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Israeli President Isaac Herzog warns of a looming, bloody ‘real civil war’
(JTA) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned of the possibility of civil war if the government won’t agree to a compromise on judicial reform, a stunning pronouncement from a personality and an office that are both known for restraint.
“I have heard real, deep hatred,” Herzog said in an address carried on primetime TV. “I have heard people, from all sides saying that God forbid, blood in the streets will not shock them.”
Herzog, whose compromise proposals were already being rejected by the government, said his warning should terrify every Israeli.
“He who thinks that a real civil war, one that costs lives, is a line we won’t reach, is out of touch,” he said. “In this moment, of all moments, in the 75th year of the state of Israel, the abyss is within reach.”
The speech, as chilling as it was, did not appear likely to head off the intensifying unrest. The opposition welcomed Herzog’s proposed compromise, while government figures rejected them.
Israel has been rocked by weeks of protests against reforms proposed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which would sap the judiciary of its independence. More recently, the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir — a follower of Meir Kahane, a rabbi barred from Israel’s parliament in the 1980s because of his racism — has ordered police crackdowns on protesters.
The speech was extraordinary in part because the role of president is mostly ceremonial. The president is seen as a conciliator in Israel’s fractious society.
Additionally, Herzog, a past leader of the Israeli Labor party and a chairman of the Jewish Agency, is seen as a compromiser. In 2021, when the 120 Knesset members elected him in a secret ballot, he won a larger majority, 87, than any of his predecessors, drawing support from the left and the right.
The courts have repeatedly defended the rights of vulnerable populations in Israel, including Arab Israelis, LGBTQ people, non-Orthodox Jews and women. Netanyahu’s supporters say the proposed changes put necessary brakes on an activist judiciary, while critics at home and abroad — including President Joe Biden, top Senate Democrats and portions of the Jewish organizational establishment in the United States — say they threaten Israel’s democracy.
With his speech, Herzog unveiled a proposed compromise, which would balance judicial and political interests in selecting judges. Proponents of reform say the system now allows judges too much power in choosing their replacements, and want to give the upper hand to the ruling coalition.
Herzog’s compromises also include advancing a law that would make it harder to pass the “basic laws” that comprise Israel’s constitution. Basic laws currently require an absolute majority of 61 of 120 members to pass. Herzog’s proposal would preserve the 61 threshold for each of the first three votes, but would also add a fourth and final reading requiring a two-thirds majority of 80 Knesset members.
His compromise would also reduce the power of the Supreme Court to review laws the Knesset passes, but would not go as far as Netanyahu’s proposals to gut judicial review. Under Herzog’s system, for instance, the court would not review basic laws. The fact that such laws would need 80 votes to pass would likely mitigate the court’s perceived need to review the laws.
Herzog also proposes a basic law to protect the rights of vulnerable populations.
Government figures immediately rejected Herzog’s proposal. “It’s worse than the current situation,” said Shlomo Karhi, the communications minister, on Twitter. “We can’t accept it.” Opposition leaders meanwhile welcomed the proposal and said it could serve as a basis for a negotiated compromise.
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Israel Competes in World Cheerleading Championships for First Time Ever
Israeli national flags flutter near office towers at a business park also housing high tech companies, at Ofer Park in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 27, 2020. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israel is competing for the first time ever in the 2026 ICU World Cheerleading Championships.
The competition begins on Wednesday, which is also Israel’s Independence Day.
The ISCU, the official cheerleading organization in Israel that is supported by EL AL Airlines, made the announcement and posted footage on Instagram of the athletes and their final rehearsal before flying to the US for the competition, which will take place until Friday in Orlando, Florida. Ludmila Yasinskaya-Demari is the president of the Israel Cheer Union.
“Today, on Israel’s Independence Day, the Israeli cheerleading team has the honor of competing on the world stage,” the ISCU wrote in an Instagram post. “It’s a very moving and meaningful moment for us to represent Israel on such an important day — with pride, strength, and love for our country. Thank you to EL AL for supporting us in this way. There’s something symbolic and special about flying and competing with Israel’s national airline. From Israel to the world — the Israeli team is ready.”
The championship is being held at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex at Disney World, and is organized by the International Cheer Union, the official world governing body for cheerleading. Israel is a member of the European Cheer Union and the International Cheer Union. It will compete in the POM category and in two doubles pairs competitions.
Team USA is after its ninth, consecutive co-ed premier world title at the World Cheerleading Championships. The US has won gold since 2021 and also won the competition from 2016 through 2019. The competition was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2015, the US came in second place behind Team Chinese Taipei. The US is also the defending champion in the All Girl Premier category.
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Rachel Goldberg-Polin Talks in ’60 Minutes’ Interview, New Memoir About Grief After Son Murdered by Hamas
Rachel Goldberg, mother of killed US-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin whose body was recovered with five other hostages in Gaza, speaks during his funeral in Jerusalem on September 2, 2024. Photo: GIL COHEN-MAGEN/Pool via REUTERS
In a new memoir and “60 Minutes” interview this week, American-Israeli Rachel Goldberg-Polin, a mother of three, opened up about grief and the process of moving forward in life after her only son, Hersh, was murdered while in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip.
“To know that your child is being tortured, tormented, starved, abused. He’s maimed. And that’s an excruciating form of suffering,” she told “60 Minutes” correspondent Anderson Cooper in a segment that aired on Monday, which was also Israel’s Memorial Day (Yom HaZikaron). “And then what’s so fascinating to me is that when they came to tell us that Hersh had been executed, then I realized that those 330 days had been the good part, because he was alive. And now I’m in this place and this is the rest of my life. How do I walk through this place without a piece of me here?”
“I’m trying to re-understand what it means to be in this world,” she added. “There are millions of us right now who have buried children. There’s nothing unique about me. But it creates light for me to try to give words to the pain.”
Hersh was one of 251 people kidnapped by Hamas-led terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. The 23-year-old was attending the Nova music festival in southern Israel, near the Gaza border, with a friend when he was abducted. Terrorists murdered 1,200 people during the onslaught, including 378 festivalgoers, and wounded thousands more. Hersh hid inside a bomb shelter with others and had his left arm blown off by a grenade before he was taken hostage.
Goldberg-Polin and her husband campaigned tirelessly and met with world leaders around the globe to try to secure the release of the hostages, but on the 328th day of his captivity, Hersh was executed by Hamas terrorists. Israeli soldiers found his body in a tunnel in Rafah on Aug. 31, 2024. Hersh, who was shot six times at close range, and five other hostages had been executed.
Goldberg-Polin further details her grief and talks about the kind of person Hersh was, even as a child, in her memoir “When We See You Again,” released on Tuesday. The book is a “searing portrait of a mother’s grief and strength in the wake of unthinkable tragedy,” according to a description of the memoir published by Penguin Random House.
“There are days when I break completely,” Goldberg-Polin writes in her book. “I have cried for an entire day straight. I didn’t think it was physically possible, but the weeping never let up. That is a very long time to cry. I kept hoping I would run out of tears. And then there are days when there is a whisper of sun. Not out there in the sky. In me. In us.”
She also describes grief, saying: “People want hope, resilience, recovery, strength, survival, healing. They want thriving and rising from the ashes, like the phoenix from the days of yore. But the pain is chronic, ever present, constant, gnawing, circular, not linear.”
Goldberg-Polin told Cooper on “60 Minutes” that she now thinks “grief is actually just this precious badge of love that you wear because someone has died and your love is continuing to grow.”
Former Hamas hostage Or Levy was released in February 2025 along with two others and talked to “60 Minutes” about spending three days with Hersh in a tunnel. He told Cooper that during their time together, Hersh kept repeating the mantra, “He who has a why can bear any how.” The line is from “Man’s Search for Meaning,” a 1946 concentration camp memoir by Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, who adapted a similar saying by Fredrich Nietzsche.
“It became our mantra … The only reason why I survived was him,” Levy told Cooper on “60 Minutes.” Soon after his release, Levy got the mantra tattooed on his arm.
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Iran Seizes Ships in Strait of Hormuz After Trump Extends Ceasefire
Ships and boats in the Strait of Hormuz, Musandam, Oman, April 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
Iran seized two ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, tightening its grip on the strategic waterway after US President Donald Trump called off attacks with no sign of peace talks restarting.
Trump maintained the US Navy blockade of Iran‘s trade by sea, and Iran‘s parliament speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said a full ceasefire only made sense if it was lifted. Reopening the strait was impossible with such a “flagrant breach of the ceasefire,” Qalibaf said in a post on X.
“You did not achieve your goals through military aggression, and you will not achieve them by bullying either. The only way is recognizing the Iranian people’s rights,” he said in his first response to Trump’s ceasefire extension.
Iran‘s semi-official Tasnim news agency earlier said the Revolutionary Guards had seized two vessels for maritime violations and escorted them to Iranian shores. It was the first time Iran has seized ships since the war began at the end of February.
The Revolutionary Guards also warned that any disruption to order and safety in the strait would be considered a “red line,” Tasnim said.
NO NEW DEADLINE FOR CEASEFIRE
Trump said on social media late on Tuesday that the US had agreed to a request by Pakistani mediators “to hold our Attack on the Country of Iran until such time as their leaders and representatives can come up with a unified proposal … and discussions are concluded, one way or the other.”
A source briefed on the matter confirmed on Wednesday that Trump had not set a timeline for the extension of the ceasefire.
In a show of defiance, Iran showcased some of its ballistic weapons at a parade in Tehran on Tuesday evening, with images on state TV showing large crowds waving Iranian flags and a banner in the background with a fist choking off the strait.
Captions read: “Indefinitely under Iran‘s Control” and “Trump could not do a damn thing,” referring to the waterway, the closure of which has caused a global energy crisis.
PAKISTAN STILL WORKING TO FOSTER TALKS DESPITE ‘SETBACK’
Pakistan, which has acted as a mediator, was still trying to bring the sides together for negotiations after both failed to show up for talks on Tuesday before the two-week-old ceasefire had been due to expire.
“We were all prepared for the talks, the stage was set,” a Pakistani official briefed on the preparations told Reuters. “If you ask me honestly, it was a setback we were not expecting, because the Iranians never refused, they were up to come and join, and they still are.”
Throughout the war, Iran has effectively shut the strait to ships other than its own by attacking vessels that attempt to transit without its permission. Around a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes through the waterway.
The Revolutionary Guards accused the seized ships, the Panama-flagged MSC Francesca and Liberia-flagged Epaminondas, of operating without required permits and tampering with their navigation systems.
The Greek-operated Epaminondas reported being fired upon about 20 nautical miles northwest of Oman. It said it had sustained damage to its bridge after being hit by gunfire and that no one was hurt in the incident.
Greece and the company have not confirmed the seizure of the vessel. MSC, the world’s biggest container shipping group, did not respond to a Reuters request for immediate comment.
A third, Liberia-flagged container ship was fired upon in the same area but was not damaged and had resumed sailing, according to maritime security sources.
DIFFERENCES REMAIN ON KEY ISSUES
With his announcement on Tuesday, Trump again pulled back at the last moment from warnings to bomb Iran‘s power plants and bridges, a threat condemned by the United Nations and others as potentially constituting war crimes. Iran had said it would strike its Arab neighbors if its civilian infrastructure was hit.
Oil prices reversed course to head higher after the shipping incidents on Wednesday, with Brent crude futures up almost 4% at $102.2 a barrel.
A first session of peace talks 11 days ago produced no agreement.
Washington wants Iran to give up highly enriched uranium and forgo further enrichment to prevent it getting a weapon. Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful, wants an end to the war, the lifting of sanctions, reparations for damage and recognition of its control over the strait.
An Israeli strike killed two people in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, Lebanon’s state news agency reported, and Hezbollah said it launched an attack drone at Israeli forces in the south, further straining a ceasefire between the Iran-backed terrorist group and Israel.
The Lebanon ceasefire had been a precondition for Iran agreeing to talks.