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On a trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan last week, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) met with regional leaders on a range of issues, including Israel’s anticipated retaliatory strike against Iran, the ongoing impacts of the yearlong war and the prospects for peace moving forward.
Khanna and Panetta traveled with fellow members of the House Armed Services Committee — Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) and Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) — to Israel and Jordan last week, with Khanna and Panetta continuing on to Saudi Arabia.
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In the race for a coveted House seat in New York’s Lower Hudson Valley suburbs, the two rival candidates are accusing each other of embracing extremism, even as they have both largely tacked to the center on a range of key issues — including Middle East policy.
Former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY), a Democrat looking to reclaim his old House seat after running in New York City last cycle, is now mounting a comeback campaign against freshman Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), one of the most vulnerable House Republicans up for reelection.
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Rep. Andy Kim (D-NJ), favored to be the next senator from New Jersey, told Jewish Insider his family background as the child of Korean immigrants who experienced their homeland being torn apart by war gives him a “sense of empathy” for Jewish Americans’ feelings toward Israel.
“My parents were born at the end of the Korean War, into a conflict that divided my ancestral homeland. My family lives in South Korea right now, many of them just a few kilometers from the most fortified, dangerous borders in the entire world. There’s a madman with his finger on the button that can send nuclear weapons to annihilate my family and annihilate their existence,” Kim said in a recent interview, referring to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
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The Department of Defense is investigating how U.S. intelligence documents detailing Israeli plans to attack Iran were leaked and published in an online forum, the White House said on Monday.
“We’re not exactly sure of how these documents found their way into the public domain,” said White House national security spokesperson John Kirby. “I know the Department of Defense is investigating this, and I’m sure that as they work through that, they’ll try to determine the manner in which they did become public.”
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Former President Donald Trump said in an interview released on Sunday that expanding the Abraham Accords would be “an absolute priority” if he wins the election.
“Everyone wants to be in it,” he said in an interview with Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned news channel, claiming he would have added “12 to 15 countries literally within a period of a year” if he had won the 2020 presidential election. “If I win, that will be an absolute priority,” he added. “It’s peace in the Middle East — we need it.”
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U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, as well as several of his European counterparts, have pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other key figures in the Knesset to drop two bills that would effectively shut down the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), even though some employees of the U.N. agency aiding Palestinians took part in the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.
Israel’s security cabinet discussed international opposition to the UNRWA bills on Sunday night, amid the diplomatic blitz.
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Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) is urging the Senate to pass legislation — already passed by the House earlier this year with bipartisan support — redesignating the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. He highlighted that the administration has declined to take such action on its own, a situation he said necessitates congressional intervention.
The Biden administration has rejected ongoing bipartisan pressure to fully reimpose the terrorist designation it revoked in early 2021, arguing that such a move would shut down access to food and other basic supplies inside Yemen.
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Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are demanding answers and accountability after alleged U.S. intelligence regarding Israel’s preparations to attack Iran were published on an Iran-linked social media account.
The documents, which contained top secret markings and were flagged for distribution only to the U.S and its close intelligence allies, leaked onto a pro-Iran Telegram channel on Friday. They included details of Israel’s preparations for a strike, including munitions stockpiles, training exercises and more.
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