Uncategorized
In Berlin, Netanyahu faces tough questions from a key ally, while Israelis abroad protest
BERLIN (JTA) – Approximately 1,000 people — most of them Israelis living in Berlin — gathered Thursday at the iconic Brandenburg Gate here to show solidarity with protests against judicial reform in Israel.
The protesters’ messages were intended for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in the German capital for meetings with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Netanyahu also visited a Holocaust memorial, which is located at a site from which some 10,000 Berlin Jews were deported by train to slave labor or concentration camps in 1941 and 1942.
But Netanyahu never came near the protesters: Berlin took extreme security measures to keep the public away from the Israeli leader, who stayed at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, more than three miles away from the site of the protests. Many streets leading to the hotel were blocked.
That didn’t spare Netanyahu from hearing criticism of his legislation, which would sap Israel’s Supreme Court of much of its power and which is currently advancing in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. At a joint press conference after a private meeting, Scholz said he had urged Netanyahu to consider a compromise proposal advanced by Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog.
“As democratic value partners and close friends of Israel, we are following this debate very closely and — I will not hide this — with great concern,” Scholz said. “The independence of the judiciary is a high democratic good.”
Netanyahu rejected Herzog’s proposal before leaving for Berlin but sought to reassure Scholz, who leads a key ally of Israel, that he would not reject democratic norms. “I want to assure you that Israel will stay a liberal democracy,” Netanyahu said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (R) and Benjamin Netanyahu. prime minister of Israel, hold a press conference at the chancellor’s office in Berlin, March 16, 2023 (Kay Nietfeld/picture alliance via Getty Images)
It was Netanyahu’s second trip abroad in a week, after a visit to Italy last week that also drew protests, though fewer questions from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The judicial reform proposals have drawn concern from many world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, as well as from an ideologically diverse coalition of Israelis.
Those gathering at the Brandenburg Gate, a few miles away from Netanyahu’s meeting with Scholz, said it was important to show their solidarity with protesters back home, even if the Israeli prime minister could not hear or see them. By some estimates, there are up to 10,000 Israelis living in Berlin, not including those who have come here with European passports, which many have by virtue of the fact that their grandparents escaped or otherwise survived the Nazi regime.
“We want to let our people at home, our families, our brothers and sisters, know that we are here, we see them and they are not alone,” one of the local organizers, graduate student Yael Hajor, 33, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency before the event. She said her loose coalition worked together with an Israeli counterpart to reach out to sympathizers in Berlin, posting regular updates in Hebrew via WhatsApp.
“Actually, the visit of Netanyahu here helped us create more bridges between the groups” in the two countries, said Hajor, who plans to return to Israel after her studies.
At the Brandenburg Gate, a mixed bag of protesters gathered with posters, some waving Israeli flags, chanting and dancing to Israeli music. Some carried homemade signs with pro-democracy messages; other signs called Netanyahu a would-be dictator and compared him to Russian president Vladimir Putin. A group of women paraded in red robes meant to resemble those worn by women in the novel and TV series “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which is also an emerging symbol of the protests in Israel.
“Most Jews are democratic and therefore this is really embarrassing, what is happening in Israel,” said German-Jewish scholar and pundit Micha Brumlik, one of about 30 Jewish intellectuals to sign a statement this week calling on Germany to “to distance itself clearly and publicly from the anti-democratic and racist policies of the Netanyahu government.”
Demonstrators protest against the Israeli government in front of the Brandenburg Gate during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Berlin, March 16, 2023. (Carsten Koall/picture alliance via Getty Images)
American scholar Jonathan Schorsch, a professor at the School of Jewish Theology in Potsdam, said he had a positive impression after wending his way through the crowd.
“I see that people care, and are trying to voice some opposition to this crazy putsch,” said Schorsch, using the German word for coup that is associated with Adolf Hitler’s rise to power. “It really is an appropriate word to use. It is very scary to me.”
But tensions over what messages to prioritize, which have also arisen in the protests in Israel, replicated themselves in Berlin.
“We are here to protest together with other Israelis against the new legal overhaul,” said Israeli graduate student Nimrod Flaschenberg, who previously worked for the left-wing Hadash Party in the Knesset. “But we also are saying that the deeper problem is the occupation and the oppression of the Palestinian people. And we think you cannot talk about one thing without the other.”
Brumlik, who made the rounds through the crowd on Thursday, described the protest crowd as both pro-Israel and anti-Zionist. “I am not really happy with the posters,” he said, explaining that “Israel within the borders of 1967 is not an apartheid state, and on the West Bank it can be debated.”
Berlin Jew Evelyn Bartolmai, who lived in Israel for about 20 years, said she normally does not go to demonstrations in Germany that criticize Israel.
“I don’t want to be lumped in with the antisemites who come to take advantage of the situation,” she said. “But this demonstration is not against Israel. Rather, it is against this government. It is for Israel, and that is why I am here.”
—
The post In Berlin, Netanyahu faces tough questions from a key ally, while Israelis abroad protest appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Egyptian-British Activist Apologizes for Antisemitic Social Media Posts as Police Launch Review
Prominent British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who was released from prison after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi issued a presidential pardon for him, gestures as family and friends gather at home in Giza, Egypt, Sept. 23, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
Activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, freed from prison in Egypt and now in Britain, apologized on Monday for his “shocking and hurtful” social media posts made more than a decade ago, which counter-terrorism police said they are assessing.
Abd el-Fattah, 44, became Egypt’s most prominent political prisoner after spending years in and out of detention and a rare symbol of opposition during a crackdown under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
He arrived in Britain last Friday after obtaining British citizenship in 2021 through his mother, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying he was “delighted” by the news.
In the following days, British newspapers ran stories about antisemitic posts he made on the former Twitter platform between 2008 and 2014, seen by Reuters, which endorsed violence against “Zionists” and police.
In another he called British people “dogs and monkeys.”
Counter Terrorism Policing said the posts were being assessed following referrals from the public.
In a statement, Abd el-Fattah said many of his tweets had been misunderstood but that others were unacceptable.
“Looking at the tweets now – the ones that were not completely twisted out of their meaning – I do understand how shocking and hurtful they are, and for that I unequivocally apologize,” he said.
He added they were mostly “expressions of a young man’s anger and frustrations” at wars in Iraq, Lebanon, and Gaza, and “the rise of police brutality against Egyptian youth.”
Nigel Farage, leader of the right-wing Reform UK party which tops opinion polls, called for Abd el-Fattah’s deportation. Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party, said the country should consider it.
A spokesperson for Starmer said he was not aware of the posts when he campaigned for Abd el-Fattah’s release and called the comments “abhorrent”.”
But the spokesperson added the government has a record of helping its citizens overseas.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper later said she was also unaware of the posts and that her office would urgently review its processes after what she called “an unacceptable failure” of due diligence.
In a letter to lawmakers that was posted on X, Cooper said long-standing procedures and due diligence had been “completely inadequate” and promised changes to ensure accurate information and proper checks.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said his posts were of “profound concern.”
Abd el-Fattah was most recently serving a five-year sentence in Egypt imposed in December 2021, after he shared a social media post about a prisoner’s death.
Uncategorized
Three Turkish Police, six Islamic State Terrorists Killed in Clash, Amid National Crackdown
Turkish gendarmerie special forces team leaves the site where Turkish security forces launched an operation on a house believed to contain suspected Islamic State militants, and where, according to state media, seven officers were wounded in a clash, in Yalova province, Turkey, Dec. 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Three Turkish police officers and six Islamic State terrorists were killed in a gunfight in northwest Turkey on Monday, the Interior Minister said, a week after more than 100 suspected IS members were detained for planning Christmas and New Year attacks.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said eight police and another security force member were wounded in a raid on a property in the town of Yalova, on the Sea of Marmara coast south of Istanbul. More than 100 addresses were raided nationwide early on Monday.
Turkey has stepped up operations against suspected IS terrorists this year, as the group returns to prominence globally.
The US carried out a strike against the militants in northwest Nigeria last week, while two gunmen who attacked a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach this month appeared to be inspired by IS, Australian police have said.
On December 19, the US military launched large-scale strikes against dozens of IS targets in Syria in retaliation for an attack on American personnel.
RAID LASTED HOURS
Police raided the house in Yalova on the suspicion that terrorists were hiding there overnight. Sporadic gunfire was heard during the operation, which lasted nearly eight hours, according to a Reuters photographer at the scene.
Last week, Turkish police detained 115 suspected IS members they said were planning to carry out attacks on Christmas and New Year celebrations in the country.
Yerlikaya told reporters that the militants killed in Monday’s attack were all Turkish citizens, adding that five women and six children were brought out of the property alive.
In the last month, police arrested a total of 138 IS suspects and carried out simultaneous operations on Monday morning at 108 different addresses in 15 provinces, he added.
In a post on X, President Tayyip Erdogan offered his condolences to the families of the police officers killed, and said Turkey’s fight with “the bloody-handed villains who threaten the peace of our people and security of our state” will continue “both within our borders and beyond them.”
WAVE OF IS ATTACKS IN 2015-2017
Police had sealed off the road approaching the house in the early hours and smoke was visible rising from a nearby fire, while a police helicopter flew overhead.
The Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office said last week that IS terrorists were planning attacks against non-Muslims in particular.
Almost a decade ago, the jihadist group was blamed for a series of attacks on civilian targets in Turkey, including gun attacks on an Istanbul nightclub and the city’s main airport, killing dozens of people.
Turkey was a key transit point for foreign fighters, including those of IS, entering and leaving Syria during the war there.
Police have carried out regular operations against the group in subsequent years and there have been few attacks since the wave of violence between 2015-2017.
Uncategorized
Australia Says Bondi Review to Check if Terror Attack Could Have Been Averted
People stand near flowers laid as a tribute at Bondi Beach to honor the victims of a mass shooting that targeted a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach on Sunday, in Sydney, Australia, Dec. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Flavio Brancaleone
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Monday an independent review into law enforcement agencies set up after the Bondi mass shooting will assess whether authorities could have taken additional steps to prevent the terrorist attack.
Albanese said the review will examine whether existing laws or information gaps stopped police and security agencies from acting against the alleged attackers, a father and son, who police say were inspired by the terrorist group Islamic State.
Fifteen people were killed in the mass shooting at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach on Dec. 14, shocking a country with strict gun laws and fueling calls for tougher controls and stronger action against antisemitism.
Families of those killed and injured on Monday urged Albanese to set up a royal commission, the most powerful type of government inquiry, to probe the rise of antisemitism and any intelligence failures tied to the attack, Australian media reported on Monday.
“Announcements made so far by the federal government in response to the Bondi massacre are not nearly enough … You owe us answers. You owe us accountability. And you owe Australians the truth,” said a statement from the families of those involved in the mass shooting, according to media reports.
Reuters could not immediately contact the families for comment.
Albanese, who is facing mounting criticism from opponents who argue his government has not done enough to curb a rise in antisemitism, has been resisting calls to set up a royal commission into the attack. He reiterated it would take years for the inquiry to submit the report.
“The government is committed to making sure that we can’t wait years for answers. We need to get on with any changes that are required,” Albanese told reporters, while announcing the terms for the review into the attack.
Albanese said the independent committee will submit the report in April and the Parliament will resume as soon as possible next year to consider any legislation.