Q. How different does the Middle East look following last week’s sweeping visit by US President Trump? A. Superficially, more of the same. The same appalling and depressing news. This week opened with yet more hostage talks in Doha, an expanding IDF offensive in Gaza, and the death toll there spiraling from famine and destruction. There was a pointless Arab League summit meeting in Baghdad. And President Trump, home from the Middle East, reportedly suddenly decided it was possible to resettle one million homeless Gazans in Libya. Which Libya? Does he even know there are two Libyas, locked in enmity? Q. Yet not superficially, at a more substantial level? Did Trump not introduce a deeper dimension into the regional dynamic from the standpoint of the US, the Arab world, Iran, and Israel? A. Seen barely a few days later, it looks that way. I have to put aside my total antipathy toward the man--his shallowness, his arrogance, his ignorance, his dislike for democracy, for immigrants, for basic values--and recognize that his ‘style,’ his approach, was effective last week. | |
Yossi Alpher is an independent security analyst. He is the former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, a former senior official with the Mossad, and a former IDF intelligence officer. Views and positions expressed here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily represent NJN's views and policy positions. | |
1. Bills, Resolutions
2. Letters
3. Hearings
4. Selected Members on the Record
5. Selected Media & Press releases/Statements 1. Bills & Resolutions The Return of the “Non-Profit Killer” Legislation -
On 5/13/25 the House Ways & Means held a nearly 18-hour mark-up Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” — in the form of a 389-page amendment in the nature of a substitute (ANS) to a 28-page piece of baseline legislation entitled, “Providing for reconciliation pursuant to H.Con.Res. 14, the Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2025,” aka ‘‘The One Big, Beautiful Bill,” aka “the BBB.” In the end, the ANS passed by a Voice Vote (by all appearances party-line); the motion to adopt the bill, as amended, passed by a party-line vote of 26-19; and the motion to report the bill out of committee passed by a party-line vote of 26-19. -
Notably, at the very very end of that ANS – starting on page 380, House Republicans attached a section entitled, “Termination of Tax-Exempt Status of Terrorist Supporting Organizations.” This legislation is a slightly tweaked version of legislation introduced in the last Congress — HR 9495 / HR 6408 / S. 1436 — that has come to be known as the “Non-Profit Killer Bill.” For a deep dive into this legislation and its path in the last Congress, see the 11/22/24 edition of the Round-Up. Importantly, the tweaks that have been made to the legislation in its latest form in no way mitigate the immediate and devastating threat this bill poses to the non-profit sector. -
Given the scope of the BBB and the huge number of massively controversial elements it includes, it was arguably unsurprising that the “Non-Profit Killer” provision did not come during the markup, and no amendments were offered to challenge its inclusion in the bill, despite the existence of serious opposition to it (as seen around the vote on HR 9495 and its aftermath). | |
