[ ]J Street[ ]
[ [link removed] ]End the War | Free the Hostages | Surge Aid

This Week: Stand With the Striking Israeli Hostage Families ✊ | Your Guide
to Tough Conversations 🗣️ | What US Leaders Miss on Their Trips to Israel
✈️ | Witnesses to Gaza’s Aid Crisis Speak Out 🌾 | Former IDF Spokesperson
on Why Reoccupying Gaza is a Dead End ⚠️ | Help a Violently Expelled West
Bank Community Return Home 🏠 | This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens 📖 | Our
Pro-Democracy To-Do List 🗳️ | And much more.

✊ Stand With the Striking Israeli Hostage Families: This Sunday, workers
across Israel – led by the hostage families – will stage a massive walkout
and take to the streets to demand a war-ending hostage deal. Hostage
families are saying what the government refuses to admit: Only a ceasefire
can save their loved ones – endless war only puts them in greater danger.

* We must stand with them. On Sunday, we’ll flood social media with the
graphic below and join solidarity rallies to oppose Netanyahu’s Gaza
occupation plans, end the war and free the hostages. [ [link removed] ]Download and
share to show solidarity with the hostage families >>

[ [link removed] ]Download the images here

🗣️ Your Guide to Tough Conversations About Gaza: Our community is facing a
painful moment of moral reckoning – one made even harder by the spin,
deflections and calculated distractions churned out daily by Netanyahu and
his backers and repeated ad nauseam online. That’s why we’ve put together
a guide to the misinformation and talking points we hear again and again –
with clear, grounded responses to cut through them. [ [link removed] ]Read and share the
whole guide here! >>

✈️ Half the Story: What US Leaders Miss on Their Trips to Israel. J Street
President Jeremy Ben-Ami recently led a J Street delegation of former
senior national security and foreign policy professionals to
Israel/Palestine. He wasn’t the only one: Speaker Mike Johnson led a
delegation, sponsored by an Evangelical group focused on deepening
American ties with West Bank settlements, and there were two AIPAC trips,
one for Freshman Democrats and one for Freshman Republicans, the week
before.

* Getting the Full Picture: While J Street trips spend equal time on
both sides of the Green Line and hear from both Israeli and
Palestinian activists, other trips only show one side of the
narrative. This has a profound impact on policy. “Members of Congress
we bring to the West Bank return home determined to ensure US
opposition to settler violence. Speaker Johnson, by contrast,
reportedly pledged that when he returns, he will lead efforts to bar
the federal government from calling it the West Bank.” [ [link removed] ]Read more >>
* Reflections from the Region: “Only 8% of Democrats and 25% of
Independents support Israel’s policies in Gaza. Israel is as isolated
internationally as it has ever been. Yet you wouldn’t know this from
talking to the Israeli government or the IDF. During our visit, the
Netanyahu government doubled down on plans to occupy nearly all of
Gaza,” wrote J Street Chief Policy Officer and Senior VP Ilan
Goldenberg, who also joined the J Street policymaker delegation.
[ [link removed] ]Read more >>

🌾 The Reality of Gaza’s Man-Made Humanitarian Catastrophe

* 🎬 Witnesses to Gaza’s Aid Crisis Speak Out: On Thursday, we were
joined by courageous Gaza Humanitarian Foundation whistleblower Tony
Aguilar and a leading Israeli advocate to get aid into Gaza, Tania
Hary of Gisha, for an unfiltered reality check on the devastation on
the ground. [ [link removed] ]Watch here >>

[ [link removed] ]Former GHF Contractor Tony Aguilar on his experience in Gaza

* 🔍 Gaza Humanitarian Aid – Myths and Facts: J Street Policy Fellow
Larry Garber fact-checks myths promulgated by the Israeli government
and other organizations to show “that widespread starvation was
entirely foreseeable, and that flooding Gaza with humanitarian aid
would alleviate the starvation, eliminate the killing at or near Gaza
Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution sites and end the looting
and reselling of aid.” [ [link removed] ]Read more >>

⚠️ Former IDF Spokesperson on Why Reoccupying Gaza is a Dead End: “Israeli
society will have to ask itself, what does it mean to be a Zionist after
Gaza?” said former IDF Spokesperson Peter Lerner. “When we look at the
consequences of this war on the international community, inside Israeli
society, vis-a-vis our relationship with Palestinians and also the
relationship with the Jewish diaspora – when you put all of those together
– Israel has a very, very big challenge.” [ [link removed] ]Watch the full Word on the
Street Live video >>

🏠 Help a Violently Expelled West Bank Community Return Home: On October
12, 2023, Wadi a Seeq residents were told at gunpoint by settlers backed
by the army that they must leave within an hour or die. The Israeli Human
Rights NGO, Torat Tzedek, is looking for international and Israeli
volunteers to provide a protective presence and allow the community to
return home. A few people can make a major difference. [ [link removed] ]Learn more,
apply to be a volunteer here and spread the word >>

📖 This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens:

* [ [link removed] ][Podcast] Recognizing Palestine? 'It May Be a Punishment for
Netanyahu, but It's a Big Prize for Israel'
J Street Israel Executive Director Nadav Tamir joins the Haaretz
Podcast to say “that a Palestinian state is first and foremost an
Israeli interest. There is no way Israel could remain the homeland of
the Jewish people and a democracy if there will be no Palestinian
state."
* [ [link removed] ][Podcast] When Is It Genocide?
Ezra Klein writes, "One reason I have stayed away from the word
genocide is that there is an imprecision at its heart. When people use
the word genocide, I think they imagine something like the Holocaust:
the attempted extermination of an entire people. But the legal
definition of genocide encompasses much more than that. So what is a
genocide? And is this one?"
* [ [link removed] ]Don't Be Fooled Again: Netanyahu Is Planning a Full-blown
Occupation of Gaza
Dahlia Scheindlin writes for Haaretz, "Maybe sealing water wells is
someone's idea of security for Israel, but the false separation
between security and civilian control – like the temporary, limited,
pragmatic and humanitarian occupation of Gaza City – is a lie. Put the
Israeli government's words through the filter of reality past and
present, and the future becomes painfully clear."

🗳️  Our Pro-Democracy To-Do List:

[15][ ]  [ [link removed] ]Download and share this graphic on social media on Sunday to
support the striking hostage families >>

[17][ ]  [ [link removed] ]Add your name: Oppose Netanyahu’s Gaza occupation plans >>

[19][ ]  [ [link removed] ]✍️Tell Jewish leaders: We must speak out >>

[21][ ]  [ [link removed] ]Tell Congress to take action on settler violence >>

[23][ ]  [ [link removed] ]American Jews say: Bring them home. End the war >>

[25][ ]  [ [link removed] ]Download posters or yard signs to amplify our message >>

[27][ ]  [ [link removed] ]Tell Netanyahu to stop blocking aid >>

[29][ ]  [ [link removed] ]Call your Member of Congress and tell them you oppose the
Gaza war >>

[31][ ]  [ [link removed] ]Find pro-Israel, pro-democracy, pro-peace candidates at
JStreetPAC.org >>

[33][ ] [ [link removed] ]Sign up for J Street’s 2026 National Convention >>

* Space is filling up quickly!

[ [link removed] ]Check out and share the regularly updated Pro-Democracy To-Do List on
our website >>

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J Street is the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy
Americans who want Israel to be secure, democratic and the national home of the
Jewish people. Working in American politics and the Jewish community, we
advocate policies that advance shared US and Israeli interests as well as Jewish
and democratic values, leading to a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.



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