Shared grief, divided opinion on Israel among Jewish New Yorkers

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Members of the Orthodox Jewish community gather outside of a cultural center in a neighborhood in Brooklyn on October 12, 2023 in New York City. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Updated 15 October 2023
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Shared grief, divided opinion on Israel among Jewish New Yorkers

  • New York’s Jewish population is the largest outside Israel — 1.6 million people with diverse political views regarding Israel and the Palestinian cause
  • For some, last week's Hamas attack bolstered their advocacy for Israel. Others want the US Congress to demand a cease-fire and cut off the billions in funding for Israel

NEW YORK: Jewish New Yorkers grieving after Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians are split over the country’s response, with some voices urging Israel to defend itself and others increasingly warning of Palestinian “genocide.”
New York’s Jewish population is the largest outside Israel — 1.6 million people whose diverse political views regarding the US ally and the Palestinian cause have come to the fore since Hamas’ bloody assault and taking of hostages, and the deadly Israeli bombing campaign that followed.
As Palestinians in northern Gaza attempt to flee an expected Israeli ground invasion, aid agencies are warning of a growing humanitarian crisis in the blockaded enclave that Israel has cut off from electricity, water and fuel supplies.
Friday evening hundreds of New Yorkers gathered in Brooklyn in solidarity against Israel’s offensive — which has killed more than 2,200 Palestinians — wielding a banner emblazoned with the message “Jews Say Stop Genocide Against Palestinians.”
Protesters called on the United States Congress to demand a cease-fire and cut off the billions in funding for Israel.
The rally was sponsored by the left-wing organization Jewish Voice for Peace, and saw demonstrators march to the home of top US Senator Chuck Schumer.
Schumer, who is Jewish, was preparing to lead a delegation of senators to Israel as a show of support.
“There is only one way to end violence and that is to address the root causes of everything happening: 75 years of Israeli military occupation and apartheid, and end US complicity in this systemic oppression,” said Jay Saper of JVP.

‘Existential threat’

Some Jewish New Yorkers, meanwhile, have said the horror of the Hamas attacks, which left more than 1,300 Israelis dead, has bolstered their advocacy for Israel.
Philip Wolf, 25, told AFP that he didn’t grow up religious, but “having had family wiped out in the Holocaust, I know the critical importance of the continued flourishing Jewish state.”
“After the events of the last week, that connection feels even stronger.”
Prominent Jewish organizations including the American Jewish Committee and United Jewish Appeal backed pro-Israel demonstrations this week that drew crowds in the thousands, as well as staunch support from most local authorities, including New York state’s Governor Kathy Hochul and the city’s mayor, Eric Adams.
Two days after the Hamas attack, Arthur Schneier, the longtime senior rabbi at Manhattan’s Park East Synagogue, called the assault “the most existential threat to Israel since its founding in 1948,” a message that echoed Israeli authorities.
“As the American Jewish community,” he said, “we have a special responsibility.”
New York Rabbi Melissa Buyer-Witman said, “I am confident the Americans will again unite and support Israel whether they are Jewish or not,” speaking to AFP during a prayer service for the dead.
“Continue to keep Israel in your faith, in your thoughts,” she said at the event held at Temple Emanu-El, the first reform Jewish congregation in New York.

‘Crime of apartheid’
Public opinion in the United States, and in particular American Jewish opinion, “has always had much more sympathy for Israel than the Palestinians,” said Alex Kane, a senior writer at the progressive magazine Jewish Currents.
But the past decade has seen an uptick in criticism of Israel, he said, including over the country’s treatment of Palestinians and its government’s sharp moves to the right.
In 2021 a poll of Jewish voters by the Jewish Electorate Institute made waves when a quarter of respondents deemed that “Israel is an apartheid state.”
“That’s a remarkable number — that’s a lot of American Jews,” said Kane. “It’s not the majority, but it is a minority that believes that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid” — a conclusion human rights organizations including Amnesty International have also stated.
Over the past week US leaders including President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have pledged unwavering support for Israel, publicly blessing the country’s reprisals that have included a relentless bombing campaign of Gaza and a call for 1.1 million people, approximately half of the enclave’s inhabitants, to immediately relocate south.
In accord with humanitarian responders and rights observers, organizations including Jewish Voice for Peace have denounced those actions — and the unequivocal backing from American leaders.
“We recognize that for many, the call to unconditionally support Israel, including sending increased military funding, is coming from a place of deep grief, fear and anxiety,” said Rabbi Alissa Wise, in a statement released by JVP.
“But we know that more weapons will only bring more harm to everyone.”
For Kane, it’s both possible and necessary to “say the attacks on Israeli civilians, and kidnapping of Israelis, is unconscionable — and collectively punishing Gaza is unconscionable.”
Through grief “we have to think critically,” he said, or risk fueling “hatred and very destructive, bloody actions that Israel is undertaking.”
“We have to be able to hold all these things at once.”


Rush of diplomatic calls follow Trump’s offer to join potential Russia-Ukraine talks

Updated 13 May 2025
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Rush of diplomatic calls follow Trump’s offer to join potential Russia-Ukraine talks

  • US, European, Russia key diplomats hold separate calls
  • Trump offers to join potential Russia-Ukraine talks on Thursday

US and European diplomats went on a flurry of calls in the hours after US President Donald Trump offered on Monday to join prospective Ukraine-Russia talks later this week, trying to find a path that would bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
Trump’s surprise offer to join the talks on Thursday in Istanbul came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a fresh twist to the stop-start peace talks process, said he would travel to Turkiye and wait to meet President Vladimir Putin there.
After Trump’s announcement, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the “way forward for a ceasefire” in Ukraine with European counterparts, including the foreign ministers of Britain and France, and the EU’s foreign policy chief, the State Department said on Monday.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and his German and Polish counterparts were also on the call, according to the readout.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held talks late on Monday with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan to discuss Moscow’s direct talks with Kyiv — a proposal that came from Putin at the weekend, the Russian foreign ministry said.
It remained unclear who would travel from Moscow to Istanbul to take part in the direct talks, which would be the first between the two sides since the early days of the war that Russia launched with its invasion on Ukraine in February 2022.
There has been no response from the Kremlin to Zelensky’s offer to meet Putin in Istanbul and Moscow was yet to comment on Trump’s offer to join the talks.
If Zelensky and Putin, who make no secret of their contempt for each other, were to meet on Thursday it would be their first face-to-face meeting since December 2019.
“Don’t underestimate Thursday in Turkiye,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday.
Trump’s current schedule has him visiting Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar this week.
Ukraine and its European allies have been seeking to put pressure on Moscow to accept an unconditional 30-day ceasefire from Monday, with the leaders of four major European powers traveling to Kyiv on Saturday to show unity with Zelensky.
Earlier on Monday, the German government said Europe would start preparing new sanctions against Russia unless the Kremlin by the end of the day started abiding by the ceasefire.
Ukraine’s military said on Monday that fighting along parts of the frontline in the country’s east was at the same intensity it would be if there were no ceasefire.
Putin called the Western European and Ukrainian demands for a ceasefire “ultimatums” that the Kremlin said on Monday are for Russia an unacceptable language.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international affairs committee of the Federation Council, the upper house of Russia’s parliament, told the Izvestia media outlet in remarks published on Tuesday that the talks between Moscow and Kyiv can move further than they did in the 2022.
“If the Ukrainian delegation shows up at these talks with a mandate to abandon any ultimatums and look for common ground, I am sure that we could move forward even further than we did,” Izvestia cited Kosachev as saying.


FBI ordered to prioritize immigration, as DOJ scales back white collar cases

Updated 13 May 2025
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FBI ordered to prioritize immigration, as DOJ scales back white collar cases

  • Field offices tell FBI agents to scale up on immigration enforcement and deprioritize white collar cases
  • Criminal Division issues new guidance to prosecutors that narrows the scope of white collar enforcement efforts

WASHINGTON: The FBI ordered agents on Monday to devote more time to immigration enforcement and scale back investigating white-collar crime, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters, as the Justice Department issued new guidance on what white-collar cases will be prioritized.
In a series of meetings, FBI agents were told by their field offices they would need to start devoting about one third of their time to helping the Trump administration crack down on illegal immigration.
Pursuing white-collar cases, they were told, will be deprioritized for at least the remainder of 2025, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Reuters could not immediately determine how many field offices were informed of the change, or whether it would apply to agents across the country.
An FBI spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.
The orders came on the same day that Matthew Galeotti, the head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, issued new guidance to prosecutors that scales back the scope of white-collar cases historically pursued by the department and orders prosecutors to “minimize the length and collateral impact” of such investigations.
Immigration enforcement has largely not been the purview of the Justice Department’s law enforcement agencies in the past.
But as President Donald Trump has stepped up an immigration crackdown, thousands of federal law enforcement officials from multiple agencies have been enlisted to take on new work as immigration enforcers, pulling crime-fighting resources away from other areas.
Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi have also previously announced they will scale back efforts to prosecute certain kinds of white-collar offenses, including public corruption, foreign bribery, kleptocracy and foreign influence.
As part of those efforts, the Criminal Division has also been reviewing corporate monitorships that companies were required to install as a condition of settling criminal cases. Several of them have since been ended early, while others have continued.
In Monday’s memo, Galeotti laid out the categories of cases that will be prioritized to include health care fraud, trade and customs fraud, elder securities fraud, complex money laundering including “Chinese Money Laundering Organizations,” and cases against financial gatekeepers who enable terrorists, transnational criminal organizations and cartels, among others.
He said the department will also update its whistleblower award pilot program to encourage tips on cases that lead to forfeiture, such as those involving cartels and transnational criminal organizations, violations of federal immigration law, corporate sanctions offenses, procurement fraud, trade, tariff and customs fraud, and providing material support to terrorists.
The memo also instructs prosecutors to carefully consider whether corporate misconduct “warrants federal criminal prosecution.”
“Prosecution of individuals, as well as civil and administrative remedies directed at corporations, are often appropriate to address low-level corporate misconduct and vindicate US interests,” the memo says.
It also orders prosecutors to only require companies to hire independent monitors if they cannot be expected to implement a corporate compliance program “without such heavy-handed intervention.”


Rights groups take UK government to court over Israel arms sales

Updated 13 May 2025
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Rights groups take UK government to court over Israel arms sales

  • Lawyer: The UK government had “expressly departed from its own domestic law in order to keep arming Israel,” with F-35s being used to drop “multi-ton bombs on the people of Gaza.”

LONDON: Rights groups and NGOs are dragging the UK government to court on Tuesday accusing it of breaching international law by supplying fighter jet parts to Israel amid the war in Gaza.
Supported by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and others, the Palestinian rights association Al-Haq is seeking to stop the government’s export of UK-made components for Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.
Israel has used the American warplanes to devastating effect in Gaza and the West Bank, and the head of Amnesty UK said Britain had failed to uphold its “legal obligation... to prevent genocide” by allowing the export of key parts to Israel.
The plane’s refueling probe, laser targeting system, tires, rear fuselage, fan propulsion system and ejector seat are all made in Britain, according to Oxfam, and lawyers supporting Al-Haq’s case said the aircraft “could not keep flying without continuous supply of UK-made components.”
It is not clear when a decision could be made following the four-day hearing at London’s High Court, the latest stage in a long-running legal battle.
Lawyers for the Global Action Legal Network  have said they launched the case soon after Israel’s assault on Gaza was triggered by the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks.
Israel has repeatedly denied accusations of genocide.
The lawyers said the UK government had decided in December 2023 and April and May 2024 to continue arms sales to Israel, before in September 2024 then suspending licenses for weapons which were assessed as being for military use by the Israeli army in Gaza.
The new Labour government suspended around 30 licenses following a review of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law, but the partial ban did not cover British-made parts for the advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets.
A UK government spokesperson told AFP it was “not currently possible to suspend licensing of F-35 components for use by Israel without prejudicing the entire global F-35 program, due to its strategic role in NATO and wider implications for international peace and security.”
“Within a couple of months of coming to office, we suspended relevant licenses for the IDF that might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of International Humanitarian Law in Gaza,” they said.
The government insisted it had “acted in a manner consistent with our legal obligations” and was “committed to upholding our responsibilities under domestic and international law.”
But GLAN described the F-35 exemption as a “loophole” which allowed the components to reach Israel indirectly through a global pooling system.
Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, a lawyer for GLAN, told a briefing last week the UK government had “expressly departed from its own domestic law in order to keep arming Israel,” with F-35s being used to drop “multi-ton bombs on the people of Gaza.”
Hamas’s 2023 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Monday that at least 2,749 people have been killed since Israel ended a two-month ceasefire in mid-March, bringing the overall death toll since the war broke out to 52,862.
“Under the Genocide Convention, the UK has a clear legal obligation to do everything within its power to prevent genocide,” said Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive.
“Yet the UK government continues to authorize the export of military equipment to Israel — despite all the evidence that genocide is being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza. This is a fundamental failure by the UK to fulfil its obligations.”
Al-Haq’s general director Shawan Jabarin said: “The United Kingdom is not a bystander. It’s complicit, and that complicity must be confronted, exposed and brought to account.”
 


UN aviation agency finds Russia responsible for 2014 downing of airliner over Ukraine

Updated 13 May 2025
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UN aviation agency finds Russia responsible for 2014 downing of airliner over Ukraine

MONTREAL: The United Nations aviation agency said Monday that Russia was responsible for the downing of a Malaysia Airlines jetliner over Ukraine in 2014, leading to the deaths of 298 people.
The International Civil Aviation Organization , based in Montreal, said claims brought by Australia and the Netherlands over the shooting down of Flight MH17 on July 17 of that year were “well founded in fact and in law.”
“The Russian Federation failed to uphold its obligations under international air law in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17,” the agency said in a statement issued Monday evening.
The OCAO said this was the first time in its history that its council has made a determination on the merits of a dispute between member states.
On July 17, 2014 the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 — en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur — crashed in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region where pro-Russian separatist rebels were battling Ukrainian forces.
The plane was hit by a Russian-made BUK surface-to-air missile.
Dutch nationals accounted for two-thirds of the dead, along with 38 Australians and about 30 Malaysians, with many victims having dual nationalities.
Then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called it a “terrorist act.”
Pro-Russian rebels in the area claimed the airliner was shot down by a Ukrainian military jet. Russian President Vladimir Putin says Ukraine “bears responsibility.”
The following day, then US president Barack Obama said a missile fired from separatist-held territory was to blame and the rebels would not have been able to hit the airliner without Russian support.
In 2022 a Dutch court sentenced three men to life in prison over the downing, among them two Russians, but Russia refused to extradite them.
Russia has consistently denied any involvement in the tragedy.
The governments of Australia and the Netherlands welcomed the UN agency’s decision Monday night.
“This is a historic moment in the pursuit of truth, justice and accountability for the victims of the downing of Flight MH17, and their families and loved ones,” the Australian government said in a statement.
It called on the agency to “move swiftly to determine remedies” for Russia’s violation of international law.
“We call upon Russia to finally face up to its responsibility for this horrific act of violence and make reparations for its egregious conduct, as required under international law,” the statement added.
International investigators suspended their probe of the downing last year, saying there was not enough evidence to identify more suspects.


US House Republicans seek to kill EV tax credit, loan program

Updated 13 May 2025
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US House Republicans seek to kill EV tax credit, loan program

  • The US Treasury in 2024 awarded more than $2 billion in point-of-sale rebates for EVs

WASHINGTON: Republicans in the US House of Representatives on Monday proposed killing the electric vehicle tax credit and repealing fuel efficiency rules designed to prod automakers into building more zero-emission vehicles as part of a broad-based tax reform bill.
The proposal, which is set for a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on Tuesday, would repeal a $7,500 new-vehicle tax credit and a $4,000 used-vehicle credit on Dec. 31, although it would maintain the new-vehicle credit for an additional year for automakers that have not yet sold 200,000 EVs.
The president of the Electric Drive Transportation Association, Genevieve Cullen, criticized the proposal, saying that plans “to abandon US leadership in energy innovation by gutting federal investment in electrification are catastrophically short-sighted.”
The proposal, she said, would deliver “an enormous market advantage” to competitors like China and threaten US manufacturing and jobs.
The US Treasury in 2024 awarded more than $2 billion in point-of-sale rebates for EVs.
The proposal leaves in place a key battery production tax credit for automakers and battery makers, but a new provision would bar the credit for vehicles produced with components made by some Chinese companies or under a license agreement with Chinese firms.
The provision, which would take effect in 2027, could bar credits for cars powered by Chinese battery technology licensed by American companies such as Ford Motor or Tesla .
House Republicans also propose to kill a loan program that supports the manufacture of certain advanced technology vehicles. It would rescind any unobligated funding and rescind corporate average fuel economy standards and greenhouse gas emission rules for 2027 and beyond. That portion will be taken up by the Energy and Commerce Committee.
Among outstanding loans finalized in President Joe Biden’s last weeks in office are $9.63 billion to a joint venture of Ford Motor and South Korean battery maker SK On for construction of three battery manufacturing plants in Tennessee and Kentucky; $7.54 billion to a joint venture of Chrysler-parent Stellantis and Samsung SDI for two EV lithium-ion battery plants in Indiana; and $6.57 billion to Rivian for a plant in Georgia to begin building smaller, less expensive EVs in 2028.