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Israeli lawmaker grabs megaphone from NYC protester, who files a police report
(JTA) — A far-right Israeli lawmaker grabbed a megaphone from a protester on a New York City street and rushed away, leading the protester to file a police report against him.
The altercation on Friday came ahead of this year’s Celebrate Israel Parade, which is expected to attract a large turnout of Jewish and expatriate Israeli anti-government protesters. Israeli right-wing lawmakers in town for the parade have been dogged by protesters who oppose the Israeli government’s efforts to weaken the judiciary.
A number of videos on social media show legislator Simcha Rothman, a key architect of the judicial overhaul, walking along a street in New York on Friday night and chatting with companions while being followed by Israeli protesters heckling him in Hebrew.
“Go back home and repair everything you’ve done, repent for what you’ve done and perhaps we will forgive you one day,” an unidentified female protester says in a video posted by Shany Granot-Lubaton, an Israeli expatriate in New York who is a leading organizer of local anti-government protests. “In the end, we’re all Jews.”
Until that moment, Rothman had not responded to the small coterie of protesters. But at that point, he spun around, wrested away the megaphone and rushed away.
מיד אחרי שחכ רוטמן חטף את המגפון מהפעילה בניו יורק. הפעילה שנפגעה, סטודנטית לתואר שני בקולומביה ועו”ד במקצועה, בדרכה להגיש תלונה במשטרת ניו יורק כעת.
אי אפשר שלא להשוות בין המראות המזעזעים של האלימות כלפי המפגינים בחדרה והאלימות המזעזעת של חבר הכנסת רוטמן כלפי הצעירה שהפגינה… pic.twitter.com/CdcTDQZFo3
— דמוקרטTV (@Democrat_TV) June 3, 2023
A separate video posted by an Israeli news outlet, Democrat_TV, shows the protesters scuffling with Rothman’s entourage, and with Rothman eventually returning the megaphone. The outlet identified the protester as a lawyer studying for a master’s degree at Columbia University. Granot-Lubaton later posted a photo of the police report the protester filed. An officer will assess the complaint, but the fact that it was filed does not necessarily mean any charges will follow.
Rothman is one of a number of prominent and controversial Israeli lawmakers who are in New York to join Sunday’s parade. Israeli-led protests against those lawmakers, led by a movement called UnXeptable that supports mass anti-government demonstrations in Israel, already led one Israeli minister to cancel a speech in Los Angeles. UnXeptable has appealed to the parade’s organizers, the New York Jewish Community Relations Council, not to allow leading members of Israel’s governing coalition to join the proceedings.
Rothman, a member of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, is a leading target of the protests. He also backs changes that would make Israel’s Law of Return more restrictive. His participation in a panel in Israel in April convened by the Jewish Federations of North America descended into pandemonium when protesters kept interrupting him.
In a statement after the New York City incident reported by The Jerusalem Post, Rothman decried the protesters as “violent.”
“At some point, the demonstrators realized we were not moved by them, at which point they put a megaphone up to our ears (an attack) and shouted,” he said. “The security guards and I repeatedly told them to stop and to stay away, and they continued. After all the warnings, I took the megaphone that the demonstrator had pushed into my ear — without touching [the demonstrator], of course. After about half a block we reached a place [where] we could go inside and wait for the police.”
Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister who leads Rothman’s party, said in a tweet that Rothman was the victim of violence and called on U.S. and Israeli authorities to prosecute the “trolls” who have pursued him.
In addition to the mass weekly protests in Israel, the judicial overhaul has sparked the censure of Diaspora Jewish organizations that customarily refrain from commenting on Israel’s internal politics.
In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended the advance of the reforms under pressure of the protests, international opprobrium and dissent within his own Likud Party. He has not yet brought the reforms back to the table, although he is under pressure from far-right partners and has said he plans to do so. Protests against the overhaul have continued unabated.
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The Forward publishes exclusive interview with Columbia protest leader Mahmoud Khalil
New York — April 7, 2026 — Today, the Forward, the nation’s leading Jewish news organization, published an exclusive, in-depth interview with Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University protest leader whose arrest during last year’s campus demonstrations thrust him into the national spotlight.
In a candid and wide-ranging conversation with Arno Rosenfeld, an enterprise reporter and author of the Forward’s Antisemitism Decoded newsletter, Khalil critiqued Hamas and said it had come to power through collaboration with Israel, explained his “nuanced” view of Zionism and detailed his vision for a “free Palestine” that includes the Jewish citizens of Israel.
“I was glad to have the opportunity to drill down on specifics that have been widely speculated upon but not addressed in Khalil’s previous interviews,” said Rosenfeld. “He wanted to speak directly to a major Jewish audience.”
The interview offers rare insight into one of the most scrutinized figures to emerge from the campus protest movement, drawing on original reporting, Khalil’s past public statements, and interviews with current and former Columbia students.
The post The Forward publishes exclusive interview with Columbia protest leader Mahmoud Khalil appeared first on The Forward.
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US Hits Military Targets on Iran’s Kharg Island, Vance Says No Change to Strategy
US Vice President JD Vance delivers remarks at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles, California, US, June 20, 2025. Phone: REUTERS/Daniel Cole
US strikes on Iran’s Kharg Island do not represent a change in American strategy, US Vice President JD Vance said on Tuesday as a US official separately told Reuters the additional strikes on military targets did not impact oil infrastructure.
The official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, described at least some of the strikes as targeting sites that had been previously struck before and said the attack occurred in the early morning hours of Tuesday.
Vance, speaking separately in Budapest, said the strikes were not a change in US strategy, with the Trump administration confident that it can get a response from Iran by 8 pm (0001 Wednesday GMT) in negotiations to end the conflict. US President Donald Trump is demanding Iran forswear nuclear weapons and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil transit waterway.
“We were going to strike some military targets on Kharg Island, and I believe we have done so,” Vance said.
“We’re not going to strike energy and infrastructure targets until the Iranians either make a proposal that we can get behind or don’t make a proposal,” he added. “I don’t think the news in Kharg Island … represents a change in strategy, or represents any change from the President of the United States.”
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French Nationals Leave Iran After Three and a Half Years Amid Softer France Tone on War
A woman walks past posters with the portraits of Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, two French citizens held in Iran, on the day of support rallies to mark their three-year detention and to demand their release, in front of the National Assembly in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. The slogan reads “Freedom for Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris.” Photo: REUTERS/Abdul Saboor
Two French nationals were heading home on Tuesday after Iran allowed them to leave the country following three and a half years in detention, a surprise move that came as Paris sought to distance itself from the war in the region.
Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris had been confined to France‘s embassy in Tehran since November, after being held since 2022 in the notorious Evin prison on spying charges that France has said were unfounded.
“This is a relief for all of us and obviously for their families,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a post on X. “Thank you to the Omani authorities for their mediation efforts.”
Neither the French presidency nor the foreign ministry responded to requests for comment on what had been agreed between the two sides to ensure their release.
Iran‘s official news agency IRNA said the couple were freed following an understanding under which France would in turn release Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian student living in the French city of Lyon, and withdraw a complaint against Iran at the International Court of Justice.
However, both assertions were unclear. Esfandiari, who was convicted at the end of February for glorifying terrorism in social media posts, was released after serving almost a year in prison but has appealed the conviction.
It was not clear whether she had left the country, as ordered by the February ruling. France dropped the ICJ complaint last September.
Iran‘s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi spoke with his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot on Sunday, confirming the pair’s imminent release.
Macron has criticized US President Donald Trump’s approach to the US-Israeli war on Iran and said France would only help restore freedom of navigation to the Strait of Hormuz once there is a ceasefire and after consultations with Tehran.
France last week refused Israel permission to transfer weapons through French airspace for the war and has led efforts to water down a draft UN Security Council resolution that could have opened the door to forceful action in the strait.
A French official briefing reporters after the release denied that France had a softer position towards Iran and said Paris had warned the Iranians about the safety of their citizens given the escalation in the war.
“I think the Iranians rightly considered that if anything happened to our compatriots, the reactions here would have been extremely catastrophic,” the official said, declining to comment on the details of the negotiation.
French officials have also refused to comment on why a container ship belonging to French shipping group CMA CGM was able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a sign that Iran may not consider France to be a hostile nation.