This week: A Victory for Democracy, A Blow For Trump 🏆 | Democrats Take on the Netanyahu Government 📣 | Remembering Rabin 🕯️ | Hamas and Netanyahu Are Working Together Again ⚠️ | 📝This Week from the Policy Center 📝 | This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens 📖 | Our Pro-Democracy To-Do List 🗳️ | And much more.
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🏆 A Victory for Democracy, A Blow For Trump: Tuesday’s elections saw commanding victories for the Democratic Party and anti-Trump candidates in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and California, signaling nationwide opposition to the MAGA agenda.
- Dive Deeper: J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami and Chief Policy Officer Ilan Goldenberg sat down with Phylisa Wisdom of New York Jewish Agenda to unpack Tuesday’s monumental results:
“When I worked for Kamala Harris on the campaign, we got 70% of the Jewish vote. It wasn't because of Israel issues. It was because the overwhelming majority of American Jews are liberal, and they prioritize domestic policy issues. Jewish voters care about Israel, but they align with the Democratic Party on all of these other things,” Ilan said when discussing Zohran Mandani's win in New York City and the varying levels of support for his campaign from the Jewish community. Listen to the full conversation here >>
- Speaking Out Against Fearmongering and Islamophobia in New York: “The fearmongering we have seen from some Jewish institutions and leaders surrounding Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani is harmful, overblown and risks needlessly deepening divisions in the city and in our community,” Jeremy told the New York Times. “Our community’s responsibility now is to engage constructively with the mayor-elect, not to sow panic or to demonize him.” Read the full story here >>
📣 Democrats Take on the Netanyahu Government: J Street was proud to support two crucial House letters this week centered around protecting Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza:
- Saving Umm Al-Kheir: In just 24 hours, over 100 House Democrats signed a letter led by Representatives Jamie Raskin, Jerry Nadler, Jim Himes, Sara Jacobs and Dan Goldman demanding that the Netanyahu government abandon its plans to demolish homes in Umm Al-Kheir, a village in the West Bank known for its Jewish-Palestinian partnership and non-violent activism. J Street has brought countless community members and political leaders to the village and was proud to support this crucial congressional effort to push back on this injustice. Watch Congressman Raskin‘s video about the letter here >>
Sign our petition, and call your Member of Congress to demand an immediate halt to the demolitions >>
- Getting Aid into Gaza: Vice Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Gabe Amo led 125 colleagues in calling on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to ensure desperately needed humanitarian aid reaches Gazans. The letter asks key questions about the implementation of the ceasefire and the State Department’s plan to facilitate an increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza. Read the full letter here >>
🕯️ Remembering Rabin: This week marked 30 years since the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, a fierce defender of Israel who led military campaigns in his earlier years, but is now remembered for championing peace in his Prime Ministership. His death, in retrospect, marked the end of the peace process and a start of a much darker era in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
- “It’s important to remember that Rabin earned his reputation as a peacemaker only after a lifetime as a warrior,” Jeremy writes on Substack. “A leader unafraid to use force, Rabin also knew that only peace could deliver true and lasting security.” Read the full piece here >>
- What Rabin’s Legacy Demands of Us: Former US negotiator Aaron David Miller, who sat across the table from Rabin during the Oslo years, and Yael Patir, J Street Policy Fellow and former Israel Director, who heard Rabin speak as a young girl, joined the discussion moderated by J Street’s Shimrit Braun Kamin to share personal memories and insights into his leadership.
In discussing a path forward for peace at this critical point in Israeli history, Aaron said, “There may be a way to build – maybe a way – to build a bridge to something more. But it's going to depend [...] in memory of a man that I still mourn and who I grew to love.” Listen to the full conversation here >>
⚠️ Hamas and Netanyahu Are Working Together Again: For years, Hamas and Netanyahu have served each other’s interests as Netanyahu allowed Qatar to funnel money to the terror group while starving the Palestinian Authority of funds and credibility. Now, Netanyahu continues to obstruct aid and stall progress on the 20-point peace plan as Hamas attempts to reassert itself as a governing force.
- “Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas – longtime adversaries on the surface – are once again feeding off each other’s extremism, weakening moderates in both societies, and steering Israelis and Palestinians toward yet another cycle of despair. Each needs the other to stay in power,” Ilan Goldenberg writes in Word on the Street. “If Washington and key Arab capitals coordinate their pressure – one on Israel, the other on Hamas – a new Gaza is still possible.” Read more here >>
📝 This Week from the Policy Center: J Street’s Policy Center publishes timely analyses of policy priorities and the diplomatic role the US plays in the Middle East.
- Egypt’s Role in Gaza and Its Relations With Israel
Dr. Marwa Maziad, an Egyptian-American professor of Israel Studies, and J Street Policy and Research Coordinator Avraham Spraragen examine Egypt’s historical role in Gaza, how Egypt helped achieve the Gaza peace deal last month and Egypt’s role in Gaza’s postwar stabilization and reconstruction.
“While Qatar is a Hamas interlocutor and the US is a global superpower, Egypt utilized its leadership credibility in the Arab world, intelligence capability, knowledge, expertise and institutional memory accumulated over decades of engagement in Gaza and with all the relevant parties.”
- Iran: What Comes Next
A second war between Israel and Iran is not only likely but also set to be more intense. J Street’s latest Iran Policy Memo outlines our proposed long-term strategy for facilitating diplomacy and reducing tensions in the aftermath of the Twelve-Day War and the snapback of sanctions by the E3 (France, UK, Germany).
“Israeli security officials have, in the past, backed a deal to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. And, with Israel already stretched thin on multiple fronts, in the West Bank, Gaza, Yemen and beyond, it does not need more fighting with Iran. Nor should Israel drag the US into another endless regime change war in the Middle East that results in a power vacuum and regional instability. Diplomacy is the only sustainable solution to the Iran problem.”
📖 This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens:
- The UN Must Help Consolidate Gaza Peace
“The US and its partners in Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey are rightfully pushing hard on Hamas and Israel to comply with their initial obligations, including the return of all hostage remains and letting in desperately needed humanitarian assistance. But there is also an urgent need to put the entire process on firmer, more sustainable footing by implementing its long-term elements,” write J Street Policy Fellow Frank Lowenstein and Policy Analyst Liam Hamama.
- This Is the Way You Beat Trump — and Trumpism
“Does it (the Democratic Party) need to be more populist? More moderate? More socialist? Embrace the abundance agenda? Produce more vertical video? The answer is yes, yes to all of it – but to none of it in particular. The Democratic Party does not need to choose to be one thing. It needs to choose to be more things,” says Ezra Klein in the New York Times.
- Why Are We So Focused on Mamdani – Not Nazi-Inspired Ideas Proliferating on the Right?
“In a democratic society, the candidacy of a young mayoral candidate who challenges the righteousness of Israeli actions is not a threat to the ‘Jewish future.’ It is an invitation to engage in discussion about those actions. By contrast, the rise of the ‘great replacement’ theory and its ilk – baseless claims of ‘white replacement’ or ‘white genocide’ – is a threat to the future of all minorities, including Jews,” Michael Rothbaum writes.
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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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