David Friedman, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Israel under former President Donald Trump, told Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel on Wednesday that he believes Israel’s right-wing governing coalition has grown receptive to compromising on elements of a proposed judicial overhaul that has sparked mass protests in recent weeks.

Override clause: “I have met privately with many Israeli leaders, and I will keep those discussions private,” Friedman explained to JI. “However, I do believe that there is a receptiveness in the government to compromise on some of the judicial reform issues, including the override clause,” which would allow the Israeli government to block Supreme Court decisions with a simple majority of votes. “I’ll leave it at that for now.”

Speaking out: The former ambassador, a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has voiced strongreservations over the Israeli leader’s effort to advance legislation that critics have cautioned will neuter the Supreme Court. He expressed opposition to the overhaul at an off-the-record forum in Tel Aviv last week, arguing that the override clause had gone “too far” and would weaken the protection of minority rights, according to Axios, which reported the comments on Wednesday.

Bemoaning the ‘bitterness’: “Israel’s greatest quality is its unity within diversity, and I hope and pray that it is preserved,” Friedman, who did not deny the report, told JI. Despite his concerns, the former ambassador was optimistic that Israel “will survive this crisis as it has survived so many others in the past,” he said. “Nonetheless, it pains me greatly to see such bitterness between the parties.”

Political parallels: In an email to JI, Friedman sounded a note of caution as he drew a parallel between Israel’s mounting crises and political divisions in the U.S. “I know that Israel greatly admires America, but the current political divide in Israel unfortunately is an American feature that Israel should try less to emulate,” he said. “Israel has lots of external challenges and it cannot afford to appear this divided.”

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Bonus: Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) told the Israeli Embassy in Washington in an email last week that he is concerned that Israel’s judicial reform proposal “threatens the system of checks and balances that has been central to Israeli democracy, and that while there may be valid reasons for seeking to update the judicial system, the government’s current plan — proceeding without buy-in from opposition parties or the Israeli populace — is not the way to pursue meaningful reform,” Auchincloss spokesperson Matt Corridoni told JI. Corridoni said that Auchincloss’ office subsequently met with the embassy on the subject.

Facing questioning from a House Appropriations subcommittee yesterday over the U.S.’s work at, and contributions to, the United Nations, Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield highlighted what she characterized as the advantages of deeper U.S. involvement in the international body and reaffirmed the Biden administration’s commitment to standing with Israel and combating anti-Israel bias within the U.N. system, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Standing together: “My team is constantly vigilant on this issue,” Thomas-Greenfield said in testimony before the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs. “We watch it closely. I stay in close contact with the Israeli permanent representative in New York so that we don’t let any opportunity that we can show our support for Israel pass, and I will continue to do that until my last day.”

UNRWA oversight: Thomas-Greenfield said that she has emphasized to UNRWA leadership in “a very intense and very strong conversation” that they must “do everything in their power” to ensure that UNRWA facilities and materials are not used in support of terrorism. She also said that she and the State Department’s Office of Population, Refugees and Migration are “constantly” monitoring UNRWA to ensure that the U.N. agency is upholding its memorandum of understanding with the U.S. The U.S. ambassador said she had also had discussions with Palestinian leadership on the issue “because what is happening damaged them as well, it damages the authority, it victimizes students.”

Call out: The ambassador later condemned a range of actions and statements by Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, who has compared Israel to the Nazis and appeared at conferences alongside members of terrorist groups. Such behavior has prompted two callsfrom Capitol Hill for Albanese’s firing since the beginning of the year. Thomas-Greenfield said the U.S. finds “her statements, her public stances completely unacceptable” and has raised its concerns “at the highest levels of the United Nations,” calling for action against Albanese and other U.N. officials whose public statements have suggested bias against Israel. But she said the U.S. has stopped short of explicitly calling for Albanese’s removal, as lawmakers have urged.

Countering Iran: Thomas-Greenfield also spoke about what she framed as “extraordinary successes” in the past year in pushing back against Iran at the U.N., including organizing a Commission of Inquiry under the Human Rights Council to investigate Iranian human rights abuses, removing Tehran from the U.N.’s Commission on the Status of Women, highlighting Iranian cooperation with Russia and bringing a delegation of Iranian activists to the U.N. to shed light on the situation in the country. She claimed that the Commission of Inquiry on Iran would not have been possible if the U.S. were not a member of the Human Rights Council.

Read more here.

Elsewhere on the Hill: In questioning at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing yesterday, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) highlighted the rising rates of antisemitic attacks and other hate crimes. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that the Department of Justice is “examining this with the highest degree of urgency that’s possible, and we are putting the resources of our department into stopping these heinous acts.” He later said the department is doing “everything we can to deter and prosecute” white supremacist extremist violence.

Members of Iran’s parliament who urged a harsh response to widespread protests should be sanctioned by the U.S. and its international partners, a bipartisan group of Senate and House lawmakers said in a letter to the administration yesterday, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Crackdown: The letter calls for further sanctions against “Iranian officials and institutions involved in this brutal campaign of intimidation and extermination,” particularly the Iranian parliament, known as the Majles, and 227 members who signed a statement last year urging the regime to “show no leniency” to protesters. It also highlights the executions and death sentences levied by the regime against protesters. “Innocent lives hang in the balance, and there is an urgent need to deter the perpetrators of these murders from committing further violence,” the letter reads.

Family matters: The lawmakers add that the families of the Majles members should also be subject to the sanctions preventing them from entering or buying property in the U.S. under various sanctions authorities, including the Global Magnitsky Act. The lawmakers ask that, if the administration determines that the administration lacks the authority to levy the sanctions that the lawmakers request, that it explain that determination to Congress and “immediately consult with Congress on any legislative remedy” necessary to permit the sanctioning of the relevant officials and their families.

Signatories: The letter was co-led by Reps. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Katie Porter (D-CA) and Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Ben Cardin (D-MD). Other signatories include Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS), John Hoeven (R-ND), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), James Lankford (R-OK), Rick Scott (R-FL) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), as well as Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Wiley Nickel (D-NC), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Don Bacon (R-NE), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), Ted Lieu (D-CA), Jennifer Wexton (D-VA), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Mike Levin (D-CA), Michelle Steel (R-CA), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Tom McClintock (R-CA).

Quick response: Separately, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) wrote to Secretary of State Tony Blinken urging the U.S. to seek a formal finding that Iran has violated the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a referral to the United Nations Security Council at the upcoming International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors meeting. McCaul’s letter comes in response to recent IAEA findings that Iran has again expanded its nuclear program, including enriching uranium up to nearly 84% purity. He said that “Iran has tested our patience for far too long and must be held to account for its ongoing intransigence in order to maintain the integrity of the IAEA as an international organization.”

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A bipartisan group of 11 senators introduced legislation yesterday that aims to expand tax deductions for charitable giving, with the goal of incentivizing higher levels of giving to charitable organizations, houses of worship and religious organizations, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Tax incentives: The Charitable Act would allow taxpayers who choose not to itemize their deductions to receive an additional tax deduction of up to one-third of the standard deduction for non-itemizers (the base-rate tax deduction available to taxpayers who do not itemize their deductions). This would translate to up to a $4,500 deduction for individual filers and $9,000 for married couples filing jointly in 2023. A similar provision was part of the CARES Act, a COVID-19 response bill passed in 2020, but it has since lapsed.

Co-sponsors: The Charitable Act is sponsored by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Coons (D-DE), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Gary Peters (D-MI), Tim Scott (R-SC) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH).

Community support: A range of charitable organizations are supporting the legislation, including the Jewish Federations of North America. “When disaster strikes, when tragedy hits, when crises befall us, everyday Americans want to step up and lend a hand, often by supporting the nonprofit sector’s vital work,” JFNA’s senior vice president for public affairs, Elana Broitman, told JI. “This policy would help ensure that more people are able to give and help nonprofits do what they do best: serve their communities.”

Read more here.