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Biden plan to combat antisemitism demands reforms across the executive branch and beyond
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden unveiled a multifaceted and broad strategy to combat antisemitism in the United States that reaches from basketball courts to farming communities, from college campuses to police departments.
“We must say clearly and forcefully that antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence have no place in America,” Biden said in a prerecorded video. “Silence is complicity.”
The 60-page document and its list of more than 100 recommendations stretches across the government, requiring reforms in virtually every sector of the executive branch within a year. It was formulated after consultations with over a thousand experts, and covers a range of tactics, from increased security funding to a range of educational efforts.
The plan has been in the works since December, and the White House has consulted with large Jewish organizations throughout the process. The finished document embraces proposals that large Jewish organizations have long advocated, as well as initiatives that pleasantly surprised Jewish organizational leaders, most of whom praised it upon its release.
Among the proposals that Jewish leaders have called for were recommendations to streamline reporting of hate crimes across local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, which will enable the government to accurately assess the breadth of hate crimes. The proposal also recommends that Congress double the funds available to nonprofits for security measures, from $180 million to $360 million.
One proposal that, if enacted, could be particularly far-reaching — and controversial — is a call for Congress to pass “fundamental reforms” to a provision that shields social media platforms from liability for the content users post on their sites. The plan says social media companies should have a “zero tolerance policy for hate speech on their platforms.”
In addition, the plan calls for action in partnership with a range of government agencies and private entities. It says the government will work with professional sports leagues to educate fans about antisemitism and hold athletes accountable for it, following instances of antisemitic speech by figures such as NBA star Kyrie Irving or NFL player DeSean Jackson.
The government will also partner with rural museums and libraries to educate their visitors about Jewish heritage and antisemitism. And the plan includes actions to be taken by a number of cabinet departments, from the Department of Veterans Affairs to the USDA.
“It’s really producing a whole-of-government approach that stretches from what you might consider the obvious things like more [security] grants and more resources for the Justice Department and the FBI,” said Nathan Diament, the Washington director of the Orthodox Union. “But it stretches all the way across things that the Department of Labor and the Small Business Administration can do with regard to educating about antisemitism, that the National Endowment of the Humanities and the President’s Council on Sports and Fitness can do with regard to the institutions that they deal with.”
An array of Jewish organizations from the left to the center-right echoed those sentiments in welcoming the plan with enthusiasm, marking a change from recent weeks in which they had been split over how the plan should define antisemitism. Still, a handful of right-wing groups blasted the strategy, saying that its chosen definition of antisemitism diluted the term.
Despite the relatively united front, there are elements of the strategy that may stoke broader controversy: Among a broad array of partner groups named in the plan is the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whose harsh criticism of Israel has led to relations with centrist Jewish organizations that are fraught at best. The call to place limits on social media platforms may also upset free speech advocates.
Biden recalled, as he often does, that he decided to run for president after President Donald Trump equivocated while condemning the neo-Nazis who organized a deadly march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.
“Repeated episodes of hate — including numerous attacks on Jewish Americans — have since followed Charlottesville, shaking our moral conscience as Americans and challenging the values for which we stand as a Nation,” Biden wrote in an introduction to the report.
The administration launched the initiative last December, after years during which Jewish groups and the FBI reported sharp spikes in antisemitic incidents. The strategy was originally planned for release at its Jewish American Heritage Month celebration last week, but was delayed, in part because of last minute internal squabbling over whether it would accept a definition of antisemitism that some on the left said chilled free speech on Israel. Some right-wing groups were deeply critical of the new strategy for not accepting that definition to the exclusion of others.
Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) praised the breadth of the plan, and said the delay seemed to produce results.
“The White House has taken this very seriously. The phrase that something is still being worked on can often be a euphemism for a lack of concern,” he said. “In this case, it seems to have resulted in an even more comprehensive and hopefully more effective result.”
Some of the initiatives in the plan focus less on directly confronting antisemitism and more on promoting tolerance of and education about Jews.The Biden Administration will seek to ensure accommodations for Jewish religious observance, the accompanying fact sheet said, and “the Department of Agriculture will work to ensure equal access to all USDA feeding programs for USDA customers with religious dietary needs, including kosher and halal dietary needs.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, the Anti-Defamation League CEO who was closely consulted on the strategy, said promoting inclusion was as critical as fighting antisemitism. “Is FEMA giving kosher provisions after disasters going to solve antisemitism?” he said in an interview. “No, but… it’s an acknowledgement of the plurality of communities and the need to treat Jewish people like you would any other minority community, and I think I’m very pleased to see that.”
In the months since Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, convened a roundtable to launch the initiative, the Biden administration has pivoted from focusing on the threat of antisemitism from the far-right to also highlighting its manifestation in other spheres — including amid anti-Israel activism on campuses and the targeting of visibly religious Jews in the northeast. Those factors were evident in the strategy.
“Some traditionally observant Jews, especially traditional Orthodox Jews, are victimized while walking down the street,” the strategy said in its introduction. “Jewish students and educators are targeted for derision and exclusion on college campuses, often because of their real or perceived views about the State of Israel.”
The proposal that may provoke controversy beyond American Jewry is the Biden Administration’s calls to reform the tech sector, which echo bipartisan recommendations to change Section 230, a provision of U.S. law that grants platforms immunity from being liable for the content users post. Free speech advocates and the companies themselves say that if the government were to police online speech, it would veer into censorship.
“Tech companies have a critical role to play and for that reason the strategy contains 10 separate calls to tech companies to establish a zero tolerance policy for hate speech on their platforms, to ensure that their algorithms do not pass along hate speech and extreme content to users and to listen more closely to Jewish groups to better understand how antisemitism manifests itself on their platforms,” Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Biden’s top Homeland Security adviser, said during a 30-minute briefing on the strategy on Thursday. “The president has also called on Congress to remove the special immunity for online platforms and to impose stronger transparency requirements in order to ensure that tech companies are removing content that violates their terms of service.”
Neo-Nazis and white supremacists encircle counterprotesters at the base of a statue of Thomas Jefferson after marching through the University of Virginia campus with torches in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 11, 2017. (Shay Horse/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
In the weeks before the rollout, a debate raged online and behind the scenes amid Jewish organizations and activists about how the plan would define antisemitism. Centrist and right-wing groups pushed for the plan to embrace the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition. Among its examples of anti-Jewish bigotry are those focusing on when Israel criticism is antisemitic, including when “double standards” applied to Israel are antisemitic.
Advocates on the left say those clauses turn legitimate criticism of Israel into hate speech; instead, they pushed to include references to the Nexus Document, a definition authored by academics that recognizes IHRA but seeks to complement it by further elucidating how anti-Israel expression may be antisemitic in some instances, and not in others. Others sought to include the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, which rejects IHRA’s Israel-related examples.
In the end, the strategy said the U.S. government recognizes the IHRA definition as the “most prominent” and “appreciates the Nexus Document and notes other such efforts.”
A number of the centrist groups pressed for exclusive reference to IHRA, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Those groups praised the strategy and focused only on its embrace of IHRA. So did the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Michael Herzog.
“I would like to congratulate the Biden administration for publishing the first ever national strategy to combat antisemitism,” Herzog wrote on Twitter. “Thank you, @POTUS, for prioritizing the need to confront antisemitism in all its forms. We welcome the re-embracing of @TheIHRA definition which is the gold standard definition of antisemitism.”
Some center-right groups like B’nai Brith International, StandWithUs and the World Jewish Congress, praised the strategy while expressing regret at the inclusion of Nexus. Right-wing groups, such as the Republican Jewish Coalition and Christians United for Israel condemned the rollout.
RJC said Biden “blew it” by not exclusively using the IHRA definition. The Brandeis Center, which defends pro-Israel groups and students on campus, said the “substance doesn’t measure up.”
Groups on the left, however, broadly praised the strategy. “We call on our Jewish communities to seize this historic moment and build on this new strategy to ensure that the fight for Jewish safety is a fight for a better and safer America for all,” said a statement from six left-leaning groups spearheaded by Jews For Racial & Economic Justice.
Greenblatt said it was predictable that groups on the left would take the win and that groups on the right would grumble — but that it was also beside the point. IHRA, he said, was now U.S. policy.
“This document elevates and advances IHRA as the way that U.S. policy will be formulated going forward and across all of the agencies,” Greenblatt said. “That is a win.”
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11-Year-Old Girl Succumbs to Wounds from Iranian Missile Strike
A photo of Nesya Karadi. Photo: courtesy of her family.
i24 News – An 11-year-old girl has died nearly three weeks after being critically injured by an Iranian missile strike on her family home.
Nesya Karadi passed away Friday at Sheba Medical Center, becoming the 21st civilian fatality in Israel since the current conflict began on February 28.
The attack occurred on April 1, just hours before the start of Passover. Officials confirmed the strike involved an Iranian missile equipped with a cluster warhead; a sub-munition directly hit the Karadi home, wounding 14 people.
Among the injured was Nesya’s father, a volunteer with the Magen David Adom paramedic service. In a final act of heroism before losing consciousness from his own injuries, he reportedly administered life-saving first aid to his daughter.
Hanoch Zeibert, the Mayor of Bnei Brak, expressed the city’s deep grief over the loss of a “pure child whose whole life was ahead of her,” pledging the municipality’s full support to the Karadi family during their ordeal
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Palestinian Local Elections Give Some Gazans First Chance to Vote in Years
A Palestinian woman votes during the municipal election at a polling station in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip April 25, 2026. REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Palestinians voted in local elections on Saturday that for the first time in two decades include Gaza and are a gauge of the political mood.
The West Bank-based Palestinian Authority has said it hopes the inclusion of the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah will reinforce its claim to authority over the territory from which it was ousted by Hamas in 2007.
Some Gazans, who are struggling to meet their basic needs in the devastated enclave, welcomed the opportunity to vote.
“As a Palestinian and a son of the Gaza Strip, I feel proud that after this war the democratic process is returning,” said voter Mamdouh al-Bhaisi, 52, at the Deir al-Balah polling station.
Turnout, however, was low at 13.8 percent in Deir al-Balah by 1 p.m. (1000 GMT) and at 25.3 percent in the West Bank, according to official figures. Voting will continue in the West Bank until 7 p.m., while in Deir Al-Balah it ends an hour earlier due to electricity constraints.
Casting his ballot in a polling station in the Al-Bireh area, near Ramallah, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said eventually elections will be held across the Gaza Strip.
“Gaza is an inseparable part of the state of Palestine. Therefore, we have worked by all means to ensure that elections take place in Deir al-Balah to affirm the unity of the two parts of the country together,” he said.
ISRAEL HAS EXTENDED CONTROL OVER GAZA AND WEST BANK
Since a US-brokered ceasefire in Gaza between Hamas and Israel took effect in October, intermittent talks led by the United States have made little progress towards a settlement that envisages international supervision of Gaza.
European and Arab governments broadly support an eventual return of Palestinian Authority governance in Gaza, together with the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. It would comprise Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority exercises limited self-rule.
Western diplomats say local elections could be a step towards the first national elections in nearly two decades and advance reforms to increase transparency and accountability that the PA says are under way.
“We hope that the procedure carried out today will be crowned with legislative and presidential elections,” said Munif Treish, one of the candidates in the West Bank.
Saturday’s vote is the first of any kind in Gaza since 2006 and the first Palestinian elections to be held since the Gaza war started more than two years ago with a cross-border Hamas assault on southern Israeli communities. Municipal elections were last held in the West Bank four years ago.
STRUGGLE TO PAY WAGES AS ISRAEL WITHHOLDS FUNDS
The Palestinian Authority has struggled to pay wages as Israel withholds tax revenues it collects on its behalf, raising fears of economic collapse. Israel justifies withholding the funds in protest at welfare payments to prisoners and families of those killed by its forces, which it says incentivize attacks.
The Israeli government has also taken steps to help settlers acquire West Bank land. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has repeatedly said: “We will continue to kill the idea of a Palestinian state.”
In Deir al-Balah, which has suffered less damage from Israel’s assault since 2023 than other Gazan cities, banners bearing candidate lists hang from buildings.
The Palestinian election committee cited widespread destruction among the reasons voting could not be held across the rest of Gaza, more than half of which is controlled by Israel, with the rest under Hamas rule.
HAMAS BOYCOTTS VOTE BUT SOME CANDIDATES ARE ALIGNED
Some Palestinian factions are boycotting the elections in protest at the PA’s request that candidates back its agreements, which include recognition of the state of Israel.
Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, has not formally nominated any candidates but one list in the Deir al-Balah election is widely viewed by residents and analysts as aligned with it.
Analysts say the performance of candidates linked to the militant group could gauge its popularity. Most candidates, including in the West Bank, are running under Fatah, the main political movement behind the PA, or as independents.
Hamas has said it would respect the results. Palestinian sources told Reuters ahead of the vote that the group’s civil policemen would be deployed to safeguard polling stations in Gaza.
The Palestinian Central Elections Committee said more than one million Palestinians, including 70,000 in Gaza, are eligible to vote, with results expected late on Saturday or on Sunday.
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Iran Says It Won’t Accept ‘Maximalist Demands’ as Islamabad Hosts Peace Push
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi meets with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, as Pakistan prepares to host the US and Iran for the second phase of peace talks, in a location given as Islamabad, Pakistan, released April 25, 2026. Photo: ESMAEIL BAQAEI VIA X/Handout via REUTERS
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi laid out Iran’s demands and its reservations about US positions on Saturday as Islamabad hosted a new push to end a war that has killed thousands and roiled global markets.
Though details of the talks were scant, Araqchi met Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other high-ranking officials. The White House had earlier announced that President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner would travel to the Pakistani capital on Saturday, but Iran has so far ruled out a new round of direct talks.
Washington and Tehran are at an impasse as Iran has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz, which normally carries one-fifth of global oil shipments, while the US blocks Iran’s oil exports.
IRAN SETS OUT ITS ‘PRINCIPLED POSITIONS’
The conflict, in which a ceasefire is now in force, began with US-Israeli airstrikes on Iran on February 28. Iran has since carried out strikes against Israel, US bases and Gulf states, and the war has pushed up energy prices to multi-year highs, stoking inflation and darkening global growth prospects.
Araqchi “explained our country’s principled positions regarding the latest developments related to the ceasefire and the complete end of the imposed war against Iran,” said a statement on the minister’s official Telegram account.
Asked about Tehran’s reservations about US positions in the talks, an Iranian diplomatic source in Islamabad told Reuters: “Principally, Iranian side will not accept maximalist demands.”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had earlier told reporters that Iran had a chance to make a “good deal.”
“Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely,” he said. “All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon in meaningful and verifiable ways.”
Araqchi arrived in Islamabad on Friday. But an Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson posted on X that Iranian officials did not plan to meet US representatives and that Tehran’s concerns would be conveyed to mediator Pakistan.
Trump told Reuters on Friday that Iran planned to make an offer aimed at satisfying US demands but that he did not know what the offer entailed. He declined to say who Washington was negotiating with, “but we’re dealing with the people that are in charge now.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the US had seen some progress from the Iranian side in recent days and hoped more would come this weekend, while Vice President JD Vance was ready to travel to Pakistan as well.
CEASEFIRES IN PLACE, FEW SHIPS CROSSING HORMUZ
Days after Trump extended the ceasefire, international flights resumed from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport on Saturday, Iranian media said. The first passengers had departed for Medina, in Saudi Arabia, Muscat and Istanbul, with operations expected to accelerate in the coming days.
“Well, it’s a good feeling. When flights resume, trade is done, and people can do their jobs. It’s a good feeling,” said one passenger at the airport, where passengers were queuing at check-in desks.
Iranian airspace has been largely closed since the start of the war. Tens of thousands of flights have been canceled, rerouted and rescheduled worldwide, shutting much of the Middle East’s airspace because of missile and drone threats.
Trump unilaterally extended a two-week ceasefire on Tuesday to allow more time to reconvene the negotiators.
Oil prices surged this week, with Brent crude futures soaring 16 percent, on uncertainty over the fate of the peace talks and as violence flared in the region.
Shipping data on Friday showed that five ships had crossed the Strait of Hormuz in the previous 24 hours, compared to around 130 a day before the war. The ships included an Iranian oil-products tanker but none of the vast crude-carrying supertankers that normally feed global energy markets.
Data analytics firm Vortexa said this week it had recorded 35 total transits through the US blockade from April 13 to 22, involving Iran-linked or sanctioned vessels for inbound and outbound journeys.
“The enemy, whose objective of crippling Iran’s missile and military capabilities has failed, is now seeking an honorable exit from the quagmire of war,” Iranian media quoted a defense ministry spokesperson as saying. “Iran is today in firm control of the Strait of Hormuz.”
Iranian state TV quoted the country’s top military command as reiterating that Iran would react if US forces continued their “blockade and piracy” in the region.
On Thursday, Israel and Lebanon extended their ceasefire for three weeks at a White House meeting brokered by Trump, but there was little sign of an end to the fighting in southern Lebanon.
Israel invaded its northern neighbor last month to root out Iran’s Hezbollah allies after the militant group fired across the border in support of Iran. Tehran says a ceasefire there is a precondition for talks.
Four people were killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon on Saturday, Lebanon’s state news agency reported, and Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel, the Israeli military said, in the latest challenge to the ceasefire there.