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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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Deni Avdija might not win Most Improved Player. But he can achieve something greater.
In any other year Deni Avdija, the NBA’s reigning Israeli superstar and its most talented Jewish player in at least half a century, might be a shoo-in for the league’s Most Improved Player award. The 6-foot-8 forward inflated his scoring average from 16.9 to 24.2 — good for 14th in the NBA — as he made his first All-Star team and guided the Portland Trail Blazers to their first winning season in five years.
But in spite of his team’s social media campaigning, this year’s award seems most likely headed to the Atlanta Hawks’ Nickeil Alexander-Walker, whose 20 points-per-game more than doubled last year’s average. Sportsbooks made Alexander-Walker an overwhelming favorite to win, and while I would debate the merits — Avdija also raised his assist numbers, had a bigger role on his team and made a more difficult leap — I can’t really argue the odds.
Anyway, with the regular season over, Deni is onto more important things — starting Tuesday night, when his Blazers take on the Phoenix Suns in the biggest game of his career to date. The winner of Tuesday’s Play-In (10 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime) advances to the one place Avdija’s never been in his six seasons: the NBA Playoffs.
At stake is more than just Avdija’s drought of 425 games without a playoff appearance — the fifth longest streak of any active player. It’s also the 10 years Israeli fans watched Avdija’s Jewish countryman Omri Casspi play without seeing him in the postseason. Casspi’s 588 games with seven different teams are the fourth-most without playing in the playoffs in NBA history (and the most of any player born after 1950). An ignominious record, indeed.
As Jewish Telegraphic Agency has noted, Israeli-born journeyman TJ Leaf, who is not Jewish, made the playoffs as recently as 2021. And others have pointed out that Casspi’s team made the playoffs in 2014, but he did not play. But Avdija himself seems to regard this as a possible breakthrough.
“First taste of the playoffs — I think ever for an Israeli player,” he said — last year, before the Blazers barely missed the Play-In.
If the Blazers do end the Jewish Israeli playoff curse, it will be thanks to Avdija, who’s answered every call for the franchise this season. In two critical late-season games against the Los Angeles Clippers — their rival for the 8th playoff seed — Avdija led all players in scoring both times, including 35 points April 10 as Portland grabbed hold of the 8-seed.
Avdija’s work will be difficult against Phoenix, which in Dillon Brooks employs one of the stingiest wing defenders in the Association. Avdija was one of the best in the league at drawing fouls — he was third in the NBA in free throw attempts — and the game may depend on how closely the referees officiate contact. As for prior experience, Avdija only played one full game against the Suns this year, scoring 19 points in a 17-point loss; Portland split the other two matchups.
Because they secured the 8-seed, the Blazers will have a second chance at making the playoffs even if they lose. The winner of Wednesday night’s Clippers-Golden State Warriors matchup will face the loser of Blazers-Suns. Two chances to win one, and make (Jewish) Israeli hoops history.
The post Deni Avdija might not win Most Improved Player. But he can achieve something greater. appeared first on The Forward.
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German Court Drops Antisemitic Motive in Attack on Jewish Student, Sparking Outcry Over Reduced Sentence
A protester wrapped in an Israeli flag at a rally against antisemitism at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner
More than two years after the brutal attack on Jewish student Lahav Shapira, a German court has acquitted the perpetrator of antisemitic-motivated charges and handed down a reduced sentence, in what appears to be yet another case of the justice system in Europe dismissing antisemitism as a driving factor in violent crime.
On Monday, the Berlin Regional Court sentenced Shapira’s 25-year-old classmate to two and a half years in prison for aggravated assault, delivering a lighter punishment than the one handed down during the initial ruling last year.
However, the court found no antisemitic motive behind the attack, overturning the previous ruling that had concluded otherwise, a decision that has prompted outrage and renewed criticism over how such cases are interpreted and prosecuted.
The court found there was not enough evidence to establish that the accused had expressed antisemitic views prior to the attack, and that investigators’ discovery of anti-Israel material and a pro-Palestinian map in his apartment could not be definitively tied to him or any of his family members.
Shapira strongly condemned the verdict, describing it as a reversal of perpetrator and victim, and expressed hope that the public prosecutor’s office would appeal so the case could be reconsidered “by competent people.”
“What other motive could there have been?” 33-year-old student Shapira said when leaving the courtroom. “I’m annoyed; it’s sad.”
The attack took place in February 2024, when Shapira was out with his girlfriend and was recognized by a fellow student of Arab descent who confronted him over posters he and other students had placed around the university regarding Israeli hostages taken during the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
As the argument escalated, Shapira was knocked to the ground with punches and kicked in the face, suffering a complex midface fracture and a brain hemorrhage.
During the first trial, the public prosecutor’s office argued that “Shapira was attacked because he is Jewish and stood up against antisemitism.”
Even though the accused admitted to the assault in both trials, he consistently denied that it was motivated by antisemitism.
Shapira has also tried unsuccessfully to force the Free University of Berlin (FU) to offer stronger protection against antisemitic discrimination. However, the Berlin Administrative Court rejected his lawsuit against the university as inadmissible.
This latest case is by no means the first in Europe to raise alarm bells among the Jewish community, as courts have repeatedly overturned or reduced sentences for individuals accused of antisemitic crimes, fueling public outrage over what many see as excessive leniency.
Like most countries across Europe and the broader Western world, Germany has seen a shocking rise in antisemitic incidents over the last two years, in the wake of the Oct. 7 atrocities.
According to newly released figures, the number of antisemitic offenses in the country reached a record high in 2025, totaling 2,267 incidents, including violence, incitement, property damage, and propaganda offenses.
By comparison, officially recorded antisemitic crimes were significantly lower at 1,825 in 2024, 900 in 2023, and fewer than 500 in 2022, prior to the Oct. 7 atrocities.
Officials warn that the real number of antisemitic crimes is likely much higher, as many incidents go unreported.
In one of the latest incidents, unknown perpetrators defaced a home over the weekend in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg district with a swastika and the slogan “Kill all Jews,” prompting an investigation by the State Security Service.
Last week, an Israeli restaurant in the German city of Munich was attacked when assailants smashed multiple windows and threw pyrotechnic devices inside in what authorities suspected was an antisemitic assault.
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Majority of Israelis Oppose Iran Ceasefire, Back Continued Campaign, Polls Find
An Israeli air defense system intercepts a ballistic missile barrage launched from Iran to central Israel during the missile attack, March 1, 2026. Photo: Eli Basri / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
A poll released ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day found that a majority of Israelis – 61 percent – oppose the ceasefire with Iran, despite nearly six weeks of missile fire, mass disruption, and repeated trips to shelters.
Some 73 percent of respondents in the poll conducted by the Institute for National Security Studies said they believe Israel will have to renew military action against Iran within the next year, while 76 percent said negotiations with the Islamic Republic would not accomplish the war’s stated aims of crippling Iran’s ballistic missile array, dismantling its nuclear weapons program, and bringing an end to the regime in Tehran
A separate survey by Agam Labs at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem pointed to even stronger opposition, with only 15 percent backing the ceasefire. Two-thirds said they oppose it.
Two other polls, by Kan and Channel 13, suggested that only a minority of Israelis believe the US and Israel have won the war. In the Kan survey, roughly one-third said they view the outcome as a victory. In the Channel 13 poll, that figure fell to a quarter, while 40 percent said they do not know.
On Lebanon, more than 61 percent of Israelis said the truce with Iran should not be extended to include the fighting with Hezbollah, a condition Tehran has pushed in its talks with Washington, according to the Agam poll.
That was broadly in line with findings from the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), which reported that four out of five Jewish Israelis believe Israel should continue its campaign against Hezbollah.
Arab Israelis, by contrast, stood well apart in all of the polling. They overwhelmingly indicated they support the ceasefire with Iran, and only a small minority, less than a fifth according to the IDI poll, back continuing the fighting against Hezbollah.
Although missile alerts have eased across much of Israel since the halt in launches from Iran, communities in the north are still coming under sustained fire, with sirens continuing around the clock. A Hezbollah rocket that was not intercepted struck Nahariya on Monday afternoon, causing heavy damage to a residential building and lightly injuring two people. Days earlier, rocket fire hit the remains of a 1,500-year-old Byzantine church in the northern Israeli city.
The Lebanese and Israeli ambassadors to the United States are due to meet in Washington on Tuesday for discussions on the possibility of direct negotiations between the two countries. Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem called on Lebanon to cancel the meeting, accusing the Lebanese government on Monday of turning itself into “a tool for Israel.”
Israel’s former national security adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat warned that expectations for the talks should be limited, arguing that “security without an agreement is preferable to an agreement without security.” Ben-Shabbat, who now heads the Misgav Institute for National Security, warned that the Lebanese government is not capable of removing the threat posed by Hezbollah and would also be unable to grant Israel the operational freedom it would need to act independently.
“The outcome of the negotiations may result either [in] an agreement lacking adequate security arrangements, or a crisis in which Israel is portrayed as refusing the demands of the Lebanese government,” he cautioned, adding that Israel should avoid making any security concessions before or during the talks.
The Israeli military said it had killed 250 Hezbollah operatives in a major operation in southern Lebanon in recent days, including more than 100 in the Bint Jbeil area alone, most of them in close-quarters combat. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the battle for the southern Lebanese city, long considered a Hezbollah stronghold, was nearing its final stages. It added that some of the terrorists may have been preparing for an incursion into Israeli territory.
The IDF says the fighting has again exposed what it describes as Hezbollah’s entrenched use of civilian sites for military activity. According to the military, weapons are stored beneath homes and launchers are brought out into courtyards to fire toward Israel and then moved back inside. Israeli forces say they are working to identify those sites, destroy the weapons, and kill the operatives using them amid continuing clashes on the ground.
Bint Jbeil carries particular symbolic weight in the conflict. After Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in May 2000, then-Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah delivered a triumphal address at the city’s soccer stadium, using it as a stage to cast Israel as fragile and beatable.
“Israel has nuclear weapons and the most powerful air force in the region, but in truth, it is weaker than a spider web,” Nasrallah said at the time.
Brigadier General Guy Levy, commander of Division 98, addressed troops from the ruins of that same stadium, which was hit in the latest round of fighting: “In Bint Jbeil in 2000, someone made a speech here and bragged about spider webs. Today, that man does not exist, the stadium doesn’t either, and his words are worth nothing. Now our forces control the area, destroying terror infrastructure and dozens of terrorists.”
Writing on X, IDF Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee said that “glory is not built with speeches, but with the impact of soldiers’ footsteps. Controlling the Bint Jbeil stadium is not merely a military achievement, but a dismantling of its arrogant symbolism.”