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I hope you are doing well.
As I write this, the US and our allies are negotiating in Doha to achieve a ceasefire deal in Gaza – a step that all parties believe could also deter a retaliatory attack by Iran and Hezbollah. With these efforts as a backdrop, I wanted to make sure you saw these important updates from the region as well as J Street’s statements and resources from the past week.
As always, I invite you to reach out to your J Street Public Affairs staff with any questions.
All the best,
Hannah
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Hannah Morris
She/Her
Director of Government Affairs, J Street
Cell: 832-606-1817
J Street’s Congressional Resource Page
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This week on j street
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| BLOG |
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Reckoning with Antisemitism: J Streeters Share Their Stories
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| RESOURCE |
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STEMMING THE RISING TIDE OF PALESTINIAN EXTREMISM IN THE WEST BANK
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| STATEMENT |
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J Street Now Endorses 60 percent of Senate and House Democrats
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| WORD FROM J STREET PRESIDENT, JEREMY BEN AMI |
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We’re the Mainstream Majority
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What we’re reading
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Analysis | U.S. Steps Up the Pressure Ahead of Gaza Summit – and Plans a Change of Tactics if It Fails
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| Ahead of the scheduled start of the hostage\cease-fire talks in Doha on Thursday, the United States is continuing to exert pressure on all parties in an effort to advance the negotiations. The Biden administration is now directly linking a hostage deal and a cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza to a delay in the planned retaliatory attack on Israel by Iran and Hezbollah… All the heads of the defense establishment, including Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, believe an agreement can be reached and that the concessions, which were already agreed on two months ago, are a fair price to pay for the possibility of finally bringing a conclusion to the hostage saga and the scars it has left on Israeli society. Officials increasingly fear for the lives of some hostages. |
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Israeli Settlers Storm West Bank Village, Drawing Rare Rebukes From Israeli Officials
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| Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians have surged in the West Bank, but a riot on Thursday in the village of Jit stood out for drawing rapid and unusual rebukes from Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition government includes West Bank settlers in top positions. The Israeli military condemned the attack, and said that dozens of Israeli civilians, including some wearing masks, had set fire to vehicles and hurled rocks and firebombs. It said that its forces, along with Israeli Border Police, were dispatched to the scene and dispersed the rioters by firing shots into the air and “removing the Israeli civilians from the town”… The attack also drew condemnation from the United States and the European Union on Friday. Jack Lew, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said he was “appalled” by the violence. “These attacks must stop and the criminals be held to account,” he said in a post on social media. |
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U.S. approves $20 billion in weapons sales to Israel
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| The Biden administration on Tuesday approved more than $20 billion major arms sales to Israel, including new F-15 fighter jets and tens of thousands of tank and mortar shells. Most of the weapons sales are long-term deals and will only be delivered several years from now, but Israeli officials said the announcement send a message to Iran and Hezbollah as they threaten to attack Israel… One of the more challenging deals was the F-15 jets, which the Biden administration needed to carefully navigate due to political sensitivities around U.S. support of Israel in Gaza and the fear that members of Congress would put a hold on the sale due to the war, Israeli and U.S. officials said. |
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Netanyahu Blasts Defense Minister After He Dismisses Talk of ‘Total Victory’ in Gaza War
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| Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of adopting “an anti-Israel narrative” and damaging chances for a hostage release deal” in a statement from his office on Monday, following critical comments by Gallant about the war. Earlier Monday, Gallant was asked at a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee session why Israel isn’t launching a war in Lebanon. “I hear the heroes beating the drums [of war], the ‘total victory’ and nonsense,” he responded.,. Gallant’s remarks before the committee echo criticism made by other senior officials (both in Israel and abroad) about the war goals announced by Netanyahu (“total victory”), his apparent lack of commitment to reaching a hostage and cease-fire deal and the gap between his aggressive rhetoric in public and the hesitancy he shows in private deliberations. |
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In Gaza, Israel’s Military Has Reached the End of the Line, U.S. Officials Say
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| Israel has achieved all that it can militarily in Gaza, according to senior American officials, who say continued bombings are only increasing risks to civilians while the possibility of further weakening Hamas has diminished. With the Biden administration racing to get cease-fire negotiations back on track, a growing number of national security officials across the government said that the Israeli military had severely set back Hamas but would never be able to completely eliminate the group… one of Israel’s biggest remaining goals — the return of the roughly 115 living and dead hostages still held in Gaza after being seized in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks — cannot be achieved militarily, according to current and former American and Israeli officials. |
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The Palestinian Water Crisis Is Everybody’s Problem – Including Israel
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| Gaza’s water situation is disastrous. In a poll from late May, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey research found that only 36 percent of Gazans said water was available where they are staying. An Oxfam report from July found that from November through May, Gazans had an average of 4.74 liters of water per capita per day. That’s less than one-third of the minimum amount needed for survival in emergencies: 15 liters of water per day, including drinking water and hygiene needs. At the start of the war, the Israeli government shut down the three pipelines for the water that Israel sells to Gaza, making up about 12 percent of Gaza’s water supply (according to a recent report on water from Oxfam, an international NGO). Two have been reopened, but the damage means just a fraction of the original capacity goes through. This may not be purposeful, as Israel has been accused of in international courts. But after the Israel Defense Forces blew up a water reservoir in late July, and following years of discriminatory water policies against Palestinians, the accusation carries a context. |
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Investigation | Israeli Army Uses Palestinian Civilians to Inspect Potentially Booby-trapped Tunnels in Gaza
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| “Our lives are more important than their lives,” soldiers were told. The thinking is that it’s better for the Israeli soldiers to remain alive and for the shawishim to be the ones blown up by an explosive device. This description is one of many obtained by Haaretz, some from combat soldiers, others from commanders. The picture that emerges: In recent months, Israeli soldiers have used human shields in this way all over Gaza… “The senior ranks know about it,” the source said… The Americans are furious, though Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, has said that the Israel Defense Forces is investigating the incidents and that the evidence in the videos does not reflect the IDF’s values and violates rules and regulations. |
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U.S. won’t sanction IDF unit for human rights violations in West Bank
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| Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on Friday with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and informed him that he had decided to end the investigation into the Israel Defenses Force’s “Netzah Yehuda” battalion for human rights violations in the occupied West Bank and not impose sanctions on the unit, according to two senior U.S. and Israeli officials… If sanctions were imposed on the Netzah Yehuda battalion, it would have been an unprecedented move on the part of the Biden administration, and potentially damaged the IDF and relations between Israel and the United States… A senior U.S. official said that while Blinken determined the battalion committed gross human rights violations, the information provided by Israel over the last three months showed the IDF remediated the behavior of the battalion and addressed U.S. concerns. The U.S. official said the IDF provided the U.S. evidence that the two soldiers who were involved in the most significant incident investigated were discharged from combat missions and would not be called for reserve service. The IDF told the U.S. that the criminal investigation against them didn’t materialize because Palestinian witnesses refused to testify. |
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Israel is redrawing the West Bank, cutting into a prospective Palestinian state
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| During more than 19 months in power, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government has dramatically expanded Israel’s footprint in the occupied West Bank — accelerating a long-term campaign by the country’s settler movement to thwart the creation of a Palestinian state. The government has approved strategic land seizures — almost 6,000 acres this year alone — and major settlement construction, escalated demolition of Palestinian property and increased state support for illegally built settler outposts. Together, they mark the most significant territorial changes in the West Bank in decades. While the Biden administration insists that any diplomatic solution to the war in Gaza include a path to an independent Palestinian state, radical Jewish settlers and their far-right political backers, who have ascended to the highest levels of Israel’s government, are redrawing the map in real time — making the two-state solution envisaged in past peace accords effectively impossible. |
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