were other discrepancies in the original headline and its translation. Whereas the Hebrew version reads “Soldiers testify: IDF deliberately shoots towards Gazans near aid collection points,” the English version not only omitted any reference to mediating testimony or attribution, but also framed the event as an empirical fact: “IDF soldiers ordered to shoot deliberately at unarmed Gazans waiting for humanitarian aid.” Further, the phrase “waiting for humanitarian aid” may carry specific legal implications under international law, suggesting heightened vulnerability, whereas the Hebrew version referred more vaguely to crowds “near aid collection points.”
The subheader — which claimed soldiers were ordered to fire at unarmed civilians “even when no threat was present” — conflicted with the body of the text, which acknowledged that Israeli soldiers were wounded near the aid distribution zones. One sentence, appearing for the first time in the 21st paragraph, stood out: “There were also fatalities and injuries among IDF soldiers in these incidents.” The piece offered no explanation for how such casualties could occur if, as the article claims, no one else present was armed.
Elsewhere in the article, a soldier is quoted describing the IDF creating a “killing field,” supposedly involving heavy machine guns, mortars, and grenade launchers. But if such weapons were used with lethal intent, as Fox pointed out in a Substack post, the casualty rate would be far higher than the one to five reported per day. “That’s not a massacre,” he wrote, going on to quip that the only massacre to take place was one of “journalistic standards by Haaretz.”
“Could some soldiers accidentally miss and hit someone?” Fox wrote. “Yes. That is tragic and warrants investigation. However, the article itself acknowledges that the IDF is already examining those incidents. To jump from that to ‘deliberate killing fields’ is not responsible reporting. It is narrative laundering.”
The lack of video footage of the alleged mass shootings near GHF sites raises questions, given the large volume of media typically produced from Gaza, according to Fox, who noted that Hamas has repeatedly circulated images and clips for propaganda purposes.
“Every Gazan has a mobile phone, and numerous videos of other events have been released,” he wrote. “Why is there a total absence of any credible footage of these supposed IDF combined arms assaults on queuing civilians?”
Kemp, who visited two of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s distribution sites in the days following the report’s publication, described hearing distant gunfire but reported that the aid operation proceeded mostly without disruption.
Col. Richard Kemp at humanitarian aid site with Gazans. Photo: Provided
“None of the Gazans there showed any concerns [about the IDF] whatsoever,” he said. Many of the civilians identified Hamas, not the IDF, as the main threat to the aid effort — a dynamic not acknowledged in the Haaretz report — telling Kemp they could not return home for fear of being recognized and targeted by Hamas.
“I must have spoken to at least 50 Gazans at each site,” he said. “Many told me they feared Hamas and Hamas threatened them if they used the sites.”
Kemp added that the atmosphere was chaotic but manageable, with GHF workers — most of them local Gazans — interfacing directly with the crowds. He described people smiling, holding up food packages, and expressing gratitude for the aid.
“The overwhelming impression was how grateful they were to be getting free aid for once, as opposed to buying aid looted by Hamas and sold at a premium,” he told The Algemeiner.
Many Gazans at the GHF sites who spoke to Kemp voiced hatred for Hamas and praised the US-backed aid effort, with some chanting “kill Hamas” while others said “I love America” or expressed admiration for President Donald Trump. The alignment between Hamas and UN criticism of the food program was “shocking,” Kemp added, particularly given the visible gratitude expressed by many recipients.
“They associate this aid program with the US,” he said. “They seem to like it, whereas Hamas and the UN seem to be its greatest enemies.”
The post Haaretz Claim That IDF Was Ordered to Fire on Unarmed Gazans Refuted by Translation Discrepancies, Contradictions, and Eyewitness Accounts first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Former Australian Nurses Charged Over Threatening Viral Video Banned from NDIS
Illustrative: Supporters of Hamas gather for a rally in Melbourne, Australia. Photo: Reuters/Joel Carrett
Two former Australian nurses who were charged over a viral video in which they allegedly threatened to kill Israeli patients have been banned from working under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), four months after being suspended from their jobs at Bankstown-Lidcombe Hospital in Sydney.
Earlier this year, Ahmad Rashad Nadir and Sarah Abu Lebdeh, both 27, gained international attention after they were seen in an online video posing as doctors and making inflammatory statements during a night shift conversation with Israeli influencer Max Veifer.
The widely circulated footage, which sparked international outrage and condemnation, showed Abu Lebdeh declaring she would refuse to treat Israeli patients and instead kill them, while Nadir made a throat-slitting gesture and claimed he had already killed many.
Following the incident, New South Wales authorities suspended their nursing registrations and banned them from working as nurses nationwide. They are now also prohibited from working with or providing any services — paid or unpaid — to NDIS participants for two years.
This latest ban, which took effect on May 9, applies nationwide and prohibits Nadir and Abu Lebdeh from working with NDIS participants or performing any role for or on behalf of NDIS providers in any Australian state or territory.
Abu Lebdeh was charged with federal offenses, including threatening violence against a group and using a carriage service to threaten, menace, and harass. If convicted, she faces up to 22 years in prison.
Nadir was charged with federal offenses, including using a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offense, as well as possession of a prohibited drug.
Currently, both of them remain free on bail and have not yet entered any pleas, with a court appearance scheduled for July 29. They’ve been prohibited from leaving Australia or using social media while their cases proceed.
According to Nadir’s lawyer, the video was captured “without the consent and knowledge” of his client, and he intends to argue for its exclusion from court.
“We will be challenging the admissibility of the video recording because it was a private conversation which was recorded by the person overseas without my client’s consent and without his knowledge,” Nadir’s lawyer said. “That video recording was made secretly overseas and was unlawfully obtained.”
This incident, which drew international attention, occurred amid a surge of antisemitic acts across Australia since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began in October 2023, with Jewish institutions targeted in arson attacks and businesses defaced.
Antisemitism spiked to record levels in Australia — especially in Sydney and Melbourne, which are home to some 85 percent of the country’s Jewish population — following Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities, with the escalation continuing amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Iran.
According to a report from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the country’s Jewish community experienced over 2,000 antisemitic incidents between October 2023 and September 2024, more than quadrupling from 495 in the prior 12 months.
The number of antisemitic physical assaults in Australia rose from 11 in 2023 to 65 in 2024. The level of antisemitism for the past year was six times the average of the preceding 10 years.
The post Former Australian Nurses Charged Over Threatening Viral Video Banned from NDIS first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Boulder Firebomber Charged With Murder Following Death of Victim
Boulder attack suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman poses for a jail booking photograph after his arrest in Boulder, Colorado, June 2, 2025. Photo: Boulder Police Department/Handout via REUTERS
A victim of the antisemitic Boulder, Colorado firebombing died on Monday, prompting local law enforcement to charge suspect Mohamed Soliman with murder in the first degree.
“Severe injuries” caused the death of Karen Diamond, 82, the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office (BCDA) said on Monday in a statement. She was one of 13 people injured when Soliman hurled Molotov cocktails into a crowd of Jewish people who were participating in a demonstration to raise awareness of the hostages who remain imprisoned by Hamas in Gaza. Her death adds five new charges to the over 200 federal and state criminal charges which could lock Soliman away for over 600 years.
“These additional charges, including the counts of First Degree Murder, are being filed after consultation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Boulder Police Department,” said the DA’s office, adding that it “continues to work closely with federal, state, and local partners in the strong response to this attack. We stand united against acts of antisemitism and hate.”
“This horrific attack has now claimed the life of an innocent person who was beloved by her family and friends,” said Michal Dougherty, district attorney of Boulder County. “Our hearts are with the Diamond family during this incredibly difficult time. Our office will fight for justice for the victims, their loved ones, and the community. Part of what makes Colorado special is that people come together in response to a tragedy; I know that the community will continue to unite in supporting the Diamond family and all the victims of this attack.”
Prosecutors said in May that Soliman yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack, and, according to court documents, told investigators that he wanted to “kill all Zionist people.”
That incident came less than two weeks after a gunman murdered two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, DC, while they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum hosted by the American Jewish Committee. The suspect charged for the double murder, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, also yelled “Free Palestine” while being arrested by police after the shooting, according to video of the incident. The FBI affidavit supporting the criminal charges against Rodriguez stated that he told law enforcement he “did it for Gaza.”
In Garret Park, Maryland, a middle-aged man, Clift A. Seferlis, was recently arrested by federal authorities for sending a series of threatening messages to Jewish organizations in Philadelphia. Seferlis referenced the war in Gaza in his communications.
“The Victim Jewish Institution 1 received numerous additional messages since April 1, 2024, which contained a threat to physically destroy the institution,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said in a statement. “Prior to the receipt of the May 7, 2025, mailing, Victim Jewish Institution 1 and its employees had received very similar-looking letters, believed to have been sent by Seferlis, which referenced Victim Jewish Institution 1’s ‘many big open windows,’ ‘Kristallnacht,’ ‘anger and rage,’ and a future need to ‘rebuild’ the institution following its destruction.”
Another antisemitic incident motivated by anti-Zionism occurred in San Francisco, where Juan Diaz-Rivas, Alejandro Flores-Lamas, and others law enforcement is working to identify, allegedly beat up a Jewish victim in the middle of the night. Diaz-Rivas and Flores-Lamas, along with their associates, approached the victim while shouting “F—ck the Jews, Free Palestine,” according to the office of the San Francis district attorney.
“[O]ne of them punched the victim, who fell to the ground, hit his head and lost consciousness,” the district attorney’s office said in a statement. “Allegedly, Mr. Diaz-Rivas and others in the group continued to punch and kick the victim while he was down. A worker at a nearby business heard the altercation and antisemitic language and attempted to intervene. While trying to help the victim, he was kicked and punched.”
According to data released by the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) latest Audit of Antisemitic Incidents in April, antisemitism in the US is surging to break “all previous annual records.”
In 2024 alone, the ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents — an average of 25.6 a day — across the US, an eruption of hatred not recorded in the nearly thirty years since the organization began tracking such data in 1979. Incidents of harassment, vandalism, and assault all increased by double digits, and for the first time ever a majority of outrages — 58 percent — were related to the existence of Israel as the world’s only Jewish state.
The Algemeiner parsed the ADL data, finding dramatic rises in incidents on college campuses, which saw the largest growth in 2024. The 1,694 incidents tallied by the ADL amounted to an 84 percent increase over the previous year. Additionally, antisemites were emboldened to commit more offenses in public in 2024 than they did in 2023, perpetrating 19 percent more attacks on Jewish people, pro-Israel demonstrators, and businesses perceived as being Jewish-owned or affiliated with Jews.
“In 2024, hatred toward Israel was a driving force behind antisemitism across the US, with more than half of all antisemitic incidents referencing Israel or Zionism,” Oren Segal, ADL senior vice president for counter-extremism and intelligence, said when the report was released. “These incidents, along with all those documented in the audit, serve as a clear reminder that silence is not an option. Good people must stand up, push back, and confront antisemitism wherever it appears. And that starts with understanding what fuels it and learning to recognize it in all its forms.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
The post Boulder Firebomber Charged With Murder Following Death of Victim first appeared on Algemeiner.com.