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I hope you are doing well.
I’m writing to share important updates from the region, as well as J Street’s statements from this past week – and you’ll find that we’ve also included J Street’s first “J Street Conversations” podcast. As a reminder, you can always find our most recent statements on J Street crisis response page.
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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| J Street Conversations Podcast |
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The Gaza War: The Forces Shaping Israeli Public Opinion
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| WORD FROM J STREET PRESIDENT, JEREMY BEN AMI |
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WHAT PRESIDENT BIDEN SHOULD SAY IN THE STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
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What we’re reading
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Biden Sends Sharp Message to Israel During State of the Union: Don’t Use Gaza Aid As Bargaining Chip
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| U.S. President Joe Biden directly urged Israel’s leadership during his State of the Union address to dramatically boost humanitarian aid into Gaza while stressing the necessity of pursuing a two-state solution. “To the leadership of Israel I say this: Humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be a priority,” he said… He recognized that Israel has a right to go after Hamas, which Biden said could end the war today by “releasing the hostages, laying down arms, and surrendering those responsible for October 7th.” Biden noted, however, that “Israel has an added burden because Hamas hides and operates among the civilian population like cowards – under hospitals, daycare centers and the like. But Israel also has a fundamental responsibility to protect innocent civilians in Gaza.” |
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Biden orders US military to set up temporary aid port for Gaza as famine threatens
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| President Joe Biden ordered the U.S. military Thursday to set up a temporary port off the coast of Gaza, joining international partners in trying to carve out a sea route to deliver food and other aid to desperate Palestinian civilians cut off by the Hamas-Israel war and by Israeli restrictions on humanitarian access by land… The U.S. announcement, signaling deepening U.S. involvement in the war and the escalating fighting in the region, comes as Biden faces pressure to act more forcefully to ease what the U.N. says are near-famine conditions for many of Gaza’s 2.3 million people. It also shows the administration resorting to an unusual workaround after months of appealing to Israel, the U.S.’s close ally and top recipient of military aid, to step up access and protection for trucks bearing humanitarian goods for Gaza. |
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Israeli minister lambasted at White House about Gaza and war strategy
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| Israeli minister Benny Gantz encountered harsh criticism and tough questions about the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Israel’s war strategy during his meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan at the White House on Monday, three Israeli and U.S. officials said. The official said Gantz wasn’t only surprised by the strength of criticism about the humanitarian crisis but also about how far apart Israel and the U.S. are when it comes to a possible operation in Rafah. Harris and Sullivan asked Gantz where Israel is planning to move more than one million Palestinian civilians who are in Rafah and expressed deep skepticism it is even possible. Another pessimistic message Gantz received at the White House was that the chances are slim of reaching the mega-deal with Saudi Arabia that includes normalization with Israel as long as the war continues and as long as the Israeli government is unwilling to chart a path for a Palestinian state, the Israeli official said. |
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Democrats say Rafah invasion “likely” violates U.S. military aid rules
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| A group of House Democrats is making the case to President Biden that an Israeli invasion of Rafah could violate his requirement that U.S. military aid be used in accordance with international law, Axios has learned.It places new pressure on the Biden administration to consider suspending aid to Israel should the country move forward with the operation. More than three dozen House Democrats, in a letter to Biden, cited a memorandum he signed last month requiring any recipient of U.S. aid to provide “credible and reliable written assurances” it will comply with international law. An invasion of Rafah, they argued, “would likely contravene” the memorandum, noting the “the absence of a credible plan” to protect civilians. |
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U.S. floods arms into Israel despite mounting alarm over war’s conduct
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| The United States has quietly approved and delivered more than 100 separate foreign military sales to Israel since the Gaza war began Oct. 7, amounting to thousands of precision-guided munitions, small-diameter bombs, bunker busters, small arms and other lethal aid, U.S. officials told members of Congress in a recent classified briefing. The triple-digit figure, which has not been previously reported, is the latest indication of Washington’s extensive involvement in the polarizing five-month conflict even as top U.S. officials and lawmakers increasingly express deep reservations about Israel’s military tactics in a campaign that has killed more than 30,000 people, according to Gaza’s health authorities. |
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Opinion | The U.S. Finally Realized: Netanyahu Broke an Unbreakable Alliance
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| Israel has been a trustworthy, dependable U.S. ally for over 50 years. Benjamin Netanyahu is not. His record, his policies, his behavior and his style over the years indicate that he does not see himself as an ally and does not conduct himself as one – and now the United States has finally realized this. It is in the context of this belated realization, and criticism of President Joe Biden’s Mideast policy, that this week’s Washington visit by war cabinet minister Benny Gantz should be viewed. |
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Analysis | Why America Isn’t Using Its Leverage with Israel
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| On Sunday, Vice-President Kamala Harris said that the Israeli government “must do more to significantly increase the flow of aid [into Gaza]. No excuses.” This marked perhaps the Biden Administration’s most forceful push to encourage Israel to allow more food and medicine into the territory, where more than thirty thousand people have been killed since the war that began after Hamas killed some twelve hundred Israelis on October 7th. The Biden Administration also announced that it had begun airdrops of food aid to the people of Gaza, but the humanitarian crisis there continues to worsen… I recently spoke by phone with Senator Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat. In January, Van Hollen visited the Rafah border crossing and raised alarms about the inspection process, as well as what he said was obstruction by the Israeli government… we discussed the different ways that the Israeli government is preventing adequate aid from reaching civilians, whether the Biden Administration’s policy toward Israel is in the process of changing, and the scale of the current humanitarian crisis in Gaza. |
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Podcast | The Wars in Ukraine and Gaza Have Changed. America’s Policy Hasn’t
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| Joe Biden’s presidency has been dominated by two foreign policy crises: the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The funding the United States has provided in those wars — billions to both Ukraine and Israel — has drawn backlash from both the right and the left. And now, as the conflicts move into new stages with no clear end game, Biden’s policies are increasingly drawing dissent from the center. In this conversation, Ezra Klein hears why Richard Haas, icon of the US foreign policy establishment, thinks America’s current strategy on both Ukraine and Israel is untenable, what he thinks the north star for our strategy in both cases should be, the Republican Party’s 180-degree turn from internationalism to isolationism, what America’s biggest national security threat really is and more. |
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