A Jewish man is wearing his kippah at a local café when an angry customer accosts him. The kippah is against the law, the man is told; the other customer calls the police.

Within minutes, officers arrive. They confiscate the Jewish man’s belongings, and place him in a cell without water for around 20 minutes. He is not allowed to call his wife. Near release, the officers threaten to put him back in the cell if he does not leave the station without his kippah.

The man refuses. And so an officer of the law takes a blade to the man’s sacred religious symbol. “She’d taken my possession, a religious ritual object, something that is very dear to my heart, and destroyed it,” the man said.

This was not Europe in the 1930s. It was Israel in 2026. And it all happened because Alex Sinclair, 53, had a Palestinian flag embroidered onto his kippah.

That Sinclair is a Zionist — his kippah also featured an Israeli flag — meant little to his fellow citizen, or to the police, who have taken an increasingly authoritarian tack against Palestinian symbols.

Israeli censorship of innocuous political expression isn’t new, especially for Palestinian citizens of Israel. But the egregious case of a Palestinian flag being cut off of Sinclair’s kippah shows the predictable consequences for Jews of policies that repress others’ speech in our name. A government that lets officers cut a Jew’s kippah is taking a page out of the playbook of antisemites by defining what it means to be a good Jew who gets to live freely in society

A kippah built for complexity

Sinclair is a Jewish education lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His 2013 book Loving the Real Israel: An Educational Agenda for Liberal Zionism — a finalist for a National Jewish Book Award — argues that Jewish education should be built around principles including complexity, conversation and empowerment.

He has spent his career insisting that you can love a country honestly only if you confront its flaws. As part of that effort, he has worn a kippah bearing both an Israeli and a Palestinian flag for nearly 20 years.

“The reasons behind the kippah are long and complex,” he wrote on Facebook after his detention, “and related to the messy ambivalence of my Jewish-Zionist identity.”

The kippah was, in part, his way of expressing his religious commitment without being folded into assumptions about what a kippah-wearing Jew stands for politically.

His wearing of it has sometimes sparked meaningful reactions from other Israelis, especially Palestinians. Once, a cashier in Sinclair’s neighborhood supermarket told him: “Thank you on behalf of all of us.” Another time, the mechanic fixing his flat tire saw the kippah and burst into tears. Among Jews, the kippah acts as necessary friction in a country sometimes desperate to maintain a smooth narrative.

In a 2024 essay called “The Two Most Important Flags for Liberal Jews Today,” Sinclair argued that the dual flags answer extremism from both Hamas and the Israeli right:

“By portraying the Israeli flag and the Palestinian flag together, we show Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists that we will not give up our country and our national identity, but we show potential Palestinian partners that we accept their national identity and wish to live in security, mutual dignity, and peace with them.”

Cutting the Palestinian flag out of Sinclair’s kippah was the state literally cutting complexity out of acceptable Jewish vocabulary.

The gap between what the law is and what it does

What happened to Sinclair was not a case of bad laws so much as police taking matters into their own hands despite the law.

No Knesset law makes the Palestinian flag illegal in Israel. Israeli legal authorities and courts have repeatedly affirmed the Palestinian flag as protected political expression, while allowing police only narrow authority in cases where there is a high probability of a breach of the peace or genuine suspicion that someone identifies with or supports a terrorist organization

Israel once used the power of the state to discipline Jewish radicals. The country’s first anti-terror law, passed in 1948, was directed at Jews. It was used to designate Lehi, a Jewish paramilitary group that assassinated United Nations mediator Folke Bernadotte because his proposed partition plan was seen as too favorable to Arabs. (This despite the fact that the Swedish nobleman’s “White Buses” operations rescued tens of thousands of prisoners, including Jews, from Nazi camps in 1945.)

Now, police contorted the statutory tradition descended from that law against a Jew for the peaceful connotations of his kippah. Politicians and law enforcement whose beliefs are arguably influenced by extremists like Lehi are abusing their power to harass peaceful citizens of the state.

Foremost among them is National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. In January 2023, days after being sworn in, Ben-Gvir directed the Israeli police to remove “terror-supporting flags” from public spaces — a directive that in practice included the Palestinian flag. Senior police commanders quickly said that the order was not legally sound. None of that has stopped censorship from happening.

The legal-rights organization Adalah has documented at least 645 people arrested for speech-related offenses since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023. The overwhelming majority of that number are Palestinian citizens of Israel, many of whom were eventually indicted. By contrast, human rights organization Yesh Din has found that nearly 94% of investigations into settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank have been closed without indictments.

There was never going to be a firewall

It was always naïve to assume that the coercive apparatus used against Palestinians could be cordoned off from the democracy Jews live in.

Unchecked power, as critics like the Orthodox Jewish philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz warned, corrodes everything it touches. A state’s abuses undermine democracy for the citizens in whose name they are carried out.

The Israeli right may object that Hamas and its supporters have used the Palestinian flag in hateful contexts, including in imagery surrounding the Oct. 7 massacre and at rallies celebrating Hamas’s attack. (Hamas has its own, separate flag). That’s true, and it helps explain why many Israelis experience the Palestinian flag as threatening.

But just as the Israeli flag does not mean that every Jew who flies it endorses every action of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Palestinian flag does not mean that every Palestinian who waves it endorses Hamas. Flags, and nations, contain multitudes. Many Palestinians wave their flag out of a sincere desire for self-determination.

“I, like every Israeli, know people who lost loved ones on Oct. 7 or in the war thereafter,” Sinclair himself said. “Hamas is my enemy: an enemy who seeks my destruction, an enemy who is not interested in coexistence.” His kippah does not pretend otherwise.

If officers had cut a Jew’s kippah in any other country in the world, Israeli MK Gilad Kariv noted last week, “there would have been an uproar here in Israel.” He’s right.

Instead, the Israeli police have publicly described what they did to Alex Sinclair as a “clarification process.” That sounds like the bureaucratic vocabulary of a state that no longer trusts its citizens to exercise their rights and liberties. Following his detention, Sinclair filed a complaint with the Department for Internal Police Investigations. He requested compensation for the kippah and a written commitment that he could walk through Modiin without harassment.

“I’m not holding my breath,” he said.

His assessment is haunting: “If we are looking ahead, oh my God, is this what is in store for us?” The answer, if things continue along these lines, is a government that is increasingly authoritarian, deeply insecure and farcical. Days after Sinclair’s detention, Israeli police seized another suspect flag that was red, green, and white at an anti-Netanyahu protest. It was Hungarian.

The post Is supporting peace illegal in Israel? A shocking arrest carries a warning appeared first on The Forward.

Amid sustained international scrutiny of Iran’s nuclear program, missile development, and regional proxy network, new assessments point to a quieter and more troubling front as allegations grow that Tehran may be expanding work related to chemical and biological weapons capabilities.

According to a new report from the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, the Islamist regime in Iran may be advancing efforts to significantly develop its chemical and biological weapons programs — a move experts warn would pose serious risks not only to Israel but also to the wider region and the Iranian population itself.

Iran’s chemical and biological research programs allegedly focus on a range of toxic agents, including blister agents like mustard gas, nerve agents such as sarin and Novichok, and substances that attack the lungs or blood and can cause suffocation. 

These reportedly also include biological threats such as anthrax, ricin, and botulinum toxins, as well as certain viruses, all of which can cause severe illness or death by disrupting the body’s nervous system, organs, or immune response.

Israeli officials have previously warned that the Iranian government has been developing dual-use chemicals, with both civilian and military applications, and may be channeling them to its regional proxy terrorist forces, raising fears they could be used to intensify proxy conflicts and destabilize the wider Middle East.

Tehran is also suspected of having used such agents to help suppress the nationwide anti-government protests earlier this year, which were violently crushed by security forces in a crackdown that left tens of thousands of demonstrators tortured, imprisoned, or killed.

Similar allegations have repeatedly emerged in the past, adding to a wider pattern of reported abuses against civilians and violations of human rights.

According to a report from Iran International, a medical staff member in Karaj said some detainees released during the January protests had reported body aches, lethargy, weakness, loss of appetite, nausea, and vomiting — all symptoms that may indicate possible drug-related poisoning.

Iran first began developing chemical weapons-related capabilities in the 1980s. In recent years, those efforts have reportedly evolved to include pharmaceutical-based agents and other compounds designed for incapacitation or riot control.

US government assessments have indicated for decades that Iran has been researching and developing chemical agents, including anesthetic compounds designed to incapacitate individuals by targeting the central nervous system.

These reports point to Iran’s academic sector playing a key role in this area, with Imam Hossein University and Malek Ashtar University of Technology — military-linked institutions associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Ministry of Defense — reportedly conducting research since at least 2005 into chemical agents designed for incapacitation.

Since the start of the war earlier this year, the Israeli Air Force has carried out sustained strikes targeting sites linked to chemical weapons research, development, and production, aiming to disrupt facilities embedded within Iran’s broader military-industrial infrastructure and associated pharmaceutical-based programs.

Even though Tehran has long denied pursuing chemical or biological weapons and remains a party to the Chemical Weapons Convention, Western governments continue to accuse the regime of violating international norms.

Germany is confronting what Jewish leaders describe as a “new normal” of antisemitism, with nearly half of Jewish communities across the country reporting incidents and officials warning that Islamist and left-wing extremist networks are driving a surge in hostility amid ongoing Middle East tensions.

According to a new survey released on Friday by the Central Council of Jews in Germany, 46 of more than 100 Jewish communities nationwide have been targeted in antisemitic incidents, underscoring the growing scale and urgency of the crisis.

Among the most commonly reported incidents were verbal abuse, threatening phone calls, hate speech, property damage, and antisemitic graffiti, with 68 percent of respondents saying they feel “very unsafe.”

“Following the explosive rise in antisemitism after Oct. 7, a ‘new normal’ has emerged,” Central Council President Josef Schuster said in a statement, referring to the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel over two years ago.

“A situation in which Jewish communities require constant protection and antisemitism has become normalized as part of the public sphere,” he continued.

In the wake of the recent war with Iran, 62 percent of respondents said their sense of insecurity has further intensified.

“This finding clearly shows that the war in the Middle East was always just a pretext, never a reason for antisemitic attacks and hate speech in Germany,” Schuster said.

Only 35 percent of respondents reported feeling a sense of solidarity and support from broader society, underscoring a widespread perception of isolation.

Even though religious and communal life continues largely with only minor restrictions in most communities, many Jews increasingly avoid displaying visible signs of their identity in public.

“Things that used to be taken for granted — openly wearing religious symbols, walking carefree to the synagogue — are now often accompanied by caution and more conscious consideration. At the same time, the emotional strain has increased significantly,” said one unnamed survey participant, according to the Central Council.

Amid a sharply deteriorating security climate in Germany, officials warn that surging antisemitism and hostility toward Israel are increasingly being driven by Islamist networks and left-wing extremist groups, with threats against Jewish and Israeli communities intensifying nationwide.

According to a study by the Hessian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Islamist and left-wing extremist actors are exploiting the Middle East conflict and rising regional tensions to spread antisemitic rhetoric, contributing to an increase in violence and harassment against Jews and Israelis.

The newly released report warns that such antisemitic narratives have become a central mobilizing force since the Oct. 7 atrocities, shaping public discourse and being used to justify acts of violence and intimidation.

“Antisemitism is no longer an isolated phenomenon, but a cross-cutting issue that connects various extremist groups,” the study notes.

After more than two years of escalation, German officials warn that the threat to Jewish life has risen dramatically, with antisemitic hate speech surging as extremist actors deliberately exploit the war in Gaza for propaganda.

The report points to extremist groups merging anti-imperialist ideology with entrenched antisemitic narratives in their propaganda around the Israel–Hamas war, including claims of a “genocide in Gaza,” depictions of the Jewish state as a “colonial power,” and labels such as “child murderer.” 

These narratives are being used to justify violence against Israel and to exploit the humanitarian crisis to increase hostility and advance their agenda.

German Interior Minister Roman Poseck, who commissioned the report, warned of a deteriorating social climate, saying that “antisemitic sentiments are becoming increasingly intolerable, even in public spaces.”

“Antisemitism is one of the greatest threats to our social cohesion – especially from Islamism and the left-wing extremist spectrum,” the German official said in a statement.

“I am deeply ashamed of what Jews in Germany have to endure 80 years after the end of the Second World War,” he continued. “We Germans, in particular, bear a lasting responsibility never to forget what happened.”

According to Germany’s Radicalization Monitoring System and Transfer Platform, 45 percent of Muslims under the age of 40 in the country show an inclination toward Islamism — defined as support for Islamist ideas, preference for Sharia-based principles over the constitutional order, and the presence of antisemitic prejudices.

Among those surveyed, 23.8 percent view an Islamic theocracy as the most desirable form of government.

Even though right-wing extremism may be less normalized in mainstream discourse, the study warns it “remains a danger, as antisemitic prejudices and conspiracy myths continue to be deliberately spread there as well.”

The western German state of Hesse has seen a particularly visible surge in antisemitic expression, with chants such as “Child-murderer Israel,” “From the river to the sea,” and “Resistance is international law” heard at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, across social media, and on university campuses.

The study notes that these narratives act as a unifying thread, bringing together Islamist, left-wing, and right-wing extremists who adopt similar rhetoric to reinforce shared enemies and legitimize violence.

Notably, the German Left Party has repeatedly been at the center of controversy and public outrage over its continued use and promotion of anti-Israel rhetoric, reinforcing a recurring pattern of incidents within its ranks that have sparked allegations of antisemitism.

Last year, the party’s youth wing passed an anti-Israel resolution labeling the world’s lone Jewish state a “colonial and racist state project.”

More recently, Andreas Büttner, the commissioner for antisemitism in the state of Brandenburg in northeastern Germany, resigned from the Left Party, citing a rise in antisemitism within the ranks, relentless personal attacks, and a party climate that has become intolerable.

Beyond extremist circles, the report also points to antisemitism extending across segments of society, finding resonance in mainstream discourse where it is often disguised as legitimate criticism of Israel.

“This is shifting the boundaries of what society considers acceptable, normalizing antisemitic thinking while trivializing, legitimizing, and in some cases even glorifying violence against Jews,” the study says.

Earlier this month, the Hesse government introduced new legislation that would criminalize denying Israel’s right to exist, as authorities move to confront a surge in anti-Israel demonstrations and a growing tide of antisemitic rhetoric and attacks that have intensified pressure on Jewish communities across the country.

The proposed legislation would close what officials describe as a legal loophole by explicitly criminalizing the denial of Israel’s right to exist, with penalties of up to five years in prison or a fine, aligning it with existing provisions that punish Holocaust denial.