Ben Gvir’s United States visit

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Far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has claimed that top US Republican lawmakers support bombing “food and aid depots” in Gaza.

The statement, made in a social media post on Wednesday, came after the Israeli national security minister said he had met with “senior Republican Party officials at [US President Donald] Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate” in Florida in the United States.

“They expressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely,” Ben-Gvir posted on X in Hebrew.

The US president was not at the event, according to his public schedule.

Ben-Gvir’s post did not specify which Republicans were in attendance. However, Ben-Gvir’s office told Israeli media that Republican Congressman Tom Emmer, considered to be the third-highest-ranking member of the US House of Representatives, was among the lawmakers present.

The Times of Israel and the Jewish News Syndicate were among the news outlets that cited Ben-Gvir’s office in reporting Emmer’s presence, which also appeared to be confirmed by video of the event.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was confronted by some pro-Palestinian demonstrators Wednesday night in New Haven, Connecticut, according to a statement and videos shared by Ben Gvir’s office.

“Water bottles were thrown” at Ben Gvir, his office said, when the far-right minister exited a building in front of protesters following a speech he gave at Shabtai, a private Jewish society at Yale that’s not officially affiliated with the university.

Photos published on social media show a water bottle apparently being thrown at Ben Gvir and a group of people surrounding him.

In one video, an item that was apparently thrown is heard hitting the ground. People standing next to Ben Gvir shout “whoa” as they realize items are being thrown.

In a separate video viewed by CNN, at least one person is seen being detained by police. CNN has reached out to New Haven police for comment and details about detainments or arrests.

When the event began earlier Wednesday evening, protesters crowded the sidewalk outside the gated building while chanting “Free Palestine,” “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Yale, your hands are red.” As attendees made their way into the venue, protesters yelled “shame” repeatedly and booed.

Six people were arrested after anti-Israel protesters clashed with Hasidic Jewish locals outside a prominent Brooklyn synagogue where Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was making an appearance late Thursday, police said.

The demonstration kicked off at the Chabad-Lubavitch world headquarters in Crown Heights just before 9:30 p.m. as protesters rallied against Ben-Gvir’s appearance.

Footage from the scene showed at least one keffiyeh-wearing protester being escorted away with blood on her face.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was met with protests and disruptions at a speaking event in New York City on Thursday during the far-right lawmaker’s rocky visit to the US this week.

Ben Gvir spoke to a largely receptive audience of around 30 people on the roof of a restaurant in Manhattan’s Financial District, while several dozen protesters gathered outside.

During his talk, moderated by Tablet magazine’s Liel Leibovitz, Ben Gvir explained his personal history, rationale for his positions and actions as national security minister, highlighting his crackdown on Palestinian terrorists in Israeli prisons and support for Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount. As national security minister, Ben Gvir oversees Israel’s police and prison service.

He distanced himself from some of his past, saying his views have evolved and that rehabilitating his image was one of his reasons for visiting the US.

“This is one of the reasons I’m here in the US. My name is often mentioned in all kinds of ways that are not accurate or that were in the past,” he said. “I did a lot of things [that] came from one source — my love for Israel.”

As he spoke, a protester burst into the room, shouting “Get the f**k out of New York, Itamar,” and “Palestine will be free.” He was removed by Ben Gvir’s security detail. Ben Gvir backed the man’s right to protest, although under his direction, the Israeli police have been criticized for a heavy-handed approach toward demonstrators.

“It’s good that they’re allowed to shout. In Syria and Egypt, you cannot shout like this,” Ben Gvir said in response. “In America and Israel, we allow people to shout and protest.”

Left-wing Jewish groups rallied against Ben Gvir outside the meeting. Participating groups included the Israeli expat activist group UnXeptable, the Union for Reform Judaism, T’ruah, J Street, the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly, the New York Jewish Agenda and Smol Emuni. US Representative Jerry Nadler of New York and New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, both Jewish, spoke at the event.

The protesters carried Israeli flags and signs that said “Rabbis reject Ben Gvir” and “Netanyahu’s government — peril to all Jews.”

Nadler said Ben Gvir, as minister, is “wreaking terror on both Jews and Arabs.”

“Let’s be crystal clear about who Itamar Ben Gvir is. He is a racist, terrorist, Jewish supremacist bent on enacting Meir Kahane’s vision,” Nadler said. “We are gathered here to protest a group of American Jews welcoming Ben Gvir to New York City. To them, we have one thing to say — Ben Gvir isn’t welcome here.”

The crowd chanted, “Out,” and “Shame,” in Hebrew, in response.

The Park East and Safra Sephardic Synagogues in New York refused to host Israeli far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir during his trip to the US city, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported on Wednesday.

Ben-Gvir reportedly requested an event be planned for him at one of the synagogue’s halls, only for it to be declined by local people.

According to the newspaper, one Jewish community member said that the extremist minister was "facing difficulties finding a synagogue to host him," despite some of the synagogues' "pro-Israel stances".

Both synagogues have reportedly welcomed released captives formerly held by Hamas and Israeli elected officials in the past.

Additionally, Ben-Gvir’s scheduled appearance on Thursday at the Young Israel of Woodmere Synagogue was also cancelled following public outcry, Israel media said.

Members of the Jewish community and the synagogue itself in Long Island reportedly took to social media to criticise the initial invitation, The Jerusalem Post said.

The synagogue reportedly let members know that Ben-Gvir’s event, where he was due to speak on Saturday, was cancelled by email.

Tensions flared outside a synagogue on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn on Sunday morning as pro-Palestine protesters clashed with Israel supporters ahead of a scheduled speech by Israeli Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. The speech was later canceled, but the protests led to violent confrontations and multiple arrests.

At Shaarei Zion on Ocean Parkway and Ave T. Protesters gathered on both sides of the political divide, with pro-Palestine demonstrators voicing opposition to Ben Gvir’s appearance, while Israel supporters rallied in defense of the minister. The situation quickly turned chaotic, as physical altercations broke out, with protestors shoving and shouting at one another.

NYPD officers, stationed to keep the peace, found themselves in the midst of the chaos. Several officers were pushed and attacked during the confrontation, prompting law enforcement to take action. Multiple arrests were made, including several individuals linked to Pro-Hamas groups.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's visit to the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Brooklyn last Thursday night was not going to pass without protest. But the violence that erupted there, when a mob of Chabad members and supporters of the far-right minister surrounded protesters and bystanders, was beyond anything the demonstrators – and presumably the New York Police Department – expected.

E., a 29-year-old Israeli-American woman, arrived after receiving a last-minute message that Ben-Gvir was stopping by the Chabad Headquarters. E. and a friend went together, and according to them, were soon part of a group of about 30-40 protestors that was outnumbered by Chabad members.

"We were just chanting. Some were waving Palestinian flags," she recounted. "They [Chabad members] were flashing lights in our eyes, throwing eggs, throwing bottles of liquids – I don't even know what was in them," E. told Haaretz.

Her friend, who also spoke to Haaretz (both women asked to remain anonymous), described the atmosphere as hostile from the start. Protesters were pelted with objects, blinded by strobe lights, and taunted with insults, including "sharmuta" – which in spoken Arabic and Hebrew is used like the word "b***h."

The confrontation quickly escalated, leading to six arrests and several wounded. Videos from the incident show Chabad members attacking pro-Palestinian protesters. E. said the harassment escalated just as the protestors were about to leave. "A group of Chabad men were following us. I went up to my friend to check on her, and then something hit me in the head," she said, adding that just before then, police largely stood by as Chabad members pushed and harassed demonstrators.

After being hit in the head, E. lay down as other protesters linked arms to shield her until an ambulance arrived. She was taken to a nearby hospital, where she received stitches for her wounds. Her friend said Chabad youth crowded around her, taking photos, laughing and shouting sarcastic comments.

One video showed another woman surrounded by a group of men chanting "Death to Arabs" and threatening her with rape. Another video shows a woman being attacked.

Violence also broke out against members of Neturei Karta, the Jewish ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionist sect that often joins pro-Palestinian protests.

A spokesman for Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Motti Seligson, issued a statement on X denouncing both the anti-Ben-Gvir protests and the mob that chased the woman. He said that the protests were carried out by "violent provocateurs who called for the genocide of Jews in support of terrorists and terrorism outside a synagogue ... in order to intimidate, provoke, and instill fear."

Seligson also wrote that Chabad condemns the "crude language and violence" of what he called a small breakaway group of young people. "Such actions are entirely unacceptable and wholly antithetical to the Torah's values," he wrote. "The fact that a possibly uninvolved bystander got pulled into the melee further underscores the point," he said.

The clash on Thursday was quickly seized on by Representatives Elise Stefanik and Mike Lawler, who framed it as an antisemitic attack. Stefanik described the demonstrators as "pro-terrorist antisemitic anarchists" and called for a federal investigation.

But many of the protesters – including those harassed and injured like E. and her friend – are Jewish, Israeli or both. Addressing accusations of antisemitism, E. said: "No one protested in front of Chabad until this Kahanist minister showed up. Many of us are Jewish. Israeli. We protested because we don't think Ben-Gvir should be allowed to speak in our city."

Several others who spoke to Haaretz asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation from far-rights groups like Betar – and from the Trump administration.

I., an Israeli man, decided to pass by the event on his way back home from a sports game. "I remembered hearing Ben-Gvir might visit, and I walked up to protest him," he said. "At first, I thought the Chabad members were surrounding Ben-Gvir, celebrating or something." As he approached, he saw the group encircling a much smaller cluster of pro-Palestinian and anti-Ben Gvir demonstrators.

"They were about ten times the number of the pro-Palestinian protesters. They were pushing them, and the police pushed the pro-Palestinian protesters behind a barricade to create a buffer," he said.

He also noticed NYPD officers speaking with members of Chabad's private security group, Shomrim. "It seemed like there was some personal connection. They were trying to calm things down and get people back, but they couldn't."

Moments later, members of Neturei Karta arrived. Instantly, Violence erupted. "I've never seen violence like this by Jews against other Jews," he said.

"The Chabad crowd started kicking and pushing them. The police tried to intervene but had trouble telling the groups apart," he said. "There were points where police pushed a Neturei Karta Hasid into the Chabad side, and they kicked and shoved him."

I. said the protesters were mixed. Some were in fact members of Within Our Lifetime, a controversial pro-Palestinian group that previously demonstrated outside the Nova exhibition and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and has faced criticism from figures like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for being extreme. "I absolutely do not support Within Our Lifetime or their tactics, which I find disgraceful," I. said. "But Israelis and Jews protesting Ben-Gvir are right to do so, and conflating the two is wrong."

S., another Jewish protester, also highlighted the fact that the presence of fringe groups shouldn't have derailed the demonstration. Neturei Karta, she said, "are used as token Jews in the protests. That absolutely doesn't justify the extreme violence we saw that night."

She too, thought the police looked confused. "They expected problems from pro-Palestinian protesters, but instead, it was Jews attacking Jews - and they let it happen."

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on Sunday that police were investigating a series of incidents that have erupted from clashing pro-Palestinian protests and pro-Israeli counter-protests, including the reported assault on Thursday of two women by a pro-Israeli crowd. Adams said police were working to identify those related to this assault, and one person was arrested. "Hate has no place" in New York City, he added.

On the last day of his first visit to the United States while in office, Itamar Ben-Gvir made it to the halls of Congress.

The far-right Israeli national security minister announced that he met with four Republican members of Congress on Monday, capping a weeklong trip that otherwise largely stuck to right-wing Jewish groups and communities, and included multiple cancelations amid backlash.

The Capitol Hill meetings were notable because, several years ago, Ben-Gvir was considered too extreme to even partner with other right-wing politicians in Israel. Now he is a linchpin to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition. In November, nearly 90 Democratic Congress members unsuccessfully urged then-President Joe Biden to bar Ben-Gvir from entering the United States.

Ben-Gvir didn’t meet with any Democrats. More significantly, he also did not meet with any officials from the Trump administration, even though one of the goals of his trip was to push President Donald Trump’s stated vision for Gaza — including depopulating the enclave of Palestinians.

Ben-Gvir’s office distributed pictures of him with these members of the House of Representatives:

Jim Jordan of Ohio, who as chair of the House Judiciary Committee is a leading Trump ally;

Claudia Tenney of New York, who helms the new “Friends of Judea and Samaria Caucus.” The caucus is named for the term used by the Israeli government to describe the West Bank, and — like Ben-Gvir — supports perpetual Israeli control of that territory;

Mike Lawler of New York, who represents a district with a large Jewish population and, as chair of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, advises the State Department on issues related to Israel; and

Brian Mast of Florida, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee and is the only member of Congress to have volunteered with the Israeli army. (Ben-Gvir was turned away for his compulsory army service because of his extremist ties.)

Mast’s committee posted on social media that the two had discussed “America’s shared national security interests with Israel.” According to Ben-Gvir’s office, he spoke with Jordan and Tenney about “the Trump Plan for Gaza, the implementation of the death penalty in Israel for terrorists who have murdered citizens, and freedom of worship on the Temple Mount,” Judaism’s holiest site.

Ben-Gvir, an advocate for Jewish resettlement of Gaza, is one of the most vociferous advocates for Trump’s depopulation plan. He is likewise an outspoken advocate for Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount, which is also a Muslim holy site. Regulations at the site, a flashpoint of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, heavily restrict Jewish prayer, a situation Ben-Gvir has endeavored to change.

Ben-Gvir’s office also boasted that he had clashed with protesters in the halls of Congress. Both Code Pink and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, posted videos showing their activists calling Ben-Gvir a war criminal and shouting “Free Palestine.” At one point, a protester tells him that he killed their family in Gaza. The videos show Ben-Gvir facing the protesters and shouting at them while security personnel kept them apart.

“He completely lost it,” Code Pink tweeted, adding, “His violent, irritable reaction to peaceful protest shows exactly the kind of brutality he unleashes on Palestinians every day.”

Ben-Gvir’s office had a different take on the confrontation, issuing a description of the incident and Ben-Gvir’s response: “Despite the commotion, the Minister did not flinch and responded with characteristic strength: Terrorists, 9/11 supporters, Israel haters, saboteurs, baby killers. Israel will remain ours!”

Ben-Gvir is set to return to Israel on Tuesday, his office said.

An anti-Zionist demonstration targeting Crown Heights that had alarmed local Jews and drawn heightened police activity petered out on Monday night, as dozens of protesters meandered around Brooklyn without even reaching the intended neighborhood.

The protest was framed as a response to unrest that engulfed the area surrounding the Chabad Hasidic movement’s headquarters last Thursday, in which pro-Palestinian demonstrators protested a visiting far-right Israeli politician, Itamar Ben-Gvir.

In an incident that was caught on video and went viral, a crowd of Jewish counter-protesters surrounded and harassed a woman who was being escorted from the scene by a police officer. Photos also circulated showing a pro-Palestinian protester with a bloodied face.

On Monday, as news of that incident spread, a flier circulated online calling for a pro-Palestinian protest in Crown Heights billed as “Flood Crown Heights,” with the slogan “Zionism is not welcome here.” Another post called for attacks on Jews.

In anticipation, police bolstered their presence in the heavily Jewish neighborhood. Local Jewish organizations urged their constituents not to confront the protesters, though one militant right-wing pro-Israel group vowed to do just that.

That group, Betar, tweeted videos on Monday evening of their followers gathered together, and ready to oppose “pogroms.”

But they needn’t have. Police never allowed the pro-Palestinian protesters to get anywhere near Chabad headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway.

Beginning at 7 p.m., about 50 pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside Barclays Center, surrounded by dozens of NYPD officers. The plan was to protest there before embarking on the 45-minute walk to Crown Heights.

The group stayed at Barclays for about an hour as latecomers joined the chants, which included the phrases “Zionism out of Brooklyn now” and “Resistance is justified.”

A man from Neturei Karta, an extremist anti-Zionist haredi Orthodox sect, held an Israeli flag that replaced the Star of David with a swastika. Messages on signs also included “Zionism out of Brooklyn,” as well as “Zionists are: • Racists • Terrorists • Rapists/pedos • Colonizers • Nazis.”

Around 8 p.m., as the sun was setting, the group began the march to Crown Heights, walking east along Atlantic Avenue to the sound of drums and ongoing chants. Some passersby cheered or honked their horns. A girl opened her car window to wave an Israeli flag, and a few boys in Orthodox garb rode by on bicycles scanning the crowd.

Noticing a line of police blocking their way, the group made an unexpected right turn, cutting through a McDonald’s parking lot to reach the next block. But once on that street, they faced yet another line of police blocking the way with their bicycles.

The next hour or so became a tactical game of cat and mouse. Dozens of officers walked alongside the protesters’ route as street after street was blocked by lineups of officers on bicycles who continuously maneuvered to cut off the path to Crown Heights. Police vans and cars patrolled the streets as well.

Protesters cursed at the police, who had shown up in full force and outnumbered the group of demonstrators. “Y’all on the wrong people tonight,” said the protest’s leader, named Relly Rebel. Another man yelled, “They’re owned by the Zionist Jews!”

Erin, a 37-year-old protester who declined to share her last name for fear of being targeted, has lived in Crown Heights for about four years. She said she decided to protest after seeing the video of the crowd harassing the woman Thursday night.

“Now that I see that they are stalking and beating women who oppose a foreign government, I feel unsafe,” she said. “It’s pretty strange.”

The woman who was harassed told the Associated Press afterward that she was not involved in the protest.

Earlier on Monday, Rabbi Motti Seligson, a Chabad spokesman, had condemned “the crude language and violence of the small breakaway group of young people; such actions are entirely unacceptable and wholly antithetical to the Torah’s values.”

In that statement, he also condemned “violent provocateurs who called for the genocide of Jews in support of terrorists and terrorism — outside a synagogue, in a Jewish neighborhood, where some of the worst antisemitic violence in American history was perpetrated.”

That statement was a reference to the Crown Heights riots of 1991 that began after a car in Chabad leader Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson’s motorcade hit two Black children in the neighborhood, killing one; over days of violence that followed, rioters killed one Jewish man.

Rebel, the protest leader, also referenced the 1991 riots in a speech, repeating a disputed claim that “authorities” had “left the two Black kids on the ground. That’s why Black people went crazy.” (In fact, a local Hasidic emergency service did not have the equipment needed to treat the children. A hospital ambulance took nine minutes to arrive.)

But in the end, comparisons to the Crown Heights riots were misplaced. At around 11:30 p.m., Seligson tweeted that Crown Heights had a “festive feel.” He thanked the NYPD.

“It was heartening to see scores of people, some Jewish and some not, who came to Crown Heights to protect the residents. These people weren’t looking for a fight,” he tweeted. “Clearly this was not 1991.”