Aharon Barak’s protest gavel

Ruthie Blum

Former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90.

In a slew of interviews on Thursday, former Supreme Court President Aharon Barak came out swinging his proverbial gavel. His target was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—this time around for firing Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar and gearing up to get rid of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.

Since going after Netanyahu was what the left-wing press expected of the esteemed elder, the retired judge-turned-oracle didn’t disappoint. If anything, he went above and beyond the call of duty.

“The prime minister,” he told Channel 13, “needs to understand that the situation is very bad and that … we are heading toward bloodshed, toward a civil war.”

The schism among Israelis, he said to Ynet, “is getting worse and, in the end, I fear, it will be like a train that goes off the tracks and plunges in a chasm, causing a civil war.”

And this to Channel 12: “[T]he rift in the public is immense, and no effort is being made to heal it. … Today, there are demonstrations … but tomorrow there will be shootings, and the day after that there will be bloodshed.”

This is just a taste of Barak’s multi-media onslaught. Though described by his champions as a “warning” to the Netanyahu-led government that any moves against Bar and Baharav-Miara would rip apart the country and—ho hum—destroy Israeli democracy, his pontificating had two main motives.

The first was to threaten Netanyahu that if he proceeds with the ousters—the legality of which is indisputable—the demonstrations in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv will turn violent. Implicit in the admonition was that such a dangerous spike in societal unrest would be both inevitable and justified.

The second aim of Barak’s sermonizing was to signal support for Bar’s refusal to exit his post and Baharav-Miara’s abuse of her role, while instructing the High Court to overrule the government in each of the cases. As though it needed any coaxing on that score.

Still, a nod from the father of Israel’s “constitutional revolution”—who justified his power grab for the bench more than 30 years ago on the grounds that “no areas in life are outside the law”—is a cherished commodity among the robed elites. Though he retired 18 years ago at the mandatory age of 70, he remains a jurisprudence giant in the eyes of the legal community, at home and abroad.

Indeed, even those who consider his activism excessive tend to pay lip service to his ostensibly original thinking and supposed superior intellect. Due to this reputation, however ill-deserved, Netanyahu selected him to sit as Israel’s ad hoc judge at the International Court of Justice in January 2024—to hear proceedings brought by South Africa accusing the Jewish state of violating the Genocide Convention.

The choice of Barak raised eyebrows and hackles on the right. After all, he had been a key figure in helping the opposition undermine the government’s plans to reform the judicial system.

During the months leading up to Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion and ensuing war in Gaza, Barak—who referred to the right-wing victory in the November 2022 election as a “tyranny of the majority—gave credence to the lie that any judicial reform would result in an end to Israeli democracy. Then, as now, the press made a pilgrimage to his home to amplify the bogus allegation.

Netanyahu must have thought that dispatching the internationally renowned, anti-Bibi Barak to The Hague was thus a wise maneuver. But it was actually too clever by half, which is why it backfired.

Rather than fully representing Israel’s position, Barak voted in favor of two out of six measures proposed by South Africa:​ the “facilitation of humanitarian aid” to Gaza and the “prevention of inflammatory speech that could incite further violence.”

Judge Julia Sebutinde of Uganda put him to shame by dissenting on all six anti-Israel measures. Not that he felt remorse for his disgraceful performance, mind you. On the contrary, he clearly took pride in showing the antisemitic kangaroo tribunal that he wasn’t tainted by loyalty to his people.

Fortunately, he resigned in June from the futile position, citing “personal family reasons” and thanking Netanyahu “for the trust you placed in me.”

No mention of his betrayal of that trust, other than from those of us who weren’t the least bit surprised by it. You know, considering his outrageous conduct prior to and during the proceedings.

Nor were we shocked at his being dusted off and shoved in front of the cameras last week to reiterate his indictment of the democratically elected political echelon and foment the worst form of internecine strife—at a time when the country is in the throes of an existential battle for its survival, no less.

Dubbing him the “high priest of progressivism,” Likud MK and Deputy Knesset Speaker Hanoch Milwidsky aptly summed up the message of Barak’s recent broadcast-blitz: “Submit to us, or there will be bloodshed. Do as we wish, or there will be a civil war.”

Barak, he tweeted, is a “dangerous and dark man. I hope he lives long enough to see his ‘constitutional revolution’ abandoned in favor of true democracy in the Jewish state of Israel.”

Amen to that.

Ruthie Blum, a former adviser at the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is an award-winning columnist and a senior contributing editor at JNS. Co-host with Ambassador Mark Regev of the JNS-TV podcast “Israel Undiplomatic,” she writes on Israeli politics and U.S.-Israel relations. Originally from New York, she moved to Israel in 1977. She is a regular guest on national and international media outlets, including Fox, Sky News, i24News, Scripps, ILTV, WION and Newsmax.

Poll: Nearly 60% of Israelis support return to fighting Hamas in Gaza

JNS Staff

Israel Defense Forces soldiers operate in the Gaza Strip, June 21, 2024. Credit: IDF.

Nearly three in five Israelis back the resumption of fighting in the Gaza Strip in the wake of Hamas’s rejection of a U.S. proposal to extend the ceasefire in exchange for the release of more hostages.

According to a survey carried out by Israel’s Direct Polls Institute and published by Channel 14 on Monday night—before the Israel Defense Forces launched a campaign of extensive airstrikes in Gaza—59% of Israelis support the resumption of hostilities.

Some 38% said they opposed it, while 3% of respondents did not express a position.

Direct Polls, which accurately predicted the results of the Jewish state’s most recent general election in 2022, surveyed a representative sample of 506 Israeli adults on March 17. (The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points at a confidence level of 95%, Direct Polls said.)

The IDF announced early on Tuesday morning that it had launched “extensive” strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza. The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said the military was acting after Hamas rebuffed several proposals from U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff and others.

“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

The goal of the campaign remains to achieve “the objectives of the war as they have been determined by the political echelon, including the release of all of our hostages, the living and the deceased,” the PMO statement added.

Even before Netanyahu ordered the airstrikes, his Likud Party was strengthening in the polls, according to Monday’s Direct Polls survey.

If a vote were to be called now, the Likud Party would secure 34 Knesset mandates out of the parliament’s 120, up two since the previous Direct Polls survey published on March 6 and one more than it won in the general election on Nov. 1, 2022.

Netanyahu’s coalition of right-wing and religious parties would win 64 mandates, up one since the March 6 survey, and the same amount of Knesset mandates it received in the 2022 election, per Direct Polls.

After the Likud Party, Yair Golan’s far-left HaDemokratim received the next most seats (18), followed by the Yisrael Beytenu Party (14), Shas (11), United Torah Judaism and National Unity Party (eight each), Yesh Atid and Otzma Yehudit (six each), and Religious Zionism, Ra’am (the United Arab List) and Hadash-Ta’al (five each).

In a head-to-head matchup for who is best suited for the role of prime minister, Netanyahu defeated National Unity Party’s Benny Gantz by a margin of 47% to 17% (36% of respondents said neither was suited).

When choosing between Netanyahu and Yesh Atid’s Yair Lapid, 47% replied that the longtime Likud prime minister was best suited to lead the Jewish state, 20% preferred Lapid, and 33% said neither.

The next national vote is scheduled for 2026.

Education minister threatens to defund Tel Aviv school that urged students to skip class in protest

JNS Staff

“Ze’ev Degani is a criminal,” Kisch said of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium’s principal.

.
Ze’ev Degani, principal of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium in Tel Aviv, Sept. 4, 2023. Photo by Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90.

Israeli Education Minister Yoav Kisch vowed Monday to “immediately” suspend the funding of the Herzliya Hebrew Gymnasium if the Tel Aviv high school would follow through on threats to cancel class to allow pupils to protest the pending firing of Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar.

“Ze’ev Degani is a criminal,” Kisch said of the school’s headmaster. He noted that Degani’s decision “to shut down class and dispatch students to a political protest is a serious and direct violation of the Compulsory Education Law,” which mandates school attendance until the age of 17.

“The education system is not a free-for-all, and we will not allow schools to become battlegrounds for political conflicts,” continued the minister.

“For this reason, Degani and the Herzliya Gymnasium’s executive board were summoned for an urgent hearing on Wednesday. If the school is indeed shut down, the funding that the Herzliya Gymnasium receives from the education system will be immediately halted,” he added.

“Schools are places for learning, not platforms for political propaganda. Politics will remain with the politicians,” concluded Kisch’s statement.

In a missive sent to his staff earlier on Monday, Degani reportedly wrote that the Jewish state’s democracy was “on the verge of collapse” due to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement he would seek the dismissal of Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) chief Ronen Bar.

“We can no longer remain silent. The prime minister is turning the country into a dictatorship by acting against the law,” said Degani. “On Wednesday, it will be impossible to teach history and math at school.”

Netanyahu summoned Bar for an urgent meeting on Sunday evening, where he informed him that the government would consider his firing later this week due to a lack of confidence and “ongoing distrust.” The Cabinet vote is reportedly scheduled to take place on Wednesday.

In August 2023, Kisch vowed to “deal with” Degani after the Herzliya Gymnasium was found to encourage its students to evade mandatory military service in the Israel Defense Forces.

The far-left Youth Against Dictatorship group, which had been rallying teens to refuse army service, that month took over the school in protest against Netanyahu’s now-largely-shelved judicial reform plans. Degani was said to have officially approved the event before it took place.

Among other speakers, students heard from Saleh Diab, a violent terror supporter from eastern Jerusalem’s Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood.

Diab has been arrested numerous times for attacking Jews, including on suspicion of attacking Shabbat worshippers with an iron rod. In 2014, he served months in prison for aggravated assault on a Jewish neighbor.

Israel, Hamas Signal Readiness for Next Ceasefire Talks as Mediators Push for Progress

Reuters and Algemeiner Staff

Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, March 5, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Al-Basos

Israel and Hamas signaled on Saturday they were preparing for the next phase of ceasefire negotiations, as mediators pushed ahead with talks to extend the fragile 42-day truce that began in January.

Hamas said there were “positive indicators” for the start of the ceasefire’s second-phase talks but did not elaborate.

Israel also said it was preparing for talks. “Israel has accepted the invitation of the mediators backed by the US, and will send a delegation to Doha on Monday in an effort to advance the negotiations,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said.

A delegation from Hamas is engaging in ceasefire talks in Cairo with Egyptian mediators who have been helping facilitate the talks along with officials from Qatar. They aim to proceed to the next stage of the deal, which could open the way to ending the war.

“We affirm our readiness to engage in the second-phase negotiations in a way that meets the demands of our people, and we call for intensified efforts to aid the Gaza Strip and lift the blockade on our suffering people,” Hamas spokesman Abdel-Latif Al-Qanoua said in a statement.

In a later statement reporting its delegation’s meeting with the head of Egypt’s general intelligence agency, Hassan Mahmoud Rashad, Hamas affirmed the group’s approval of forming a committee of what it described as “national and independent” characters to run Gaza until elections.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi earlier said Cairo had worked in cooperation with Palestinians on creating an administrative committee of independent, professional Palestinian technocrats entrusted with the governance of Gaza after the end of the Israel-Gaza war.

His remarks came during the Arab summit which adopted Egypt’s alternative reconstruction plan for Gaza, as opposed to U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Middle East Riviera” vision.

Even as diplomacy continued, an Israeli airstrike killed two Palestinians in Rafah in southern Gaza on Saturday, medical sources said.

The Israeli military said its aircraft struck a drone that crossed from Israel into southern Gaza and “several suspects” who tried to collect it in what appeared to be a botched smuggling attempt.

The strike came after an Israeli drone strike killed two people in Gaza on Friday. The Israeli military said it attacked a group of suspected terrorists operating near its troops in northern Gaza and planting an explosive device in the ground.

The Gaza ceasefire deal that took effect in January calls for the remaining 59 hostages in Hamas captivity to be freed in a second phase, during which final plans would be negotiated for an end to the war.

The first phase of the ceasefire ended last week. Israel has since imposed a total blockade on all goods entering the enclave, demanding that Hamas free the remaining hostages without beginning the negotiations to end the Gaza war.

Fighting has been halted since January 19 and Hamas has released 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. Israeli authorities believe fewer than half of the remaining 59 hostages are still alive.