An 88-year-old Holocaust survivor was burned at a pro-Israeli rally in Boulder Colorado this week, along with 11 others, in another antisemitic hate crime incident in America. Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national, entered the country legally on a B2 tourist visa in 2022; immediately applied for asylum; and was exhausting his legal options to stay in the United States. More than 40 percent of all undocumented immigrants gain entrance to the U.S. with a tourist visa.

“Free Palestine,” Soliman shouted, before throwing handmade firebombs at a group of elderly people gathered to peacefully protest the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. Trump called the Colorado attack “yet another example of why we must keep our Borders SECURE, and deport Illegal, Anti-American Radicals from our Homeland.” Trump subsequently banned 12 countries from entering the United States, and those from 7 others will face restrictions. Those bans and restrictions will take effect at midnight.

There were 9,354 antisemitic incidents in the US in 2024, according to the Anti-Defamation League. While the highest number on record, this year’s assassinations at the Capital Jewish Museum, and torching incident at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, characterize flashpoints of antisemitism targeting the Jewish community's deep roots in public service and politics. Sara Netanyahu alights on “My View:”

Radical left-wing elites, funded by foreign countries and others, and holding influential positions within key institutions, are abusing the judicial system and trying to overthrow a democratically elected government. They’re undermining public trust and democracy.

The Gaza War has sparked an international diplomatic crisis. France, Britain, and Canada’s forthcoming "concrete actions" against Israel’s military offensive and aid restrictions to Gaza are offset by the US rejecting yet another UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the occupied Gaza Strip. At least nine countries have recalled their ambassadors and cut diplomatic ties with Israel; the UN has found "reasonable grounds" to believe that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza; and the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Benjamin Netanyahu for the persecution, starvation, murders, and other crimes against humanity in the Gaza War. A first for any leader of a Western-backed democratic country.

However, laying blame with Netanyahu of the the Gaza War, or uptick of antisemitic attacks around the world, belies the possibility of an unauthorized or secret network of power operating independently of the state's leadership.

In an affidavit, Israels’s Spy Chief Ronen Bar said Netanyahu had "pressed him to spy on those Israeli citizens who had led and funded anti-government protests,” and "demanded personal loyalty above the rulings of the Supreme Court in the event of a constitutional crisis."

Yair Netanyahu, the premier’s eldest son, has joined a growing chorus who claim that a deep state and "Israel's Security Agency is carrying out a coup against democracy."

Most people surveyed across 24 countries have negative views of Israel and Netanyahu, according to Pew Research. International views of both are more negative than positive, and 58% of Israelis feel that Israel is not too, or not at all, respected around the world. A sentiment shared by at least one former Israeli prime minister.

One of the strongest condemnations of Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza came via a scathing op-ed in Haaretz last week called “Enough Is Enough. Israel Is Committing War Crimes.” PBS New Hour’s Geoff Bennett spoke to Ehud Olmert on Tuesday: “On the matter of your op-ed, what prompted your shift from previously defending Israel's actions in Gaza to now condemning them as war crimes?

This is becoming like a private war of the prime minister trying to somehow escape from the possible ramifications of ending the war now because of political considerations.

At the start of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cross-examination Tuesday morning in the Tel Aviv District Court, five years after his corruption trial began, the prosecution sought to undermine his credibility as a witness and chip away at the veracity of his testimony.

Called the Publisher's Trial, investigations into allegations of bribery, fraud, and a breach of trust by Netanyahu and close political allies during his fourth and fifth terms as Israel's prime minister led to indictments for breach of trust, accepting bribes, and fraud. The Publishers Trial got underway in May 2020, and the defense took the stand this year.

The crux of the allegations, borne out in the circumstances of Case 1000, is Netanyahu accepting luxury gifts worth more than 1 million shekels from Arnon Milchan, an Israeli billionaire, in return for assisting Milchan with special tax exemptions (Milchan’s Law); obtaining a long-term US visa; and spearheading a merger between two Israeli television broadcasting and production companies.

On Tuesday, Trump 2.0 asked Congress in a rescission request to claw back the cash from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. CPB received $535 million in federal funding in 2025. A White House spokesperson explains, “Federal spending on CPB subsidizes a public media system that is politically biased and is an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.” A view Trump’s Israeli counterpart shares about Israel’s public media (KAN).

Taking control of public media, public education, and the federal judiciary are in precisely that order the first items of business in the Authoritarian Playbook, but Netanyahu on the stand this week put it this way. “In America and in Israel, when a strong right-wing leader wins an election, the leftist Deep State weaponizes the justice system to thwart the people’s will. They won’t win in either place. We stand strong together.”

“What world is he living?” Netanyahu asks. “Did he and his friends in the deep state forget who is in power in America?” A nod to Trump 2.0 consolidating power in the executive, Benjamin Netanyahu shifts the blame for the colossal failure to prevent or even foresee the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel onto the shoulders of Ronen Bar. Arguing he wasn’t roused at 7 a.m. on the morning of the invasion, with signs of the impending attack long underway, whats clear is that the 1,195 individuals killed at the Nova Festival Massacre, and 251 hostages subjected to torture and sexual violence, created the only diplomatic pathway for Israel to engage the international community in an effort to eradicate Hamas; start construction on 22 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank; and to quell if not dispel the notion of a Palestinian State altogether by what the pm now calls “various means.”

On War Day #1, Israel faced a barbaric enemy: one that uses it own citizens as human shields and sacrificial lambs in unconventional warfare. But today is War Day #610, and Israel has officially begun arming ISIS-affiliated warlords, criminals, gangs, drug dealers, and clans to fight Hamas in Gaza. By rights, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can no longer be considered a conventional war. If or whether its a private war — where personal interests engage private enterprise in militant operations — is a question that lies not with the actions of thugs or mercenaries, but rather state actors who somewhere along the way get lost in the masquerade.