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‘A battle of Jews against Jews’? Arab Israelis debate whether and how to join Israel’s democracy protests
TAYIBE, Israel (JTA) — Prominent figures among Israel’s Arab minority are calling on its members to join the mass protests against the Netanyahu government’s judicial overhaul plan, arguing that Arabs will be the first victims of any weakening of the Supreme Court.
“If the government succeeds it will make our chances for equality and a just peace more remote,” said Suheil Diab, former deputy mayor of Nazareth, Israel’s largest Arab city, and one of the organizers of a nonpartisan push to get Arabs to demonstrate alongside their Jewish counterparts.
“If we don’t repel the attack on the judiciary, we can’t go forward with our agenda,” Diab went on. “I want Arabs to participate and to know that participating is in their interest.”
The proposed reforms would give the Knesset — now controlled by a right-wing coalition — the power to override Israel’s Supreme Court, in a move that proponents say is needed because, in their view, the court has grown too liberal and out of step with popular sentiment. Leaders of some of the parties in the coalition have called for curbing rights of LGBTQ Israelis, non-Orthodox Jews and Arab Israelis. At least one of them has openly suggested that Arab citizens who are “disloyal” should be deported.
Diab and other Arab leaders fear that without the protection of the Supreme Court, the Arab minority might face measures limiting funding, access to jobs and opportunities and even their political representation. Even expulsion feels like a realistic concern given the far-right influence in the government, he said.
”We need to convince a distinct share of the Jewish majority that both of us are threatened,” Diab told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “The only way is a shared Jewish-Arab struggle.”
But while massive protests including tech entrepreneurs, army reservists, academics and others have shown the extent of determination among Jews to stop the government’s bid to legislate what it terms “judicial reform,” Arab Israelis, who make up one-fifth of the population, have hardly turned out.
This dynamic has been true in the Knesset as well as in the streets. Mansour Abbas, the leader of the Arab Ra’am Party, has said he opposes the changes, but when he was invited to participate in a press conference with other leaders of the political opposition, he declined.
Palestinian flags were seen at some of the early pro-democracy protests in Israel, such as at this one in Tel Aviv Jan. 14, 2023, but have appeared less frequently since. (Gili Yaari/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A push to get Arabs to participate in the protests began Friday with publication of a petition calling for public activism, inked by more than 200 Arab personalities, including retired judges. A gathering here on Saturday sought to work through thorny questions about what Arab participation might look like, and what demands it might make.
Getting Israeli Arabs to the protests that have become a recurring feature of life in cities across Israel every Saturday night won’t necessarily be easy. The push is likely to run up against perceived disenfranchisement on the part of Arab Israelis, whose political parties have rarely been part of governing coalitions and whose participation in electoral politics has been portrayed in the past as illegitimate by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies.
Another likely obstacle is a narrow focus for the protest organizers, almost all Jewish.
In the first weeks of the protests in January, Palestinian flags raised by protesters drew criticism from right-wing and pro-government pundits. National Security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for a ban on the flag in public and warned that those waving Palestinian flags in future demonstrations would be arrested. Fewer Palestinian flags were seen in the following weeks, and issues relating to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank or to the new government’s attitude toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were all but dropped from the agenda. An Israeli activist who asked to carry a Palestinian flag while speaking was declined.
The organizers do not seem interested thus far in broadening the agenda, and only a few Arab speakers have been featured in the demonstrations. Just hours after the Tayibe meeting on Saturday, Reem Hazzan, a leader of the predominantly Arab Hadash party in Haifa, was told by organizers who reviewed a copy of her planned speech to make changes to it. She refused and there was no Arab speaker.
Haaretz quoted unidentified organizers as saying the problem was that Hazzan refused to call in her speech for the Arab public to turn out for the protests. But Hazzan, in remarks to JTA, said she sees a deeper problem.
“We want to change the rules of the game, not just preserve what exists. What exists is not good,” she said. “We need to speak about the occupation and about discrimination. If you want Arabs to participate you must take into account that Arabs have an agenda.”
Exactly what that agenda should be was under debate during the gathering in Tayibe, a sprawling town in central Israel that like many Arab municipalities suffers from spiraling crime and violence.
“People say it’s a battle of Jews against Jews; others say they don’t want us there so why should we go and others point to times when the court sided against us,” said Mohammed Ali Taha, 82, former head of the Arab Writers Association, who spoke at the Tayibe gathering.
Arab Israelis cast their vote at a voting station in Tayibe, Nov. 1, 2022. (Jamal Awad/Flash90)
“It’s all true,” he continued. “But still we must join the protests because we will be the primary losers. When the far right rises, it strikes against the weak. We are the weak.”
With no constitution, Israel lacks any explicit guarantee of equality for all its citizens. Some laws, including those ensuring the right for immigration, advantage Jews. To the extent that Arabs have been able to challenge discrimination in recent decades, it has been largely through the Supreme Court inferring equality on them based on liberal legislation such as the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom, passed in 1992, which specifies, “Every human being is entitled to protection of his life, body and dignity.” Critics of the proposed reforms warn that they could result in the rollback of that basic law.
The court has also at times ruled against Arab Israeli interests, such as when it refused to consider petitions against the 2018 Nation State Law, which enshrines Jewish settlement as a national value, declares that national self-determination in the state of Israel is “unique to the Jewish people” and demotes Arabic from an official language.
Tayibe’s deputy mayor, Malik Azzem, said that despite its mixed record, an independent Supreme Court is essential for Israeli Arabs.
“The High Court is our last defense for our rights as a minority,” he said. “The struggle for our rights is not separate from this struggle. We need to mobilize the public.”
He added that as an elected official, he fears that without the court’s oversight, the government would simply cut the budgets of Arab municipalities.
”People need to raise their voices and join,” Azzem said. “We should be at the center of the demonstrations. We are already late in dealing with this.”
Taha, the writer, whose works often focus on the Nakba, an Arabic term meaning catastrophe that is used to describe the plight of Palestinians after Israel’s 1948 War of Independence and which he lived through as a child, told the gathering: ”Without Jewish-Arab cooperation we cannot achieve anything. This is an opportunity for cooperation.”
He said he believes Arab Israelis are today more vulnerable than they have been at any time since the period that they lived under military rule, from 1948 to 1966. At that time they were so restricted that they could not travel within Israel without permits. The danger today, he says, is due to the clout of far-right ministers Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have expressed anti-Arab views and, in Ben-Gvir’s case, even called for the expulsion of “disloyal” citizens.
“If they succeed it will be worse for us than military rule was,” Taha said. To avert this, he argued, Arabs need to join the protests alongside Jews even if it means not raising Palestinian flags.
”It’s not the time and place for a protest about a Palestinian state,” he said. “This could cause conflict among the protesters.”
But to others, the idea of protesting without highlighting the need to end both the occupation and inequality is akin to denying one’s very identity.
“I’m against participating in any demonstration that is embarrassed to talk about context and the occupation. I support something broader,” said Sondos Saleh, a former member of Knesset for the Arab Ta’al party.
Sondos Saleh, an Arab Israeli politician then on the Joint List Party candidate list, speaks during a press conference in Tel Aviv, Feb. 23, 2021. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
Merav Ben-Ari, a legislator for the largest opposition party, Yesh Atid, told JTA she would welcome greater Arab participation in the protests. ”Anything that strengthens the protests is excellent,” she said.
But she showed little enthusiasm for talking about many of the topics that animate Israeli Arabs in the political sphere, including the core one that liberal critics of the protest movement say is being given short shrift.
“How is the occupation connected?” Ben-Ari asked. “What is needed is to talk about the reform. Everyone who loves the country and cares about it has to fight against the reform and the harm to the Supreme Court.”
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Iran Races to Rebuild Missile Arsenal, Israel Tests Upgraded Defenses Amid Fragile US Nuclear Talks
Iranian missiles are displayed in a park in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 31, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
As the prospect of renewed conflict looms, Iran is scrambling to restore its battered missile capabilities while Israel tests upgraded air defenses and accelerates military preparations for a potential confrontation.
Iran had 25 key sites housing long-range ballistic missile capabilities, 19 of which were struck during last June’s 12-day war, when the US and Israel bombed the regime’s nuclear facilities, according to Israel’s Channel 14.
The outlet’s latest report, drawing on satellite imagery, research by the Alma Institute for Middle Eastern Studies, and confirmations from security officials, reveals that all sites were equipped with underground infrastructure and suffered extensive surface and subterranean damage.
Yet, with the shadow of a new conflict looming, Iran has rushed to restore its shattered defense capabilities, reportedly completing some partial repairs already.
As of last month, the country’s main launch bases — whose surfaces suffered moderate to severe damage — appear to show clear signs of recovery and resumed operational activity.
Israeli officials estimate that the Islamist regime now possesses at least twice the missile arsenal it deployed in past attacks.
However, Iran’s missile launch capacity remains limited by shortages of launchers and rocket fuel, even as it reportedly works to restore these critical components as well.
As Tehran works to rebuild its strategic threat against the Jewish state amid rising regional tensions, Israel has successfully upgraded its missile defense systems and expanded its arsenal of anti-missile batteries, effectively reinforcing its deterrence capabilities.
On Wednesday, the Israeli Ministry of Defense announced a successful test of the “David’s Sling” air-defense system, designed to intercept Iranian ballistic missiles with advanced evasive capabilities.
Built on operational lessons from last year’s war, Israeli officials said the upgraded system can intercept cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, aircraft, and drones at medium and long ranges, reaching altitudes of 50 to 70 kilometers (31 to 43 miles).
From the Arrow system to the Iron Dome, Israel is bolstering its defense capabilities with extensive logistical preparations to maintain operational readiness during prolonged and intense missile attacks, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
At the top of the country’s operational defense pyramid is the Arrow system, a strategic, exo-atmospheric shield designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles while they are still outside the atmosphere, neutralizing threats at a distance and preventing environmental damage or the impact of unconventional warheads
Serving as the middle layer of Israel’s missile defense, the newly upgraded David’s Sling system works alongside the Iron Dome, which protects the home front and civilian settlements.
The country is also introducing the laser system Iron Beam, or “Magen Or,” capable of intercepting missiles quickly, accurately, and more efficiently than conventional systems
These latest developments come as regional tensions escalate over Iran’s nuclear program and fragile negotiations with the United States, raising concerns about a renewed conflict in the region.
Washington and Tehran resumed negotiations last Friday in Oman, marking the first direct engagement between US and Iranian officials since nuclear talks collapsed after the 12-day war in June.
With the chances of a deal still uncertain, US President Donald Trump has simultaneously launched a massive military buildup in the Gulf, pressuring the Iranian regime to return to the negotiating table if it wants to prevent a potential conflict.
On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Trump to discuss the prospects of a potential nuclear agreement with Tehran and the next steps in the talks. Israeli officials have said they want any agreement with Iran to include zero enrichment of uranium, limits on ballistic missiles, and a pullback of the regime’s support for terrorist groups across the Middle East.
“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated. If it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social after their meeting.
“Last time Iran decided that they were better off not making a deal, they were hit with Midnight Hammer — that did not work well for them,” he continued, referring to the US operation to bomb Iranian nuclear sites in June. “Hopefully this time they will be more reasonable and responsible.”
Trump also told Axios in a Tuesday interview that he is considering deploying a second aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East to prepare for military action if negotiations with Iran fail.
“Either we will make a deal or we will have to do something very tough like last time,” Trump said.
According to multiple media reports, Washington has set three conditions for a nuclear agreement with Iran: halting uranium enrichment, restricting the country’s ballistic missile program, and ending the regime’s support for terrorist groups and other proxies throughout the Middle East.
However, Iran has long said all three demands are unacceptable, but two Iranian officials told Reuters its Islamist, authoritarian rulers view the ballistic missile program, not uranium enrichment, as the bigger issue.
In recent days, the US has indicated it is primarily concerned with the nuclear program, leaving some observers concerned that the Trump administration will strike a deal that’s too narrow in scope.
The Iranian government has already publicly rejected any transfer of uranium out of the country and ruled out negotiations over its ballistic missile program or support for proxy forces.
Cautious optimism about diplomacy has also been shaken by reported clashes between US and Iranian forces at sea as tensions rise.
Last week, the US military said it shot down an Iranian drone that had “aggressively” approached the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in the Arabian Sea. Hours later, forces from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) harassed a US-flagged, US-crewed merchant vessel in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump initially threatened to intervene in Iran if the regime killed anti-government protesters who took to the streets across the country in late December and early January. However, the Iranian government proceeded to crush the protests with a brutal crackdown, reportedly killing tens of thousands of people.
The US subsequently began its military buildup in the region, and Trump called on the regime to begin negotiations.
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US Congressional Race in Illinois Features Showdown Between AIPAC and New Anti-Israel Group
Aug. 12, 2025, Chicago, Illinois, US: Daniel Biss, mayor of Evanston, Illinois, attends a rally at Federal Plaza in Chicago after the announcement that the Trump administration has unilaterally ended the collective bargaining agreement with federal unions. Photo: Chicago Tribune via ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The US congressional race for Illinois’ 9th District is shaping up to become a battleground between the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Peace, Accountability, and Leadership PAC (PAL PAC), a newly formed pro-Palestinian political action committee.
The open competition to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky is widely considered to be a showdown in the Democratic primary between far-left newcomer and social media star Kat Abughazaleh, progressive Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, and moderate state Sen. Laura Fine.
Abughazaleh, a Palestinian-American Tik-Tok personality who has repeatedly accused Israel of so-called “genocide” in Gaza, has earned the endorsement of the far-left Justice Democrats organization. She also has received backing from PAL PAC over her stated support for “Palestinian rights.”
Margaret DeReus, the executive director of PAL PAC, showered praise on the social media star as someone who “represents an exciting new wave of bold and progressive democratic candidates in the 2026 midterms.”
PAL PAC describes itself as an advocacy group which seeks to reward political candidates and members of Congress who champion “Palestinian freedom and human rights” and oppose Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. Among the group’s initial endorsers are US Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib (MI), Ilhan Omar (MN), and Summer Lee (PA), all of whom are among the fiercest anti-Israel voices in Congress.
“A defining priority for PAL PAC is ending Israel’s ongoing human rights abuses against Palestinians and stopping US complicity in and backing of Israel’s apartheid system, illegal theft of Palestinian land, and genocide against Palestinians,” the group’s website reads. “We seek to elect champions of human rights for all, who will demonstrate clear, courageous, and consistent leadership on one of the morally defining political and human rights issues of our time.”
Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old influencer who recently moved to Illinois from Texas, has described her new endorsements from far-left organizations as evidence of her “growing movement of people who are done with a Democratic Party that has cast them aside in favor of profit, greed, and power.”
Biss, who is Jewish, has condemned the extent of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and has vowed to vote against additional military aid to the Jewish state. However, Biss also spent large stretches of his childhood in Israel and has expressed a generally positive sentiment toward the nation and its people.
Nonetheless, the mayor has promised not to accept any funding or support from AIPAC, accusing the prominent lobbying group, which seeks to foster bipartisan support for a strong US-Israel alliance, of having “MAGA-aligned donors,” using the acronym for President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement. Biss has also argued that accepting support from the organization would force him to “compromise” his progressive values.
“Daniel believes the special relationship between the United States and Israel means the US must do all it can to ensure long-term protection and prosperity of the Jewish homeland,” Biss’s campaign said in a statement.
“I do not share AIPAC’s hardline views,” Biss added.
Last month, US Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, penned a letter demanding answers from Biss, accusing him of failing to protect Jewish students during a pro-Hamas, anti-Israel encampment at Northwestern University that, lawmakers say, devolved into widespread antisemitic harassment and violence. Northwestern’s campus is located in Evanston.
In a sharply worded letter dated Jan. 28, Walberg said Biss refused to authorize Evanston police to assist when Northwestern requested help clearing the encampment in April 2024, despite reports of assaults, intimidation, and explicitly antisemitic incidents. Walberg wrote that the decision left the university unable to enforce the law safely, citing committee documents indicating Northwestern lacked sufficient police resources to carry out arrests without city support.
Biss called Walberg’s letter a “dishonest political attack” and defended his decision not to intervene in the campus unrest, saying he and police assessed that sending officers “might further inflame the situation.”
Instead of receiving support from AIPAC, Biss has accepted $8,250 from J Street, a self-proclaimed “pro-peace, pro-Israel” lobbying organization. However, J Street has come under fire for allegedly not doing enough to combat antisemitism or anti-Israel narratives within liberal political circles. The organization’s leader Jeremy Ben-Ami said he would no longer dispute the claim that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza and that he has been convinced by activists that international courts will successfully prosecute the Jewish state.
In 2024, J Street called on the US government to withhold offensive weapons from Israel, arguing that the United States needs to hold Israel accountable for alleged human rights “violations.”
In September 2025, AIPAC sent an email to supporters decrying Biss and Abughazaleh as “dangerous detractors” to the group’s mission.
AIPAC has thrown its weight behind Fine, despite her longshot candidacy. A recently formed PAC reportedly backed by AIPAC has started spending six-figure sums on ads supporting Fine’s candidacy. The new ad-buy came after her campaign last year received about $300,000 from over 270 donors linked to AIPAC, according to campaign finance records viewed by local news outlet Evanston Now.
Fine has strategically positioned herself as the most pro-Israel candidate in the race.
“Anybody who is supporting me in my campaign is supporting a woman who yes, believes in the existence of Israel, yes believes in freedom and justice for all,” Fine said. “But also, anybody who’s investing in my campaign is investing in a 13-year record of someone who stood up to the biggest bullies in Springfield.”
In the two years following the breakout of the Israel-Hamas war, the role of AIPAC in American politics has become increasingly scrutinized. Fallacious conspiracy theories surrounding the group’s origins and influence over US politicians have become increasingly mainstreamed, causing many Democrats to either return or preemptively reject support and funding from the group. Moreover, the increasing toxicity of AIPAC within Democratic circles comes as party voters have soured on Israel.
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University of Maryland Student Gov’t Teams Up With Anti-Zionist Group to Pass 4th Anti-Israel Resolution This Year
University of Maryland, College Park’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter honoring Hamas terrorists, whom it called “our martyrs,” on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. Photo: Screenshot
The University of Maryland, College Park’s student government on Wednesday passed its fourth anti-Israel resolution in just this academic year alone, cementing a governing partnership with the extremist group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
Every member of the Student Government Association (SGA), notwithstanding one who abstained, supported the latest measure with a voting tally of 19-0-1, The Algemeiner has learned from sources close to the situation.
Previous resolutions, which include one passed on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, amassed as many as 28 votes but failed to achieve unanimous approval.
The latest measure calls on the school to divest from a range of defense contractors for working with Israel in accordance with the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate the world’s lone Jewish state on the international stage as the first step toward its elimination. Leaders of the movement have repeatedly stated their goal is to destroy Israel.
“[The University of Maryland’s] investments may include companies such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Elbit Systems, Caterpillar Inc, and RTX Corp, all companies that in some form or another, supply weapons, surveillance, technology, or infrastructure used in Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and have been linked to human right’s violations in other regions,” the resolution states, seemingly admitting that its supporters are not certain of the contents of the university’s investment portfolio. “This framework shall apply to the investment of all USM-controlled funds subject to Maryland law.”
October’s Yom Kippur vote, which Jewish students could not attend, accused Israel of “apartheid and occupation.”
Other resolutions at the University of Maryland (UMD) lodged discredited claims of “genocide” and “crimes against humanity” against Israel, parroting atrocity propaganda confected by Hamas to influence the public’s perception of the war in Gaza prompted by Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israel.
In the days leading up to Wednesday’s vote, Jewish and Christian groups castigated the student government for what they described as being so easily captured by extremists who flagrantly signal their contempt for Jews by perpetrating hate incidents and using Jewish holidays as an occasion for promoting the destruction of the Jewish state.
“As a movement, we are trying to combat antisemitism. It is difficult when we have groups like BDS and UMD’s own student government outwardly discriminating against Jewish students,” said Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and Students Supporting Israel (SSI) in a joint statement, posted on the Instagram social media platform, on Saturday. “They have screamed at Jewish students and cornered them in rooms until police had to get involved. UMD’s student government is not interested in dialogue. They tell their followers not to speak with Israelis.”
They continued, “This form of extremism is hateful and discriminatory. We are calling for awareness and action from UMD to put an end to this.”
On Thursday, SSI president Uriel Appel told The Algemeiner, “The only surprising thing about SGA’s blatant attack on Jewish students on our campus is their zealous persistence on the matter.”
UMD, College Park SJP leading Muslim prayers. Photo: Screenshot
The University of Maryland, College Park’s SJP chapter is one of the most radical in the country. After the Oct. 7 attack, it held a “vigil” for Palestinian terrorists and other events which appeared aimed at pitting the Black and Latino communities against Jews. In its public statements, it has rejected a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and called for the destruction of the Jewish state.
“UMD SJP unequivocally states that the Zionist state of Israel has no right to exist,” it said in a statement issued in July 2024. “Beyond being an apartheid state, the system of Israeli apartheid is a symptom of the fact that it is a settler-colonial ethnostate that seeks to use apartheid to facilitate its genocidal intent and ultimate goal of displacing indigenous Palestinians from their homeland.”
Student governments at other major universities are also pushing anti-Israel measures, as antisemitic incidents remain at high levels on campuses across the US.
As reported by The Algemeiner last week, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s (UNL) student government approved a BDS measure pushed by SJP. The student government, facing public scrutiny, ultimately amended the resolution to remove any mention of Israel and rename it the “Divest for Humanity Act.” The measure demanded divestment from armaments manufacturers to block “”complicit in the genocide and atrocities worldwide.” It passed by a wide margin after being doggedly argued against by Jewish students who were subjected to unfounded allegations about links to Israel.
SJP exalted its passing as a victory for its mission to foster a climate in which pro-Israel support in the US is untenable.
The vote came days after a right-wing social media influencer and University of Miami student upbraided her Jewish peers in a tirade in which she denounced them as “disgusting” while accusing rabbis of eating infants.
“Christianity, which says love everyone, meanwhile your Bible says eating someone who is a non-Jew is like eating with an animal. That’s what the Talmud says,” the online influencer, Kaylee Mahony, yelled at members of Students Supporting Israel who had a table at a campus fair held at the University of Miami. “That’s what these people follow.”
She continued, “They think that if you are not a Jew you are an animal. That’s the Talmud. That’s the Talmud.”
The Talmud, a key source of Jewish law, tradition, and theology, is often misrepresented by antisemitic agitators in an effort to malign the Jewish people and their religion.
Mahony can also be heard in video of the incident telling one of the “Because you’re disgusting. It’s disgusting.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.