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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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Israel becomes first country to recognize Somaliland, drawing condemnation from Egypt, Turkey and Somalia
Israel became the first country to formally recognize Somaliland, a self-declared sovereign state in the Horn of Africa, in a decision that was immediately condemned by Somalia and other nations.
“The Prime Minister announced today the official recognition of the Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state,” wrote Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in a post on X. “The State of Israel plans to immediately expand its relations with the Republic of Somaliland through extensive cooperation in the fields of agriculture, health, technology, and economy.”
Somaliland’s president welcomed the announcement from Netanyahu in a post on X, adding that he affirmed the region’s “readiness to join the Abraham Accords,” the normalization agreements between Israel and a handful of Arab states that was brokered during President Donald Trump’s first term.
Somaliland proclaimed independence from Somalia in 1991 during the country’s civil war, but has failed to receive recognition from the international community in part due to Somalia’s opposition to its secession. Somalia officially rejects ties with Israel, and has consistently refused to recognize the state of Israel since 1960. Somalia and Somaliland are overwhelmingly Muslim.
“The ministers affirmed their total rejection and condemnation of Israel’s recognition of the Somaliland region, stressing their full support for the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia,” Egypt’s foreign ministry said in a statement following a phone call between Egypt’s foreign minister and his Somali, Turkish and Djiboutian counterparts, according to Reuters.
In November, the Israeli think tank Institute for National Security Studies argued in a report that recognizing Somaliland could be in Israel’s strategic interest.
“Somaliland’s territory could serve as a forward base for multiple missions: intelligence monitoring of the Houthis and their armament efforts; logistical support for Yemen’s legitimate government in its war against them; and a platform for direct operations against the Houthis,” the report read.
It is unclear if the United States will follow suit. In August, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz wrote to Trump urging him to recognize Somaliland.
“Somaliland has emerged as a critical security and diplomatic partner for the United States, helping America advance our national security interests in the Horn of Africa and beyond,” wrote Cruz.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Israel becomes first country to recognize Somaliland, drawing condemnation from Egypt, Turkey and Somalia appeared first on The Forward.
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‘Jesus is a Palestinian,’ claims a Times Square billboard. Um, not quite
“Merry Christmas,” proclaims a billboard in Times Square: “Jesus is Palestinian.”
Countless people will walk by the display or see it on social media, and many will believe it.
So, let’s go through why that statement is such a mistake, once again.
Jesus was a Jew. He was born to Jewish parents, was circumcised under Jewish law — traditionally, on Jan. 1, which is how that day became known as the Feast of the Circumcision — and lived as a Jew. He taught from the Hebrew Scriptures. He worshiped in the Jerusalem Temple. He observed Jewish festivals. He debated Jewish law with other Jews using Jewish modes of argument.
Go back to the Gospels in the New Testament — specifically Luke 4:16: “He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom.” Or, John 4:9, in which a Samaritan woman asks Jesus: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?”
Cross-reference other ancient sources. Josephus, a first-century Jewish historian, refers to Jesus as a Jewish figure executed in Judea. No serious historical study of Jesus elides this basic truth: Jesus was a Jew.
Yet many efforts through history have sought to sever Jesus from his Judaism — often, if not always, in an attempt to denigrate Jews.
In the second century, the theologian Marcion sought to completely sever Christianity from Judaism. For him, the God of Israel was inferior and the God of the Christians was morally superior. Jesus, therefore, belonged to a different moral universe. The early Church condemned Marcionism precisely because it erased Jesus’s Jewish roots, and ultimately dismissed the idea as a heresy that needed to be rejected.
In the twentieth century, Nazi theologians attempted to portray Jesus as Aryan and anti-Jewish, which Susannah Heschel documents in her book The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany.
But it’s not just because of his religion that Jesus shouldn’t be considered Palestinian.
“Why not?” you might ask. “Didn’t he live in Palestine?”
The short answer is: Not yet.
When Jesus lived, the land of Israel was called Judea. It was under Roman rule, and it fell under several administrative districts: Judea, Galilee, and Samaria.
So, what is the source of the name “Palestine” for that area? It comes from the ancient people known as the Philistines, a perennial enemy of the Israelites. After the Romans crushed Jewish independence, they deliberately renamed the province in an effort to sever Jewish historical ties to the land, as well as to humiliate them by naming the land after their ancient foes.
To call Jesus “Palestinian” is therefore anachronistic.
Yet even so, the idea of Jesus as Palestinian appears in some strands of Palestinian liberation theology. Those strands tend to envision the Palestinian people as Jesus on the cross — crucified by Israel and the Jews, in an image that recalls the longstanding and deeply misguided allegation that “the Jews killed Jesus.”
This language appears repeatedly in the writings and sermons of Naim Ateek, the influential founder of the Jerusalem-based Christian organization Sabeel. In his 2001 Easter message, he wrote “as we approach Holy Week and Easter, the suffering of Jesus Christ at the hands of evil political and religious powers two thousand years ago is lived out again in Palestine,” adding that “Jesus is the powerless Palestinian humiliated at a checkpoint, the woman trying to get through to the hospital for treatment, the young man whose dignity is trampled, the young student who cannot get to the university to study, the unemployed father who needs to find bread to feed his family; the list is tragically getting longer, and Jesus is there in their midst suffering with them.”
Yes, of course, Palestinians have suffered and continue to suffer. But illustrations of that suffering should not include the pretense that Jesus was Palestinian. It suggests that Palestinians need to be seen as akin to Jesus to deserve safety and dignity, when in fact they deserve safety and dignity simply because they are human. And casting Israel and the Jews as crucifiers only resurrects medieval theology and hatreds; it adds nothing to the hopes for justice for Palestinians.
Mainstream Christianity has rejected this foul mythology. We have recently celebrated the sixtieth anniversary of the Christian world’s most vociferous denial of that ancient hatred. In 1965, Vatican II’s Nostra Aetate explicitly rejected the charge that Jews are responsible for Jesus’s death. The World Council of Churches issued similar warnings about reviving Passion-based antisemitism — the revival of the ancient accusation that Jewish leaders were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, and that Jews bear that guilt eternally.
History matters. Theology matters. And words matter — especially when they carry two thousand years of blood-soaked memory.
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82 years after his plane was shot down in China, Jewish WWII pilot Morton Sher is laid to rest at home
An American Jewish fighter pilot whose plane was shot down in the Chinese theater during World War II was given a proper burial 82 years after his plane went down, according to the United States Department of Defense.
The remains of Lt. Morton Sher, identified earlier this year, were buried in Greenville, South Carolina on Dec. 14 — what would have been his 105th birthday.
Sher was a member of the pilot group known as the “Flying Tigers” — formed to protect China from Japanese invasion following the assault on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He was piloting a P-40 Warhawk when he was shot down by Japanese bombers on Aug. 9, 1943. His mother Celia received Sher’s Purple Heart that same year.
Sher’s squadron put up a memorial stone at the crash site in Xin Bai Village, and a postwar army review in 1947 concluded that his remains had been destroyed and were assumed to be unrecoverable.
The remains of Morton Sher were returned to Greenville, North Carolina and buried on Dec. 14, 2025. (Courtesy Department of Defense)
Two attempts were made to locate his remains in 2012 and 2019, but neither was successful. A breakthrough came in 2024 when a Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency excavated a crash site in the province where Sher’s plane fell, and then in April 2025, when DNA analysis was conducted. The match was confirmed in June.
Sher was born in Baltimore, Maryland on Dec. 14, 1920, and his family later moved to Greenville where they became members of the Conservative synagogue Congregation Beth Israel. In high school, he was a member of the aviation club and enrolled in ROTC. Sher was a founding member of B’nai B’rith Youth Organization’s Aleph Zadik Aleph chapter in Greenville, according to the funeral home that organized his burial.
“He dreamed of being a pilot,” Sher’s nephew, Steve “Morton” Traub told Greenville’s local NBC station. “This guy did a lot for his country. He was my hero.”
Traub, who never met his uncle, but heard stories and read his letters, was raised by Sher’s father, David.
“I wish I had known him, but if he had, I wouldn’t have been named after him. I feel like I knew Mason because I knew Papa,” Traub said.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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