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‘We have to leave our comfort zone’: Cautious but determined, Israeli expats protest Netanyahu’s government
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Benny Chukrun, speaking in Hebrew on a wind-whipped day outside the Israeli embassy in the U.S. capital, had a message for his fellow protesters.
“We have a special role in Washington. We have access to the Jewish opinion leaders in the United States,” he said at a rally on Sunday opposing far-reaching changes planned by the new government in Israel, including a proposal to limit the power of the country’s judiciary. “We have to leave our comfort zone and act.”
Israeli expatriates have been coming together in cities worldwide in solidarity with the tens of thousands who have gathered every Saturday night in Tel Aviv and elsewhere to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government. Rallies have taken place in New York City, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Toronto, Los Angeles, Miami, Vancouver, Sydney, Berlin, Paris and London, drawing crowds ranging in size from 50 to 200. This weekend, the protests in North America took place on Sunday to accommodate demonstrators who observe Shabbat.
It’s new and at times intimidating territory for Israeli expatriates. Israelis in America were once known to keep a low profile in Jewish communities due to a stigma associated with leaving Israel. That sense of shame has faded as growing numbers of Israelis have relocated to the United States for work in the tech sector or other fields. Overseas travel and communication have also grown far easier. More recently, Israeli political activists in the United States have become best known for supporting their country publicly via organizations such as the Israeli-American Council.
The group organizing many of the rallies, UnXeptable, formed in 2020 to demonstrate in solidarity with Israeli protests against Netanyahu. Now, the mandate has broadened to oppose the actions of the Israeli government. That change has sparked familiar anxieties among Israelis in the United States: Are they harming Israel’s public image? Do they have a right to criticize their home country now that they have moved outside of its borders?
These questions populated multiple WhatsApp groups ahead of this weekend’s protests, said Kathy Goldberg, 57, an Israeli American who helped organize the solidarity protest in Evanston, Illinois, a Chicago suburb.
“There were fears of it looking, ‘anti-Israel,’ fears of antisemitism, that it will look like we’re piling on Israel and giving them more ammunition, when in fact these are people who love Israel and believe that right now this is the most pro-Israeli thing we can do, to help protect Israel as a democracy,’” she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
What helped Goldberg and other Israelis overcome those fears was the role that they feel Israelis living abroad can play in explaining to Jewish communities why it’s OK, this time, to come out and protest. At the rally outside of the Israeli embassy, Chukrun pointed out that Israeli Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli just traveled to the United States to defend the government’s proposals.
“Chikli was here a while ago, trying to persuade the conservative Jewish funders of Kohelet that the revolution underway is not antidemocratic,” Chukrun told the 50 or so Israelis who met outside the embassy, referring to the Kohelet Forum, an influential Israeli right-wing think tank that is leading the charge in advocating abroad for the new government.
“We can give the opposing voice, we must give the opposing voice,” he told the crowd, which responded with murmurs of agreement. “Whoever has friends in Jewish organizations, reach out. We must explain to them what is going on. There is a lot of ignorance, misunderstanding.”
The Israelis who are protesting, both in Israel and abroad, are reeling from a barrage of potential changes. The issue with the highest profile has been a proposed reform that would significantly weaken Israel’s judicial review and change the way judges are appointed. Groups of protesters also oppose government pledges to annex West Bank territory to Israel, restrict the rights of LGBTQ Israelis and expand police powers — particularly in relation to Israeli Arabs.
“A lot of [Jewish] Americans say,’What’s the problem? Here [in the United States], politicians pick judges,’” said Chukrun, 62, who works in educational tech. “They don’t understand that [in the United States], it is just one part of an overall structure of checks and balances, and you can’t just take one aspect of the state of Israel that is already a democracy standing on chicken legs.”
Expatriate Israeli protesters outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., Feb. 5, 2023. (Ron Kampeas)
Etai Beck, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, told the crowd at the San Francisco protest that the Jewish Diaspora had a moral stake in speaking out now. He framed his speech as a true/false test. Like Chukrun, he criticized the Kohelet Forum as well as Israel Hayom, a free right-wing tabloid in Israel that is funded by Miriam Adelson, wife of the late casino magnate and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson.
“The Jewish people outside Israel are not allowed to express their opinions and join the protest: False,” he said in his remarks in English, which were shared on WhatsApp with other protesters. “One, Israel was established as the worldwide Jewish center. Two, the Jewish people worldwide lobbies and supports Israel — in Congress, in the media, in day to day life.”
To the degree that Israeli Americans have had a public profile until now, that profile has leaned right. The Israeli-American Council, funded to a large degree by the Adelsons, has served as a forum for Republicans in recent years; it was one of just two Jewish groups that Donald Trump agreed to speak to as president, and he used the occasion to mock American Jews for not supporting Israel enough. The protests IAC organizes typically defend Israel’s sitting government.
Shay Bar, 38, who attended the Los Angeles protest with his family, said the concerns of Israelis abroad in this instance stretched beyond partisanship.
“Our solidarity from abroad is for the future of Israel and our future here in the Diaspora,” he said. “If Israel’s democracy erodes, that will directly affect Jewish and Israeli life and in the Diaspora.”
At the Washington rally, protesters held up massive Israeli flags. An older man, speaking Hebrew, asked a group of teenagers holding up letters spelling “DEMOCRACY” in English whether they were aligned properly, and they collectively rolled their eyes and said, in English, that yes, they were. The protest ended with a rendition of “Hatikvah,” the Israeli national anthem.
Protesters in San Francisco made light of an old Israeli warning not to “wash one’s dirty laundry” abroad. “We learned from Bibi [Netanyahu] to wash our dirty laundry overseas,” said a poster in San Francisco, a reference to Netanyahu’s wife Sara’s habit of loading her flights with dirty clothes because she preferred laundry service overseas.
“Some of us here are here temporarily, some not so much,” said Yoni Charash, 47, a lawyer wearing a T-shirt bearing UnXeptable’s logo. “We all go visit, we have a connection, those of us who leave Israel are not cut off from Israel.”
Nor were they cut off from the larger Jewish communities they live in, said Chukrun. Times had changed since Israelis arriving in the United States kept to themselves because they were alienated by the synagogue-centric life of American Jews.
“Jews in the United States feel the Judaism of faith and Israelis feel the Judaism of national identity, the Israeliness,” he told JTA. “There is a cultural difference, but in recent years it’s begun to change.”
Bar in Los Angeles said Israelis are likelier now to assimilate into American Jewish communities than not. “We’re Israeli Americans who live within the community, we send our kids to school with a Jewish education, go to synagogues on holidays and are an integral part of the American Jewish community,” he said.
Chukrun, speaking to JTA, said it was critical to leverage the relationships Israelis had with American Jews.
“We have to explain that it’s not the land of the patriarchs and matriarchs, not the land of the Bible,” he said. “It’s a real country with real people — with ugly things.”
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The post ‘We have to leave our comfort zone’: Cautious but determined, Israeli expats protest Netanyahu’s government appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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US Officials Tell i24NEWS Israeli Concerns About Gaza Board of Peace Are ‘Unfounded’
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump is interviewed by Reuters White House correspondent Steve Holland (not pictured) during an exclusive interview in the Oval Office in the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 14, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
i24 News – Amid the criticism in Israel over the composition of the “Board of Peace” and the bodies set to govern the Gaza Strip, as well as concerns that Hamas could continue to threaten Israel under the new plan, officials in Washington suggest these concerns are unfounded, i24NEWS understands.
A Senior US official tells i24NEWS: “Turkey, Qatar, and Egypt were instrumental in achieving the ceasefire, securing the return of the living hostages, and bringing back the deceased. They have co-signed commitments that Hamas will follow through on its part of the plan, and the Board of Peace will work with them to ensure compliance.”
The underlying message is clear: President Trump will make the calls, and the US will ensure full implementation of all objectives of the plan, first and foremost the demilitarization of Gaza, regardless of the positions or hostile statements towards Israel coming from Turkey and Qatar.
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One Person Killed, 14 Hurt in Blast in Iranian Port of Bandar Abbas, Iranian Media Reports
FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of the Iranian shores and Port of Bandar Abbas in the strait of Hormuz, December 10, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer/File Photo
At least one person was killed and 14 injured in an explosion in the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on Saturday, a local official told Iranian news agencies, but the cause of the blast was not known.
The semi-official Tasnim news agency said that social media reports alleging that a Revolutionary Guard navy commander had been targeted in the explosion were “completely false.”
Iranian media said the blast was under investigation but provided no further information. Iranian authorities could not immediately be contacted for comment.
Separately, four people were killed after a gas explosion in the city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border, according to state-run Tehran Times. No further information was immediately available.
Two Israeli officials told Reuters that Israel was not involved in Saturday’s blasts, which come amid heightened tensions between Tehran and Washington over Iran’s crackdown on nationwide protests and over the country’s nuclear program.
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US President Donald Trump said on January 22 an “armada” was heading toward Iran. Multiple sources said on Friday that Trump was weighing options against Iran that include targeted strikes on security forces.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accused US, Israeli and European leaders of exploiting Iran’s economic problems, inciting unrest and providing people with the means to “tear the nation apart.”
Bandar Abbas, home to Iran’s most important container port, lies on the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway between Iran and Oman which handles about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil.
The port suffered a major explosion last April that killed dozens and injured over 1,000 people. An investigative committee at the time blamed the blast on shortcomings in adherence to principles of civil defense and security.
Iran has been rocked by nationwide protests that erupted in December over economic hardship and have posed one of the toughest challenges to the country’s clerical rulers.
At least 5,000 people were killed in the protests, including 500 members of the security forces, an Iranian official told Reuters.
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How a law used to protect synagogues is now being deployed against ICE protesters and journalists
After a pro-Palestinian protest at a New Jersey synagogue turned violent in October, the Trump administration took an unusual step — using a federal law typically aimed at protecting abortion clinics to sue the demonstrators.
Now, federal authorities are attempting to deploy the same law against journalists as well as protesters against Immigration and Customs Enforcement amid the agency’s at times violent crackdown in Minneapolis.
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon, a local journalist, and two protesters were arrested after attending a Jan. 18 anti-ICE protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, Justice Department officials said Friday. Protesters alleged the pastor at Cities Church worked for ICE.
The federal law they are accused of violating, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE, prohibits the use of force or intimidation to interfere with reproductive health care clinics and houses of worship.
But in the three decades since its passage in 1994, the law had almost entirely been deployed against anti-abortion protesters causing disruptions at clinics.
That changed in September of last year, when the Trump administration cited the FACE Act to sue pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Congregation Ohr Torah in West Orange, New Jersey.
It was the first time the Department of Justice had used the law against demonstrators outside a house of worship, Harmeet Dhillon, an assistant attorney general for the department’s civil rights division, said at the time.
The novel legal strategy — initially advanced by Jewish advocacy groups to fight antisemitism — is now front and center in what First Amendment advocates are describing as an attack on freedom of the press.
“I intend to identify and find every single person in that mob that interrupted that church service in that house of God and bring them to justice,” Dhillon told Newsmax last week. “And that includes so-called ‘journalists.’”
How the law has been used
The FACE Act has traditionally been used to prosecute protesters who interfere with patients entering abortion clinics. Conservative activists have long criticized the law as violating demonstrators’ First Amendment rights, and the Trump administration even issued a memo earlier this month saying the Justice Department should limit enforcement of the law.
But in September, the Trump administration applied the FACE Act in a new way: suing the New Jersey protesters at Congregation Ohr Torah.
They had disrupted an event at the Orthodox shul that promoted real estate sales in Israel and the West Bank, blowing plastic horns in people’s ears and chanting “globalize the intifada,” a complaint alleges.
Two pro-Israel demonstrators were charged by local law enforcement with aggravated assault, including a local dentist, Moshe Glick, who police said bashed a protester in the head with a metal flashlight, sending him to the hospital. Glick said he had acted in self defense, protecting a fellow congregant who had been tackled by a protester.
The event soon became a national flashpoint, with Glick’s lawyer alleging the prosecution had been “an attempt to criminalize Jewish self-defense.” Former New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy pardoned Glick earlier this month.
The Trump administration sued the pro-Palestinian protesters under the FACE Act, seeking to ban them from protesting outside houses of worship and asking that they each pay thousands of dollars in fines.
At the time, Nathan Diament, executive director of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center, told JNS he applauded the Trump administration “for bringing this suit to protect the Jewish community and all people of faith, who have the constitutional right to worship without fear of harassment.”
Diament did not respond to the Forward’s email asking whether he supported the use of the FACE Act against the Minneapolis journalists and protesters.
Mark Goldfeder, CEO of the National Jewish Advocacy Center, a pro-Israel group that says it uses legal tools to counter antisemitism, did not express concern over the use of the FACE Act in the Minnesota arrests — and emphasized the necessity of protecting religious spaces from interference.
“The idea that ‘you can worship’ means nothing if a mob can make it unsafe or impossible,” Goldfeder wrote in a statement to the Forward. “So if you apply it consistently: to protect a church in Minnesota, a synagogue in New Jersey, a mosque in Detroit, what you are actually protecting is pluralism itself.”
Goldfeder has also attempted to use the FACE Act against protesters at a synagogue, citing the law in a July 2024 complaint against demonstrators who had converged on an event promoting Israel real estate at Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. That clash descended into violence.
The Trump administration Justice Department subsequently filed a statement of interest supporting that case, arguing that what constituted “physical obstruction” at a house of worship under the FACE Act could be interpreted broadly.
Now, similar legal reasoning may apply to journalists covering the Sunday church protest in Minneapolis. Press freedom groups have expressed deep alarm over the arrests, arguing that the journalists were there to document, not disrupt.
The arrests are “the latest example of the administration coming up with far-fetched ‘gotcha’ legal theories to send a message to journalists to tread cautiously,” said Seth Stern, chief of advocacy for Freedom of the Press Foundation. “Because the government is looking for any way to target them.”
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