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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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The Jewish secret to affordable eyewear that isn’t so secret anymore
The business cards on the counter at Minzer’s Optical proclaim “45 years of 15-minute service.” If your wait drags on for longer than 15 minutes, you can pick up one of the prayer books that line a shelf beneath the counter. But there’s no need to pray that your eyeglasses won’t cost you an arm and a leg. Minzer’s is known for its low prices, so customers who are feeling charitable might slip a few shekels into one of the pushkes, the tin tzedakah boxes, on the counter.
Once known solely within Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, today a majority of Minzer’s customers are not Haredi Jews, let alone members of the tribe. According to Mordechai Minzer, who started the business when he was just 19, this is entirely the result of word of mouth. And Minzer’s has held on in an age where Internet competitors such as Zenni have come close to matching its prices but can’t offer its speedy, in-person customer service.
“There’s an old saying that if you want something fast, good, and cheap, pick any two out of the three. Minzer’s amazingly manages to do all three,” Cheryl Krauss, a Brooklyn jewelry maker who has been a customer for close to 20 years, told me.
Up a flight of stairs in a two-story building on a block of attached homes, customers peruse shelves and carousels displaying frames that run the length of the store, amid the drone of computerized edging machines that grind lenses. Customers stand across the counter from employees who peer through a pupilometer, a device which measures the distance from the center of one pupil to the center of the other, a critical measurement needed to make accurate lenses.
Mordechai Minzer, 64, was trained as an optician in Manhattan at the Bramson ORT Institute of Technology, which began in 1942 as a series of workshops for World War II refugees and is part of a global educational network driven by Jewish values. Early in his career, he worked at a Cohen’s Fashion Optical store in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. Minzner said he stopped working for them because they wanted him to work on Shabbos. In 1981, a few years after the country western hit “Take This Job and Shove It” hit the airwaves, Minzer quit his job. It’s unlikely Minzer, the son of a Bobover Hasid, heard the song on the radio, but he sure did know the words to the chorus.
“I worked very hard there at Cohen’s and they schmatte-ed me,” he said, using the Yiddish word for “rag” as a verb.
So, Minzer started his own business by setting up a lab in the basement of his family home in Borough Park, making eyeglasses for wholesale customers. He also made glasses on the side for friends and students at his yeshiva.
“My customers told other people about it and before I knew it, it exploded. I charged a quarter of the price that Cohen’s charged for the same stuff and I did the glasses on the spot,” he said.
Shulem Deen, author of the memoir All Who Go Do Not Return, remembers going to Minzer’s when he was growing up in Borough Park where his family was part of the Krasna Hasidic community. Deen said he was about 11 when word of the new optician spread.
“Suddenly there’s this new place everybody was talking about and the prices for glasses were ridiculous,” he recalled. “I remember that every time I went there to the basement, the place was packed.”
Deen, a keen observer of the Haredi Jewish world he left behind, said that because Jewish boys focus on the tiny text during Talmud study, it’s no wonder that so many of them need spectacles.
Back then, Minzer’s served frum Jews exclusively. But, over the years, Mordechai Minzer said, many of his observant Jewish customers went elsewhere because they had gotten “spoiled.”
“They want certain very expensive frame styles like Lindberg and I don’t want to carry $500 frames here,” he said. “I don’t want to get involved with that. They still come here, but they’re only 30% of my clientele.”
Nevertheless, Minzer’s ties to Haredi Brooklyn remain strong. He owns two sefer torahs, one of which was written to honor his parents. The scrolls are lent to yeshivas in New Jersey that don’t own sefer torahs. Every year he goes to the yeshivas to inspect them.
“Whenever I go to check up on my sefer torahs, polish the silver a bit, this and that, they always ask me to make them glasses,” Minzer said.
This has been a routine for more than 20 years. He goes a few weeks before Purim, and brings a box of inexpensive frames and optical instruments. He then proceeds to make more than a hundred pairs of free glasses for the boys.
“I like to see the kids smiling,” he told me.
Zenni and other online eyewear retailers have taken a toll on his business in recent years, Minzer said, adding that one of the big advantages he has is that customers who come to the store can try on the frames and see how they look before deciding whether to buy them. And in an era when fewer and fewer opticians still have a lab on the premises, Minzer’s can often make customers new glasses while they wait, and even dip them into sunglass tints on the spot.
One Jewish customer told me she felt uncomfortable as a non-Orthodox single woman walking into Minzer’s wearing pants but added, “that may be me projecting.” Another Jewish woman, whose husband advised her to dress modestly before her first visit, scoffed at the advice after seeing other customers wearing tank tops and shorts.
A Manhattan painter who had never been to Minzer’s recently paid less than $300 to have lenses made for her complex progressives prescription. The previous pair she had purchased at another store cost between $700 and $800. Pamela Hecht was reluctant to make the 40-minute subway ride from her loft in Manhattan to Borough Park but decided to make the schlep after learning what her new lenses would cost.
“It’s a long trip out there on the train but I will do it again because my lenses cost so much less than what I have been paying,” she told me. “I was very dubious that the quality was going to be sufficient. How could the price be so low without cutting corners? But the quality is very good. I’m very satisfied.”
The post The Jewish secret to affordable eyewear that isn’t so secret anymore appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel’s First Ambassador to Somaliland Acclaims Deepening Partnership, Broader Strategic Outreach in Africa
Israeli diplomat Michael Lotem in Kenya, July 2025. Photo: Screenshot
The relationship between Israel and Somaliland has rapidly evolved into a strategic partnership spanning security, energy, infrastructure, and economic cooperation, according to the Jewish state’s first ambassador to the self-declared republic, who noted the strengthening of ties was part of a broader outreach effort by Jerusalem across Africa.
“They are looking to deepen cooperation in nearly every field — from energy and infrastructure to technology, education, and communications — and their desire to work with Israel is stronger than ever,” Michael Lotem said of Somaliland in an interview with Israeli news outlet N12 published on Friday.
“Security discussions are naturally part of the relationship, but our political dialogue extends far beyond that into many different areas,” he added.
In December, Israel became the first country to officially recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state.
Somaliland, which has claimed independence for decades in East Africa but remains largely unrecognized, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the south and east. It has sought to break off from Somalia since 1991 and utilized its own passports, currency, military, and law enforcement.
Unlike most states in its region, Somaliland has relative security, regular elections, and a degree of political stability.
Last month, Israel appointed Lotem as its first ambassador to Somaliland, after the two governments formally established full diplomatic relations.
Lotem, who was serving as a non-resident economic ambassador to Africa at the time of his appointment, will now shift to work as a non-resident ambassador to Somaliland. He previously served as Israel’s ambassador to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, and Seychelles, a position he concluded in August.
In his interview, Lotem described the growing bilateral relationship as part of Israel’s broader diplomatic and strategic push across Africa, saying the partnership also sends a wider message of legitimacy and engagement to Muslim-majority countries throughout the region.
“Over the past several years, Israel has invested significant diplomatic effort in strengthening its presence across Africa, an initiative that Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has strongly prioritized, and the results are already becoming visible very quickly,” the diplomat said.
He also pointed to what he described as major untapped potential for economic cooperation, particularly regarding Somaliland’s vast natural resources and minerals sector — including oil, gas, coal, iron, and gold.
“They are extremely interested in partnering with Israel across the entire minerals industry supply chain,” Lotem said, adding that there are also strong prospects for cooperation in energy, medicine, agriculture, education, water management, and communications.
“We hope more countries will come to recognize the strategic value and importance of this relationship,” he continued.
Although no other UN-recognized country has formally recognized Somaliland (Taiwan did so in 2020), several — including the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Denmark, and Kenya — have maintained liaison offices, allowing them to engage diplomatically and conduct trade and consular activities without full formal recognition.
According to experts, the growing Israel-Somaliland partnership could be a “game changer” for the Jewish state, boosting the country’s ability to counter the Iran-backed, Yemen-based Houthi terrorist group while offering strategic and geographic advantages amid shifting regional power dynamics.
“Somaliland’s significance lies in its geostrategic location and in its willingness — as a stable, moderate, and reliable state in a volatile region — to work closely with Western countries,” argued a report by the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), a prominent Israeli think tank.
“Somaliland’s territory could serve as a forward base for multiple missions: intelligence monitoring of the Houthis and their armament efforts; logistical support for Yemen’s legitimate government in its war against them; and a platform for direct operations against the Houthis,” it continued.
Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi has previously said that the republic would join the Abraham Accords, calling it a step toward regional and global peace and affirming his government’s commitment to building partnerships, boosting mutual prosperity, and promoting stability across the Middle East and Africa.
The strategic partnership comes at a time when Israeli and US officials have warned of rising Islamist terrorist threats across Sub-Saharan Africa, placing the region at the forefront of global concern over jihadist activity.
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‘We Are One Community’: New York University Condemns Swastika Flag Raised Near Campus
Swastika flag raised over New York University this week. Photo: Screenshot
New York University (NYU) on Thursday condemned the raising of a flag containing the swastika near its campus in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, an incident which comes amid a spate of antisemitic hate crimes across the municipality.
“Campus safety responded immediately to remove it, and we are working closely with the NYPD to identify whoever is responsible,” NYU said in a statement after news of the act went viral on social media. “We are one community. We protect each other. And we will not let hate and division find a foothold on our campus.”
Designed to counterfeit NYU’s official purple and white standard, the offensive display featured two swastikas flanking the Star of David in a blue and white color palette representing the state of Israel. Historically, similar illustrations and symbols signal belief in antisemitic conspiracies of Jewish power and control, and in recent years anti-Zionists at NYU have castigated the university’s academic partnerships with Israel, as well as its efforts to combat antisemitism.
Anti-Zionists active in the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organization have alluded to antisemitic conspiracies to criticize Israel’s alliances before. Just last month, SJP’s Duke University chapter posted on social media a political cartoon in which “Zionism” is personified as pig hoisting a Star of David while its arm interlocks with another pig, labeled “US Imperialism,” hoisting the Torch of Liberty.
Historically, depicting Jews as pigs has been done to reduce them to the status of animals and mock the fact that dietary restrictions forbid Jews to eat pork.
The perpetrators of the NYU incident remain at large. The incident comes amid a surge in antisemitic hate crimes across New York City.
Jews have been targeted in the majority of all hate crimes committed in New York City this year, continuing a troubling trend of rising antisemitism following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
Over the past couple weeks, there have been multiple incidents of rampant swastika graffiti across the borough of Queens, highlighting the extent of the antisemitism crisis in the city home to the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel.
Meanwhile, mobs of anti-Zionist activists have descended on multiple synagogues over the same period to protest Israeli real estate events.
In addressing the swastika flag incident on Thursday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has been accused of doing too little to combat the rise in antisemitism, appeared to acknowledge the Jewish community’s concerns about the intentions of his administration.
“This hateful antisemitic act was meant to spread fear among and intimidate Jewish New Yorkers. It has no place in our city,” he said. “Our administration is committed to fighting antisemitism in all its forms and protecting the safety of Jewish New Yorkers. The NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is investigating this despicable act, and I am confident those responsible will be held accountable.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.