| Highlights from yesterday |
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Poll: 40 percent of Israelis believe ‘treason from within’ occurred on October 7
Forty percent of Israelis believe “treason from within” took place on October 7th, 2023, according to a poll published by Israel’s daily newspaper Maariv.
Forty-four percent of the general public dismiss the conspiracy theory, compared with 40 percent who believe it. Sixteen percent say they do not know, leaving the country divided over the claim. The survey also points to widespread public dread over an imminent regional escalation, the poll showed, according to Maariv.
Fifty-five percent of Israelis fear another direct war with Iran in the near future, while 39 percent say they are not afraid of an impending conflict, with 6 percent undecided.
That public unease also feeds into the elections in October 2026, where the incumbent faces an uphill battle. In head-to-head leadership contests, both former military chief Gadi Eisenkot (48 percent) and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett (43 percent) come out ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu (39 percent).
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Who is willing to stop Israel’s Ben-Gvir?
Itamar Ben-Gvir is one of Israel’s most provocative politicians.
As national security minister, Ben-Gvir oversees the police and prison system, and he has made clear how he intends to leverage that authority, promising harsher jail conditions and championing the execution of Palestinian detainees.
Humiliation has become intrinsic to his actions. [One video] shows him taunting activists detained while trying to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
His rhetoric extends beyond the prison system. He has urged Israeli forces to kill 30 to 40 Palestinians in Gaza every night, encouraged settler pogroms, pushed for the expansion of illegal settlements, and advocated for the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
Ben Gvir’s provocative comments are designed to shock, but perhaps the greater danger is when they don’t.
A politician once considered too far right for Israel’s government wields immense power over Palestinian lives, and with each line he crosses, the question becomes no longer how far Ben-Gvir is willing to go, but how far those around him are willing to let him go.
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Israel’s leaders ‘fighting over who is more extreme’ as elections loom
No one in Israel’s government is prepared to push back against the extremist policies of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a prominent Israeli peace activist has warned.
Alon-Lee Green, co-director and founder of the Palestinian-Jewish activist group Standing Together, said that Israeli politicians are “all fighting against each other over who is more extreme and who is winning more of the right-wing voters”.
Many opposition figures would not represent a departure from current anti-Palestine policies, the activist said, but instead seek to contest “the right wing in power over the question of who’s more right wing”.
Ben-Gvir is “trying to promise us that with more death, and more blood, and more abuse”, Israeli Jews will gain security, Green added.
“He’s lying. We will only get more violence out of it,” he said.
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Adidas single-shoe service campaign featuring Israeli soldier amputee ‘an affront to Palestinians’: Boycott campaigner
Sportswear giant Adidas has faced online criticism after a former Israeli soldier was featured in a local campaign promoting the German company’s single-shoe service, which is for amputees and people with leg limb differences.
The Israeli soldier in the campaign, Shalev Biton, lost his left leg after being wounded during the 2021 Israel-Gaza conflict.
Stephanie Westbrook, the sports boycott campaign coordinator at the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), said the Adidas campaign is an insult to Palestinians, over 5,000 of whom the World Health Organisation estimates have undergone amputations since October 2023.
“This isn’t just Adidas being tone deaf or insensitive, it is an absolute affront to the Palestinians who have lost their loved ones, killed by Israel, [or] who’ve lost limbs to Israel,” Westbrook told Al Jazeera.
“Gaza now has the highest number of child amputees anywhere in the world,” Westbrook added.
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