I’m writing to share J Street’s statements and news updates.

Mass protests are continuing in Israel as the government officially started the legislative process to advance the highly-contested judicial “reform” bills. Prominent pro-Israel American Jewish organizations and Members of Congress have expressed concern over the move, including Senators Cardin, Van Hollen, and Merkley, and Representatives Raskin, Schakowsky, Blumenauer, DeSaulnier, Stansbury, Eshoo, Lee, and McGovern.

On the international stage, the UN Security Council unanimously approved on Monday a non-legally binding Presidential Statement strongly opposing Israel’s continued expansion of settlements, an outcome reportedly brokered by the US to replace a UAE-drafted resolution in exchange for the Israelis and Palestinians agreeing to withhold unilateral actions for a number of months. Israel has since approved approximately 7,000 new settlement units, and the legalization of additional outposts, as well as deciding to transfer key civilian administration duties in the West Bank to far-right minister Betzalel Smotrich. Tensions proceed to escalate following weeks of terror attacks against Israeli civilians, deadly Israeli raids in the West Bank, and rockets launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

Be sure to check out our continously updated dossier on the Netanyahu government. 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.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

All the best,
Kevin

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Kevin Rachlin (He/Him/His)
Vice President of Public Affairs, J Street
mobile: 937-681-2273 | [email protected] | @sikevin99

This week on j street

STATEMENT

J STREET WELCOMES UNSC STATEMENT, URGES FURTHER US ACTION TO DETER ANNEXATION

Israeli parliament advances bill that may override top court

The “Supreme Court override” bill’s approval in a preliminary vote in the Knesset was the latest step by Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition toward realizing the judicial overhaul that is steaming ahead despite calls for dialogue and consensus from American Jews and Israel’s president, and weekly protest by tens of thousands of Israelis… Earlier this week parliament approved a first reading of bills to give the governing coalition control over judicial appointments and strip the court of judicial review over Basic Laws — Israel’s quasi-constitutional legislation. A draft bill brought before parliament Wednesday would require a unanimous Supreme Court decision to amend or strike down a law for violating a Basic Law, and that parliament would be able to pass laws impervious to Supreme Court review even if it violates a Basic Law. The preliminary vote passed 61-52. Each of these bills now faces committee approval before final votes in parliament to pass them into law.

Longtime allies of Israel in the Democratic Party are intensifying their warnings about Jerusalem turning its back on democratic practices… Jewish-American lawmaker [Congressman Jamie Raskin] warns of a growing threat to democracy… The Netanyahu government’s plan to weaken the Supreme Court, he says, would put Israel in the same category as repressive governments that are widely condemned in the global arena… Sen. Ben Cardin’s warning is more likely to send chills through the halls of the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. The second-ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is among the most stalwart pro-Israel Democrats in the history of the Senate… “Today, I speak to our friend and ally as a family member who is concerned,” the Maryland senator said in a statement. “..I am fearful for the future of democracy in Israel as the right-wing Netanyahu government threatens to undermine the essential checks-and-balances that make democracies work”. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a leading voice on Middle East policy in the party, is also worried about the legislation’s implications. Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who like Raskin and Cardin is Jewish, says she is “deeply concerned by the far-right’s proposal to restrict the independence and powers of Israel’s judiciary… [Rep. Jim McGovern] directly links the judicial overhaul with the governing coalition’s parallel efforts at expanding West Bank settlements and legalizing outposts… “These actions are wrong, full stop. New settlements don’t make anyone safer and only escalate tensions. The Biden administration was right to condemn.”

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a watered-down statement strongly opposing Israel’s continued construction and expansion of settlements Monday. The vote came after high-stakes negotiations by the Biden administration succeeded in derailing a legally binding resolution that would have demanded a halt to Israeli settlement activity… Those discussions culminated in a deal Sunday to forego it in favor of a weaker presidential statement that is not legally binding… But U.S. support for the presidential statement angered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. [Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador] said 14 of the 15 council members supported the resolution, but one member — a clear reference to the United States — didn’t want to use its veto. “I think the fact that we reached a unanimous agreement on a presidential statement is a very important step in the right direction,” he said. To avoid a vote on the draft resolution, the diplomats said, the U.S. managed to convince both Israel and the Palestinians to agree in principle to a six-month freeze in any unilateral action they might take. On the Israeli side, that would mean a commitment to not expanding settlements until at least August, according to the diplomats. On Monday, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not greenlight any new wildcat settlements in the West Bank beyond nine outposts that it approved retroactively earlier this month. On the Palestinian side, the diplomats said it would mean a commitment until August not to pursue action against Israel at the U.N. and other international bodies such as the World Court, the International Criminal Court and the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Israel is seeking to once again advance the highly controversial E1 settlement project that would bisect Palestinian contiguity in the West Bank, as it also green-lit plans Thursday for more than 7,000 new settlement homes, the largest number ever authorized in one sitting. The far-reaching moves to further entrench Israel’s presence beyond the Green Line comes just as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government neared its two-month anniversary. The series of agreements that laid the foundation for the coalition’s establishment pledged to significantly expand settlements and included a commitment to annex large parts of the West Bank where the government’s guiding principles declare the “Jewish people have an exclusive and inalienable right” to live and develop. Netanyahu holds a veto over such annexation efforts, which he is expected to utilize due to the belief that such a move would shut the door on an elusive normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia. But critics say the government is still moving forward with de-facto annexation… Among the projects advanced this week were ones located in four illegal outposts — Mevo’ot Yericho, Nofei Nehemia, Pnei Kedem and Nativ Ha’avot — which will be formally legalized upon authorization of the final planning stage. Those outposts do not include the nine that the government announced earlier this month that it would legalize in response to a series of terror attacks in East Jerusalem — a decision that ushered in a flood of global condemnations.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will be in charge of most of the Civil Administration -Israel’s governing body in the West Bank – according to a new deal brokered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday between the far right lawmaker and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. According to the agreement, Smotrich, who was granted the status of a minister in the Defense Ministry during coalition negotiations, will also be in charge of the department that oversees enforcement of construction laws in the West Bank. However, the Israel Defense Forces can utilize that department against construction that would be defined as both “new and invasive” and as being “urgent in a security context,” though the army would need to give Smotrich notice of any intent to evict homes… The agreement also states that Smotrich will create a so-called Settlement Administration, that will be in charge of improving services and infrastructure in West Bank settlements. In response to the international community’s concern that shuffling around the authority over the West Bank would be de facto annexation, both Smotrich and Gallant agreed that “nothing in this document changes the legal status of the West Bank, the laws applied within, or the government’s authority over it.”

Palestinian militants in Gaza launched rockets at southern Israel and Israeli aircraft struck targets in the coastal enclave early Thursday after a gunbattle triggered by an Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank killed 10 Palestinians. The bloodshed extends one of the deadliest periods in years in the West Bank, where dozens of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the start of the year. Palestinian attacks on Israelis in 2023 have killed 11 people… “We have a clear policy: to strike terror powerfully and to deepen our roots in our land,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a meeting of his Cabinet… Israeli police stepped up security in sensitive areas on Thursday, while Hamas said its patience was “running out.” Islamic Jihad, another militant group, vowed to retaliate. The fighting comes at a sensitive time, less than two months after Netanyahu’s new hard-line government took office. It presents an early challenge for Netanyahu, who on top of spiraling violence is also facing waves of protests from Israelis against a plan to overhaul the country’s justice system. The government is dominated by ultranationalists who have pushed for tougher action against Palestinian militants and vowed to entrench Israeli rule in the occupied West Bank, including by ramping up settlement construction on lands Palestinians seek for their future state. Israeli media have quoted top security officials as expressing concern that the harder line could lead to even more violence as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan approaches.

As Benjamin Netanyahu’s government charges ahead with efforts to dramatically overhaul Israel’s judicial system, U.S. Jewish establishment organizations have started to criticize official Israeli policy to a perhaps unprecedented degree… The Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella organization representing 146 Jewish federations and 300 independent Jewish communities, on Tuesday urged Prime Minister Netanyahu and opposition leader Yair Lapid to clarify that “a 61-seat Knesset majority should not be permitted” to override Supreme Court decisions. The organization’s rare move follows the worldwide Conservative/Masorti movement’s call for the Israeli government to heed Herzog’s plan to “identify a better path forward that guarantees the rights of all Israelis and preserves the State of Israel as the Jewish and democratic nation-state of the Jewish people around the world”… The Conservative statement followed similar warnings from the Reform movement, which lamented that the plans would “dramatically weaken Israel’s democracy, eviscerating any meaningful checks and balances that provide a separation of powers – a backbone of secure democracies”… The Anti-Defamation League, which had hitherto been reticent to publicly engage on the matter, also used Herzog’s speech as a window to engage. It called to “build a process to bring all sides together to forge consensus, for all leaders to work together and to avoid potentially ‘violent confrontations.’”

J STREET GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS NEWS DIGEST | FEBRUARY 24, 2023

This week on j street

What we’re reading

Israeli parliament advances bill that may override top court

U.S. Lawmakers Slam Netanyahu’s Judicial Overhaul

UN Council OKs watered-down statement on Israel settlements

Israel advances plans for 7,000 new settler homes, places E1 project back on docket

Far-right Smotrich Gets Authority Over West Bank Policy, Outpost Eviction Left to Israeli Army

Gaza rockets, Israeli strikes follow deadly West Bank raid

Netanyahu Opens Up Unprecedented Rift Between Israel and Major American Jewish Organizations