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White House says it will not meet with Israel’s Bezalel Smotrich when he visits the US
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Biden administration officials will not meet with Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister who called for a Palestinian village to be “wiped out,” then backtracked, and who is visiting the U.S. next week to meet with leaders of Israel Bonds.
At least five liberal Jewish groups want the U.S. government to consider barring Smotrich from coming here. Ned Price, the department’s spokesman, said at Thursday’s daily briefing that questions on Israeli ministers’ travel should be referred to Israel, and that he does not comment on the eligibility of individuals to enter the United States.
The trip comes as Smotrich and his far-right allies in Israel’s governing coalition have upended traditions of comity between establishment U.S. Jewish groups and Israel. Those relationships have become even more strained in recent days, after Israeli West Bank settlers rioted in a Palestinian village. They also come amid raucous protests of the Israeli government’s plan to sap the power of the judiciary, which critics say endanger minority rights.
William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Smotrich’s remarks were “disgusting,” and a spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, said the group would not be meeting with him.
Asked by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency whether the minister will meet with the White House, a National Security Council spokeswoman said, “No U.S. government meetings are planned for this trip.” That includes officials in the U.S. Treasury, the counterpart to Smotrich’s ministry, she said.
Smotrich is also responsible for civilian affairs in much of the West Bank. His call to “wipe out” the West Bank village of Huwara came after a settler rampage through the village following a shooting there that killed two Israeli brothers. At least one Palestinian in another village died amid the riots.
“I think the village of Huwara should be wiped out, I think that the state of Israel should do it,” he said in an interview on Wednesday. A few hours later, he walked back his statement: “To remove any doubt, in my words I did not mean wiping out the village of Huwara, but rather acting in a targeted way against terrorists and supporters of terror, and exacting a heavy price from them in order to return security to local residents.”
This week, the State Department’s annual report on terrorism recorded a “substantial rise” in settler attacks on Palestinian in 2021, the first time it had made such an assessment. On Wednesday, Price called Smotrich’s remarks about wiping out the village “disgusting” and “incitement to violence.”
“Just as we condemn Palestinian incitement to violence, we condemn these provocative remarks that also amount to incitement to violence,” Price said in his briefing that day. “We call on Prime Minister Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials to publicly and clearly reject and disavow these comments.”
Netanyahu has yet to do so, and with Smotrich just days away from a visit stateside to give a speech to Israel Bonds in Washington D.C., five Jewish groups are saying the Biden administration should at least consider keeping him out and others will not sit down with him. AIPAC’s declining to meet with Smotrich is particularly noteworthy. It routinely meets with senior Israeli ministers.
“The administration should make clear that comments promoting grave violations of human rights, such as those made by Smotrich, are grounds for re-examination of a visa for entry to the United States,” J Street, the liberal Jewish Israel policy group, said in a statement.
Four other Jewish groups are saying outright that the Biden administration should keep Smotrich out, among them Americans for Peace Now, an affiliate off the Israeli left-wing group; the Israel Policy Forum, a group that advocates for an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel; T’ruah, a liberal rabbinic human rights group; and Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Zionist group.
The T’ruah statement referred to U.S. immigration law, which bans entry to those who have “incited terrorist activity with intent to cause serious bodily harm or death.” It said the threat Smotrich poses is especially acute since he assumed responsibility for administering civilian life in parts of the West Bank.
“Smotrich’s comments are even more dangerous now that Israel’s de jure annexation of the West Bank has made him effectively the governor of the territory, with broad oversight over most areas of civil administration,” the T’ruah statement said.
IPF, a group led by former lay leaders of mainstream pro-Israel organizations, also joined the calls. its policy director, Michael Koplow, told JTA, “We believe that there are sufficient grounds to deny Smotrich a visa.”
The Americans for Peace Now petition, addressed to Biden, garnered more than 1,100 signatures less than a day after it was posted.
“Smotrich wants to bring his hatred to US soil. He has plans to travel to the United States later this month. We’re here to say that he is not welcome,” the petition says. “We have seen how incitement in Israel-Palestine has led to devastating violence and we urge your administration to deny entry to Smotrich and his hateful rhetoric.”
A sixth U.S.-based liberal group, the New Israel Fund, which raises money for social justice organizations in Israel, said Jewish groups should make clear Smnotrich is unwanted here. “Our responsibility right now as American Jews is to say ‘take your hateful racism, your homophobia your plans for an apartheid Israel and get out. We do not want you here’,” it said in a statement. Smnotrich has called himself a “proud homophobe.”
Daroff, of the Conference of Presidents, declined to comment to JTA on whether he would meet with Smotrich.But he tweeted his agreement with Price. “I agree. His statement seeking to ‘wipe out’ Huwara was, as Ned Price said, ‘irresponsible, repugnant and disgusting’,” he wrote.
Israel Bonds, which promotes investment in Israeli government bonds, said in a statement that because it works closely with the Finance Ministry, welcoming the sitting finance minister to its events was a matter of routine. Smotrich will speak to the group’s Washington, D.C. leadership meeting.
“As part of their long-established responsibilities, Israel’s finance ministers from across the political spectrum have historically, over Israel Bonds’ 72-year history, attended our events,” a spokesman said, replying to a JTA query. “One of the organization’s most unique and paramount attributes is that it remains unbiased with regard to any political party or affiliation.”
Hundreds of rabbis have said they would not welcome Smotrich or his allies into their synagogues and would encourage their communities to boycott him. The Presidents’ Conference did not invite ministers from Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party to address its annual colloquy in Israel last month, although they were invited to a luncheon for all Knesset members.
One group that backs settlements, the Zionist Organization of America, said not meeting with Religious Zionism leaders was a mistake.
‘Nobody has to agree with them or disagree with them,” Klein said. “But they should speak and whoever wants to challenge them, challenge them, criticize them, disagree with them.”
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Greta Thunberg Released From Custody After Arrest at UK Anti-Israel Protest
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg speaks to a police officer during a pro-Palestinian protest as she holds a sign that says she supports prisoners linked to Palestine Action, an organization which the British government has proscribed as a terrorist group, in London, Britain, Dec. 23, 2025. Photo: Prisoners for Palestine/Handout via REUTERS
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was released from custody after being arrested on Tuesday in London at an anti-Israel protest, police said.
UK-based campaign group Prisoners for Palestine said Thunberg was earlier arrested under the Terrorism Act for holding a sign that said “I support the Palestine Action prisoners. I oppose genocide.” The British government has proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist group.
City of London Police said Thunberg had been bailed until March.
Police said earlier two other people had been arrested for throwing red paint at a building. A spokesperson said 22-year-old woman later attended the scene and was arrested for displaying a placard in support of a proscribed organization.
Prisoners for Palestine, which supports some detained activists who have gone on hunger strike, said the building had been targeted because it was used by an insurance firm which they said provided services to the British arm of Israeli defense firm Elbit Systems.
The insurance company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thunberg, 22, became prominent after staging weekly climate protests in front of the Swedish parliament in 2018.
Last year, she was cleared of a public order offense in Britain as a judge ruled police had no power to arrest her and others at a protest in London the year before.
She was detained along with 478 people and expelled by Israel in October after joining an activist convoy of vessels, the Global Sumud Flotilla, that attempted to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza. Israel has consistently denied genocide allegations, noting it has targeted Hamas terrorists with its military campaign and taken measures to try and avoid civilian casualties.
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When Famine Vanished: How the Media Repeated a Claim, and Never Reckoned With Its Collapse
Trucks carrying humanitarian aid and fuel line up at the crossing into the Gaza Strip at the Rafah border on the Egypt side, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, in Rafah, Egypt, October 17, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
CNN delivered the update quietly and inaccurately, with much less gravity than it once used to amplify the warning.
“Gaza no longer in famine,” read a CNN post, citing a UN-backed hunger monitor.
Reuters and the Associated Press followed with similar headlines.
What is striking is not that the unreliable IPC, which has been criticized in the past for faulty methodology, revised its assessment.
What’s really upsetting is that much of the press treated the reversal as a weather update, not as a reckoning.
Only months earlier, these same institutions helped cement a very different narrative.
In late July 2025, UN agencies issued a high-profile warning that key indicators in Gaza exceeded famine thresholds, citing IPC data and describing hundreds of thousands facing famine-like conditions. The IPC alert itself stated that famine thresholds had been reached for food consumption in most of Gaza and for acute malnutrition in Gaza City.
In August 2025, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) announced that famine was confirmed for the first time in Gaza, again anchored to IPC assessments.
Those claims ricocheted through global media coverage with little visible skepticism about methodology, access constraints, or incentives baked into a wartime information environment.
The result was a widely accepted narrative that Israel was causing famine, a narrative that shaped diplomatic pressure and public outrage long before the data could be stress tested.
Now the IPC’s latest assessment says no area has ever been in famine, attributing improvements to increased humanitarian and commercial food deliveries after the ceasefire, while warning that the situation remains fragile and could deteriorate again if access is disrupted or fighting resumes.
IPC’s latest fraudulent Gaza report implies 1,700+ starvation deaths this December 2025—even TODAY we should see 57 such deaths! But even Hamas reports only 475 total starvation deaths for the ENTIRE WAR. The math exposes how detached from reality all these models are. 1/ pic.twitter.com/wOvIohWTt2
— Aizenberg (@Aizenberg55) December 19, 2025
The AP at least gestured to the whiplash, noting that months earlier, the IPC said famine was occurring in Gaza City and was likely to spread without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions.
Reuters likewise framed the change as a shift from earlier IPC findings, while stressing continued emergency-level needs. But what was largely missing was the one ingredient journalism owes the public when an apocalyptic claim collapses or is materially revised: responsibility.
No media outlet interrogated the underlying assumptions when famine warnings were treated as settled fact. None explained what changed in the inputs and thresholds. None revisited the earlier certainty with the same prominence as the original alarm.
This matters because narratives do not stay on paper.
In the United States, the ADL has reported that anger at Israel during the war has been a driving force behind antisemitism, underscoring how the information ecosystem around Gaza can translate into real-world hostility toward Jews. When famine claims are amplified uncritically, they do not just inform. They inflame.
The new UN-backed update does not erase Gaza’s suffering, and it does not vindicate anyone’s politics. It does, however, expose a core media failure: outsourcing verification to a single authoritative label, and then moving on when the label changes.
If famine was once a front-page certainty, the correction cannot be a footnote.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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US Heritage Foundation Think Tank Staff Quit Amid Antisemitism Controversy
The Heritage Foundation’s logo is displayed during the 2025 Joseph Story Distinguished Lecture in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 22, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kylie Cooper
Over a dozen employees have left jobs at the Heritage Foundation or were fired in recent days, according to the influential right-wing US think tank, as it grapples with allegations from former supporters that it has aligned itself with those accused of antisemitism.
In a statement about the resignations and firings on Monday, Heritage Foundation chief advancement officer Andy Olivastro said a handful of staff had chosen “disruption” and “disloyalty.”
He said the think tank “has always welcomed debate, but alignment on mission and loyalty to the institution are non-negotiable.”
The foundation has been caught in a firestorm of accusations and counter-accusations that began when former Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Nick Fuentes, a self-described Christian nationalist, in October. The interview focused on their mutual opposition to US support of Israel, a view at odds with that of many conservatives.
Some supporters of the foundation have said it should distance itself from Carlson, characterizing the journalist’s views as antisemitic. But Kevin Roberts, the foundation president, has continued to personally back Carlson, who he says is a friend. Carlson strongly rejects accusations of antisemitism.
One of those who resigned this week was Josh Blackman, a law professor who contributed to Project 2025, a right-wing policy initiative overseen by the Heritage Foundation. In a letter posted online, he blamed Roberts for making Heritage‘s brand “toxic.”
“You aligned the Heritage Foundation with the rising tide of antisemitism on the right,” said Blackman, who edited the group’s Guide to the Constitution publication.
In an Oct. 30 video defending Carlson, Roberts said a “venomous coalition” was attacking the prominent podcaster over his interview with Fuentes. Roberts said conservatives should feel no obligation to support any foreign government no matter how great the pressure from “the globalist class.”
He later apologized for his use of the term “venomous coalition,” which he said Jewish colleagues understood to be an antisemitic trope.
Speaking at a November staff townhall meeting, Roberts said his intention was not to endorse Fuentes, who he called “an evil person,” but to “convert” some of his audience of several million people.
Advancing American Freedom said on Monday the three former leaders of Heritage‘s legal, economic, and data teams had joined the conservative advocacy group, along with 10 of their staff. The group led by former Vice President Mike Pence is critical of US President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.
Three Heritage Foundation board trustees have also resigned since November.
Chief US Circuit Judge William Pryor, a conservative jurist who contributed to Heritage‘s 800-page Guide to the Constitution, said in an interview he did not attend a promotional event for the book due to Roberts’ “totally inappropriate” language in the Oct. 30 video.
For some remaining Heritage employees, recent staff departures were driven by Republican Party jockeying rather than antisemitism or Israel.
“These resignations have a lot more to do with 2028 than it does with anything else,” Heritage fellow Robby Starbuck posted online. “One group wants a return to the Pence/Ryan GOP and the rest want to MAGA with @KevinRobertsTX.”