U.S. independent presidential candidate Evan McMullin talks to supporters at the Brick House Cafe on November 5, 2016 in Cedar City, Utah.

Evan McMullin is a conservative, but he’s Democrats’ pick for Senate in Utah. Running as an independent against incumbent Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), the pro-life McMullin finds himself more closely aligned with Republicans on certain issues, like abortion. But he diverges from his former allies on some foreign policy matters. In an interview with Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch on Monday, the former CIA agent laid out his approach to U.S. policy in the Middle East.

More oversight: McMullin’s conservative opponent has forged unlikely foreign policy alliances with progressive colleagues. Earlier this month Lee was the lone Republican who co-authored a series of letters with Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) demanding additional federal oversight over U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. “I have to agree that more oversight is required for those relationships, and for obvious reasons, so that we ensure that there are basic standards of human rights being met,” McMullin said. “Where there are such violations, I think it should cause reconsideration on our part.”

Open mind: McMullin, unlike congressional Republicans, said he is open-minded about nuclear negotiations with Iran. “I’m glad negotiations are happening again,” he said. McMullin opposed the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, arguing that it failed to keep Iran’s malign regional activities in check. But, he added, it was “unwise” for the Trump administration to pull out of the deal in 2018 when “Iran was, by all reports, living up to its part of the deal.” In a position paper shared with JI, McMullin vowed to partner with Israel “to thwart Iran’s terrorist activity in the region and elsewhere.”

Maintain leverage: McMullin, who left the Republican Party and ran as a third-party candidate against Donald Trump in 2016, is open to a deal if the U.S. also pledges to address Iran’s support for terrorism. “If the commitment is to work on the terrorism side separately, that’s fine, as long as we truly are making progress on that front,” said McMullin. “What I don’t want to see is us squander any leverage we still have with Tehran in such a way that we aren’t able to negotiate effectively with them on issues related to terrorism as well.”

Two states: McMullin also broke with many Republicans by asserting that a two-state solution is the best outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a position that has become increasingly uncommon among Republicans who don’t believe the U.S. should determine the outcome of the conflict. “I think a two-state solution offers the best prospects for sustainable peace in the immediate region and for Israel,” said McMullin. 

Read the full interview here.

Israeli Ambassador to Germany Ron Prosor signs a guest book during his accreditation at Bellevue Palace in Berlin on August 22, 2022.

It’s been a busy month for Israel’s new ambassador to Germany, Ron Prosor. He has welcomed Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Berlin, accompanying him to high-profile events such as the 50th anniversary memorial of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre and meetings with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He has stood on the red carpet as Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid descended the steps of his plane, once again overseeing meetings with the German chancellor, the president and the country’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock. “What people don’t understand is that the Israel-German relationship goes deep,” Prosor, who presented his diplomatic credentials just over a month ago, told Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash in a phone interview from Berlin a day after Lapid left Germany last week. 

Close ties: Israel’s relations with Germany come a very close second to the strategic partnership with the United States, standing above and beyond other countries in Europe, Prosor said. And, he continued, that relationship is only growing as Germany eyes Russia’s war in Ukraine with increasing concern for its own stability and is looking to Israel, among other nations, to bolster its defense systems and provide energy as Europe moves away from relying on Russian gas. At the joint press conference with Lapid last week, Scholz said that Germany was exploring purchasing the Israeli-developed Arrow 3 defense system, which a senior Israeli official later confirmed could become a reality.

Full circle: “This is huge and it’s not just words, there has been a huge change in the paradigm,” said Prosor. “Germany is looking around for examples of other nations fighting to defend democracy and who are they looking at? They are looking at the Jewish state and so, after 74 years, the State of Israel is going to help defend Germany and Europe… What an amazing, amazing closing of a circle.”

Personal posting: That full-circle feeling hits differently for Prosor, a seasoned diplomat who previously served as Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and later to the United Nations. For Prosor, whose father, Ulrich Proskauer, was born in Germany, this posting is personal. “For me, this is not just a professional posting. As the grandson of Berthold Proskauer, to return to Germany as the ambassador of Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people, 90 years after my family was thrown out of Germany, this is a very special thing for me,” he said, adding that he plans to use the assignment “to enhance and deepen the German-Israel relations that are so close to my heart.”

Read the full interview here.

U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Department of Justice August 2, 2022, in Washington, D.C.

During a naturalization ceremony at New York’s Ellis Island, Attorney General Merrick Garland recognized his own family’s immigration journey during World War II as he thanked the new citizens for “choosing America as your home,” Jewish Insider’s Tori Bergel reports. The ceremony, which commemorated the 235th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787, took place on Saturday at the site where millions of immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th century — including members of Garland’s family — poured into America.

Family history: Speaking to more than 200 newly minted U.S. citizens in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, Garland described American citizenship as “a precious gift” for their future generations – one that Garland’s own grandmother gave to him when she fled the former Soviet Union due to religious persecution. “My grandmother was one of five children born in what is now Belarus. Three made it to the United States, including my grandmother who came through the Port of Baltimore,” he said. “Two did not make it. Those two were killed in the Holocaust” — a fate, Garland asserted, that would have also befallen his grandmother were it not for the protection of American laws. Garland also mentioned his mother-in-law, who escaped Nazi-occupied Austria, making her way to America in 1938 by way of New York.

Giving thanks: He ended the speech by thanking those before him, something he was unable to do with his own family. “My family members who immigrated here have now long since passed. I regret that I cannot express to them how grateful I am for the gift they gave me in choosing to come to this country,” he said. “So let me thank each of you… Thank you for choosing America as your home. Thank you for the courage, dedication and work that has brought you here. Thank you for all you will do to help our country live up to its highest ideals. Thank you on behalf of a nation that is fortunate to call you as its citizens. And thank you on behalf of the generations of Americans who will come after you,” Garland concluded. “Thank you.”

Read more here.