Republicans on Capitol Hill are growing increasingly wary of Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, over his approach to handling Hamas and his continued efforts to bolster the U.S.-Qatar relationship.

Those concerns were exacerbated over the weekend after Witkoff suggested to Tucker Carlson in an episode of Carlson’s podcast that Hamas could end up being “involved politically” in Gaza if and when the terrorist group demilitarizes. Witkoff also ruffled feathers when he spoke about Trump’s recent outreach to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, adopting Tehran’s rhetoric about creating “a verification program” rather than using the Trump administration’s language about “dismantlement.” 

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s confirmation hearing to be U.S. ambassador to Israel is opening rifts in the Jewish community, with groups representing the Orthodox and Reform movements openly at odds over Huckabee’s background and past views. 

In written testimony for his Tuesday hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee obtained by Jewish Insider, Huckabee — whose comments claiming that the West Bank is rightfully part of Israel, supporting West Bank settlements and asserting that there’s “no such thing as a Palestinian” have been a source of controversy — emphasized that he will be speaking for the administration as an ambassador, not advancing his own views.

Antisemitism experts and Jewish officials from a range of political and organizational backgrounds are set to testify at the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s hearing on campus antisemitism on Thursday, the committee announced.

The witness panel is set to include Carly Gammill, director of legal policy at StandWithUs; Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad); Charles Asher Small, the executive director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy (ISGAP); Rabbi David Saperstein, the director emeritus of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism; and Kenneth Stern, the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate.

Pro-Israel students returned to Columbia University from spring break on Monday cautiously optimistic that ongoing negotiations between university leaders and the Trump administration would herald an end to the anti-Israel demonstrations that have roiled the campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza. 

Instead, students were greeted with familiar protests and disruptions. Dozens of masked demonstrators overtook campus, hanging a large “Free Palestine” sign from a building and chanting so loudly it could be heard from inside classrooms. 

Vice President J.D. Vance expressed deep reservations about the U.S. conducting strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen earlier this month in a private group chat with other senior administration officials, according to a bombshell report by The Atlantic.

Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, reported on Monday that National Security Advisor Mike Waltz had inadvertently added him to a group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging application, with Vance and numerous Cabinet-level officials. Goldberg reported that Vance told the group chat, which debated and detailed the Trump administration’s plans to launch the strikes, that he thought they should hold off on the mission.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and a Democratic challenger, Beth Davidson, traded barbs last week, with Lawler accusing Davidson, who is Jewish, of turning a blind eye to antisemitism and Davidson accusing Lawler of stoking antisemitism against her.

The back-and-forth began when Lawler posted photos from a rally Davidson addressed over the weekend, including a poster showing Lawler, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) depicted as marionettes alongside the AIPAC logo — an antisemitic trope.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) was awakened last Thursday morning by an announcement made through his Jerusalem hotel’s intercom system, alerting guests to an incoming ballistic missile attack by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.

“I explained to my wife, and I said, ‘Well, this is the kind of reality of Israel, where they have these things,’” Fetterman told reporters in Jerusalem hours later.

Representing one of the most heavily Jewish congressional districts in America — California’s 30th, which encompasses Hollywood, Burbank and Glendale — freshman House Democrat Laura Friedman has made the issue of antisemitism a priority in her political life. 

As a legislator in the California Statehouse, she and her fellow Jewish caucus members had supported establishing an ethnic studies program, and later fought back against efforts to include antisemitic material in it, working with other identity caucuses in the state Legislature. And she authored a bill, which passed, requiring Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs to include education on antisemitism and the Jewish experience.