By Daniel Sokatch, NIF International CEO
With so much happening in the world—and with so much of it worrying—I want to use this week’s column to take us on a virtual tour of some of the biggest issues facing NIF and our community. These are some of the things I think it is important for us as an NIF community to be paying attention to amidst all of the noise out there during these challenging times.
This week, the furthest right coalition government in Israeli history faced a crisis, one that left it intact but politically weakened. The crisis didn’t result from the government’s failure to protect citizens on October 7, the ongoing war in Gaza, or the 58 hostages who remain there. Nor was it about the failures of the American based, Israeli supported “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” a shadowy effort to replace international humanitarian aid organizations providing food to hungry Gazans that has thus far resulted in chaotic scenes with scores of Palestinians and aid workers shot dead (the GHF puts “people directly in danger,” according to the Wall Street Journal). It wasn’t about the military’s obstruction of humanitarian aid or the government’s attacks on democratic institutions. None of these things led to a crisis that threatened the ruling coalition.
This crisis was the result of the most important political truth in Israel today: As so many Israeli leaders, including past prime ministers, have noted, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s top priority is not doing what’s best for Israel. It’s doing what’s best for Bibi. And what’s best for Bibi is keeping the ruling coalition together and avoiding new elections, no matter what.
The immediate issue: the “conscription law,” which would guarantee ongoing exemptions from military service for 80,000 Haredi men. The internal dynamics are instructive: the Haredi politicians would rather not dissolve the government, but the rabbis who stand behind them are the ones calling the shots. The chief rabbi of the Ger Hasidim told the Ashkenazi factions that they need to quit the government. Other top Ashkenazi rabbis and then the Sefardi Council of Torah Sages (which stands behind the Shas party) then echoed the call. The debate is still ongoing. But, for now, Bibi has once again managed to kick the can down the road, and the first law of political physics prevailed: when you have power, keep it. The Hareidim won’t dissolve the government just yet, but stay tuned…
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In the U.S., political violence against Jews is beginning to feel horribly commonplace. In Boulder last week, a man threw molotov cocktails into a crowd marching to support Israeli hostages, screaming “free Palestine.” And in D.C. only the week before, a man shot and killed a young couple who worked at the Israeli embassy—Sarah Lynn Milgrim, a Jewish woman from Kansas and a peace activist, and Yaron Lischinsky, German-Israeli—outside an event at a Jewish museum. The shooter said he “did it for Palestine.” Let’s be very clear: targeting Jews in America (or those assumed to be Jews)—or anywhere for that matter—with violence because of what Israel does or has been accused of doing is antisemitism, full stop. It’s wrong, it’s dangerous, and it must be condemned in the strongest terms.
But we must also condemn and reject attempts to use antisemitism as an excuse for authoritarianism. President Trump invoked the Boulder attack as a pretext to revive his xenophobic travel ban, blocking people from 12 countries from entering the United States. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs rightly condemned this move, calling it both discriminatory and counterproductive:
“Not only does this ban fail to make us safer, it actually increases risks for all communities by normalizing the xenophobia and prejudices informing our governmental policies.
President Trump has said that this ban was signed now in part as a response to the horrific and tragic attack on the Jewish community in Boulder, Colorado. This is wrong and a dangerous co-opting of our pain. As we have said repeatedly, the Jewish community’s legitimate fears and concerns should not be exploited to undermine core democratic norms, or otherwise advance discriminatory and unconstitutional policies. Doing so only makes Jews – and all communities – less safe.”
And now, here in California where I live, we see Trump weaponizing the issue of immigration and fear of civil unrest to justify deploying federal troops in the streets of Los Angeles–against the wishes of the governor and mayor. It was like Trump was reading from a Hollywood script of what an authoritarian would do: manufacturing a crisis where no real one existed, hoping to provoke further confrontation in order to justify his actions, all the while lying about the reality of the situation in an attempt to throw red meat to his base regardless of the incendiary danger of these actions. And even as this was happening in Southern California, up here in San Francisco the administration was busy deporting tourist visa holders arriving at San Francisco International Airport. Why? Because they were Palestinian.
Two men, Eid Suleiman Hadaleen and Awdeh Hathaleen from the village of Umm el Khair in the Masafar Yatta region of the West Bank travelled to the Bay Area to speak at progressive synagogues and organizations. These are longtime nonviolent activists, people members of NIF’s staff know personally. Their visas were cancelled and their phones taken. They were detained without access to a lawyer, and then put on a plane. Across the country, immigrant families are already feeling terrorized by the Trump administration, and today’s unceremonious expulsion of these two nonviolent Palestinian activists is a new and ugly development, another lurch down the path towards authoritarianism.
But what is also new is a burgeoning protest movement against deportations and the authoritarian overreach of the Trump administration. There were dozens of people at the airport protesting the expulsion of Eid and Awdeh. And in the wake of ICE raids in Los Angeles—targeting people at work—protesters, the vast majority of them peaceful, have taken to the streets. In fact, as I write this, I can hear loud and peaceful protesters marching in the streets of San Francisco. The effect of these protests is being felt around the country. Americans are heading out to the streets in a more serious way; they are starting to feel something of the desperation and fury, the spirit and the grit that hundreds of thousands of Israelis have felt since the beginning of Netanyahu’s judicial coup in 2022. That feeling can be magnetic. I hope it sticks.
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This week, five U.S. allies—Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway—imposed sanctions on Israel’s far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, accusing them of inciting extremist violence, encouraging forced displacement of Palestinians, and violating human rights. Their travel and financial assets are now restricted. And, as though in response, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on a Palestinian human rights NGO and five charity groups, accusing them of supporting Palestinian militants including Hamas.
All of this coincides with the release of two documentary films. First, Louis Theroux: The Settlers, a BBC documentary that quietly yet clearly reveals the supremacist ideology driving the settler movement—a vision of Israel “from the river to the sea,” free of Palestinians. If you watch it (and I recommend it), remember this: The New Israel Fund works every day for a future where everyone—Jews and Arabs—is equal. Unlike the settlers, we know that no one is going anywhere, that any peaceful and democratic future must be a shared one.
And second, Holding Liat, the award-winning story of Liat Atzili, a woman whose husband was murdered on October 7th. She was herself taken hostage to Gaza for more than fifty days. Her story does not fit the usual narrative: Liat and her family are not revenge-seeking. They are committed to pursuing peace and working for a truly shared future. They believe that more violence will not advance a future of safety, of prosperity, and so Liat, even as she grieves deeply for her husband, has chosen to speak with Israelis and Palestinians alike about the need for peace. It is her indelible spirit that we at NIF are inspired by in times like these. We are proud that our culture organization, Albi, is behind this film and our very own VP for Public Engagement, Albi’s founder, Libby Lenkinski, is a consulting “impact” producer and is leading its roll-out in the U.S. Our board member Janine Frier is also an executive producer on the film.
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Finally, something seems to be shifting in Israel. This week, 41 Israeli intelligence officers wrote a letter to Netanyahu and his defence Minister, Yisrael Katz, explaining that they refuse to take part in a “war designed to preserve the rule of Netanyahu” and appease “anti-democratic and messianic elements in [his] government”. Israel’s government, they say, has been issuing “clearly illegal” orders that must not be obeyed. They are refusing to serve in combat operations in Gaza.
This is not to be taken lightly. In April, Israeli Air Force reservists wrote a letter that stopped short of refusal, but stirred up a great deal of conversation. This letter, from one of Israel’s most elite units, goes farther and is likely to stir that pot even more. As Thomas Friedman has written, and as I have heard from our leadership team in Israel, there is a bubbling up of frustration, of exhaustion, of anti-war attitude. Thomas Friedman called this “flashing signals.” Every week there are not one, not two, but a series of protests spanning the issues facing Israel—protests pushing for more food aid every Friday at the Gaza border led by our grantee Standing Together; protests against the war featuring photos of Gazan children killed in the war and led by our coalition partner Looking the Occupation in the Eye; protests on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv for democracy; protests on the Begin Highway for the hostages to come home, led by our Truth to Power prize winner Einav Zangauker whose son, Matan, remains in Gaza. Protest by protest, activist by activist, something is moving. And we at NIF are there now, as we have always been, to support those protests, and those activists demanding a better future.
