Israel and the United States took a major step on Wednesday toward making visa-free travel to America for Israelis a reality, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Policy change: Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog, Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Robert and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides signed a memorandum of understanding to mark what Israel pledges will be a major policy shift: that it will allow all American citizens, including Palestinian Americans who live in the West Bank and Gaza, to travel through Israeli ports of entry. 

Quick reversal: Israel’s announcement of its new policy, and its encouragement by Washington, marks a major shift after Department of Homeland Security officials told Congress last week that Israel does not yet meet the requirements to join Washington’s coveted Visa Waiver Program. Silvers welcomed the announcement and thanked Herzog for his “friendship and partnership.”

Dream to reality: Entry into the program has been a top priority for Israeli leaders for years, but it only became a real possibility in recent months after Israel hit other key thresholds that are required for membership in the program. The deadline for consideration in this cycle is Sept. 30, after which the U.S. must reassess Israel’s compliance with the statutory requirements. 

Read the full story here.

Elsewhere: Vice President Kamala Harris and Israeli President Isaac Herzog announced on Wednesday that Washington and Jerusalem will create a new climate initiative focused on the Middle East and Africa, with both countries investing $35 million. “This new initiative will deploy Israeli and American technology to farmers and innovators,” Harris said at their meeting. “Our joint investments in the Middle East will help to strengthen the cooperation between Israel and its neighbors.”

Tim Sheehy, a top GOP Senate recruit in Montana, is signaling his support for an isolationist approach to the war in Ukraine, breaking with previous comments in which he advocated for an unusually aggressive response to Russia’s invasion, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

Details: In a statement to a Montana talk radio host published on Wednesday, Sheehy, a former Navy SEAL officer, called for the U.S. to end its involvement in Ukraine. “We are a year into this war and America has done our duty in stopping this vicious and unprovoked attack,” he said.

Send in the troops: The isolationist rhetoric, which reflects a growing strain of populist sentiment in the GOP, stands in contrast with past social media remarks in which Sheehy, 37, expressed unwavering support for Ukraine — even suggesting that the U.S. should send in American troops. “Gofund me pages and twitter likes aren’t enough. Soldiers, planes, bombs and bullets will be needed against this Tyrant,” he wrote last year on his LinkedIn page, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin. (A spokesperson for Sheehy’s campaign did not respond to a request for clarification.)

Party split: Sheehy is among a handful of establishment-backed Senate recruits in key battleground states who are breaking with party leaders on Ukraine. In Nevada, Sam Brown, a retired Army captain who is challenging Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), has also embraced a non-interventionist approach to foreign policy, even as he has strained to clarify his positions. In recent comments to JI, Brown, 39, would not confirm if he is open to ending American funding for Ukraine, despite having previously expressed support for cutting aid during his first Senate campaign.

Read the full story here.

Following a private meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Abraham Accords Caucus co-chairs Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) highlighted key steps to advance the agreements, in interviews with Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod.

Private sit-down: Ernst and Rosen, alongside other caucus chairs, met privately with Herzog following his speech to a joint session of Congress. Rosen said Herzog has been “so instrumental” in helping to advance the Accords. “He gave a beautiful speech, one that I think addressed all the hope, and all the issues and thinking about where we’re going to go in the future,” she said.

Repairing relationships: Ernst said that “there are a number of ways” to work with the Saudis, Israelis and other Arab states to “start hammering through” Saudi conditions for normalization with Israel, but acknowledged, “I don’t know that we could support everything the Saudis are asking for.” She noted that securing advanced weapons sales will require the Saudis to rebuild relations with skeptics in Congress, on both sides of the aisle, “to make sure that they will be a trusted partner.” Ernst said she and others are working with Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Reema bint Bandar Al Saud to strengthen these relationships.

No position: Ernst was noncommittal about a proposal — introduced for potential consideration as an amendment to the 2024 NDAA on the Senate floor — to create an ambassador-level special envoy for the Abraham Accords. “If it is necessary to [have an ambassador], then I’m happy to have those discussions,” she said. “I am not going to say yea or nay to it yet. I just need to understand more about the particular duties of the envoy.”

Read the full story here.

U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in remarks at the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday that his country is taking a hard line against Iran, touting new sanctions in response to attempted Iranian attacks within the U.K. and other provocations, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Quotable: “We maintain a tough and robust position towards Iran and that will remain our position,” Cleverly said. “If Iran does not like the U.K.’s response, then Iran needs to change its behavior. Our actions are in response to their behavior.” 

Incident report: The U.K. foreign secretary noted that Iranian agents have attempted at least 15 attacks on U.K. soil, which have been thwarted. He said that these attacks, as well as the human rights situation in Iran and Iran’s assistance to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had prompted a new round of U.K. sanctions in recent weeks.

Read more here.

Former U.S. and Israeli officials discussed the changing dynamics of the Middle East in a panel at the Aspen Security Forum on Tuesday, touching on a range of issues including the Abraham Accords, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Iran and the U.S.’ position in the region, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Imperfect partner: Former Deputy National Security Advisor Dina Powell McCormick, who served in the Bush and Trump administrations, applauded what she described as massive cultural changes in Saudi Arabia in the decades since 9/11. She said that we “finally have a partner in the region,” although not a “perfect” one, in Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. “He’s obviously made some major mistakes, but he’s also reforming Saudi Arabia,” she said of MBS. “It is undeniable that there is economic reform, it’s undeniable that there’s political reform, and there’s also massive mistakes and steps back, but it’s in our interest that those reforms continue.”

No way forward: Former Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni, once a key negotiator for Israel in talks with the Palestinian Authority, warned that, while Arab states may be able to “abandon the Palestinian issue” as they normalize relations with Israel, “Israel cannot afford it.” She continued, “It is important for me as somebody believing that the only way for Israel to keep its values and its nature as a Jewish democratic state is… to solve this problem.”

Read the full story here.

Here are some other tidbits we heard during yesterday’s sessions at the Aspen Security Forum that caught our ears:

New frontier: Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Xie Feng said that China brokered a normalization deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia “simply to encourage more countries in the region to embrace peace, to shake hands.” He added that he’s “very glad to see that Palestine is following” — China recently held talks with the Palestinian Authority and has offered to broker Israeli-Palestinian negotiations — and said he hopes to see China broker similar deals worldwide.

Getting technical: Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger highlighted his company’s operations in Israel, and mentioned former Intel CEO Andy Grove, a Hungarian-American Holocaust survivor. “He did see [the cruelty of Adolf] Hitler as a Hungarian refugee. If there’s ever a question of [Intel’s] commitment to America, our freedom and our values — Andy Grove is one of the people who saw, truly, that type of approach to the world firsthand. So this is deep in our culture and who we are.”

Not how it happened: Christo Grozev, the lead Russia investigator for Bellingcat Productions, said that in 2015, Russian military officials, in a report to the Kremlin, blamed a supposed Israeli drone attack for an accident by a Russian soldier that killed several of his comrades. Grozev described the incident as emblematic of the Russian military’s once-endemic issues with honestly reporting complications up the chain of command.

Bonus: Former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin put on a magic show at a dinner for VIP guests of the forum at former Rep. Jane Harman’s (D-CA) home on Tuesday evening. “‘Merlin’ McLaughlin’s sleight of hand with ball, rope, and cards humbled the jaded, hyper-rational national security audience at former Democratic Congresswoman Jane Harman’s magnificent Aspen mountainside home,” Semafor’s Steve Clemons reported. Livni, who acted as a prop in the show, remarked later, “this is a magic that happens only with a combination of former CIA and former Mossad, so don’t try it at home.”