Netanyahu’s survival tactics tested amid Israel Shin Bet head’s accusations
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a knack for survival. The country’s longest serving leader – he has been in power for 18 years over three nonconsecutive periods – has seen off many rivals and outlasted several enemies. The latest fight is with Ronen Bar, the head of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet. Netanyahu fired Bar last month due to what he called a breakdown in trust, but the Supreme Court has suspended the dismissal, pending an investigation. In the meantime, there have been protests against Netanyahu – the prime minister is used to those – and now an affidavit filed by Bar on Monday, in which he lobs several accusations against the Israeli leader. They include demands from Netanyahu that Bar place his loyalty to him above that of the Supreme Court’s rulings if the two ever clash and that he spy on Netanyahu’s opponents. It all comes as the Shin Bet investigates financial ties between Netanyahu’s office and Qatar. Scandal after scandal Netanyahu has denied Bar’s claims, calling his affidavit a “false” one that would be “disproved in detail soon”. Advertisement The response follows the Netanyahu playbook when facing opposition – a denial of any accusations made against him, a shifting of the blame and pushing a problem to the future if possible. The legal cases Netanyahu faces – he is on trial for corruption – are a case in point. The prime minister has been able to drag the court process out for years and most recently has used Israel’s war on Gaza to delay his court appearances. “There is scandal fatigue in the Israeli public,” Israeli political analyst Nimrod Flaschenberg told Al Jazeera. Flaschenberg added that Israeli society’s increased polarisation means another scandal will hardly shift where people stand on the divisive Netanyahu. “People who are against Netanyahu and against the government see this as another evidence of the corruption, the deterioration of democratic space and the end of Israeli democracy,” he said. “And people from the pro-Netanyahu camp see this as Bar trying to generate a coup against Netanyahu and his right-wing government.” This polarisation has been aided by the fact the Israeli political opposition is fractured. Opposition figure Benny Gantz was once the challenger to the throne but has been criticised for failing to take strong stances on complicated issues, and there is growing support for him to be replaced as the head of the National Unity political alliance. “Many Israelis think [the current situation is] an emergency but they don’t really have the tools to change it, and there’s no powerful opposition in the parliament that can do anything about it,” said Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst on Israel with the International Crisis Group. Advertisement Strong coalition The war in Gaza itself is a testament to Netanyahu’s survival skills. Despite being blamed by many Israelis for failing to prevent the October 7, 2023, attacks against Israel, among the deadliest in the country’s history, and unable to free the remaining captives held in Gaza or fully defeat Hamas, Netanyahu remains in power. That is even as the war grows increasingly unpopular in Israel with 100,000 reservists failing to respond to their call-ups, according to the Israeli-Palestinian +972 Magazine. And yet Netanyahu is arguably in a stronger position politically than he was at the start of the war, expanding Israeli-occupied territory in Lebanon and Syria, all while seeing the administration of ally President Donald Trump take power in the United States. Netanyahu’s governing coalition may have lost some figures over time, including former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, but it has become more solidified by shifting further to the right. “His coalition is very much solid and intact,” Zonszein said. “Throughout the last year and a half, he’s only stabilised his coalition further.” Netanyahu has increasingly leaned on the ultra-Orthodox and far-right parties like those led by two of the most far-right ministers in his government – Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. While analysts said a shift rightwards has upset many Israelis, there seems to be little chance of change at the moment. “It would take a very radical step to actually remove Netanyahu from power,” Zonszein said. Advertisement “It’s like a grinding, deteriorating situation in which more allegations and evidence come to light,” Zonszein said, speaking of the scandals Netanyahu has faced. “But it doesn’t mean it’s going to change anything on the ground.” Little hope A sort of lethargy may have started to set in in some quarters of Israeli society as Netanyahu holds onto power. His coalition has enough seats in parliament to continue, and its members have their own reasons for wanting to avoid it breaking up. That means the only way Netanyahu is likely to be removed from power is through elections – the next of which does not need to happen until October 27, 2026. In theory, the attorney general could determine Netanyahu is unfit to serve, but analysts said that would prove contentious and unlikely to happen. Failing that, the only way Netanyahu might be removed from power would be through elections. A poll this month from Israel’s Channel 12 showed that the right-wing former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s new party would win a majority if elections were held today. But that alone is not enough to calm the worries of some people in Israel. “Some Israelis are concerned that there won’t be a free and fair election next year,” Zonszein said. Flaschenberg said he feared the police could be used by Netanyahu and his allies to suppress voting. There are, however, some possible moves for the Israeli public to play. Flaschenberg said public strikes have been effective in the past. In mid-2023, a public strike prevented Netanyahu from firing Gallant although another attempt at a strike in late 2024 failed because of a lack of clear demands. Advertisement And the furore over the attempted firing of Bar is unlikely to change things. For the pressure to manifest into something tangible against Netanyahu, a number of
What’s next for the Catholic Church after Pope Francis?
The first Latin American pope has died. We look at his legacy, reforms and what his death means for the Catholic Church. Pope Francis, the first Latin American and Jesuit pontiff, has died at age 88. His papacy broke barriers and redefined the Catholic Church’s global image — but also left tough questions unanswered. We look back on his legacy, the controversies that followed him, and what comes next for the church. Adblock test (Why?)
Trump’s campaign to turn dissent into a deportable offence harms democracy
On April 11, an immigration judge in Louisiana ruled that Mahmoud Khalil, a former Columbia University graduate student and lawful United States permanent resident, can be deported. Not for committing a crime. Not for violating immigration rules. But for his political speech – specifically for helping organise a peaceful Gaza solidarity encampment at his university. The government’s case against Khalil is hinged on Section 237(a)(4)(C)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, a Cold War-era provision that permits the deportation of any noncitizen whose presence is deemed a potential threat to US foreign policy. The evidence the government submitted against him was a two-page memo from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, asserting – without proof – that Khalil’s “beliefs and associations” could “adversely affect U.S. foreign policy interests”. Ironically, the document itself admitted that Khalil’s actions were “otherwise lawful”. And yet, it was enough. The mere invocation of “foreign policy” or “national security” now operates like a legal incantation, overriding First Amendment protections, due process and even common sense. Advertisement Khalil’s case is not an outlier. It is the leading edge of a broader strategy to silence dissent in the US – particularly dissent critical of Israeli policies or sympathetic to Palestinian rights – using various legal tools. This use and abuse of the US legal system sets a dangerous precedent that in the long run will harm American democracy. Dozens of international students and scholars – many from Muslim-majority countries or racialised communities – have also been subjected to surveillance, detention and deportation, often without any allegations of criminal wrongdoing. Among them is Badar Khan Suri, a visiting academic at Georgetown University and Indian citizen who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at his home in Virginia and later transferred to Texas. He remains in detention, facing removal based on his family ties. The father of his American wife used to work as an adviser to the Gaza government. Another example is Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish Fulbright scholar and doctoral student at Tufts University who was detained after co-authoring a newspaper opinion piece related to the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. A US immigration judge has since denied her release, labelling her a “flight risk and a danger to the community”. Another recent case is that of Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian green card holder and Columbia student protest leader who was arrested by ICE agents when he went for his US citizenship interview. He now faces deportation to the occupied West Bank, which he said would be “a death sentence”, given that he has lost family and friends to Israeli military violence. Advertisement Then there’s Momodou Taal, a British-Gambian PhD candidate at Cornell University who filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration, arguing that executive orders targeting pro-Palestinian activists violated his First and Fifth Amendment rights. Despite suing preemptively and being legally represented, Taal’s efforts were ultimately undermined by jurisdictional manoeuvring and executive pressure. His emergency injunction was denied by a federal judge on March 27, and days later, he self-deported, saying he no longer trusted the courts to protect him even with a favourable ruling. There is also Yunseo Chung, a South Korean-born Columbia student and US permanent resident who narrowly avoided deportation thanks to a preemptive federal court injunction. Alireza Doroudi, an Iranian engineering PhD student at the University of Alabama, was quietly detained with no explanation. Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian student at Columbia, fled to Canada after ICE agents visited her apartment. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) later released footage of her departure, labelling her a “terrorist sympathiser”. In this campaign of political persecution, the Trump administration has largely relied on immigration courts, which are not part of the independent federal judiciary under Article III of the US Constitution. They are administrative tribunals housed within the executive branch, specifically, the Department of Justice. Their judges are appointed by the attorney general, lack tenure and are subject to political oversight. The procedural protections available in Article III courts – such as full evidentiary hearings, impartial review and constitutional due process – are substantially weakened in immigration courts. Advertisement While federal courts may scrutinise whether an arrest or deportation violates constitutional protections – like the First Amendment or equal protection – immigration judges are often empowered to rule based on vague assertions of “foreign policy concerns” or “national security interests” with little to no requirement for concrete evidence. This dual-track legal system allows the government to bypass the constitution while maintaining the appearance of legality. There have been numerous calls to reform this system from legal scholars, human rights organisations and even former immigration judges. Proposals have included moving immigration courts out of the Department of Justice and into an independent Article I court structure to ensure judicial impartiality. However, these reforms have consistently failed, largely due to congressional inaction as well as political resistance from successive administrations that have benefitted from the system’s malleability. The executive branch has long viewed immigration courts as a tool of policy enforcement rather than neutral adjudication. While this crackdown has so far focused on noncitizens with legal status, it could soon extend to naturalised Americans. US law allows the revocation of citizenship in cases of fraud, membership in terrorist organisations and other crimes. In his first term, Trump created a dedicated “Denaturalization Section” within the Department of Justice to pursue citizenship revocations. About 700,000 immigrant files were investigated with the aim of bringing 1,600 cases to court. Advertisement Trump has now signalled that he intends to pick up his denaturalisation drive where he left off. If he deploys this legal tool against critical voices, this would mean that even citizenship may no longer offer protection if one’s political views fall out of favour with the government. As the Department of Justice, DHS and ICE have worked together on the campaign against dissent, they have received public support from nonprofit organisations. Groups like Betar and Canary Mission have taken public credit for identifying international students involved in pro-Palestinian
Economic nostalgia is turning into punishment | #AJOPINION
NewsFeed “The idea that America was ‘better before’ is one of our oldest myths.” Rotimi Adeoye says the Trump administration’s nostalgic push to return the US to a past economic era is a recurring theme in American history, one that often comes at the expense of the marginalised. Published On 22 Apr 202522 Apr 2025 Adblock test (Why?)
Vatican video shows Pope in open casket
[unable to retrieve full-text content] The Vatican has released the first images of Pope Francis in an open coffin in the chapel of Casa Santa Marta.
Gaza’s Christians mourn death of Pope Francis
Gaza’s small Christian community is mourning the death of Pope Francis, who had maintained close and consistent video contact with the Palestinian devotees throughout the war that continues to devastate the enclave. Since the outbreak of fighting between Israel and Hamas in October 2023, Francis had regularly called Gaza’s Christians, often several times a week, offering prayers, encouragement and solidarity. “I always waited to hear the words of the Holy Father. I would watch him on television, and through the screens. He gave us hope with his messages and prayers,” said Elias al-Sayegh, 49, from Zeitoun. “We felt we were alive because of his prayers and blessings. Every day, he renewed our hope for an end to the war and the bloodshed. His prayers will remain with us for peace in the land of peace, Palestine.” “I wish I could take part in the prayers at the Church of the Nativity and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,” he added, referring to ancient churches in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem. Advertisement “With the pope’s passing, we in Gaza feel as though a light of love and peace has been extinguished,” said 67-year-old George Ayad from al-Sahaba. “Though the Vatican is far away, his voice always reached our hearts – he never ceased calling for peace and justice. “Amid the pain and suffocating blockade we endured, we clung to his words as a beacon of hope. The pope never forgot Gaza in his prayers – and today, we offer ours for his soul.” Adblock test (Why?)
New Zealand’s minor gov’t party pushes to define women by biological sex
Populist New Zealand First party says bill will ensure country moves away from ‘woke ideology’ harming women. A minor party in New Zealand’s coalition government has announced proposals to legally define women by biological sex, casting the move as a return to common sense and a rejection of “woke ideology”. The bill announced by the populist New Zealand First (NZF) party on Tuesday would define a woman and a man in law as a “human biological female” and “an adult human biological male”, respectively. NZF leader Winston Peters, whose party governs in a coalition with the centre-right National Party and pro-business ACT New Zealand, said the proposed law would “reflect biological reality” and “provide legal certainty”. “This Bill would ensure our country moves away from the woke ideology that has crept in over the last few years, undermining the protection, progression, and safety of women,” Peters, who serves as the deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, said in a post on X. “These definitions in law fight back against the cancerous social engineering we’ve seen being pushed in society by a woke minority,” Peters added. Advertisement “The need for legislation like this shows how far the deluded left has taken us as a society. But we are fighting back. This bill is a win for common sense.” It is not clear whether the bill, which was introduced by an individual MP instead of the government, has a realistic prospect of becoming law. NZF is the smallest of the three coalition partners in government, with 11 seats in the 123-member parliament, and most bills introduced by individual MPs ultimately do not end up on the statute books. Chris Hipkins, the leader of the main opposition New Zealand Labour Party, accused the NZF of being interested in “one headline after the next”. “They don’t really have a coherent programme and they’re certainly not focused on the things that are required to lead New Zealand forward,” Hipkins told Radio New Zealand. The proposals come less than a week after the United Kingdom’s highest court ruled that women are defined by biological sex under the country’s equality laws. The landmark decision was welcomed by conservative politicians and some feminist advocacy groups, but greeted with dismay by transgender campaigners and progressive activists, who warned it would further the marginalisation of the LGBTQ community. Adblock test (Why?)
Palestinians in distress after Israeli attack in Khan Younis
NewsFeed “Let them drop nuclear weapons on us so we can die all at once.” At least eleven Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a residential building, as a result of a fire caused by the strikes. Neighbours of the victims in Khan Younis expressed their distress. Published On 22 Apr 202522 Apr 2025 Adblock test (Why?)
The Endgame
People & Power examines whether the forced transfer of Palestinians is Israel’s ultimate goal. As soon as he came to power, United States President Donald Trump echoed calls for the Palestinians’ massive displacement outside their homeland. Israel’s war on Gaza has displaced nearly two million Palestinians since October 2023. And with calls by some Israeli politicians to permanently expel Palestinians from the Strip, fear is growing of yet another forced population transfer. An Israeli minister has even called the current war the “Gaza Nakba”, referring to the forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948-49. Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army and settlers are waging a less visible but equally dangerous shadow war. People & Power delves into the history of Palestinian displacement and asks whether population transfer is Israel’s ultimate goal. Adblock test (Why?)
Israeli attacks kill 28 in Gaza, destroy bulldozers for recovering the dead
UNRWA says Gaza has become ‘a land of desperation’ as Israel continues to pound the strip and block humanitarian aid. Israeli forces have killed at least 28 Palestinians in Gaza since dawn, including 11 people who burned to death inside their home in Khan Younis, and carried out air strikes that destroyed equipment used to retrieve the dead from under rubble. Seven members of a family were also killed on Tuesday by an air raid on the home where they were sheltering in western Gaza City. Three civilians, including two girls, were killed when Israeli warplanes targeted a group of people in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, warned that more than two million people – mostly women and children – were being collectively punished. “Gaza has become a land of desperation,” he said on X. Nearly 3,000 trucks of UNRWA supplies and humanitarian aid remained stuck outside Gaza, unable to enter while food and medicine inside the strip are quickly running out. “Hunger is spreading,” Lazzarini warned. “Humanitarian aid is being used as a bargaining chip – a weapon of war.” Advertisement The UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, warned that withholding humanitarian aid constitutes a war crime. “This action would further aggravate conditions of life calculated to destroy the Palestinian population of Gaza.” Hamas slammed Israel’s ongoing blockade, which began on March 2. “The Gaza Strip is facing an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe,” the group said in a statement, citing severe shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine. It added that the siege as well as daily attacks on shelters, hospitals and residential areas amount to a “premeditated crime” by the Israeli leadership. Hamas also blamed the situation on a “political, moral, and humanitarian failure” on the part of the international community and called on the UN and other institutions to pressure Israel to lift the blockade on aid. ‘Eradicating entire families’ Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, said: “The situation is unfolding rapidly here on the ground. What we are seeing is truly extraordinary in terms of very huge momentum of air strikes and artillery bombardments that have been seen over the course of the past 24 hours.” “What we understand is that the Israeli military has launched huge and heavy waves of air strikes with the latest targeting a group of Palestinians – three were confirmed killed in the strike, including two girls under the age of 14,” he added. “It has been quite obvious that these attacks are focused on eradicating entire families (as in Khan Younis attack) – we’re talking about four generations being wiped out – and also a more systematic escalation has been taking place on targeting heavy machinery that has been allowed to enter Gaza during the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal,” Abu Azzoum said. Advertisement Bulldozers used to recover the dead destroyed Gaza’s Civil Defence said Israel also targeted bulldozers used in humanitarian operations, including rubble removal and the recovery of bodies. Nine bulldozers brought into Gaza from Egypt during a six-week ceasefire that Israel ended on March 18 were destroyed in Israeli attacks on the Jabalia al-Nazlh municipality garage in northern Gaza, according to Civil Defence official Mohammed el-Mougher. “An agreement had previously been reached with the Egyptian-Qatari committee regarding the location of the bulldozers’ shelters,” he said, noting that their coordinates had been shared with Israel. “The targeting of municipal headquarters by Israeli occupation aircraft and the bombing of heavy equipment designated for rescue and rubble removal, including bulldozers and other machinery, is a criminal continuation of the war of extermination,” the group added in a statement. The Israeli army claimed heavy equipment destroyed in overnight attacks on Gaza was used “for terror purposes”. Thirty rights groups including Oxfam, Medical Aid for Palestinians and ActionAid issued a statement saying Israel has intensified its violence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank despite the UN General Assembly having demanded in September an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory within 12 months. World leaders must act urgently to “uphold their legal and moral responsibilities”, the statement said. Adblock test (Why?)