To all who are observing, Chag Pesach Sameach, Ramadan Kareem, and Happy Easter!

I’m writing to share news updates with the latest from Jerusalem, where Palestinians and Israeli security forces have repeatedly clashed at a site holy to Jews and Muslims. As extremists on all sides seek to take advantage of this situation and instigate further conflict, we hope that President Biden, Secretary Blinken, and Israeli and Palestinian leaders will chart a course toward peace.

I would also like to draw your attention to several articles and op-eds (below) about support from retired American generals, non-proliferation experts, and Israeli officials for reentering a nuclear deal with Iran.

As always, you can find our Congressional briefing book, background information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, recordings of previous briefings and more at J Street’s Congressional Resource Page.

Let me know if you have any questions or would like further information.

All the best,
Debra

—
Debra Shushan, PhD
Director of Government Affairs, J Street
mobile: (757) 746-0366 | [email protected] | @DrShushan

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STATEMENT

AIPAC FULLY EMBRACES ANTI-DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES, ENDORSES VAST MAJORITY OF REPS THAT VOTED TO OVERTURN ELECTION ON JAN 6

AIPAC’s new PAC is now the country’s biggest pro-Israel PAC, and endorses 3/4 of Republicans who embraced election falsehoods

The political action committee affiliated with AIPAC, the pro-Israel powerhouse lobby, has in less than six months of existence become the biggest pro-Israel PAC, delivering $6 million to 326 candidates. It is also now endorsing 109 of the 147 of the Republicans who refused to affirm President Joe Biden’s election on Jan. 6, 2021, after a deadly insurrection spurred by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that it was he who won the election.

Israel’s air force and Palestinian militants traded fire across the Gaza frontier early Thursday as clashes erupted again at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, worsening an escalation that has been eerily similar to the lead-up to last year’s Israel-Gaza war. The Gaza violence, fueled by the unrest between Israeli police and Palestinians in Jerusalem, appears to be the heaviest-cross-border fighting since last year’s 11-day war and comes despite efforts to prevent a repeat. A rocket fired from Gaza earlier this week was the first to have been launched since the war.

For the past week, Israeli forces have carried out a widespread campaign of raids into towns and cities across the West Bank, in a response to a wave of recent Palestinian attacks inside Israel that have killed 14 people… At least 14 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the beginning of Ramadan on April 2, including 16-year-old Mohammad Zakarneh, who was shot and killed on Sunday during one of the Israeli raids in Jenin, his mother said.

Jordan’s King Abdullah said on Monday that Israel’s “unilateral” moves against Muslim worshippers at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque seriously undermined the prospects for peace in the region, state media said. The monarch, who was speaking with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, blamed Israel for “provocative acts” in the mosque compound that violated “the legal and historic status quo” of the Muslim holy shrines.

Senior State Department officials will travel this week to Israel, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority in an effort to de-escalate the crisis in Jerusalem, three sources with direct knowledge tell Axios. The trip shows the growing concern in Washington that further escalation could spark a new round of violence, like the May 2021 fighting between Israel and Hamas. Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Yael Lempert and Deputy Assistant Secretary Hady Amr are expected to arrive in the region on Wednesday for talks with senior officials in Jerusalem, Ramallah, Amman and Cairo.

Israel’s government crisis deepened on Sunday night, after a small Islamist party announced it was freezing its participation in the coalition, following a recent rise in tensions between the Israeli police and Muslims at a major mosque in Jerusalem. Raam, the first independent Arab party to join an Israeli government, said it was suspending its involvement until further notice, after an emergency meeting by the leadership council of an Islamic movement that oversees the party.

Israeli police on Wednesday blocked hundreds of far-right Jewish protesters from marching toward Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate, the main entrance to the Old City’s Muslim quarter, amid rising tensions between Israelis and Palestinians… The Old City lies in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians want as the capital of a future state. Israel, which annexed East Jerusalem in a move that has not won international recognition after capturing the area in a 1967 war, regards all of Jerusalem as its eternal capital.

For the first time since 1991, Passover, Easter and Ramadan were about to occur all at once — intensifying the religious synergies and tensions that have defined Jerusalem for millenniums. To some, the overlap embodied the wonder of Jerusalem and the semblance of coexistence among its peoples… To others, the convergence highlighted the incompatibilities and the inequities of a city where many Palestinian residents consider themselves living under occupation.

Republicans who have declared their intentions to prevent the Biden administration from reestablishing an international deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program are endangering the United States and its soldiers, two retired Army generals told the American Independent Foundation. Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson praised President Joe Biden’s ongoing efforts to renew the agreement initiated under former President Barack Obama in 2015 and thrown out by former President Donald Trump in 2018.

A group of 40 former government officials and leading nonproliferation experts have urged President Biden to successfully complete negotiations for a return to the nuclear deal with Iran, warning that Tehran is a week or two away from producing sufficient weapons-grade uranium to fuel a bomb. In a statement to be released Thursday, the experts said failure to reverse the policies of the Trump administration, which withdrew from the agreement between world powers and Iran in 2018, would be “irresponsible” and “would increase the danger that Iran would become a threshold nuclear-weapon state.”

Yair Golan & Chuck Freilich | A return to the JCPOA is critical to Israel’s national security. If further extended, it is also the only option which holds out a realistic possibility of a long-term postponement of the nuclear issue and possibly even a resolution of it. All of the other options are means of gaining time, no more. Symbolic issues, such as removing the Revolutionary Guards from the terrorism list, cannot be allowed to cloud our judgment.

J Street Government Affairs News Digest | April 21, 2022

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What we’re reading

AIPAC’s new PAC is now the country’s biggest pro-Israel PAC, and endorses 3/4 of Republicans who embraced election falsehoods

Gaza violence intensifies as Jerusalem clashes resume

‘We’re Exhausted’: Palestinians Decry Israeli Raids as Collective Punishment

Jordan’s King Abdullah warns Israeli moves in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque are threat to peace

U.S. officials to make emergency trip to calm tensions in Jerusalem

Israeli Government Crisis Deepens After Closing of Major Mosque

Israeli police stop Jewish nationalist march in Jerusalem amid rising tensions

Rare Overlap of Holy Days Shows Jerusalem’s Promise and Problems

Retired generals say GOP senators’ opposition to Biden on Iran endangers US and its allies

Experts urge return to Iran nuclear deal as prospects dim

Opinion | This Is Israel’s Only Way to Stop Iran’s Nuclear Missiles