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Netanyahu’s new government could lose a critical constituency: American conservatives
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The op-ed was typical of the Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page, extolling the virtues of moderation in all things.
The difference was that the author of the piece published Wednesday, Bezalel Smotrich, has a reputation for extremism, and the political landscape he was imagining is in Israel, not America.
Experts who track the U.S.-Israel relationship say the op-ed had a clear purpose: to quell the fears of American conservatives whom Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long cultivated as allies and who may be rattled by his new extremist partners in governing Israel.
Those partners include Smotrich, the Religious Zionist bloc leader and self-described “proud homophobe” whom Israeli intelligence officials have accused of planning terrorist attacks — and who was sworn in as finance minister in Netanyahu’s new government Thursday. They also include Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has been convicted of incitement for his past support of Jewish terrorists, who will oversee Israel’s police.
The presence of Smotrich, Ben-Gvir and their parties in Netanyahu’s governing coalition has alarmed American liberals, including some in the Biden administration. But insiders say conservatives are feeling spooked, too.
“The conservative right was with [Netanyahu] and now he seems to be riding the tiger of the radical right,” said David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who just returned from a tour of Israel where he met with senior officials of both the outgoing and incoming governments. “And I think that is bound to alienate the very people who counted on him being risk-averse and to focus on the economy.”
In his op-ed published on Tuesday, two days before the new Israeli government was sworn in, Smotrich sought to persuade Americans that the new government is not the hotbed of ultranationalist and religious extremism it has been made out to be in the American press.
“The U.S. media has vilified me and the traditionalist bloc to which I belong since our success in Israel’s November elections,” he wrote. “They say I am a right-wing extremist and that our bloc will usher in a ‘halachic state’ in which Jewish law governs. In reality, we seek to strengthen every citizen’s freedoms and the country’s democratic institutions, bringing Israel more closely in line with the liberal American model.”
The op-ed is at odds with the stated aims of the coalition agreements; whereas Smotrich says there will be no legal changes to disputed areas in the West Bank, the agreements include a pledge to annex areas at an unspecified time, and to legalize outposts deemed illegal even under Israeli law. He says changes to religious practice will not involve coercion, but the agreement allows businesses to decline service “because of a religious belief,” which a member of his party has anticipated could extend to declining service to LGBTQ people.
Netanyahu has alienated the American left with his relentless attacks on its preference for a two-state outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which he perceives as dangerous and naive. (He also differs from them on how to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.) He has instead cultivated a base on the right through close ties with the Republican Party and among evangelicals, made possible in part because he has long espoused the values traditional conservatives hold dear, including free markets and a united robust Western stance against extremism and terrorism.
But his alliance with Smotrich and others perceived as theocratic extremists may be a bridge too far even for Netanyahu’s conservative friends, who champion democratic values overseas, said Dov Zakheim, a veteran defense official in multiple Republican administrations.
“Traditional conservatives are much closer to the Bushes, and Jim Baker and those sorts of folks,” he said, referring to the two former presidents and the secretary of state under the late George H. W. Bush.
Jonathan Schanzer, a vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the op-ed was likely written at Netanyahu’s behest with those conservatives in mind.
“The Wall Street Journal piece was designed to appeal to traditional conservatives,” he said. “It was designed to send a message to the American public writ large that the way in which Smotrich and perhaps [Itamar] Ben Gvir have been described is based on past utterances and not necessarily their forward-looking policies.”
The immediate predicate for the op-ed, insiders say, was likely a New York Times editorial on Dec. 17 that called the incoming government “a significant threat to the future of Israel” because of the extremist positions Smotrich and other partners have embraced, including the annexation of the West Bank, restrictions on non-Orthodox and non-Jewish citizens, diminishing the independence of the courts, reforming the Law of Return that would render ineligible huge chunks of Diaspora Jewry, and anti-LGBTQ measures.
Smotrich in his op-ed casts the changes not as radical departures from democratic norms but as tweaks that would align Israel more with U.S. values. He said he would pursue a “broad free-market policy” as finance minister. He likened religious reforms to the Supreme Court decision that allowed Christian service providers to decline work from LGBTQ couples.
“For example, arranging for a minuscule number of sex-separated beaches, as we propose, scarcely limits the choices of the majority of Israelis who prefer mixed beaches,” Smotrich wrote. “It simply offers an option to others.”
In the West Bank, Smotrich said, his finance ministry would promote the building of infrastructure and employment which would benefit Israeli Jewish settlers and Palestinians alike. “This doesn’t entail changing the political or legal status of the area.”
Such salves contradict the stated aims of the new government’s coalition agreement, Anshel Pfeffer, a Netanyahu biographer and analyst for Haaretz said in a Twitter thread picking apart Smotrich’s op-ed.
“Smotrich says his policy doesn’t mean changing the political or legal status of the occupied territories while annexation actually appears in the coalition agreement and his plans certainly change the legal status of the settlements,” Pfeffer said.
Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said foreign media alarm at the composition of the incoming government was premature.
“I suspect that the vast mass of people will maintain the support that they have for Israel because it hasn’t got anything to do with the passing of one government to another and has everything to do with the principle that Israel is a pro-American democracy in a region that’s pretty important,” she said.
That said, Pletka said, the changes in policy embraced by Smotrich and his cohort could alienate Americans should they become policy.
“I think a lot of things can change if the rhetoric from Netanyahu’s government becomes policy, but right now, it’s rhetoric,” she said. “What you tend to see in normal governments is that they need to make a series of compromises between rhetoric that plays to their base and governance.”
Pletka said Netanyahuu’s stated ambition to expand the 2020 Abraham Accords to peace with Saudi Arabia would likely inhibit plans by Smotrich to annex the West Bank. In the summer of 2020, the last time Netanyahu planned annexation, the United Arab Emirates, one of the four Arab Parties to the Abraham Accords, threatened to pull out unless Netanyahu pulled back — which he did.
“It’s not just the relationship with the United States,” she said. “This might alienate their new friends in the Gulf, which, at the end of the day, may actually have more serious consequences.”
Netanyahu has repeatedly sought to relay the impression that he will keep his coalition partners on a short leash.
“They’re joining me, I’m not joining them,” he said earlier this month. “I’ll have two hands firmly on the steering wheel. I won’t let anybody do anything to LGBT [people] or to deny our Arab citizens their rights or anything like that.”
Zakheim said that Netanyahu, who is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, from 1996 to 1999 and then from 2009 to 2021, has proven chops at steering rangy coalitions — but there are two key differences now.
Netanyahu wants his coalition partners to pass a law that would effectively end his trial for criminal fraud, and so they exercise unprecedented leverage over him. Additionally, Netanyahu in the past has faced the greatest pressure from haredi Orthodox parties, who are susceptible to suasion by funding their impoverished sector. That’s not true of his new ideologically driven partners.
“If you look at his past governments, he has really never been forced into real policy decisions by those to the right of him,” Zekheim said. “Now he’s got a problem because these 15 or so seats of those to his right are interested in policy, not just in money.”
Makovsky said Netanyahu appears to be leaving behind a conservatism that was sympathetic to the outlook of its American counterpart.
“His success has been that he’s a stabilizer. He’s risk-averse. He’s focused on the prosperity of the country, with high-tech success. He’s the one to be seen as the tenacious guardian against Iranian nuclear influence,” he said. “And those are things people could relate to. Now, it just seems like he’s just throwing the playbook out the window.”
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The post Netanyahu’s new government could lose a critical constituency: American conservatives appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim
There is no evidence that Nuno F.G. Loureiro, an M.I.T.-affiliated scientist who was shot Monday at his home in Brookline, Mass., was killed in an antisemitic attack. It’s not even clear that he was Jewish.
But in the hours after his death Tuesday morning, a rumor spread that Loureiro was Jewish — and targeted for his pro-Israel politics. In the wake of a mass killing at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney, Australia, prominent Jewish social media influencers pointed to Loureiro’s death as proof that Jews all over the world were under attack.
The claim appeared to originate from Ira Stoll, the author of a conservative-leaning Substack newsletter called The Editors. In the newsletter and on X, Stoll reported Tuesday that Loureiro was Jewish. On Substack, Stoll attached a screenshot of a Threads post in which a user with that name defended Israel and criticized Hamas.
There was just one problem: The Threads account did not belong to the slain M.I.T. professor. But in an online information ecosystem that rewards virality, paranoia and hot takes — and whose most influential voices are rarely beholden to journalistic ethics — the unverified assertion took hold.
“Loureiro has been reported to be Jewish with strong pro-Israel views,” the pro-Israel account StopAntisemites shared with more than 350,000 followers. Quoting that post, pro-Israel activist Eyal Yakoby wrote to his 250,000 followers on X, “Every Jew must arm themselves.”
Influencers who repeated Stoll’s claim stated it as fact, usually without stating their source of information. If they had, other uses might have seen that Stoll deleted the X post, and edited his Substack article to include a clarification that MIT had clarified the Threads account belonged to a different person.
Instead, the unverified claim spread to other platforms.
“It’s Jew-hunting season,” the pro-Israel food influencer Gabriel Boxer, who goes by Kosher Guru, and the Jewish account Community News told nearly 400,000 Instagram followers in a joint post. Marnie Perlstein, an Australian Jewish influencer, asked in a Reel why the media wasn’t talking about Loureiro’s Jewish heritage.
There was a good reason legacy media that covered Loureiro’s death, among them the Associated Press and The New York Times, did not report that Loureiro was Jewish: It’s not yet clear whether he was. Indeed, some evidence suggests he wasn’t.
At around the same time as Yakoby’s post, a man named Joah Santos tried to shoot down the rumor, saying Loureiro, a friend of his, was not Jewish and would have never spoken about Israel or Gaza. (The Forward has reached out to Santos.)
StopAntisemites’ post had been reposted nearly 2,500 times and received nearly 600,000 views as of this Wednesday evening, and remains visible on X. Santos’ opposing claim, meanwhile, has been seen only 150,000 times.
The idea that Loureiro was Jewish eventually found its way into Yeshiva World News and the Jerusalem Post, which called Loureiro “a Jewish and vocal pro-Israel nuclear scientist.”
Authorities have opened a homicide investigation into Loureiro’s death; no suspects or possible motives have been disclosed. Funeral details have not been announced.
It’s possible that Loureiro was Jewish — neither the university that employed him nor his family has stated otherwise. But no one has been able to say definitively that he was.
The MIT media relations team told the Forward it could not comment on a staff member’s ethnicity or religion. MIT Hillel did not respond to a voicemail left Wednesday evening.
Bruno Cappi, who described himself as a close friend of Loureiro’s in the MIT physics department, said in an interview that he had worked with the professor since 2016 and that his friend had never mentioned being Jewish during that time. Many of their colleagues in the department were Jewish, Cappi said, with last names typical for Jewish ancestry like Friedman and Rosen; if someone were attacking Jews, why would they go after someone whose Jewish identity was not widely known? “It’s all absurd,” he said.
More than 24 hours after Santos and others tried to correct the record, the articles from the Jerusalem Post and Yeshiva World News remained online. The posts by Yakoby, KosherGuru and Perlstein — none of whom responded to requests for comment prior to publication — also remain up as of this publication. (Some X posts have pending crowd-sourced Community Notes underneath stating he is not Jewish and linking to Santos’ post, but those notes are not currently being shown to all users.)
Additional evidence that Loureiro was pro-Israel was also thin: An X user claimed that a Google Street view image of the professor’s home showed a “Stand With Israel” sign. If the image did depict his building, it had been taken three years earlier; it also showed a multifamily building, and Loureiro — if he did live in the building at the time — did not necessarily live in the unit with that window.
Nevertheless, the claim continued to spread. Around 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday — several hours after the posts from Stoll and StopAntisemites — a Wikipedia article was created about Loureiro, which claimed he was born “to a Sephardic Jewish family.” That claim remained on the article for four hours before a different editor removed it.
The post After MIT professor’s killing, Jewish influencers spread unverified antisemitism claim appeared first on The Forward.
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Europe Moves to Toughen Stance on Antisemitic Incitement After Bondi Beach Massacre
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
In the wake of last weekend’s deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, some European authorities are stepping up efforts to crack down on antisemitic incitement, with Britain and Germany targeting certain slogans and ramping up legal and security measures.
On Wednesday, London and Manchester police warned that anyone publicly chanting to “globalize the intifada” — a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely condemned as a call for violence against Jews and Israelis — will be arrested.
Local law enforcement said the crackdown comes as the “context has changed” in the wake of Sunday’s massacre in Australia, where gunmen murdered 15 people and wounded at least 40 others who gathered at Bondi Beach to celebrate the first night of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.
The British government’s latest effort to confront rising antisemitism comes after a series of deadly attacks earlier this year, including the Yom Kippur terrorist assault in Manchester, which left two Jewish men dead; the firebombing of a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, which killed one person and injured 13 others; and the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, DC.
“We know communities are concerned about placards and chants such as ‘globalize the intifada,’” London’s Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police said in a joint statement, pledging to “be more assertive” and take decisive action against anyone inciting violence.
“Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed, words have meaning and consequence. We will act decisively and make arrests,” the statement read.
Britain’s Jewish community welcomed the government’s latest measure, with UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis describing it as “an important step toward confronting the hateful rhetoric on the streets that has fueled acts of violence and terror.”
Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, also praised what he called a “necessary intervention” to tackle the growing hostility and hatred that Jews and Israelis have continued to face over the last two years, following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
“We have seen the result of hate-filled slogans in murderous attacks around the world, including in Manchester, the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, Boulder Colorado, and this week in Bondi Beach,” Rosenberg said in a statement.
After repeated urging from the Board of Deputies and others, the Met and Greater Manchester Police have announced a tougher, clearer approach to chants and placards such as “Globalise the Intifada”. We strongly welcome this necessary intervention.
Our full statement: pic.twitter.com/kem7RhunRU
— Board of Deputies of British Jews (@BoardofDeputies) December 17, 2025
The Embassy of Israel in the UK also welcomed the government’s move, expressing hope that real action will now be taken “before it can lead to further radicalization and violence against Jews.”
“Calling to ‘globalize the intifada’ is clearly incitement to violence, and a direct line can be drawn between these antisemitic chants and the acts of terror that we have seen against Jewish people worldwide,” the statement read.
“It is disappointing it has taken such a long time for British authorities to recognize this, and it should not have been on the Jewish community to plead with the authorities to take these threats seriously, only being done so after more Jews have been killed,” it continued.
Press statement:
The Embassy of Israel in the United Kingdom welcomes the joint announcement by the Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police forces that they will arrest people promoting the phrase ‘globalise the intifada’.
As Israel and the Jewish community have been… pic.twitter.com/0eGn5yvlhl
— Israel in the UK
(@IsraelinUK) December 17, 2025
However, this latest initiative has also faced criticism from some, with opponents arguing that it constitutes political repression and violates the right to free speech.
“The statement by the Met and GMP marks another low in the political repression of protest for Palestinian rights,” Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said in a statement ahead of a planned pro-Palestinian protest in central London on Wednesday.
“The horrific massacre in Sydney, Australia should not be used as a justification to further repress fundamental democratic rights of protest and free speech in this country,” he added.
UK police have already ramped up security around the country’s synagogues, Jewish schools, and community centers, increasing patrols and implementing additional safety measures to protect communities amid rising tensions.
Shortly after the new measure was announced, local police arrested two individuals “for racially aggravated public order offenses” after they allegedly “shouted slogans involving calls for intifada” at an anti-Israel demonstration in central London, while a third person was detained for obstructing the arrests, the Metropolitan Police said.
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also announced on Wednesday that the government had increased funding for Jewish security to approximately $34 million.
Meanwhile, German authorities have also increased efforts to tackle the surge in antisemitic incitement and attacks targeting Jews and Israelis nationwide.
On Wednesday, the Berlin District Court ruled that the use of the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a criminal offense, describing it as a symbol of the banned Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
The ruling came after a 25-year-old man was convicted for shouting the phrase at an anti-Israel protest, found guilty of using symbols of terrorist organizations and inciting violence.
“Anyone who uses this phrase is backing Hamas and its core objective — the destruction of the State of Israel,” ruled presiding judge Susann Wettley.
Although criminal courts across Germany have issued inconsistent rulings on the use of the antisemitic slogan at protests and demonstrations, the latest Berlin District Court decision could allow the German Federal Court of Justice to establish a clear, nationwide legal standard.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar praised the ruling, saying that other countries should follow Germany’s example.
I welcome the Berlin District Court’s decision to once again rule that the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – a Hamas symbol – is a criminal offense.
The verdict is clear: “Anyone who uses this sequence of words supports Hamas and its primary goal – the…— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) December 17, 2025
“From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” is a popular slogan among anti-Israel activists that has been widely interpreted as a genocidal call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
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US Rep. Byron Donalds Opens Wide Lead Over Anti-Israel Candidate, Rest of Field in Florida GOP Primary for Governor
US Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) speaks on stage during the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit on July 11, 2025, in Tampa, Florida. Photo: Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
US Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) has firmly established himself as the frontrunner in Florida’s Republican primary for governor, new polling shows, building a substantial lead over the field, which includes anti-Israel investment firm CEO James Fishback.
The survey, carried out by The American Promise, finds Donalds leading the field with 38 percent support among likely Republican voters. Lt. Gov. Jay Collins trails far behind at 9 percent, while Azoria CEO James Fishback registers 2 percent and former Florida House Speaker Paul Renner garners just 1 percent. Nearly half of respondents, 49 percent, say they remain undecided.
Donalds, a stalwart conservative and strident ally of US President Donald Trump, has established himself as a firm ally of Israel. Donalds expressed support for Israel’s right to self-defense in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. As skepticism about Israel has surged within the Republican Party in recent months, Donalds has maintained strong vocal support for the Jewish state.
During an interview with Fox Business this week, Donalds lamented rising antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment within the country and around the world.
“This level of antisemitism, this hatred against Jewish people and against Israel, it’s out of control. It’s insane,” Donalds said.
Donalds also reflected on the antisemitic terrorist attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia on Sunday, connecting the rise of extremism in Western countries to relaxed migration policies.
“I mean, this rhetoric around hating Israel, hating the Jewish people, that has to stop because there are real-world consequences. There are crazy people who will carry this out,” he said.
“And to Joe Biden and what he did on the southern border for four years, this is the reason why Republicans and President Trump, we are taking border security so seriously in the face of Democrats who had no problem leaving our borders wide open. It’s actually put the nation at risk,” he added.
Fishback, a successful investor, entered the gubernatorial race on a slate of populist agenda items. He has raised eyebrows in recent weeks by flirting with members of the antisemitic Groyper movement and signaling acceptance of its leader, Nick Fuentes.
During a December appearance on Rift TV, a podcast hosted by antisemitic social media pundit Elijah Schaffer, Fishback said that he finds “the audience of young men who follow and watch Nick Fuentes to actually be incredibly informed and insightful.”
After receiving substantial blowback over his comment, Fishback released another campaign video in which he reiterated his defense of Fuentes’s supporters.
“I want to clarify some comments I made this week rather abruptly” about “the young men in our country who watch and follow Nick Fuentes,” Fishback said.
“I want to clarify and apologize for absolutely nothing,” he continued, adding that his interactions with Fuentes supporters at his campaign events were “respectful” and “civil.”
“We had a great conversation, and they have a real pulse for what is going on in the country,” Fishback said.
Fuentes, a 27-year-old antisemitic internet personality and provocateur, has experienced an increase of popularity in recent months, propelled by a surge of viewership from young men. Fuentes has repeatedly parroted Holocaust denial talking points and suggested that Jewish people are more “loyal” to Israel than to the United States.
Amid the uproar, Fishback released a subsequent video on Tuesday defending the free speech rights of those who believe that Israel is committing a so-called “genocide” in Gaza and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be considered a “war criminal.” He falsely suggested that those who criticize Israel are facing legal repercussions.
“Is Netanyahu a war criminal? Did Israel commit genocide? If you say either of those statements in public, you could be convicted of antisemitism. Criticizing a foreign government or any government is always protected under our constitution,” he said.
Observers have noted that Fishback’s attempts to entice younger, more online portions of right-wing audiences are a microcosm of the growing rupture between Gen Z and older conservatives on the topic of Israel. Recent polls have indicated a collapse of support for Israel among young Republicans, with this portion of the party expressing more skepticism of providing military aid to the Jewish state. Large swaths of GOP voters under 30 have voiced vocal criticism of US support for Israel and the supposed influence of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, a prominent pro-Israel lobbying group, in US politics.
Recent surveys have also shown a substantial rise of antisemitic views among younger cohorts of the Republican Party.