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Israeli President Isaac Herzog warns of a looming, bloody ‘real civil war’
(JTA) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned of the possibility of civil war if the government won’t agree to a compromise on judicial reform, a stunning pronouncement from a personality and an office that are both known for restraint.
“I have heard real, deep hatred,” Herzog said in an address carried on primetime TV. “I have heard people, from all sides saying that God forbid, blood in the streets will not shock them.”
Herzog, whose compromise proposals were already being rejected by the government, said his warning should terrify every Israeli.
“He who thinks that a real civil war, one that costs lives, is a line we won’t reach, is out of touch,” he said. “In this moment, of all moments, in the 75th year of the state of Israel, the abyss is within reach.”
The speech, as chilling as it was, did not appear likely to head off the intensifying unrest. The opposition welcomed Herzog’s proposed compromise, while government figures rejected them.
Israel has been rocked by weeks of protests against reforms proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which would sap the judiciary of its independence. More recently, the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir — a follower of Meir Kahane, a rabbi barred from Israel’s parliament in the 1980s because of his racism — has ordered police crackdowns on protesters.
The speech was extraordinary in part because the role of president is mostly ceremonial. The president is seen as a conciliator in Israel’s fractious society.
Additionally, Herzog, a past leader of the Israeli Labor party and a chairman of the Jewish Agency, is seen as a compromiser. In 2021, when the 120 Knesset members elected him in a secret ballot, he won a larger majority, 87, than any of his predecessors, drawing support from the left and the right.
The courts have repeatedly defended the rights of vulnerable populations in Israel, including Arab Israelis, LGBTQ people, non-Orthodox Jews and women. Netanyahu’s supporters say the proposed changes put necessary brakes on an activist judiciary, while critics at home and abroad — including President Joe Biden, top Senate Democrats and portions of the Jewish organizational establishment in the United States — say they threaten Israel’s democracy.
With his speech, Herzog unveiled a proposed compromise, which would balance judicial and political interests in selecting judges. Proponents of reform say the system now allows judges too much power in choosing their replacements, and want to give the upper hand to the ruling coalition.
Herzog’s compromises also include advancing a law that would make it harder to pass the “basic laws” that comprise Israel’s constitution. Basic laws currently require an absolute majority of 61 of 120 members to pass. Herzog’s proposal would preserve the 61 threshold for each of the first three votes, but would also add a fourth and final reading requiring a two-thirds majority of 80 Knesset members.
His compromise would also reduce the power of the Supreme Court to review laws the Knesset passes, but would not go as far as Netanyahu’s proposals to gut judicial review. Under Herzog’s system, for instance, the court would not review basic laws. The fact that such laws would need 80 votes to pass would likely mitigate the court’s perceived need to review the laws.
Herzog also proposes a basic law to protect the rights of vulnerable populations.
Government figures immediately rejected Herzog’s proposal. “It’s worse than the current situation,” said Shlomo Karhi, the communications minister, on Twitter. “We can’t accept it.” Opposition leaders meanwhile welcomed the proposal and said it could serve as a basis for a negotiated compromise.
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Maine Senate candidates spar over military aid to Israel
(JTA) — Troy Jackson, Maine’s Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, said he opposed “giving a blank check” to Israel at a debate on Tuesday, while also linking American military assistance to the killings of Palestinians.
“I didn’t want any more offensive weapons going to murder people in Palestine,” Jackson explained, in a rebuttal to his opponent, Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins.
The two candidates were participating in their first general election debate, aired on CBS13 and moderated by news anchor Gregg Lagerquist, without a live audience. Jackson, who holds a narrow lead over Collins, has rattled many members of the Jewish community in recent weeks, as he has intensified anti-Israel rhetoric and made controversial comments to Maine Jews.
A former state lawmaker and union advocate, Jackson secured the Democratic nomination at the end of July in a landslide victory. He won the nomination after the former Democratic nominee, staunch Israel critic Graham Platner, left the race amid a sexual assault allegation, which Platner denies.
Jackson had previously said little publicly about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but during the contest to replace Platner, he accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and called for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel.
Collins, a five-term senator, has been a staunch supporter of Israel over the past three decades.
Asked by Lagerquist during a lightning round whether the U.S. should increase, decrease or keep military funding for Israel the same, Collins responded that “the current level is good,” adding that she is “a strong supporter.”
Jackson, meanwhile, argued that “it’s kind of unfair to ask that like this,” while also noting that he has the endorsement of J Street, the liberal pro-Israel organization.
After Jackson then declared that the U.S. should not be “giving a blank check” to Israel, Collins accused him of making comments that were “very different” from his past remarks. Jackson denied this claim, while arguing against the supply of more offensive weapons to “murder people.” Calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a war criminal,” he noted that “Senator Collins likes him.”
Jackson’s remarks came just a week after he apologized to members of the Jewish community for controversial comments he had made in a News Center Maine television interview.
During the interview, he had described the war in Gaza as “a genocide,” adding that “there are people here in Maine that don’t like to use that term only because, you know, they’re Jewish and, you know, what that means to them with the Holocaust.”
Although he did not retract his views on the conflict, he acknowledged that the word genocide “carries particular weight for many Jewish families given the Holocaust – the genocide of six million Jews.”
“In trying to acknowledge that, I misspoke and made a generalization about Jewish Mainers’ views that doesn’t reflect what I meant to say. I apologize for the pain that caused,” he added.
Just before the Democratic nominating convention this past summer, Jackson vowed that he would “never vote in favor of U.S. taxpayer-funded military aid to Israel.”
The Pine Tree State Poll, released by the University of New Hampshire two weeks ago, found that the two candidates were in a statistical tie, with 51% of voters polled favoring Jackson and 47% opting for Collins.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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Jewish Haverford students named a professor in their antisemitism lawsuit. Police say he responded by stalking one online.
A religion professor named by Jewish Haverford College students in a recently settled lawsuit against the school was arrested Tuesday after authorities say he used anonymous accounts to harass one of those students online.
According to an indictment unsealed in federal court Tuesday, Haverford professor Guangtian Ha used at least four burner accounts on X to send roughly 50 threatening messages to an unidentified male Jewish student between October 2025 and May 2026.
Ha is charged with one count of cyberstalking, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
Federal authorities say Ha replied to one of the student’s posts with a picture of the student’s home mailbox and an emoji of a pair of eyes. After the student took security precautions in response to the messages, the professor allegedly commented on them and wrote, “The goyim have woken up, Jew. Run. Flee. Leave.”
Haverford College President Wendy Raymond informed students of the arrest in a letter published on the school website Tuesday, saying Ha had been placed on administrative leave and barred from campus while the case proceeds.
“I am deeply distressed by these allegations and want to state in the plainest of terms that any form of harassment or discrimination based on identity is unacceptable, antithetical to our values, and has no place at Haverford,” Raymond wrote.
Ha, who was on sabbatical this semester, could not be reached for comment. Federal court filings do not identify any legal representation for the defendant.
The arrest comes two months after the liberal arts college, which is located just outside of Philadelphia, settled an antisemitism lawsuit filed by Jewish students.
In that lawsuit, filed in 2024, those students had listed a number of Haverford professors who they said contributed to an antisemitic environment. One of them was Ha, a member of Faculty for Justice in Palestine, who had tweeted from his public account that “the only way to deal with Zionists is to stop talking to them and refuse to let them waste your time.”
He later tweeted — still from his public account — that he knew who at Haverford had been “silent on this genocide or even tacitly support it,” saying, “I will never forgive them. I know their names and I know their faces. Never forgive. No reconciliation.”
The messages Ha allegedly sent from his anonymous accounts were even more threatening. According to the indictment, one read, “Jew, get the f— out of my country.”
Another message allegedly read, “If Jews are so special then they should be placed in special camps and receive special treatments.”
According to an amended civil complaint filed in January 2025, the school took no public action against Ha, who taught courses on Islam and religion in China.
In the settlement, the college’s leaders agreed that Haverford’s policy would bar discrimination specifically against students and employees with Zionist views, as well as those who are Jewish or Israeli, according to Higher Ed Dive.
In addition to his alleged online activity, Ha had co-written an opinion column in the Haverford Clerk, the campus newspaper, in which he downplayed student concerns about antisemitism as “Zionist witch hunts” — arguing instead that pro-Palestinian students faced the brunt of campus discrimination.
“A truly inclusive learning community would necessitate our administration taking a clear and careful stance against this sort of hatred,” he wrote.
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‘He has repeatedly capitulated to Zionist pressure’: Leftist groups to protest Mamdani on Oct. 7
A raft of pro-Palestinian and democratic socialist groups will protest against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on the three-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, accusing the mayor of capitulating to pro-Israel pressure since taking office.
More than 20 local organizations, most of them college chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine or Young Democratic Socialists of America, are participating in the event, which will culminate with a rally at City Hall. (Young Democratic Socialists America is the student offshoot of the DSA.)
The groups’ complaints against the mayor include his allowing a law to take effect that allows NYPD to implement security perimeters at places of worship and launching a plan to combat antisemitism that includes funding for Jewish community groups that do not disavow Israel.
“Zohran Mamdani campaigned on promises to the Palestine movement,” the groups said in a caption alongside a poster for the event. “He has betrayed his own alleged values, failing to make those promises a reality. Instead, he has repeatedly capitulated to Zionist pressure.”
The protest comes even as Mamdani, who drew on the support of local progressive groups in his run for office, continues to hammer the Israeli government and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from City Hall. But the protest — which appears to have split the city’s DSA movement — revealed growing discontent from the far-left with how Mamdani has governed.
It also underscored how uncompromising the left flank of the democratic socialists can be on matters related to Israel.
Why leftist groups are protesting Mamdani
Mamdani rode into office last November on a swell of pro-Palestinian support and democratic socialist organizing power. He rejected many of the pro-Israel norms of New York City campaign trail, including by promising to arrest Netanyahu if he ever visited New York and calling the war in Gaza a genocide.
Since taking office, Mamdani has revoked an anti-BDS executive order signed by his predecessor, Eric Adams, and the city’s previously accepted definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. Mamdani also publicly defended pro-Palestinian student protesters detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and opposed the West Bank land sales at local synagogues.
And even in a public appearance conceding he did not have the authority to arrest Netanyahu, Mamdani reiterated his stance that the Israeli premier is a war criminal.
Still, he has tried to court Jewish groups by pledging to address antisemitism through his new multimillion dollar strategy that allocates $6.4 million to community organizations. He has also visited with Jews in all five boroughs to build community relations.
Their criticism of Mamdani for the security perimeter bill reflected disappointment in the mayor for something he couldn’t do much about. The bill, Int. No. 1-B, passed in March with a supermajority, meaning he was unable to veto it. Rather than sign it into law, Mamdani did not take action on it and it became law after 30 days. (He vetoed a separate bill creating a protest buffer zone for schools that had passed with a simple majority.)
The protesting groups argue the bill criminalizes protests against synagogues that host “illegal land sales” of property in the West Bank. Additionally, the chapters take issue with Mamdani’s antisemitism strategy providing security infrastructure to “Zionist synagogues” that hold these sales. The bill provides the same security to all synagogues regardless of their affiliation with Israel.
The online poster for the event states in its caption that Mamdani’s Strategy to Combat Antisemitism provides “funding for Zionist propagandist groups” such as the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. The council works in partnership with the UJA-Federation of New York to fight against antisemitism and foster support for Israel, including sponsoring tours to the country. Under a Mamdani-created program, JCRC will work with grassroots groups on programs that include education, victim support, data collection and combating online hate.
The mayor’s office declined the Forward’s request for comment. The organizations involved did not immediately respond to inquiries, except for Lehman College Young Democratic Socialists of America which declined.
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