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Israel’s dual crises, explained
If it feels like there’s an overload of news out of Israel — a sea of flags at a Jerusalem protest, police sirens outside of a synagogue — that’s because there is. Israel has been consumed by two escalating crises that both appear to be crescendoing at the same time. And even though they feel separate, they’re intertwined in at least one big way.
Allow us to explain:
Israel is simultaneously contending with two things: a wave of Palestinian terror attacks and Israeli military raids in the West Bank, and massive protests of a government plan to constrain the courts. Each of these two news stories is significant by itself, and would likely command the world’s attention if it were happening alone. But it’s not exactly a coincidence that they’re happening together.
What is happening right now?
The Israeli news that has captured the world’s notice over the past few weeks — and drawn criticism from President Joe Biden — is the ongoing right-wing effort to sap the power of Israel’s courts. The Israeli government that took power in December wants to take control over the appointment of judges and effectively remove the Supreme Court’s ability to strike down laws. Backers of the plan say the courts have essentially become an instrument of the country’s left-wing minority, leaving the right-wing majority unable to pass laws and govern.
But one poll found that just a quarter of Israelis support the plan in its current form, and hundreds of thousands have taken to the streets in protest. Satellite protests have sprung up in cities outside of Israel, organized by people who oppose Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu due to his ongoing trial for corruption.
Observers warn that the court reform will remove a key element of what makes democracies democratic — the separation of powers between the executive and judicial branches. Entrepreneurs in Israel’s tech sector are pulling their business out of the country in protest of the decision.
Nevertheless, in the face of a 100,000-person protest in Jerusalem on Monday, the government pushed the plan forward — though it has also signaled that it’s open to negotiations over the proposal.
Alongside the social unrest, a series of violent attacks have shaken the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. Two Friday attacks by Palestinians in Israeli eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods — one in late January and one on Feb. 10 — killed 10 civilians, including three children.
The homes of the perpetrators will likely be demolished, and in response to the attacks, Israel authorized nine settlement outposts it had previously considered illegal. The United States condemned the decision.
On Monday, an Israeli border police officer died after being stabbed by a 13-year-old Palestinian and then being hit with friendly fire from a security guard. It’s the latest in a string of attacks by teenagers.
Those attacks have taken place against the backdrop of Israeli military raids in the West Bank that have killed dozens of Palestinians. According to Israel and its supporters, the dead are almost entirely militants. But last month, two civilians were killed in an Israeli raid on the northern West Bank City of Jenin that saw 10 total fatalities. Several teenagers have also been among the Palestinians killed. On Saturday, an Israeli settler shot and killed a Palestinian man following an altercation.
And this week, violence in the West Bank again received global attention when a staff writer for the New Yorker filmed an Israeli soldier beating a Palestinian activist in Hebron. The soldier was jailed for 10 days.
Are these two stories connected?
No, and yes.
On one hand, one of these stories is legislative and the other concerns the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The street protesters are, by and large, not coming out in opposition to Israel’s policies in the West Bank — and the Palestinian attackers almost definitely aren’t motivated by an opposition to judicial reform.
But on the other hand, both the judicial reform and the escalation are taking place under the watch of Netanyahu’s new government, the most right-wing in the country’s history. The same right-wing factions that are trumpeting the judicial reform are pushing for a harsher and more widespread crackdown on the Palestinian attacks — and looser rules of engagement for soldiers. Meanwhile, the same Supreme Court that the government wishes to restrain also rules on the legality of certain counterterrorism measures — including the demolition of attackers’ homes.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, whose Religious Zionism party is leading the charge on constraining the courts, also tweeted on Monday that teenage Palestinian attackers “blossom in a violent and inciting society that brainwashes them with hatred of Israel.” He called on Israel to “exact a heavy price” for such incitement. His ally, far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, protested the military’s decision to punish the soldier who beat the Palestinian activist.
“I support the soldier who didn’t stay quiet with all my strength,” Ben-Gvir tweeted. “Soldiers need to receive support, not jail time.”
Is there going to be another intifada?
The second intifada — in which a series of Palestinian terror attacks in cafes, buses and other public spaces in the early 2000s killed approximately 1,000 Israelis — traumatized a generation of Israelis. Israeli retaliatory measures during that time killed thousands of Palestinians, and since then, hopes for peace have faded.
There have been waves of terrorism in the intervening decades, though none as intense as the intifada 20 years ago. It is too soon to tell whether attacks will rise to that level, though the violence does not appear to be ending anytime soon. According to Israeli reports, Palestinian terror groups are encouraging teenagers to carry out attacks on Israelis.
And members of Israel’s government are agitating for an escalation of counterterror measures in ways that recall Israeli actions during the intifada. In 2002, in response to the terror attacks, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield, which saw Israeli soldiers enter Palestinian population centers in the West Bank to root out terror groups. Following Friday’s terror attack in Jerusalem, Ben Gvir proposed “Defensive Shield 2.”
“I am determined to bring about Defensive Shield 2 in Jerusalem,” he tweeted, pledging to “demolish illegal buildings, to arrest more than 150 targets and to spread out across the houses, to stop the incitement in the mosques, to stop those who owe tax money and much more.”
Is Israeli society collapsing?
Fears of a societal break are growing, and even President Isaac Herzog warned of looming disaster. Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, gave a landmark speech on Sunday begging for negotiations and compromise over the judicial reforms.
“For a while, we have no longer been in a political debate, but are on the brink of constitutional and social collapse,” Herzog, a former leader of the Labor opposition party who once ran against Netanyahu, said early in the speech. “I feel, we all feel, that we are in the moment before a clash, even a violent clash. The gunpowder barrel is about to explode.”
In response, the government delayed part of the bill’s legislative advance, but it remains to be seen whether there will be meaningful negotiations over its content. In the interim, Israelis are broadcasting fears of civil war. On Tuesday, former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, an opponent of Netanyahu, shared a video from a Jewish think tank announcing a societal dialogue initiative.
Over the melody of Israel’s national anthem, the video reviews past moments of societal rupture — among them the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza a decade later — and then says, “February 2023: We did not begin a civil war.”
Netanyahu has responded to the protests by decrying calls for violence, accusing his opponents of fomenting anarchy, and calling for calm. But in a speech on Sunday, he reiterated that his government won a majority and intends to legislate accordingly.
“This government received the trust of the people in democratic elections, and a clear mandate from Israel’s citizens,” he said. “No one here can doubt that.”
It’s hard to say what the future will hold, but it’s clear that this moment has the potential to transform into something more dangerous than what has already taken place.
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The post Israel’s dual crises, explained appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Dozens of Anti-Israel Agitators Charged With Criminal Trespassing Over University of Washington Riot
Event hosted by “Super UW,” a revolutionary student organization that promotes Hamas, jihad, and anti-Zionism, in October 2023. Photo: Chin Hei Leung / SOPA Images/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Prosecutors in King County, Washington have filed criminal trespassing charges against 33 students and non-students who illegally occupied the University of Washington’s Interdisciplinary Engineering Building (IEB) during the 2025 spring semester to pressure college officials to boycott Israel, reportedly sparing them from being held accountable for property destruction to the tune of $1 million.
“This is an important step in ensuring accountability for those who perpetrated this occupation, in addition to the suspensions that the students arrested in the building received through the student conduct process,” the University of Washington said in a statement on Tuesday. “We value free speech and expression but also must continue to be a campus community where dangerous, unlawful actions are not tolerated.”
It added, “We appreciate the hard work by the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, UW police, and law enforcement partners who investigated a complex case involving a large number of individuals.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, a pro-Hamas student group calling itself “Super UW” raided the IEB in May and refused to leave unless school officials acceded to its demand to terminate the institution’s partnerships with The Boeing Company, whose armaments manufacturing the students identified as a resource aiding Israel’s war to eradicate the Hamas terror group from Gaza.
“We are taking this building amidst the current and renewed wave of the student intifada, following the uprising of student action for Palestine after the heroic victory of Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7th,” the group said in a manifesto, referring to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. “The University of Washington is a direct partner in the genocide of the Palestinian people through its allegiance to its partnership with Boeing. Boeing manufactures the F-15 fighter jets, Apache helicopters, Hellfire missiles, and 500-pound bombs which israel [sic] uses to murder entire Palestinian families and destroy Palestinian homes, schools, and mosques.”
The illegal demonstration involved students establishing blockades near the building using bike racks and chairs, burning trash — while setting off sizable fires — that they then left unattended, and calling for violence against the police. Law enforcement officers eventually entered the building equipped with riot gear, including helmets and batons, and proceeded to arrest 33 protesters who later received charges for trespassing, property destruction, disorderly conduct, and conspiracy to commit all three, according to law enforcement statements at the time.
The defendants have been charged by the Kings County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which has not explained its decision to decline to prosecute the full range of alleged crimes committed in May.
The cohort is not the first to evade the severest possible penalties for demonstrations that escalated to a riot.
On Monday, a New York state judge overturned disciplinary sanctions imposed on a group of anti-Israel protesters who illegally occupied Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall and interned janitorial staff while destroying property to protest the Israel-Hamas war.
Twenty-two current and former students, all of whom contested their punishments anonymously, may soon walk away without being held accountable following Judge Gerald Lebovits’s ruling that Columbia’s actions were “arbitrary and capricious.” Lebovits went further, citing the students’ concealment of their identities with masks and keffiyeh scarves as evidence that the university lacked evidence to determine that they were actually in Hamilton Hall despite that they had been arrested on the scene by the New York City Police Department (NYPD).
“In the disciplinary proceedings against the 22 Columbia students, the sole evidence that they were present in Hamilton Hall during its occupation was a report reflecting that petitioners had been arrested,” he wrote. “No evidence was offered in the disciplinary proceedings of actions taken inside Hamilton Hall by any particular student, as opposed to the conduct of the group of occupiers as a whole.”
Lebovits, after arguing that the group should not be disciplined even as he described their infractions, then argued that illegally occupying Hamilton Hall is a “decades-long tradition.”
In a statement shared with The Algemeiner on Wednesday, Columbia University noted that Lebovits’s vacating the disciplinary sanctions does not take effect for 30 days, during which time university lawyers may pursue other legal avenues.
“The order does not take effect for at least 30 days, and no student who was disciplined for the occupation of Hamilton Hall can return to campus at this time,” a university spokesperson said. “Columbia is considering all of its options, including seeking a stay of the order and appealing the decision.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Qatar, Saudi Media Shoot Down Tucker Carlson Conspiracy as ADL Warns Iran Conflict Fueling Online Antisemitism
Tucker Carlson speaks at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana, Oct. 21, 2025. Photo: Gage Skidmore/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Two Arab monarchies which remain steadfast in their refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist have nonetheless dismissed conspiratorial claim of Mossad false flag attacks against them alleged by far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson.
The dismissals of Carlson’s assertion came as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a new report warning that the ongoing US-Israeli military operation against Iran “triggered an immediate online surge of antisemitic, anti-Zionist, and conspiratorial commentary that spanned the ideological spectrum.”
In a Monday video, Carlson asserted that it “hasn’t been reported, but it’s a fact that last night, in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, authorities arrested Mossad agents planning on committing bombings in those countries.”
Israel’s intelligence agency reportedly played a critical role in the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Tehran on Saturday, but there is no evidence to suggest Mossad agents were arrested this week for operations against Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
“Why would the Israelis be committing bombings in Gulf countries, which are also being attacked by Iran? Aren’t they on the same side?” Carlson asked, insisting that “Israel wants to hurt Iran, and Qatar, and the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, and Oman, and Kuwait.”
Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signed the Abraham Accords in September 2020 to normalize relations with Israel, and the three countries have enhanced ties since then.
On Tuesday, Majed Al-Ansari, a spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry, responded to a reporter’s request to confirm Carlson’s claim. He refused to do so, answering he “has no information about any cells of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad at the moment.”
However, Qatar’s State Security Service separately announced the arrest of two cells it said were operating on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Then on Thursday, the Saudi Arabian state-owned Al Arabiya news outlet reported that it has “learned from its sources that claims alleging that Saudi Arabia and Qatar had arrested Mossad agents planting bombs in Gulf countries are baseless and untrue.”
Reports widely circulated this week that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman privately petitioned US President Donald Trump for months to strike Iran, a position that would align with Israel’s stated goal of trying to dismantle Iran’s military capabilities.
Carlson has previously praised Qatar and its House of Thani monarchy, which has ruled the country since 1851. The former Fox News host announced on Dec. 7, 2025, that he had purchased property in the country, and dismissed charges that Qatari funding had influenced his turn toward anti-Israel commentary, speculations which had circulated among right-wing figures and earned him the epithet “Tucker Qatarlson,” popularized by conservative talk radio host Mark Levin and former far-right Florida congressional candidate Laura Loomer.
Interviewing Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani at the Doha Forum, Carlson said, “I have been criticized as being a tool of Qatar, and I just want to say, which you already know, which is I have never taken anything from your country and don’t plan to.”
Qatar has long aligned itself with Hamas and its ideological wellspring, the Muslim Brotherhood, providing a safe haven for the leadership of both organizations. Thani’s choice to support the revolutionary Islamist group and its terrorist wing in Gaza has exacerbated tensions with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, both which regard the Brotherhood as an existential threat.
Meanwhile, on Tuesday the ADL released a report documenting how Carlson’s anti-Mossad conspiracy theory accompanied torrents of online Jew-hate. Researchers noted Carlson’s comments in particular, writing that he “further portrayed Jewish influence in the US as a hidden, malevolent force driving the country toward war through deception and ‘demonic’ control, and made unsubstantiated claims about Gulf states arresting ‘Mossad’ agents planning bombings.”
The ADL further captured how Carlson “used his response to the attacks in Iran as an opportunity to again promote the antisemitic conspiracy theory of Israeli involvement in 9/11.”
The report describes how in his Monday podcast Carlson “advanced a number of antisemitic conspiracy theories, including that Israel had foreknowledge of 9/11 and has orchestrated US involvement in other conflicts through manufactured intelligence, while framing Israel as covertly manipulating American foreign policy for its own agenda.”
Far-Right podcaster Candace Owens promoted this conspiracy theory on Tuesday when she shared a video of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu countering the charge that Israel targeted civilians, saying “you see the difference. The tyrants of Tehran target civilians. We target the tyrants of Tehran to protect civilians.”
Owens wrote on top of the video: “You murdered 3,000 Americans on 9/11. For starters.”
The ADL’s researchers spotlighted Owens’ role in boosting antisemitic voices.
“Actors like the neo-Nazi Aryan Freedom Network, right-wing online provocateur ‘Sneako,’ and controversial streamer Hasan Piker in particular appeared across multiple high-reach posts, including those amplified by figures with millions of followers, like Owens,” the report stated.
Owens also shared a deep fake image created with artificial intelligence that promoted antisemitism. The report featured a screenshot of Owens writing “Operation Epstein Fury fully explained:” to introduce a reposting of an image showing Trump wearing a white Israel hat, standing in front of two large Israeli flags, and speaking from a podium with the slogan “Operation Epstein Fury.”
The text accompanying the image, written by an account called “TooWhitetoTweet,” reads “It’s not complicated. American goyim are blowing up Iranian goyim because America is controlled by the people who call us goyim and Iran isn’t. Operation Epstein fury helps achieve Greater Epstein in the Middle East.”
“Operation Epic Fury” is the name the US has given to its military campaign against Iran. Owens’ play on words appears to be a reference to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose Jewish heritage has been exploited as a pretext to openly express hatred toward Jews, amplifying conspiracy theories that falsely attribute the sex abuse scandal entirely to the Jewish community. Some anti-Israel voices have falsely claimed that Trump launched strikes against Iran at the behest of the Jewish state.
The ADL’s researchers documented the depth of this “Operation Epstein Fury” rebranding, finding “over 35,000 mentions and 28,000 unique authors on X by 4:00 PM ET on February 28 alone, growing to over 91,000 mentions from more than 60,000 unique authors about 48 hours later. The phrase is rapidly being weaponized by extremist actors to advance antisemitic tropes.”
On Sunday, Jonathan Greenblatt, the ADL’s CEO and national director, wrote on X: “Now the same old prejudiced voices such as Hassan Piker, Candace Owens, Stew Peters, and others with millions of followers are capitalizing on this moment to spew ugly antisemitism and spread vile conspiracy theories. You can argue about the merits of the conflict or how the campaign has been conducted, but people of goodwill can do so without resorting to antisemitism and rejecting bigots in our midst.”
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Argentine Prosecutor Seeks Indictment of 10 Suspects — Including Iran’s New IRGC Chief — in 1994 AMIA Bombing Case
People hold images of the victims of the 1994 bombing attack on the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) community center, marking the 30th anniversary of the attack, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Irina Dambrauskas
The lead prosecutor in the case of the 1994 bombing of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) Jewish community center in Buenos Aires on Wednesday requested the indictment of 10 Iranian and Lebanese nationals suspected of involvement in the deadly attack.
Among those named was Ahmad Vahidi, who on Sunday was appointed the new head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an Iranian military force and internationally designated terrorist organization. He replaced Mohammad Pakpour, who was killed last week during the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran, which has resulted in the death of several high-ranking officials.
In 1994, Vahidi commanded the IRGC’s Quds Force, which is responsible for managing Iran’s proxies and terrorist operations abroad. Argentine President Javier Milei designated the force as a foreign terrorist organization in January, as the country’s Jewish community marked the 11th anniversary of the death of prosecutor Alberto Nisman, who investigated the AMIA bombing.
“What I asked was for authorities to move swiftly against the 10 defendants so a trial in absentia can be held as soon as possible and the public can see the evidence the Argentine state has compiled over the past 30 years,” the current Argentine prosecutor on the case, Sebastian Basso, told local news outlet Radio Mitre.
The 10 suspects set to stand trial include former Iranian and Lebanese ministers and diplomats, all of whom are subject to international arrest warrants issued by Argentina for their alleged roles in the country’s deadliest terrorist attack, which killed 85 people and wounded more than 300.
Last year, Basso — who took over the case after the 2015 murder of his predecessor, Nisman — also requested that federal Judge Daniel Rafecas issue national and international arrest warrants for Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his alleged involvement in the attack.
Basso’s legal action marked a significant departure from Argentina’s previous stance in the case, under which the Iranian leader was regarded as having diplomatic immunity.
Khamenei was also killed during Saturday’s US-Israeli strikes targeting senior Iranian leadership in Tehran.
Since 2006, Argentine authorities have sought the arrest of eight Iranians — including former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 — yet more than three decades after the deadly bombing, all suspects remain still at large.
Despite Interpol issuing red notices for their arrest, neither Iran nor Lebanon has granted their extradition, allowing the suspects to remain beyond the reach of Argentine authorities.
“It was them who carried out the attack,” Basso said. “They are puppets of Iran and both the masterminds and perpetrators behind the bombing.”
According to Basso, the investigation unit made contact in 2025 with a group of Iranian dissidents who provided inside information that helped advance the case.
“That was vital for us, because it allowed us to reconstruct what happened in Iran, understand how the regime works, and how Hezbollah was created and sustained,” the Argentine prosecutor said.
Last year, Argentina ordered, for the first time, that suspects be tried in absentia following a legal change in March that removed the requirement for defendants to be physically present in court.
Despite Argentina’s longstanding belief that Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah terrorist group carried out the devastating attack at Iran’s request, the 1994 bombing has never been claimed or officially solved.
Meanwhile, Tehran has consistently denied any involvement and has refused to arrest or extradite any suspects.
To this day, the decades-long investigation into the terrorist attack has been plagued by allegations of witness tampering, evidence manipulation, cover-ups, and annulled trials.
In 2006, former prosecutor Nisman formally charged Iran for orchestrating the attack and Hezbollah for carrying it out.
Nine years later, he accused former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — currently under house arrest on corruption charges — of attempting to cover up the crime and block efforts to extradite the suspects behind the AMIA atrocity in return for Iranian oil.
Nisman was killed later that year, and to this day, both his case and murder remain unresolved and under ongoing investigation.
The alleged cover-up was reportedly formalized through the memorandum of understanding signed in 2013 between Kirchner’s government and Iranian authorities, with the stated goal of cooperating to investigate the AMIA bombing.
However, Milei, who took office in 2023, branded Iran “an enemy” of his country last year and has expressed strong support for his country’s Jewish community and the State of Israel.