Friend --
Relief. Gratitude. Determination. That’s what I’m feeling right now.
Relief that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been inaugurated as President and Vice President of the United States and that the horrors of the Trump administration are behind us.
Gratitude to all those in our organization, our movement, our community and our country who worked tirelessly to bring about this moment, to fight for our values and for our fellow Americans and to safeguard our democracy.
Determination to take full advantage of the opportunities that this new era offers for J Street to help shape a new vision of American leadership -- rooted in a commitment to diplomacy, multilateralism and human rights, opposed to those who promote conflict and oppression, and dedicated to the vigorous pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Over the past four years, J Street and our allies had our work cut out for us simply trying to prevent the very worst from happening, and doing all that we could to challenge and push back on all of the many disastrous, destructive decisions that were taken day after day. Now, with more friends and allies than ever before in the White House and both houses of Congress, we enter an exciting new period when we can make real progress in promoting US policies that we believe can help secure a better future for our country, Israelis and Palestinians and the wider world.
To help give you a sense of where J Street’s advocacy efforts will be focused in the coming months, I wanted to share with you with some of the top-line policy priorities and proposals we will be promoting and discussing with the incoming administration and Congress.
-
Undo the Trump administration’s damage on Israel/Palestine: Restoring American credibility as a constructive player in the Israeli-Palestinian context is an urgent task in 2021. We’ll be calling on the new administration to take a number of steps to undo damage caused by Trump, bring about a more productive relationship with the Palestinian people and leadership and clarify its strong opposition to settlements, annexation and deepening occupation.
That includes restoring US aid to the Palestinian people; reinstating an independent US diplomatic mission to the Palestinians in Jerusalem and a Palestinian mission in Washington, DC and reversing the decision by Secretary Pompeo to revoke the State Department’s long-standing legal opinion that settlements are illegal under international law -- among many other steps.
-
Counter deepening occupation and de facto annexation: In addition to reaffirming the longstanding US position that settlements are illegal, the Biden administration will need to demonstrate firm opposition to ongoing settlement expansion and creeping annexation -- which continues to move forward at an alarming rate.
Over the final days of the Trump presidency, the Netanyahu government rushed through a spate of new settlement approvals and advanced plans to build in the hugely consequential area of Givat Hamatos. The international community has long considered building in Givat Hamatos to be totally unacceptable, due to the challenges it would pose to the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state with its capital in East Jerusalem. We’ll urge policymakers to make clear that provocative and damaging moves like this cannot go forward -- and back up these warnings by outlining consequences for unilateral moves that put peace further out of reach.
-
Introduce a multilateral, multi-pronged approach to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The tortured and thus-far unsuccessful history of efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict suggest that future diplomatic efforts may benefit from including international and regional actors at the table. Rather than push for the immediate resumption of bilateral talks or pick up where previous negotiations ended, we’ll encourage the administration to adopt a multi-pronged approach on the international, regional and bilateral levels to bolster the prospects and viability of a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.
-
Rejoin the JCPOA nuclear agreement: The Trump administration’s decision to violate the JCPOA agreement and engage in a belligerent ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Iran has been a total disaster, isolating the US from key allies and leading Iran to abrogate some of its own important commitments under the deal. In order to prevent Iran from ever attaining a nuclear weapon, reimpose restrictions that were working successfully before Trump violated the deal and stop the situation from deteriorating further, the Biden administration should move urgently to return to full compliance with the JCPOA in tandem with Iran, and build upon the agreement through further diplomacy to address other threats from Iran.
-
Reverse racist, anti-immigrant policies and promote justice and equality: As part of broad coalitions, we’ll support efforts to overturn the structural racism and injustice that stands in the way of so many Americans -- and to drive back white nationalist and anti-democratic forces.
With our country in the midst of so many unprecedented crises, we know that making progress on Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy may not be near the top of the priority list for the administration.
But we also know that they share our determination to decisively turn the page on the Trump era, to restore US credibility and achieve meaningful progress in the Middle East. We know that our voice will always be respected and heard -- and that we’re well-positioned to make a major impact.
As the key members of the president’s foreign policy and national security team take office in the coming days and weeks, we’ll be in close touch to discuss strategy and outline our next steps in the pursuit of peace and justice.
I hope that you and your loved ones have a real chance to take in the excitement and promise of this week’s inaugural festivities, and that you’re as energized and determined as I am for the work that lies ahead of us.
Thank you,
Jeremy Ben-Ami
President, J Street
P.S. -- One of the best ways you can support this work is by becoming a monthly donor to J Street.
We want to add 100 new sustaining members in the first half of 2021, and to help us reach that goal we've secured an anonymous grant to match new monthly donations for every month of this year. Every monthly gift will be doubled. Whether you give $5 or $50, that's a HUGE impact over the course of 2021. Will you become a sustaining member today?
