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As Orthodox Union and other Jewish groups condemn settler rampage, many avoid mentioning Benjamin Netanyahu
WASHINGTON (JTA) — As American Jewish organizations responded to Sunday’s settler riot in the West Bank, most began with statements of condemnation.
One began with a question: “How can such a thing happen?”
“How could it come to this, that Jewish young men should ransack and burn homes and cars?” continued the statement from Rabbi Moshe Hauer, executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, who added that “we cannot understand or accept this.”
He concluded with a note of desperation: “What happened yesterday must never, ever happen again.”
Hauer’s anguish was all the more notable because it came from a group whose constituency, American Orthodox Jews, has historically sympathized with the movement to create Jewish settlements in the West Bank. And Hauer’s statement did something else that many other groups did not: It appeared to question the leadership of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Attacking a village does not deserve to be called ‘taking the law into your own hands,’” Hauer’s statement said. “This is not the law; this is undisciplined and random fury. Actions like these demonstrate the critical need for clear and strong leadership.”
While Hauer didn’t mention Netanyahu by name (and didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment) the implication was clear: On Sunday, in response to the riot in the town of Huwara, Netanyahu said, “I ask – even when the blood is boiling – not to take the law into one’s hands.”
The Orthodox Union has for years criticized U.S. pressure on Israel to accept a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians or to share Jerusalem. In 2007 it stood out among Jewish groups leading criticism of the then Israeli government for contemplating a Palestinian role in Jerusalem.
Beyond the O.U, Jewish groups decried the actions of the settlers but mostly avoided mentioning the Israeli government or its leader. Instead, some looked to Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial but who has sought to broker compromise amid the current contentious government. He had issued a “forceful condemnation” of the rioting on Sunday, saying that security forces, not civilians “committing violence against innocents,” should respond to terrorism.
Affirming and quoting the Israeli prime minister was once a reflex for legacy groups when commenting on crises in Israel. But times have changed. Israel’s government includes far-right parties and ministers who are themselves settlers and have long advocated harsher measures in response to Palestinian terror.
One official, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, was once convicted of incitement to violence. And some coalition members have sympathized with the rioters in the wake of the rampage. Against that backdrop, Netanyahu did not feature in many American Jewish organizations’ statements. Others condemned the prime minister for his links to the far right or what they saw as his government’s tepid response.
“Though some Israeli leaders, including the prime minister, called for restraint, the government failed to prevent or quickly curtail this unacceptable violence,” Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, said in an emailed statement. “Those responsible must be held accountable and safety and security for Jews and Palestinians alike must prevail.”
The Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee both cited Herzog’s statement, and declared, respectively, their “outrage” and condemnation of “this violence in the strongest terms.”
The AJC declined further comment, and the ADL, asked to elaborate on its statement, condemned lawmakers who incite violence, while avoiding mentioning the fact that they are members of Israel’s governing coalition.
“There is also no excuse for the incitement to violence we heard from a few political leaders, including some Israeli Knesset Members,” a spokesman said in an email. “We join Israeli President Herzog’s call for a de-escalation of violence, and urge Israeli law enforcement to ensure that those involved in the Huwara violence are held accountable.”
Asked for a statement, William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, did not mention the government or Netanyahu. “I condemn without reservation the riots and violence in Hawara,” he said in an interview. “There is no excuse for lawless vigilantism.”
In a statement later, Daroff suggested that if Israeli politicians fail to condemn the settler violence, there could be consequences for the relationship with Jews overseas.
“These criminal acts of violence and vandalism harm Jewish sovereignty and Israel’s relationship with the global Jewish diaspora,” he said. “We urge Knesset members to speak out against these attacks while pursuing a peaceful resolution.”
The Jewish organizations approached for this story did not reply when asked what they planned to do if Netanyahu fails to take action. A number of regional Jewish organizations and rabbis have previously called for boycotts of far-right coalition members if and when they tour the United States.
Israeli authorities arrested a number of the rioters, and then let them go. No plans for prosecution have been reported yet.
The Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly stood out for extending its condolences to both Jewish and Arab victims of violence on Sunday — an equivalence that is extremely rare in Jewish groups’ statements. The group’s message, written in English and Hebrew, mentions both the family of the two Israelis who were shot while driving through Huwara, and the family of the Palestinian who reportedly was shot dead while pleading with settlers to leave his village alone.
“We are in pain and join the condolences to the families of those killed, among them the Yaniv family and the Al-Aqtash family and wish a speedy and full recovery to all who were injured,” the group said, referring to the Israeli and Palestinian victims, respectively. “We expect our government, the IDF, and the police, to act to prevent harm to people and to property, and to try any person who has chosen to harm another person.”
Americans for Peace Now and J Street both called on the Biden administration to use its leverage to get Netanyahu to take action.
“Netanyahu’s extremist coalition is demonstrating that it will not be stopped by polite protestations or vague agreements,” J Street said. “Only by setting clear redlines and tangible consequences can the US hope to deter this government.”
Americans for Peace Now similarly called on Biden to “hold the government of Israel accountable for both its unrestrained settlement activity and its enabling of settler violence,” while the liberal rabbinic human rights group T’ruah said the Israeli government “has fueled the incitement that led to this attack.”
The Israel Policy Forum, a group that backs a two-state outcome, decried the lack of accountability for the rioters for the attacks on the Hawara residents. “Their only crimes were being Palestinians living in proximity to a spot where a different Palestinian committed a terrorist attack, and the settlers who rampaged through their homes and streets unimpeded, without any real consequences, represent the daily injustice that Palestinians face as non-citizens on their land with no recourse to any responsible higher authority,” it said in a statement.
Some organizations praised Netanyahu’s government for speaking out against the riot. The Jewish Federations of North America commended “the Government of Israel for speaking out quickly to lower tensions.” And the American Israel Public Affairs Committee appeared to tie the settlers’ vigilantism to Palestinian terrorism.
“As Israel’s Prime Minister and President clearly indicated, vigilante action cannot be tolerated,” its spokesman said. “Terrorism will not decline as long as the Palestinian leadership continues incitement, rewards terrorism with payments to terrorists and their families, and encourages the public celebration of Israeli fatalities.”
At least one organizational leader echoed the sentiments of Israeli officials who sympathized with the rioters. Morton Klein, CEO of the Zionist Organization of America, said in an interview that he condemned the rioters, but also understood what drove them.
“I don’t believe that civilians should be taking the law into their own hands,” he said. “I oppose civilians taking on their own hands, that’s for sure, but you know, after constant murder of people, you know, people lose control.”
Klein said Israel needed to “put enormous pressure in every way you can” on Palestinians in order to quell violence in the West Bank. Asked whether Israel also deserved pressure to bring the settler rioters to justice, Klein said that was not a concern of his.
“Arabs care more about Arabs than they do about non-Arabs and Jews care more about Jews than they do about non-Jews,” said Klein, who met in person with Ben-Gvir last week in Israel. “It’s a natural human trait.”
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Don’t dismiss Israel’s most rage-baiting minister as fringe
As Israel drifts toward another election campaign, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir this week offered voters — and the world — a grotesque glimpse of where a large branch of Israeli politics is heading.
Touring a detention facility holding activists from a Gaza-bound flotilla intercepted by Israel, Ben-Gvir waved a large Israeli flag before rows of bound detainees forced to kneel, mocked them as cameras rolled, and declared Israel was “in charge here.”
The images sparked domestic and international outrage. European governments summoned Israeli ambassadors. U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee, a staunch supporter of the Israeli right, charged on X that “Ben-Gvir betrayed” the “dignity of his nation.” Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a rare move, publicly rebuked his own minister.
That rebuke should not be taken as a signal that Ben-Gvir may fade in power. Because while many Israelis still prefer to think of the controversy-courting minister as a fringe embarrassment attached awkwardly to an otherwise respectable nationalist movement, he is the true face of the Israeli right today.
A week ago, Ben-Gvir ascended the Temple Mount in Jerusalem — one of his many violations of longstanding norms governing the holy site — as tens of thousands of ultranationalist Israelis marched through the Old City in an annual celebration of its 1967 capture, many chanting “Death to Arabs.” The rabble rouser — whose multiple convictions include support for terrorist groups — recently celebrated his 50th birthday with two cakes adorned with nooses, a nod to the death penalty legislation for terrorists that he played a major role in getting passed. No surprise: The law is worded in a way that makes clear it is aimed at Palestinians only. Legislators allied with his camp wore noose-shaped lapel pins while promoting it.
This madness is not some accidental byproduct of the right-wing movement Netanyahu has led for decades, but its natural consequence.
For years, the mainstream nationalist camp, with Netanyahu as its most prominent figure, has sold Israelis an illusion: Israel can permanently control the West Bank — and perhaps Gaza, once more, as well — while forever suppressing Palestinian national aspirations, and still somehow remain both democratic and fully accepted by the democratic world.
The terminology changes: “managing the conflict,” “security control,” “economic peace.” But the underlying proposition remains the same. And it is a fantasy.
A country that indefinitely controls millions of disenfranchised people — where almost half the population does not have the right to vote — does not remain a true democracy. A state ruling another nation forever does not remain democratic either, even if elections formally continue among the population allowed to vote.
There are now roughly 15 million people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. About half are Jews, and half are Arabs. That demographic reality sits at the center of every serious discussion about Israel’s future. Yet much of the Israeli right pretends this reality barely exists, and ignores the increasingly brazen Jewish terrorism and the illegal seizing of outposts in the West Bank. Netanyahu himself speaks the language of caution, realism and statecraft, striving to reassure centrists and foreign governments alike that Israel remains fundamentally part of the democratic West.
Not Ben-Gvir.
Ben-Gvir speaks for those on the right who see only two possibilities when it comes to Palestinians: permanent Israeli domination without equality, enforced by as much violence as needed — or expulsion. Officially, much of the far-right prefers the former; once the cameras stop rolling, almost all of them predict the latter.
I was speaking to one prominent right-winger the other day, and asked what they had in mind for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. “Those who don’t want to destroy Israel can stay,” they said.
Obviously, that definition might include none of them, I noted. “Then get the trucks,” was the reply.
That wasn’t moral, I said. The reply: “Is it moral to force my children to fight forever?”
Ben-Gvir’s outrageous behavior is meant to appeal to people with this mindset. And it’s working. Polls show his Otzma Yehudit party expected to get perhaps 13 seats in the next Knesset — more than double their current six.
Moreover, Netanyahu’s Likud party itself has undergone a gradual shift to the right, with many of its Knesset members starting to sound little different from Ben-Gvir. That is why Ben-Gvir was able to ram through the disgraceful bill mandating the death penalty for terrorists.
This political calamity was not unexpected. The occupation of the West Bank, like unchecked power everywhere, was always bound to corrode political culture over time. The sleight of hand of non-annexation is growing old — in part because of Ben-Gvir’s influence, the number of settlements is expanding rapidly — and much of the Israeli right, consumed by hubris, wants to rip off the mask. Ben-Gvir is the most authentic expression of that transformation.
That is the dark reality hanging over the coming election, and the flotilla episode revealed the zeitgeist in its purest form. Israel already had complete control over the activists. They posed no meaningful threat. The performance was about domination, a theatrical display for a domestic political audience increasingly drawn to the aesthetics of vengeance and submission.
Challenged on Israel Radio about the wisdom of such a stunt at a time when Israel is facing a crisis in global public opinion, Yitzhak Kroizer, a Knesset member from Ben-Gvir’s party, offered this: “We’re done bowing our heads and apologizing.” He said the flotilla members were terrorists themselves for wishing to harm Israel, and that there is “great public support for an uncompromising stand.”
He’s right on that last point. Israel faces genuine enemies and genuine trauma. Hamas massacred civilians on Oct. 7, 2023. Hezbollah and Iran openly seek confrontation. Israelis have every reason to fear for their security.
But those realities still leave unanswered a central strategic question: What kind of country emerges from such prolonged conflict?
Ben-Gvir has given us one unsettling answer.
In 1995, a teenage Ben-Gvir famously brandished the hood ornament ripped from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s car and declared on Israeli television: “We got to his car, and we’ll get to him too.” Weeks later, assassin Yigal Amir did just that, and murdered Rabin.
Today, the target in Ben-Gvir’s sights isn’t Israel’s leader, but instead all of Israeli democracy.
The post Don’t dismiss Israel’s most rage-baiting minister as fringe appeared first on The Forward.
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Gaza and Israel go unmentioned in Democrats’ 2024 election autopsy report
(JTA) — Gaza and Israel go unmentioned in the Democrats’ 190-page autopsy of Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential election loss that the Democratic National Committee released to CNN on Thursday.
Critics of the Biden administration’s support for Israel during the war in Gaza that began on Oct. 7, 2023, have alleged that the party was suppressing its internal findings about the election, which returned President Donald Trump to office, because it would show that Biden’s stance was deeply unpopular.
Axios reported in February that the top Democrats who worked on the report concluded that Harris “lost significant support because of the Biden administration’s approach to the war in Gaza.”
If that’s the case, it’s not reflected in the document that CNN published on Thursday morning. Portions of the document were not included, however, with notes saying that the executive summary and conclusion had not been shared by the authors.
The report points to 10 different “strategic implications” for Democrats, including that “anti-Trump sentiment has limits,” male voters “require direct engagement,” and that voter demographics are not enough to determine which candidate they’ll prefer.
CNN reported that the document was written by Democratic strategist Paul Rivera and annotated by the DNC. The DNC released the document following questions raised by CNN, the network reported.
DNC Chairman Ken Martin told CNN that the report was not yet ready to be publicly released, but concluded that withholding it would create a larger distraction than releasing an incomplete version. “I sincerely apologize,” he said.
“For full transparency, I am releasing the report as we received it, in its entirety, unedited and unabridged,” Martin said. “It does not meet my standards, and it won’t meet your standards, but I am doing this because people need to be able to trust the Democratic Party and trust our word.”
Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said she’d expected to see analysis related to Gaza and Israel in the report.
“As soon as it arrived in my inbox I immediately searched for the word ‘Gaza’ expecting there to be an entire section focused on this issue,” Soifer said in an interview. “So I was surprised that, in fact, there was nothing — on Gaza, Israel, Jewish voters, non-Jewish voters, it was just nothing.”
Though rumors had swirled about the role that Gaza played in the autopsy, Soifer said she heard from a DNC official that there was “never” a section focusing on the issue, “at least not in writing in this report.”
Meanwhile, the Institute for Middle East Understanding, a pro-Palestinian nonprofit, called on Martin to release “the information that the author of the autopsy told us clearly and unambiguously, which is that DNC officials’ review of their own data found Biden’s support to be a net-negative for Democrats in 2024.”
Rivera, the report’s author, met with the IMEU and told them that the war in Gaza hurt Democrats in the 2024 election, according to reporting by Axios.
Soifer said the JDCA was not contacted by Rivera, and did not meet with him.
The pro-Israel lobbying group Democratic Majority for Israel also said it had not met with Rivera. “Our current leadership has not met with the author and hasn’t been contacted,” communications chair Rachel Rosen told JTA.
While Soifer was surprised by the report’s omission of Gaza and Israel, DMFI took it as a sign that support for Israel does not have a detrimental effect on Democrats’ chances in elections.
“We need to learn the lessons of 2024 so we can be successful in 2026, 2028 and beyond,” said Brian Romick, DMFI’s president.
“What is clear — autopsy or not — is a majority of Americans, including Democrats, support the U.S.-Israel relationship, and that support was not the reason Vice President Harris lost the election,” he said.
A DMFI staffer pointed to polling from last fall showing that a majority of Democrats support the U.S.-Israel relationship.
And Soifer pointed to a poll published Friday by the Jewish Voters Resource Center, a nonpartisan firm, that found that more than two-thirds of Jewish voters plan to vote for Democrats this November — suggesting that Israel was not significantly moving votes in one of the demographics most likely to be invested in the issue.
“The poll also demonstrated that the top issue driving the Jewish vote in 2026 – just as it was in 2024 – is the future of democracy, followed by the cost of living. While 70% of Jewish voters have an emotional attachment to Israel, 55% opposed Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza,” she said. “There is little evidence that the war in Gaza has impacted the Jewish American vote.”
A spokesperson for the Republican Jewish Coalition pointed to the episode as an example of infighting among Democrats.
“The Democrats are tearing themselves apart as they appease the ascendant far-left extremists in their party, from Maine to Pennsylvania,” wrote Sam Markstein, alluding to candidates Graham Platner and Chris Rabb.
“It’s bad policy and it’s bad politics. The GOP is the only party where it’s safe to be proudly Jewish and pro-Israel,” Markstein wrote. “Republicans are righteously taking on the tough fights and winning, while Democrats continue to whistle past the political graveyard.”
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Argentine official who investigated death of AMIA prosecutor charged with covering up evidence
(JTA) — The former prosecutor who led the investigation into a mysterious 2015 death that unnerved Argentina’s Jewish community has been charged with concealing evidence in the case.
Viviana Fein was indicted on May 12 on charges of “aggravated concealment” over her handling of the investigation into the death of Alberto Nisman, a special prosecutor appointed to investigate the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
On Jan. 18, 2015, Nisman was found dead in his Buenos Aires apartment with a bullet hole above his right ear, having been shot at point-blank range. His body was discovered hours before he was scheduled to present evidence before Argentinian lawmakers accusing then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and other senior officials of allegedly covering up Iran’s role in the AMIA attack.
At the time, Fein declared Nisman’s death a suicide, but in May 2016 she slightly amended her view saying that he may have been forced to kill himself. Then, in 2017, forensic investigators issued a report stating that Nisman was assassinated. Jewish institutions have also maintained that he was murdered.
Under the Argentine Penal Code, a person charged with aggravated concealment must not have actively participated in the original crime but joined in the aftermath, and Judge Julián Ercolini ruled that Fein allegedly failed to properly preserve the crime scene at Nisman’s apartment.
According to court filings, dozens of people entered and exited the apartment without proper controls, potentially contaminating evidence and compromising the investigation.
The controversy surrounding the handling of the original crime scene has persisted for years. Judicial investigations and expert reports described the apartment as chaotic in the hours after Nisman’s death, with allegations that evidence may have been mishandled or destroyed.
Fein, who could face up to three years in prison if found guilty, has denied any wrongdoing. A week prior to her indictment, her attorney, Lucio Simonetti demanded the charges be dropped, stating that in the case of a cover up, “There must necessarily be a connection between the perpetrator of the underlying crime and the person covering it up, since it is absurd to assume that someone would cover up for a complete stranger.”
He added that the ruling “says nothing about any prior relationship existing between my client and the individuals who allegedly took part in the supposed murder of Natalio Alberto Nisman.’”
The prosecution comes as Argentina’s government takes a newly aggressive stance against Iran and Hezbollah, which are widely understood to have planned the bombing. Since Javier Milei, a conservative supporter of Israel, was elected in 2023, the country has officially declared Iran and Hezbollah responsible for the AMIA attack and another attack two years earlier on the Israeli embassy; designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization; and decided to pursue a trial in absentia for suspects implicated in the case.
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