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Israel antiwar protests spur intensifying government crackdown
TEL AVIV, Israel — It was a strange sight, even for wartime Israel: A line of police horses descended into the vast public bomb shelter beneath Tel Aviv’s Habima Square — hooves clattering against the concrete as officers led them to safety.
While the horses got a police escort, just a few feet away, 17 antiwar demonstrators were stuck on a police bus, pleading to be let off before the incoming barrage of Iranian missiles reached the city.
They had been detained as part of the ongoing crackdown on Israelis protesting against the war with Iran, carried out in the name of wartime public safety.
This round of arrests took place on Saturday night. “Our phones began buzzing with the pre-siren warning,” recalled Alon-Lee Green, co-director of the Jewish-Palestinian coexistence group Standing Together and now one of the leaders of a burgeoning antiwar movement. “We kept asking them to let us go down to the shelter. They refused, even though this is completely against the law. They told us it was our problem because we chose to come to the protest.”
When the siren sounded — signaling 90 seconds to take cover — the argument escalated. Onlookers tried to intervene, urging police to allow the detainees into the shelter. Instead the driver took off for a nearby residential building. The activists, some still in handcuffs, were rushed into the lobby and ordered to lie on the floor. “This was not a protected space. We were under a bunch of glass windows,” Green recounted. “If there had been a direct hit … they put our lives at risk in a very serious way.”
In the weeks leading up to Israel and the United States’ joint strikes on Iran, support for full-scale war among Israelis was high, with most people convinced that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dire warning of the immediate and existential threat posed by Iran and his promise to eliminate it “for generations” were both truths. As the war began, and Israelis found themselves rushing into bomb shelters, support remained widespread.
But as the fighting has continued to drag on, the antiwar movement has followed a sharp growth trajectory: from a small gathering of far-left activists outnumbered by the journalists reporting on them to multi-city demonstrations drawing more than 1,000 participants each week. The numbers are still modest compared to the tens of thousands who filled Israel’s streets weekly during the judicial overhaul protests and the hostage demonstrations after Oct. 7, but a significant jump given how popular the war was at its outset.
The rise of the protest movement coincides with a shift in public opinion. Support for the war, which began above 80%, has dropped into the high 60s in recent weeks — still a clear majority, but a meaningful decline for a conflict that initially drew near-unanimous backing. One month in, war fatigue has begun to set in. In addition to the growing death and injury toll and financial loss, Israelis are sleep-deprived, desperate for school to resume, and frustrated that the airport is still not operating at full capacity. They are also watching as the government slashes the state budget.
Organizers say they are encouraged by the rapid growth, even as they navigate the pitfalls of coalition-building. But for now, the movement faces a more immediate challenge: as crowds grow, so too does the force being used by uniformed and plainclothes Israeli police officers to disperse them.
Arrests, forcible removal of demonstrators and confiscation of equipment have now become regular occurrences. According to police, these are legitimate methods for dispersing protests, which they say violate Home Front Command directives restricting large gatherings during wartime. But with beaches and malls around the country packed with people, and Haredi communities holding massive funerals, weddings and holiday celebrations, critics have accused far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of using those same restrictions as a pretext to silence dissent.
That debate has now moved from the streets to the courtroom. Just as Saturday’s protest was getting underway, Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled that blanket restrictions used to shut down demonstrations did not sufficiently account for the basic right to protest, which the court president stated exists even during wartime. The court ordered the state to raise the cap on demonstrations from 150 to at least 600 people, including at Habima Square.
The ruling came in response to a petition filed the day before by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and activist Itamar Greenberg, following weeks of aggressive police dispersals. The court also raised concerns about selective enforcement, noting that similar restrictions were not being applied to other large gatherings.
By Saturday night, the decision was already being tested. As hundreds of demonstrators gathered once again at Habima Square, part of coordinated protests that also drew crowds in Haifa and Jerusalem, organizers said they were operating within the court’s guidelines. Police disagreed. Citing security concerns and Home Front Command restrictions, officers moved quickly and forcefully to disperse the crowd, confiscating amplification equipment and signs and arresting 17 people, including Green.
“But we learned afterwards that the police had begged Home Front Command to give the order that the protest was illegal, and they refused,” he said. “After 30 minutes, the police just decided to act on their own command and begin arresting people.”
IDF officials later confirmed to Haaretz that dispersing the demonstration had not been approved by the Home Front Command, saying the decision was made by police alone. The High Court is expected to revisit the issue this week, even as Justice Minister Yariv Levin has called on the government to consider defying any ruling that expands protest rights during wartime.
For Green, the past few weeks reflect a deeper societal shift. “What we’re seeing is the legitimization of political violence,” he said. “It starts with words — calling people traitors for opposing the war or supporting peace — and it slowly becomes something more.” In recent months, a spate of right-wing provocateurs have begun harassing and intimidating journalists, politicians, and protesters with whom they disagree. Prominent leaders, including Green, have also been targeted at their homes.
He added: “When the public sees that it’s becoming dangerous to speak out, to organize, to protest — that violence is an acceptable way to silence a political camp — it changes the entire public space.”
Both Green and Greenberg stress that the antiwar movement is not the first, nor the primary, target of such force. “By no means did this start with our movement,” Greenberg noted. “It begins with the Palestinians. They bear the brunt of police brutality. But that’s how fascism works — people remain silent, and eventually it comes for them.”
Green agrees. “It’s a slow but powerful process of stripping legitimacy from an entire political camp,” he said, “and giving permission to act against it with violence.”
While that threat has surely kept individuals at home, the movement as a whole continues to expand. It now includes veterans of the antigovernment movement, first-time demonstrators, and public figures such as Hadash-Ta’al political party lawmakers Ofer Cassif and Ayman Odeh — even as many prominent opposition figures remain absent.
For Greenberg, the growth is both intentional and complicated. “We not only expected it,” he said. “We were trying to make it happen as soon as possible.”
“As someone who identifies as a radical anti-Zionist, I understand the limits of my political power. We are a small group. But we are part of this society, and we can still create a movement of resistance to this war.”
That has required letting go of control. “We started this, but now we are part of something bigger,” he said. “There are people at the protests whose views I totally disagree with … but right now we have one mutual goal, to stop this war. I cannot afford to be picky.”
Green suggests that tension is central to the movement’s future. “This is where we see Standing Together’s role — to help build as wide a coalition as possible,” he said, describing efforts to bring together more than 50 groups around a broadly shared platform. “Anti-war, anti-government, anti-abandonment, pro-life. Whoever can agree to this can be in the tent.”
It is a fragile coalition. “Right now, we still feel that our specific voice is being heard loudly and clearly,” he said. “But what happens when it grows to 10,000 people and suddenly we are in the minority?”
“It becomes about finding a balance,” Greenberg continued, “Continuing to show up at largest protests and representing the anti-occupation bloc but also making sure that we are developing separate ways to express our specific beliefs.”
For Green, however, the moment feels larger than any one single cause or agenda.
“I think we’re facing a moment where all the different fronts are uniting,” he said. “People are starting to understand that whether you are coming from a humanitarian viewpoint or from a solidarity viewpoint or anti-government or even self-interest, it’s all connected to one overarching question: Are we going to find a way to live here in peace or are we are going to be stuck in this constant state of war, forever fighting, stealing, assassinating, running to shelters, our children missing school?”
As the protests continue to grow — even amid efforts to suppress them — organizers believe they have opened a space that did not exist just weeks ago.
“We have the opportunity,” Green said, “to present a different way.”
The post Israel antiwar protests spur intensifying government crackdown appeared first on The Forward.
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Dan Bilzerian wants to ‘kill Israelis’ and thinks Judaism is ‘terrible.’ Now he’s running for Congress.
(JTA) — Dan Bilzerian, the mega-influencer who’s spread conspiracy theories about Jews and said he wants to “kill Israelis,” is running for Congress.
Bilzerian registered this week to run in the Republican primary against the Jewish far-right firebrand Rep. Randy Fine in Florida’s sixth district. Bilzerian initially gained fame for his Instagram photos alongside bikini-clad women but has since become a vocal critic of Israel and Jews — and has repeatedly called Fine a “fat Jew” in the lead-up to his campaign launch.
In a TMZ interview after Bilzerian announced his candidacy, the outlet’s Jewish founder, Harvey Levin, questioned the influencer on whether his use of the phrase “fat Jew” was antisemitic.
“[Fine] literally talks about how Muslims are lower than dogs, so, is that Islamophobic?” Bilzerian shot back. Fine drew bipartisan criticism for his comments earlier this year.
“Yes,” TMZ’s Levin and Charles Latibeaudiere responded. (Bilzerian added that Fine “tweets that, and he’s a senator,” though Fine is actually a member of the U.S. House of Representatives who was formerly a state senator.)
Bilzerian responded to a follow-up question by denying that he’s antisemitic — and questioning the term “antisemitism” altogether, saying it’s been “hijacked to only talk about Jews.”
“No, I’m not antisemitic. I think that that’s kind of a made-up term, I think the Palestinians are the real Semites,” Bilzerian said.
“Was Hitler antisemitic?” Levin asked.
Bilzerian did not say.
“Like I said, the term is focused solely on Jews, but actual Semites are the Arabs,” he answered. “And Palestinians are Semites as well. They actually have more DNA lineage to that region than any of the Eastern European Ashkenazi Jews that have taken it from them.”
The comments were nothing new for Bilzerian, who has 30 million followers on Instagram and 2 million on X. He regularly tweets opinions like “Jewish supremacy is the greatest threat to the world today,” questions the accuracy of the statistic that 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, and reposts clips of avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes.
But now, Bilzerian’s foray into electoral politics could serve as a test of the popularity of an emerging, anti-Israel faction within the Republican party headlined by figures like Tucker Carlson and Fuentes, who’ve espoused conspiracy theories about Jews.
Those figures’ opposition to the war in Iran have sped up their dissent from President Donald Trump. During the TMZ interview, Bilzerian said Fine should be tried for treason for putting “Israel before America,” and also criticized Trump for being “Israel first.” He has tweeted that Trump “needs to be impeached.”
(Ironically, Fine introduced a bill that would ban dual citizens from serving in Congress, and Bilzerian is a dual American-Armenian citizen.)
Bilzerian is not the only anti-Israel Republican challenger to Fine, a staunch Israel supporter who’s been backed by AIPAC and the Republican Jewish Coalition.
“I appreciate @DanBilzerian‘s zeal to take @RepFine out of Congress. I’ve been working tirelessly for one year on the same goal,” wrote Aaron Baker, who’s been endorsed by the Anti-Zionist America PAC. “I would however also appreciate if Dan ran for FL-16 much closer to where he grew up. Make @AIPAC spend $ defending more seats. Divide and conquer.” FL-16’s current representative, Vern Buchanan, was endorsed by AIPAC in 2024.
But Bilzerian, with his 29.6 million followers on Instagram and 2.1 million on X, brings a larger national audience to the congressional primary.
“I’d never heard of this guy before, until a couple of days ago, but having watched your interview, it’s clear that he simply doesn’t like Jews. In America you’re allowed to do that,” Fine said on a TMZ appearance following Bilzerian’s. But, he continued, “I don’t think it’s going to work out to become a congressman, having that perspective.”
Bilzerian gained many of his followers when he was the “king of Instagram,” posting photos of himself surrounded by scantily clad women, sports cars and with large guns. In June 2015, Bilzerian said he would be running for president, though by December he’d gotten behind the candidacy of Trump.
Before that, he’d served four years in the U.S. Navy starting in 1999, and dropped out of the University of Florida to play professional poker. His father, Paul Bilzerian, is a businessman who, as a corporate takeover specialist, was sentenced to four years in prison for federal crimes including fraud and criminal conspiracy.
In the months after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and the ensuing war in Gaza, Bilzerian’s social media presence began taking its current shape of focusing predominantly on Israel and, eventually, Jews.
“Do you think the Israeli attacks on Gaza are justified or f–ked up?” Bilzerian asked his followers on Nov. 6, 2023. By 2024, the occasional surveys he took of his followers became pointedly focused on Jews.
“Who causes the majority of the worlds problems,” he asked, with users overwhelmingly voting for the multiple-choice option “16 million Jews.”
In January 2025, Bilzerian asked his followers whether Hitler was a “good person,” a “terrible person,” or if they didn’t know. A third of the 178,000 voters said Hitler was a “good person,” and another 23% said they didn’t know.
Bilzerian laid out his views on Jewish people in a 2024 interview with conservative commentator Patrick Bet-David, during which he said Jews “knew about 9/11” and “had JFK assassinated.”
Later that year, conservative media personality Piers Morgan asked Bilzerian how many Jews he believed died in the Holocaust.
“I don’t know, but I would bet my entire net worth that it was under 6 million,” Bilzerian said.
According to FEC filings, Bilzerian’s campaign treasurer is Patrick Krason. Krason was also the treasurer for the short-lived presidential campaign of Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, another public figure who’s spread conspiracy theories about Jews.
Bilzerian has promoted the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, claiming that Jews control the media and are using that position to push an “anti-white agenda” and replace whites with non-white immigrants.
“It started with the jewish owned news stations telling us ‘white supremacy is the greatest threat to America,’” Bilzerian wrote last year. “Whites were replaced in movies & streaming networks. Then the Jewish exec run Blackrock forced DEI on all major corps.”
Bilzerian often cites passages from the Talmud to make claims about Jewish beliefs, such as that Jews approve of stealing and raping as long as the crimes are committed against non-Jews. Other figures like Candace Owens have similarly taken passages from the Talmud, but rabbis have criticized those figures for using quotes that are mistranslated and often taken out of context from the text, which includes centuries of rabbinic debates and is not a formal code of laws.
During a stream with the influencer Sneako, who has also spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, Bilzerian said he supports “exterminating Israel” and that he “would sign up tomorrow and go f—king put boots on the ground and go f—king kill Israelis.”
“Give me a rifle and send me the f–k over there,” he said, adding, “I truly believe that the majority of that country is evil.”
On Morgan’s show, Bilzerian said Judaism innately promotes “Jewish supremacy,” and pointed to the State of Israel as being the result of that ideology.
“Israel is a manifestation of that religion,” he said. “And I think that religion is terrible.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Dan Bilzerian wants to ‘kill Israelis’ and thinks Judaism is ‘terrible.’ Now he’s running for Congress. appeared first on The Forward.
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After AIPAC-backed primary loss, Tom Malinowski endorses rival who says Israel committed genocide
(JTA) — After Tom Malinowski narrowly lost a primary in which AIPAC spent $2.3 million against him, critics said AIPAC’s plan backfired as it had inadvertently boosted a candidate farther from its pro-Israel agenda.
Now, Malinowski has thrown his support behind that victor, the Bernie Sanders-backed progressive Analilia Mejia.
“A couple of months ago, Analilia and I were rivals for the Democratic nomination,” Malinowski said in a video posted on Thursday afternoon. “Together, we are here united as Democrats in common cause.”
The video, which featured a friendly Malinowski and Mejia seated next to each other, was released ahead of her special election next week, and emphasized the need for Democrats to “take back the House.” Neither politician mentioned Israel or AIPAC in the video, though both politicians slammed the lobbying group following their tight primary race.
After Mejia’s victory back in February, AIPAC brushed off criticism that its attack ads against Malinowski — who describes himself as “pro-Israel” but crossed the group’s red line of supporting conditions on military aid — inadvertently contributed to Mejia’s win. Mejia has been harsher in her criticism of Israel and, unlike Malinowski, refers to its war in Gaza as a “genocide.”
But Mejia, an AIPAC spokesperson said, was only nominated for a special election that would fill the seat vacated by Gov. Mikie Sherrill through the end of 2026.
“The real race for the full congressional term is in the June primary, and we’re going to take a close look at that,” said Patrick Dorton, spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project.
But if AIPAC had its sights set on supplanting Mejia come June, those plans may have been complicated by her newfound support from Malinowski, a popular politician in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District.
Meanwhile, on Friday morning, Mejia was endorsed by J Street, the liberal pro-Israel group that supports a growing number of candidates who back conditions on military aid to Israel. J Street’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, blasted AIPAC in a Substack column following the February primary. He also wrote positively about Malinowski, but did not mention Mejia in the column.
“I look forward to working in partnership in our shared commitment against antisemitism, bigotry and hate,” Mejia wrote, accepting J Street’s endorsement.
On Tuesday, Mejia appeared at Temple Ner Tamid, a Reform synagogue in Bloomfield, New Jersey, for a conversation with its rabbi about issues of Jewish concern including Israel and synagogue security. (Joe Hathaway, the Republican nominee, joined the congregation for a conversation the night before.)
“I’m running for congress to give every person in NJ-11 a voice – that’s why I’m committed to listening to folks from every corner of our community,” Mejia wrote after the event.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post After AIPAC-backed primary loss, Tom Malinowski endorses rival who says Israel committed genocide appeared first on The Forward.
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US Intelligence Indicates China Preparing Weapons Shipment to Iran
The Pentagon building is seen in Arlington, Virginia, U.S. October 9, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
US intelligence indicates China is preparing to deliver new air defense systems to Iran within the next few weeks, CNN reported late on Friday, citing three people familiar with recent intelligence assessments.
The network said there are indications that Beijing is working to route the shipments through third countries to mask their origin.
The US State Department, the White House, the Chinese embassy in Washington and China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Beijing is preparing to transfer shoulder-fired anti-air missile systems known as MANPADs, CNN said, citing sources it did not name.
The US and Iran are set to hold high-level negotiations on Saturday in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, seeking ways to end their six-week-old war.