Uncategorized
‘We will not give up’ on judicial changes, right-wing protesters at Israel’s largest pro-reform rally are told
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The right-wing protest that took some 200,000 people to Jerusalem’s streets on Thursday night to demonstrate in favor of the government’s judicial overhaul felt bizarrely familiar.
In many ways, it mimicked the anti-government protests that it meant to oppose: Like the demonstrations that have filled Tel Aviv’s streets every week this year, this too featured lots of Israeli flags, chants to the tune of “Seven Nation Army” and signs declaring that the rally represents the majority of the country.
And like the protests in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem’s mass gathering felt driven by grievance: a sense that the country the rally-goers had fought for — the country they thought they had — was being taken away from them.
“There are those who have decided that they can make decisions for me, even though they have no right to decide for me,” said Michal Verzberger, who came from the central town of Mazkeret Batya with most of her family to protest in favor of the reforms. Verzberger was echoing a central message of Thursday’s protest: that the right won the recent elections, and therefore had every right to pass its desired judicial overhaul.
“The nation decided it wanted reform, and there are some who are protesting the reform, and they’re deciding in our place that there won’t be a reform,” she said. “The minority is deciding what is good for the majority.”
The idea that a loud minority is unjustly obstructing the will of the electorate inspired Thursday’s protest, which filled an artery of central Jerusalem with a largely Orthodox, religious Zionist crowd. The judicial overhaul would sap the Israeli Supreme Court of much of its power, and since it was proposed at the beginning of the year, hundreds of thousands have filled the streets — in Tel Aviv and elsewhere — weekly to decry the proposal as a danger to democracy.
Right-wing Israelis attend a rally in support of the government’s planned judicial overhaul in Jerusalem, April 27, 2023. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)
Those protests, and associated actions, led Israel’s right-wing government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to pause the reforms for a month — a period that ends in several days. The governing coalition and opposition are now negotiating over the legislation, a process that, if successful, will by definition soften the reforms at least a little.
Thursday’s rally was a show of force that aimed to strengthen the position of the government majority, several protesters said. One of the crowd’s chants was “64 seats” — the majority the right-wing holds in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, the Knesset. One homemade sign read, “64 > 56.”
The government ministers who spoke at the rally did not seem interested in half-measures. They promised that despite the delays, the substance of the reform would become law.
“Listen well, because this is my promise: We will not give up,” said Bezalal Smotrich, the far-right finance minister. “We won’t give up on making Israel a better place to live. We won’t give up on the Jewish state. … We’re fixing what needs to be fixed, and promising a better state of Israel for us and for the coming generations. Most of the nation agrees that the judicial reform is the right and necessary thing to do for the state of Israel, and I say again: We will not give up.”
Who is, in fact, in the majority on this issue is a more complicated question than it seems. Israel’s electorate has had a right-wing majority for years, both according to polls and election results. While the ideological bent of coalitions has varied, the past 22 years have seen only several months — last year — with a prime minister who didn’t build his career in conservative politics.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin at a rally in support of the government’s planned judicial overhaul outside the Knesset in Jerusalem, April 27, 2023. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)
But polls also show that a majority of the country opposes the court reform itself, which has been pushed through the Knesset without any support from opposition parties or even engagement with their concerns. The central motivation of the anti-overhaul protests has been the importance of defending democracy and an independent court system.
That idea vexed Thursday’s protesters. “We won’t give up on Israeli democracy, and no one will steal that word from us,” Smotrich said. Yariv Levin, the justice minister and architect of the judicial overhaul, said, “Two million Israelis, half a year a year ago, voted in the true referendum: the elections. They voted for judicial reform.”
Protesters who spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency said they supported the overhaul’s provisions, which include giving the governing coalition a large measure of control over the selection of judges and allowing the Knesset to override most Supreme Court decisions with a bare majority. Observers across the political spectrum and around the globe have cautioned that those changes could damage Israel’s democratic character.
But protesters said that, rather than destroy democracy, the overhaul would restore balance to Israel’s branches of government, curbing an overly activist court.
“I want a real democracy in the state of Israel,” said Chanan Fine, a resident of the central city of Modiin. “In a democracy there are three branches that have balance between them, and what happened is that the judicial branch has taken for itself the powers of the legislative branch and the executive branch.”
He added, “The government needs to have the ability to determine policy and to pass laws, and if there’s a policy that contradicts the laws of the state then the Supreme Court needs to get involved,” but less often than it does now, he explained.
Under the proposed legislation, the governing coalition would not have to respect the determination of the Supreme Court.
The message of the protests wasn’t the only thing that separated it from the Tel Aviv demonstrations, which largely draw secular Israelis. While few haredi Israelis attended the event — a leading haredi newspaper instructed its readers not to go, even as it expressed support for the cause — religious ritual pervaded the demonstration. Men gathered in prayer quorums before sunset on the way to the protest, and rallygoers recited the Shema and traditional prayers for salvation en masse. Most of the men wore kippahs, and most of the women wore long skirts.
Some signs at the Tel Aviv rallies, in addition to opposing the overhaul, advocate for LGBTQ rights or Israeli-Palestinian peace. Signs and shirts at the Jerusalem rally instead trumpeted settlements in the West Bank and the belief that the late rabbi of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement is the messiah.
One thing that the two rallies had in common: a preponderance of Israeli flags, something that has been particularly noted at the anti-overhaul demonstrations.
“It’s a desecration of our symbol,” Chen Avital, a protester from the West Bank settlement of Shilo, said about the anti-government protesters’ adoption of the flag. “They took it for a certain side that isn’t supported by the whole country, and they changed it to their side over the past few months. … It’s a flag that represents all of us, and they took it for their own side.”
—
The post ‘We will not give up’ on judicial changes, right-wing protesters at Israel’s largest pro-reform rally are told appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Global Leaders React to the Killing of Iran’s Khamenei
A woman holds a poster with the picture of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as people gather after Khamenei was killed in Israeli and U.S. strikes on Saturday, in Tehran, Iran, March 1, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in US and Israeli strikes, state media confirmed as another wave of attacks hit the country on Sunday.
Below is international reaction to his death.
PAKISTAN PRIME MINISTER SHEHBAZ SHARIF
“Pakistan also expresses concern over violation of the norms of international law. It is an age-old convention that the heads of state/government should not be targeted.”
IRANIAN PRESIDENT MASOUD PEZESHKIAN
“The martyrdom of the Supreme Leader at the hands of Israel and the criminal America was a great disaster for our country… America and Israel should know that it will bring them nothing but embarrassment.”
EUROPEAN COMMISSIONER URSULA VON DER LEYEN
“With Khamenei gone, there is renewed hope for the people of Iran. We must ensure that the future is theirs to claim and shape. At the same time, this moment carries a real risk of instability that could push the region into a spiral of violence.”
ITALIAN FOREIGN MINISTER ANTONIO TAJANI
“For the moment, Iran is in a transitional phase, and it remains to be seen how long it will last and what impact the war will have. What is certain is that a leader who had guided Iran for decades is gone, and that is bound to have consequences — including the loss of Khamenei’s personal authority over the population.”
FRENCH GOVERNMENT SPOKESPERSON MAUD BREGEON
“He was responsible for the deaths of thousands of civilians in his country and in the region, so one can only welcome his disappearance. It is now up to the Iranian people to choose their own destiny.”
EUROPEAN UNION FOREIGN POLICY CHIEF KAJA KALLAS
“The death of Ali Khamenei is a defining moment in Iran’s history. What comes next is uncertain. But there is now an open path to a different Iran, one that its people may have greater freedom to shape.”
RUSSIAN PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN
“Please accept my deep condolences in connection with the murder of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Seyed Ali Khamenei, and members of his family, committed in cynical violation of all norms of human morality and international law.”
SWEDISH FOREIGN MINISTER MARIA STENERGARD
“Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been confirmed dead. This could open a window of opportunities. But there are still many uncertainties remaining.
“Iran’s future must belong to the people. But the road there is long. The risk of a spiral of violence in the Middle East remains great.”
INDONESIA’S ULEMA MUSLIM CLERICAL COUNCIL
“The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) expressed its deepest condolences for the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, as a result of the Israeli-American attack on February 28.
“The United States, which is playing a central role in managing the Palestinian conflict through the BoP (Board of Peace), faces a major question: is this strategy truly aimed at a just peace, or is it actually strengthening an unequal security architecture and burying Palestinian independence? Therefore, the MUI urges the Indonesian government to revoke its membership from the BoP.”
Uncategorized
Israel and US Used Anthropic’s Claude and CIA Intelligence in Timing Iran Strike
CEO of Anthropic Dario Amodei, addresses the gathering at the AI Impact Summit, in New Delhi, India, February 19, 2026. REUTERS/Bhawika Chhabra
i24 News – Israel and the United States used an artificial intelligence system and detailed CIA intelligence to help plan and time their joint strike on Iranian leadership in Tehran, according to reports in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The operation targeted a rare gathering of senior Iranian officials and was adjusted to coincide with a Saturday morning meeting at a government compound in central Tehran.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the attack was carried out with the assistance of “Claude,” an artificial intelligence tool developed by the company Anthropic, just hours after the federal administration announced it was terminating its contract with the firm and labeling it a “security threat.” According to the report, sources familiar with the matter said military headquarters around the world, including United States Central Command in the Middle East, are using Claude “for intelligence assessments, target identification, and battle scenario simulations.” CENTCOM declined to comment on the specific systems being used in the operation.
In a separate account, the New York Times said the CIA had been tracking Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “for months, gaining more confidence about his locations and his patterns,” according to people familiar with the operation. The agency then learned that a meeting of top Iranian officials would take place on Saturday morning at a leadership compound in the heart of Tehran and that Khamenei would be present at the site.
Officials with knowledge of the decisions told the Times that the United States and Israel decided to adjust the timing of their attack “in part to take advantage of the new intelligence.” The information provided a “window of opportunity” for the two countries to achieve “a critical and early victory: the elimination of top Iranian officials and the killing of Ayatollah Khamenei,” the report said. The CIA passed its intelligence, described as offering “high fidelity” on Khamenei’s position, to Israel, according to people briefed on the operation.
Those sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the intelligence and military planning, said Israel used the American intelligence alongside its own to execute an operation it had been preparing for months, focused on the targeted killing of senior officials in the Iranian regime. According to the reports, the governments of the United States and Israel had originally planned to launch the attack at night but shifted to a daylight strike after learning of the leadership gathering in Tehran.
The Times said senior figures in Iran’s security establishment attended the meeting, including Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammad Pakpour, Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, military council head Ali Shamkhani, Revolutionary Guard Aerospace Force commander Seyed Majid Mousavi, Deputy Intelligence Minister Mohammad Shirazi, and other top officials. An Israeli security official, quoted by the Times, said the operation “was carried out simultaneously at several sites in Tehran, including at the meeting point of the Iranian political‑security leadership,” and added that despite Iranian preparations for war, Israel had achieved a “tactical surprise” in striking the compound.
Uncategorized
Abu Dhabi Complex Housing Embassies Damaged as Retaliatory Strikes Widen in Gulf
Smoke billows from Zayed port after an Iranian attack, following United States and Israel strikes on Iran, in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, March 1, 2026. Picture taken with phone. REUTERS/Abdelhadi Ramahi
Debris from an intercepted drone damaged an Abu Dhabi complex housing the Israeli embassy and several other international missions, causing minor injuries to a woman and her child, Abu Dhabi’s state media office said on Sunday.
Debris from the drone fell against the facade of the Etihad Towers complex after an interception that caused loud sounds heard across the emirate, the media office said.
After the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Saturday, Iran said it would target US bases in the region. But it has also hit a range of civilian and commercial areas across Gulf cities, widening the conflict’s impact on key regional aviation and trade hubs.
As retaliatory strikes widened on Sunday they reverberated across Gulf Arab states, with loud blasts heard in Dubai and the Qatari capital Doha and with Oman being hit for the first time.
PORTS TARGETED
In Dubai, two people were injured after shrapnel from drones fell over two houses when they were intercepted, a Dubai state media office statement said.
Dubai’s international airport, its landmark Burj Al Arab hotel and man-made Palm Jumeirah Island all suffered damage overnight, as did Abu Dhabi’s international airport.
Thick black plumes of smoke continued to rise from the Jebel Ali port area, where one of the berths caught fire on Sunday because of debris from an intercepted missile.
In neighboring Oman, which was spared retaliation on Saturday, Duqm commercial port was targeted by two drones, wounding one worker, the state news agency said.
Dubai is the biggest tourism and trade hub in the Middle East and its airport is one of the world’s busiest travel hubs.
Qatar’s interior ministry said on Sunday that it was responding to a limited fire in an industrial zone after debris fell from an intercepted missile.