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Jerry Nadler and Bret Stephens latest pro-Israel stalwarts to express alarm about Israel’s right-wing government
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Rep. Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, is the latest Jewish pro-Israel stalwart to express alarm at proposals advanced by the new Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Nadler, the longest-serving Jewish lawmaker in Congress, singled out proposed judicial reforms for criticism, particularly one that would allow the Knesset to override Supreme Court decisions.
“These proposals dismantle the vital separation of powers and protections of civil rights and liberties, which Israel’s judiciary has courageously defended, from LGBTQ+ protections to women’s right,” Nadler wrote Wednesday in Haaretz. “Its judiciary has helped to make Israel a beacon of freedom in its region.”
Nadler is the latest among Jewish pro-Israel stalwarts, particularly among Democrats, to have said they are rattled by some of the proposals of the government. He is also notable because he was the chairman of the powerful Judiciary Committee until Republicans won back control of the U.S. House of Representatives this month. The affiliated political action committee of the pro-Israel powerhouse American Israel Public Affairs Committee endorsed Nadler for reelection last year.
“As Congress’ most senior Jewish member, I now fear deeply for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” was the headline to Nadler’s op-ed.
Sen. Jacky Rosen, a Jewish Nevada Democrat who has led pro-Israel advocacy in the Senate, last week warned Israeli leaders not to upend the “status quo,” referring to efforts by Netanyahu’s extremist coalition partners to annex West Bank territories and to expand access for Jewish worship on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
California Rep. Brad Sherman, a Jewish Democrat whose pro-Israel hawkishness was an obstacle in his bid in 2020 to become the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, this week told Haaretz that the new government’s makeup and its proposals were corroding support for Israel among Americans, particularly Democrats.
“Israel has one friend in the world, plus Guatemala,” Sherman told the newspaper. “It cannot afford to only have half of one friend. The fact is they need the United States. They need us in international forums, they need us for so many reasons. Those who risk U.S. support should know what they’re doing.” Sherman 20 years ago was a founder of the pro-Israel advocacy group The Israel Project.
Bret Stephens, a politically conservative columnist at The New York Times, this week compared Netanyahu unfavorably to Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s Jewish president leading the country as it repels Russia’s invasion.
Netanyahu has “moved along the current of illiberal democracy whose other champions include Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro,” wrote Stephens, a onetime editor of the Jerusalem Post. He, too, suggested that Netanyahu’s leadership could cost Israel support from abroad.
“If Israel is to persevere, it also must maintain the moral respect of its honest friends,” Stephens wrote. “Too bad for it that, today, the Jewish people’s greatest leader resides in Kyiv rather than Jerusalem.”
Netanyahu, who once enjoyed across-the-board popularity among Americans, began losing Democrats during the Barack Obama administration when he repeatedly clashed with the popular president, especially on Iran policy. That has freed up Democrats on the left to more openly criticize Israel. For a year or so, while Netanyahu was out of power, his rivals, Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid, led a government that made it a priority to repair ties with Democrats.
Netanyahu is back in power with Israel’s most right-wing government in its history, and critics among Democrats are aiming rhetorical fire again. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Palestinian-American Democrat from Michigan, posted a picture of a Palestinian flag outside her congressional office this week as a rebuke to the Israeli internal security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist weaned on the racist teachings of Meir Kahane who has banned the display of the flag in areas Israel controls.
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The post Jerry Nadler and Bret Stephens latest pro-Israel stalwarts to express alarm about Israel’s right-wing government appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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UK PM Starmer Says There Could Be New Powers to Ban Pro-Palestinian Marches
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer gives a media statement at Downing Street in London, Britain, April 30, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Jack Taylor/File photo
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government could ban pro-Palestinian marches in some circumstances because of the “cumulative effect” the demonstrations had on the Jewish community after two Jewish men were stabbed in London on Wednesday.
Starmer told the BBC that he would always defend freedom of expression and peaceful protest, but chants like “Globalize the Intifada” during demonstrations were “completely off limits” and those voicing them should be prosecuted.
Pro-Palestinian marches have become a regular feature in London since the October 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel that triggered the Gaza war. Critics say the demonstrations have generated hostility and become a focus for antisemitism.
Protesters have argued they are exercising their democratic right to spotlight ongoing human rights and political issues related to the situation in Gaza.
Starmer said he was not denying there were “very strong legitimate views about the Middle East, about Gaza,” but many people in the Jewish community had told him they were concerned about the repeat nature of the marches.
Asked if the tougher response should focus on chants and banners, or whether the protests should be stopped altogether, Starmer said: “I think certainly the first, and I think there are instances for the latter.”
“I think it’s time to look across the board at protests and the cumulative effect,” he said, adding that the government needed to look at what further powers it could take.
Britain raised its terrorism threat level to “severe” on Thursday amid mounting security concerns that foreign states were helping fuel violence, including against the Jewish community.
“We are seeing an elevated threat to Jewish and Israeli individuals and institutions in the UK,” the head of counter-terrorism policing, Laurence Taylor, said in a statement, adding that police were also working “against an unpredictable global situation that has consequences closer to home, including physical threats by state-linked actors.”
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War Likely to Resume After Trump’s Rejection of Latest Proposal, Says IRGC General
Iranians carry a model of a missile during a celebration following an IRGC attack on Israel, in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
i24 News – A senior Iranian military figure said that fighting with the US was “likely” to resume after President Donald Trump stated he was dissatisfied with Tehran’s latest proposal, regime media reported on Saturday.
The comments of General Mohammad Jafar Asadi, one of the top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders, were relayed by the Fars news agency, considered as a mouthpiece of the the powerful paramilitary body.
“Evidence has shown that the Americans do not not adhere to any commitments,” Asadi was quoted as saying.
He further added that Washington’s decision-making was “primarily media-driven aimed first at preventing a drop in oil prices and second at extricating themselves from the mess they have created.”
Iranian armed forces are ready “for any new adventures or foolishness from the Americans,” he said, going to assert that the Iran war would prove for the US a tragedy comparable with what was for Israel the October 7 massacre.
“Just as our martyred Leader said that the Zionist regime will never be the same as before the Al‑Aqsa Storm operation [the name chosen by Hamas leadership for the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel], the United States will also never return to what it was before its attack on Iran,” he said. “The world has understood the true nature of America, and no matter how much malice it shows now, it is no longer the America that many once feared.”
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Trump Says US Navy Acting ‘Like Pirates’ to Carry Out Naval Blockade of Iranian Ports
A view of Iranian-flagged cargo ship M/V Touska as the US Navy Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer USS Spruance conducts its interception in a location given as the north Arabian Sea, in this screen capture from a video released April 19, 2026. Photo: CENTCOM/Handout via REUTERS
President Donald Trump said on Friday the US Navy was acting “like pirates” in carrying out Washington’s naval blockade of Iranian ports during the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
Trump made the comments while describing the seizure by US forces of a ship a few days ago.
“We took over the ship, we took over the cargo, we took over the oil. It’s a very profitable business,” Trump said in remarks on Friday evening. “We’re like pirates. We’re sort of like pirates but we are not playing games.”
Some of Tehran’s vessels have been seized by the US after leaving Iranian ports, along with sanctioned container ships and Iranian tankers in Asian waters.
Iran has blocked nearly all ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz apart from its own since the start of the war. Trump has imposed a separate blockade of Iranian ports.
The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28. Iran responded with its own strikes on Israel and Gulf states that host US bases. US-Israeli strikes on Iran and Israeli attacks in Lebanon have killed thousands and displaced millions.
The war has raised oil prices and led to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for about 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments.
Trump, who has offered shifting timelines and goals for the war that remains unpopular in the US, has faced widespread condemnation over his comments on the conflict, including when he threatened to destroy Iran’s entire civilization last month.
Many US experts said last month that American strikes on Iran may amount to war crimes after Trump threatened to target civilian infrastructure.