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Pro-Israel stalwarts Miriam Adelson and Noa Tishby join chorus condemning judicial reforms as protests enter 10th week
(JTA) — The actor Noa Nishby has gone to bat for Israel on U.S. college campuses as an official emissary of her home country. The philanthropist Miriam Adelson has underwritten multiple organizations dedicated to building pro-Israel sentiment in the United States.
And now both prominent Israeli-Americans have publicly joined what is turning out to be a resounding chorus of criticism of Israel’s current government and its efforts to sap the country’s judiciary of its independence and power.
“I will say it in the sharpest and clearest way: Diaspora Jewry and Israel’s supporters in the world are shocked. They are shocked,” Tishby said in a column published in Hebrew on Ynet Saturday. “With great pain they look and see how the country they fiercely defended — in Congress, in the media, on the networks or in front of foreign governments — is changing its face.”
Tishby wrote that she had never publicly criticized “any step taken by any government” in more than two decades as a public figure, but that she was writing “the most difficult public text I have ever written” because Israelis need to understand that the judicial reform legislation, which she called “not a reform, but a coup,” brings their country out of step with other democracies and would threaten its national security and support abroad.
“It’s not like America. Not even a little,” Tishby wrote.
Writing in Israel Hayom, the right-wing Israeli newspaper founded by her late husband Sheldon, Adelson sidestepped the legislation itself and instead focused on its speedy advance.
“Regardless of the substance of the reforms, the government’s dash to ratify them is naturally suspect, raising questions about the root objectives and concern that this is a hasty, injudicious, and irresponsible move. A good deal is reached through cold-eyed circumspection,” wrote Adelson, who with Sheldon was first a funder of the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and then supported the Israel American Council, where she was board chair. She later added, “Bad motivations never bring about good outcomes.”
The statements from Adelson and Tishby offer a clear sign that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cannot expect prominent allies abroad to back his right-wing government on its signature legislation. They join a chorus of figures who have in the past been notable for slapping down Jewish Diaspora criticism of Israel as unwarranted, among them the writers Yossi Klein Halevi, Matti Friedman and Daniel Gordis; the constitutional lawyer Alan Dershowitz; New York Times columnist Bret Stephens; and the former long-serving national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abe Foxman.
Adelson and her husband were in the past major funders of the Zionist Organization of America, one of the handful of U.S. Jewish bodies defending the new governments planned reforms.
Protests within Israel entered their 10th week on Saturday night, with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating not just in Tel Aviv, the country’s liberal center, but in cities across the country and even in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where most voters are right wing.
Among those publicly condemning the legislation this week have been scores of Israeli military officials; the Jewish former head of the U.S. Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke, who said the changes would cause “tremendous damage”; and about 150 people in Gush Etzion, a group of religious settlements that were a stronghold for the far-right Religious Zionist bloc in last year’s election.
בפעם החמישית ברציפות, 150 מפגינים בגוש עציון. ״גשר צר מאוד״ pic.twitter.com/YLrR862jVt
— Ben Caspit בן כספית (@BenCaspit) March 11, 2023
A core piece of the legislation advanced on Sunday, with a hearing in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on the provision giving the government power over appointing judges. The legislation’s proponents say reforms are needed because the judiciary is out of step with the sentiments of voters, while its broad coalition of critics at home and abroad say they would threaten Israel’s status as a democracy with checks and balances.
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, has called for compromise talks, and there are some signs that efforts to reach a compromise may be taking place behind closed doors. But Netanyahu’s far-right partners in his governing coalition have not indicated an appetite to slow down or otherwise change their approach.
One of those partners, Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionists, is beginning his first U.S. visit as a government minister. Few Jewish groups have agreed to meet with the finance minister, who also has authority over civil administration in the West Bank, and protests are planned as he lands in Washington, D.C., on Sunday.
Smotrich is speaking to Israel Bonds, the investment mechanism that works closely with his ministry, and an array of liberal Jewish groups have announced plans to picket the speech at a hotel in downtown Washington. Ahead of Smotrich’s speech, a group of leading investors in Israel will hold a press conference in the same hotel to outline what they say is the threats the radical reforms pose to Israel’s economy.
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Trump extends ceasefire with Iran, even after Iran balks at new round of negotiations
(JTA) — President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that he would unilaterally extend the U.S.-Israeli ceasefire with Iran, even though Iran had not agreed to his conditions or even to return to the negotiating table.
Trump announced the decision on Truth Social just hours before the two-week-old deal was set to expire. Citing Iran’s “fractured” leadership, Trump wrote that he had been asked by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to “hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal.”
Vice President JD Vance’s planned trip to Islamabad, where talks were set to take place, was postponed indefinitely after Iran failed to confirm its participation in negotiations.
Trump added that the United States would maintain its naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, despite Iran’s repeated calls for the restrictions to be lifted.
The announcement marked a sharp departure from the president’s statements earlier in the day, telling CNBC that, if a deal was not made before the deadline, “I expect to be bombing.”
In a statement Tuesday, Sharif thanked Trump for his “gracious acceptance” of Pakistan’s request to extend the ceasefire, adding that the country would “continue its earnest efforts for a negotiated settlement of the conflict.”
The announcement adds to uncertain about the war’s future, including for Israelis who lived through six weeks of Iranian bombing, and renews questions about Trump’s commitment to achieving his war goals, which have varied and included blunting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, achieving regime change, and destroying Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles. He said earlier this week that he was asking Iran to limit its nuclear program for 20 years, five years longer than was required by the deal struck by Barack Obama in 2015. Trump exited that deal in 2018.
Last week, Trump announced a different ceasefire, between Israel and Lebanon, on Truth Social, contradicting Israel’s claim that the Iran ceasefire would not apply to its fighting with Hezbollah, an Iran-backed proxy in Lebanon.
Trump’s announcement of the ceasefire extension came during the night in Israel, after Israelis began their celebration of Independence Day. It drew criticism from one of his staunchest pro-Israel supporters, the Zionist Organization of America, whose national president Morton Klein said in a statement that “interminable delay is the standard Islamic Iranian regime negotiating tactic” and that acceding to it represented a victory for Iran. The statement did not mention Trump.
The post Trump extends ceasefire with Iran, even after Iran balks at new round of negotiations appeared first on The Forward.
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Alan Dershowitz quits Democratic Party, calling it ‘most anti-Israel party in U.S. history’
(JTA) — Alan Dershowitz, the prominent pro-Israel attorney whose clients have included Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, announced on Monday that he was leaving the Democratic party and registering as a Republican.
Describing himself as a “lifelong Democrat,” Dershowitz wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he had decided to “bite the bullet and register as a Republican,” citing Democratic support for an arms embargo on Israel last week and the Michigan Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed’s anti-Israel rhetoric.
“There is no denying that the hard left, anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party has moved from the fringe to the mainstream,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that “Republicans have their own antisemitic fringe, but for now it remains a fringe.”
The announcement formalized a political evolution for Dershowitz, who defended Trump during his first impeachment and has increasingly broken with Democrats over Israel in recent years.
In 2021, Dershowitz nominated Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Avi Berkowitz, Trump’s top Middle Eastern envoy during his first administration, for the Nobel Peace Prize over their hand in shaping the Abraham Accords.
Dershowitz — who has recently faced scrutiny over his ties to Epstein, and previously denied allegations of sexual misconduct made by one of Epstein’s accusers — panned the Democratic Party as the “most anti-Israel party in U.S. history” in the op-ed.
“I believe that the Democratic Party’s hostility to Israel represents a deeper and more dangerous shift away from the center and toward a radical approach that is bad for America and the free world,” Dershowitz wrote, adding that he intended to “work hard to prevent the Democrats from gaining control of the House and Senate.”
Dershowitz’s comments are in line with Trump’s statements about Jews and the Democratic Party. He has repeatedly expressed amazement at how any Jews could vote for the Democrats considering his own record when it comes to Israel.
The post Alan Dershowitz quits Democratic Party, calling it ‘most anti-Israel party in U.S. history’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas says Zionists ‘talk like Black people during slavery’
(JTA) — In an interview on a popular web series posted Tuesday, rock musician Julian Casablancas alleged that “American Zionists” are deeply privileged yet behave as if they are “Black people during slavery.”
The comment appears in a 21-minute “uncut” edition of the web series SubwayTakes, in which host Kareem Rahma interviews both famous and up-and-coming New Yorkers about their most controversial opinions.
“Well, it’s been nice having a career,” Casablancas, the frontman for the band The Strokes, said before he dove into his hot take: “American Zionists get the benefits of white privileged people, but talk like they are Black people during slavery.”
Rahma, a comedian, responded immediately, as he always does, with his personal view on the opinion: “100% agree.”
The full-length video was posted to SubwayTakes’ YouTube channel, which has nearly 1 million subscribers. An abridged version without the comments about American Zionists was shared to SubwayTakes’ other channels on Instagram and TikTok, where the project’s followings are larger.
Casablancas’ comments were not unprecedented for him: Earlier this week, his band used its final song at the Coachella music festival to condemn the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran and Israel’s campaign in Gaza. The frontman previously signed onto a letter calling for a cultural boycott of Israel.
But his discussion with Rahma pointed to how blanket criticism of “Zionists” has grown commonplace in youth-oriented and left-leaning spaces. In the comments section, some viewers said Casablancas represented a model for how artists should take a stand against Israel and its supporters.
“Julian doubling down on criticising (american) zionists and zionism and american imperialism at large got me feeling hopeful and proud. smart, loud, and so f–king cool,” one commenter wrote on YouTube. “it truly is that easy @ everyone else in the industry.”
The video also marked Rahma’s strongest public comments about Israel, even as neither he nor Casablancas uttered the country’s name. He previously said he asked to press Vice President Kamala Harris for her take on the war in Gaza, which he opposed, during her appearance on the show in 2024 but was rebuffed.
“I’ve never seen something so shocking where they’re like ‘I’m so oppressed. I’m an oppressed person,’” Rahma said after agreeing with Casablancas’ take. “I’m like, ‘You are going to a wedding in Tel Aviv right now, when there are 80,000 dead people — and more — 80,000-plus dead people, including women and children half a mile away.” (The Gaza border is about an hour’s drive south of Tel Aviv.)
Rahma concluded, “Absolutely f—ed. And totally — you know what? I don’t think it’s bad to say that.”
In a further explanation of his “take,” Casablancas acknowledged that the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel was “bad” and also anticipated what those who disagree with him about Israel might say.
“I mean, just for the people that are going to be like, ‘Hamas, Oct. 7 —’ yes, bad,” he said. “But, you know, Native American rebellions didn’t mean it was OK to do what we did. Slave rebellions that were violent didn’t mean that slavery is not bad. You know what I mean? So, that’s the scope of that answer. Just to be — for the haters, for the media illiterate.”
In the 21-minute SubwayTakes video, Casablancas also came out against long audio voice messages and said that conservatives and progressives need to come together and “do a non-corporate consensus populist party, fight the billionaire gang agenda villains.”
When Rahma suggested that Americans should be allowed to stop paying taxes if the United States bombs their native country, Casablancas noted, “I know Iranian Americans that want America to bomb Iran, though.”
Rahma, who is Egyptian-American, is the creator of “Keep the Meter Running,” a web series where he interviews cab drivers and asks them to take him to their favorite place while keeping the meter running. In an August 2023 episode, he meets a Bukharian cab driver from Uzbekistan who takes him to 2nd Avenue Deli, a kosher staple on the Upper East Side.
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