Bezalel Smotrich Faces New York Protest Over Israel Day Parade Attendance

Longstanding tensions between the US’s progressive Jewish diaspora and the Israeli government came into focus in New York City when Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other far-right Israeli legislators attended the annual Israel Day Parade on Fifth Avenue.

“Longstanding tensions between the US’s progressive Jewish diaspora and the Israeli government came into focus this month, when Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and other far-right Israeli legislators attended the annual Israel Day Parade in New York City”

Al Jazeera

Smotrich, who said he is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), told the crowd, "This is a massive celebration – a profound connection uniting the entire global Jewish community, bringing together Jews in Israel and Jews in the United States."

Al Jazeera

New York Mayor Zoran Mamdani fulfilled his election pledge by skipping the parade, a move welcomed by Israelis for Peace and Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ), which said, "We’re grateful he is not attending."

Protesters met Smotrich with a chorus of "shame" and "war criminals" as the event drew opposition from Jewish diaspora groups seeking to distance themselves from Israel amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Al Jazeera reported that activists included Jewish Voice for Peace in the United States and Na’amod in the UK, and that Emily Hilton, co-founder of Na’amod, said her critical view of Israel was shaped after its 2014 assault on Gaza, including the military’s killing of four Palestinian children as they played football on a beach.

This Thursday, March 26, 2026, leaders of the Jewish diaspora including Delphine Horvilleur published an open letter to the President of the State of Israel, Isaac Herzog, asking him to act to end acts of violence committed with impunity by extremist Jewish Israeli terrorists against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The letter, initiated by The London Initiative, said it followed a previous letter sent in August to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and that since its publication it had already been signed by 1,500 Jewish leaders from around the world.

i24NEWS

In the letter’s framing, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, the Chief of Staff of the IDF, publicly condemned the attacks by Jewish extremists against Palestinian civilians and IDF soldiers in the West Bank on Wednesday, March 18, calling them "morally and ethically unacceptable and a major strategic threat to the security and future of Israel."

The signatories urged Herzog to push the government to end "the abomination that is extremist Jewish terrorism, as well as the era of impunity enjoyed by its perpetrators," and the translation notes that Herzog responded on March 30.

The letter also asserted that "more than 6,300 members of Jewish communities in twenty countries" urged Netanyahu in a letter dated August 7, 2025 to enforce the law in the West Bank.

In an intervention, Pierre Lurçat criticized what he described as ill-timed and out-of-touch voices from the Jewish diaspora and the French public debate, accusing them of intervening in Israeli internal affairs "especially in a context of war."

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Lurçat said the chosen moment was inappropriate given the security situation, and he argued that "Those who do not live here are not subjected to the same dangers," criticizing an approach he deemed too theoretical in the face of existential stakes.

On the question of the death penalty for terrorists recently debated in the Knesset, Lurçat adopted a pragmatic position, saying the decisive criterion must be effectiveness in deterring and preventing attacks.

He recalled that many released terrorists have recidivated, causing the deaths of Israeli civilians, and he called to prioritize security over abstract moral considerations.

Lurçat also broadened his critique to what he described as the insufficient reaction of French institutional Judaism to growing political pressure against Israel, notably from President Emmanuel Macron, and concluded that French Jews could face a difficult choice between their national attachment and their solidarity with Israel.