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‘We will not give up’ on judicial changes, right-wing protesters at Israel’s largest pro-reform rally are told
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The right-wing protest that took some 200,000 people to Jerusalem’s streets on Thursday night to demonstrate in favor of the government’s judicial overhaul felt bizarrely familiar.
In many ways, it mimicked the anti-government protests that it meant to oppose: Like the demonstrations that have filled Tel Aviv’s streets every week this year, this too featured lots of Israeli flags, chants to the tune of “Seven Nation Army” and signs declaring that the rally represents the majority of the country.
And like the protests in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem’s mass gathering felt driven by grievance: a sense that the country the rally-goers had fought for — the country they thought they had — was being taken away from them.
“There are those who have decided that they can make decisions for me, even though they have no right to decide for me,” said Michal Verzberger, who came from the central town of Mazkeret Batya with most of her family to protest in favor of the reforms. Verzberger was echoing a central message of Thursday’s protest: that the right won the recent elections, and therefore had every right to pass its desired judicial overhaul.
“The nation decided it wanted reform, and there are some who are protesting the reform, and they’re deciding in our place that there won’t be a reform,” she said. “The minority is deciding what is good for the majority.”
The idea that a loud minority is unjustly obstructing the will of the electorate inspired Thursday’s protest, which filled an artery of central Jerusalem with a largely Orthodox, religious Zionist crowd. The judicial overhaul would sap the Israeli Supreme Court of much of its power, and since it was proposed at the beginning of the year, hundreds of thousands have filled the streets — in Tel Aviv and elsewhere — weekly to decry the proposal as a danger to democracy.
Right-wing Israelis attend a rally in support of the government’s planned judicial overhaul in Jerusalem, April 27, 2023. (Erik Marmor/Flash90)
Those protests, and associated actions, led Israel’s right-wing government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to pause the reforms for a month — a period that ends in several days. The governing coalition and opposition are now negotiating over the legislation, a process that, if successful, will by definition soften the reforms at least a little.
Thursday’s rally was a show of force that aimed to strengthen the position of the government majority, several protesters said. One of the crowd’s chants was “64 seats” — the majority the right-wing holds in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, the Knesset. One homemade sign read, “64 > 56.”
The government ministers who spoke at the rally did not seem interested in half-measures. They promised that despite the delays, the substance of the reform would become law.
“Listen well, because this is my promise: We will not give up,” said Bezalal Smotrich, the far-right finance minister. “We won’t give up on making Israel a better place to live. We won’t give up on the Jewish state. … We’re fixing what needs to be fixed, and promising a better state of Israel for us and for the coming generations. Most of the nation agrees that the judicial reform is the right and necessary thing to do for the state of Israel, and I say again: We will not give up.”
Who is, in fact, in the majority on this issue is a more complicated question than it seems. Israel’s electorate has had a right-wing majority for years, both according to polls and election results. While the ideological bent of coalitions has varied, the past 22 years have seen only several months — last year — with a prime minister who didn’t build his career in conservative politics.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin at a rally in support of the government’s planned judicial overhaul outside the Knesset in Jerusalem, April 27, 2023. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)
But polls also show that a majority of the country opposes the court reform itself, which has been pushed through the Knesset without any support from opposition parties or even engagement with their concerns. The central motivation of the anti-overhaul protests has been the importance of defending democracy and an independent court system.
That idea vexed Thursday’s protesters. “We won’t give up on Israeli democracy, and no one will steal that word from us,” Smotrich said. Yariv Levin, the justice minister and architect of the judicial overhaul, said, “Two million Israelis, half a year a year ago, voted in the true referendum: the elections. They voted for judicial reform.”
Protesters who spoke to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency said they supported the overhaul’s provisions, which include giving the governing coalition a large measure of control over the selection of judges and allowing the Knesset to override most Supreme Court decisions with a bare majority. Observers across the political spectrum and around the globe have cautioned that those changes could damage Israel’s democratic character.
But protesters said that, rather than destroy democracy, the overhaul would restore balance to Israel’s branches of government, curbing an overly activist court.
“I want a real democracy in the state of Israel,” said Chanan Fine, a resident of the central city of Modiin. “In a democracy there are three branches that have balance between them, and what happened is that the judicial branch has taken for itself the powers of the legislative branch and the executive branch.”
He added, “The government needs to have the ability to determine policy and to pass laws, and if there’s a policy that contradicts the laws of the state then the Supreme Court needs to get involved,” but less often than it does now, he explained.
Under the proposed legislation, the governing coalition would not have to respect the determination of the Supreme Court.
The message of the protests wasn’t the only thing that separated it from the Tel Aviv demonstrations, which largely draw secular Israelis. While few haredi Israelis attended the event — a leading haredi newspaper instructed its readers not to go, even as it expressed support for the cause — religious ritual pervaded the demonstration. Men gathered in prayer quorums before sunset on the way to the protest, and rallygoers recited the Shema and traditional prayers for salvation en masse. Most of the men wore kippahs, and most of the women wore long skirts.
Some signs at the Tel Aviv rallies, in addition to opposing the overhaul, advocate for LGBTQ rights or Israeli-Palestinian peace. Signs and shirts at the Jerusalem rally instead trumpeted settlements in the West Bank and the belief that the late rabbi of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement is the messiah.
One thing that the two rallies had in common: a preponderance of Israeli flags, something that has been particularly noted at the anti-overhaul demonstrations.
“It’s a desecration of our symbol,” Chen Avital, a protester from the West Bank settlement of Shilo, said about the anti-government protesters’ adoption of the flag. “They took it for a certain side that isn’t supported by the whole country, and they changed it to their side over the past few months. … It’s a flag that represents all of us, and they took it for their own side.”
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AIPAC-backed Wesley Bell defeats Cori Bush in Missouri Democratic primary
(JTA) — Missouri incumbent Rep. Wesley Bell registered a resounding victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary against Cori Bush, a prominent Democratic socialist and ardent critic of Israel.
The Associated Press called the race just an hour after polls closed, at 8:02pm local time. By the time 99% of the vote was counted, Bell had garnered 59.2% to Bush’s 36.9%.
The primary is a déjà vu moment for St. Louis. The same pair of candidates vied just two years ago to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District.
Bell prevailed in 2024 to oust Bush in a clash that was largely defined by a $9 million influx of AIPAC cash in support of Bell. In this rematch, Bush made the American Israel Public Affairs Committee a central issue in her campaign, similar to other Democratic Socialists of America candidates.
“AIPAC has become yet another way for MAGA-donors to divide the Democratic base by meddling in primaries,” Bush told JTA in a written statement prior to the primary. “In St. Louis and across the country, people know that our fight against antisemitism means fighting against the far-right’s effort to divide us.”
Federal Election Commission records show that this time around, AIPAC has invested far less in the race. Through its United Democracy Project super PAC, the pro-Israel lobby has spent in the neighborhood of $3 million on the rematch, with the vast majority targeted at opposing Bush.
In response to Bell’s decisive win on Tuesday, AIPAC posted its congratulations on X: “Our community was proud to support a strong, principled Democratic leader,” the lobby stated.
The Washington, D.C.-based Jewish Democratic Council of America, which had mobilized networks of voters to make phone calls in support of Bell, added their congratulations to the congressman following his victory.
“Rep. Bell is a leader in taking on Trump’s corruption,” the group posted on X. “We look forward to seeing him continue to fight for our Jewish and Democratic values.”
Aside from their conflicting perspectives on Israel, Bell and Bush have much in common. Born in Missouri in the mid-1970s, they are both Black progressive Democrats who entered politics after the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in the city of Ferguson.
Amid protests across Ferguson for police reforms, Bell won a seat on the city council and focused on passing such changes. He went on to become St. Louis County prosecutor in 2018, defeating a 27-year incumbent who had failed to prosecute the officer who had killed Brown.
Bush, meanwhile, became involved in politics by participating in the Ferguson protests. She lost Democratic primaries for the U.S. Senate and House in 2016 and 2018, but then won congressional races in 2020 and 2022. In 2024, however, she lost to Bell by more than 5 percentage points.
The candidates have similar stances on most political issues, prioritizing concerns like reproductive rights, gun violence prevention and the dismantling of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, as well as lowering costs of housing, utilities, healthcare and prescriptions. But they have sharp differences when it comes to Israel, with Bush’s campaign pledging to “stand for justice in Palestine.” Bell, in contrast, has stood steadfast in his support of Israel.
The post AIPAC-backed Wesley Bell defeats Cori Bush in Missouri Democratic primary appeared first on The Forward.
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William Lawrence, El-Sayed-aligned progressive, takes Democratic House nomination in Michigan battleground race
(JTA) — An outspoken pro-Palestinian progressive who campaigned with Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed bested two establishment-backed picks in a Democratic House primary for a battleground district in the state on Tuesday.
William Lawrence, a co-founder of the climate advocacy group Sunrise Movement, took the Democratic nomination in the state’s 7th District, with the Associated Press calling the race for him Tuesday night. With 58% of the vote in, Lawrence had around 43% of the tally in the three-way race.
His opponents Bridget Brink, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and former Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam, two centrist candidates who boasted military and foreign policy backgrounds, effectively split the establishment vote and opened a lane for the progressive.
“I couldn’t be prouder of the movement we’ve built in mid-Michigan,” Lawrence wrote on social media after the race was called. “We’re building a movement made up of real Michiganders across political divides, not DC consultants.”
At the time the AP called the race for Lawrence, another House candidate backed by El-Sayed, state Rep. Donavan McKinney, was awaiting results in his challenge to the incumbent in Michigan’s 13th District.
As with several other victorious Democratic House candidates this primary cycle, Lawrence made pro-Palestinian advocacy a central plank of his campaign. He was the only Democrat in his race to accuse Israel of genocide, and at his rally with El-Sayed in Lansing, the candidate had called for America to “stop arming Israel.”
Lawrence, whose campaign also tapped into growing public anger over data centers, will face Republican incumbent Rep. Tom Barrett in November.
Lawrence’s victory marked one area where party leadership will be pressured to support pro-Palestinian progressives if it hopes to retake Congress in November. Democrats have eyed the district, which was held by centrist Jewish Democrat Sen. Elissa Slotkin before Barrett, as a top target for flipping. Slotkin had endorsed Maasdam in the race’s homestretch while staying out of the Senate race.
It won’t be easy to line the party up behind Lawrence. He had been condemned by the Congressional Black Caucus during his campaign over resurfaced podcast comments in which he said Black Democratic leaders “defang the white left” — comments he later explained as having been prompted by his anger over Israel’s war in Gaza. Centrist House Democrats have questioned his ability to win in November.
But his campaign told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a statement ahead of primary day that they were confident his focus on “ending military support to human rights abusers and bringing that money home to fund good jobs, housing, and healthcare here at home” would play well across party lines.
The post William Lawrence, El-Sayed-aligned progressive, takes Democratic House nomination in Michigan battleground race appeared first on The Forward.
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Michigan Democrats await Senate winner in party’s biggest test yet on Israel
The Democratic primary for the open Senate seat in Michigan appeared too close to call Tuesday night, with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Haley Stevens locked in a tight race that had become a proxy fight over the Gaza war and a referendum on Israel supporters’ influence in Democratic politics.
According to unofficial results, El-Sayed, a physician and the son of Egyptian immigrants, held a narrow lead over opponent Rep. Haley Stevens, the establishment favorite — 49.9% vs. 46.3% — with 65% of the vote counted for the seat being vacated by Sen. Gary Peters.
The Michigan contest is AIPAC’s largest investment this election cycle. Its super PAC, United Democracy Project, spent more than $30 million on ads attacking El-Sayed and promoting Stevens, according to recent FEC filings. AIPAC also raised several million dollars for Stevens’ own campaign through its donors’ portal.
If El-Sayed prevails, it would deliver a blow to the establishment and to the U.S.-Israel fundraising group, AIPAC, its biggest setback since it started its direct political spending in 2021 and after years of helping defeat progressive critics of Israel who challenged congressional incumbents. The brand has become increasingly controversial among Democratic voters in the wake of the Gaza war. Congressional candidates, including some Jewish Democrats, have promised not to take contributions from AIPAC.
Supporters of El-Sayed remained optimistic that the candidate’s upset victory would be proof positive that the future of the Democratic Party lies in candidates who support cutting off U.S. aid to Israel and characterize Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the progressive insurgent’s most prominent backer, said on CNN the race reflected a broader shift in Democratic politics. “What we are seeing, no matter what happens tonight in Michigan — and I hope very much that El-Sayed wins — is: you’re seeing the transformation of the Democratic Party, and what the debate within the Democratic Party is about,” he said. Sanders added that the campaign showed that progressive candidates are challenging the party establishment not only on ideology, but also on how campaigns are run.
Winning the primary may be the easier test. Michigan remains one of the nation’s top battleground states, and a close finish would suggest ongoing divisions within the Democratic coalition. El-Sayed will have to carry moderate Democrats who backed Stevens, while taking on former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in a race that could help determine control of the Senate. Recent polls found Rogers leading El-Sayed by single digits.
How we got here
The Michigan race became a culmination of several political currents that have been building for years.
It reflected lingering anger among Americans over the Gaza war, Democratic criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, frustration among progressives over AIPAC’s support for some Republicans who challenged the 2020 election results, and the growing influence of the Democratic Socialists of America, accelerated by the political rise of Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral race last year.
Michigan, home to one of the country’s largest Arab-American communities and the birthplace of the “uncommitted” movement to protest the Biden administration’s handling of the Gaza war in the 2024 presidential primary, made it a natural testing ground for progressive forces.
El-Sayed highlighted the Gaza war and AIPAC’s involvement in Democratic primaries when he launched his campaign in April 2025 — months before AIPAC spent a dollar. He advocated for ending unconditional military aid to Israel and framed his candidacy as a fight against outside influence. Notably, El-Sayed supported the “uncommitted” movement, though he later endorsed Kamala Harris after Biden dropped out.
According to data compiled by Milan Singh, a fellow at The Argument, a liberal opinion-focused media publication, insurgent progressive candidates for Congress mentioned Israel in 48% of their fundraising emails.
With most major primaries already decided, this race became the biggest Democratic showdown yet over Israel.
Jewish divide
Jewish voters make up just 1.4% of the electorate in Michigan. But the community had become deeply invested in the race — with Jews both in fierce opposition to El-Sayed and fiery support.
For many Jews, El-Sayed’s questioning of whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state and his decision to campaign alongside controversial Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, who has been accused of antisemitic rhetoric, were cause for alarm. El-Sayed also came under fire for calling the Israeli government “evil” like Hamas.
Rep. Hillary Scholten, a second-term Michigan Democrat, said on CNN Tuesday night that El-Sayed reinforced concerns some voters had about him by campaigning again with Piker in the final days before the primary. “Elections are about choices,” she said. “What is the message that you want to send to your voters?”
At the same time, El-Sayed courted Jewish voters. He attended a Passover seder at Congregation T’chiyah, a progressive Reconstructionist synagogue outside Detroit. Many of its congregants volunteered for El-Sayed’s campaign with a group dubbed “Jews for Abdul.”
Jewish former Michigan congressman Andy Levin — who lost his House election against Stevens in 2022 after AIPAC poured millions into defeating him — endorsed El-Sayed.
In the final days of the campaign, Stevens had sharpened her concerns about El-Sayed, accusing him of blaming “all of your problems on Jewish Americans.”
El-Sayed rejected accusations of antisemitism and argued that his critics conflate the Israeli government with the Jewish people.
“I love and revere Judaism and the Jewish people,” he said.
The post Michigan Democrats await Senate winner in party’s biggest test yet on Israel appeared first on The Forward.
