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Netanyahu ally wants to stop Diaspora donors from funding pluralistic education in Israeli schools
(JTA) — In 2019, Israel’s Noam party drafted an internal report about an alleged plot by foreign forces to take control of the country’s schools in order to teach pluralistic values. At the time the party’s far-right leader, Avi Maoz, was a fringe politician with no authority to carry out the “cleansing” of which he dreamed.
Among the forces allegedly seeking to corrupt Israeli children, Maoz’s report named the European Union and the liberal New Israel Fund, both of which are longtime nemeses of the Israeli right.
But the plot to deny children what Noam considers a proper Jewish education doesn’t stop with the EU and NIF, according to the report. It also blamed many of the mainstream institutions of British and American Jewry, including the Reform movement’s Hebrew Union College, the Shalom Hartman Institute think tank, and U.S. donors to Israeli civil society organizations such as the Slifka and Mandel foundations.
“We must protect our people and our state from the infiltration of the alien bodies that arrive from foreign countries, foreign bodies, foreign foundations,” Maoz once said, according to Haaretz. “I would be very happy to have sufficient power to be appointed minister of education, to cleanse the entire education system of all foreign influences and to add Judaism, tradition, heritage and Zionism to the education system.”
Maoz hasn’t been appointed minister of education, but his dream of banishing these groups came a little closer to reality in December when Benjamin Netanyahu cut a deal with Maoz to form his government. In negotiations, Maoz had secured an appointment as a deputy minister in the Prime Minister’s Office under Netanyahu with control over extracurricular content in schools through a new department called the Jewish National Identity Authority. A few weeks later, Netanyahu’s cabinet took a critical step toward putting Maoz in charge.
Amid headlines about Maoz’s ascendance, someone leaked to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth the Noam party’s 2019 education memo along with other internal reports focused on perceived enemies in the Israeli military and Justice Ministry, and on LGBTQ individuals in general.
While the Israeli press referred to the reports as “blacklists,” the backlash to them has become subsumed in the general outcry over Israel’s new far-right government, including the anti-gay politics popular among many new members and the plan to strip Israel’s judicial branch of some of its powers.
Yet it’s in the area of education that the Noam party has the clearest path forward to accomplishing a specific political goal. And success for Noam could lead to a new type of rift between Israel and American Jews. The organizations he attacks are more than charities for Israeli school children — through their billions of dollars in donations, the institutions of American Jewry made themselves into partners in the very founding and development of the Jewish state.
In his new position, he would oversee funding and accreditation for external programs in Israeli schools. Each school can choose from thousands of approved programs, which range from sexual education and bar mitzvah preparation, to the types of pluralistic lesson plans — often meaning alternatives to the strictly religious or strictly secular options offered in Israeli schools — that Maoz has railed against.
For Yehuda Kurtzer, the president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, whose Israeli branch was named in the Naom report, Maoz’s rhetoric betrays ignorance about the integral role of outside contributions in Israeli history.
“It’s not clear to me that these folks understand the depth of how Diaspora Jews have invested in the whole infrastructure of Israeli civil society since the founding of the State of Israel,” Kurtzer said. “So the portrayal of this as somehow Diaspora Jews are burrowing under the system — well, that is basically the whole story of how Zionism succeeded.”
Mark Charendoff, a longtime executive in Jewish philanthropy, also pushed back against Noam.
“There is a long and positive history of Diaspora Jewry’s involvement with education in Israel,” said Charendoff , who currently serves as the president of the Maimonides Fund, an increasingly influential New York-based charity. “The Israeli school system should certainly protect its integrity but even [the medieval sage] Maimonides found wisdom he could learn from among other cultures and used it to enrich our own.”
The Noam party memos, at least one of which Maoz has endorsed as a blueprint for his tenure, were obtained by Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal, and recently shared with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Here are the American Jewish charities named in the memo and which of their programs were targeted:
The Cleveland-based Mandel Foundation is singled out for the leadership training it offers education professionals. The report says Mandel has spent more than $58 million on this effort and is accused of harboring a liberal agenda. Mandel programs have included training for educators from across the denominational spectrum.
The Abraham Initiatives, which is based in the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel and promotes equal rights for Israel’s Jewish and Arab citizens, is described as a Jewish-Arab left-wing group. The report also singles out the programs, schools and teacher trainings aimed at supporting reconciliation and coexistence between Jews and Arabs.
The Shalom Hartman Institute, with offices in Jerusalem and New York City, earns a mention in the memo thanks to its Be’eri Program for Pluralistic Jewish-Israeli Identity, which is dedicated to enhancing Jewish and democratic values among secondary school educators and their students in Israel.
American Judaism’s Conservative movement is implicated through the Schechter Institutes which it sponsors and the affiliated Tali Education Fund. Dozens of schools throughout Israel receive curriculum materials related to pluralistic Jewish culture and heritage from Tali.
The U.S.-based Reform movement makes the list thanks to the training offered to Jewish education teachers as part of a program run jointly by the Reform-affiliated Hebrew Union College and Hebrew University.
The New York City-based Alan B. Slifka Foundation is named in the memo as a supporter of the Abraham Initiatives and the Shalom Hartman Institute.
The Russell Berrie Foundation, which is headquartered in Teaneck, New Jersey, is included because of its contributions to the New Israel Fund and the Shalom Hartman Institute.
With offices in Israel and Silicon Valley, Israel Venture Network makes the list over its support for an independent program that trains all administrators in the Israeli school system.
Headquartered in New York City, the New Israel Fund is described as one of the main organs in the alleged conspiracy. “The New Israel Fund and funds affiliated with it have set out to take control of the education system,” read the first line of the report.
The organizations are named as “examples” in the memo, suggesting that the list is not exhaustive. Guilt by association with any of these groups would implicate a wide swath of American Jewry. IVN, or Israel Venture Network, for example, receives funding from the Jewish federations of multiple American cities and the Weinberg Foundation. The Abraham Initiatives lists numerous mainstream Jewish donors including the Klarman Family Foundation and late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Kurtzer said the leaked memos didn’t come as much of a shock to him. Any organization that is “pro-democracy, pro-pluralism, and believes in strong relationships between Israel and the diaspora” is familiar with being targeted in this way, he said.
“Some of the elements of the far right have built a whole industry on classifying anybody who has commitments to any of these values and branding them as anti-democratic and anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist,” Kurtzer said. “It hasn’t really stopped our work in Israel, though, sometimes it makes it unpleasant and uncomfortable to have to fend off some of these accusations.”
One of the largest donors to Shalom Hartman Institute goes unmentioned in Noam’s report: the Claws Foundation, which has given the institute millions of dollars. It would be hard to condemn this particular foundation as a liberal interloper: Claws is run by Jeff Yass and Arthur Dantchik, a pair of American Wall Street billionaires and prominent libertarians who are reviled by the Israeli left. In 2021, Haaretz revealed that Yass and Dantchik are major donors to the Kohelet Policy Forum, an influential Israeli think tank behind many of the recent landmark initiatives of the right.
Maoz’s politics also fit awkwardly with those of his own political predecessors, said Eitan Cooper, executive vice president of the Schechter Institutes of Jewish Studies. Cooper helps run one of the programs targeted by Maoz, the Tali Education Fund, which provides a non-Orthodox Jewish curriculum to about 80 secular Israeli schools.
Cooper recalled how the Tali program got started in the 1980s with the help of Zevulun Hammer, who served as Israel’s education minister for many years while helping lead the National Religious Party. Noam is one of the offshoots to have emerged after the National Religious Party’s dissolution in 2008.
“Hammer was the one who adopted Tali as education minister,” Cooper said. “He thought it was great and in fact, he gave Tali its name.”
But Cooper also said that there had always been fringe members of Hammer’s circle who looked at Tali with skepticism because of its non-Orthodox orientation. Some even alleged that the program was run by covert Christian missionaries.
Prior experience has steeled Cooper for this moment, and he said he’s not particularly concerned that Maoz’s threats will pan out.
“This kind of negative response to what we do has always existed,” Cooper said. “The educational ministry continues on, it sets the criteria for the programs that are accepted. I really don’t know what he is positioned to do. He hasn’t done anything yet.”
He believes that the demand for Tali’s content ensures the program will carry on.
“Our target audience is still out there,” he said.
Nachum Blass, who chairs the education policy program at the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies in Israel, regards it as inevitable that Maoz will secure authority over external programs at schools. And Blass said that Maoz could proceed to cancel programs he didn’t like or block new programs.
“There are thousands of programs,” Blass said. “If Maoz wants to review every program and decide which to cancel, it’s a very long process, and he will face lawsuits and petition to the Supreme Court.”
But the bigger worry for Blass is the chilling effect of Maoz’s rhetoric.
“The real danger,” he said, “is that schools will censor themselves and not pick certain programs because they worry they doesn’t fit the spirit of the times.”
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Israel Warns Lebanon of Strikes if Hezbollah Enters Any US-Iran War, Lebanese Officials Say
A man works on an electric pole next to a damaged building, in the aftermath of an Israeli strike on Friday, in Tamnine el Tahta, Bekaa valley, Lebanon, Feb. 21, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Israel has warned Lebanon that it would strike the country hard, targeting civilian infrastructure including the airport, in the event that Hezbollah gets involved in any US-Iran war, two senior Lebanese officials said on Tuesday.
The Lebanese officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Israeli message was delivered indirectly. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Lebanese presidency did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Iran and the US will hold a third round of nuclear talks on Thursday in Geneva, Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said on Sunday, amid growing concerns about the risk of military conflict.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, whose government has sought the disarmament of Iran-backed Hezbollah since taking office a year ago, urged the terrorist group not to take Lebanon into “another adventure,” speaking in a newspaper interview published on Tuesday.
Israel dealt heavy blows to Hezbollah during a war in 2024, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah along with thousands of its fighters and destroying much of its arsenal.
Shi’ite Muslim Hezbollah was established by Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards in 1982.
Hezbollah‘s new leader Naim Qassem said in a televised address last month that the group was “not neutral” in the standoff between Washington and Tehran, and that it was “targeted by the potential aggression.”
“We are determined to defend ourselves. We will choose in due course how to act, whether to intervene or not,” Qassem said.
Hezbollah‘s last war with Israel began after it opened fire in solidarity with its Palestinian ally Hamas at the start of the Gaza conflict in 2023, prompting months of cross-border fighting before Israel mounted its devastating offensive.
PM SALAM WARNS HEZBOLLAH AGAINST ‘ANOTHER ADVENTURE’
“The Gaza adventure imposed a big cost on Lebanon. We hope that we will not be dragged into another adventure,” Salam told Nida al-Watan newspaper in the interview published on Tuesday.
The US State Department is pulling out non-essential government personnel and their eligible family members from the US embassy in Beirut, a senior State Department official said on Monday.
Since a US-backed ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon in 2024, Israel has carried out regular strikes against what it has identified as Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, accusing the group of seeking to rearm.
Israeli strikes have killed around 400 people in Lebanon since the ceasefire, according to a Lebanese toll.
Hezbollah says it has respected the ceasefire in southern Lebanon. In January, the US-backed Lebanese army said it had established operational control over the south, in line with the objective of establishing a monopoly on arms.
Israel said the effort was an encouraging beginning but far from sufficient.
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EU Memo Raises Security Concerns Over Mass Escape From Islamic State-Linked Syria Camp
Members of the Syrian government security forces stand guard as a group of female detainees gather at al-Hol camp after the government took control of it following the withdrawal of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), in Hasaka, Syria, Jan. 21, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
An EU internal memo has raised security concerns about the escape of thousands of people from a detention camp holding relatives of suspected Islamic State fighters in northeastern Syria, suggesting terrorist groups could recruit from them.
The memo, sent from the Cyprus presidency of the Council of the European Union to member states and dated Feb. 23, said the status of third-country nationals who had fled the camp at al-Hol remained unclear and that it was reported that a majority of them had escaped.
“This raises concerns about how terrorist groups might seek to capitalize on the current situation to increase recruitment efforts among escapees,” said the memo, which was reviewed by Reuters.
PRISONERS INCLUDED THOUSANDS OF FOREIGNERS
Al-Hol, near the Iraqi border, was one of the main detention camps for relatives of suspected Islamic State fighters who were detained during the US-backed campaign against the jihadist group in Syria.
Control of the camp changed hands in January, when Syrian government forces under President Ahmed al-Sharaa drove the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces from the area.
The SDF had guarded the facility for years.
The camp‘s population was 23,407 people the day before the government takeover, including 6,280 foreigners from more than 40 nationalities, Reuters reported last week, citing official data from the camp.
The US military said on Feb. 13 it had completed a mission to transfer 5,700 adult male Islamic State fighters from jails in Syria to Iraq. It had originally said up to 7,000 prisoners could eventually be transferred. The EU memo noted that the initial target was not met.
‘CHAOTIC TAKEOVER‘
In a section entitled “Security concerns stemming from the evolving situation in northeast Syria,” the EU memo said the “chaotic takeover led to the collapse of security and services in the al-Hol camp, triggering the escape of a significant portion of its population.”
The UN refugee agency in Syria and the Syrian government “have confirmed that an uncontrolled exodus has occurred over the past few weeks,” it added.
Damascus has accused the SDF of withdrawing from al-Hol on Jan. 20 without any coordination. The SDF has said its forces had been “compelled” to withdraw from the camp to areas surrounding cities which it said were under threat.
A Syrian government security source told Reuters last week that the security authorities, working in cooperation with international partners, had established a unit to “pursue those who are wanted.”
The SDF had guarded prisons holding thousands of Islamic State militants in northeast Syria, in addition to al-Hol and a second camp at Roj, which also holds relatives of suspected jihadists.
The EU memo said the capacity of Damascus “to manage these facilities is assessed as limited and facing significant operational challenges.” It noted that the government’s stated intent to gradually phase out al-Hol camp had “been overtaken by recent events, which raise grave security concerns.”
The EU memo said that al-Hol and Roj camps were hosting around 25,000 people, primarily women and children, “with many of these being highly radicalized and living in degrading humanitarian and security conditions.”
Roj camp remains under the control of the SDF for now.
Last week, the SDF released 34 Australian nationals from Roj, only for them to return later. The Australian government has ruled out helping families of IS terrorists return home. Roj is also home to British-born Shamima Begum.
The EU memo said there was “reason for concern regarding the possible escape of families” from Roj once the Syrian government takes control.
Syria‘s Information Ministry and the US Central Command did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The memo came amid an uptick of Islamic State violence in Syria.
Islamic State terrorists killed four Syrian government security personnel in northern Syria on Monday, the Syrian state news agency reported, in what would be the group’s deadliest attack on government forces since the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad.
The assault on a checkpoint west of Raqqa city underlined an escalation in attacks by the jihadist group against President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government, two days after the jihadist group declared “a new phase of operations” against it.
Islamic State issued no immediate claim of responsibility for Monday’s attack. On Saturday, the group claimed two attacks targeting Syrian army personnel in northern and eastern Syria, in which a Syrian soldier and a civilian were killed.
The Syrian state news agency said forces foiled Monday’s attack and killed one of the militants. It quoted a security source as saying Islamic State carried out the attack.
The terrorist group, however, only claimed responsibility on Tuesday for a separate attack on an army headquarters in the city of Mayadin in Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria that killed one soldier.
The group had carried out an attack in the same city days earlier.
The Syrian government joined the US-led coalition to combat Islamic State last year. In January, government forces seized control of Raqqa from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, along with much of the surrounding territory in northern and eastern Syria.
Meanwhile, US forces on Monday began withdrawing from their largest military base in the northeast, according to three Syrian military and security sources – part of a broader pullout of US troops who deployed to Syria a decade ago to fight Islamic State.
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Iran Nears Deal to Buy Supersonic Anti-Ship Missiles From China
An Iranian newspaper with a cover photo of an Iranian missile, in Tehran, Iran, Feb. 19, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran is close to a deal with China to purchase anti‑ship cruise missiles, according to six people with knowledge of the negotiations, just as the United States deploys a vast naval force near the Iranian coast ahead of possible strikes on the Islamic Republic.
The deal for the Chinese‑made CM‑302 missiles is near completion, though no delivery date has been agreed, the people said. The supersonic missiles have a range of about 290 kilometers and are designed to evade shipborne defenses by flying low and fast. Their deployment would significantly enhance Iran’s strike capabilities and pose a threat to US naval forces in the region, two weapons experts said.
Negotiations with China to buy the missile weapons systems, which began at least two years ago, accelerated sharply after the 12‑day war between Israel and Iran in June, according to the six people with knowledge of the talks, including three officials who were briefed by the Iranian government as well as three security officials. As talks entered their final stages last summer, senior Iranian military and government officials traveled to China, including Massoud Oraei, Iran’s deputy defense minister, according to two of the security officials. Oraei’s visit has not been previously reported.
“It’s a complete gamechanger if Iran has supersonic capability to attack ships in the area,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli intelligence officer and now senior Iran researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies think tank. “These missiles are very difficult to intercept.”
Reuters could not determine how many missiles were involved in the potential deal, how much Iran had agreed to pay, or whether China would go through with the agreement now given heightened tensions in the region.
“Iran has military and security agreements with its allies, and now is an appropriate time to make use of these agreements,” an Iranian foreign ministry official told Reuters.
In a comment sent after publication, China‘s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was not aware of the talks about a potential missile sale that Reuters had reported. China‘s defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
The White House did not directly address the negotiations between Iran and China over the missile system when asked by Reuters. US President Donald Trump has been clear that “either we will make a deal or we will have to do something very tough like last time,” a White House official said, referring to the current standoff with Iran.
The missiles would be among the most advanced military hardware to be transferred to Iran by China and defy a United Nations weapons embargo that was first imposed in 2006. The sanctions were suspended in 2015 as part of a nuclear deal with the US and allies, and then reimposed last September.
US FORCES GATHERING NEAR IRAN
The potential sale would underscore deepening military ties between China and Iran at a moment of heightened regional tension, complicating US efforts to contain Iran’s missile program and curb its nuclear activities. It would also signal China’s growing willingness to assert itself in a region long dominated by US military might.
China, Iran, and Russia hold annual joint naval exercises, and last year the US Treasury Department sanctioned several Chinese entities for supplying chemical precursors to Iran‘s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for use in its ballistic missile program. China rejected those allegations, saying it was unaware of the cases cited in the sanctions and that it strictly enforces export controls on dual-use products.
While hosting Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian for a military parade in Beijing in September, Chinese President Xi Jinping told the Iranian leader that “China supports Iran in safeguarding sovereignty, territorial integrity, and national dignity.”
China joined Russia and Iran in a joint letter on Oct. 18 to say they believed the decision to reimpose sanctions was flawed.
“Iran has become a battlefield between the US” on one side and Russia and China on the other, said one of the officials who was briefed by Iran’s government on the missile negotiations.
The deal comes as the US assembles an armada within striking distance of Iran, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its strike group. The USS Gerald R. Ford and its escorts are also heading to the region. The two ships together can carry more than 5,000 personnel and 150 aircraft.
“China does not want to see a pro-Western regime in Iran,” said Citrinowicz, the Israeli specialist on Iran. “That would be a threat to their interests. They are hoping that this regime will stay.”
Trump said on Feb. 19 he was giving Iran 10 days to reach an agreement over its nuclear program or face military action. The US is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if Trump orders an attack, Reuters reported on Feb. 13.
A DEPLETED ARSENAL
The CM-302 purchase would be a significant improvement in an Iranian arsenal depleted by last year’s war, said Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
China’s state-owned China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) markets the CM-302 as the world’s best anti–ship missile, capable of sinking an aircraft carrier or destroyer. The weapons system can be mounted on ships, aircraft, or mobile ground vehicles. It can also take out targets on land.
CASIC did not respond to a request for comment.
Iran is also in discussions to acquire Chinese surface‑to‑air missile systems, so-called MANPADS, anti‑ballistic weapons, and anti-satellite weapons, the six people said.
China was a major arms supplier to Iran in the 1980s, but large‑scale weapons transfers dwindled by the late 1990s under international pressure. In recent years, US officials have accused Chinese companies of providing missile-related materials to Iran but have not publicly accused it of supplying complete missile systems.