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As jury launches deliberations in Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, defense concedes shooter’s hatred of Jews
PITTSBURGH (JTA) — After 11 days of graphic and emotionally fraught testimony in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting trial, and a 90-minute closing argument that included gruesome photos and the replay of harrowing 911 calls, it was time for the defense to speak.
A lawyer for Robert Bowers, accused of being the gunman who murdered 11 worshipers at the Tree of Life synagogue, on Thursday walked across the courtroom to a podium, faced the jury, and spoke for just 19 minutes.
Elisa Long acknowledged the immensity of the crime on Oct. 27, 2018, and offered only half a defense. Bowers did not intend to keep Jews from worshipping, she said, but he did appear to hate Jews.
“There is no question that his posts on Gab.com and his statements that day reflected animosity and hatred toward Jews,” Long said, referring to a social media site that is a virtual redoubt for extremists.
It was a critical concession that 11 of the government’s charges, that Bowers committed capital hate crimes, may be irrefutable.
A prosecutor took another 20 minutes to rebut Long’s barebones defense, and then Judge Robert Colville ordered the jury to begin deliberations. Seven women and five men filed out of the court at 2:30 p.m., and clerks followed them with wheeled carts piled with evidence. They retired Thursday without arriving at a verdict.
The defense, which barely registered as a presence during the guilt phase of the trial, appears to be reserving its arguments for the death penalty phase, which begins a week after the jury returns a verdict, if it determines that Bowers is guilty of any of the 22 capital crimes out of 63 charges in the indictment.
Defense lawyers in March said they would bring up Bowers’ mental health, including evidence that he suffers from epilepsy and schizophrenia. On the first day of the trial, Colville forbade them from doing so during the guilt phase of the trial, but said they may raise mental health during the penalty phase.
In her closing argument, Long devoted most of her time to sowing doubt about 11 of the capital charges, that Bowers “intentionally obstructed by force … the enjoyment of free exercise of religious beliefs,” resulting in 11 deaths.
“It is vitally important not to convict him of crimes he did not commit,” she said.
The free exercise of religious beliefs “does not include the engagement in good works or conduct that may or may not be part of religious belief,” she said.
Then jurors would have to determine whether Bowers was seeking to stop a religious service “or to stop people who were supporting the resettlement of refugees,” she said.
One of the three congregations housed in the Tree of Life synagogue, Dor Hadash, was partnered with HIAS, the Jewish immigration advocacy group. She quoted Bowers’ Gab posts in which he identified Jews with what he believed was a planned genocide of white Americans to be carried out by immigrants.
“HIAS is a huge enabler of refugee invasions,” Bowers posted on Oct. 25, Long pointed out, two days before the massacre. Dor Hadash, she noted, was on that Saturday planning a “Refugee Shabbat.” His responses were “shocking and irrational,” she said, but “after learning about HIAS” and its advocacy, “Mr. Bowers’ sense of urgency increased.”
Long began her closing argument by acknowledging, as lead defense attorney Judy Clarke had done in her opening argument, that Bowers had carried out the massacre.
“There is no dispute that on Oct. 27. 2018, armed with an AR-15, he shot and killed 11 people and seriously injured two others who were in their sacred space,” Long said. The defense on day one of the trial promised “we would not offer justification, and we have not done so,” she said.
Summing up, Long appeared to anticipate the mental health arguments the defense would make during the penalty phase, while being careful not to violate Colville’s order not to explicitly raise the topic.
She described a 46-year old man “living alone in an apartment” where he slept on a mattress on the floor and who was obsessed with computers, coding and guns. “How and why this man who lived a quiet and law abiding life until 2018” committed the crimes may be “inexplicable,” she said.
In the months before the massacre Bowers “spent an immense amount of time on the internet absorbing hate,” she said.
Long did not argue that the government had proved the 11 capital hate crimes. But she also did not argue that it had not, telling the jury, “These are the charges the federal government has brought and these are the decisions you as jurors must make.”
In his rebuttal, Eric Olshan, a U.S. attorney, ridiculed Long’s claim that obstructing worship was not germane to Bowers’ intentions.
Facing the jury, he spun around and pointed to Bowers.
“On Oct. 27, 2018, that man, Robert Bowers, went into Tree of Life, where three congregations, not just Dor Hadash” were getting ready for services. The other two are Tree of Life and New Light. “He didn’t focus on Dor Hadash, he focused on any Jew he could find to kill or try to kill.”
He accused Long of cherrypicking Bowers’ Gab posts, and reminded jurors of evidence that in the months prior to the attack, Towers had “liked” just two posts mentioning HIAS, while “liking” some 400 mentions of “Kike,” an antisemitic epithet, and some 2,300 mentions of “Jew.”
“Did he go to a refugee resettlement meeting? Did he go to the border to stop Jews” from facilitating the entry of immigrants? Olshan asked. “Did he go to the HIAS office in Maryland? He drove about 30 minutes from where he lived to Squirrel Hill, the center of Jewish life in Pittsburgh.”
Again Olshan pointed at Bowers. “That person intended to obstruct them from free exercise of religion,” he said. “This is not rocket science.”
In any case, Olshan, who is Jewish, said HIAS’s work is inextricable from Jewish faith. “Welcoming the stranger” appears 36 times in the Torah, he said, including in the passage the congregations would be reading that morning. “That just proves his guilt,” he said.
Throughout the day, Bowers never looked toward the jury. Clad in a gray sweater with a collared blue shirt, he stared at a computer screen where he monitored evidence and scribbled notes, occasionally whispering to his lawyers.
Bowers’ aunt and a cousin were present in the courtroom, as were survivors of the attack and families of the victims. There was an expectation that a verdict would be quick; the overflow room for families was packed. Maggie Feinstein, who counsels the victims, was in the court room. So was Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who testified on the first day that he expected to die where he was hiding, and recited the Shema prayer. He wore a white kippah emblazoned with the synagogue’s symbol, a blue tree.
The day began with Colville warning the jury that his instructions to them would be exceptionally long; he took 80 minutes. Then Soo Song, an assistant U.S. attorney, spoke for 90 minutes, reconstructing the day of the massacre, Oct. 27, 2018, detail by gory detail. Of the 11 people killed, she said, six were shot in the head.
She anticipated the argument Long would advance, repeatedly emphasizing the rituals Bowers interrupted with deadly results. Using bloody photos of victims in their place, she focused especially on religious implements.”The defendant committed mass murder in a synagogue,” she said. “He turned that sacred space into a place littered with prayer shawls and prayer books and 11 deceased worshippers.”
She concluded naming the 11 victims: Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax and Irving Younger.
Olshan ended the day holding two evidence bags, each with half of a bloodstained kippah. “No longer a reminder of God’s presence,” he said. “This is what he did to Irving Younger, leaving this tattered reminder found amid the shocks of Irving younger’s white hair.”
The obstruction of worship was “the natural and probable consequence of his actions,” Olshan said.”The only justice is a verdict of guilty in every charge in this case.”
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FIFA COO Says World Cup ‘Too Big’ to Be Postponed by Israel-Iran War
Soccer Football – FIFA Club World Cup – Group D – Esperance de Tunis v Chelsea – Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US – June 24, 2025, General view of the FIFA logo before the match. Photo: REUTERS/Lee Smith
FIFA Chief Operating Officer Heimo Schirgi said the 2026 World Cup is “too big” to postpone and will proceed as planned despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Schirgi made the comments while speaking on Monday outside construction of the International Broadcast Center, which is located inside the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center and will serve as a hub for international coverage of the World Cup. Schirgi was asked about Iran as it remains unclear if the country will participate in World Cup, after the US and Israel launched joint airstrikes against the Islamic Republic that led to the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several other high-ranking Iranian officials. Iran has retaliated with strikes against Israel and civilian areas across the Middle East.
“At some stage, we will have a resolution, and the World Cup will go on, obviously,” Schirgi replied, according to NBC 5 in Dallas. “The World Cup is too big, and we hope that everyone can participate that has qualified.”
FIFA Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom previously said the organization is closely monitoring the situation in the Middle East ahead of the World Cup in June. Schirgi added that FIFA has been in contact with Iran’s soccer federation, but did not provide details about what was discussed, according to Reuters.
The FIFA World Cup will take place across cities in the US, Mexico, and Canada from June 11 to July 19. Iran qualified for the tournament through its participation in the Asian Football Conference. It is set to compete in Group G at the World Cup and is scheduled to face New Zealand on June 15 and Belgium on June 21, both in Los Angeles, before going head-to-head against Egypt on June 26 in Seattle. Soccer fans from Iran are already barred from entering the United States for the World Cup as part of a travel ban that the Trump administration announced in June.
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Heaviest Day of Strikes Yet on Iran Despite Market Bets That War Will End Soon
Smoke rises following an explosion, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Tehran, Iran, March 7, 2026. Picture taken with a mobile phone. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
The United States and Israel pounded Iran on Tuesday with what the Pentagon and Iranians on the ground said were the most intense airstrikes of the war, despite global markets betting that President Donald Trump will seek to end the conflict soon.
Raising the stakes for the global economy, Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said they would block oil shipments from the Gulf unless US and Israeli attacks cease.
“Today will be yet again, our most intense day of strikes inside Iran: the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes, intelligence more refined and better than ever,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told a Pentagon briefing.
Yet with Trump having described the war on Monday as “very complete, pretty much,” investors appeared convinced he would end it soon – before the disruption to global energy supplies worsened the global economy.
An historic surge in crude oil prices on Monday was mostly reversed within a day. Asian and European share prices staged a partial recovery from earlier precipitous falls, and Wall Street bounced to around its levels of late February, before the war.
A source familiar with Israel’s war plans told Reuters the Israeli military wanted to inflict as much damage as possible before the window for further strikes closes, under the assumption Trump could end the war at any time.
Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said his country was not planning for an endless war and was consulting with Washington about when to stop it.
Iran has refused to bow to Trump’s demand that it let the United States choose its new leadership, naming hardliner Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader to replace his father, who was killed on the war‘s first day.
But occasionally contradictory remarks from Trump at a Monday press conference appeared to reassure markets he would stop his war before provoking an economic crisis like those that followed the Middle East oil shocks of the 1970s. He said the US had already inflicted serious damage and predicted the conflict would end before the four weeks he initially set out.
Trump has not defined what victory would look like, but on Monday did not repeat declarations that Iran must let him choose its leader.
Several congressional aides have said they expect the White House to soon request as much as $50 billion in additional funding for the war.
The US used $5.6 billion in munitions in the first two days of strikes against Iran, a source familiar with the information said on Tuesday.
“There is a big question mark over how long people can put up with the costs of this conflict,” said Clionadh Raleigh, CEO of US crisis-monitoring group Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, or ACLED.
Several senior Iranian officials voiced defiance on Tuesday.
“Certainly, we are not seeking a ceasefire; we believe the aggressor must be struck in the mouth so that they learn a lesson and never again think of attacking dear Iran,” Iran‘s parliament speaker, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, posted on X.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told PBS that Tehran was unlikely to resume negotiations with the US.
The war has effectively halted shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes along Iran‘s coast. Some of the world’s biggest producers have run out of storage and cut back output.
After Iran chose its hardline new leader, oil prices briefly surged to nearly $120 a barrel on Monday. But by 1500 GMT on Tuesday, Brent crude had settled back down below $90.
Trump said on Monday that if Iran blocks oil through the strait, “we will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them or anybody else helping them to ever recover that section of the world,” he said.
But a spokesperson for the Revolutionary Guards said Tehran would not allow “one liter” of Middle Eastern oil to reach the US or its allies while US and Israeli attacks continue.
“We are the ones who will determine the end of the war,” the spokesperson said.
Iran is fighting back but is not tougher than the US military expected before the war, the top US general told reporters on Tuesday, at the same briefing where Hegseth promised the Pentagon’s most intense day of strikes in the 10-day-old conflict.
Asked if Iran was a stronger adversary than he expected when the US military drew up its war plans, General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters the fight was not harder than expected.
“I think they’re fighting, and I respect that, but I don’t think they are more formidable than what we thought,” Caine told the Pentagon briefing.
Ending the war quickly would appear to preclude toppling Iran‘s leadership, which held large-scale rallies on Monday in support of the new supreme leader.
Many Iranians want change and some openly celebrated the death of the elder Khamenei, weeks after his security forces killed thousands of people to put down anti-government protests. But there has been little sign of protest during the war.
At least 1,270 people have been killed since the US and Israeli airstrikes began on Feb. 28, according to Iranian state media reports.
Scores have also been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon to root out the Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah, which has fired into Israel in solidarity with Iran. Iran said four of its diplomats were killed in a strike on a hotel in Lebanon on Sunday.
Iranian strikes on Israel have killed 12 people. Iran has struck US military bases and diplomatic missions in Arab Gulf states but also hit hotels, closed airports and damaged oil infrastructure.
Australia will deploy a military surveillance aircraft to the Middle East and send missiles to the United Arab Emirates but will not put troops on the ground in Iran, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Tuesday.
Australia‘s military support would help the Gulf countries defend themselves against unprovoked attacks from Iran, Albanese said, stressing Australia was “not a protagonist.”
“Our involvement is purely defensive,” Albanese told reporters. “And it’s in defense of Australians who are in the region as well as in defense of our friends in the United Arab Emirates.”
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New Poll Shows Complex, Nuanced Views Among Democratic Voters on Israel
Pro-Israel rally in Times Square, New York City, US, Oct. 8, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
A new survey analysis of Democratic voters suggests that despite increasingly vocal criticism of Israel in some activist circles, especially among the party’s youth, the broader Democratic electorate remains largely supportive of the US–Israel relationship.
The data, released by the Manhattan Institute, examines the ideological positioning of the Democratic Party and its views on a range of cultural and political issues, including attitudes toward Israel. Its findings suggest that while the party is experiencing a generational shift in how voters discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the center of the Democratic electorate continues to support Israel’s security and the longstanding alliance between Washington and Jerusalem.
According to the findings, relatively small shares of Democratic voters occupy the most firmly pro-Israel or anti-Israel positions. Only 13 percent of respondents say Israel is fundamentally a “colonial apartheid state” that should be dismantled and bears responsibility for violence tied to the conflict since its founding. At the other end of the spectrum, just 16 percent describe Israel as a legitimate nation confronting serious security threats and view its actions as largely defensive, even if imperfect.
One of the report’s central conclusions is that the largest bloc of Democratic voters identifies as politically moderate. According to the analysis, moderates outnumber both progressive liberals and a smaller activist faction often associated with the party’s most ideological rhetoric. When asked about the direction of the Democratic Party, 38 percent of respondents said the party should move toward the political center, compared with 22 percent who said it should move further left and 26 percent who said it is already in the right place.
The results suggest that the median Democratic voter holds a more pragmatic political outlook than the tone of many internal party debates might indicate. The largest portion of Democratic voters falls somewhere between those two poles. Nearly half of respondents, 49 percent, say Israel has a right to exist but believe the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians, both historically and during the current war, deserves strong criticism. Another 23 percent say they are uncertain about how to characterize the conflict.
The analysis also highlights a sharp generational divide. Younger Democrats are substantially more likely than older voters to adopt strongly critical views of Israel. Among Democrats between the ages of 18 and 29, 26 percent say that Israel should be dismantled as a colonial apartheid state and that it “bears responsibility for any and all violence since its founding.” That is four times more than Democrats over the age of 65 and three times more than those between the ages of 50 and 64.
Meanwhile, only 9 percent of Democrats in the youngest cohort say Israel is a legitimate country confronting serious security threats and acting largely in self-defense.
These new findings carry implications for the party’s debate over Israel. The survey analysis suggests that most Democratic voters still view Israel as an important US ally and support its right to defend itself, even as many also express concerns about the humanitarian consequences of conflict in Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian dispute. In other words, the report suggests that the typical Democratic voter has a position that combines support for Israel’s security with calls for diplomacy and humanitarian restraint.
Despite those internal disagreements, the analysis concludes that the most strident anti-Israel rhetoric in American political discourse originates from a relatively small but highly visible activist faction within the Democratic coalition. This group, which often plays a prominent role in campus activism and social media campaigns, is more likely to support measures such as boycotts or sanctions targeting Israel and to frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in stark ideological terms. According to the report, however, this faction represents a minority of Democratic voters and does not reflect the views of the party’s broader electorate.
Taken together, the findings point to a Democratic electorate that is more supportive of Israel than some political narratives suggest. While younger activists and progressive voices have become increasingly prominent in shaping the party’s internal debate, the survey analysis indicates that moderates, many of whom maintain traditional views of the US–Israel relationship, still make up the largest segment of Democratic voters.