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Can Israeli Liberals win back the Democratic center — and save the U.S.-Israel alliance?
About a dozen Israelis gathered in my living room this week for a conversation that would have seemed unnecessary a decade ago. Some identified with the political left, others with the right. But everyone agreed that the bipartisan foundation of the U.S.-Israel alliance is being destroyed, that this is a disaster for Israel, and that restoring confidence among Democrats has become a critical priority, as important as preventing a nuclear Iran.
Leading the discussion was Rotem Oreg-Kalisky, the 32-year-old founder of LIBRAEL, an Israeli nonprofit built around that very challenge. The organization argues that support for Israel and liberal values are fundamentally compatible, and that rebuilding the relationship requires something more ambitious than better public relations. It sees its mission as educating members of Congress on the liberal Zionist perspective, training pro-Israel advocates to communicate more effectively in progressive spaces, and helping Israeli institutions — from the Foreign Ministry and the IDF to technology companies and NGOs — engage international audiences in language that resonates with liberal Americans.
The animating idea is that two things are true yet underappreciated: one, that most Israelis actually do believe in liberal values; and two, that most Americans actually are Zionists by the classic definition that means simply that the Jewish people have the right to a democratic nation-state in their ancestral homeland.
“There’s a growing big lie in America that says that if you are a liberal — if you believe in peace, justice, and human rights — you can’t be a Zionist, in the basic sense of believing Israel has the right to exist as the democratic nation-state of the Jewish people,” he told me. That belief, he argues, has become increasingly accepted among younger progressives, even though he believes liberal Zionism remains entirely compatible with progressive values.
This — while in my view completely true — obviously runs counter to the prevailing winds in the United States
In particular, there is a major challenge with the “genocide” claim — which, like me, he rejects — that has become widely accepted even outside the far-left. He argues that it can be engaged, at least with liberals, and even with some progressives, provided Israel is willing to acknowledge its own failures and present a different political vision.
“At least some of them are persuadable,” he says of progressive Democrats. His strategy is to sidestep the legal label of genocide and argue that Israel regains credibility by acknowledging wrongdoing where it exists, refusing to defend indefensible actions, and changing policy. “I don’t think the IDF is a force for evil. But it makes mistakes and it sometimes makes stupid decisions.”
Either way, LIBRAEL has already begun turning that strategy into measurable activity.
Oreg-Kalisky, a former research advisor to U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro, says his group has developed relationships with 39 congressional offices from 19 states, sends a biweekly newsletter to 75 lawmakers and congressional staff with a 37% average open rate, has presented its liberal Zionist narrative to hundreds of liberal Americans, and has trained more than 1,800 pro-Israel advocates.
With a staff of 15, all volunteers, its ambitions are considerably larger still, including regular congressional engagement, expanded advocacy missions to Washington, and a dramatic increase in outreach — especially on social media — over the coming four years.
Oreg-Kalisky spends much of the money he succeeds in raising simply getting himself to Washington and New York, knocking on doors that are often closed even to official Israeli channels. Over the past three years he has repeatedly flown to the United States, meeting with Democratic lawmakers, congressional staff, policy advisers, and political operatives, but also with grassroots: college students, Jewish communities, non-Jewish liberal organizations and even a queer synagogue.
The value of those trips, he argues, often lies not in headline meetings but in quieter conversations. He described reaching Democratic offices that Israeli diplomats sometimes struggle to access. In one example, he said he was able to meet with the military adviser to Sen. Raphael Warnock — a conversation that officials from the Israeli embassy had found difficult to secure. His pitch was not that Israel deserved automatic support, but that liberal Israelis still existed, still shared many of the same values as American liberals, and still wanted to preserve the bipartisan alliance that had anchored Israeli security for decades.
The timing could hardly be worse. Recent polling found that roughly 60% of Americans now hold an unfavorable view of Israel, with much of the deterioration concentrated among Democrats and younger voters. Even Republicans have become increasingly less supportive of Israel, while many Democrats have grown steadily more critical of Israeli governments and their policies. The result has been the erosion of one of Israel’s greatest strategic assets: broad bipartisan support in the United States.
Oreg-Kalisky does not believe this can be solved simply by improving messaging. He also claims Americans and Israelis increasingly process the same events through different moral vocabularies. Israelis naturally describe Oct. 7 as terrorism, while many younger Americans, he argues, do not have an emotional response to the word “terror” because they were not alive on 9/11 — but they will respond if the Nova massacre is described as the largest mass shooting in history. Israelis instinctively speak about terrorism when Jews are targeted; Americans, especially liberals, often first think in terms of hate crimes. The underlying facts remain identical, but the political language has diverged.
Nor does he believe the answer is asking Americans to lower their standards for Israel. Asked about today’s Israeli government, Oreg offered blunt criticism, especially of the tolerance of Jewish terrorism in the West Bank “at least by some segments of the government. Nationalistic violence is something I’m not proud of, to put it mildly, and something that needs to change. You won’t hear me defending an indefensible policy.”
That willingness to criticize Israel from within is central to LIBRAEL’s approach. Oreg-Kalisky, an IDF veteran with over 200 days of reserve duty since Oct. 7, argues that rebuilding Democratic confidence requires not simply changing how Israel explains itself but, in some cases, changing Israeli policy itself. Replacing Benjamin Netanyahu alone, he believes, would not be enough. Future governments would also need to phase out the military aid, demonstrate changes in the West Bank, preserve democratic institutions, confront extremist violence, and persuade allies that Israel still seeks a political horizon beyond permanent conflict.
At the same time, he rejects what he sees as another dangerous illusion taking hold in parts of Israel: that the United States can somehow be replaced. “If someone tells you Israel can replace the U.S. with India, the UAE, Azerbaijan, or anyone else — that’s bullshit. There are no alternatives to America. Israel needs to retain the support of the United States. I’m doing this because I want to save the alliance.”
That is the central wager behind Oreg-Kalisky’s work. Rather than writing off Democrats as lost, or asking them to “Support Israel and shut up” — as he says many government backers expect, — he believes Israeli liberals must re-enter the conversation themselves, speaking honestly about Israel’s flaws while defending its legitimacy as a democratic and Jewish state with serious security needs.
Whether that proves possible remains uncertain. Oreg is betting that enough common ground still exists to recover. But there are no illusions about the political side. What if Netanyahu wins the upcoming October election?
“Then we will certainly need to reassess.”
The post Can Israeli Liberals win back the Democratic center — and save the U.S.-Israel alliance? appeared first on The Forward.
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Hollywood’s Jews take sides in Mark Ruffalo-Paramount antisemitism row
(JTA) — Some 170 notable Jewish personalities have released an open letter defending actor and producer Mark Ruffalo, who has been accused of antisemitism for his comments on Paramount Skydance’s pending acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Entertainers, rabbis and a physician who is featured in a new documentary about doctors treating Palestinians in Gaza signed the letter released Wednesday, which called the attacks against Ruffalo a “false and dangerous weaponization of charges of antisemitism.” George Clooney also defended Ruffalo on Thursday.
Signatories of the pro-Ruffalo petition include “Broad City” creators Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer; celebrated filmmakers Joel Coen, Jonathan Glazer and Todd Haynes; Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner; and actors including Hannah Einbinder, Joaquin Phoenix and Debra Winger.
In late August, Ruffalo, the award-winning actor and progressive activist, went on social media to link Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, the chief driver of the looming Paramount-Warner Bros. merger, to tech giant Oracle, which Ruffalo claimed is responsible for “an apartheid system of oppression” in Gaza.
Oracle is owned by Ellison’s father, Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men; both Ellisons are Jewish and prominent Israel supporters. Oracle also owns a stake in the social media network TikTok’s U.S. operations, and has long been a target of progressives who point to the company’s links to, and public support for, Israel.
“Larry Ellison will own most of ‘Para Bros,’” Ruffalo wrote in the post, which is no longer available, according to a screenshot reproduced by the Hollywood Reporter. The “Spotlight” and Marvel star also called Larry Ellison a “classic oligarch” who is “crushing workers and consolidating the wealth of the world for their own power and concentrated dominance.”
The $110 billion merger is under adjudication in federal court in California following an antitrust lawsuit filed by 12 state attorneys general and the Writers Guild of America. As backlash to the merger has steadily grown across Hollywood and in political and media spaces, Paramount at least since June has been pushing the idea that opposition to the merger has had an antisemitic element.
The company seized on Ruffalo’s comments, immediately releasing a lengthy statement to media after his controversial social media post that accused the actor of invoking “antisemitic tropes,” adding, “This simply exposes the true motivation of some who have advocated opposition to this transaction.”
Several leading Jewish groups have also said his post stepped beyond legitimate criticism of the merger and into classic antisemitic rhetoric about Jewish wealth and power.
In an August statement, the head of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles said the actor’s comments “combined Jewish wealth, media control, secret technology and sinister global power,” drawing on “recognizable antisemitic tropes with a long and dangerous history.” Other LA-based Jewish activist groups, including Creative Community For Peace and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, have also condemned his comments.
Speaking amid the unfolding controversy about Ruffalo and his use of the word genocide to describe Israel’s campaign in Gaza, “Fauda” co-creator Avi Isaacharoff called him “a rare combination” of “ignorant” and “stupid.”
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has reached out to Shani Rosenzweig, Ruffalo’s agent and a prominent Jewish entertainment figure in her own right, for comment and a Ruffalo interview request. Rosenzweig did not respond to either request.
Ruffalo has found support from several progressive Jewish figures beyond the entertainment industry, including IfNotNow co-founder Simone Zimmerman, Israeli Holocaust historian Raz Segal and Jewish Currents editor Peter Beinart.
In their open letter defending Ruffalo, the progressive Jewish cohort argued the actor was right to draw links between Israel’s behavior and the merger.
“Pointing out the crucial connections between what is happening in Gaza and what is happening in Hollywood is the exact opposite of antisemitism,” the letter reads. “It is, for us, the very essence of Jewish ethical duty.” The letter points to specific statements from Larry Ellison, and Oracle executives, describing their surveillance and artificial-intelligence technological ventures and their positive relationship with Israel.
Other entertainment figures have tried to thread a more careful needle. Oscar-winning filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan, who has directed Ruffalo in two movies and was at one point developing an American remake of the hit Israeli TV series “Shtisel,” defended the actor from antisemitism charges this week while also noting, “I disagree profoundly with many of his positions on the Middle East, Israel, Gaza, and Iran’s constellation of fanatical Islamist fundamentalist proxies.”
“But Mark and I have been friends for over 30 years,” Lonergan continued in his letter to the Hollywood Reporter. “The notion that he is antisemitic is overtly preposterous, and the accusation itself a cynical and disgusting lie.”
Ruffalo is soon scheduled to attend the Toronto International Film Festival for the Sept. 10 premiere of the biopic “Being Heumann,” about Jewish-American disability rights activist Judy Heumann, in which he co-stars.
Opposition to David Ellison’s bid to combine two historic media giants, each having recently weathered smaller mergers of their own, has grown considerably in recent months. Those objections have come both from Hollywood rank-and-file concerned about further industry consolidation, as well as from political and media figures voicing objections to Ellison’s close ties to President Donald Trump and his intentions with Warner’s flagship news property, CNN.
The merger was initially thought to be on track to be finalized this fall with Trump’s blessing. The president has publicly championed the merger, and his Justice Department approved the deal in June. But talks have ground to a halt following the antitrust lawsuit. The fate of the merger is now in question, with Paramount having agreed to a trial in March 2027 and on the hook for a $7-million-per-day “ticking fee” it had previously agreed to pay out to shareholders if the deal failed to close by this October.
Prior to Ruffalo’s post, Ellison himself published a New York Times op-ed defending his merger plans.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Hollywood’s Jews take sides in Mark Ruffalo-Paramount antisemitism row appeared first on The Forward.
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Spanish far-right activists use Nazi-style salutes in anti-migrant protests
(JTA) — MADRID — Dozens of far-right activists raised their arms in Nazi-style salutes and sang a Spanish fascist anthem in the heart of Madrid on Wednesday, amid protests against the government’s handling of migration.
Between 60 and 70 members of Núcleo Nacional, an ultra-nationalist anti-immigrant group, participated in mass demonstrations of tens of thousands of people across Spain, a spokesperson for the group told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The protests were in response to an influx of migrants from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish territory in North Africa.
The broader demonstrations in Madrid were called by Spain’s conservative People’s Party and far-right Vox party, drawing about 50,000 people to the streets, according to government estimates. The protests were planned for Ceuta Day, a holiday marking the Portuguese conquest of Ceuta from the Marinid Sultanate of Morocco in the 15th century, beginning centuries of Portuguese and later Spanish rule.
Núcleo Nacional activists were shown on video making the outstretched-arm gesture associated with neo-Nazi movements and chanting, “Ceuta is not for sale, Ceuta will defend itself.” They also sang the song “Cara al Sol,” a fascist anthem from 1935 that became central to the regime of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who ruled from 1939 to 1975. Núcleo Nacional denied a link between their gesture and Nazi history.
The demonstration ended in clashes between protesters and police, with four people arrested and four police officers injured, according to local authorities. Protesters were also shown on camera grabbing, pushing and cursing at multiple journalists who were covering the rally.
Francisco Martín Aguirre, the delegate of the Spanish government in Madrid, condemned “the violent acts that occurred at the end of the gatherings in Madrid.”
“All respect to those who legitimately and peacefully protest for the cause they deem fit,” he said on X. “Violence is never the way and those who daily incite it are also responsible.”
A spokesperson for Núcleo Nacional told JTA that the group was not performing a Nazi salute, but an “Iberian or Roman salute.”
“It represents our ancestors,” the spokesperson said. They added that the group was protesting to “support the people of Ceuta.”
The outstretched arm salute in Nazi Germany was inspired by a gesture popularized in the 1920s in Italy’s fascist movement, which later allied with the Nazis. The Italians called it a Roman salute, though researchers say there is no evidence linking it to ancient Rome. Franco also instituted the gesture in 1937, then instructed Spaniards to abandon it in 1945 after the Axis powers lost World War II.
More than 72,000 Moroccan migrants crossed into Ceuta between July 30 and July 31, with at least 100 people dying in the attempt. Most have returned to Morocco, but some 5,000 remain in makeshift shelters or on the streets and beaches, inflaming tensions between migrants and local residents and heaping pressure on the left-wing government of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Núcleo Nacional has about 2,000 members, many from neo-Nazi and Francoist groups that lost their capacity to mobilize, according to the Global Network on Extremism and Technology. The group has grown rapidly and opened four regional branches since its founding in 2024. Earlier this year, it registered a political party as Noviembre Nacional.
The group pledges to defend the white race, Christianity, the Spanish nation and Europe against foreign and domestic enemies, including migrants, internal independence movements and “multicultural globalism.” Spain’s Civil Guard last year opened an investigation into Núcleo Nacional after it posted a video calling for groups to “actively defend” the streets and “jointly fight against the invasion” of immigration.
Núcleo Nacional leaders have also denied the Holocaust and suggested that Israel orchestrates migration to Europe, according to the Observatory of Antisemitism, a Spanish watchdog organization. Núcleo Nacional said in a 2024 statement, “Any Spanish patriot should not forget that it is Israel that is financing the Maghrebi invasion to which all of Europe is being subjected.”
On Núcleo Nacional’s social media channels, it has claimed that it is targeted by “the Jewish-Zionist lobby in Spain” and accused the “international Jewish-American financial elite” of “buying up Spain at bargain prices while ruining us.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Spanish far-right activists use Nazi-style salutes in anti-migrant protests appeared first on The Forward.
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US House passes bill stripping federal funds from universities that boycott Israel
(JTA) — The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved a bill that would prevent federal funds from going to academic institutions that participate in commercial boycotts of Israel.
The HR 4795 bill, co-sponsored by North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx and New Jersey Democrat Rep. Josh Gottheimer, passed in a 237 to 169 vote, with 203 Republicans, 33 Democrats and one Independent in favor. Whether Democrats will grant sufficient support to pass the legislation in the Senate remains unclear.
If the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act goes on to become law, it would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to require universities to refrain from “participating in a nonexpressive commercial boycott of Israel” in order to remain qualified for certain funds.
Expressive conduct is “symbolic speech” designed to relay a message, like picketing, marching, flag desecration and draft-card burnings. A 2022 U.S. Court of Appeals ruling deemed economic boycotts nonexpressive commercial conduct as opposed to independent expression.
In addition to forbidding boycotts, the legislation also stipulates that institutions receiving such funds would need to “certify that students are not unreasonably obstructed from participating in academic programs in Israel.”
“This bill is an important step forward in ensuring academic freedom for all students,” Gottheimer, who is Jewish, said in a statement. “I will push the Senate to take up the bill shortly so it can become law.”
Foxx, meanwhile, stressed that the act “takes a strong stand against the BDS movement on college campuses across the nation,” referring to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign that aims to put economic pressure on Israel by barring the purchase of Israeli products and suspending trade agreements.
“This legislation has true teeth and completely severs any possible taxpayer support of these concrete campaigns of antisemitism in the form of BDS and academic boycotts of Israel,” Foxx added.
The Anti-Defamation League welcomed the bill’s passage on Thursday, deriding BDS activities as a tool used “to delegitimize Israel and demonize Jews and other students for their connection to the Jewish state.”
The Combat Antisemitism Movement, an interfaith advocacy group that aims to fight “Jew hatred,” echoed these sentiments. A Thursday statement from the coalition noted that ahead of the vote, the group had sent a letter to all U.S. House members conveying its support for the bill.
“Academic boycotts of Israel harm American students and scholars, weaken vital U.S.-Israel research collaboration, and lend the credibility of American universities to a discriminatory campaign that singles out the only Jewish state,” the letter stated.
Among the 32 Democrats to join Gottheimer in supporting the bill were many prominent Jewish lawmakers, such as Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Lois Frankel and Jared Moskowitz of Florida; Greg Landsman of Ohio; Brad Schneider of Illinois; Eugene Vindman of Virginia and Kim Schrier of Washington.
Yet not all Jewish legislators, even those who are against BDS, voted in favor of the bill. Ahead of the vote, Rep. Jerry Nadler, a Democrat from New York, vowed in a statement that he would vote against the bill and urged his colleagues to do the same.
While Nadler voiced his antipathy to BDS and acknowledged that proponents of the movement “can veer into antisemitism,” he stressed that “those who engage in BDS have a First Amendment right to do so.”
The liberal pro-Israel lobby J Street offered similar opposition, arguing that this bill would mean “infringing on constitutionally protected free speech and academic freedom.” Noting a distinction between Israel proper and the West Bank, J Street stated that “penalizing universities for expressing their opposition to activities that further annexation sets a dangerous precedent.”
Nadler, meanwhile, described the measure as both “a direct and gross violation of the First Amendment” and “the latest assault by the Trump Administration” on the nation’s academic institutions.
“No matter how much I may disagree with BDS, and find it strategically stupid and morally repugnant, I will always fight to protect Americans’ right to speech with which I disagree,” he added. “It is the only way to ensure speech I do agree with is equally protected.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post US House passes bill stripping federal funds from universities that boycott Israel appeared first on The Forward.
