This week: Save Your Seat at the J Street 2026 Convention 🎟️ | Coffee with The Contrarians ☕️ | This Week from the Policy Center 📝 | Word on the Street 🚧 | Mark Your Calendars for Solidarity Shabbats 🗓️ | This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens 📖 | Our Pro-Democracy To-Do List 🗳️ | And much more.

🎟️ Save Your Seat at the J Street 2026 Convention: From working to press the ceasefire forward to defending 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 this year! Learn more and register here >>

☕️ Coffee with The Contrarians: This week, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami joined Jennifer Rubin and Norman Eisen on Coffee with The Contrarians to talk authoritarianism, Trump’s “Board of Peace”, AIPAC and more.

• “Four or five years ago, AIPAC shifted gears and decided to get directly into politics. They've now raised $100 million and more per cycle, mostly from Republican billionaires. And then they take that money, and they spend it almost exclusively in Democratic primaries. And they are looking to turn Israel into a wedge issue in the Democratic Party, which I believe could only serve the partisan interest of the Republican donors to AIPAC,” Jeremy told viewers. Watch the full conversation 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.

• Explained: Israel's Deregistration of International Aid Organizations
  The Israeli government is pushing ahead with plans to deregister international NGOs (INGOs) unless they provide a complete list of their Palestinian employees, insisting the measure is necessary to prevent Hamas and other militant groups from infiltrating their operations. J Street Senior Policy Fellow Larry Garber and J Street Policy Analyst Liam Hamama assess the implications of this deregistration on the Gaza humanitarian situation and discuss new developments with the Rafah crossing:
  
  “In a conflict in which over 500 humanitarian workers have been killed, the INGOs believe that handing over their staff lists without agreed-upon parameters for their use would violate their duty of care to their local staff.”
  
  “Replacing humanitarian organizations with private contractors was the logic behind the failed effort of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which resulted in hundreds of Palestinian civilian casualties and was ultimately scrapped once the ceasefire went into effect.” Read the full piece here >>

🚧 Word on the Street: J Street publishes commentary, video conversations and policy pieces on our Substack throughout the week. Subscribe here >>

• Another Boring Week? Not Here!
  As Trump announced Phase 2 of the Gaza ceasefire, the new technocratic government in Gaza looked set to deploy and AIPAC took its first swings at this year’s Democratic primaries, there was no shortage of topics for Jeremy and J Street Chief Policy Officer Ilan Goldenberg to discuss on this week’s Word on the Street Live.
  
  “The idea that somehow [the Board of Peace] is going to be recognized by anybody or do anything other than what it was initially supposed to do – which is to help provide some international support for Gaza reconstruction, demilitarization and redevelopment – is a fantasy of Trump’s that people are going to let play out, and then will let disappear into the ether of history,” Ilan said. Watch the full discussion >>

• Memo to AIPAC: Attacking Tom Malinowski Is No Way To Build American – or Democratic – Support for Israel
  This week, Jeremy called out the hypocrisy in AIPAC’s attack on Tom Malinowski and reflected on the futility of the organization’s history of going after pro-Israel, pro-peace Democrats:
  
  “Dumping massive sums into competitive Democratic primaries to take down thoughtful pro-Israel Democrats who don’t want to give a blank check to Bibi Netanyahu is not the way to build durable bipartisan support for Israel in the United States.” Read the full piece here >>

• The Good, The Ugly and The Insane of This Week’s White House Gaza Announcements
  Jeremy breaks down the White House’s many Gaza announcements of the past week, honing in on the obstacles the peace process faces and the potential for an authoritarian sweep posed by Trump’s “Board of Peace.”
  
  “There is real progress here – especially the move toward technocratic Palestinian governance and meaningful international engagement. But the picture remains clouded – with overlapping mandates, outrageous and illegitimate assertions of power and a frosty Israeli reaction,” he writes. Read more >>

🗓️ Mark Your Calendars for Solidarity Shabbats: Take a stand as Trump endangers the communities we care for most, and join J Street in standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the National Council of Jewish Women and HIAS, two organizations doing incredible work to live out our Jewish and democratic values.

• Get involved with Repro Shabbat on February 13-14: Host your own gathering or join a pre-planned event in your community. Find what suits you and honor the Jewish value of reproductive freedom. Learn more from NCJW >>

• One month later, join us for Refugee Shabbat on March 13-14: Register to join hundreds of Jewish communities in standing up for our immigrant and refugee neighbors facing extreme dehumanization under the Trump Administration. Find out how you can participate >>

📖 This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens:

• Netanyahu's 'Total Victory' Is Israel's Security Nightmare, 
  “The next war is already on its way. The script is known: Hamas restores its power, takes advantage of Qatari money to rebuild its terror infrastructure and waits for an opportunity. The next round will come with the terrorism backed by Turkey and Qatar, but then Israel will be more isolated, more divided and weaker. This is what abandonment looks like. Netanyahu has brought us back to a point worse than where we were on October 6," Israeli opposition leader and J Street Convention speaker Yair Golan writes in Haaretz. 

• Is the ‘Board of Peace’ Just Another Trump Scam, or a Real Move Toward Middle East Peace?
  “Realistically, it would be a mistake for any country to put its security in the hands of a mechanism personally controlled by Trump. Such a structure — with power concentrated in the hands of one man, who would oversee all finances and be able to effectively veto any decision — is incompatible with constitutional government, transparency and the rule of law,” Dan Perry writes in The Forward.

• Naftali Bennett Has a Dangerous Plan to Dismantle Israel's Education Ministry
  "Bennett speaks in a language that's music to the liberals' ears: administration, efficiency, empowerment, autonomy, freedom, community. But this language conceals a dangerous idea: A country that waives its role in fostering equality, defending the civic space and asserting a commitment to solidarity," Ayelet Katzir writes in Haaretz.

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