This week: A Christmas Gift to Extremists 🎄 | Living Out Our Values Through Action – And Ice Cream🍦 | This Is How We Fight Antisemitism 🕍 | Word on the Street 🚧 | Save Your Seat at the J Street 2026 Convention 🎟️ | This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens 📖 | Our Pro-Democracy To-Do List 🗳️ | And much more.
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🎄 A Christmas Gift to Extremists: While Christians on the West Bank marked Christmas with their first public celebration in 3 years, the Netanyahu government announced 19 new illegal West Bank settlements – a move which was condemned by over a dozen European countries, Canada and Japan.
🍦 Living Out Our Values Through Action – And Ice Cream: This week, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami sat down with Ben Cohen – activist, philanthropist and co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s – to discuss how the company's corporate parent has tried to censor their activism and prevent them from carrying out their social mission.
“The reality is that business has become the most powerful force in our society [...] Business controls our elections through campaign contributions. It controls our legislation through lobbying. It controls our media and the news we see through ownership. So I think, if we're going to save our democracy, I think that business needs to stand up,” Ben said in discussing the ice cream company’s decision to stop selling products in the West Bank and their bold pushback against parent company Unilever. Watch the full conversation >>
🕍 This Is How We Fight Antisemitism: Last week, Representatives Jerry Nadler, Rosa DeLauro, Becca Balint and Maxwell Frost introduced The Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act (ARPA). This legislation would provide security funding for faith communities, strengthen national hate crime tracking and responses, and ensure college students have on-campus support to prevent and address antisemitism while upholding the First Amendment right to free speech.
- “At its core, ARPA is about meeting real needs: Protecting communities, supporting students, coordinating a serious national response and defending the democratic freedoms that have allowed Jewish life to flourish in this country. It confronts threats from both the far right and the fringe left while refusing to weaponize antisemitism for political gain,” J Street Associate Director of Government Affairs Bradley Freericks wrote in an email to supporters.
✍️Tell Congress to support the Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act ✍️
🚧 Word on the Street: J Street publishes commentary, video conversations and policy pieces on our Substack throughout the week. Subscribe here >>
- Have You Ever Seen What’s Actually Happening on the West Bank – In Your Name?
Since October 7, settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank have skyrocketed as the Israeli government expedites settlements in an effort to obstruct any possibility of a Palestinian state. Settlers terrorize with impunity – attacking families and burning olive groves – knowing that the Netanyahu government is apathetic to Palestinian suffering and that the international Jewish community is largely unaware of these dynamics.
"When Israel is described as a colonial or oppressive power, many of us recoil – believing that language fails to reflect Jewish history or the reality of Israel’s founding. I know just how many American Jews resist the word 'occupation,' having been told that settlements are integral to Israel’s security. But most American Jews have never actually seen what we spend so much time arguing about," writes Jeremy Ben-Ami. Read the full piece here >>
- What Trump Should Push Bibi on at Mar-a-Lago
Prime Minister Netanyahu will visit President Trump at his winter home in Mar-a-Lago on December 29. After nearly 3 months of a shaky ceasefire, the international community expects the two leaders to make progress on reaching the second phase of the proposed peace plan.
"In the run-up to the meeting, implementing the Gaza peace plan was clearly issue number one on the agenda for Trump. In recent days, disturbingly but unsurprisingly, we have started to see reporting that Netanyahu will lobby Trump to conduct more strikes on Iran," writes J Street Chief Policy Officer Ilan Goldenberg. Read the full piece here >>
🎟️ Save Your Seat at the J Street 2026 Convention: From working to press the ceasefire forward to defending for our democracy at the ballot box, J Street’s work has never been more important.
- Our 2026 convention will feature pro-peace leaders from Israel and Palestine, pro-democracy champions in the House and Senate, and challengers looking to defeat MAGA incumbents up and down the ballot. Don't miss out on the largest gathering of our pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy movement next year! Learn more and register here >>
📖 This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens:
- Gaza’s New Normal
“Israel’s policies, Hamas’s refusal to lose more power, and the Trump administration’s poor attention span are likely to foil the peace proposal’s more ambitious plans for Gaza’s rehabilitation,” Daniel Byman writes in Foreign Affairs.
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