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How a once-cautious Benjamin Netanyahu came to lead the most radical coalition in Israel’s history
(JTA) — Twenty-seven years have passed since Benjamin Netanyahu was first elected as Israel’s prime minister. Since 1996, he has headed six governments over a period of more than 15 years, more than any other prime minister. Unfortunately, his current coalition is one of the most radical-populist governments in Israel’s history. This government seeks to rapidly undermine Israel’s democracy by granting unlimited political power to the executive branch of government at the expense of the judiciary.
How can Netanyahu — a U.S.-educated and respected world leader who was cautious in his approach to building previous coalitions, and was once respectful of Israeli democratic institutions — support such a dangerous plan? Was the “writing on the wall” earlier on in his lengthy tenure?
A glimpse into Netanyahu’s years in office reveals that, indeed, signs of his being a populist leader — specializing in attacks against the so-called elite — could be detected long ago. As Likud leader in 1993, Netanyahu was blamed for ignoring the incitement by extremists that preceded the assignation of Yitzhak Rabin (a charge he vociferously denies). As early as 1997, during his first term as prime minister, he said that “the left has forgotten what it means to be Jewish.” Two years later, during an election campaign, he mocked the “leftist” press by saying “they are scared” (by the possibility of a right-wing victory). On Election Day in 2015, he posted a video urging Likud supporters to go out and vote by warning, “the Arabs are heading in droves to the polls.” That message led to accusations that the candidate was using racial dog whistles to motivate his followers.
However, Netanyahu’s populist discourse and his natural divide-and-conquer leadership style were balanced out, at least until 2015, by several factors. First, Netanyahu always sought to include centrist and even left-of-center parties in his coalition governments. Even when he could build a “pure” right-wing coalition (following the 2009 elections, for example), he preferred to invite partners from the opposing political side. His intention, he once said, was to provide a “wide and stable government that unites the people.”
Second, despite his hawkish image and his hardline discourse on security issues, Netanyahu wa considered to be an exceedingly cautious leader in that arena. Risk-averse, he tended to avoid involving Israel in major wars and was wary of acting in ways that would spark violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
Third, over his many years in office, he had demonstrated respect for the rules of the game — and towards Israel’s Supreme Court. He even blocked earlier initiatives that sought to undermine the power of the judicial branch. “I believe that in a democracy, a strong and independent Court is what enables the existence of all other democratic institutions,” he said in 2012. “Every time a law comes across my desk that threatens to impair the independence of the courts, we will take it down.”
The 2015 elections should probably be regarded as the turning point, after which these balancing factors quickly gave way to unabashed populism. The unexpected resounding victory in that year’s elections brought out the hubris in Netanyahu. He formed a right-wing coalition government (only slightly moderated by Moshe Kahlon’s centrist Kulanu party), personally held four ministerial positions in addition to the prime ministership, and gave his blessing to the hugely controversial Nation-State Bill. This legislation, which anchored in law Israel’s status as the “national home of the Jewish people,” strengthened the Jewish component of Israel’s dual “Jewish and democratic” identity without in turn strengthening its democratic component — explicitly and implicitly downgrading minority rights.
Furthermore, Netanyahu’s longtime obsession with controlling press coverage reached a new level. His insistence on personally heading the Ministry of Communications and his excessive involvement in media — for example, installing a close ally as director-general of the ministry, and targeting and strong-arming ostensibly “unfriendly” newspapers and broadcasters — served as the background for two of the three indictments for which he is currently on trial.
The investigations on corruption charges, and his subsequent trial, further pushed Netanyahu toward populist extremes. Following three rounds of elections between 2019 and 2020, which threw Israel into an unprecedented political crisis, Netanyahu was forced to form a unity government with former Gen. Benny Gantz’s centrist Blue & White party. Coincidentally, just a few hours after the government’s first meeting, Netanyahu’s trial began in the Jerusalem District Court. The prime minister arrived at the court on May 24, 2020, accompanied by several Likud Knesset members, and launched a fierce attack:
What is on trial today is an effort to frustrate the will of the people — the attempt to bring down me and the right-wing camp. For more than a decade, the left has failed to do this at the ballot box. So over the last few years, they have discovered a new method: some segments in the police and the prosecution have joined forces with the leftist media… to manufacture baseless and absurd charges against me.
These statements made it clear that Netanyahu had crossed the Rubicon, setting the tone for his behavior ever since. He dispensed with the partnership with Gantz, sacrificing Israel’s economic and political interests along with it. In the build-up to the next elections, he legitimized extremist, racist politicians such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who are today members of his governing coalition. After failing to form a government in 2021 (having been ousted from power after more than 12 consecutive years), he violated fundamental parliamentary conventions and norms. For instance, he instructed his right-wing allies to boycott Knesset committees and refused to attend the customary “update meeting” the parliamentary opposition leader holds with the prime minister. His previous respect for the rules of the game and democratic institutions was a thing of the past.
In that sense, it is no wonder that the current government he has formed, following his victory in the 2022 elections, is relentlessly pushing the overhaul of the judicial system, with little regard to the dangers the legislation poses to Israel’s democracy. This is due to a combination of Netanyahu’s own self-interest regarding his trial and the interests and worldviews of his political partners — politicians who hold extreme views (Ben-Gvir, Smotrich) as well as those who have previous corruption charges hanging over their heads (Aryeh Deri, leader of the haredi Orthodox Shas party).
The “old Bibi” would have never coalesced with such radical forces and would have never so bluntly disregarded democratic norms. But hubris, an instinct for self-preservation and his high self-regard as the “indispensable man” of Israeli politics created a new Bibi – and a crisis unlike anything Israel has ever seen.
Ironically, Netanyahu finds himself in an unexpected position — as the moderating force in the most radical coalition in Israel’s history. He could tap the instincts that he once had and be the voice of reason, the one who plugs the dike with his finger. He has the chance to lead Israel to a major constitutional moment. Will he rise to this historical challenge?
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The post How a once-cautious Benjamin Netanyahu came to lead the most radical coalition in Israel’s history appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Gen Z New Hampshire Congressional Candidate Refuses to Acknowledge Israel’s ‘Right to Exist’
New Hampshire state Rep. Heath Howard, a Democrat who is running for US Congress in the 2026 election, speaks during televised interview. Photo: Screenshot
A Democratic state lawmaker in New Hampshire now running for US Congress is facing mounting criticism after comments in which he refused to affirm the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, reigniting a broader political debate over antisemitism and the boundaries of criticism of Israel.
During a new interview on WMUR’s “Close-Up,” congressional candidate Heath Howard rejected the idea that Israel possesses a unique “right to exist” as a Jewish nation. Howard also drew an equivalence between Israel, the closest US ally in the Middle East, and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, a US-designated terrorist organization.
“While there are a number of condemnable actions that they’ve taken, like any sort of government, I don’t think that Hamas has a right to exist. I don’t think Israel has a right to exist. I think that people have a right to exist,” Howard said.
Howard then appeared to defend the prospect of Hamas’s continued rule over Gaza as a form of Palestinian autonomy, saying, “We need to respect the will of the Palestinian people, and we need to make sure that they have access to democracy. We need to make sure that we allow the people to have self-determination.”
Heath has criticized the US relationship with Israel, saying that it has “furthered a lot of conflict in the Middle East,” and called for imposing enhanced restrictions on military assistance to Jerusalem.
He has also hand-waved suggestions that Hamas could be a danger to Jewish people and called for the transformation of Israel into a “secular state.”
Skeptics claim the comments crossed a line from criticism of Israeli government policy into opposition to Israel’s existence as a homeland for the Jewish people, a distinction many Jewish organizations say is central in determining when anti-Israel rhetoric becomes antisemitic.
Benjamin Sharoni, consul general of Israel to New England, rebuked Howard’s commentary.
“To suggest that Israel has no right to exist is not a nuanced policy position. It is a denial of history, reality, international law, and the very principle that grants legitimacy to every nation on earth,” Sharoni told NHJournal.com.
“Israel is a sovereign state, a member of the United Nations, and the national home of the Jewish people,” he continued. “Invoking universal rights while calling for the dismantling of a recognized state is not humanitarianism. Those who are genuinely committed to the rights of people must begin by acknowledging the right of nations to exist and defend their citizens.”
Howard’s policy platform contains a number of unorthodox suggestions, such as implementing a complete arms, trade, and intelligence embargo on Israel, forging closer ties with China, and the removal of the US blockade on Cuba.
“It is essential that we immediately cease our involvement in these endless imperial wars and adopt non-interventionism as a general policy. Moreover, we must immediately end all military aid and weapons sales to both Israel and Saudi Arabia and impose a complete arms, technological, and cultural embargo on Israel,” Howard’s campaign website reads.
“We must also work to restore and improve our relationship with China and work with them, not against them, to make technological, political, and societal progress — and above all, we must honor our commitments to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Charter of the United Nations,” his website continues.
The controversy comes at a particularly sensitive moment in American politics, as tensions surrounding Israel and the war in Gaza continue to divide parts of the Democratic Party following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The massacre, which killed roughly 1,200 people and saw hundreds taken hostage, prompted widespread expressions of solidarity with Israel across much of the US political establishment. Since then, however, divisions have emerged between mainstream Democrats and a growing activist wing increasingly critical of Zionism and American support for Israel.
Supporters of Israel argue that denying Jews the right to self-determination to maintain a nation-state is discriminatory, especially given the existence of dozens of countries organized around national, ethnic, or religious identities. They also note that Israel serves as a refuge for Jews facing centuries of persecution.
Critics argue that Howard’s comments may fuel concerns among some Democratic strategists that rhetoric perceived as hostile to Israel could alienate moderate voters and Jewish Americans, particularly in swing districts. Several prominent Democrats nationally have faced similar scrutiny in recent months over statements questioning Israel’s legitimacy or character as a Jewish state.
The dispute reflects a broader ideological battle playing out inside the Democratic Party, where debates over Zionism, antisemitism, and Middle East policy have increasingly become litmus tests in some progressive circles.
Howard, a 25-year-old left-wing candidate, may be reflective of a newer generation of Americans which are broadly skeptical of the US-Israel relationship. Recent polling suggests that overwhelming majorities of younger Americans disapprove of the Jewish state.
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Mamdani supersizes NYC hate crimes office, as tensions simmer over synagogue protests
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced a nearly ninefold increase in New York City’s budget for preventing hate crimes as part of his budget proposal announced Tuesday, fulfilling a campaign promise that was central to his outreach to Jewish voters amid concerns about his stance against Israel.
The Jewish community overwhelmingly did not support his election, and his proposal comes amid rising tensions stoked by anti-Israel protests — most recently on Monday night, when dozens descended on a heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood where a synagogue hosted a real estate sale that included West Bank properties.
Mamdani’s $26 million for the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes would significantly expand an agency created in 2019 to combat rising antisemitism and other forms of hate, which currently has a $3 million annual budget
The office is tasked with addressing all hate crimes, and Mamdani did not specify how much of the $26 million would be directed specifically toward combating antisemitism, since the office is. According to the New York City Police Department, antisemitic incidents accounted for 57% of all reported hate crimes in 2025. The Anti-Defamation League’s 2025 annual audit found that while antisemitic incidents in New York declined by 19%, last year was still the third-highest year on record.
“Too often, the only response offered to a hate crime is exactly that, it’s a response,” Mamdani said. “Today we want to also do the work of preventing those hate crimes.” The mayor said most of the funding would go toward expanding existing city programs that have proven effective, alongside the rollout of the city’s first comprehensive municipal strategy to combat antisemitism, which is expected this fall.
Most of the office’s current funding goes towards a program called the Partners Against the Hate FORWARD initiative — in partnership with the NYC Commission on Human Rights — that offers grants up to $10,000 for community-based initiatives.
The proposal resembles a plan authored by Jews For Racial & Economic Justice, a progressive organization that supported Mamdani during the election. The JFREJ proposal called for between $26 million and $30 million in hate violence prevention initiatives, including expanded reporting systems, proactive relationship-building and anti-bias education.
In a statement Tuesday, the group hailed the investment as a “huge win” for advocates of a broader approach. “The Mamdani administration has significantly raised the bar for what it looks like to seriously address antisemitism and hate violence,” said Audrey Sasson, JFREJ’s executive director.
The hate crimes office expansion drew swift praise from Jewish elected officials, including some who have distanced themselves from Mamdani in their support for Israel. “Promises made, promises kept,” Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal posted on X. Rep. Dan Goldman — whose primary challenger, Brad Lander, is backed by Mamdani — said the funding is a worthy tool to combat hate: “It is vital that we all work together to ensure we do everything possible to keep New Yorkers safe.”
Hasidic leaders of both Satmar sects also applauded the mayor, with one organization calling the investment a “massive increase of resources to stop the rising tide of antisemitism in NYC.”
Still, Mamdani’s prevention strategy does not include measures in response to protests outside synagogues, which have included antisemitic displays and slogans.
On Monday night, pro-Palestinian protesters marched through the heavily Orthodox neighborhood of Midwood in Brooklyn, chanting slogans including calls for “intifada revolution” during a demonstration outside a synagogue hosting an event marketing real estate in Israel and West Bank settlements. The protest also drew a crowd of pro-Israel counterprotesters, many of them teenage boys, as police intervened to keep the groups apart. The NYPD reported four arrests, including two Jewish teens.
Under a new law recently passed in the City Council by a veto-proof majority, the NYPD is currently devising a synagogue protection plan that it must make public. But meanwhile, police officers accompanied the protesters as they circled residential blocks chanting anti-Israel slogans.
Many Jewish residents have said such protests leave them feeling intimidated or unsafe. The administration has yet to outline a more robust enforcement or public safety approach to demonstrations, and Mamdani — who has not commented on the Brooklyn confrontations — recently defended a similar protest of a real estate sale held on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
In a statement shared with the Forward, Mamdani condemned the violence at the protest and counter-protests on Monday night “alongside antisemitic, anti-Muslim and racist rhetoric, as well as racial slurs, displays of support for terrorist organizations, and calls for the death of others” as “despicable.”
“New Yorkers have the constitutional right to protest and to counter-protest, but no one should face violence, intimidation, or hatred because of who they are or what they believe,” the mayor added. “We can simultaneously protect both public safety and civil liberties, and our city remains committed to doing exactly that by upholding the right to peaceful protest while keeping every New Yorker safe.”
The post Mamdani supersizes NYC hate crimes office, as tensions simmer over synagogue protests appeared first on The Forward.
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‘No Peace’: Anti-Israel Mob Storms Jewish Neighborhood in New York City
Anti-Israel protesters march through a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York City, May 11, 2026. Photo: Screenshot
New York City saw another bombardment of a Jewish house of worship on Monday, compounding an antisemitism crisis that has plunged the municipality into episodes of anti-Jewish mob violence, swastika graffiti, and discrimination.
As seen in several viral videos posted to social media, masses of anti-Zionists descended on the Flatbush section of Brooklyn to march through the streets of the heavily Jewish quarter and walk up to Young Israel of Midwood synagogue to protest its involvement in selling land they say is “stolen” for being located in West Bank.
Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn looks on as mob of anti-Israel protesters march down their block pic.twitter.com/gWwJ9Z0aRN
— Elaad Eliahu (@elaadeliahu) May 12, 2026
The group behind the demonstration, the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation in Al-Awda (PAL-Awda NY/NJ), led the protesters to the institution while shouting jihadists slogans whose orators could not be identified behind the keffiyeh scarves repurposed as masks to hide their faces.
“Zionism will fall,” the activists chanted while others wielded signs proclaiming “Abolish Israel” and “no peace on stolen land,” according to local reports. Words failed to make the point for some, however, as one female activist ambushed a Jewish girl attempting to outpace the protesters to get home. Wearing a surgical mask and red keffiyeh scarf not around her face but her shoulders, she charged the Jewish girl from behind, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and jerked backwards, video of the incident showed. When a group of teenagers near the incident decried the assault, a swarm of hooded protesters confronted them, pushing and squaring shoulders in an apparent effort to dare a response and threaten more force.
Brooklyn, New York, May 11, 2026: Days after another anti-Israel protest targeted a Manhattan synagogue, protesters attacked a young Jewish girl outside Young Israel of Midwood, waved a Hezbollah flag, displayed a Hamas-linked red triangle, and chanted “Zionism will fall.” pic.twitter.com/rEIimwGgsZ
— Combat Antisemitism Movement (@CombatASemitism) May 12, 2026
New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers attempted to hold the line between demonstrators and the synagogue’s entrance. According to reports, at least three demonstrators were arrested after attacking counterprotesters, and some of the anti-Israel activists could be seen holding flags and banners expressing support for Hamas and Hezbollah, both US-designated foreign terrorist organizations.
A Hezbollah flag waves at the forefront of the anti Israel protest across the street from a Flatbush synagogue.
The red inverted Hamas triangle can also be seen on a banner. pic.twitter.com/1B98Yof3I6
— Michael Starr (@StarrJpost) May 12, 2026
This is not the first time PAL-Awda has targeted a Jewish neighborhood or institution over the issue of Israeli real estate.
Last week, protesters gathered outside Park East Synagogue in Manhattan during a showcase called “The Great Israeli Real Estate Event 2026,” which included the marketing of properties in Israel proper as well as West Bank settlements. At the demonstration, activists held signs and chanted slogans that went beyond criticism of Israel, seemingly calling for the death and expulsion of Jews and, in some cases, support for US-designated terrorist groups.
“Death, death to the IDF [Israel Defense Forces],” “Rapists,” and “Settlers, settlers go back home, Palestine is ours alone” were among the insults screamed by the protesters, some of whom also waved flags belonging to Hezbollah.
The demonstration prompted a significant police response and raised concerns about rising antisemitic rhetoric in the city home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel.
The scene marked a return to the same synagogue that was the site of a contentious protest in November, where demonstrators chanted “We don’t want no Zionists here” and “Resistance, you make us proud, take another settler out,” among others. One speaker claimed, “It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events! We need to make them scared.”
Both protests were organized by Pal-Awda.
In each case, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who took office on Jan. 1 but was mayor-elect at the time of the November incident, condemned the Israeli real estate event.
“There is no tolerance for hatred of Jewish New Yorkers,” he said last week. “I’ve also been clear to New Yorkers, my honest opinions about the fact that when we have a real estate expo that is promoting the sale of land, which includes the sale of land in occupied West Bank in settlements that are a violation of international law, that that is something that I firmly disagree with.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, antisemitic hate crimes in New York City have been surging since Mamdani’s election. According to police data, Jews this year have been targeted in the majority of all hate crimes committed in the city, continuing a troubling trend of rising antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Jews were targeted in 60 percent of all confirmed hate crimes in April despite composing just 10 percent of the city’s population, the NYPD revealed in its latest figures.
The change in New York City’s climate since Mamdani’s election is palpable, Jewish advocacy groups have said. On his first day in office in January, Mamdani voided the city government’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, lifted the ban on contracts with companies boycotting Israel, and modified key provisions of an executive order directing law enforcement to monitor anti-Israel protests held near synagogues.
“Mayor Mamdani is deeply opposed to the real estate expo this evening that includes the promotion of the sale of land in settlements in the Occupied West Bank,” Mamdani said in a statement issued before last week’s synagogue protest, failing to deliver the conciliating message his critics said was needed to hold together a fraying community. “These settlements are illegal under international law and deeply tied to the ongoing displacement of Palestinians.”
Rabbi Mark Wildes, director and founder of the Manhattan Jewish Experience organization, told The Algemeiner that the Mamdani administration is fueling antisemitism.
“From swastikas appearing on homes and in parks, to increased anti-Israeli demonstrations, Mayor Mamdani has created a climate in which bigotry is allowed to flourish,” Wiles charged. “His irresponsible rhetoric calling Israel an ‘apartheid’ state committing ‘genocide only emboldens antisemites to target Jews across the city.”
On Tuesday, as Jewish community advocates called for the arrest of the protester filmed assaulting a Jewish girl, the Trump administration confirmed that the US Justice Department is investigating the incident.
“We are aware of this situation last night and are working with our colleagues in NYC to collect evidence and analyze potential charges,” said Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.