This Week: Time for Congress to Say No to Annexation and Recognize Palestine ✅ | Red Alert for Annexation 🚨 | Trump’s Petty, Dangerous Palestinian Ban ❌ | Norm Eisen Talks Democracy Under Fire 🎙️ | How Strong is Hamas Today? ⚔️ | In Case You Missed It 🗞️ | This Week’s Must-Reads/ Listens 📖 | Our Pro-Democracy To-Do List 🗳️ | And much more.
✅ Time for Congress to Say No to Annexation and Recognize Palestine: With the Israeli government intent on taking over Gaza and teetering on the precipice of de jure annexation of the West Bank, J Street is proud to support a landmark letter in the House backing US recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state.
- Why Now? Need Help Responding to Others? Our communications team has put together a Truth vs Talking Points resource on the push for recognition – explaining our position and responding to common talking points from the other side. Read and share the resource here >>
- 🔍 Dig Deeper:J Street Policy Fellow Jen Gavito explains why US recognition of Palestine – done conditionally and in phases – would help push back against annexation, reestablish American leverage over the Palestinian Authority, weaken Hamas and enhance Israel’s long-term security. Read here >>
🚨 Red Alert for Annexation: This week, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich openly called for Israel to officially annex roughly 82% of the occupied West Bank – a move that would shatter Israel’s democracy, push it deeper into pariah status and implode prospects for peace and regional integration.
- Deepening Jewish Alienation: “The Smotrich vision undermines the US-Israel relationship, detonates any chance of further regional integration and alienates Israel further from the Jewish diaspora and supporters of liberal democracy abroad. Pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy leaders in Congress and our community must speak out against this plan,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote. Read more >>
❌ Trump’s Petty, Dangerous Palestinian Ban: This week, Trump took the extraordinary step of barring all Palestinians from entering the US and denying their leaders the right to represent them at the UN.
- Capricious, Incoherent and Unreliable: “By breaking core American obligations of the UN Headquarters Agreement for narrow political motives – while still honoring them for Russian, Chinese, and Iranian officials – Trump is signaling to the world that we are a capricious, incoherent and unreliable partner with no respect for the rule of law and international agreements,” J Street Chief Policy Officer Ilan Goldenberg wrote. Read more >>
🎙️ Norm Eisen Talks Democracy Under Fire in Israel and the US: In the latest Word on the Street Live, Jeremy and Ilan sat down with Ambassador Norm Eisen, who has long worked on the front lines of democracy – from serving as President Obama’s ethics counsel to serving as co-counsel during Trump’s first impeachment. Watch here >>
⚔️ How Strong is Hamas Today? “Hamas no longer has the capability to repeat October 7, but its guerrilla tactics have rendered Israel’s goal of destroying Hamas even more elusive,” write Khalil Sayegh, Executive Director of the Agora Initiative, and Avraham Spraragen, J Street Policy and Research Coordinator.
- The J Street Policy Center’s latest explainer provides in-depth analysis on topics including: Hamas’ military capability, finances, ongoing human rights abuses, leadership structure, and uncertain status in a ‘day after.’ Read more >
🗞️ In Case You Missed It:
📖 This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens:
- A Rogue Force Operates in Gaza Under IDF Cover, Endangering Soldiers and Unarmed Palestinians
Yaniv Kubovich and Josh Breiner write in Haaretz, "You can see them across the Gaza Strip, almost everywhere. Teams of people operating heavy equipment for one purpose: demolition. They aren't part of a regular military unit, but rather small groups that form through independent initiatives. They are civilians, many of them settlers, who are mobilized into the reserves through contracting companies. The goal is to destroy buildings and tunnels, or in the common words of those involved: 'to flatten Gaza.'"
- The Meeting That Haunts Netanyahu to This Day
Peter Lerner writes for Jewish News, "Bringing the PA into Gaza after Hamas is dismantled would be a political earthquake for Netanyahu. That’s why he has chosen the path of armed clans and gangs. To bring back the PA to Gaza would be an admittance that his policy of division was a failure. That Hamas was not contained. That the Palestinian Authority, whom he dismissed and derided, was not the problem, but part of the solution."
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