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Gov. Hochul announces new unit to battle hate crimes at antisemitism summit
(New York Jewish Week) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a new “hate and bias prevention unit” to combat antisemitism and other forms of hate on Monday.
The unit will include public education and outreach efforts, a “rapid response team” to assist communities affected by a bias or hate incident, and regional councils where community members can share concerns, host events and conduct training, among other functions.
Hochul’s announcement came during a 90-minute conference held by the Orthodox Union at Manhattan’s Lincoln Square Synagogue to discuss the rise of antisemitism. The event also featured Sen. Chuck Schumer, New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas.
Hochul said that the new prevention unit will be implemented statewide and embedded in the Division of Human Rights. “It’s not just going to be sitting in a bureaucratic office,” Hochul said, adding the new unit will also be used as “an early warning system.”
“We can be in the prevention business, by educating people as to what the signs are,” Hochul said. “I’m going to make sure that this organization is actually an effective instrument for change.”
The new unit will alsomobilize support to “areas and communities in which a bias incident has occurred,” according to a press release from the governor’s office.
The new regional councils will be organized by the Division of Human Rights.
NEW: Governor Kathy Hochul announces a new hate and bias prevention unit to ‘educate and be an early warning system’ in fighting antisemitism across the state. pic.twitter.com/wIdtt2RFT2
— Jacob Henry (@jhenrynews) December 12, 2022
Hochul’s announcement follows her signing of a bill in late November that requires mandatory hate crime prevention training for individuals convicted of hate crimes.
The state also made $50 million available to strengthen security measures at organizations at risk of hate crimes, as well as $46 million in federal funding for 240 such organizations across the state.
The New York Police Department reported that antisemitic attacks in the city in November 2022 last month were up by 125% when compared to the same month last year.
Also, a report from the Anti-Defamation Leage counted 2,717 antisemitic incidents across the country in 2021 — a 34% increase from the previous year, and the highest since it began tracking in 1979.
During the Monday morning conference, Adams reiterated what he said last week about building up a pipeline of new relationships between the Black and Jewish community to combat hate. He also said that “there should be a no plea bargaining rule” when it comes to hate crimes.
“I don’t believe we have one person who has been arrested for a hate crime that served time in jail,” Adams said. “That is unacceptable. That sends the wrong message.” (An analysis earlier this year by The City news site found that between 2015 and 2020, only 87 cases, or 15% of hate crime arrests, resulted in a hate crime conviction.)
Sen. Schumer warned about the “dramatic resurgence of antisemitism” and called out former President Donald Trump for having dinner last month with Kanye West, the rapper who has shared a torrent of antisemitism in recent weeks, and white supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes.
“Rather than apologize afterwards, [Trump] lectures American Jewish leaders for insufficient loyalty,” Schumer said, referring to remarks Trump made Friday on his social media platform, Truth Social. “It is incumbent on all of us to speak out.”
Schumer said added that antisemitism is “seeping into our society” from not only the far right, but also the far left. “I must say that some, certainly not all, of the anti-Israel sentiment among some here in this country seeps right over into antisemitism,” he said.
The Orthodox Union’s managing director, Maury Litwack, who introduced the mayor and governor at the event, told the New York Jewish Week that the conference wasn’t just about denouncing antisemitism but included “concrete actions.”
“This is about tachlis,” Litwack said, using the Yiddish expression meaning “brass tacks.” “It’s not enough to simply say ‘denounce this.’ Each elected official has a responsibility. Like so many other communities, it’s our job to step and have that conversation.”
Major players from leading New York Jewish organizations attended the event, including Agudath Israel of America, UJA-Federation of New York, the Community Security Initiative, the Hasidic Bobov sect and even former “Real Housewives of New York” cast member Lizzy Savetsky. There was a notable Orthodox presence.
Rabbi Moishe Indig, a Satmar community activist who has a close relationship with both the governor and mayor, told the New York Jewish Week that the event was important to bring awareness to the issue of rising antisemitism.
“If you don’t speak up, if you don’t do anything about it, if you don’t bring awareness, then you barely know what it is,” Indig said. “We are calling it out and trying to do prevention.”
Tzvi Waldman, a Rockland County activist and one of the few Jewish representatives at the meeting from outside the five boroughs, told the New York Jewish Week that it was important to show elected officials that there is an interest in these issues.
“If we’re willing to work with them, they’ll work with us,” said Waldman, who is also suing the governor for not allowing guns in synagogues and other houses of worship.
Avi Greenstein, the CEO of the Boro Park Jewish Community Council, told the New York Jewish Week that it’s important to “hold our elected officials accountable.”
“Having the opportunity to hear from our elected leadership about their resolve to stand up for us, it brings out a cautious hope,” Greenstein said.
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The post Gov. Hochul announces new unit to battle hate crimes at antisemitism summit appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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A quiet diplomatic shift in the Middle East, with monumental consequences for Israel
Something significant is happening between Israel and Syria, and it deserves more attention than it is getting.
With the backing of the United States, Israeli and Syrian officials have agreed to create what they call a “joint fusion mechanism” — a permanent channel for coordination on intelligence, de-escalation, diplomacy and economic matters — during meetings in Paris. It appears to be the beginning of institutionalized contact between two countries that have formally been at war since 1948.
If this process continues, it will count as a genuine foreign-policy success for President Donald Trump’s administration.
To understand how profound that change would be, it is worth recalling the two countries’ shared history.
Israel and Syria — which the U.S. struck with a set of targeted attacks on the Islamic State on Saturday — have fought openly or by proxy for decades. Before 1967, Syrian artillery positions in the Golan Heights regularly shelled Israeli communities in the Hula Valley and around the Sea of Galilee. After Israel captured that region in 1967, the direct shelling stopped, but the conflict did not.
Syria remained formally committed to a state of war; Israel entrenched itself in the Golan Heights; both sides treated the frontier as a potential flashpoint to be managed carefully. After Egypt and Israel made peace in 1979, Syria became Israel’s most dangerous neighboring state.
A 1974 disengagement agreement created a United Nations-monitored buffer zone, which mostly ensured peace along the border, but did not resolve anything fundamental. In Lebanon, Israel and Syria backed opposing forces for years, and their air forces clashed briefly during the 1982 Lebanon War. Later, Iran’s growing role in Syria and Hezbollah’s military buildup added new threats. The Syrian civil war then destroyed basic state capacity and created precisely the kind of militia-rich environment Israel fears along its borders.
Now, with the dictator Bashar al-Assad gone and the former rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in power, Syria is a broken country trying to stabilize. Sharaa’s past associations, disturbingly, include leadership of jihadist groups that were part of the wartime landscape in Syria. But today he governs a state facing economic collapse, infrastructure ruin and a population that needs jobs and basic services. His incentives are simple and powerful: ensure the survival of his regime, invite foreign investment, and secure relief from isolation and sanctions. Those goals point toward the U.S. and its partners, including Israel.
The Trump administration has made it clear that it wants to see new Syrian cooperation with Israel, with the suggestion that progress with Israel will become a gateway to international investment, and to a degree of political acceptance that Syria has lacked for years. Al-Sharaa’s willingness to engage is therefore not a mystery.
Israel’s motivations are also straightforward. After the Gaza war, Israel is facing a severe reputational problem. It is widely viewed abroad as reckless and excessively militarized. The government is under pressure over not only the conduct of the war but also the perception that it has no political strategy and relies almost exclusively on force. A diplomatic track with Syria allows Israel to present a very different picture: that of a country capable of negotiations with ideologically opposed neighbors, de-escalation, and regional cooperation.
There are significant security incentives, too.
Israel wants to limit Iran and Hezbollah’s influence in Syria. It wants a predictable northern border. It wants assurances regarding the Druze population in southern Syria — brethren to the Israeli Druze who are extremely loyal to the state, and who were outraged after a massacre of Syrian Druze followed the installation of al-Sharaa’s regime. It wants to ensure that no armed Syrian groups will tread near the Golan. A coordinated mechanism supervised by the U.S. offers a strong diplomatic way to address these issues.
The U.S. will benefit as well. The Trump team is eager to show that it can deliver lasting diplomatic achievements in the Middle East after the success of the Abraham Accords in Trump’s first term. A meaningful shift in Israel–Syria relations would be a very welcome addition, especially as the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the Gaza war faces an uncertain future.
The main questions now are practical. Can the “joint fusion mechanism” function under pressure? What will happen when there is, almost inevitably, an incident — a drone downed, a militia clash, a cross-border strike? Will the new system effectively lower the temperature, or will it collapse at the first crisis?
Will Iran — facing its own profound internal political crisis — accept a Syria that coordinates with Israel under U.S. supervision, or will it work to undermine al-Sharaa? How will Hezbollah react if Damascus appears to move away from the axis of “resistance” and toward a security understanding with Israel?
How would an Israel-Syria deal impact Lebanon’s moribund efforts to dismantle Hezbollah’s military capacity? Al-Sharaa has already helped significantly by ending the transfer of weapons to Hezbollah from Iran through his territory. Might he also actively help with the disarming of the group?
No one should expect a full peace treaty soon. The question of possession of the Golan Heights probably remains a deal-breaker. Public opinion in Syria has been shaped by decades of official hostility to Israel, and Israeli politics is fragmented and volatile.
But diplomatic breakthroughs can confound expectations. They usually begin with mechanisms like this one, involving limited cooperation, routine contact and crisis management.
If this effort helps move the border from a zone of permanent tension to one of managed stability, that alone would be a major shift. It would also send a signal beyond the region: U.S. engagement still matters, and American pressure and incentives can still change behavior.
The post A quiet diplomatic shift in the Middle East, with monumental consequences for Israel appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
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In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”