News Roundup for May 27, 2021

May 27, 2021

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J Street in the News

J Street’s Logan Bayroff on BBC Newshour, BBC

Blinken resets ties with Palestinians in 1st Mideast trip, ABC News
After four years of President Donald Trump tilting U.S. policy toward Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken seems intent on a reset. […] ‘The ability of the United States to play a productive role in averting, easing and ending conflict is deeply compromised when we are disconnected from the Palestinian people,’ said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the liberal advocacy group J Street, blaming what he called ‘severe damage done to that relationship by President Trump.’”

It’s Time to Update the U.S. Approach to Israeli Rights Abuses, Newsweek
Kenneth Roth writes, “President Joe Biden has shown a remarkable capacity to change with the times, but when it came to the recent armed conflict between Israeli and Hamas forces, he often seemed to be pressing ‘rewind’ and ‘play’ on an old reel-to-reel tape recorder. The welcome ceasefire provides an opportunity to re-examine this outdated approach. […] An increasing number of American Jews—and many others, including a growing number of members of Congress—support Israel but also believe in Palestinian rights. J Street, the leading advocacy organization on Middle East issues for liberal Jews, recently concluded that U.S. security aid must not help to ‘trample on Palestinian rights.’ In short, for a Democratic president, pressing the Israeli government to respect the rights of Palestinians is no longer the third rail of domestic politics.”

These Young Jewish Staffers Are Bringing Their Disillusionment With Israel to Capitol Hill, Haaretz
“[Jeremy Slevin]’s experience on the Hill let him see how criticism of Israeli policy could be conflated into misguided allegations of antisemitism. He first worked for Keith Ellison, the first Muslim member of the House. Referring to the liberal pro-Israel group J Street, he describes Ellison as a ‘two-stater in the J Street mold.’ […] Matan Arad-Neeman, a former campaign field organizer for Joe Biden, recently co-led the writing of a letter with Jewish, Palestinian and Israeli colleagues. The authors – over 500 Biden and Democratic campaign alumni – urged the president to do more to hold Israel accountable for human rights violations while supporting Palestinians’ rights to peace, security and self-determination.Arad-Neeman, who worked for the Biden campaign and Mark Kelly’s Senate campaign in Arizona, as well as the Senate runoff in Georgia, was raised by Israeli leftists in Seattle who discussed the Israeli occupation with him. He would later serve as J Street U president while in college, noting how he was constantly meeting people questioning what they were taught about Israel.”

Israeli/Palestinian Conflict: Dialogue that Matters (podcast), The Marianne Williamson Podcast
“The recent conflict between Israel and Hamas has caused deep questioning and soul-searching. I sat down with JStreet’s Josh Lockman and Democracy for the Arab World Now’s (DAWN) Raed Jarrar to discuss how peace can be accomplished, and how changes in US policy can contribute to fundamental change.”

Top News and Analysis

Biden’s Gaza reconstruction plan faces major roadblocks, Axios
The Biden administration wants to push ahead with humanitarian aid and rebuilding in Gaza. That’s easier said than done. President Biden says he wants to coordinate those efforts with the Palestinian Authority, which has no influence in Gaza, and exclude Hamas, which controls the territory. Israel’s strict controls on the entry of goods and building materials into Gaza are a major barrier, as is the reluctance of the international community to invest in the reconstruction of an area that has been repeatedly bombed.

Blinken Leaves Middle East With Cease-Fire Intact but Aid Uncertain, New York Times
A fragile cease-fire remains intact, but the work to rebuild after the short but deadly war between Israel and Hamas has just begun, the top American diplomat said Wednesday at the close of a Middle East trip intended to keep simmering tensions from erupting anew. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he was returning to Washington from the brief but urgent visit with new promises to help fund a massive humanitarian and reconstruction effort in the Gaza Strip, pockets of which were decimated during 11 days of hostilities between Hamas, the militant group that controls the area, and Israel.

UN rights chief: Israeli strikes in Gaza may be war crimes, AP
The U.N. rights chief said Thursday that Israeli forces may have committed war crimes in the 11-day war with the militant group Hamas that rules the Gaza Strip. Michelle Bachelet also called on Israel to allow an independent probe of military actions in the latest spasm of deadly violence.

News

How Black Lives Matter reenergized Black-Palestinian solidarity, Vox
It may be an exaggeration to suggest that the upsurge of mass resistance to white supremacy that propelled the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has also reenergized ideals of global solidarity among African Americans. But there can be no doubt that BLM, which some have dubbed the “American Intifada,” has driven to the center of Black political awareness questions of human rights and state violence — and principles of popular revolt — that are germane to Palestinian struggle.

Israel Deprives East Jerusalem Political Activists of State Insurance, Stipends, Haaretz
Israel has suspended the social and medical benefits of at least 11 Palestinian political activists and their families as well as former prisoners who live in East Jerusalem. […] The denial of insurance benefits, which includes suspension of medical benefits at health maintenance organizations and a halt to social benefit payments, is a common procedure inflicted on East Jerusalem residents. Usually, this is done based on a claim that the insured person left Jerusalem and is living in the West Bank, or that their center of life is not in Jerusalem. Moving from Jerusalem to the West Bank can mean moving to another part of the same neighborhood or street, which happens to lie on the other side of the municipal boundary.

Jewish Democrat in House spearheads push to get GOP senator to lift hold on aid to Palestinians, JTA
Citing a “desperate” need in the wake of the recent Israel-Hamas war, Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Jewish Democrat is spearheading a letter to a top Senate Republican asking him to stop blocking aid to the Palestinians. “We write with a great sense of urgency to respectfully request that you release your hold on tens of millions of dollars in appropriated humanitarian aid that is so desperately needed to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands civilians suffering in Gaza and the West Bank in the wake of the horrific violence that took place in the last several weeks,” says the letter to Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee.

Biden administration adds $38.5 million in aid to the Palestinians, Times of Israel
The Biden administration increased its assistance to Palestinians by $38.5 million in the wake of the latest Gaza war and pledged to abide by existing law that bars US aid to the Palestinian Authority as long it continues its prisoner payment policy. […] Blinken said an additional $33 million would go to UNRWA, the United Nations agency that administers relief to the Palestinians, on top of the $150 million for the agency announced in April.

U.S. Victims of Antisemitic Attacks Worry That Things Are Only Going to Get Worse, Haaretz
A fragile cease-fire remains intact, but the work to rebuild after the short but deadly war between Israel and Hamas has just begun, the top American diplomat said Wednesday at the close of a Middle East trip intended to keep simmering tensions from erupting anew. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he was returning to Washington from the brief but urgent visit with new promises to help fund a massive humanitarian and reconstruction effort in the Gaza Strip, pockets of which were decimated during 11 days of hostilities between Hamas, the militant group that controls the area, and Israel.

‘A campaign of intimidation and terror against the Arab public’, +972 Magazine
In a surprise campaign on Monday, Israeli authorities launched “Operation Law and Order,” in which thousands of national police officers, Border Police members, and army reservists arrested hundreds of Palestinian citizens of Israel accused of participating in this month’s mass wave of protests.

Opinion and Analysis

Israel Deprives East Jerusalem Political Activists of State Insurance, Stipends, Haaretz
Max Boot writes, “I am struggling to figure out how preserving the status quo is enhancing Israel’s security. Spoiler alert: It’s not. The Trump administration made a gamble that by exiting the JCPOA and imposing sanctions it could force Iran to agree to end not only its nuclear program but also its missile program and its support for regional proxies. That gambit has backfired badly. By any measure, Iran is more dangerous now than it was while the nuclear deal was still in effect.”

How Jews can support Palestinian rights and condemn antisemitism, NBC News
Abraham Gutman writes, “Historically, criticism of the Israeli government has been linked to antisemitism. But it’s not nearly that simple. By conflating Judaism and Israel, the Israeli government created a paradox in which Israel’s actions are beyond critique. The irony is that Zionism and antisemitism are each other’s best recruiting tools.”

How the search for a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians is failing, The Economist
The Economist writes, “What exists today is an unequal one-state reality”

In defense of the two-state solution, Vox
Zack Beauchamp writes, “Last week, Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in a conflict that claimed nearly 250 lives. But the underlying status quo makes another round of fighting all but inevitable, and a fundamental solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems further away than ever. Worse, the long-running American solution for the problem — a US-mediated peace process aimed at creating a ‘two-state solution,’ with an independent Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank existing alongside Israel — has proven to be a dismal failure. […] As far away as it may seem, the two-state solution is still the best possible option available for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That’s in large part because the alternatives are even less plausible.”

Israel’s political stalemate is unmoved by the conflict with Hamas, CNN
Hadas Gold writes, “Hours before the first rockets were fired toward Jerusalem two weeks ago, the bloc of political parties trying to oust long-term Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from power was cautiously optimistic. The group, led by former TV anchor Yair Lapid of the centrist Yesh Atid party, would be able to form a government within a week or two, or so they thought. But then just after 6 p.m. on May 10, Hamas militants fired a barrage of rockets from Gaza into Israel, setting off air raid sirens not heard in Jerusalem for years. Soon after, Israel launched airstrikes against what it said were militant targets in Gaza. A bloody 11-day conflict was set in motion and the landscape of Israeli politics shifted.”

Can American Muslims and Jews help bring peace to Israelis and Palestinians?, Religious News Service
Arthur Waskow and Daisy Khan write, “We urge American Jews, Muslims, non-Muslim Arabs, Catholics, mainstream Protestants and other religious and spiritual communities to pursue ‘justice, justice’ for both sides in this struggle where religious commitment might at last play a healing, not a destructive, role.”