I’m writing to share important updates from the region as well as J Street’s statements and resources from this past week. As a reminder, you can always find our most recent statements here.

I invite you to reach out to your J Street Public Affairs staff with any questions.

All the best,
Lily

—
Lily Adelstein
She/Her
Deputy Director of Government Affairs, J Street
Cell: 202-699-2701

This week on j street

Statement

J Street Statement on US-Iran Ceasefire

Expert Briefing

US and Iran Agree to a Ceasefire. Now What?

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Word on the Street, Jeremy Ben-Ami

Who Speaks for American Jews?

Expert Analysis

Maximum Territory with Minimum Arabs: How Israel’s Far-Right Government Uses Settler Violence to Pave the Way for Annexation

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Word on the Street LIVE

Are You a Zionist? A Conversation Across the Divide

After Cease-Fire, Ship Traffic in Strait of Hormuz Remains Throttled

There were few signs on Wednesday of a large-scale return of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, after Iran and the United States said they would work to move vessels through the crucial waterway as part of their cease-fire agreement. Shipping traffic could increase, experts said, if the vessels’ operators concluded that the terms of making the passage were clear and the risks of attacks were reduced. Global shipping traffic and energy flows could yet take months to return to prewar levels, they added… Even if ship traffic ramps up, the damage and disruption to energy infrastructure in the region during the war means that stabilizing the global fuel supply remains a costly and time-consuming project.

Netanyahu announces negotiations with Lebanon after U.S. pressure

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that he has instructed his cabinet to launch direct negotiations with Lebanon as soon as possible. However, an Israeli official told Axios that Israel would not observe a ceasefire in Lebanon. Why it matters: Netanyahu’s statement follows calls on Wednesday with President Trump and White House envoy Steve Witkoff. Senior U.S. officials said Witkoff asked Netanyahu to “calm down” the strikes in Lebanon and open negotiations.

Israeli government secretly approves over 30 new settler outposts

The Israeli security cabinet secretly approved the legalization of over 30 new settler outposts and farms in the occupied West Bank last month, according to three Israeli sources familiar with the decision. Unlike similar decisions in the past, the approval was not publicly announced by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who did not respond to CNN request for comment. Two of the sources told CNN the approval was kept quiet to avoid international criticism against the backdrop of surging settler violence toward Palestinians in the West Bank since the outset of the Iran war. The authorization is part of an ongoing push by the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to expand the settlements and entrench Israel’s grip on the land, with the goal of burying the possibility of a future Palestinian state.

6 Takeaways From the Story of Trump’s Decision to Go to War With Iran

In the two and a half weeks before the United States began a major military campaign against Iran, a small circle of advisers gathered in the White House Situation Room for a series of pivotal meetings…For Trump, it was a gut-driven decision enabled by an echo chamber that did not exist in his first term. Mr. Trump’s decision to take the country to war was not driven by intelligence assessments or a strategic consensus among his advisers, which did not exist. It was driven by instinct — the same instinct his team had watched produce improbable results again and again. Unlike his first-term team, many of whom regarded him as a danger to be managed or obstructed, Mr. Trump in his second term is surrounded by advisers who view him as a great man of history.

Trump’s Board of Peace Gives Hamas Disarmament Deadline

President Trump’s Board of Peace is demanding that Hamas finalize an agreement to demilitarize Gaza by the end of this week, according to four diplomats briefed on the talks, ramping up pressure on the Palestinian militant group to give up power. The demand by the Board of Peace, an international body established to oversee the six-month-old cease-fire in Gaza, would require Hamas to agree to eventually give up virtually all its weapons and share maps of its underground tunnel network. The deadline reflects both the Trump administration’s eagerness to secure a lasting cease-fire in Gaza and its growing impatience with Hamas, even at a time when U.S. and Israeli attention is focused on a new war with Iran.

Palestinian and Israeli bereaved families’ reconciliation work recognised by Nobel nomination

An organisation of Israeli and Palestinian bereaved families working together for reconciliation, dialogue and nonviolence has been nominated for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize… “In a time marked by war, distrust, and despair, the Parents Circle-Families Forum offers a rare spark of hope for the future,” the nomination said, “and demonstrates that the true moral choice is between those committed to shared humanity and those perpetuating violence”… The organisation works to transform personal grief into a “powerful force” for peace, security and freedom for both peoples, through educational and public programmes, working with parents, children and young adults, in schools, communities, media, and the international arena.

During the Iran war, Palestinian evictions continue in East Jerusalem

Palestinians in Silwan and other East Jerusalem neighborhoods continue to face eviction under the guise of war. Last week, 15 Palestinian families in Silwan were evicted from their homes, which were transferred to settlers from the “Ateret Cohanim” movement… There is no dispute that the residents of Batan al-Hawa purchased their homes legally and lived in them for decades, but Israeli legislation and the judicial system deny them property rights, ostensibly a fundamental right protected under Israeli Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. In practice, property ownership is a fundamental right for Jews only, reserved for settlers who claim they stepped into the shoes of the Jews who lived there before the establishment of the state.

Opinion | Israel’s New Death Penalty Law Is a Warning

“The Israeli Parliament, the Knesset, last week passed a law allowing the hanging of Palestinians convicted of killings during militant attacks, using language that effectively exempts Jewish perpetrators of nationalistic violence. This legislation is both unconstitutional and discriminatory. Beyond its fundamental immorality, the law is part of a larger, accelerating effort to systematically end once and for all the possibility of a Palestinian state. That effort includes the uncontrolled surge in violence by settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and a strategic restructuring of the West Bank’s administration intended to make it easier for settlers and the state to seize Palestinian land.”

J STREET GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS NEWS DIGEST | April 10, 2026