A Syrian diaspora conference in a meeting room in a House office building was abruptly canceled on Monday after a lawmaker raised concerns about the group and its leadership, sources familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider.

The group, the Alawites Association of the United States, which presents itself as a representative of the Alawite religious minority group whose members have been targeted by forces aligned with the new Syrian government, hosted the event in coordination with other Syrian-American organizations. The event initially began as planned on Monday.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a close ally of President Donald Trump, called for a cautious and deliberate approach to removing sanctions on Syria and emphasized that Congress has a significant oversight role to play, hours after Trump announced he plans to lift “all” U.S. sanctions on Syria.

Graham’s statement on sanctions relief came as he touched down in Turkey for a trip aimed at evaluating the situation in Syria and appeared aimed at pumping the brakes on Trump’s sweeping declaration. Reactions from others on Capitol Hill to the news have been decidedly mixed across both parties.

A legal watchdog group sent a warning letter to Microsoft on Monday alleging that it is violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by refusing to recognize a Jewish Employee Resource Group, Jewish Insider has learned. 

The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law said its next step will be to file a federal lawsuit alleging violation of Title VII — which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin — within two weeks if the tech giant continues to deny Jewish employees the ability to establish an ERG. 

President Donald Trump lambasted “interventionalists” and “neo-cons” who previously led foreign policy discourse in the Republican Party in a speech on Tuesday at a U.S.-Saudi Arabia investment forum event in Riyadh. 

“The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neo-cons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions failing to develop [Kabul], Baghdad, so many other cities,” Trump said. “In the end, the so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.”

The IDF targeted Hamas leader Mohammad Sinwar in a strike on the European Hospital in southern Gaza, according to a report in The Times of Israel.

The IDF said it conducted a “precise strike on Hamas terrorists in a command and control center, located in an underground terrorist infrastructure site beneath the European hospital” on Monday evening local time, though did not name the targets. 

A group of nine Jewish House Democrats wrote to President Donald Trump on Tuesday expressing “grave concerns” about reports that the Trump administration plans to seal a deal on nuclear energy cooperation with Saudi Arabia without Saudi-Israeli normalization.

The nuclear talks had previously been linked to discussions of a potential mega-deal between Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States, which would include Saudi-Israel normalization, U.S.-Saudi nuclear energy cooperation and a U.S.-Saudi defense deal. 

A Richmond, Va., judge has issued a new court order ruling that a pro-Palestinian advocacy group with alleged ties to Hamas must finally turn over closely guarded financial documents sought in an ongoing investigation brought by Virginia’s attorney general.

The decision, issued on Friday, is a major blow for American Muslims for Palestine, a Virginia-based nonprofit group that has drawn a growing number of legal challenges in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks and Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza.

Though President Donald Trump’s plans to accept a lavish jumbo jet from Qatar are raising outrage among Democrats, the move isn’t prompting any notable political shifts in the U.S. views toward the Qatari regime, with some Democrats downplaying the relevance of Qatar’s specific role in the bargain and many Senate Republicans avoiding criticizing Trump or the offered gift.

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), long an outspoken critic of Qatar, was one of the few Senate Republicans to strongly argue that accepting the plane would be risky.