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Why Donniel Hartman sees a brighter Israeli future — in 2026

(JTA) — When Israel’s parliament on Monday passed the first plank in a series of reform proposals meant to curb the power of Israel’s judiciary, it set off alarms among Israel’s supporters abroad.

Liberal and centrist Jewish groups said weakening the judiciary would undermine Israeli democracy. Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, wrote an open letter to President Joe Biden saying that he must save Israel “from being destroyed from the inside.” Conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin welcomed news that Israel’s Supreme Court would review the legislation, saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “will have endangered the country for nothing.”

Rabbi Donniel Hartman is urging critics of the judicial reforms and Netanyahu’s government to take a deep breath. Not because he supports the proposals — he agrees they would “undermine the systems of checks and balances necessary to protect Israel’s democratic identity.” But he warns that the bill passed on Monday represents one of the least controversial planks in Netanyahu’s reform plan, and that the massive demonstrations against the proposals have united an Israeli consensus around what he is calling a “new social coalition.”

Hartman is the president, along with Yehuda Kurtzer, of the Shalom Hartman Institute, a Jerusalem-based think tank that promotes pluralism and liberal values in Israel and beyond. Hundreds of North American rabbis and Jewish lay leaders have cycled through Hartman programs, which promote diversity, civil discourse and what it calls the “democratic character of Israel.” 

Hartman recently spoke to a group of rabbis about the public backlash to the reform proposals, and the political implications between now and the next scheduled Israeli elections in 2026. On Thursday, he shared some of those same ideas with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, explaining why he thinks Netanyahu is playing a weak hand, why the Palestinian issue is on the back burner and why North American Jews should channel their gloom over the current legislation into support for its opponents. 

A note on the judicial proposals: The legislation passed Monday would end the Israeli Supreme Court’s ability to strike down government decisions and appointments judges deems “unreasonable.” Other proposals include changing the law to allow ministers to install political appointees as legal advisers in their ministries — which critics say would remove an important check on corruption — and one that would give the Knesset the power to override Supreme Court decisions by a simple majority. Another proposal would give more power to politicians in appointing judges. 

For now, those proposals are on pause. 

Our conversation was edited for length and clarity. 

I’ve been thinking of the “day after” fear and anticipation after some recent watershed events – Trump’s election, the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, maybe the Brexit vote. Did Monday’s vote on the “reasonableness” clause mark a before and after?

No. It doesn’t feel like a Brexit moment, because the vote on the reasonableness clause is not big enough. The election itself was more significant. The proposal of the reform was more significant. The “reasonableness” clause was the perfect issue for Netanyahu to pick, because it’s the most reasonable of the judicial reform proposals. Overall there are five big reform proposals, including the way the Israeli Supreme Court is selected, the power of the attorneys general and the “override” clause. The last is the one the haredi Orthodox want because no matter who is on the Supreme Court or what they decide they could just cancel it out. That’s just the end of democracy.  

So Netanyahu pushed the right one for a first victory, but in order to stop the slippery slope process, [the opposition] had to pretend as if this was very big. It was a tactical game, to claim that the override clause was the end of democracy. Tom Friedman overplayed his cards. Nope. It’s far from the end.

This was just the beginning of a three-year war. This is going to go on until 2026.

Why 2026?

That’s when the next elections are.

Assuming the government doesn’t fall before then. 

It can’t fall. Because unless there’s an internal split in Likud [Netanyahu’s party], neither [far-right government ministers Itamar] Ben-Gvir or [Betzalel] Smotrich or the haredim will ever join with the Joint List [an Arab coalition] or Avigdor Lieberman [a nationalist opposition member] to vote this government out. They’ll kvetch, they’ll complain, they’ll threaten, but they can’t leave and that’s what makes it so strange that Netanyahu seems so intimidated by them. Because he holds all the power. They have no power. Where are they going to go? Who are they going to sit with?  If they vote against the right-wing government, their careers will be over.

You said the 2022 election was the real watershed moment. In what way? 

The consequence of the election was the judicial reform proposals, which raised a fundamental question: What is the nature of our country? Trump wasn’t the end of America, but his election asked the question, What is America?  

Can Israelis right the ship as they see it in the next election? 

I believe this is the last Likud-led government and it certainly is the last right-wing government. That’s assuming that Netanyahu is not going to be prime minister. This whole reform issue has created an awareness that there are different coalitions being formed in Israel, which aren’t being  formed around the right-left wing divide. That divide doesn’t really exist anymore. There is a broad centrist camp that agrees on Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and economic theory. And there is no possibility of a two-state solution anyway — I just don’t know how to implement it. On the fringes, there is a left-wing socialist camp, let’s call it, and there is a right-wing settler group. Other than that, 80% of Israel is not divided under the left wing-right wing categories. You see at the demonstrations and in the polls that 20 to 30% of those who used to be on the right or are still on the right no longer want to vote for Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. They want to find alternative expressions for their identities. 

“If you fight and you stand up and you don’t walk away, there are partners in Israel who are looking at you and who feel encouraged by you,” said Rabbi Donniel Hartman, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute. (Courtesy)

What we need to do over the next three years is to frame a new social coalition in Israel, around internal values of liberal Zionism and liberal Judaism, which 80% of Israelis accept. Then we can win and that’s where 2026 is going to change. 

You said “assuming that Netanyahu is not going to be prime minister.” How does he keep this new social coalition from happening?

As long as he runs, the center and the left won’t join a coalition with him. They’re like never-Trumpers. They despise him. They don’t trust him. The Likud kept Netanyahu because he gave them 32 seats [a formidable bloc in the 120-seat Knesset, where 61 seats are needed to form a government]. But if he goes down to 26, there’s a whole bunch of people who are just waiting to replace him. 

You used the term “liberal Zionist” before. I think you use it differently than an American Jew might. Here it means someone who is pro-Israel but is desperate to see a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.   

It’s very interesting how the category of liberalism has been reclaimed in Israeli society. While in America the term is very divisive, actually in Israel it is becoming much more inclusive. It’s the old liberalism of liberties — a belief in Zionism and the right of the Jewish people to a state but one that  believes in human rights and a diverse public sphere and that respects law and the Supreme Court. It’s the old Likud. It’s the old [Ze’ev] Jabotinsky [the pre-state leader of Revisionist Zionism]. It’s the old [Likud Prime Minister] Menachem Begin. It’s not Smotrich or Ben-Gvir, and it’s not the haredi parties. 

But it doesn’t extend to the Palestinian issue.

Liberal Zionism in Israel recognizes that we don’t want to be an occupier of another people. But for the vast majority of Israelis, “the Palestinians want to murder me.” There is no Palestinian Authority today. The Palestinian Authority controls the Mukata [the P.A. headquarters in Ramallah] and three upper-middle-class towns in Judea and Samaria. Hamas and Islamic Jihad would run away with any election.

It’s very hard to even have a conversation about Palestinian rights in Israel, when you feel you’re talking about a society that wants to kill you. 

I just finished a book that is getting published in November, and I have a whole section on it challenging North American liberal Jews to recognize that they have liberal partners in Israel, even though they don’t agree with you on Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank, or what you even call it.

And yet, for a lot of American Jews — as well as for American anti- Zionists and a lot of progressives — Israel is judged only to the degree that it solves the Palestinian problem. Liberal Zionists define themselves around their commitment to a two-state solution, but you’re asking them to see common ground around other liberal issues.

I distinguish between tolerable occupiers and intolerable occupiers. Intolerable occupiers are those who believe that we have a right to all of Israel, and that Palestinian lives don’t matter. It’s a combination of ultra- nationalism, fascism and messianism. That’s one group. Then there’s a whole massive group for whom the only reason why the occupation continues is that they believe that there is no peace partner and that Israel’s survival is in danger if we do anything. 

People think I’m liberal. I’m more or less liberal. I’m for a two-state solution. I just don’t know how to implement it. Tell me what I could do now? I’m willing to stop settlements. I’m willing to curb settlements. I’m willing to do everything. I used to be for unilateral withdrawal. What would happen if you had unilateral withdrawal from Judea and Samaria?

Now, when you have a government that is not willing to admit that Palestinians have rights, or is not yearning for a peaceful solution, then of course we lose. That’s what Netanyahu’s doing since he sits with these [far-right] people. He has quieted all moral conversation when it comes to Israeli political life. So when that happens, of course, people with a moral voice would say, “What’s going on here?” Because it’s true, as you said, Zionism has ceded the moral conversation to the anti-Zionist camp.

Still, I think we can create a unified liberal Zionist conversation even though North American Jews and Israeli Jews might have a different opinion on what is the most viable solution right now.

Since we’re talking on Tisha B’Av, I went to services last night and the person who led the services gave a scorched-earth lament for Israel, basically saying his dreams for Israel are dying and he tied the week’s events, as a lot of people have, to the cataclysms that we acknowledge on the fast day, including the destruction of the First and Second Temples. What are you telling either Israelis or Diaspora supporters of Israel who are talking in apocalyptic terms about this week’s vote and the push for judicial reform by this government?

We mourn the destruction of the Temple. We learn from the destruction of the Temple. But we don’t declare the Temple destroyed before it’s destroyed.

Everything in Jewish history is about hope. It’s about working under impossible conditions. And Israel is now working under impossible conditions. That’s true. There is a government which is advocating for an Israel that half of Israel and 90% of North American Jewry wants nothing to do with. But Israel is not defined by its government alone, as you discovered when it came to Trump.  People have a voice. What the demonstrations make clear is that the vast majority of Israelis do not support these proposals.  

It’s one thing to turn your back on the Israeli government. But we’re out there marching. We don’t embrace destruction before it happens, but we get to work. There is a blueprint forward. The vast majority of Israelis now are embracing a liberal Zionism of the type I mentioned. North American Jews now have partners. They might not be perfect partners, but they have partners. Why walk away from Israel, when the majority of Israelis are now saying things they never said before: “I care about the Supreme Court. I care about human rights. I care about the rights of minorities”? This is what they’re talking about at every demonstration.

So I would go back to your [prayer leader] and say to him, “We waited 2,000 freaking years to have this country. Could you wait three more years? And could you fight for three years?” Because if you fight and you stand up and you don’t walk away, there are partners in Israel who are looking at you and who feel encouraged by you. We can build it.


The post Why Donniel Hartman sees a brighter Israeli future — in 2026 appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire

Explosions send smoke into the air in Gaza, as seen from the Israeli side of the border, July 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen

The spokesperson for Hamas’s armed wing said on Friday that while the Palestinian terrorist group favors reaching an interim truce in the Gaza war, if such an agreement is not reached in current negotiations it could revert to insisting on a full package deal to end the conflict.

Hamas has previously offered to release all the hostages held in Gaza and conclude a permanent ceasefire agreement, and Israel has refused, Abu Ubaida added in a televised speech.

Arab mediators Qatar and Egypt, backed by the United States, have hosted more than 10 days of talks on a US-backed proposal for a 60-day truce in the war.

Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on a call he had with Pope Leo on Friday that Israel‘s efforts to secure a hostage release deal and 60-day ceasefire “have so far not been reciprocated by Hamas.”

As part of the potential deal, 10 hostages held in Gaza would be returned along with the bodies of 18 others, spread out over 60 days. In exchange, Israel would release a number of detained Palestinians.

“If the enemy remains obstinate and evades this round as it has done every time before, we cannot guarantee a return to partial deals or the proposal of the 10 captives,” said Abu Ubaida.

Disputes remain over maps of Israeli army withdrawals, aid delivery mechanisms into Gaza, and guarantees that any eventual truce would lead to ending the war, said two Hamas officials who spoke to Reuters on Friday.

The officials said the talks have not reached a breakthrough on the issues under discussion.

Hamas says any agreement must lead to ending the war, while Netanyahu says the war will only end once Hamas is disarmed and its leaders expelled from Gaza.

Almost 1,650 Israelis and foreign nationals have been killed as a result of the conflict, including 1,200 killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli tallies. Over 250 hostages were kidnapped during Hamas’s Oct. 7 onslaught.

Israel responded with an ongoing military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in neighboring Gaza.

The post Hamas Says No Interim Hostage Deal Possible Without Work Toward Permanent Ceasefire first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel

People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas

Iran on Friday marked the 31st anniversary of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires by slamming Argentina for what it called “baseless” accusations over Tehran’s alleged role in the terrorist attack and accusing Israel of politicizing the atrocity to influence the investigation and judicial process.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on the anniversary of Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.

“While completely rejecting the accusations against Iranian citizens, the Islamic Republic of Iran condemns attempts by certain Argentine factions to pressure the judiciary into issuing baseless charges and politically motivated rulings,” the statement read.

“Reaffirming that the charges against its citizens are unfounded, the Islamic Republic of Iran insists on restoring their reputation and calls for an end to this staged legal proceeding,” it continued.

Last month, a federal judge in Argentina ordered the trial in absentia of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of orchestrating the attack in Buenos Aires.

The ten suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the terrorist attack.

In its statement on Friday, Iran also accused Israel of influencing the investigation to advance a political campaign against the Islamist regime in Tehran, claiming the case has been used to serve Israeli interests and hinder efforts to uncover the truth.

“From the outset, elements and entities linked to the Zionist regime [Israel] exploited this suspicious explosion, pushing the investigation down a false and misleading path, among whose consequences was to disrupt the long‑standing relations between the people of Iran and Argentina,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said.

“Clear, undeniable evidence now shows the Zionist regime and its affiliates exerting influence on the Argentine judiciary to frame Iranian nationals,” the statement continued.

In April, lead prosecutor Sebastián Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Alberto Nisman — requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.

Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.

In a post on X, the Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, released a statement commemorating the 31st anniversary of the bombing.

“It was a brutal attack on Argentina, its democracy, and its rule of law,” the group said. “At DAIA, we continue to demand truth and justice — because impunity is painful, and memory is a commitment to both the present and the future.”

Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.

Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.

To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.

In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.

Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.

Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.

The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.

The post Iran Marks 31st Anniversary of AMIA Bombing by Slamming Argentina’s ‘Baseless’ Accusations, Blaming Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns

Murad Adailah, the head of Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood, attends an interview with Reuters in Amman, Jordan, Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Jehad Shelbak

The Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world’s oldest and most influential Islamist movements, has been implicated in a wide-ranging network of illegal financial activities in Jordan and abroad, according to a new investigative report.

Investigations conducted by Jordanian authorities — along with evidence gathered from seized materials — revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood raised tens of millions of Jordanian dinars through various illegal activities, the Jordan news agency (Petra) reported this week.

With operations intensifying over the past eight years, the report showed that the group’s complex financial network was funded through various sources, including illegal donations, profits from investments in Jordan and abroad, and monthly fees paid by members inside and outside the country.

The report also indicated that the Muslim Brotherhood has taken advantage of the war in Gaza to raise donations illegally.

Out of all donations meant for Gaza, the group provided no information on where the funds came from, how much was collected, or how they were distributed, and failed to work with any international or relief organizations to manage the transfers properly.

Rather, the investigations revealed that the Islamist network used illicit financial mechanisms to transfer funds abroad.

According to Jordanian authorities, the group gathered more than JD 30 million (around $42 million) over recent years.

With funds transferred to several Arab, regional, and foreign countries, part of the money was allegedly used to finance domestic political campaigns in 2024, as well as illegal activities and cells.

In April, Jordan outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most vocal opposition group, and confiscated its assets after members of the Islamist movement were found to be linked to a sabotage plot.

The movement’s political arm in Jordan, the Islamic Action Front, became the largest political grouping in parliament after elections last September, although most seats are still held by supporters of the government.

Opponents of the group, which is banned in most Arab countries, label it a terrorist organization. However, the movement claims it renounced violence decades ago and now promotes its Islamist agenda through peaceful means.

The post Jordan Reveals Muslim Brotherhood Operating Vast Illegal Funding Network Tied to Gaza Donations, Political Campaigns first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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