Israeli National Security Minister and head of Jewish Power party Itamar Ben-Gvir gives a statement to members of the press, ahead of a possible ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar issued rare public rebukes of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Wednesday after he filmed himself confronting detained Gaza flotilla activists, prompting a wave of criticism from Israeli officials and pro-Israel advocates who warned that the far-right minister had turned a successful security operation into an unnecessary strategic and diplomatic liability.

Netanyahu defended Israel’s right to stop the flotilla, but sharply distanced himself from Ben-Gvir’s conduct.

“Israel has every right to prevent provocative flotillas of Hamas terrorist supporters from entering our territorial waters and reaching Gaza,” Netanyahu said. “However, the way that Minister Ben-Gvir dealt with the flotilla activists is not in line with Israel’s values and norms.”

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar went further, accusing Ben-Gvir of knowingly harming Israel’s national interests. “You knowingly caused harm to our State in this disgraceful display — and not for the first time,” Sa’ar wrote on X. “You have undone tremendous, professional, and successful efforts made by so many people — from IDF soldiers to Foreign Ministry staff and many others. No, you are not the face of Israel.”

The video, posted Wednesday by Ben-Gvir on X with the caption “Welcome to Israel,” showed dozens of detained activists after their arrival in Ashdod, some kneeling on the ground with their hands zip-tied behind their backs as Israel’s national anthem played over loudspeakers. Ben-Gvir, flanked by security personnel, walked among the detainees waving a large Israeli flag and shouting in Hebrew, “Welcome to Israel, we are the landlords,” according to the Associated Press and Times of Israel.

Ben-Gvir’s video quickly triggered a widening diplomatic incident.

Italy — led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, one of Israel’s more reliable supporters in Europe — summoned Israel’s ambassador after the footage emerged. Canada summoned Israel’s ambassador over what it called “very disturbing” footage, while Spain and the Netherlands, two of Israel’s fiercest Western European critics during the Gaza war, also summoned Israeli diplomats.

The public criticism from Netanyahu and Sa’ar was notable in Israeli political terms, where coalition discipline often keeps disputes with senior ministers behind closed doors. It also reflected broader concern that Ben-Gvir’s actions had undermined what Israeli officials and supporters described as a complex, weeks-long effort by Israeli security forces to intercept Gaza-bound flotillas without casualties or serious incidents.

Israeli forces have faced repeated attempts by activists to challenge the naval blockade of Gaza in recent weeks. Supporters of the operations said the activists were stopped, processed, and deported to their countries of origin without injuries — an outcome they argued was being overshadowed by Ben-Gvir’s decision to stage and publicize a confrontation with detainees.

Public backlash came not only from Ben-Gvir’s usual opponents but from a range of pro-Israel voices spanning the political right and center.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a pro-Israel NGO, addressed Netanyahu directly, writing: “Your Minister of Police Itamar Ben Gvir is a disgrace and a desecration. You need to fire him now.”

Zvika Klein, editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, said he was “utterly ashamed and disgusted” by what he called Ben-Gvir’s “pathetic, childish stunt,” adding: “The humiliating way he filmed and mocked detainees is a national disgrace.”

Hillel Fuld, a prominent pro-Israel commentator often associated with Israel’s political right, wrote that Ben-Gvir was “a real idiot” and “nothing but a liability to the state of Israel.”

When the much-beloved English broadcaster David Attenborough was celebrated at London’s Royal Albert Hall with the tribute 100 Years On Planet Earth, a spoken word recording was played of Attenborough reciting the song “What a Wonderful World.”

Co-written by the Jewish songwriter George David Weiss, a Juilliard-trained musician, the song was originally intended for Louis Armstrong as a reflective follow-up to Armstrong’s peppy smash hit “Hello, Dolly!” by the Broadway composer Jerry Herman. “What a Wonderful World” was not universally acclaimed at first. Armstrong’s clarinetist Joe Muranyi later described Satchmo’s first reaction to the tune in a way that may be politely paraphrased as “What is this drek?”

The unabashed sentimentality, funereal tempo, and absence of any jazziness may have put off musicians initially, and indeed discouraged record company president Larry Newton (born Louis Nutinsky). Newton so loathed the very concept of the melody that he tried to stop the recording session and had to be physically removed and locked out of the studio. Later, Newton refused to promote the song, which had almost no immediate impact in America, although it became a #1 hit in the U.K.

“What a Wonderful World” expressed a Great Society optimism of the 1960s, which was overwhelmingly supported by American Jews, believing that successive generations would be better educated and the federal government would resolve systemic poverty and racial inequality. “I hear babies cry, I watch them grow/ They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know,” Armstrong sang.

Meanwhile, the song acquired newfound popularity in 1999 when the saxophonist Kenneth Bruce Gorelick, known as Kenny G, added his own accompaniment to Armstrong’s vocals and other elements of the original recording. Jazz mavens were outraged, led by the guitarist Pat Metheny, who called Kenny G’s effort “musical necrophilia.” No such excoriations were heard in 2001, when punk rockstar Joey Ramone (born Jeffrey Ross Hyman), produced an exceedingly loud cover version with its own gritty integrity and authenticity. And in 2018, Barbra Streisand was generally praised for blending the song with John Lennon’s “Imagine” on her album Walls. As The Hollywood Reporter commented, Streisand’s purpose was likely to inspire hope during a crisis in American sociopolitical history, to offer a reason to “persevere during a period of cascading nightmares.”

The Attenborough event at the Royal Albert Hall also featured a performance of “Nature Boy” by the Jewish U.K. singer Sienna Spiro, whose full-throated singing recalls the precedent of the 1960’s Jewish U.K. singer Alma Cogan. The song Spiro chose to sing was written by George Alexander Aberle, who spent his early childhood at the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum and adopted the pen name of eden ahbez, spelled with lower-case letters because, he asserted, only the words God and Infinity merited capitalization.

As was the case with “What a Wonderful World,” some controversy surrounded “Nature Boy,” originally popularized by Nat King Cole. The Belarusian Jewish-born composer and singer Herman Yablokoff claimed in a memoir that the melody of “Nature Boy” was plagiarized from his song “Shvayg mayn harts” (“Be Still, My Heart”), which he wrote for the play Papirosn (Cigarettes) in 1935.

At first, ahbez denied the charge, claiming to Yablokoff that he had first heard the tune in the California mountains, as if sung by angels. To which Yablokoff, with the brass-tacks realism of a Yiddish theater veteran, replied that the song was geganvet (stolen) and if any angels had been singing it, they must have purchased the sheet music of his song. Eventually ahbez’s lawyers offered an out-of-court settlement, which was accepted.

As far as the Attenborough concert is concerned, the tribute at the Royal Albert Hall brought to mind the case of Miriam Rothschild, a Jewish naturalist who preceded Attenborough in creating compelling nature documentaries. Rothschild was also a celebrated zoologist, entomologist and conservationist of lasting original achievements.

Nicknamed the queen of fleas due to her understanding of that life form, Rothschild was also an activist who saved lives of Jewish refugees during wartime, personally housing 49 children at her family estate and urging that laws be liberalized to allow more escapees from Fascist Europe to find safety in Britain. Perhaps tellingly, Rothschild also marveled at tiny mites that found refuge in the ears of moths. Her films did not dwell on the predatory violence of nature, which most other documentaries, even Attenborough’s, sometimes did to inspire thrills and chills among viewers.

With comparable compassion, Rothschild supported social causes including animal welfare, free milk for children at school, and gay rights by contributing to the 1957 Wolfenden Report which resulted in decriminalizing homosexual behavior in the U.K. By contrast, Attenborough, as a senior manager at the BBC, controller of BBC Two, and director of programming for BBC Television in the 1960s and 1970s, eschewed making public statements about societal issues until very recently, even those relating to climate change, as Nature Magazine observed in its centenary salute.

Yet by focusing on the world and latterly on damage from careless abuse of natural resources, Attenborough promoted biodiversity, renewable energy, and natural preservation areas, among other initiatives. And all Jewish TV spectators can only be grateful that as controller of BBC Two, Attenborough commissioned The Ascent of Man, the 1973 series in which Jacob Bronowski, the Polish Jewish mathematician and humanist, expressed his personal philosophy. In its own way a sometimes rueful homage to a wonderful world, Bronowski’s conclusions about nature and humanity were so powerful that they overshadow the occasional executive decision for which Attenborough later expressed regret, such as the budget-motivated 1960s destruction of archived BBC programs. As a result, much Jewish media history was lost, including The Madhouse on Castle Street, a 1963 teleplay with the then- little-known Bob Dylan among the performers.

Nonetheless, Attenborough’s series, which include Life on Earth, The Living Planet, The Trials of Life, The Life of Mammals, Life in the Undergrowth and many others underscore the fact that appreciating nature is a L’chaim to all of creation, the ultimate message of his long life’s work, much deserving of the praise it has received.

The post In celebration of David Attenborough’s 100th birthday, a very Jewish song appeared first on The Forward.

(JTA) — Barney Frank, for years the progressive conscience of his party who died on Tuesday night, had one last piece of advice for Democrats as he entered hospice care earlier this month: Repudiate litmus tests – except for Israel.

The United States should cut off weapons sales to Israel as long as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not relieve Palestinian suffering, Frank told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this month, using his imminent death to state bluntly what he believed other Democrats could not.

“It’s what the Democrats should be doing, it’s what America should be doing, and it should be what the Democrats are advocating, is giving an ultimatum that [Netanyahu] either changes things substantially in Gaza and the West Bank, or we cut off any aid,” the onetime congressional powerhouse said in a May 8 phone call from his home in Ogunquit, Maine.

“I’ve been talking about the importance of repudiating positions from the left and from the far left, but the Israel one is almost 180 degrees” different, he said. “It’s the one area where we are not doing enough in terms of making our position clear.”

Jewish lawmakers criticizing Netanyahu’s Israel was extraordinary a decade or so ago but has become commonplace. Frank’s plea, however, came from a lawmaker who grew up in a Zionist household and who was throughout a decades-long career in the U.S. House of Representatives solidly pro-Israel, albeit with occasional deviations from the pro-Israel lobby’s orthodoxy.

In one of his final interviews, he acknowledged being heartbroken by Israel under Netanyahu, recalling his family’s support for the struggle to shuck off the British mandate and create a Jewish state.

“We had a ‘boycott Britain’ bumper sticker on our car,” he said. His older sister, Anne Lewis, brought the family into the Zionist fold after a summer at a Habonim camp. “During my congressional career, I was very supportive, emotionally as well as politically and for a while earlier in this century, I volunteered and traveled at the request of Hillel to a couple of college campuses to defend Judaism and Israel.”

That would be hard to do in the current moment, he said. “I guess I held on longer than I should have to, ‘Well, we can work with them, etc’,” he said. “But it’s become clear to me, particularly due to what they’re allowing to happen in the West Bank, that it is important morally and politically to repudiate the policy of supporting Israel’s military activity.”

From the home he shared with his husband in Ogunquit, Frank in his final days took calls from the media well ahead of the scheduled publication of his book, “The Hard Path to Unity.”

He freely admitted he was doing a virtual publicity tour because his survival until the September launch date was unlikely. He knew he was leveraging his decline to be heard, and he didn’t mind that at all.

“Frankly, if I weren’t dying, people wouldn’t be paying as much attention,” Frank told The New York Times earlier this month.

His message in many of those conversations: Don’t make or break viable Democratic candidates on issues like transgender rights or Medicare for all.

“The key to liberal democracy being able to come back is to get rid of the perception, that we have allowed to grow, that the entire Democratic Party is committed to a series of very drastic social reconstructions that go beyond the politically acceptable,” he told the Times.

Asked at the outset of his interview with JTA if that advice extends to the pressure from some of the Democratic base on candidates to pledge to cut assistance to Israel, he offered a vigorous “almost the opposite” because of his conviction that the party should be more vocal in its opposition to the current Israeli government.

Frank was a fighter during his congressional career from 1981 to 2013. The leadership made him the lead antagonist to Newt Gingrich during Gingrich’s consequential speakership in the 1990s. Frank ascended to the leadership of the House Financial Services Committee at a key time, during the late 2000s financial crisis. He coauthored the last major banking reform bill, 2010’s Dodd-Frank.

He was a progressive lion, championing the battles against income inequality and for civil rights. He came out in 1987 as gay, the first sitting member of Congress to do so. He had a reputation as a curmudgeon, once silencing a Holocaust survivor for exceeding his time in congressional testimony.

Frank believed that incremental moves are more likely to bring about change than full-on advocacy for far-reaching changes. He had noted in interviews that the same-sex marriage he enjoyed with his husband came about because of a slow roll of change in LGBTQ rights, including ones he championed, like allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

The onetime leading progressive endorsed moderates in this year’s elections, backing AIPAC-supported U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens in the Michigan Senate primary. In his own state’s Senate race, he also backed Gov. Janet Collins, who recently ceded the primary to Graham Platner, an ascendant figure on the party’s left.

Frank believed anti-Israel orthodoxies could be as damaging as the far-left orthodoxies he decried. He remained appalled at voters disgruntled with the Biden administration’s pro-Israel policies who stayed away from the polls or even voted for President Donald Trump, and he used their example as one of two to illustrate why purity tests backfire. (The other is voters who faulted President Joe Biden for not doing enough to address climate change.)

“People who voted against [Kamala] Harris because they thought the administration had been too supportive of Israel achieved exactly the opposite of what they wanted,” Frank said, referring to the former vice president who faced Trump in 2024. “She would have begun by now to have cut back substantially on aid to Israel.”

He made clear in his interview that he rejected the extremes of Israel criticism emerging among Democrats, including accusations it has committed genocide in the war Hamas launched in 2023, and the argument that it should not exist as a Jewish state.

“Genocide is trying to wipe out the whole people,” he said. “The Holocaust was killing every Jew. Israel is not trying to kill every Palestinian. What they’re doing – I do not think its genocide, but it’s certainly unacceptable, morally and very damaging, politically.”

But he argued that in order to effectively confront the anti-Israel left in the party, Democrats must address what he says is the main enabler of its rise: Netanyahu and his policies.

“Netanyahu has been their enabler,” he said of prominent anti-Israel Democrats, including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Senate primary candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

Frank was especially exercised by attacks by some settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank, attacks he said are enabled by Netanyahu and his coalition partnership with far-right patrons of the extremist settlers.

“My recommendation to Democrats would be to say, if Netanyahu does not reverse the harassment of Palestinians in the West Bank and substantially cut back on the military attacks, America should announce that we are no longer going to supply him with arms or be otherwise supportive,” he said.

“We’ve now gone to the point where supporting Israel has become unpopular, and that’s all Netanyahu’s doing,” Frank said. “No question that what he’s done is legitimize opposition to the whole notion of Israel, beyond disagreement with the specific actions.”

He sympathized with Jewish voters who feel alienated by Democrats and who could never bring themselves to vote for Trump (whom he reviled — he told reporters that his one regret is that he will not live to see Trump implode.) But he said the way forward is to cut off Netanyahu.

“I understand the dilemma people face if the choice is supporting Israel and everything that Netanyahu is doing and repudiating that,” he said. “We should make it clear that the right position here is to support Israel’s right to exist, but to be unwilling to facilitate what they’re doing militarily and to give them an ultimatum.”

Frank said the United States should actively support Netanyahu’s opposition as a means of leverage. He cited as an example the campaign he helped lead for the release of the spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard.

Frank spearheaded congressional pressure on President Barack Obama in 2010 mostly because he believed Pollard’s sentence was unjust. But he also thought that it would serve as an incentive to Netanyahu to cooperate more closely with the Obama administration on other issues. (The Obama administration engineered Pollard’s parole in 2015 and he now lives in Israel.)

Instead, Netanyahu became even more confrontational and moved further to the right. Now, Frank said, he would dangle the prospect of Pollard’s release before the Israeli electorate as a means of ousting Netanyahu.

“I now think America’s effort should be to support the opposition to Netanyahu,” he said.

This article originally appeared on JTA.org.

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