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    ‘The war needs to end’: is the US right turning on Israel?

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    As the Israel-Gaza war nears its two-year mark, and as images of starving people and utter devastation flood social media, cracks seem to be emerging in the American right’s typically iron-clad support for Israel.The US continues to support Israel diplomatically and militarily, and last Thursday pulled out of peace negotiations that it accused Hamas of sabotaging. And in the US Congress, only two Republicans voted for a recent amendment that would have pulled funding for missile defense systems for Israel. One of them, Marjorie Taylor Greene, on Monday became the first Republican to call Israel’s war a “genocide”.Yet the war’s duration and human cost, as well as recent Israeli strikes on Christian targets, have spurred modest signs of discontent on the US right. Some conservative commentators have walked back their support for Israel’s war; the US’s famously Zionist ambassador to Israel rebuked the actions of Jewish settlers in the West Bank; and an unresolved rift over foreign intervention continues to plague the Maga world.To some extent this mirrors trends in US sentiment overall. A recent CNN poll found a steep decline in US support for Israel since the war started. That drop was most dramatic among respondents who identified as Democrats or independents, but the poll also found that since 2023 the percentage of surveyed Republicans who believe that Israel’s actions are justified fell from 68% to 52%.It’s highly likely that depictions of starvation in the territory – where 147 people have reportedly starved to death, including 88 children, and nearly one in three people are going multiple days without eating, according to the United Nations – have played a role. On Monday, Donald Trump partly contradicted the claim of the Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, that there is no starvation in Gaza, telling reporters: “That’s real starvation … I see it, and you can’t fake that. So, we’re going to be even more involved.” Trump made the statement while visiting Britain, where the Daily Express, considered the country’s most rightwing mainstream tabloid, recently ran a headline decrying hunger in Gaza: “FOR PITY’S SAKE STOP THIS NOW.”A recent spate of Israeli attacks on Christian targets in Gaza and the West Bank have also angered some American conservatives. Last Thursday, after an Israeli tank fired on the sole Catholic church in Gaza – killing three people and wounding nine, including a priest – a reportedly upset Trump called Netanyahu to complain.A few days after the church shelling, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, visited Taybeh, a Palestinian Christian town in the West Bank that has been repeatedly attacked by Israeli settlers, who earlier this month set a fire near a fifth-century church. In a statement, Huckabee described the attack as “an absolute travesty” and “an act of terror” and called for the perpetrators to be prosecuted. (He did not directly implicate the Israeli government or settlers.)View image in fullscreenAlthough there have long been isolationist and populist elements on the right skeptical of the close US alliance with Israel, their point of view has been eclipsed in recent history by the pro-Israel camp, which enjoys strong support among American evangelical Christians.Huckabee is an evangelical Christian who has described himself as an “unapologetic, unreformed Zionist”. Like many evangelicals, he believes that Israel has a divine claim to the West Bank, and has memorably declared that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian”.That Huckabee issued such a strong statement on Taybeh “was surprising”, Todd Deatherage said. Deatherage is the co-founder of Telos, a non-profit that works to give US policymakers and religious groups a more nuanced understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Huckabee’s gesture, he said, seems to indicate “some complexity in a movement that didn’t have complexity around this before”.Sohrab Ahmari, a conservative journalist and commentator, described Huckabee’s statement as remarkable, “given how much of a kind of boomer evangelical Huckabee is”.Huckabee also recently called for Israel to “aggressively investigate” the murder of Sayfollah “Saif” Musallet, a Palestinian American man who was recently beaten to death by settlers in the West Bank, according to his family.The events abroad also seem to have made ripples in the US conservative media sphere.The Israeli government said the church strike was a battlefield mistake, but in a recent episode of his talkshow, Michael Knowles, a rightwing American pundit, expressed skepticism. “I’ve been broadly supportive of the state of Israel,” Knowles, who is Catholic, said in the segment. “And you’re losing me.” The Israeli government “is really screwing up, is really not playing its cards right”, he argued. “The war needs to come to an end. How long is the war gonna go on?”He added: “America is the only friend that Israel has on planet Earth. I do not get what the Israeli government is doing here, but I suspect there will be political consequences – as there should be.” Some critics in the comments section of Knowles’s video accused him of only noticing deaths in Gaza once the victims were conspicuously Christian.The Free Press, the online publication founded by Bari Weiss to challenge what she describes as an establishment liberal media, recently published an article arguing that although past claims about hunger in Gaza were “lies”, the territory was now rapidly entering a “real hunger crisis”. The Free Press has generally taken a fervently pro-Israel stance.Similarly, Joe Rogan, the everyman podcaster who threw his support to Trump in the last election, has refused to host Netanyahu on his podcast, the premier’s son, Yair Netanyahu, claimed on Friday. And Ross Douthat, the conservative New York Times columnist, published an op-ed on Saturday arguing that Israel’s military operation has crossed into being “unjust”.Although the US right is perceived today as staunchly pro-Israel, recent history is more complicated, Deatherage noted; George HW Bush’s Republican administration undertook a political fight with Israel about Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The right’s pro-Israel stance really hardened after 9/11, he said, when Christian conservatives and defense hawks embraced the view that the US and Israel were allies against Islamic terror.View image in fullscreenThe modern iteration of Christians United for Israel (CUFI) was founded in 2006 to facilitate US evangelical support for Israel. The organization’s membership is significantly larger than Aipac, the pro-Israel organization founded by Jewish Americans. Trump’s alliance with the religious right during his first term intensified the political power of Christian Zionism.“That part of the evangelical movement really gained unprecedented access to being heard,” Deatherage said.Some Christian Zionists, particularly evangelicals, believe there are biblical justifications for the US supporting Israel. A small subset believe that a showdown between Israel and enemy states could presage the End of Days, Daniel Hummel, a historian of Christian Zionism, said. The recent strike on Iran sparked apocalyptic speculation in some Christian circles, he noted.Yet polling data suggests a generational divide. Younger evangelicals, like younger Americans broadly, are more skeptical of Zionism, and the gap seems to be growing.A 2021 survey by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke found that only 33.6% of American evangelicals between the ages of 18 and 29 supported Israel, down from 69% surveyed in a similar poll in 2018. Research by the University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll has found similar shifts among younger evangelicals.“Younger evangelicals in particular are kind of renegotiating what it means to be a Christian in the public square,” Deatherage said. “And they’re not thrilled by the bargain that the older generation maybe made with politics.”The topic of Christian Zionism came up during a heated episode of Tucker Carlson’s talkshow, this June, featuring Senator Ted Cruz. Carlson is one of the major faces of an America First camp in the Maga movement that views the American alliance with Israel with increasing suspicion. During the conversation, Cruz cited a Bible verse as one of the reasons that he supports Israel. Carlson responded by testily mocking the notion that foreign policy objectives should be determined by biblical exegesis.On the fringes, criticisms of Israel have sometimes been intertwined with outright antisemitism. The far-right pundit Candace Owens, for example, has often disparaged Israel in conspiratorial terms.Yet skepticism of Israel has also gained some credible intellectual traction on the more mainstream Maga right, particularly among a group of mostly younger conservative activists, political staffers and policy wonks sometimes known in Washington DC as the “restrainers”. These are generally pro-Trump conservatives who, while not necessarily outright isolationists, believe that the US should protect its own national interests even if this means scaling back – or “restraining” – allies such as Israel.The term is subjective and contentious, but the Pentagon’s policy chief, Elbridge Colby; the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, Mike DiMino; and JD Vance himself are sometimes considered examples.Pro-Israel Republicans and hawks still mostly hold the whip hand, but Deatherage believes a political window for rethinking the US’s relationship for Israel may be opening on the right. “There’s a lot of pressure on [Trump] to support whatever the Israeli government is doing. But there’s now some really dissenting voices on the other side of that.” More

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      Democrats demand Trump cut funding for controversial Gaza aid organization

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      Twenty-one Senate Democrats are demanding Donald Trump immediately cut funding to a controversial Gaza aid organization they say has resulted in the killings of more than 700 civilians seeking food and violated decades of humanitarian law.The letter, led by senators Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Peter Welch of Vermont, comes as international criticism mounts over the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s operations, arguing that its model “shatters well-established norms that have governed distribution of humanitarian aid since the ratification of the Geneva conventions in 1949” by blurring the lines between aid delivery and military security operations.“According to reports and eyewitness accounts, civilians have been fired at by tanks, drones, and helicopters, as well as soldiers on the ground, as they attempt to get food and humanitarian supplies,” the senators wrote.The Trump administration authorized a $30m grant to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in late June, with $7m already disbursed according to documents seen by the Guardian. The organization, which is backed by both Israeli and US interests, has been given preferential access to operate in Gaza through coordination with the Israeli military and private US security contractors.However, the rollout of the new scheme has been marked by death and destruction from the outset. Jake Wood, the founding executive director and former US marine, resigned on 25 May, saying: “It is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”Boston Consulting Group, the US firm handling some of the foundation’s logistics, also withdrew shortly after.Since launching in May, the foundation’s four distribution sites have become killing fields. UN human rights officials report 766 people were killed trying to reach GHF sites specifically, with nearly 5,000 more injured in the chaos. More than 1,000 have been killed trying to go to food aid sites in general, according to UN figures, and 100 are believed to have died of starvation.The senators also highlighted concerns about the US security contractors involved in the operation. Safe Reach Solutions and UG Solutions have reportedly been contracted to provide security at distribution sites, with Associated Press reporting: “American contractors guarding aid distribution sites in Gaza are using live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scramble for food.”According to the AP report they cite, “bullets, stun grenades and pepper spray were used at nearly every distribution, even if there was no threat,” despite many contractors lacking combat experience or proper weapons training.UG Solutions, one of the North Carolina-based contractors, is reported to have recently hired the crisis communications firm Seven Letter, whose leadership includes former Biden and Obama administration spokespersons, bringing in former Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh in June, according to a press release on a now taken-down website.Anthony Aguilar, a US Army veteran and former contractor for the foundation, told BBC News over the weekend that he witnessed Israeli forces “shooting at the crowds of Palestinians” and firing “a main gun tank round from the Merkava tank into a crowd of people”. He described the operation as “amateur” and said he had “never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population”.The senators criticized the Trump administration for exempting the foundation from standard oversight procedures, including comprehensive audits usually required for first-time USAID grant recipients. They noted that USAID officials had raised “critical concerns” about the proposal, citing “operational and reputational risks and lack of oversight”.The foundation has maintained that it has distributed more than 95m meals to civilians across Gaza and denies that violence has occurred at its sites, attributing reports to Hamas misinformation.While on a presidential visit to Scotland, Trump on Sunday claimed that Hamas was stealing food aid sent to Gaza, parroting a similar allegation by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu which is being used to justify restrictions on humanitarian deliveries, despite Israel’s own military officials admitted to not having any evidence to substantiate it..In recent weeks, the organization has become increasingly aggressive in its social media responses, with posts claiming the UN “can’t successfully move their aid to Palestinians” and that “they’ve simply stopped trying.” The foundation’s executive chairperson, the Rev Johnnie Moore, also dug in, publishing an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal proposing to take over delivery of all UN aid sitting idle in Gaza. Moore wrote that there were hundreds of UN trucks loaded with food in Gaza, and offered to “deliver all of this aid, for free, on behalf of the U.N”.However, the senators argue that the foundation’s model, with only four militarized distribution sites, cannot replace the UN-led network that previously operated more than 400 aid distribution points during temporary ceasefires.The letter also lands as two prominent Israeli human rights groups, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights – Israel, declared on Monday that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, Their assessment, citing “coordinated action to intentionally destroy Palestinian society”, marks the first time major Israeli rights organizations have publicly reached this conclusion.The senators gave Secretary Rubio two weeks to respond to a series of detailed questions about civilian casualties, funding mechanisms, contractor operations, and compliance with humanitarian principles.“There should be no American taxpayer dollars contributing to this scheme,” the senators wrote.Also on Monday, independent senator Angus King from Maine said he would oppose providing additional US support to Israel until the country addresses the humanitarian crisis, saying Israel’s conduct has been “an affront to human decency”.King, who caucuses with Democrats, said in a statement: “I am through supporting the actions of the current Israeli government and will advocate – and vote – for an end to any United States support whatsoever until there is a demonstrable change in the direction of Israeli policy.“My litmus test will be simple: no aid of any kind as long as there are starving children in Gaza due to the action or inaction of the Israeli government.” More

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      Columbia adopts controversial definition of antisemitism amid federal grants freeze

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      Columbia University has agreed to adopt a controversial definition of antisemitism as it pursues an agreement with the Trump aimed at restoring $400m in federal government grants frozen over its alleged failure to protect Jewish students.In a letter to students and staff, the university’s acting president, Claire Shipman, said it would incorporate the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism into its anti-discrimination policies as part of a broad overhaul.It is the latest in a string of concessions Columbia has made following criticisms – mainly from pro-Israel groups and Republican members of Congress – that university authorities had tolerated the expression of antisemitic attitudes in pro-Palestinian campus protests following the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in 2023.“Columbia is committed to taking all possible steps to combat antisemitism and the University remains dedicated to ensuring that complaints of discrimination and harassment of all types, including complaints based on Jewish and Israeli identity, are treated in the same manner,” wrote Shipman.“Formally adding the consideration of the IHRA definition into our existing anti-discrimination policies strengthens our approach to combating antisemitism.”The definition, which describes antisemitism as “a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews”, has been adopted by the US state department and several European government and EU groups.However, critics have say it is designed to shield Israel by punishing legitimate criticism of the country. They also complain that it conflates antisemitism with anti-Zionism.Among the examples of criticisms accompanying the definition are “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”, “applying double standards by requiring of [Israel] a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nations” and “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel … than to the interests of their own nations”.Donald Trump gave the IHRA definition a significant boost during his presidency by issuing an executive order in 2018 requiring all federal government agencies to take account of it when handling civil rights complaints.In adopting it now, Columbia is following Harvard, which agreed to embrace the definition last January as part of a court settlement reached with Jewish students, who had accused the university of failing to protect them under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The act prohibits discrimination on the grounds of race, religion or ethnic origin in programs or institutions receiving federal funding.While Harvard remains in dispute with the White House after refusing to bow to its demands in return for the unfreezing of federal funding, Columbia has been accused of surrendering vital academic freedoms in an initial agreement with the administration reached last March that will see it reform its protest and security policies, while restricting the autonomy of its Middle Eastern studies department.Shipman has insisted that the university is “following the law” and denied that it is guilty of “capitulation”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionColumbia’s previous president, Minouche Shafik, resigned last August following sustained criticism, including in Congress, over her failure to end months of campus protests, despite calling in New York police to dismantle an encampment.In her letter, Shipman said last March’s agreement was “only a starting point for change”.“The fact that we’ve faced pressure from the government does not make the problems on our campuses any less real; a significant part of our community has been deeply affected in negative ways,” she wrote. “Committing to reform on our own is a more powerful path. It will better enable us to recognize our shortcomings and create lasting change.”However, the New York Times recently reported that the university was nearing an agreement to pay Jewish complainants more than $200m in compensation for civil rights violations that would be part of the deal to have its funding restored.The deal is likely to require further reforms in return for restored funding but stops short of requiring a judge-approved consent decree, which had been in an initial draft and would have given the Trump administration significant control over the university. More

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      ‘Political theatre’: key takeaways from US universities’ House antisemitism hearing

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      Lawmakers questioned the leaders of the University of California at Berkeley, Georgetown University and the City University of New York in the final antisemitism hearing the House of Representatives has held since the 7 October attacks and ensuing war in Gaza broke out in 2023.Georgetown University’s interim president Robert Groves, Cuny’s chancellor Félix V Matos Rodríguez and UC Berkeley’s chancellor Rich Lyons faced scrutiny from Republican representatives – who questioned the universities’ hiring practices, faculty unions, Middle East study centers, foreign funding and DEI initiatives.Congress’s preceding antisemitism hearings featured tense exchanges between Republican lawmakers such as representative Elise Stefanik, and precipitated the resignations of the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard and Columbia.While denouncing antisemitism, Democratic lawmakers spoke out against the focus of the hearing, calling it “political theatre” and criticizing the Trump administration’s gutting of the government agencies that enforce civil rights protections.“I’d be remiss if I did not point out that this is our ninth hearing on antisemitism in 18 months,” said ranking member Bobby Scott, a Democrat from Virginia. “I’ll also note that since this committee’s first antisemitism hearing in December 2023 we have not held a single hearing addressing racism, xenophobia, sexism, Islamophobia or other challenges affecting other student groups on American college campuses.”1. Campus leaders denounced antisemitismIn their opening statements, each of the university leaders present at Tuesday’s hearings began their remarks by condemning antisemitism, and in many cases listing actions their campuses had undertaken to prevent future antisemitism.Georgetown was one of the first campuses to condemn the 7 October attacks, Groves said, adding: that “Antisemitism is incompatible with living our mission; the same applies to Islamophobia and racism.”“Berkeley unequivocally condemns antisemitism,” Lyons echoed. He added: “I am the first to say we have more work to do. Berkeley, like our nation, has not been immune to the disturbing rise in antisemitism.”Matos Rodríguez shared a similar remark: “Our university has not been immune, but let me be clear: antisemitism has no place at Cuny.” He added that the university now has a zero-tolerance policy toward encampments, like those students established at City College and Brooklyn College in 2024.2. Democrats criticized the Trump administration’s approachDemocratic lawmakers and witnesses noted that the Trump administration’s decision to shutter federal agencies tasked with enforcing civil rights protections will not protect Jewish students on college campuses.“Antisemitism in America and on campuses is real” but “this administration’s approach is contradictory and counterproductive,” said Matt Nosanchuck, a former deputy assistant secretary for the education department’s office for civil rights under the Obama administration. He urged that “Congress must fulfill its core responsibilites” to give agencies appropriate resources, not conduct political theatre.In his opening remarks, Scott criticized his fellow committee members for saying “nothing about the firings attacking the office of civil rights” or the supreme court decision allowing the Trump administration to dismantle the Department of Education. The Trump administration closed seven of the office of civil rights’ 12 regional offices in March.“If the majority wanted to fight antisemitism and protect Jewish students, they should condemn antisemitism in their own party and at the highest level of government,” said Democratic representative Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon. “They have failed to do so. Multiple White House officials have ties to antisemitic extremists.”3. Republicans questioned faculty hiring and union practicesTo begin the hearing, Walberg said that the committee would “be examining several factors that incite antisemitism on college campuses” including faculty unions and faculty membership in the group Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine.He later questioned Matos-Rodríguez about a Hunter College faculty job posting looking for candidates who could “take a critical lense” to issues such as “settler colonialsm, genocide, human rights, apartheid” and others. Matos-Rodríguez called the listing “entirely inappropriate” and said he ordered it revised immediately upon learning about it.Representative Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, focused her questioning on questions around faculty hiring and union practices. She questioned Matos-Rodríguez on the fact that the president of Cuny’s faculty union supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. She also questioned Lyons on Columbia’s hiring practices, which she said had allowed antisemitic faculty to join the staff.“We use academic standards to hire faculty. We don’t use ideological conditions to hire faculty,” Lyons said.4. Democrats called the hearings part of a greater move to defund higher education“I’m concerned by what I see happening here. Because instead of solving a problem, we’re watching some try to use antisemitism as a reason to go after higher education,” said representative Alma Adams, a Democrat from North Carolina.“Let’s not forget as we sit here today, the Department of Education is withholding more than $6bn in congressionally mandated funding from our K-12 schools,” she added.During her questioning Bonamici also questioned whether the antisemitism hearings were motivated by “plans to defund colleges and universities”.5. Tensions ran high between Republican and Democratic committee membersFollowing an exchange between representative Elise Stefanik of New York and Cuny chancellor Matos Rodríguez, California representative Mark DeSaulnier yielded his time so Matos Rodríguez could “respond to that outrageous attack by my colleague”.Stefanik had denounced the university for having on its staff an attorney also leading the legal defense fund for Mahmoud Khalil, who she called “chief pro-Hamas agitator that led to the anti-semitic encampments at Columbia”.Earlier in the hearing, California representative Mark Takano called the committee’s hearing “a kangaroo court”. More

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      Netanyahu flies home without a Gaza peace deal but still keeps Trump onside

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      Benjamin Netanyahu arrived back in Israel on Friday without a ceasefire in the Gaza war despite heady predictions from US and Israeli officials that this week could provide a breakthrough in negotiations. But he did not come home completely empty-handed.The Israeli PM’s visit was his third since Donald Trump’s inauguration, with several high-profile meetings at the White House, a nomination for Trump to receive the Nobel peace prize, and suggestions from Trump and the special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, that peace could be achieved in a week.But as Netanyahu’s trip ended, no clear results had been achieved. Witkoff postponed a trip to Doha on Tuesday as it became clear that the negotiations had not reached a point where they could produce a ceasefire agreement.While Netanyahu repeated a refrain that a ceasefire could be announced within days, a deal to bring peace to more than 2 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip remained elusive.“I hope we can complete it in a few days,” Netanyahu said during an appearance on Newsmax, a conservative, pro-Trump news network on Wednesday. “We’ll probably have a 60-day ceasefire. Get the first batch [of hostages] out and then use the 60 days to try to negotiate an end to this.”By Thursday, when he attended a memorial service for two Israeli embassy staff killed in Washington, Netanyahu said Israel would not compromise on its demands for Hamas to disband. “I am promoting a move that will result in a significant liberation, but only on the conditions Israel demands: Hamas disarm, Gaza demilitarise,” he said. “If it is not achieved through diplomacy, it will be achieved by force.”Several officials suggested during the week that only a single sticking point remained between negotiators in Doha: the extent of a withdrawal by the Israel Defense Forces that would follow the release of some of the hostages being held by Hamas. The White House had pushed back against an initial map that would have left Israel with significant zones of control in Gaza, which Witkoff had compared to a “Smotrich plan”, referring to the hardline Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich. Israel reportedly redrew that map to make it more palatable to the US administration.But Hamas has said there were other disagreements, including negotiations over whether the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, an Israeli and US-backed logistics group, would be allowed to continue to deliver food to the territory (the UN said on Friday that 798 people had been killed trying to reach GHF sites since its introduction in May) and whether Israel would agree to a permanent truce, which it has said it would not. US mediators sought to bridge the gap by telling Qatari intermediaries they would guarantee the ceasefire’s continuation after 60 days as negotiations continued.The upshot is that while Netanyahu leaves the US without a ceasefire, he has managed his relationship with Trump through high-profile assurances that he is seeking a peace in Gaza, while maintaining a status quo that members of his rightwing coalition, including the ministers Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, have said is preferable to a peace deal.For Netanyahu, the trip produced images that reinforced Israeli claims there was “no daylight” between him and Trump, and came as the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, announced a decision to impose sanctions on Francesca Albanese, a UN expert on the occupied Palestinian territories, for urging the international criminal court to investigate Israeli officials and US companies over the Gaza war.Trump’s frustrations with Netanyahu appeared to be boiling over a month ago as the US president sought to negotiate a truce between Iran and Israel, which had been trading airstrikes and missile barrages as Israel sought to dismantle the Iranian nuclear programme.“I’m not happy with Israel,” he said on the White House lawn. “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.”That recalled remarks by Robert Gates, a former US secretary of defence, about successive White House administrations’ difficulties in managing an ally in the region that also had considerable political influence in the US.“Every president I worked for, at some point in his presidency, would get so pissed off at the Israelis that he couldn’t speak,” Gates said.But a full breach with the US would have been disastrous for Netanyahu, who is managing his own difficult coalition and has been targeted in a graft investigation at home that was again delayed as a result of his international travel. And, after joint strikes against Iran, the Israeli PM was keen to show that the two men were in lockstep, while giving the Trump administration an opportunity to show it was working toward a Gaza peace.Elliott Abrams, the senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, said the Trump administration had sought, as it did during the first short-lived ceasefire, to bring “pressure to bear on Israel directly” through discussions with Netanyahu and his chief lieutenant, Ron Dermer, and “trying to bring pressure on Hamas mostly through the Qataris, when there are these talks in Doha”.He added: “Whether that pressure is effective is unclear.” More

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      Netanyahu vows to combat what he calls ‘vilification against Israel’ online

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      Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that he’s vowed to combat an orchestrated social media campaign of “vilification and demonization” that he says is responsible for a drop in support for Israel among US voters, especially Democrats.“I think there’s been a concerted effort to spread vilification and demonization against Israel on social media,” the Israeli prime minister told journalists on Capitol Hill after being asked to respond to opinion polls showing a move away from the historic trend of strong backing for Israel.“It’s directed, it’s funded. It is malignant. We intend to fight it, because nothing defeats lies like the truth, and we shall spread the truth for everyone to see once people are exposed to the facts, we win hands down. That’s what we intend to do in the coming months and years.”Netanyahu’s comments came during a visit to Congress, where he met the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson.They also followed the recent victory of Zohran Mamdani in the Democratic primary race for the mayor of New York, which commentators believe was partly fueled by the candidate’s vocal support for Palestinian rights and criticism of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.A range of surveys have shows a marked decline in support for Israel among Democratic-leaning voters amid rising disquiet about the impact of the war in the now devastated coastal territory. The ongoing war has killed about 60,000 people – most of them Palestinians – and has seen much of the population threatened with starvation.A Gallup poll in March showed less than half of the US public sympathized with Israel’s position, the lowest figure recorded since the organization started taking surveys on the issue. Among Democrat voters, 38% sympathize with the Palestinians over the Israelis, a reversal of a 2013 Gallup survey, which saw Democrats sympathizing with Israelis by a margin of 36%.Other polls have shown similar trends, raising concerns for the future of the traditional strong bipartisan US support for Israel.The Israeli leader said his government had accepted a proposal from Qatari mediators for a fresh ceasefire with Hamas, saying it matched what had been proposed by Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWitkoff, speaking at a cabinet meeting earlier on Tuesday, had spelled out the terms of a proposed deal to broker a 60-day ceasefire he hoped would be in place by the end of the week, saying it would involve the release of Israeli hostages.“Ten live hostages will be released, nine deceased will be released,” Witkoff said. “We’re meeting at the president’s direction with all the hostage families to let them know, and we think that this will lead to a lasting peace.”Netanyahu said: “We accepted a proposal that came from the mediators. It’s a good proposal. It matches Steve Witkoff’s original idea and we think that we’ve gotten closer to it, and I hope we can cross the line.”He also said he expected to meet the US president again during his current visit, his third to Washington since Trump was inaugurated in January. The two met at the White House on Monday evening, when Netanyahu presented Trump with a letter nominating him for a Nobel peace prize.Netanyahu said the the military coordination with Washington during Israel’s recent 12-day war with Iran, which resulted in repeated strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities, was unprecedented.“In the entire 77 years of Israeli history, there has never been the degree of coordination of cooperation and trust between America and Israel as we have today,” he said. “And I credit President Trump with this extraordinary achievement.” More

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      Israel is playing an outsized role in New York City’s mayoral race. Will it matter?

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      Speaking from a Jerusalem bomb shelter last week as Iran and Israel exchanged fire, a New York state senator posted a video message to New York City voters: “There is a mayoral primary coming up this week where one of the candidates does not believe the Jewish state has a right to exist,” said Sam Sutton, the senator from Brooklyn. “We don’t want to be in a situation like this in America.”Sutton called on New Yorkers to elect a “great friend of the Jewish people”: Andrew Cuomo, New York’s former governor.The appeal was a stark illustration of the outsized role a foreign country and its conflicts have come to play in local elections. While Tuesday’s vote is just the primary, the winner of the Democratic contest historically has gone on to win the mayoral contest in November – though this year could be different.“This election has turned into a two-person contest between Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mandani, two candidates with very stark views on this matter,” said Jacob Kornbluh, a senior politics reporter with the Forward Jewish newspaper.With New York City’s nearly one million Jews making up the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, mayors of the past have always claimed support for the country with little pushback. But the war in Gaza has fundamentally changed the dynamic. Mamdani’s outspoken support for Palestinians might have previously tanked his candidacy, but his insurgent campaign has galvanised voters. Cuomo has responded by portraying Mamdani as “dangerous” and himself as uniquely positioned to fight antisemitism, a growing source of anxiety among Jewish voters.Cuomo’s campaign – flush with millions from pro-Israel billionaires like Bill Ackman – has ramped up attacks against Mamdani as he surged in the polls, including by distributing mailers condemned as racist. The former governor has stated unequivocally that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism”.It’s not just Cuomo appealing to the fears of Jewish voters. Eric Adams – the current mayor, who is running as an independent given his plummeting popularity – recently adopted a contentious definition of antisemitism and floated running on an “EndAntisemitism” party line.Mamdani grew emotional last week while discussing the personal toll of the attacks, including multiple death threats, and has invoked his experience as a Muslim New Yorker to say he understands the pain of the Jewish communities that he pledges to protect.“The attacks on Zohran are textbook post 9/11 Islamophobia,” said Sumaya Awad, a Palestinian New Yorker and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, one of the first groups to back his candidacy. She praised Mamdani for not “backing down”.Mamdani co-founded his college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, and as a state assembly member, introduced legislation to stop the funding of illegal Israeli settlements. He has built an enthusiastic coalition of young, progressive, and unabashedly pro-Palestinain New Yorkers, as well as immigrants and many of the city’s roughly 800,000 Muslims.View image in fullscreenCity comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander, who is Jewish and has cross-endorsed Mamdani, has sought to find a middle ground and accused Cuomo and Adams of “using Jews as pawns”, he told the Guardian in an interview – “not with the intention of making Jews any safer, but with the intention of gaining political advantage for themselves”.“Thankfully it’s not the job of the mayor to find mutual recognition and peace and safety for Israelis and Palestinians,” he said. “It is incumbent on the next mayor, whatever their position is, to find ways to reach across the divide.”As some candidates stoke fears, anxiety around the election is palpable among many Jewish voters.Alex Kaufman, a leader of LGBTQ Zionists of NYC, which endorsed Cuomo, said he had always prioritized issues like housing affordability, sustainability, and racial inclusion. “But this year, my number one issue is antisemitism,” he said. “I’ve never felt this unsafe.”With election day around the corner, the race has turned into an Israel-Palestine proxy war of sorts, even as voters on both sides wish the focus remained on local issues. Candidates have been asked in mayoral debates about their support for Israel and whether they would visit – with Mamdani’s answers that he supports Israel’s right to exist as a state “with equal rights” and that as mayor he would stay in the city rather than travel to a foreign country drawing both praise and condemnation (including some from the left, who criticised him for recognising Israel at all). In recent days, Cuomo has seized on Mamdani’s position on the words “globalize the intifada”, saying they fuel “hate” and “murder”.Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace’s advocacy arm, which has been canvassing for Mamdani, said that his success challenges the long-held wisdom that a New York mayor must support the Israeli government. “If you believe in safety, freedom, dignity, and justice for people here at home, you can’t have a Palestine exception to that,” she said.‘The status quo is being bent’New York’s Jews are a diverse constituency – ranging from some anti-Zionists and others variously critical of Israel to orthodox communities traditionally voting as a unified bloc for more conservative candidates. A recent poll of the city’s Jewish Democrats showed 31% supporting Cuomo, 20% backing Mamdani, and 18% behind Lander.In the middle are New York Jews who consistently vote Democratic and espouse a host of liberal and even progressive causes. Many are still reeling from the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel, are uneasy about the tone of US protests against the war in Gaza, and are increasingly worried about Jewish safety, pointing to recent violent attacks in Washington DC, and Colorado, and defacing of Jewish businesses and synagogues in the city.View image in fullscreen
      Kaufman, of LGBTQ Zionists, said he wished there were “better options” but that many of his acquaintances were coalescing around Cuomo even as they have reservations about his past conduct, including the sexual assault allegations that ended his governorship. Others gravitated toward Lander, but were troubled by his endorsement of Mamdani. Some said they were “terrified” of the latter, pointing to his refusal to recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and his presence at protests where Houthi flags were on display.Cuomo has promised to run as an independent if Mamdani wins on Tuesday. Because Adams is running as an independent, and Mamdani is also expected to remain on the ballot as the Working Families Party candidate, the contest is far from over.But to some, the fact that an openly pro-Palestinian candidate has made it this far is a sign of a profound shift in the city’s politics.“The status quo is being bent,” said Awad. She said she cried when filling in her ballot early. “Hope is such a rare thing to feel these days.” More

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      Mahmoud Khalil reunites with family after more than 100 days in Ice detention

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      Mahmoud Khalil – the Palestinian rights activist, Columbia University graduate and legal permanent resident of the US who had been held by federal immigration authorities for more than three months – has been reunited with his wife and infant son.Khalil, the most high-profile student to be targeted by the Trump administration for speaking out against Israel’s war on Gaza, arrived in New Jersey on Saturday at about 1pm – two hours later than expected after his flight was first rerouted to Philadelphia.Khalil smiled broadly at his cheering supporters as he emerged from security at Newark airport pushing his infant son in a black stroller, with his right fist raised and a Palestinian keffiyeh draped across his shoulders. He was accompanied by his wife, Noor Abdalla, as well as members of his legal team and the New York Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.“If they threaten me with detention, even if they would kill me, I would still speak up for Palestine,” he said at a brief press conference after landing. “I just want to go back and continue the work I was already doing, advocating for Palestinian rights, a speech that should actually be celebrated rather than punished.”“This is not over, and we will have to continue to support this case,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “The persecution based on political speech is wrong, and it is a violation of all of our first amendment rights, not just Mahmoud’s.”The Trump administration “knows that they’re waging a losing legal battle,” added Ocasio-Cortez, who represents parts of the Bronx and Queens.Khalil embraced some of his supporters, many of whom were also wearing keffiyehs in a show of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.Khalil was released from a Louisiana immigration detention facility on Friday evening after a federal judge ruled that punishing someone over a civil immigration matter was unconstitutional and ordered his immediate release on bail.Khalil was sent to Jena, Louisiana, shortly after being seized by plainclothes US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents in the lobby of his university residence in front of his heavily pregnant wife, who is a US citizen, in early March.The 30-year-old, who has not been charged with a crime, was forced to miss the birth of his first child, Deen, by the Trump administration. Khalil had been permitted to see his wife and son briefly – and only once – earlier in June. The American green card holder was held by Ice for 104 days.In ordering Khalil’s immediate release on Friday, federal judge Michael Farbiarz of Newark, New Jersey, found that the government had failed to provide evidence that the graduate was a flight risk or danger to the public. “[He] is not a danger to the community,” Farbiarz ruled. “Period, full stop.”The judge also ruled that punishing someone over a civil immigration matter by detaining them was unconstitutional.Speaking to reporters outside the Jena detention facility where an estimated 1,000 men are being held, Khalil said: “Trump and his administration, they chose the wrong person for this. That doesn’t mean there is a right person for this. There is no right person who should be detained for actually protesting a genocide.”“No one is illegal – no human is illegal,” he said. “Justice will prevail no matter what this administration may try.”The Trump administration immediately filed a notice of appeal, NBC reported.Khalil was ordered to surrender his passport and green card to Ice officials in Jena, Louisiana, as part of his conditional release. The order also limits Khalil’s travel to a handful of US states, including New York and Michigan to visit family, for court hearings in Louisiana and New Jersey, and for lobbying in Washington DC. He must notify the Department of Homeland Security of his address within 48 hours of arriving in New York.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKhalil’s detention was widely condemned as a dangerous escalation in the Trump administration’s assault on speech, which is ostensibly protected by the first amendment to the US constitution. His detention was the first in a series of high-profile arrests of international students who had spoken out about Israel’s siege of Gaza, its occupation of Palestinian territories and their university’s financial ties to companies that profit from Israeli military strikes.Khalil’s release marks the latest setback for the Trump administration, which had pledged to deport pro-Palestinian international students en masse, claiming without evidence that speaking out against the Israeli state amounts to antisemitism.In Khalili’s case, multiple Jewish students and faculty had submitted court documents in his support. Khalil was a lead negotiator between the Jewish-led, pro-Palestinian campus protests at Columbia in 2024. And during an appearance on CNN, he said, “The liberation of the Palestinian people and the Jewish people are intertwined and go hand-by-hand, and you cannot achieve one without the other.”In addition to missing the birth of his son, Khalil was kept from his family’s first Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and his graduation from Columbia while held in custody from 8 March to 20 June.Trump’s crackdown on free speech, pro-Palestinian activists and immigrants has triggered widespread protests and condemnation, as Ice agents ramp up operations to detain tens of thousands of people monthly for deportation while seeking – and in many instances succeeding – to avoid due process.Three other students detained on similar grounds to Khalil – Rümeysa Öztürk, Badar Khan Suri and Mohsen Mahdawi – were previously released while their immigration cases are pending. Others voluntarily left the country after deportation proceedings against them were opened. Another is in hiding as she fights her case.On Sunday, a rally to celebrate Khalil’s release – and protest against the ongoing detention by thousands of other immigrants in the US and Palestinians held without trial in Israel – will be held at 5.30pm ET at the steps of the Cathedral of St John the Divine in upper Manhattan. Khalil is expected to address supporters, alongside his legal representatives.“Mahmoud’s release reignites our determination to continue fighting until all our prisoners are released – whether in Palestine or the United States, until we see the end of the genocide and the siege on Gaza, and until we enforce an arms embargo on the Israel,” said Miriam Osman of the Palestinian Youth Movement. More

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      Trump administration urges other countries to skip UN conference on Israel-Gaza war

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      Donald Trump’s administration is discouraging governments around the world from attending a UN conference next week on a possible two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, according to a US cable seen by Reuters.The diplomatic demarche, sent on Tuesday, says countries that take “anti-Israel actions” following the conference will be viewed as acting in opposition to US foreign policy interests and could face diplomatic consequences from Washington.The demarche runs squarely against the diplomacy of two close allies, France and Saudi Arabia, who are co-hosting the gathering next week in New York that aims to lay out the parameters for a roadmap to a Palestinian state, while ensuring Israel’s security.“We are urging governments not to participate in the conference, which we view as counterproductive to ongoing, life-saving efforts to end the war in Gaza and free hostages,” read the cable.Emmanuel Macron has suggested France could recognise a Palestinian state in Israeli-occupied territories at the conference. French officials say they have been working to avoid a clash with the US, Israel’s staunchest major ally.“The United States opposes any steps that would unilaterally recognise a conjectural Palestinian state, which adds significant legal and political obstacles to the eventual resolution of the conflict and could coerce Israel during a war, thereby supporting its enemies,” the cable read.The United States for decades backed a two-state solution between the Israelis and the Palestinians that would create a state for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza alongside Israel.Trump, in his first term, was relatively tepid in his approach to a two-state solution, a longtime pillar of US Middle East policy. The Republican president has given little sign of where he stands on the issue in his second term.But on Tuesday, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a long-time vocal supporter of Israel, said he did not think an independent Palestinian state remained a US foreign policy goal.“Unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state would effectively render Oct 7 Palestinian Independence Day,” the cable read, referring to when Palestinian Hamas militants carried out a cross-border attack from Gaza on Israel in 2023, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.Hamas’ attack triggered Israel’s air and ground war in Gaza in which almost 55,000 Palestinians have been killed, most of the population of 2.3 million displaced and the enclave widely reduced to rubble.If Macron went ahead, France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim communities, would become the first Western heavyweight to recognise a Palestinian state.This could lend greater momentum to a movement hitherto dominated by smaller nations generally more critical of Israel.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMacron’s stance has shifted amid Israel’s intensified Gaza offensive and escalating violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, and there is a growing sense of urgency in Paris to act now before the idea of a two-state solution vanishes forever.The US cable said Washington had worked tirelessly with Egypt and Qatar to reach a ceasefire in Gaza, free the hostages and end the conflict.“This conference undermines these delicate negotiations and emboldens Hamas at a time when the terrorist group has rejected proposals by the negotiators that Israel has accepted.”This week the UK, Australia and Canada were joined by other countries in placing sanctions on two Israeli far-right government ministers to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, to bring the Gaza war to an end.“The United States opposes the implied support of the conference for potential actions including boycotts and sanctions on Israel as well as other punitive measures,” the cable read.Israel has repeatedly criticised the conference, saying it rewards Hamas for the attack on Israel, and it has lobbied France against recognising a Palestinian state.“Nothing surprises me anymore, but I don’t see how many countries could step back on their participation,” said a European diplomat, who asked for anonymity due to the subject’s sensitivity. “This is bullying, and of a stupid type.“ More