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Meeting between Jewish leaders and Benjamin Netanyahu broaches judicial overhaul — and gets personal
(JTA) — As they prepared to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, leaders of U.S. Jewish organizations expected to ask him about his contentious effort to weaken the Israeli judiciary.
They didn’t expect to get an answer from Netanyahu’s wife, Sara.
But that’s what happened when Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism and an outspoken critic of the overhaul, asked about Netanyahu’s condemnation of the protest movement, which the prime minister recently accused of cooperating with Israel’s adversaries. Jacobs said he tied his question to Yom Kippur, which begins Sunday evening.
“I said it was almost Erev Yom Kippur, and I’m asking you about the way your government has demonized not only the protesters but so many of the people who are at risk,” Jacobs told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “And he gave an answer and Sara Netanyahu asked if she could follow up with asking me a question.”
Sara Netanyahu asked if Jacobs would condemn the death threats against her family.
“I heard the emotion,” Jacobs said. “She’s not wrong.”
He said he told her, “Absolutely, but the majority of people have been peaceful, but I would not condone that behavior.’’
At the meeting, attendees said Netanyahu raised the topics he preferred to discuss, such as the threat from Iran and prospects for a treaty with Saudi Arabia. And the American Jewish leaders brought up topics on their mind as well — among them the judicial overhaul; relations with the Palestinian Authority; Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners; and women’s rights in Israel.
The meeting at the Israeli consulate in New York City took place hours after Netanyahu’s address to the U.N. General Assembly, which focused on the potential Israeli-Saudi deal as well as the Iranian threat. Netanyahu met with President Joe Biden earlier in the week.
The meeting included 24 representatives of groups across the Jewish political and denominational spectrum. Most of the groups in attendance have voiced criticism of the judicial overhaul, which aims to sap power and independence from Israel’s Supreme Court, in addition to other Israeli government policies. The judicial overhaul has also sparked a mass protest movement in Israel that has offshoots abroad: In New York, a crowd of protesters demonstrated outside of the consulate on Friday.
“There were probably half a dozen questions that were asked and to be honest, everyone was answered whether or not people felt satisfied,” Jacobs said. “And I have to say that to me, it was more than I had expected.”
One Jewish leader brought up Netanyahu’s convivial meeting earlier in the week with Elon Musk, the tech mogul who has relentlessly attacked the Anti-Defamation League on his social media platform, X, formerly known as Twitter. Musk has also interacted with white supremacists on the platform.
Netanyahu and ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt joked about how Musk seems to like Netanyahu better than Greenblatt, one participant said.
Sheila Katz, CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women, called the meeting “warm, actually.” Katz said she brought up concerns of increasing gender segregation in public spaces in Israel.
“I asked about the perception of things going backwards and what’s at risk, and toxic segregation,” she said. She said Netanyahu responded that he did not recognize that as happening.
Katz said she valued the opportunity to discuss their different perceptions.
“When we’re doing organizing, when we want to change hearts and minds, when we want to collaborate with other people — whatever it might be — you have to understand where people are,” she said.
The CEO of the American Jewish Committee, Ted Deutch, said in a statement that the meeting was productive. His statement mentioned the two-state solution, which would entail the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. Large American Jewish groups have historically supported that outcome, though Netanyahu has said he is against it and partners with far-right politicians who vehemently oppose it.
“While the vision of a two-state solution too often seems out of reach, AJC stands firm in our dedication to pursuing a path toward peace and prosperity for all in the region,” Deutch said.
“The Abraham Accords once felt impossible – and look where we are today,” he said, referring to the normalization agreements with four Middle Eastern countries signed under a previous Netanyahu government. “We remain committed to expanding normalization and supporting programs that promote Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, knowing that these efforts will bring us closer to enduring peace.”
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The post Meeting between Jewish leaders and Benjamin Netanyahu broaches judicial overhaul — and gets personal appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Our Report Shows How Support for Palestinian Terrorism Has Spread on College Campuses
Protesters march against the ICE detention of Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, during a protest near Arizona State University (ASU) in Phoenix, Arizona, US, March 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Rebecca Noble
On June 14, National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) posted the following on Instagram:
National SJP condemns the Zionist, US-backed attacks on Iran. The Zionist entity has been attempting to ignite a regional war since the day the genocide began […]. Israel’s actions are those of a colonial project that knows its time has come to a close—the world wants Israel to be dismantled, and for Palestine to be free.
This is not fringe rhetoric. NSJP is one of the most prominent anti-Israel student organizations in the United States, and groups like it — some with documented links to extremist and even terrorist organizations — are not just influencing but organizing a growing share of anti-Israel activism on US campuses. As our recent research shows, these networks are coordinated, ideological, and increasingly radical.
In our Anti-Israel Campus Groups: Online Networks and Narratives report, my research team and I analyzed 76,000 Instagram posts, reviewed nearly 10,000 antisemitic incidents, and mapped more than 1,000 anti-Israel campus groups.
What we found was sobering: pro-Hamas and pro-Iranian rhetoric has become normalized in some campus protest spaces. These are not simply students speaking out against a government — they’re echoing propaganda from internationally recognized terrorist organizations.
How did we get here? How did so many students adopt such extreme views so quickly? The answer lies partly in social media — and partly in the silence of campus leadership.
Back in early 2024 — months before campus encampments against Israel dominated national headlines — students in my Social Media & Hate Research Lab flagged several troubling posts from pro-Palestinian student groups. These weren’t calls for peace or for a two-state solution. They were open endorsements of Hamas, a group responsible for mass murder, rape, and kidnapping.
I was skeptical at first. I had spoken with some of these activists a few weeks and months earlier; they seemed reasonable — even critical of Hamas in private. But the posts were public and unambiguous: “Glory to Hamas.” “Hamas is morally superior to Israel.”
These posts were not buried in the dark corners of the internet. They were posted by prominent student leaders, easily accessible on platforms like X and Instagram. When a compilation of these posts was circulated publicly, the response from university officials was telling: silence.
I attempted to engage students directly. Some couldn’t explain the slogans on their own signs. One read, “IUPD, KKK, IOF, all the same.” The students holding it had no idea what “IOF” meant — a derogatory term for the Israeli Defense Forces. Others shut down any conversation altogether. “We don’t talk to Zionists,” one organizer told me.
So I did what professors do: I started researching.
We found that some of the most radical posts by anti-Israel groups on social media had become also some of the most popular ones.
The most widely shared post we found was published on October 8, 2023 — one day after the Hamas attacks in Israel. It came from a group called SUPER at the University of Washington. While Hamas militants were still actively killing civilians, SUPER posted a statement endorsing “the right of Palestinians to resist,” without qualification. SUPER has since doubled down and become more extremist. In May, they helped lead the occupation of the Interdisciplinary Engineering Building at the University of Washington in Seattle. Their June 6 “Right to Resist Teach-In” featured a promotional image depicting a Hamas-seized IDF tank flying the Palestinian flag — the same image used on the cover of the Hamas propaganda booklet Our Narrative…
This pattern isn’t limited to one group. NSJP, the same group that posted the call to dismantle Israel and siding with Iran, acts as a strategic and narrative hub. On October 8, 2023, NSJP published a toolkit celebrating the Hamas attacks as a “historic win for the Palestinian resistance,” along with templates and talking points for organizing campus protests.
Off-campus groups like the Palestinian Youth Movement, which has documented ties to the PFLP, also play a key role. So do radical left-wing organizations and foreign actors aligned with Iran. The rhetoric often avoids explicitly calling for violence against Jews. Instead, it adopts the language of resistance and decolonization — terms that mask the underlying glorification of armed struggle.
And yet, many Jewish students know exactly what it means. After the murder of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., the Tariq El-Tahrir Youth and Student Network called the killings “a legitimate act of resistance.” The rhetoric is escalating and can lead to violence, even if it’s only a fringe part of the students who are protesting.
The data supports what many Jewish students have long felt: antisemitism rises alongside anti-Israel activism.
Universities with more anti-Israel groups report significantly higher numbers of antisemitic incidents. The correlation is strong, and it’s growing with the number of anti-Israel groups that can establish an anti-Zionist climate on campus that effectively targets Jews.
This isn’t protest in the traditional sense. It’s propaganda, often shaped by off-campus entities and disseminated through social media with strategic precision. Faculty members and graduate student unions often lend moral cover. Dissent is increasingly treated not as dialogue but as betrayal. And pro-Hamas rhetoric is ignored and pretended to be non-existent on campus.
When I gave a talk in May entitled, “In the Mind of a Pro-Hamas Student,” backlash followed swiftly. Complaints were filed, letters written, and pressure applied — not to engage with the argument, but to silence it.
But we can’t afford to pretend. We can’t pretend that celebrating Hamas isn’t happening on our campuses. Or that slogans like “resistance by any means” are merely poetic. Or that calls to “globalize the Intifada” are harmless slogans.
Pretending comes at a cost. It threatens the safety of Jewish students. It erodes the academic values of open inquiry and honest debate. And it undermines our ability to distinguish justice from its dangerous imitations.
We don’t need to agree on everything about Israel and the Palestinians. But we should be able to agree on this: a campus culture that tolerates — or worse, celebrates — terrorism is not one that fosters justice. It is one that fails everyone.
Günther Jikeli holds the Erna B. Rosenfeld Professorship at the Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism in the Borns Jewish Studies Program at Indiana University. He heads the research lab “Social Media & Hate.”
The post Our Report Shows How Support for Palestinian Terrorism Has Spread on College Campuses first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Australian Journalist Erin Molan Refuses to Flee Israel Amid Iran War, Will Stay to ‘Report the Truth From the Ground’
Television presenter Erin Molan at a press conference during a visit to Penshurst Girls School in Sydney, Wednesday, Dec. 8, 2021. Photo: AAPIMAGE via Reuters Connect
Australian broadcaster and journalist Erin Molan is in Israel during the country’s war against Iran and said she will remain in the Jewish state “to report the truth about what is happening here on the ground.”
“Let me make it very clear – despite media reports – I have not asked the Australian government – or ANYONE to on my behalf – to come to my rescue or evacuate me,” the former television presenter wrote in a social media post on Monday.
“There are a million other priorities for all involved in this conflict right now,” she added in part. “I desperately want to get home to my daughter – BUT – unlike so many people here — she is SAFE — many other children in Israel/Iran/Gaza are not. I am patiently waiting and thinking of all those who are in a far worse position than I am.”
Molan was scheduled to fly home to Australia on Friday but has been stranded in Israel since all airspace was closed following the start of Israel’s attack on nuclear and military targets in Iran, which started overnight on Friday. Since then, she has been reporting live from Israel about the war against Iran, sharing commentary on social media as well as videos of destruction in Israel caused by Iranian missiles launched at the Jewish state in retaliation for Israel’s airstrikes. During her extended stay in Israel, she has also interviewed Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and Israel’s President Isaac Herzog.
On Friday morning, Molan filmed a video from Tel Aviv in which she expressed solidarity with Israel and the Israel Defense Forces amid its war against the regime in the Islamic Republic.
“A lot has changed in the Middle East over the past few hours,” she said. “Pray for the people of Israel, pray for the people of Iran – the vast majority of whom despise the regime in charge. I think the entire world should be incredibly grateful to Israel for carrying out these attacks on behalf of us all, because the enemy of terrorism and Iran’s Islamic regime is not just Israel, it is the entire Western world.”
In a video posted on Instagram on Monday, Molan called the Islamic regime in Iran a “satanic murderous, regime who hate peace and democracy.”
Molan is the daughter of the late Major General Jim Molan, an Australian senator who was an avid supporter of Israel and a strong advocate for Australia-Israel ties. Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war that began after the deadly terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, Molan publicly expressed strong support for Israel’s military actions targeting the Iran-backed terrorist organization that orchestrated the deadly massacre.
On Thursday, Israel’s national airline El Al will start operating one-way flights to Tel Aviv to help bring home thousands of Israelis who are stranded abroad since the start of Israel’s war with Iran.
Former reality television star and transgender Olympic gold medalist Caitlyn Jenner was also in Israel when Israel launched its attacks on Iranian nuclear sites and military infrastructure but managed to escape by land to Jordan on Sunday. Jenner, 75, was in Israel as the guest of honor for the Tel Aviv Pride Parade, which was scheduled to take place on Friday but was canceled after Israel began a series of airstrikes on Iran.
The post Australian Journalist Erin Molan Refuses to Flee Israel Amid Iran War, Will Stay to ‘Report the Truth From the Ground’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘Shame on You!’: Jenna Ortega Receives Backlash for Ignoring Israeli Suffering in Message About Iran, Gaza Wars
American actress Jenna Ortega wearing Markgong SS25 RTW and Sheryl Lowe jewelry arrives at the Netflix Tudum 2025: The Live Event held at the Kia Forum in Inglewood, Los Angeles, California, United States. Photo: Image Press Agency via Reuters Connect
American actress Jenna Ortega is being criticized for not acknowledging Israelis in a statement she shared on Saturday about the ongoing wars in the Middle East and how they are impacting civilians in Iran and the Gaza Strip.
The “Wednesday” star, 22, said in an Instagram Story that the world is “crying” because of immigration raids in Los Angeles, the Israel-Hamas war, and the Israel-Iran war that started earlier on Friday morning. “Innocent civilians in Iran are caught in the middle of warfare. Palestinian cries are still being buried in every day [sic] media. My thoughts are heavy, my heart follows,” she wrote.
Ortega then urged her followers to “never stop paying attention” as “human freedoms spanning across seas are being violated with such violence.” She told the 37.2 million people who follow her on Instagram: “Listen to one another & love, but be angry too. Educate yourself as best you can. To say this doesn’t concern you, or that it isn’t your problem, is a privilege under abuse.” The Story was later saved to Ortega’s Instagram highlights.
An Instagram Story uploaded by Jenna Ortega. Photo: Screenshot
Ortega’s post came a day after Israel launched airstrikes against Iran, targeting nuclear sites and military infrastructure in the Islamic Republic, and amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. Ortega’s “Scream” co-star Melissa Barrera was dropped from an upcoming film in the franchise because of her anti-Israel social media posts about the Israel-Hamas war.
Ortega’s comments on Saturday garnered criticism from Creative Community for Peace (CCFP), a nonprofit, pro-Israel organization comprised of prominent members of the entertainment industry who aim to combat antisemitism. CCFP shamed Ortega for ignoring the suffering Israeli civilians are facing while Israel is engaged in two wars in the region.
“If you truly care about innocent lives, all lives, then don’t erase Israeli civilians,” said CCFP. “You wrote about being heartbroken over civilians in Iran and Palestinians being buried by the media. But where is your heartbreak for the Israeli families being slaughtered by Iran’s missiles and terror proxies? Where is your voice for the Jewish children who are forced to sleep in bomb shelters? For the Israeli families torn apart? For Jewish lives murdered simply for existing?”
CCFP noted that the regime in Iran “is the aggressor, deliberately targeting civilians in Israel in a blood hunt fueled by antisemitic hatred while also affecting the Iran population.”
“You say to ‘educate yourself’, so do it fully,” the organization added. “Don’t speak in vague moral poetry that hides support for terror ‘between the lines.’ Speak clearly. Condemn all violence. That includes the missiles launched at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. That includes Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. Shame on you!”
Ortega has regularly posted support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, which began after the deadly Hamas-led terrorist attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
The post ‘Shame on You!’: Jenna Ortega Receives Backlash for Ignoring Israeli Suffering in Message About Iran, Gaza Wars first appeared on Algemeiner.com.