News Roundup for December 17, 2025
Netanyahu’s Pardon Gamble and What It Means For Israeli Democracy, Word on the Street
J Street Policy Fellow Yael Patir writes, “The request is unprecedented in modern Israeli history: a sitting prime minister on trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust asking for an end to legal proceedings without an admission of guilt, without expressing remorse, and without any commitment to retire from political life.”
‘Altering Demography’: Israel Bars Displaced Palestinians From Returning to West Bank Homes, Haaretz
“The Israeli army began a wide-ranging operation in the West Bank last January with the declared goal of ensuring freedom of action across wide areas of the northern West Bank, destroying terror infrastructure and ‘ticking time bombs.’ Over the course of the operation, dubbed Iron Wall, tens of thousands of people were evacuated from their homes in the Tulkarm, Nur al-Shams and Jenin refugee camps. In the meantime, the army has been razing many buildings in the camps, a process that continues even a year after the displacement.”
Trump Expands Travel Ban to Syrians, Palestinians, and Others, Axios
“President Trump on Tuesday expanded his administration’s travel ban with full restrictions against five new countries and people with Palestinian Authority-issued travel documents, as well as partial restrictions on 15 countries.”
Palestinian Teen Reportedly Shot Dead by Settler; Footage Appears to Show He Was Killed While Fleeing, Times of Israel
“Footage published by Palestinian media, captured from afar near a highway, appears to show Jibril and four other Palestinians running away from the road in different directions when a black van pulls up. One of the people running away, identified by Palestinian media as Jibril, falls and does not get up, as the van drives away.”
Coast Guard Enacts Policy Calling Swastikas, Nooses ‘Potentially Divisive’, Washington Post
“The U.S. Coast Guard has allowed a new workplace harassment policy to take effect that downgrades the definition of swastikas and nooses from overt hate symbols to ‘potentially divisive’ despite an uproar over the new language that forced the service’s top officer to direct that both would remain prohibited.”
One Reportedly Killed in Israeli Airstrike in Western Gaza City, Times of Israel
“Palestinian media reports at least one dead in an Israeli airstrike in western Gaza City, on the Hamas side of the ceasefire line. There is no immediate comment from the IDF.”
Trump Warns That Israel, ‘Jewish Lobby’ Have Lost Influence in D.C., Jewish Insider
“President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that Israel and the ‘Jewish lobby’ have lost their influence in Washington and that Congress is ‘becoming antisemitic,’ in a holiday message delivered to attendees at the White House’s annual Hanukkah party.”
Cynicism After Horror: Netanyahu Exploits Bondi Attack for His Own Agenda, Jerusalem Post
J Street leader Sebastien Levi writes, “It takes boundless audacity for Netanyahu to directly blame a government – however ineffective it may be – for an attack when he himself has never assumed the slightest responsibility for the October 7, 2023, attack, the largest murder of Jews since the Second World War, instead placing the blame (to this day) on the heads of the army and security services who were in office that day.”
From Jerusalem to D.C., the Rise of Qatar Is a Grim Marker of the Death of Democracy, Haaretz
Joshua Leifer writes, “There was once a time when a state’s claim to be a democracy was integral to its international legitimacy and central to its image on the world stage. Even countries that were neither democratic nor republics – that were, in fact, despotic regimes or dictatorships – affixed those descriptors to their names because even their cynical deployment was necessary in a world in which democracy remained the dream of the world’s masses.”
