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On the streets of Tel Aviv, protesters on cusp of a big victory vow to keep fighting
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Yaniv, a resident of Tel Aviv, has lost count of how many protests he’s been to during the past three months. But on Monday afternoon, he headed once again to Kaplan Street, the urban artery that has become ground zero of the anti-government demonstrations, to demonstrate once again.
Israel’s current rupture, said Yaniv, 34, is the “biggest crisis in my lifetime.”
“We’ll keep going until something changes,” he said. “They left us no choice. The damage has been done.”
Week after week, Yaniv and tens of thousands of other Israelis have filled the streets of Tel Aviv to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed overhaul of the country’s judiciary — which would sap the Supreme Court of much of its power and influence. Then, on Sunday night, massive protests again took shape to oppose Netanyahu’s firing of his defense minister, who called for a pause on the legislation.
Now, the following day, the protesters came with a different feeling: that their activism might actually succeed, at least in the short term. After people gathered in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and elsewhere, Netanyahu announced that he would pause the legislation to allow time for dialogue. Several of his ministers had already called for him to do just that.
Justin Jacobs, a recent immigrant to Israel from the United States, said he is hopeful about the outcome of the protest movement. (Deborah Danan)
But even as the campaign to stall the legislation was poised to achieve an at least temporary victory, protesters were not in a celebratory mood. They vowed to continue demonstrating against what some described as Netanyahu’s broader authoritarian impulses.
“You see how the liberal voice that has been missing for so long is returning to the street and has become the mainstream,” said Ben Luria, a resident of Jaffa protesting in Tel Aviv. “It looks like they’ve succeeded in passing the message across.”
But for Luria, that success doesn’t translate into any desire to ease the pressure. “You can’t deny that this is no longer just a question of Bibi being Bibi, this is a dictator in the making,” he added, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “We need to put the line somewhere.”
Even as Israelis were glued to their TV screens, waiting to hear Netanyahu announce a suspension of the legislation, Daria, who immigrated to Israel with her family from what is now Russia, did not pin her hopes on Netanyahu changing course.
“I don’t think that even if they stop this legislation, they will stop anything else,” said Daria, who came to the protest with Yaniv and, like him, declined to give her last name. “Even if they say they’ll postpone until Pesach or for forever, that doesn’t mean that we stop protesting what this government is doing.”
Sunday night’s protests were followed by a countrywide general strike. Blocked streets and canceled bus routes in downtown Tel Aviv meant that a 20-minute journey to a high-risk pregnancy clinic on Monday instead took an hour and a half for Natalie Solomon, who is eight-and-a-half months pregnant. She said she hoped Netanyahu would concede and spare Israelis further disruption.
“Our country is falling apart,” she said, expressing her hope that an end to the political standoff is near. “I really hope Bibi backs down today, that’s the only option. … We care about democracy but we really just care about the health of our baby.
At the end of the day it really does disrupt day-to-day lives.”
Despite being on the cusp of their first major victory, protesters said the potential respite offered by Netanyahu would be a minor gesture, not one that could overcome the hard feelings that have built up over the past three months.
Justin Jacobs, an immigrant to Israel from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, said Israel has “turned a corner” after Sunday night’s protests.”So, [there’s] a glimmer of hope that we’ll go back to the status quo, which to me remains not good enough,” he said. “But not good enough is still better than horrifying.”
Others were less optimistic. “My feeling, the feeling of my parents, my grandparents, [is] that there’s no future here, I don’t know if I’ll raise kids here,” said Yotam Weingrad.
Like Weingrad, Daria, recalling her family’s experience, is also considering her future in the Jewish state.
Yariv and Daria, left, walk in Tel Aviv after participating in anti-government protests on Monday, March 27, 2023; at right, Natalie Solomon said her trip to a high-risk pregnancy clinic took more than four times longer than normal because of the protests. (Deborah Danan)
“I grew up in a family with intimate knowledge of what it feels like to live under oppression, and I feel like it’s our duty to do whatever we can to prevent it,” she said. “But if push comes to shove, if nothing’s going to change, I’ll make the same decision my parents did — my kids aren’t going to live in a dictatorship.”
For those not emotionally invested in the Israeli crisis, the streets of Tel Aviv on Monday provided a rare experience, and a sense of uncertainty. Jennifer, a tourist from Utah visiting Israel with her two daughters, Holly and Diana, wanted to know if “it is going to get scary” and wondered if they’d be able to get back to the United States, as airports had closed due to the general strike.
“We’ve never been to this part of the world so we’re kind of like ‘Wow,’ just taking in everything,” said Diana. “We don’t know what it’s like without the protests, and we’re like, ‘This is Tel Aviv. It’s a lot.’”
Support for the protests isn’t unanimous across Tel Aviv, a bastion of left-wing politics in Israel. Josh Eidelshtein called the protests “hypocritical,” and blamed them for fanning the flames of conflict.
“What if the protesters were right-wingers, Orthodox Jews, or Palestinians?” he said. “Would their strategies still be OK? There is too much hate being bred here, and it’s as if the collective stress and anxiety this country has lived on for so long has been set aflame. The same people who went out to vote [for the left] are now trying to work against the system because they didn’t get what they wanted.”
Khalil, who originally hails from the Arab village of Ein Hawd in Israel’s north, and has lived in Tel Aviv for 50 years, also opted to stay away from the protests, which he felt did not speak for him.
“The Arabs are a minority, what do they have to do with these protests?” Khalil said as he walked his dog near a giant yellow sign reading “Nonstop Democracy,” painted by the Tel Aviv municipality on the boardwalk.
“Bibi has done good things but now he’s silent. This is a man who knows how to speak,” Khalil said. Then, referring to Netanyahu’s coalition partners, he added, “He’s not the king of Israel anymore. He made big mistakes by taking those criminals into the government with him. They want to throw out all the Arabs.”
Also sitting out the protests was Meir Dayan, who counts himself among the supporters of Netanyahu’s proposed judicial reform. He is especially in favor of the legislation that was due to be brought for a final vote on Monday, which would have increased the governing coalition’s control over Supreme Court appointments. But Dayan added that he didn’t appreciate the way Netanyahu attempted to pass the measures into law.
The path along the beach in Tel Aviv has been painted with pro-democracy messages. (Deborah Danan)
“The way they went about it was reckless,” he said. “Change to heavy organizational processes — because this is what this basically is, after all — doesn’t happen with legislation, it happens with people. It must be bottom-up and from a place of education, not ignorance.”
Dayan predicted that Netanyahu will halt the legislation now, and then in the summer months “when the left are overseas,” he will return it to the Knesset floor.
Roughly four miles away from the main protest, a smaller demonstration coalesced near Jaffa’s clocktower, a landmark at the entrance to Tel Aviv’s older counterpart. At this protest, children as young as 5 chanted “Shame!” and “Save Democracy!” while their parents stood to the side.
“Here the adults are quiet so the children are taking the lead. It’s exciting,” said Gavri, 10.
There are a few things he’d like to bring about in Israeli society: the failure of the judicial overhaul, as well as an end to fighting between Jews and Arabs. Like the adults protesting across the city, he vowed not to give up.
“I will be here until the end,” he said. “I hope it won’t be a long time.”
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BBC Apologizes for Not Mentioning Jews During Holocaust Remembrance Day Coverage
The BBC logo is displayed above the entrance to the BBC headquarters in London, Britain, July 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Hollie Adams
The BBC apologized on Tuesday night after at least four of its presenters failed to mention the murder of Jews in the Holocaust during the national broadcaster’s coverage of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“BBC Breakfast” presenter Jon Kay said on air Tuesday morning that Holocaust Remembrance Day was “for remembering the six million people murdered by the Nazi regime over 80 years ago.” Several BBC broadcasts by some of its most well-known presenters included similar comments that omitted the mention of Jewish victims when discussing the Holocaust.
In one broadcast, “BBC News” presenter Martine Croxall also said Holocaust Remembrance Day is a day “for remembering the six million people who were murdered by the Nazi regime over 80 years ago.”
BBC World News presenter Matthew Amroliwala introduced a bulletin on his show with the same scripted line.
On the BBC Radio 4 program “Today,” presenter Caroline Nicholls discussed plans to mark Holocaust Remembrance Day and said in part: “Buildings across the UK will be illuminated this evening to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, which commemorates the six million people murdered by the Nazi regime more than 80 years ago.”
“Is the BBC trying to sever all ties with their Jewish listeners? Even on Holocaust Memorial Day, the BBC cannot bring itself to properly address antisemitism,” the Campaign Against Antisemitism posted on X. “This is absolutely disgraceful broadcasting. BBC, we demand an explanation for how this could have happened.”
“The ‘Today’ program featured interviews with relatives of Holocaust survivors, and a report from our religion editor. In both of these items we referenced the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust,” the statement read in part, as cited by GB News. “‘BBC Breakfast’ featured a project organized by the Holocaust Educational Trust in which a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust recorded her memories. In the news bulletins on ‘Today’ and in the introduction to the story on ‘BBC Breakfast’ there were references to Holocaust Memorial Day which were incorrectly worded, and for which we apologize. Both should have referred to ‘six million Jewish people’ and we will be issuing a correction on our website.”
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said in a post on X that the BBC’s not mentioning Jews during its coverage of Holocaust Remembrance Day is “hurtful, disrespectful, and wrong.”
“The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jewish men, women, and children. Any attempt to dilute the Holocaust, strip it of its Jewish specificity, or compare it to contemporary events is unacceptable on any day,” she added.
Danny Cohen, the BBC’s former director of television, said the mistake, especially on Holocaust Remembrance Day, “marks a new low point” for the broadcaster. He said the mishap will surely be hurtful to many in the Jewish community “and will reinforce their view that the BBC is insensitive to the concerns of British Jews.”
“It is surely the bare minimum to expect the BBC to correctly identify that it was six million Jews killed during the Holocaust,” said Cohen, as cited by the Daily Mail. “To say anything else is an insult to their memory and plays into the hands of extremists who have desperately sought to rewrite the historical truth of history’s greatest crime.”
This year’s Holocaust Remembrance Day marks the 81st anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp in 1945. On Tuesday, King Charles and the Queen Camilla lit candles at Buckingham Palace in honor of the annual commemoration and hosted a reception for Holocaust survivors and their families. Last year, King Charles, who is patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, became the first British monarch to visit Auschwitz on the 80th anniversary of its liberation.
Tuesday was not the first time that the BBC has come under fire for its coverage of issues concerning the Jewish community or Israel.
In February 2025, the BBC apologized for “unacceptable” and “serious flaws” in its documentary about Palestinian children living in the Gaza Strip, after it was revealed that the documentary’s narrator was the son of a senior Hamas official. An internal review by the British public broadcaster also revealed that the documentary breached the BBC’s editorial guidelines on accuracy.
In July, the BBC apologized for streaming a live performance by the British punk rap duo Bob Vylan at the Glastonbury Festival, during which the band’s lead singer led the audience in chanting “Death to the IDF,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
Also last year, the host of “Good Morning Britain” apologized on-air for failing to mention Jewish victims of the Holocaust during her coverage of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
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New York Is Right to Keep Antisemitic Protests Away From Synagogues
Nov. 19, 2025, New York, New York, USA: Anti-Israel protesters rally outside of Park East Synagogue. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
Hamas’ October 7 massacre, and the subsequent war against Israel, motivated sympathizers of the terrorist group to persecute Jews worldwide, even though the practice of blaming Jews for the actions of Israel is a globally recognized form of antisemitism.
In the US, dozens of these antisemitic campaigns targeted synagogues.
In recent months, the bigoted rallies grew especially menacing at two New York synagogues that hosted events for a non-profit corporation called Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN). NBN conducts information fairs that promote “aliyah” (immigration) to Israel, and it guides interested parties through the naturalization process.
During the NBN gatherings, congregants could not enter or exit the synagogues without encountering harassment and intimidation by hundreds of angry demonstrators.
The haters obstructed the entrances while screaming antisemitic obscenities and incitements such as “Intifada revolution” and “Resistance you make us proud; take another settler out.” At one of the synagogues, the protestors endorsed antisemitic terrorism by chanting, “Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here.” Meanwhile, a member of the crowd repeatedly shouted, “We need to make them scared.”
On January 13, 2026, New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D) pledged to curb such synagogue-focused hostility by legislating protest-free buffer zones for all houses of worship. Each buffer zone would form a 25-foot perimeter around the property of the religious institution. Outside the boundary, demonstrators could freely exercise their First Amendment right to scream and shout. Inside the line, worshipers could safely enter and exit the facility, engage in their freedoms of speech and religion, and enjoy their right of privacy to avoid the rowdy mob.
Pro-Palestinian organizations oppose the New York buffer zone proposal. The advocates claim that NBN illegally sells “stolen” Palestinian land. In their view, the slated law would not only “censor” their free speech right to denounce the alleged NBN crimes, but make New York State “complicit” in the supposed wrongdoing. They call the information fairs “non-religious political events.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D), who is openly pro-Palestinian, remains noncommittal on the buffer zone scheme. But he opposes NBN, arguing that “sacred spaces” should not be used to breach international law.
The mayor and buffer zone opponents misconstrue the applicable law. The 1994 Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act prohibits close-range harassment, intimidation, and physical interference at houses of worship, as well as reproductive health clinics.
Within this Federal framework, states and municipalities have enacted buffer zones to separate potentially dangerous protestors from those who frequent the protected sites. The Supreme Court has upheld the use of buffer zones to balance the adversarial rights involved. Based on subsequent case law, a thin, 25-foot buffer zone, such as the one designed for New York, is valid because it is “narrowly tailored” to meet its Constitutional goals.
Demonstration organizers cannot credibly portray NBN presentations as non-religious political events. In Judaism, “making aliyah” means “going up” to settle in the Biblical Promised Land. The ascent is a religious rite that Jews have performed for millennia. That is why NBN extends its outreach to synagogues. Even if NBN’s operations were purely political, they would deserve just as much First Amendment protection as any religious affair.
Another misconception is that NBN sells land. In reality, the outfit merely provides guidance on how to find housing.
The broader accusation that Israel illegally builds settlements on occupied Palestinian land is also untrue. The territories claimed by Palestinians have already been lawfully allocated to the state that became Israel, pursuant to the 1920 San Remo Treaty and 1922 British Mandate for Palestine. Occupation law applies when a state captures foreign land, but not when it settles its own land. A temporary exception to Israel’s sovereign reach was established when Israel and the Palestinians negotiated interim spheres of territorial control — called “Areas A, B and C” — in the Oslo Accords of the 1990s. Those limits are strictly observed by Israelis.
The International Court of Justice ruling referenced by the protest partisans to claim NBN is selling or promoting settlement on stolen land was an “advisory opinion,” which means it had no legally binding effect. It’s just as well. A dissenting judge on the court rightly rebuked the decision for failing to recognize Israel’s territorial rights. The US government recognizes Israel’s territorial rights. Any buffer zone objectors who dispute that US position should lobby the Trump administration, not Governor Hochul, because the Constitution reserves matters of international relations exclusively for the Federal government.
Regardless of whether Israeli settlements comply with international law, nothing in that legal realm can supersede the Constitutional safeguards planned for New York’s synagogues. The US government is legally barred from accepting any international obligation inconsistent with the Constitution.
The current trend of unbridled antisemitism has trampled on Jewish civil rights. Some of the worst offenders are those who harass Jews at the entrances to their synagogues. A buffer zone is the bare minimum needed to keep that threat at bay.
Joel M. Margolis is the legal commentator of the American Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists, the US affiliate of the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.
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‘Time Is Running Out’: Trump Warns Iran to Make a Deal or Next Attack Will Be ‘Far Worse’
US President Donald Trump delivers a speech on energy and the economy, in Clive, Iowa, US, Jan. 27, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US President Donald Trump urged Iran on Wednesday to come to the table and make a deal on nuclear weapons or the next US attack would be far worse, but Tehran said that if that happened it would fight back as never before.
“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal – NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS – one that is good for all parties. Time is running out, it is truly of the essence!” Trump wrote in a social media post.
The Republican US president, who pulled out of world powers’ 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran during his first White House term, noted that his last warning to Iran was followed by a military strike in June.
“As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran,” Trump continued. “The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”
He also repeated that a US “armada” was heading toward the Islamic Republic.
Iran‘s mission to the United Nations responded in kind.
“Last time the US blundered into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it squandered over $7 trillion and lost more than 7,000 American lives,” it said in an X post quoting Trump‘s statement.
“Iran stands ready for dialogue based on mutual respect and interests—BUT IF PUSHED, IT WILL DEFEND ITSELF AND RESPOND LIKE NEVER BEFORE!”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said he had not been in contact with US special envoy Steve Witkoff in recent days or requested negotiations, state media reported on Wednesday.
“There was no contact between me and Witkoff in recent days and no request for negotiations was made from us,” Araqchi told state media, adding that various intermediaries were “holding consultations” and were in contact with Tehran.
“Our stance is clear, negotiations don’t go along with threats and talks can only take place when there are no longer menaces and excessive demands.”
Trump said a US naval force headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln was approaching Iran. Two US officials told Reuters on Monday that the Lincoln and supporting warships had arrived in the Middle East.
The warships started moving from the Asia-Pacific region last week as US-Iranian tensions soared following a bloody crackdown on anti-government protests across Iran by its clerical authorities in recent weeks.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if Iran continued to kill protesters, but the countrywide demonstrations over economic privations and political repression have since abated. According to reports, the Iranian regime may have killed more than 30,000 people over two days in one of the deadliest crackdowns in modern history.
He has said the United States would act if Tehran resumed its nuclear program after the June airstrikes by Israeli and US forces on key nuclear installations.
Iran‘s President Masoud Pezeshkian told Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a phone call on Tuesday that Tehran welcomes any process, within the framework of international law, that prevents war.
Bin Salman said during the conversation that Riyadh will not allow its airspace or territory to be used for military actions against Tehran, state news agency SPA reported on Tuesday.
The statement by the Saudi de facto ruler follows a similar statement by the United Arab Emirates that it would not allow any military action against Iran using its airspace or territorial waters.