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Who’s who in Israel’s new far-right government, and why it matters
(JTA) – As the sun set on the fourth night of Hanukkah in Israel on Wednesday, incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to announce that he had successfully formed his new coalition government after more than five weeks of negotiations.
There are some asterisks: Netanyahu hasn’t officially signed any coalition deals yet with other parties (he has until 48 hours before the new government is seated Jan. 2 to do so), and some of his expected new partners are first demanding new legislation that has been delayed until after coalition talks.
But Netanyahu seems confident that he has formed a coalition that will grant him a comfortable majority in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. Assuming he pulls it off before the swearing-in date, Israel seems set to welcome a new set of ministers who have set off alarm bells around the globe for their extremist beliefs and records.
Among the most worried observers are the U.S. government and Diaspora Jewish groups, who warn that, should these ministers get their way, Israel would be placing its status as both a pluralistic Jewish and democratic state at serious risk.
So what has everyone so concerned? Before the new government looks to be formally seated in January, here’s what you need to know about who’s set to take power in Israel.
Who’s in the new government?
Netanyahu’s coalition is full of incendiary characters hailing from Israel’s far-right and haredi Orthodox wings — including multiple fringe figures who until recently had been shunned by the country’s political mainstream, but who the incoming prime minister needs on his team in order to hold a governing majority (and attempt to dodge his own corruption charges).
Chief among them is Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, who will likely hold a newly created ministry position that gives him power over the state’s police force. A onetime follower of Jewish extremist rabbi Meir Kahane, Ben-Gvir has been convicted of incitement over his past support of Israeli terrorist groups and inflammatory comments about Israel’s Arab population. He has also encouraged demonstrations on the Temple Mount by religious nationalists that often lead to sectarian violence, leaving analysts worried about what he would do once placed in control of the state’s police force.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of Israel’s Otzma Yehudit party, and Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist Party, attend a rally with supporters in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, Oct 26, 2022. (Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)
In addition, the new government will include Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the extremist-aligned Religious Zionist party, who has been accused by Israeli security forces in the past of plotting violent attacks against Palestinians. Like Ben-Gvir, Smotrich will also likely be given a newly created ministership role in Netanyahu’s government to oversee Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank — a move which liberal groups say would lead to “de facto annexation” given his desire to expand settlements and deny Palestinian claims to the area.
Smotrich, who will additionally hold the position of finance minister, is also fervently anti-LGBTQ in a country that prides itself on its treatment of LGBTQ citizens. He has organized opposition to pride parades and compared same-sex relationships to bestiality.
He’s not the only incoming anti-LGBTQ minister: Avi Maoz, head of the far-right Noam party, has described himself as a “proud homophobe” and has called all liberal forms of Judaism a “darkness” comparable to the Hellenistic Empire that controlled the Jews in the Hanukkah story. (A leading Israeli LGBTQ group has invited him to attend a pride parade.) Maoz would headline a new “National Jewish Identity” education position with the power to demand certain content be taught in schools. He has said he wants to fight liberal attempts to “brainwash the children of Israel” with progressive ideology, aligning him with many figures on the American right today.
Another controversial figure in Israel’s new government is Aryeh Deri, head of the haredi Orthodox Shas party, who is set to become interior and health minister pending new legislation. Deri has been convicted of tax fraud and served 22 months in prison in 2002 — which would bar him from holding a ministry position, unless Netanyahu can pass a law allowing him to serve. (There are reports that Netanyahu’s party, Likud, may offer Deri the position of alternate prime minister if the court rules he cannot serve in the Cabinet.) Netanyahu himself is embroiled in a years-long corruption trial, and may be relying on his allies to help shield him from the consequences of an eventual verdict.
Who’s not in?
Not all Israelis are excited to see Netanyahu return to power. Hundreds of protesters recently took to the streets of Tel Aviv to object to his pending far-right alliance.
Government officials have also lashed out against him in the press. Outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid, outgoing Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, outgoing Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai and a coalition of business executives are among the figures warning that the new laws, in the hands of the new government, would turn Israel into an illiberal state.
Benny Gantz — the outgoing defense minister and Netanyahu’s former rival-turned-unlikely-political-partner — had been floated as a wild card coalition contender in the wake of this fall’s election: A unity government involving his Blue and White party and Likud would reduce Netanyahu’s need to cater to far-right parties. But Gantz has not been mentioned in recent reporting on Netanyahu’s coalition negotiations.
How could the new government change Israel?
In some ways, it already has. As a precondition to some of his coalition deals, Netanyahu is pushing laws through the Knesset that grant new powers to his incoming ministers, allowing them expanded oversight of everything from law enforcement to Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The Shas party is also demanding an overhaul of the Israeli court system that would grant more authority over rabbinic judges and less oversight from secular ombudsmen, a move that legal observers in the country warn would cripple the judiciary and open the door to misconduct by rabbinic judges.
Netanyahu’s opposition bloc, which successfully ousted him in 2021 only to see its own coalition crumble a year later, is still in power through the end of the year and tried to delay Netanyahu’s moves with parliamentary gamesmanship this week. While they weakened some of the laws Netanyahu sought to pass, they seem to have failed to prevent the incoming PM’s ability to form a government.
Some figures in the new government also favor policies backed by the country’s Orthodox rabbinate that are hostile to much of Diasporic Jewry. Among the sweeping changes that could soon be on the table:
Removing the “grandchild clause,” a rule that allows anyone with at least one Jewish grandparent to apply for Israeli citizenship, from the country’s Law of Return (haredi parties have promised to back off trying to change the Law of Return in the short-term);
Passing a law to no longer recognize non-Orthodox converts to Judaism as Israeli citizens, reversing a recent high court decision;
And scuttling long-in-the-works plans to create a permanent egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall.
How will this affect the Israeli-Palestinian peace process?
The answer many experts would give: What peace process?
With Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and other new ministers presenting themselves as openly hostile to Palestinian statehood, the chances of restarting viable negotiations for a two-state solution in the near future are slim to nil. Netanyahu continues to insist that any formal peace process would require the Palestinians to allow Israel to maintain some manner of security presence in the occupied territories, terms which the Palestinian Authority has strongly refused.
People gather to protest against the far-right upcoming coalition government led by Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Dec. 17, 2022. (Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
With a recent rise in violent attacks on Israelis and Palestinians alike forefront in citizens’ minds, security concerns were a foremost reason why Israel’s recent elections played out so well for the right wing. There is little incentive for the new government to engage in peace talks.
In addition, one of the carrots Netanyahu offered to his incoming coalition members was that the Israeli government would formally recognize a greater number of Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which the international community consider to be part of an illegal occupation. Such a move would even further deteriorate relations with Palestinians and the international community.
Netanyahu’s discussions with other Arab nations, however, are continuing unabated. Seeking to build off of the success of the Abraham Accords, he recently hinted that Saudi Arabia may soon join the normalization agreements, urging the United States to formalize their own relationships with the Saudis.
What is the U.S. response?
The United States is certainly worried about the rightward direction Israel is headed in. President Joe Biden has often boasted of his decades-long “friendship” with Netanyahu, but that relationship is soon to be tested the further the Israeli leader embraces his coalition partners, some of whom the Biden administration has hinted it would refuse to work with directly.
Biden’s current strategy, insiders told Politico, is to work only through Netanyahu and to hold the prime minister responsible for any actions taken by his Cabinet. In interviews with American media, Netanyahu has insisted that he is still fully in control of his government.
Mainstream American Jewish groups including Jewish Federations of North America and the American Jewish Committee have stewed over Netanyahu and tried to reaffirm a commitment to “inclusive and pluralistic” policies in Israel, but they have publicly said they would wait until the new government was formed to make any judgments. Abe Foxman, former head of the Anti-Defamation League, has warned he “won’t be able to support” Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s vision for Israel.
Other groups, like B’nai Brith International and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, have characterized the new government as just the latest in a long line of Israeli governments they have successfully worked with.
Most American Jews are politically liberal, support a two-state solution, generally oppose Netanyahu and also highly prize the sense of egalitarianism that his new government has threatened to do away with. Any changes to the Law of Return, in particular, would be catastrophic for the relationship between Israel and American Jews, warns Union for Reform Judaism President Rabbi Rick Jacobs.
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The post Who’s who in Israel’s new far-right government, and why it matters appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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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.”
The post How a law used to protect synagogues is now being deployed against ICE protesters and journalists appeared first on The Forward.
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Nearly 90% of Turkish Opinion Columns Favor Hamas, Study Shows
Pro-Hamas demonstrators in Istanbul, Turkey, carry a banner calling for Israel’s elimination. Photo: Reuters/Dilara Senkaya
About 90 percent of opinion articles published in two of Turkey’s leading media outlets portray the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in a positive or neutral light, according to a new study, reflecting Ankara’s increasingly hostile stance toward Israel.
Earlier this week, the Israel-based Jewish People Policy Institute released a report examining roughly 15,000 opinion columns in the widely read Turkish newspapers Sabah and Hürriyet, revealing that Hamas is often depicted positively through a “resistance movement” narrative portraying its members as “martyrs.”
For example, Turkish journalist Abdulkadir Selvi, writing in Hürriyet, described the assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as “a holy martyr not only of Palestine but of Islam as a whole” who “fought for peace,” while portraying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “the new Hitler.”
JPPI also found that most articles in these two newspapers took a neutral stance on the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, offering almost no clear condemnation of the attacks and failing to acknowledge the group’s targeting of civilians.
Some journalists even went so far as to praise the violence as serving the Palestinian cause, the study noted.
In one striking example, Hürriyet published an article just one day after the attack, lauding the “resistance fighters” who carried out a “mythic” assault on the “Zionist occupying regime” and celebrating the killings.
In other cases, some journalists went as far as to portray Hamas as treating the Israeli hostages it kidnapped “kindly,” denying that the terrorist group had tortured and sexually abused former captives despite clear evidence.
“There was not the slightest indication that the Israelis released by the Palestinian resistance had been tortured,” Turkish journalist Hilal Kaplan wrote in Sabah, denying claims that the hostages had suffered brutal abuse.
“They all looked exactly the same physically as they did on Oct. 6, 2023, more than a year later,” he continued.
Prof. Yedidia Stern, president of JPPI, described the study’s findings as “deeply troubling,” urging Israeli officials not to overlook the Turkish media’s positive portrayal of Hamas and denial of its abuses.
“We must not normalize incitement and antisemitism anywhere in the world – certainly not when it comes from countries with which Israel maintains diplomatic relations,” Stern said in a statement.
According to the study, nearly half of the columns expressed a positive view of Hamas, while approximately 40 percent took a neutral position.
The analysis also found that around 40 percent of opinion columns mentioning Jews or Judaism contained antisemitic elements, with some invoking “Jewish capital” to suggest global power, while others compared Zionism to Nazism or depicted Jews as immune from international criticism.
For instance, two weeks after the Oct. 7 atrocities, Turkish journalist Nedim Şener wrote in Hürriyet that global Jewish capital and control over media and international institutions had brought the United States and Europe “to their knees,” allowing Israel to carry out a “genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
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ADL appoints former head of embattled Gaza aid foundation to its board
The Anti-Defamation League named Rev. Johnnie Moore, who led the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, to its board of directors last week.
Moore became the public face of the foundation over the summer as it faced blame for hundreds of Palestinian civilians being killed while attempting to access aid at distribution centers that critics said were risky and inefficient.
But the ADL described the foundation, which was created with support from the U.S. and Israeli governments, as a “historic effort to provide nearly 200 million meals for free to the people of Gaza,” in a press release.
The ADL’s leadership has become more protective of Israel in recent years as it has shifted away from its historic work on civil rights issues unrelated to antisemitism. That change included a 2017 reworking of its governance structure, which had been run by a committee of several hundred lay leaders, to a more traditional nonprofit board.
The United Nations reported in August that 859 Palestinians had been killed near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation sites, mostly by the Israeli military. Doctors Without Borders said that the centers had “morphed into a laboratory of cruelty” with children being shot and civilians crushed in stampedes.
Moore’s role involved defending the organization. He blamed Hamas and the United Nations for causing mass starvation in Gaza and presented the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as the best means of distributing food to civilians without allowing it to be diverted to militants.
“Hamas has been trying to use the aid situation to advance their ceasefire position,” Moore said during a July presentation to the American Jewish Congress.
The foundation shut down in December.
An evangelical leader and former campaign adviser to President Donald Trump’s with no background in international aid prior to his work with the foundation in Gaza, Moore brings a Christian perspective to the ADL’s board at a time when evangelicals are increasingly divided over Israel and antisemitism. “As a Christian, I consider it a responsibility to stand alongside ADL in this critical moment for the Jewish community and for our nation,” he said in the statement announcing his appointment.
He was appointed alongside Stacie Hartman, an attorney and lay leader based in Chicago, and Matthew Segal, a media entrepreneur who former President Joe Biden named to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. They join a mix of philanthropists and business leaders, including Jonathan Neman, the CEO of salad chain Sweetgreen, and Max Neuberger, the publisher of Jewish Insider.
The post ADL appoints former head of embattled Gaza aid foundation to its board appeared first on The Forward.