Israeli-Palestinian memorial event attacked in Israel

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Right-wing activists rioted outside a Reform synagogue that was screening a joint Israeli-Palestinian ceremony on Israel’s Memorial Day, mobbing and harassing one woman as others exited under police protection.

Three people were arrested on the scene, according to reports in Israeli media, and several people reported injuries, including police officers.

Rabbi Gilad Kariv, the former head of the Israeli Reform movement who now serves as a lawmaker for an Israeli left-wing party, called the riot an “attempted pogrom.” He tweeted that the rioters threw rocks at attendees and said he had accompanied the deputy director of the Reform movement to the hospital.

The local leader of the Likud Party, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, defended the riot and said in a social media post that it should be seen as “just the opening shot” against the left in her city.

Footage from Tuesday night showed dozens of people, mostly men, crowding the entrance to Beit Samueli-Kehillat Ra’anan, a Reform synagogue in the Tel Aviv suburb of Raanana that is home to a large population of American immigrants. The synagogue was hosting a screening of a joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony held annually on Israel’s Memorial Day.

The ceremony is organized by two groups seeking to bring together Israelis and Palestinians who reject violence and advocate for peace, including a group of bereaved family members from both societies. It has long been controversial in Israel and is regularly subject to government restrictions and protests from groups that accuse it of equating Israeli soldiers and Palestinian terrorists on Israel’s solemnest day.

This year, the ceremony was held in a secret location but screened in locations throughout Israel by the Israeli-Palestinian left-wing activist group Standing Together. The protest in Raanana was organized by the right-wing nonprofit Btsalmo, which exhorted followers to “not allow supporters of terror to enter Raanana!” The group organized a similar protest at a screening in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba.

Videos posted to social media showed the protesters screaming epithets, including “Nazi” and “whore,” at the attendees, and seeking to block at least one woman from entering. Another video posted by Haaretz reporter Josh Breiner showed dozens of men chasing after a woman as she left the ceremony, escorted by three police officers.

Men spat at her, accosted her and the police officers and, in one instance, threw a garbage can in their path. Members of the mob screamed insults including, “Because of you, soldiers die,” and “Too bad Hamas didn’t take you” — a reference to the hundreds of hostages abducted in the terror group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.

Another video posted by Breiner shows police escorting 30 or so attendees out the door as the shouts of the rioters can be heard outside.

This is at least the fourth time in the past 15 years that the Raanana Reform synagogue has been targeted. It was vandalized in 2010, 2014 and 2016 — the latter two times being defaced by slogans disparaging the Reform movement, equating it to apostasy or threatening its leaders.

The synagogue’s rabbi, Chen Ben Or Tsfoni, shared a post on Facebook following the riot that said, “This evening will be remembered as one of the most shameful days in the history of the city that waves the flag of tolerance and brotherhood.” The post added that the scene was “not brotherhood but hate.”

The riot also drew condemnation from the Israeli-American protest group UnXeptable, which opposes Israel’s right-wing government. It called for rallies in solidarity with the synagogue and statements from Israel’s leaders condemning the violence.

Orly Erez-Likhovski, the executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center, the Reform movement’s Israeli advocacy arm, posted on Facebook that she had been injured when a rioter threw a rock at the car in which she was escaping the crowd. She said that even as rioters had briefly breached the synagogue, 60 people had been able to watch the program to its completion.

“I know that the dangerous and racist brainwashed people who demonstrated outside feel threatened by this ritual because it offends their whole perception of the world,” she wrote. “Because it shows that [things] could be different.”

Kariv repudiated the rioters in his tweets. “Hooligans that get a backwind and a blind eye from the trustees of the state, barnburners filled with hate, desecraters of God’s name in public, we will not let you destroy the Third Temple,” he wrote, using a term meant to refer to the state of Israel.

The head of Israel’s Reform movement, Anna Kislanski, had a shorter response. Just past midnight, she posted on Facebook, “Memorial Day eve. An attack on civilians in a synagogue. Very dark days.”

It was the latest extraordinary event in an extraordinary time: far-right protesters rioting at a Reform synagogue that showed a live broadcast of an alternative Memorial Day ceremony.

At that annual ceremony, Israelis and Palestinians mourn together, and a day and a half earlier, calls to protest the live broadcast in upscale Tel Aviv suburb Ra'anana started spreading online.

Social media posts, announcements on WhatsApp groups, footage of the riot and details from calls to the police show that the Memorial Day riots were an organized affair. The turmoil at the Beit Samueli synagogue was the product of false claims and incitement.

The police received three warnings about right-wingers' intentions to gather outside the synagogue. Organizers of the coexistence event worried that people would be hurt.

Whether or not the police knew about the calls on social media, which spread quickly, police officers, including the district commander, knew about the fear of violence. But only a small force was present, because many events were going on that Memorial Day eve. Only were two patrol cars were at the synagogue. Additional forces arrived only later.

At large alternative Memorial Day ceremonies in Tel Aviv in the past, right-wing activists would gather nearby to heckle and spit on participants. Since the pandemic, the ceremony has been held in front of a small crowd at a private location and broadcast to a wider audience.

This year, fearing violence, the location wasn't disclosed. The peace group Standing Together organized several viewings, though some were canceled due to threats by extremists.

Ra'anana, though, was a hot spot. At the peak, around 200 demonstrators gathered outside Beit Samueli as 30 people inside viewed the broadcast. Some rioters broke inside and threw objects like stones and firecrackers.

Some chased viewers and shouted "may your village burn" – a common far-right threat against Palestinians – and "let's go to Gaza." The only three suspects arrested were released the next morning.

False rumors
Two days before Memorial Day started on Tuesday evening, Likud activist Viktor Shriki wrote on X that if a joint Israeli-Palestinian ceremony took place, "we will meet there to blow it up, and we won't let it happen."

Such calls repeatedly included false claims of a "ceremony to commemorate the Nukhbas," referring to the elite Hamas terrorist force.

Word about the protest began spreading in the afternoon. One message appeared on the Facebook page of a right-wing group that organized the demonstration, while a similar announcement was made at 12:30 P.M. on the Hebrew-language WhatsApp group Rabbi Meir Kahane Was Right.

The Facebook group wrote: "We don't let terror pollute our city," and it soon repeated this sentiment on its WhatsApp groups. The Ra'anana police received the first warning at 1:10 P.M., as the call to demonstrate gained momentum.

Right-wing activist Moshe Meron, a former Likud election campaign worker, called on his followers to come to "this memorial event that's in the extreme leftist spirit." A Likud activist reposted Meron's call on pages of supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At 1:30 P.M., a right-wing activist monitored by the Shin Bet security service wrote about the planned protest on a Telegram group: "Today's a carnival; sharing with all our brothers across the country."

Members of Fake Reporter, a group that strives to protect Israelis from hostility online, noticed that right-wing activist Shai Glick issued a call at 2 P.M. to send messages to Ra'anana Mayor Chaim Broyde demanding the cancellation of the event. The announcement claimed that Broyde was taking part in the funding.

Ten minutes later, the Likud chief in Ra'anana, Racheli Ben Ari Sakat, posted an invitation to the protest on the group for advancing the status of women in Likud.

"The left has gone out of its mind, and the public in Ra'anana must go out in full force to prevent this disgrace," she wrote. "While we stand for a minute of silence, there will be an attempt in Ra'anana to equate the fallen in Israel's wars with the fallen Nukhbas." Ben Ari Sakat extended the invitation to other groups, too.

At the same time, a post appeared on a Likud activist news group on WhatsApp stating that Ra'anana Deputy Mayor Helen Mazuz was calling for the event to be canceled. This message also included a call to join the protest. At 2:25 P.M., the police received a complaint about a threat to the organizers.

At 2:50 P.M., a post on a Ra'anana residents' Facebook group included an announcement by the far-right organization Btsalmo with the caption: "Somebody should stop what's happening here. On the holiest of days, there are hate-mongers against Judaism, the IDF and the dignity of our soldiers who sacrificed their lives. There's no limit to the shame, no limit to the pain. Share as much as possible to stop the event."

Responses to the post included "We must blow up the event" and "We must block access." Another response, alluding to the non-Israelites who joined the Exodus in the Bible, stated: "We must unite and prevent this. The mixed multitude is among us! Hamas isn't guilty, only the evil left is." Several posts repeated the outlandish claim that the ceremony was a memorial service for Nukhba terrorists.

At 4 P.M., Mayor Broyde wrote on Facebook that no "Israeli-Palestinian memorial ceremony" was being held in Ra'anana that evening. "The event has been organized by bereaved Israeli families. It's being held in Tel Aviv, in the same format for the 20th straight year, and it's being broadcast live. Every citizen can enter the link and watch from home live," he wrote.

"Communities across the country from south to north have issued invitations to join them in watching on television the ceremony, which is being held, as noted, in Tel Aviv!! ! I regret that it's being held on this day of all days. Some people are trying to light a fire in Ra'anana and distort the truth about the event, which has no connection to the city."

At 4:19 P.M., a resident wrote on a local WhatsApp group that he planned to watch the ceremony and that, given the threats, security should be hired for the evening. At around 5:30 P.M., Labor lawmaker Gilad Kariv called the district police commander and warned him about the threats. The commander told him that the police would be there.

At 7:47 P.M., a text message was sent to the Hebrew-language group Equal in Ra'anana, stating: "A minute of silence for Nukhbas?! It won't happen in Ra'anana." This included an invitation to demonstrate at the synagogue.

Kariv spoke again to the district commander, sharing video of right-wing activists trying to block entry to the synagogue. The commander told him that the police were prepared and that additional forces would join after other ceremonies were over. The official ceremonies begin at 8 P.M., while the joint Israeli-Palestinian ceremony started a half hour later.

The siege will be televised
At 7:54 P.M., one participant at the event called the police. Six minutes later, two Likud activists and several other members of the mob broke into the synagogue. One was Yair Shahar, who had run for the city council in Tel Aviv suburb Petah Tivka. The second was Tal Kedmy, who had run in a Likud primary for the party's coastal district. The two entered the hallway with a megaphone, an action that has been captured on film.

Police tried to remove them. When the ceremony began, many protesters were outside, along with two police vehicles and a handful of officers.

At 9:14 P.M., participants asked anti-government activists to help them. At 9:20 P.M., one of the participants wrote: "Call the police as much as possible. There are forces here but they're definitely threatened."

At 9:40 P.M., the broadcast of the ceremony ended. Viewers remained inside while rioters threw objects at them and set off small explosives. "We're besieged inside," a viewer wrote on a WhatsApp group. The Alimut Yisrael (Israel Violence) page picked up a live broadcast by Shahar outside the synagogue.

"Guys, it's over," Shahar says in the video. "Be ready. Stand in the corners. No one is leaving." Hundreds of people were watching.

At 9:45 P.M., the police asked the participants not to leave, promising to provide an escort to their cars. Around 200 people were surrounding the synagogue.

Participants suffered verbal and physical abuse. At least three women who watched the ceremony were injured, as were four police officers. Outside, the rioters threw objects and vandalized cars.

The rescue took about an hour. Some people left through an alternative exit. More police arrived during the evacuation, some from the Yasam riot police.

Members of Alimut Yisrael picked up Shahar's live stream during the height of the evacuation at around 10:15 P.M. The mob could be heard shouting at one woman "Nazi whore," "slut" and "go to Gaza." The evacuation ended at around 10:50 P.M.

Even after the riot, some senior Likud members justified the violence. Party spokesman Guy Levy wrote sarcastically on X: "It's moving to see your anger about violence, especially when two years ago you applauded double the violence of the protest movement ... in the name of the right to protest and democracy."

Another Likud activist, Igal Malka, wrote that "there's no protest without disrupting public order," adding that he saw nothing exceptional compared to things like "your siege of Sara and of the Likud conference in Kfar Sava, [and] the starting of fires on the Ayalon Highway" during the protests against the judicial overhaul and for the government to bring the hostages home.

Roy Shoshan of Fake Reporter said: "As long as the government and the police continue to abandon the personal safety of citizens online, we will continue to pay the price of physical violence on the streets."

Alimut Yisrael added: "The violence in Ra'anana was organized on social media and the calls to protest were promoted on Likud channels and in Kahanist groups. The writing was on the wall. The police's ignoring of violence against protesters and the tailwind the attackers receive from the government and Netanyahu himself leads to the spilling of blood."

Glick, who organized the protest, said about the violence: "Hundreds of people arrived to protest with all their heart the fact that Ra'anana's mayor chooses to provide a public space for an event that incites and is hurtful. Unfortunately, a small fringe behaved violently, and I of course condemn this unequivocally and wish a full recovery to anyone who was injured. Violence is not our way.

"We will continue working to cancel the allocations given to the Reform center, which has once again proved its determination to harm Ra'anana residents. After massive publicity, a handful of participants, mostly from outside the city, went to a surreal ceremony. Ra'anana proved in a big way that it is for IDF soldiers."

The police, who said they were investigating and expected more arrests, added: "Police preparations on Memorial Day Eve were determined by the number of events in the general area and by an assessment of the relevant information for each event. It should be stressed that the entirety of reports and conversations mentioned refer to the same announcement without ... a timely preliminary report from the ceremony's organizers as required, despite the sensitivity and explosive potential.

President Trump’s pattern of foreign policy recklessness may be reaching a perilous new front: the West Bank.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s reported proposal to eliminate the U.S. security coordinator for the West Bank and Gaza — a position held by a three-star general charged with averting crises in one of the world’s most volatile regions — is no ordinary bureaucratic reshuffle. It is a gamble with lives, and an insult to logic and expertise that’s likely to further destabilize the West Bank at a time of already exceptional volatility.

Such a move, part of Rubio’s broader reorganization of the State Department, is a rejection of decades of institutional knowledge — one that exemplifies the risks of the administration’s populist war on professionals. When performative politics, cheap stunts and slogans about “efficiency” override sober, results-driven governance, there can be real costs.

For the West Bank, those consequences could be profound. The USSC advises, trains and helps equip Palestinian Authority security forces, which are essential in preventing chaos in areas under Palestinian civilian control. Further, the USSC facilitates coordination between the PA and the Israeli military, including intelligence-sharing and deconfliction efforts — a thankless but vital task in an environment where misunderstandings can quickly spiral into fatal escalation.

The USSC, currently Gen. Mike Fenzel — who helms a team of American and allied officers supported by NATO experts — is, in other words, not just another ceremonial liaison. The office is a vital instrument of stability in a region on the brink. In its work coordinating security between Israel and the PA, it helps ensure a degree of communication that has helped prevent escalations. Fenzel has direct access to top Israeli and Palestinian officials, and his briefings to Washington offer rare, real-time insight.

The terrain it operates in is almost ungovernable without such a mechanism, especially given the degree of hostility manifested by the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toward the PA.

The West Bank is currently a labyrinthine patchwork of PA-administered enclaves surrounded by Israeli-controlled territory, all connected by roads riddled with Israeli checkpoints and security infrastructure.

Also in the mix are the constantly growing Israeli settlements — some fully authorized, others illegal outposts, all of them considered unlawful by most other countries (although not by the Trump administration). Many are deep inside the occupied territory, and some are home to radical extremists who reject the most basic coexistence.

Settlers have gone on repeated rampages in Palestinian villages, involving arson, looting, and the killing of civilians. Since the current government came into power in late 2022, they’ve experienced something close to impunity in doing so — even though Israel’s own security chiefs have warned of the destabilizing impact of such lawlessness.

Meanwhile, the threat of Palestinian terrorism is tragically real. Armed cells, often tied to Hamas or Islamic Jihad, have carried out deadly attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers in the West Bank, particularly in the flashpoint towns of Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarm. In 2023 and 2024, these areas saw large-scale Israeli counterterrorism raids involving elite units and heavy weaponry. The PA has been too weak — politically and operationally — to rein in these groups alone.

Human rights, women’s empowerment, and atrocity prevention offices are being dismantled or merged out of existence — senseless moves often justified with vague accusations of “wokeness.” A similar coordinator for Ukrainian atrocities is being axed. Offices that respond to global food insecurity and disinformation campaigns are being gutted.

The consequences for U.S. soft power are staggering, offering a monumental assist to rivals like Russia. Disastrously, the administration is also eviscerating USAID, with the vast majority of its congressionally approved programs slated for cancellation. These include efforts to support democratic development, independent media and post-conflict reconstruction — the very tools that prevent the need for military intervention later.

Removing the USSC in the West Bank will most immediately hurt Israelis and Palestinians. But the grand Trump administration design of which it is a part will ultimately hurt the United States. Rubio’s cuts mirror Trump’s tariffs — policies universally condemned by experts, but advanced anyway as political theater.

Whatever savings are to be had by cutting the USSC would be dwarfed by the cost of cleaning up the mess that will ensue should the West Bank explode in anger, as it very well might. Moreover, the USSC could be vital in the eventual postwar reconstruction of Gaza, possibly helping to train Palestinian forces to replace Hamas. The costs of giving up that possibility are also great.

Eliminating the role now amplifies the signal that horrified allies the world over have already received: The U.S. is no longer interested in being a useful player on the world stage, and with it the Middle East.

This is how superpowers lose influence: by becoming so hubristic that utter nonsense follows. Let’s hope it is not Israelis and Palestinians that pay the price of American folly.

Milken Community School designed its eighth-grade class trip to create authentic encounters with Israeli teens, but not the kind that include pepper spray and trips to the ER.

The Jewish day school’s Israel trip took a frightening turn Wednesday when local Jewish teens attacked the students at a public Yom Ha’atzmaut celebration in Tiberias.

Sarah Shulkind, the head of the Los Angeles school, said in a letter to parents that 11 boys and girls were taken to a hospital after roughhousing with shaving foam escalated into a violent confrontation.

The incident occurred at a promenade in the Galilean coastal city, where 75 Milken students and their chaperones arrived Wednesday night for Independence Day festivities. Some of the students were fooling around with foam spray, a staple of Israeli parties, Shulkind said, but when some local kids got too rowdy, the Milken group moved to a different area.

A few minutes later, Shulkind said, several Israeli teens approached the students “in an aggressive confrontational manner.” She and a teacher saw this happening and tried to separate the groups.

“However,” Shulkind wrote, “tensions rose quickly, and we directed the Milken students to go back to the buses immediately.”

“The Israeli teenagers chased our students and their much older siblings came from the other direction on the promenade and sprayed pepper spray at 10 Milken students,” she continued. “In two cases, our students were also pushed, punched, and kicked as well.”

The police arrived and identified the perpetrators, she said, and all the students were “physically fine” after being checked out at a local hospital.