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Israel’s government just took a terrifying new step toward authoritarianism
For the first time since Israel’s founding, the government has rejected a binding ruling of the Supreme Court.
At first glance, the effects of the latest outrage from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government may appear narrow in scope. The immediate dispute concerned the Second Authority for Television and Radio, an independent broadcasting regulator, and a technical disagreement over whether it may continue operating after resignations left it without the quorum ordinarily required by law.
But don’t be deceived: The Netanyahu cabinet’s Sunday choice to adopt a resolution declaring it would not recognize a court order that would allow the regulator to continue functioning has serious implications. Whatever one thinks of the legal merits of the underlying case, that declaration establishes a constitutional precedent unlike any that has existed in Israel until now. And it underlines a longstanding theme of Netanyahu’s campaigning in advance of the October elections: His claim that the Supreme Court is the unelected enemy of the people.
The dispute itself arose after the Supreme Court froze controversial appointments to the Second Authority, including for a new chairperson, while it considered petitions challenging the appointments.
Following the court’s intervention, several members of the council resigned in what the justices suggested appeared to be a coordinated effort to prevent the regulator from functioning. Their departure left the council without the statutory quorum needed to conduct business, including deciding on the proposed acquisition of the TV station Channel 13 by a liberal group led by tech mogul Asaf Rappaport.
The Supreme Court responded in June by ruling that those resignations could not be used as an excuse to avoid implementing its earlier orders, and allowed the regulator to continue operating pending a final decision. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi and Justice Minister Yariv Levin argued that the court had effectively rewritten the governing statute.
Now, rather than seeking reconsideration or pursuing legislative change, the cabinet has adopted a resolution declaring that it will not recognize decisions made by the Second Authority in the wake of the court’s order.
Reasonable lawyers can and should disagree about whether the Supreme Court reached the correct legal conclusion. Courts issue controversial rulings, and governments are entirely entitled to criticize them, seek legislative remedies, campaign to change the law or argue that judges exceeded their authority. That process is an essential part of how a healthy democracy works.
But until this past weekend, such disagreements in Israel always took place within a constitutional framework in which the government’s obligation to obey binding judicial decisions remained unquestioned.
For several years, the current coalition has waged an increasingly aggressive campaign against institutions that constrain executive power.
The judicial overhaul proposed in 2023 sought to weaken the courts’ ability to review government action, sparking months of massive protests against what Israelis rightly viewed as a sharp turn toward authoritarianism. Since then, ministers have repeatedly attacked the attorney general, legal advisers, prosecutors and senior civil servants as unelected officials frustrating the will of the majority. And the government quietly revived some parts of the proposed overhaul last year.
The latest confrontation carries that argument one decisive step further.
Levin, the justice minister, argued that the court’s ruling “contradicts the clear language of the law.”
The subtext to his statement is clear: it’s an anti-democratic assertion that only the governing coalition can determine what laws actually mean. And the timing is no coincidence. Israel is approaching what many regard as the most consequential election in its history, and public discussion has increasingly been shaped by fears that Netanyahu — who is still on trial for bribery, fraud and breach of trust — will attempt to sabotage the election, launching the country into an unprecedented constitutional confrontation over the electoral process.
If those fears materialize, the Supreme Court will be the institution called upon to determine what the law requires. A government that has already established the principle that it may refuse to recognize judicial rulings has inevitably altered the context in which that dispute would unfold.
Thus, the implications of Levin’s words are grim. If the Supreme Court attempts to counteract Netanyahu in the fall, it’s easy to imagine the cabinet making a version of this exact argument as an excuse to ignore those rulings, too.
With that context in mind, the cabinet’s decision prompted sharp outcry, including from President Isaac Herzog, who said it struck “at the heart of the nation’s unity.”
And it called to mind a famous — if possibly apocryphal — declaration attributed to former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, who founded Netanyahu’s Likud Party, that “there are judges in Jerusalem.” Those words became foundational in Israel because they reflected a foundational democratic principle: that elected leaders, no less than ordinary citizens, are themselves subject to the law as interpreted by the courts.
The post Israel’s government just took a terrifying new step toward authoritarianism appeared first on The Forward.
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JD Vance refuses to disavow Tucker Carlson
(JTA) — Vice President JD Vance acknowledged that he has “political disagreements” with Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News personality who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories and sparked a rift within the Republican Party.
But that won’t impact their friendship, Vance said during a press conference on Thursday at the White House.
“Everybody knows that Tucker Carlson and I are friends, and I think it’s very obvious that Tucker has said some things that I disagree with,” Vance said.
He pointed to Carlson’s criticisms of Vance’s boss, President Donald Trump, as well as Carlson’s suggestion that he would rather Democratic progressive Abdul El-Sayed win Michigan’s U.S. Senate seat than Republican Mike Rogers, as examples of where they disagree.
“Tucker is a friend despite the fact that we disagree on a number of things. And I’m not going to play the game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements with them,” Vance said.
Vance’s refusal to disavow Carlson comes days after he appeared in a closed-doors session in Las Vegas before hundreds of Republican Jewish Coalition members, some of whom have indicated that they would prefer Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Vance as Trump’s successor in 2028.
His RJC appearance started and ended with standing ovations for the vice president, and he spoke about the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship and denounced antisemitism during the 35-minute conversation. He angered a number of attendees and Jewish conservatives, however, when he sidestepped a question about Carlson and other controversial right-wing podcasters.
On Thursday, a reporter asked Vance about “those who are uneasy” with his close relationship to Carlson and believe that he is avoiding addressing questions about it.
“I’m not avoiding anything,” Vance countered.
After declining to distance himself from Carlson, Vance said that his refusal to do so should be a model for how other Americans engage in discourse across lines of disagreement.
“If you have a disagreement with someone politically — even over a deeply held issue — you should still be friends with that person, because the whole republic depends on people of different perspectives being able to talk to one another,” Vance said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post JD Vance refuses to disavow Tucker Carlson appeared first on The Forward.
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Jerusalem cafe bows to Haredi protests, will no longer open on Shabbat
(JTA) — Cafe Basimta, the Jerusalem coffee shop that became a flashpoint in the city’s long-running dispute over Shabbat observance, will stop opening on Saturdays beginning this weekend after two months of weekly ultra-Orthodox protests.
The cafe said Thursday that the decision was made “after prolonged deliberation and with a heavy heart,” out of a desire to lower tensions and restore calm.
Eli Birnbaum, CEO of the messianic group Jews for Jesus, which runs the cafe, called the move a “difficult and painful decision” in the statement, saying it stemmed from a responsibility to its customers, its faith and Israeli society.
“Over the past few months, the cafe has become a focal point of friction and danger, a reality that contradicts our identity as Jews who believe in Jesus and our belief in loving others, respect and bringing people closer together, even with those who oppose us,” Birnbaum said.
He thanked Israel Police, the Jerusalem municipality and those who had come to support the cafe during the protests. “We now want to return Cafe Basimta to what it was intended to be: a calm, pleasant and open place for coffee, culture and dialogue.”
The decision marks a reversal for Cafe Basimta and its operator, Yoel Ben David, who said after the first protest on July 4 that the business would continue opening on weekends despite pressure from demonstrators. By late July, Ben David told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the protests had actually helped business financially, but added: “Me and the staff, we don’t love it. We’d all love it to just chill out.”
Basimta opened earlier this summer in Jerusalem’s central Nahlaot neighborhood, near the Mahane Yehuda market. It later emerged that the cafe was operated by Jews for Jesus, a missionary organization whose members identify as Jews who believe Jesus is the Messiah.
The demonstrations began July 4 and continued for nine consecutive Saturdays through Aug. 29. At the first protest, dozens of ultra-Orthodox demonstrators, many of them minors, surrounded the cafe, banged on its windows and overturned tables, according to staff and video from the scene.
Later protests saw demonstrators break through police barricades and try to approach the cafe, while a bag containing feces was thrown at its entrance on another weekend. In August, a woman was accused of putting glue in the front-door lock, delaying the cafe’s opening.
Supporters meanwhile began turning up each Saturday to patronize the cafe, at times forming long lines outside, while police deployed officers and barricades to separate the two sides. Politicians including Yisrael Beytenu Chairman and former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and Democrats Chairman Yair Golan, a former IDF deputy chief of staff, also visited or backed supporters of the cafe.
Golan denounced Thursday’s decision as the result of “haredi terror,” saying weeks of violence, demonstrations and threats had ultimately forced the cafe to give in. Liberman said the closure showed growing religious coercion, writing on X that in “Israel 2026,” drinking coffee on Shabbat was forbidden while “hating, attacking and rioting on Shabbat was permitted.”
Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Adir Schwartz, who heads the pluralist Hitorerut municipal faction, also criticized the closure. Hitorerut said it was examining ways to operate a cafe on Saturdays in response to Basimta’s closure.
A spokesperson for Jews for Jesus told JTA that any such initiative was unrelated to Basimta or the organization.
Basimta’s ties to Jews for Jesus have also prompted a separate campaign against the cafe by anti-missionary activists. Rabbi Binyamin Vulcan, who heads the counter-missionary activities of Or LeAchim, told JTA in July that the organization was planning a weekday demonstration focused specifically on the cafe’s connection to Jews for Jesus and was seeking to have it closed through municipal channels.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Jerusalem cafe bows to Haredi protests, will no longer open on Shabbat appeared first on The Forward.
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Spain’s Jewish federation reports over 200 antisemitic incidents in 2025
(JTA) —
MADRID — Spain’s Jewish umbrella organization and a watchdog group have reported that antisemitic incidents rose 14.5% in 2025, warning that hatred was being “normalized.”
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE) recorded 221 antisemitic incidents in Spain last year, up from 193 in 2024, in a report released Wednesday together with the Movement Against Intolerance (MCI), a Spanish human rights group. Spain is home to an estimated 40,000 to 70,000 Jews.
The trend matches an increase in hate incidents documented by the Spanish government. Spain’s Interior Ministry said in June that Jews were targeted in 69 hate crimes and incidents in 2025, jumping from 37 in 2024. Data from the Interior Ministry reflects crimes that are formally reported or detected by police, while the FCJE monitors incidents collected from community members, social media and other sources.
The new report came from the Observatory of Antisemitism, a joint initiative by the FCJE and the MCI to track antisemitism since Hamas’s attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel’s ensuing assault in Gaza. The initiative has followed incidents such as the vandalism of Holocaust memorials with swastikas, the desecration of Jewish graves and the individual targeting of Jews, including a group of French tourists who were harassed and spat on in July while leaving a synagogue in Barcelona.
“Since October 7, 2023, Spanish Jews have had to go to our gathering places with special security measures,” FCJE president David Obadía said in a statement. “Our children are the only ones who go to school with a police presence, and insults and discrimination are part of our reality practically every day.”
María Royo, a spokesperson for the FCJE, blamed “campaigns against Israel” for the rise in antisemitic incidents. She told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that some groups, saying Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, also “blame all Jews.”
“The security forces are doing everything within their power, but the government, politicians, media and opinion leaders could be much more rigorous and careful to prevent this situation,” said Royo.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is among Europe’s most vocal critics of Israel, which he says has committed genocide. The Israeli government has repeatedly said the Spanish government is antisemitic, an accusation that Spain strongly rejects.
Esteban Ibarra, the president of the MCI, said in a statement that antisemitism should be distinguished from debates about Israel.
“Antisemitism is not an opinion or a political disagreement: it is a form of hatred and discrimination against Jews,” said Ibarra. “When it is tolerated, normalized or minimized, coexistence deteriorates and democracy is weakened.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Spain’s Jewish federation reports over 200 antisemitic incidents in 2025 appeared first on The Forward.
