Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) said Wednesday that he plans to call on the Senate to pass the SACRED Act, legislation imposing restrictions on protests around synagogues and other religious institutions, by unanimous consent.

The effort could be derailed by opposition from any one lawmaker, but highlights the momentum and desire by some on Capitol Hill to pass “buffer zone” legislation or other measures to combat antisemitism, which Congress has struggled to do on several occasions since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and the ensuing spike of antisemitism.

“’I’m going to get the SACRED Act done,” Moreno said at a breakfast event held on the Hill by Jewish organizations commemorating Jewish American Heritage Month. “My plan is in the next day or two to put the SACRED Act on the floor of the United States Senate with unanimous consent, get that passed.”

The SACRED Act, which was introduced in late April in the House by Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Max Miller (R-OH), would create criminal and civil penalties for individuals who attempt to intimidate or obstruct someone to prevent them from entering or exiting a place of worship, within 100 feet of a religious institution.

A Senate version of the bill has not yet been introduced. Republicans and outside advocates are also working on alternative buffer zone legislation that would likely take a different approach than Suozzi’s bill.

The breakfast event was organized by the Combat Antisemitism Movement, the Jewish Federations of North America, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Weitzman Museum of Jewish American History.

Other attendees included Sen. David McCormick (R-PA) and Reps. David Kustoff (R-TN), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Tim Kennedy (D-NY), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Wesley Bell (D-MO), Kim Schrier (D-WA), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Randy Weber (R-TX), Don Bacon (R-NE), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Rick Allen (R-GA) and Randy Fine (R-FL).

Sam Salz, one of the first Orthodox Jewish NCAA Division I football players, was the keynote speaker.

Bacon, who is retiring at the end of his term, said that he’s concerned about the rising antisemitism on both sides, including on the right within the Church.

He said that some are rejecting and twisting scripture “just like Nazi Germany did in the 1930s and just like we’ve seen throughout history, where we’ve seen antisemitism using the Bible to condone it.”

Making reference to Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), he called it “just wrong” for Massie to blame Israel for his loss in his concession speech on Tuesday, also condemning Democratic Texas candidate Maureen Galindo, who has espoused a range of virulently antisemitic sentiments.

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin will back fresh legislation to compel the NYPD to establish formal protocols for deploying buffer zones around schools during protests — a push Menin said will sail through the council with more than enough votes to beat any effort from Mayor Zohran Mamdani to block it.

The move comes a month after Mamdani exercised his veto power — for the first and only time to date — in order to stop a similar bill from becoming law, even as he allowed another measure to establish police policy for buffer zones around houses of worship to go into effect. 

In his explanation of his decision to veto, Mamdani cited concerns from unions that the blocked measure could interfere with their demonstrations around college facilities, even though the proposal contained an explicit labor carveout.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Menin characterized this as a misunderstanding — one the new legislation will rectify by applying exclusively to early childhood education facilities and “most K-12 schools,” and “explicitly excluding libraries, teaching hospitals, colleges and universities.”

“That will more clearly focus the legislation on the most vulnerable students,” Menin told reporters. “These students were always at the core of the legislation.” 

Bronx Councilman Eric Dinowitz, chairman of the Jewish Caucus, introduced the first school security perimeter bill as part of a Menin-backed package of legislation to combat antisemitism. But sources told Jewish Insider that Manhattan Councilwoman Elsie Encarnacion will carry the new version.

Encarnacion’s office did not immediately reply to a JI request to confirm this.

Menin maintained that she had whipped enough votes to pass the original Dinowitz bill over Mamdani’s veto, but chose not to “jam through an override” while her colleagues had lingering qualms regarding higher education institutions. She also denied the new iteration represented a “watering-down” of the original proposal.

“What our weeks of conversation revealed was that there was a considerable number of members who wholly support the intent of the legislation, but who have concerns about which educational facilities are included,” she said. “We heard them, and now we’re choosing to address them rather than dismiss them.”

The mayor’s team said it would wait to review the text of the bill before weighing in.

“The Mamdani administration has not seen the specific legislative language, and we look forward to reviewing it,” Deputy Press Secretary Sam Raskin said. “The mayor believes New York City must remain a place where students can access their schools safely as well as exercise their constitutional right to protest.”

Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK) on Tuesday introduced the Jewish American Security Act, a broad new effort by the lawmakers, who co-chair the Senate antisemitism task force, to address antisemitism across multiple sectors of American society. 

Similar legislation is also expected to be introduced in the House.

The bill, which has widespread support from all corners of Jewish leadership, including all major religious denominations and political organizations on both sides of the aisle, contains various provisions aimed at increasing security for Jewish communities through additional funding and federal resources.

Key provisions include: additional security assistance and improvements to security grant programs for Jewish communities; addressing antisemitism on college campuses through new federal oversight measures including a federal official to handle campus antisemitism; and addressing the spread of antisemitism online by requiring new transparency reports from social media companies, among a range of related steps in each category.

Rosen, leaders from the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee and BBYO International and local leaders whose communities have been impacted by antisemitic violence in recent years spoke in favor of the bill at a Jewish Federations of North America press conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday. JFNA activists are on Capitol Hill this week meeting with more than 200 lawmakers to advocate for the bill and other legislation.

Rosen called the bill an “aggressive and comprehensive” response to antisemitism in the U.S. which will “help keep Jewish students safe, will help secure Jewish community institutions and we will help fight antisemitism online.”

She acknowledged that the path ahead is “not going to be easy” but emphasized that “it’s not an option for our government to not do more to fight antisemitism.”

Lankford emphasized the impacts of antisemitic violence on individual Jews and communities in a statement on the bill.  

“These are not just numbers, these are real stories impacting real people. Jewish students being targeted on campuses. Synagogues being vandalized. People being attacked in the streets simply because of their faith and heritage,” Lankford said. “That is not who we are as a nation, and we unequivocally condemn antisemitism in all its forms. Every American deserves to live their faith freely. That is worth fighting for.”

Rosen told Jewish Insider later in the day that she and Lankford had been working to craft the bill for the past year, and had taken a range of input on the legislation. She said she and Lankford had learned from past legislative fights that to garner strong bipartisan support “you have to be very specific” and targeted in how legislation is crafted.

She said the new bill is focused on combating domestic antisemitism across three of the areas that have been epicenters of the recent rise in antisemitism since Oct. 7.

“I think it’s a good, solid bill and I believe that we crafted it in a way to get that good bipartisan support,” Rosen said. “We’re not going to solve every problem, but you have to start with something and work from there, and hopefully we build on that success.”

“Antisemitism we know is a canary in the coal mine. It starts with the Jews, it doesn’t end with the Jews,” she said.

“This bill that we wrote, we meant it to not be so prescriptive,” Rosen continued.” When we do things on college campuses, it’s going to help all students. When we do things in houses of worship, it’s not just for synagogues, it’s for all houses of worship. And when we start looking and analyze some of these algorithms online, it will probably inform us about some of the other algorithms, probably the same algorithms that are taking people down that hateful rabbit hole.”

Asked after the press conference about the path forward for the bill, and how advocates could avoid the same pitfalls that befell other efforts to combat antisemitism since Oct. 7, JFNA CEO Eric Fingerhut said that Jewish community groups took lessons from previous fights, particularly over the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which would codify the federal government’s use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in evaluating campus antisemitism cases, but has failed to pass in several congressional sessions.

“We learned a lot from the experience with the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Of course we still support the IHRA definition, but we made a collective communal decision that there’s a separate bill that covers the IHRA definition, and that we hope that will continue to move through the process, but this is a separate issue,” Fingerhut told JI. 

The bill does not explicitly endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, which has proven a hurdle to previous efforts to combat antisemitism, but it notes that the Trump administration in 2019 implemented an executive order enforcing the IHRA definition on college campuses.

“This is the security of the Jewish community, and it has to be something that can be embraced on a bipartisan basis across the aisle,” he continued.

Fingerhut said that Rosen and other advocates made specific efforts to ensure the bill would not contain elements that would “turn it into a partisan effort” or “alienate people who have strong feelings about some of the issues that were in the Antisemitism Awareness Act, and so we hope we’ve accomplished that.”

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who co-chairs the House antisemitism task force and also spoke at the press conference, said that he and his House co-chairs are moving toward introducing companion legislation.

“This was a labor of … unquestionabl[e] importance and it has taken us quite some time to come together in a bipartisan, bicameral way,” Goldman acknowledged. “We worked for several months to fine tune this bill, so that it can be a targeted, productive, and effective concrete step to fighting antisemitism and rooting it out on the ground. We have worked very hard in a bipartisan way because none of these bills matter unless they become law.”

Goldman highlighted the “dramatic escalation” in antisemitic incidents in New York City in recent weeks, and said that simple condemnation after -the -fact is “too little, too late.”

The bill has widespread support among Jewish community groups and across all major religious denominations, including from the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Orthodox Union, JFNA, Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, Secure Community Network, The Rabbinical Assembly, Hadassah, Jewish Women International, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the Blue Square Alliance Against Hate, JCC Association of North America, the Nexus Project, Union for Reform Judaism, the Central Conference of American Rabbis and Agudath Israel of America.

The Republican Jewish Coalition and Jewish Democratic Council of America are also both endorsing the bill, JI has learned.

The legislation follows a previous effort by Rosen and Lankford, and counterparts in the House, to introduce a comprehensive package of antisemitism legislation in the past Congress, the Countering Antisemitism Act, which faced opposition from senior lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and ultimately did not advance.

The new bill is somewhat more limited than that prior effort, and builds on or combines other efforts that lawmakers have advanced individually, though certain provisions could still face objections from various corners.

Mirroring efforts currently underway in the 2027 government funding process, the legislation would authorize $1 billion annually for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program — though that funding would still have to be approved annually through the appropriations process even if this bill passes.

It also includes various provisions aimed at reforming NSGP management, including requiring that the Federal Emergency Management Agency provide sufficient staffing to “streamline the application process and post-approval process for a grant,” provide additional technical assistance to grantees and quickly disburse funds under the program, within 90 days of when grantees submit reimbursement requests.

At the outset of the Trump administration, grant reimbursements were paused for a significant period as the administration reviewed all Department of Homeland Security grant programs.

It requires that applications for the program open no later than 90 days after Congress passes funding for the program, and that each state publicize a timeline to submit applications, both of which were issues during the 2025 grant cycle.

Addressing repeated congressional complaints during the second Trump term that lawmakers have not received adequate information about or communication from the administration about the grant program, the legislation would codify a requirement that FEMA provide Congress with a list of grant awards and amounts at least a week before such grants are publicized. It would also release to the public information about grant acceptances and rejections and the criteria for such decisions.

Responding to concerns about new conditions imposed on applicants relating to cooperation with immigration authorities and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programming, the bill bars any conditions or terms that would disadvantage applicants or grant recipients based on their “religious, political, or ideological affiliation.”

The bill would modify current grant rules to allow nonprofits to use NSGP funding to pay for contracted or in-house security personnel.

At the press conference, Rosen called the provisions “comprehensive and long overdue reforms to this program that will actually make sure that it works for our at-risk institutions.”

And it would require the intelligence community to produce annual assessments on domestic and transnational antisemitic violent extremism.

The legislation would additionally codify a version of a program established in the 2026 Department of Justice funding bill that would allow the DOJ to provide grants to state and local law enforcement for the purpose of protecting religious institutions and addressing religious-based hate crimes.

In the education space, the bill would establish an antisemitism coordinator within the Department of Education, whose responsibilities would include working to ensure that antisemitism complaints that have been pending with the department’s Office for Civil Rights for more than 180 days are resolved promptly.

It would also mandate that any schools receiving federal funding designate a coordinator for addressing discrimination complaints under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and establish a uniform grievance procedure and provide support mechanisms for such complaints. The effort mirrors policies currently in place for sex-based discrimination, under Title IX.

To improve visibility into the volume of antisemitic activity on college campuses, the legislation would change federal reporting procedures for hate crimes on college campuses, requiring that annual public campus crime reports disaggregate such offenses based on the bias category, such as antisemitism, that motivated them.

It also requires the Department of Education to offer trainings for schools on their Title VI responsibilities and to create an online database on Title VI best practices and recommendations. It requires schools to publicize educational materials about students’ Title VI rights both online and in person.

Rosen told JI that existing mechanisms have been “woefully inadequate to protect our students.”

Addressing antisemitism online, the bill requires platforms with more than 50 million unique monthly American users to submit to the Federal Trade Commission and to share publicly a transparency report on their “content moderation practices and efforts to detect, remove, limit the visibility of, and prevent the amplification of antisemitic content” on their platform, twice each year.

That report would include details on the specific review mechanisms and content moderation tools the platforms use; the total number of pieces of content on the platform that were determined to violate their policies on antisemitism and what action the platforms took; the amount of antisemitic content that reached more than 100 viewers or was promoted by the platform’s algorithms; the percentage of antisemitic content that violated the platforms’ policies but remained online; and details on accounts that were suspended or removed for sharing antisemitic content.

Platforms that do not comply with these reporting requirements would be subject to penalties by the FTC.

The administration would also be required to report to Congress on antisemitism online that has been linked to offline violence.

Goldman said that such transparency provisions would serve as a “tremendous deterrent.”

“If these social media companies need to disclose how much money they’re making off of antisemitic content, that’s going to be a deterrent. That is bad PR. And so it is critically important that we take this first step,” Goldman said. “It doesn’t violate the First Amendment, it doesn’t violate Section 230. It is purely bringing some transparency.”

Rosen emphasized that social media has been an “accelerant” and driver of antisemitism, making such content easier to access. She said the legislation would not compel speech or action by the platforms, but would provide transparency into how algorithms may be driving people toward hate and violence, and allow better analysis and understanding of the problem.

Fingerhut told JI that recent antisemitic attacks may also play a role in demonstrating to lawmakers the need for the legislation to address antisemitism and protect the Jewish community.

Several speakers also made note at the press conference of the attack on Monday at the Islamic Center in San Diego, highlighting the threats to religious communities broadly which can benefit from the NSGP funding.

Following a report spotlighting Qatari funding in Georgia public schools, the state’s General Assembly became the first in the country to pass legislation requiring the disclosure of foreign government funding in statewide K-12 schools.

The Foreign Funding Transparency and Accountability Act, HB 1379, requires public school districts, public universities and technical colleges to report funding of $10,000 or more from foreign countries or entities, naming specifically Qatar and Saudi Arabia — the two largest foreign funders of American universities. 

The bill — which passed both chambers of the Assembly earlier this month and now awaits Republican Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature —  was spearheaded by Democratic state Rep. Esther Panitch, the only Jewish member of the Georgia Statehouse, as well as Rep. Houston Gaines and the pro-Israel Georgia Solidarity Network. 

In January, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies published a report showing that the Qatari royal family’s U.S. philanthropy arm, Qatar Foundation International, had spent at least $281,000 on education in Georgia — including K-12 teacher trainings, Arabic textbooks for young students and student trips to Qatar.

Panitch told Jewish Insider she tweeted the findings, only to be surprised by a direct and hostile response from the Qatari ambassador to the U.S. and his deputy chief of mission on X, who allegedly told her she was spreading misinformation “like you people always do.”

“Why did they care what a legislator from Georgia thinks? It was weird. I started engaging back and this went on for days,” said Panitch. The back and forth eventually resulted in her involving the FBI. “The moment he responded to me was the moment I knew FDD was on to something right,” she said. 

“We were all caught off guard after [the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks]. I think Qatar had a lot to do with the responses on college campuses. Parents had no idea that some of their kids were being radicalized. I hope we get more answers, but this will definitely help,” continued Panitch.  

The Georgia Solidarity Network, a two-year-old bipartisan political action committee supporting pro-Jewish and pro-Israel causes, proposed legislation crafted by co-founder Alli Medof, which Panitch filed a couple weeks after the report’s release. 

“We didn’t want to make it loud and attract the attention of people who might object,” Panitch told JI. “I didn’t want Qatar to come in and hire a lobbyist. We went to committees and didn’t get much pushback.”

There was, however, some pushback from colleges and schools “in an operational sense, asking how they are supposed to carry this out,” said Panitch.

The bill also faced scrutiny in the state Senate, according to Panitch, who said some lawmakers “didn’t seem to care that Qatari money had seemingly resulted in teachers saying that [late Hamas leader] Yayha Sinwar was to be commended or that suicide bombing is okay.” 

Ultimately, the bill passed the Senate 31-20 and the House 139-16. Kemp has 40 days to sign the bill into state law. If he doesn’t veto it, it goes into law automatically. 

“I wouldn’t presume anything” in terms of whether the governor will sign the bill, said Panitch, adding she has not heard anything that implies he would veto it. 

A second bill establishing a K-12 statewide Title VI coordinator, also crafted by the Georgia Solidarity Network, simultaneously passed. The bill authorizes the withholding of state funding from institutions that fail to correct violations within 30 days — an enforcement mechanism absent from comparable laws in Tennessee, Oklahoma and California.

The legislative session also secured $3 million in state security funding for the rest of 2026 for nonprofit organizations at elevated risk of attack, with an additional $5 million budgeted for Fiscal Year 2027. 

“The Title VI bill was kind of similar because we were also dealing with schools and universities,” Panitch told JI. “There was a part that mentioned antisemitism that we ended up taking out. The preamble still mentions antisemitism but we didn’t want anyone to think this was only for the Jews. It was the Jewish community that brought it forward because we’ve been dealing with this, but essentially it’s a civil rights bill for kids and everyone wants to protect their kids, so it passed, not difficultly.” 

Six months ago, foreign funding transparency was “not on the roadmap or priority list” of many Georgia legislators, GSN co-founder David Zalik said. There was already evidence of foreign funding in university systems, he said, but “when we went back to the legislators and showed them documentation [regarding the same for K-12], they were stunned and surprised.”

Following the legislative session, Zalik sees the bill as “a model” for adoption beyond the Peach State.  

“Other leaders in other communities reached out,” he told JI. “We crafted new language that other states want to emulate. Georgia is a state that clearly takes this very seriously.”  

Medof added, “We’re incredibly proud of the impact this is going to make, and not just on the Jewish community. I think every one of these measures are going to improve the quality of life of students and Georgians. Foreign funding impacts curriculum, ideology, faculty and research [for all students]. It’s not just anti-Jewish or anti-Israel, it’s anti-American ideology that’s coming in. The more we can do to shine a line on that, the better it is for all Georgia students.” 

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), joined by Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), introduced the SACRED Act this week, a new bill aimed at protecting attendees at religious institutions from harassment and threats by demonstrators — a phenomenon seen repeatedly outside synagogues that has spurred “buffer zone” legislation in New York and elsewhere.

The bill, which applies within 100 feet of a religious institution, would create criminal and civil penalties for individuals who attempt to intimidate or obstruct someone in a manner that causes reasonable fear for physical safety to prevent them from entering or exiting a place of worship. It also applies — within that 100-foot zone — to individuals who intentionally approach within eight feet of a person seeking to exercise their freedom to worship, for the purpose of intimidating or harassing them.

The bill builds on the existing FACE Act, invoked by the Trump administration in recent lawsuits, which bans the use of force, threats or physical obstruction to prevent an individual from exercising their religious freedom at a place of worship.

Unlike some legislation at the local and state level, the bill would not ban all protests within the 100-foot buffer zone, specifically permitting peaceful picketing and other non-disruptive demonstrations.

First offenders would be subject to fines or up to one year in prison, with repeat offenders subject to greater fines and up to three years in prison. The bill would also create a civil right of action for both victims of harassment as well as the Department of Justice and state attorneys general.

Suozzi told Jewish Insider the bill was prompted by constituents from various religious communities who have expressed concern about “aggressive action” against them at their places of worship.

The spate of incidents outside synagogues has been “very disturbing,” Suozzi said, adding that he’s been hearing an unprecedented amount of fear and concern from Jewish friends and supporters since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks — ”[they] have said things to me that I never heard before, things like ‘We don’t know what to do? What would we do if they came for us?’ People are genuinely scared, and we see this hateful behavior not just [against] Jews but against other religious minorities as well.”

He described the bill as a delicate, and carefully crafted, balance designed to uphold First Amendment rights to both freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

“This is a very, very sensitive topic that involves First Amendment rights and also people’s concern about their safety and their not only their right to free speech, but also their right to worship,” Suozzi said. He added that he had consulted with a constitutional scholar, Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law School, in drafting the bill, who said it is compliant with the First Amendment.

“If you’re doing a peaceful protest and you’re leafleting or something like that — we don’t have a problem with that. It’s with these people that are going up to people and yelling at them and saying meanspirited, awful things with an intent to try to physically stop them from entering into their religious institution [that are the issue],” Suozzi continued, adding that even offensive but peaceful speech like opposing a religion or Zionism would be permitted.

“It would be [banned] if you came up close to people and you start yelling in their faces and saying, ‘you’re a Zionist pig,’ or something like that — trying to intimidate them,” he explained.

Miller said in a statement, “Every American deserves to practice their faith free from fear, intimidation, or harassment.”

“The SACRED Act ensures that people can access their place of worship safely and without obstruction, while still preserving First Amendment protections for peaceful expression,” he continued. “This commonsense legislation draws a clear line: intimidation and threats have no place in our communities.”

Suozzi emphasized that the bill is different from other recent state- and local-level buffer zone legislation, and he took pains to avoid modeling the bill after a Massachusetts law that was struck down in court which had banned all protests within a 35-foot zone. The eight-foot “floating buffer zone” was based on a Colorado law that was upheld by the Supreme Court, he said.

And, he said, “we’re only focused on people’s conduct, not their speech.”

In New York City, a slice of which falls within Suozzi’s district, the City Council recently passed buffer zone legislation for educational and religious facilities, but Mayor Zohran Mamdani is reportedly considering a veto. He has until the end of the week to do so, or the legislation will become law by default.

Suozzi said he sees much of the harassment at synagogues as linked to social media, which rewards extremism, and deliberate efforts by adversaries like Iran, China, Russia and North Korea to enhance division in the country.

“So we have to take new actions to try and address that. And this is a way to say, ‘You can disagree. You can protest. You can disagree completely with what I think — even though I think that you’re wrong, you’re completely allowed to do that, but you’re not allowed to come close to a person and try and scare them and try and prevent them from feeling safe to go practice their religion,’” Suozzi said.

Suozzi is set to be joined by Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt for a press conference on the bill at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County on Friday morning.

“No one should have to face harassment or intimidation as they are trying to pray in peace at a place of religious worship,” Greenblatt said in a statement. “This important and much-needed legislation reflects both the urgency of this moment and the fundamental principle that every person should be able to practice their faith freely and safely.”

Leaders from several communities impacted by antisemitic violence lobbied in favor of the bill on Capitol Hill earlier this week.

It’s also being backed by the American Jewish Committee, Orthodox Union, Hadassah, Hindu American Foundation, Islamic Society of North America, Jewish Federations of North America, UJA-Federation of New York, the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center and Agudath Israel of America.

In a statement, AJC CEO Ted Deutch emphasized that the group’s recent national survey found that more than a quarter of American Jews said that an institution with which they are affiliated has been targeted in the last five years, and more than half have changed their behavior out of fear of antisemitism.

“At a time of rising threats against Jewish institutions, we applaud Representatives Suozzi and Miller for introducing the bipartisan SACRED Act to ensure safe access to houses of worship,” Deutch continued.

“Houses of worship are sacred spaces and visitors gathering there to pray or attend communal events should be free from harassment. The SACRED Act helps protect communities by creating a buffer zone around places of religious worship and individuals and imposes penalties for violations of this law,” Rabbi A.D. Motzen, the national director of government affairs for Agudath Israel, said in a statement. 

“Unfortunately, recent incidents in front of synagogues around the country highlight the need for additional protections,” Motzen continued.

Eric Fingerhut, the CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, said, “Every American deserves to practice their faith free from intimidation, harassment, or fear at the doors of their place of worship. With incidents targeting synagogues and other houses of worship continuing to rise, we need this federal legislation to protect our fundamental right to religious freedom.”

“Intimidating and harassing people exercising their right to worship is unacceptable — anytime, anywhere,” said Carol Ann Schwartz, national president of Hadassah. “Hadassah has heard from Jewish women who are afraid to display symbols of their faith and who constantly watch their synagogue doors for attackers. The antisemitism these women face reflects the erosion of public safety at every place of worship, and we must act to keep sacred spaces safe.”

New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin warned Wednesday morning that if Mayor Zohran Mamdani vetoes the council’s legislation intended to regulate protests at religious and educational sites, the city will face “more divisiveness,” calling the decision a critical test for the mayor. 

The bills, which include measures to create standard NYPD policy for deploying buffer zones during protests at educational and religious facilities, face a potential veto as Mamdani has repeatedly declined to take a stand on the issue. He has acknowledged concerns against the legislation from left-wing activists and civil rights groups who have targeted synagogues and yeshivas with anti-Israel demonstrations, and has until the end of this week to veto the bills or they become law automatically. 

“We need less divisiveness. I really hope — and I’ve said this to the mayor — that there is not a veto of the package of bills. That’s necessary. It will create much more division,” Menin said during a panel discussion at 92NY on “the future of being Jewish in New York,” featuring the city’s most senior Jewish elected officials: Menin, who is the first Jewish council speaker, Comptroller Mark Levine and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal. 

The panel, moderated by 92NY CEO Seth Pinsky, comes as the city has experienced historic levels of antisemitism in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks — and as Jews navigate a tense relationship with a mayor who has held hostile views towards several key communal issues. New York City has the largest population of Jews outside of Israel. 

Asked by Pinsky what advice each would give to Mamdani to try to reassure the roughly 70% of the Jewish New York City electorate that did not vote for him, Hoylman-Sigal called on Mamdani to “follow the tradition of every mayor preceding him [since 1951] and visit Israel.” 

He added that Mamdani already has some “really good Jewish advisors,” including Phylisa Wisdom, a progressive Jewish leader Mamdani tapped in February to run the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism. A range of Jewish Democratic politicians and advocates had lauded Wisdom’s selection, though she has alienated some Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish leaders over her work criticizing the secular education taught at yeshivas in the past.

Hoylman-Sigal’s assertion that the mayor’s heart “is in the right place” when it comes to the Jewish community was met with a chorus of “boos” from the audience.  

Addressing the city’s long-standing Israel bonds investments, which Mamdani has called to end in a key source of tension for him and Levine, Levine said the investments “are not political [and] shouldn’t be political.”

“Israel bonds have never missed a payment in 70 years,” said Levine. “And by the way, we’ve had no protests about our investments in Saudi Arabia, our investments in Pakistan or China.” 

All three Jewish leaders echoed the sentiment that despite a turbulent past few years, the New York City Jewish community remains resilient, and urged New Yorkers not give into the rising calls to decamp to Florida. 

“Absolutely stay in New York,” said Menin. “This is not a time to lose hope. Hopefully the three of us here can embody the future of the commitment to fighting antisemitism, the commitment to supporting the Jewish community. This is a time to lean into it as opposed to shy away from it. New York is a city that has been a beacon of inclusion and tolerance; we need to make sure that it stays that way.” 

“I believe the Jewish community in New York City is stronger than it’s ever been,” said Levine, who praised Mamdani’s decision to retain former Mayor Eric Adams’ NYPD commissioner, Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish and openly identifies as Zionist. 

“In many synagogues, attendance is way up. Jewish New Yorkers are active in ways they haven’t been. We’ve seen new coalitions come together … This engagement gives me real hope for the future,” continued Levine. 

“My wish looking forward to the next 25 years is that we see a community that fought — that didn’t move to Miami with its bad bagels — and that we kept this story going of what is really one of the most glorious Jewish communities.” 

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), a moderate Republican and co-chair of the House Problem Solvers Caucus, introduced a war powers resolution on Thursday that aims to enforce the deadlines for the war in Iran laid out in the 1973 War Powers Act.

Fitzpatrick is the first Republican — other than isolationist Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) — to introduce legislation that would constrain the administration’s ability to act in Iran. The move is a signal that GOP support for the effort could begin to erode if the administration disregards legal limitations on the length of its operation in Iran.

The War Powers Act limits any military operation initiated unilaterally by the executive branch to 60 days, with an additional 30-day drawdown period, unless the operations are subsequently authorized by Congress. The 60-day period will expire at the end of April.

“The War Powers Act of 1973 is the law of the land,” Fitzpatrick said. “This consistent standard must be applied to all past, current, and future administrations when it comes to military hostilities abroad. … This is the law that has applied to past administrations, and it is the law that will apply to current and future administrations. This is the law and, until it is changed, it will be consistently applied and consistently enforced across all administrations and all conflicts.”

Other Republicans, including moderates, have also indicated that they would be uncomfortable with or unable to support any military operations in Iran past the 60-day deadline without additional congressional authorization — though some have said they would support such an authorization.

Yet, others have argued that the limitations in the War Powers Act are not legally binding and say Republicans on the Hill will disregard them.

Running in a highly competitive district, Fitzpatrick’s move could also be a sign of discomfort with the continued war effort among swing-district Republicans ahead of the midterm elections.

The Knesset passed a controversial law on Monday allowing — and in some cases requiring — courts to impose the death penalty on terrorists found guilty of murder. Opponents swiftly challenged the legislation in court, with appeals arguing that its designations are vague and discriminatory.

While Israel already allowed the death penalty for genocide and crimes against humanity, it had not been invoked since the execution of senior Nazi Adolf Eichmann in 1962. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party proposed the new law in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks with an aim to have terrorists sentenced to death, and conditioned the party’s support for the state budget, which the Knesset approved earlier Monday, on passage of the bill.

The law applies in military courts to non-Israeli residents of the West Bank — meaning, in the vast majority of cases, Palestinians. 

In civilian courts, the law permits applying the death penalty to those who “intentionally cause the death of a person with the aim of denying the existence of the State of Israel” — language which would also likely exclude Jewish assailants.

The law further states that the government cannot free or exchange prisoners sentenced to death. Israel released around 2,000 Palestinian security prisoners last fall in exchange for hostages held in Gaza, including about 250 prisoners who were serving life sentences for carrying out deadly terror attacks.

The legislation passed along coalition lines, with 62 in favor and 48 opposed.

Otzma Yehudit lawmaker Zvika Fogel argued from the Knesset podium that “the State of Israel is dealing with a reality of evil and hatred that is unmatched around the world. Our enemies do not want a border, compromise or shared future. Rather, [they seek] to destroy, harm, sow fear and undermine our existence here. In such a reality, it is our clear responsibility to defend the citizens of Israel not with words or hopes, but with action.” 

“This bill is not about revenge or rage, but the state’s responsibility towards its citizens and its leadership towards human life. … The message is clear, whoever chooses the path of terror and raises a hand against Israeli citizens … should know that it has a clear and irreversible price,” Fogel added.

The new law is also much broader than legislation making its way through the Knesset to prosecute perpetrators of the Oct. 7 attacks in a special military tribunal, which could also result in their being sentenced to death.

Yulia Malinovsky, from the opposition Israel Beytenu party and one of the cosponsors of the bill to prosecute Oct. 7 perpetrators, said that “everyone in the coalition understands that Otzma Yehudit’s bill cannot be implemented and will be struck down by the High Court of Justice, but they are all afraid of Ben-Gvir. They tell me so themselves.”

“I am in favor of the death penalty for terrorists,” she added, “but… even if [the law] passes and is not canceled, terrorists will only die of old age.”

Gilad Kariv of the Labor Party plans to petition the High Court against the law, along with Israeli human rights organizations.

During the debate, Kariv said that the law is “not moral, not Jewish and not democratic, nor is it helpful to security.” According to Kariv, none of the defense officials or experts that appeared before the Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee meetings to discuss the bill said that it would serve as a deterrent against terrorism.

Some lawmakers, like Hadash-Ta’al’s Aida Touma-Sliman, argued that the bill is discriminatory against Arabs, comparing it to apartheid South Africa and the Jim Crow South: “First, we look at the nationality of the victim and the nationality of the murderer, and then we decide.” 

However, Touma-Sliman added, she would still oppose the law if it were applied more broadly to Israelis, because she opposes the death penalty — “even against terrorist settlers.”

The Foreign Ministers of Germany, France, Italy and the U.K. released a joint statement expressing “deep concern” about the bill on Sunday.

“The adoption of this bill would risk undermining Israel’s commitments with regards to democratic principles,” they stated. “The death penalty is an inhumane and degrading form of punishment without any deterring effect. This is why we oppose the death penalty, whatever the circumstances around the world. The rejection of the death penalty is a fundamental value that unites us. We urge the Israeli decision makers in Knesset and Government to abandon these plans.”

The debate ahead of the final votes on the death penalty law took close to 10 hours, and was not held in the plenum; rather it took place in an auditorium that is fortified in case of a missile attack from Iran.

The New York City Council passed a suite of legislation Thursday intended to battle antisemitism — and to formalize NYPD policy toward protests at religious and educational facilities — leaving it up to Mayor Zohran Mamdani to try to block the bills or let them become law.

Council Speaker Julie Menin told reporters before the vote that she’s received no signal that Mamdani would veto her signature bill, which would compel the city’s police commissioner to lay out official department procedure for its longstanding practice of establishing buffer zones around religious institutions during protest activity. 

Mamdani has repeatedly refused to take a stand on the issue, though he has acknowledged concerns against the bill from civil rights organizations and left-wing activists in his base who have targeted synagogues and yeshivas with anti-Israel demonstrations.

“I have many conversations with the mayor, we meet one-on-one all the time. He hasn’t indicated to me that he will do that,” Menin said when asked about the potential for a veto.

The NYPD told the Council it had “no objections” to a revised version of the proposal at a council hearing in February, which would typically signal the mayor, who oversees the police department, intends to sign the legislation, or take no action, at which point it would automatically become law after 30 days. The bill had 35 co-sponsors and passed with 44 of 51 council members voting in favor, well in excess of the two-thirds majority needed to override a mayoral veto.

Far closer was the vote on a bill advanced by Bronx Councilman Eric Dinowitz, chair of the body’s Jewish Caucus, which would similarly obligate Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch to create formal protocol for police security perimeters — but near educational institutions rather than religious ones. Michael Gerber, the NYPD’s deputy commissioner for legal affairs, expressed hesitation as to this measure at last month’s hearing, arguing that a single uniform policy may not be appropriate to police actions around private property.

Dinowitz maintained after the vote that the bill’s language makes clear the NYPD should only establish perimeters around entrances and exits onto public parks and sidewalks, not school facilities themselves.

“We wanted to be clear that the intent of the bill is not to police what’s going on at college campuses,” Dinowitz told reporters.

Still, the bill passed with just 30 votes, four shy of what it would require to overcome a veto.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) said Tuesday that he’s pushing for legislation to require an affirmative congressional vote prior to the U.S. reaching any nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, following a notification from the administration to Congress indicating that it is moving toward a deal that could allow Riyadh to enrich uranium for civilian purposes.

Sherman has been a longtime opponent of nuclear cooperation with Riyadh, warning that a Saudi civilian nuclear program would be the first step toward a nuclear weapon that could one day be turned against Israel. The White House announced plans for a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia in November during a Washington visit by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Such a deal had previously been coupled with Saudi normalization with Israel, as had advanced weapons sales to the kingdom, but the Trump administration has de-linked those initiatives.

Sherman said during a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday that the administration notified some House Republicans in November of plans to forge a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia.

The notification procedures, which do not include specific terms of a potential deal, suggest that that Saudi Arabia will not be required to agree to more intrusive International Atomic Energy Agency inspections (known as the “additional protocol” to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) or “gold standard” safeguards — which would require Saudi Arabia to agree not to enrich or reprocess nuclear material — used for the U.S. nuclear cooperation agreement with the United Arab Emirates.

Those “gold standard” safeguards, which would make it more difficult for Saudi Arabia to repurpose a civilian nuclear program for military purposes, have been a baseline expectation for some lawmakers in earlier rounds of nuclear talks with Saudi Arabia.

The text of the congressional notification was shared with and published by the Arms Control Association earlier this month. While the notification does not specifically state that the agreement will allow for Saudi enrichment, it includes language stating that the deal will employ “additional safeguards and verification measures to the most proliferation-sensitive areas of potential nuclear cooperation … (enrichment, conversion, fuel fabrication, and reprocessing).”

Sherman said that the administration had failed to properly notify congressional Democrats of its plans, as required under law, and that no Democrat on the committee was aware of the report before February.

“We’ve got to look at whether we want a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia that does not have the safeguards that we negotiated with the UAE,” Sherman said.

He said he’s collecting support for a bill he originally introduced in 2019 with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, then a senator, to require the affirmative support of Congress for any nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia.

“I think Sen. Rubio was wise, perhaps sometimes wiser than Secretary Rubio, and I hope that all members will join me in that effort,” Sherman said.

Republican lawmakers on the House Ways and Means Committee urged their Democratic colleagues on Tuesday to work with them on legislation to update the Internal Revenue Service’s 990 forms used by tax-exempt organizations to include disclosures for donations from foreign actors.

The overtures took place at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the rise of foreign influence operations targeting the U.S. nonprofit sector, where Democratic and Republican witnesses agreed on the need for reforms to the disclosure forms to ensure foreign donations are easily identifiable for IRS investigators. 

Witnesses included Scott Walter, president of Capital Research Center; Bruce Dubinsky, a veteran forensic accountant and managing director of Dubinsky Consulting; Caitlin Sutherland, executive director for Americans for Public Trust; Adam Sohn, CEO of Narravance, a financial firm focused on cybersecurity; and Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization.

Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), the committee’s chairman, said at the outset that the hearing was a continuation of “our investigations into the money trails behind tax-exempt organizations failing to operate within their stated tax-exempt purpose and sowing chaos, fueling antisemitism, and interfering in elections across America.”

Smith mentioned several anti-Israel nonprofits in his opening statement, including Alliance for Global Justice, Samidoun and American Muslims for Palestine. He also pointed to Beijing-based tech mogul Neville “Roy” Singham and the People’s Forum, a Manhattan-based arm of the global network Singham finances.

“Certain tax-exempt organizations funded by foreign donors are exploiting their lucrative U.S. tax benefits to incite violence and unrest in our communities and destabilize our political process, all to the benefit of the foreign flags their donors fly,” Smith said. “Other tax-exempt organizations are masking the flow of foreign money by allowing separate entities to utilize their tax-exempt status in order to hold riots across the United States featuring intimidation and violence.”

Democrats largely used the hearing to accuse their Republican colleagues of hypocrisy, pointing to the committee’s failure to look into President Donald Trump’s foreign financial dealings since returning to office and arguing that Republicans were not serious about addressing the full scope of the issue. Several Democrats on the committee expressed willingness to engage on the proposed reforms to Form 990, though they argued doing so without looking into foreign influence in U.S. politics would be insufficient.

Walter, a Republican witness, said in his remarks, “We possess near universal agreement that foreigners and foreign money should not meddle in our politics. To ignore this overwhelming democratic consensus against foreign meddling is to suppress our democracy.”

“I heartily agree with you, and I think there’s a lot to learn from this,” Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) said. “For example, 990 reform. I’d love to be participating in that. We don’t want foreigners affecting our elections, but I want you to share my horror at the amount of dark money that poured into seven battleground states at the end [of the 2024 election]. Billions of dollars. We have no idea where it came from. I can’t determine where it came from.”

Weissman, a Democratic witness, concurred with the need for reforms to the IRS reporting process for tax-exempt organizations, and suggested that Democrats reintroduce the Disclose Act, legislation from 2023 requiring organizations that spend money in U.S. elections to disclose donors who have given $10,000 or more. 

“On the election side, there is a problem with foreign money coming in, and we have no idea the scale of that. The solution for that is the Disclose Act, which would require these different forms … to disclose from whom they were receiving funding and to certify they are not receiving funding from foreign entities,” Weissman said. “I think if we move away from these individual cases and selecting out organizations based on political viewpoints and actually look at the policy issues, there should be room for agreement.”

Smith, along with several of his GOP colleagues on the committee, said they hoped to find common ground with Democrats on this issue.

“Nothing about today’s hearing should be partisan. Republicans and Democrats should work together to stop foreign actors from interfering with our politics and public discourse through non-profits,” Smith said. “The people who want America weak, divided, and torn apart would love nothing more than a partisan battle. This is not politics, it’s national security.”

Several witnesses suggested specific changes to Form 990, including the addition of questions about foreign donations and special projects that are not tax exempt. 

Dubinsky urged lawmakers to take “a fresh look at the form” and work on “basically reconstructing it from top to bottom.” He suggested that tax exempt organizations be required to disclose the source of contributions “above a certain threshold.”

“I would start by taking a fresh look at the form and basically reconstructing it from top to bottom. I think there’s some good information on the current 990,” Dubinsky said. “There are a lot of different schedules and sub-schedules, but it needs to be designed in a way that information can be easily used and not for political purposes. I’m totally against that, but for proper purposes by the IRS, for transparency.”

“Banks have a tremendous anti-money laundering and know-your-customer regime that they have to follow. I’m not suggesting that nonprofits and tax exempts should do that. It’s very onerous,” he continued. “But I think if you have some questions along the lines of: ‘Who’s the ultimate beneficial owner? Do you know?’ If certain contributions are above a certain threshold, we need to know who’s behind those. I think that that’s very important.”

Walter noted that adding an Employer Identification Number (EIN), which the IRS assigns to businesses as a form of identification, and disclosures about salaries or fiscal sponsorships to the form could prove beneficial.

“EIN numbers are not always used on 990s when one nonprofit is giving to another, that’s certainly an important way to help track,” Walter said. “You could expand the disclosures for the highest paid employees, highest paid contractors, the fiscal sponsorships could be required to be listed, possibly with a basic budget for them, or the name of the individual who’s the principal officer of the fiscally sponsored project, when the project begins and ends, then whether the project applied for its own exempt status independently. And obviously, the simple thing of, do you accept foreign money?”

“One simple thing would be requiring that sponsored projects be named on the 990, perhaps the basic budget of revenues, expenses, assets,” he later added. “You certainly could also designate a person as the principal officer for the fiscally sponsored project, the dates of when the sponsorship began [and] when it ended, yes or no to whether it received foreign funding and yes or no to whether the fiscally sponsored project applied for its own independent tax exempt status.”

Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-PA) and Walker agreed with the former’s suggestion that the fiscal sponsorship model used by 501(c)(3) nonprofits for special projects that are not tax exempt is being misused to prevent full public disclosure of the funding of those projects. 

The Pennsylvania lawmaker, who is working on legislation on the issue, said that fiscal sponsorships “are often used for legitimate purposes, to help new nonprofits sort of get off the ground, if you will, but it also can allow a non-exempt entity to maintain limited public disclosure.”

Walker told Smucker that “one of the most egregious examples of the abuse here would be a fiscal sponsor that was helping Samidoun,” a Vancouver, B.C.-based NGO against which the Biden administration and Canada issued terrorism sanctions in October 2024 for raising money for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a proscribed terror organization.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced on Tuesday that he had drafted legislation designating the Polisario Front, the militant group that claims sovereignty over parts of the Western Sahara, as a foreign terrorist organization and will formally introduce it “if there’s no change in their behavior.”

Cruz made the comments at a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing focused on U.S. counterterrorism efforts in North Africa, after the hearing’s witnesses — the State Department’s Robert Palladino and Joel Borkert — both declined to agree with his statement that “the terrorist activity in the Sahel [region in Africa] is coming from the Polisario Front.”

“Iran is trying to turn the Polisario Front into the Houthis for West Africa, a proxy force capable of waging war to threaten regional stability and pressure U.S. partners whenever Iran wants leverage,” Cruz said. “The Polisario Front works with Iranian terrorist groups. It takes drones from the IRGC. It moves weapons and resources around the region, including to jihadists and much more.”

“I believe they should be designated as a terrorist group, and I’ve drafted a bill to do so if there’s no change in their behavior,” he added.

The Polisario Front is a separatist militant group founded in 1973 to fight against the Spanish occupation of parts of the Western Sahara. After Spain handed control of the territory to Mauritania and Morocco in 1975, splitting the land between the two countries, the PF waged war against both nations, hitting military and civilian targets while demanding recognition of Sahrawi ethnic group’s claims to the territory. The group declared in 1976 that all disputed territory in the region was part of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, and currently controls an area east of the Moroccan Wall. 

Mauritania, now an Islamic republic, fell to the PF and formally recognized the SADR in 1979. While Morocco and the PF agreed to a United Nations-brokered ceasefire in 1991 that remains in effect today, the PF’s increasingly close ties to Algeria, Nigeria and Iran while governing the disputed Saharan territory have become a source of concern to those opposed to Tehran’s growing influence in the region. 

President Donald Trump recognized Morocco’s claim to the Western Sahara in late 2020 at the conclusion of his first administration, as part of the deal brokered for Morocco to join the Abraham Accords. 

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) introduced legislation designating the PF as a foreign terrorist organization last June. The House bill has been co-sponsored by Reps. Randy Fine (R-FL), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), Jefferson Shreve (R-IN) and Lance Gooden (R-TX). 

Speaking on his “Verdict with Ted Cruz” podcast on Tuesday evening, the Texas senator described Africa as a “major front for radical Islamic terrorism” and said the continent serves as “a major battleground” pitting Russia and China against the United States. 

Regarding the PF, Cruz noted that, “The best way to understand it is as a Cold War relic, analogous to the Palestinian Liberation Front, the PLO, but it was in West Africa, and there’s still a degree to which that framework is accurate.”

“It is a darling of the international left and the United Nations, and the group has continued its insurgency against Morocco,” Cruz explained. “The critical dynamic is that Iran has begun pouring resources into the group. … The Iranians have been providing money and weapons and directions.”

Palladino, a senior bureau official with the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said in his opening remarks to the committee that the Trump administration was looking “to North African countries to provide critical support to ensuring terrorist activity in the Sahel does not spread west to the Gulf of Guinea or north to regain a foothold in North Africa, where they represent a more immediate threat to the United States and our interests.”

After Cruz pressed him on if he was referring to the PF, Palladino did not answer directly, instead telling the Texas senator that “President Trump has made clear his desire to achieve a lasting resolution to the problem in the Western Sahara, to that dispute, and as part of that American policy currently, we are engaging all parties.”

Cruz went on to ask Palladino if he believed the PF posed a threat to U.S. interests, to which the NEA official replied, “We’re actively engaging all parties in the Western Sahara dispute in the interest of achieving a lasting and durable peace. That’s the policy of the president. We’re seeking more time to continue to find a way to find common ground and to come to an agreement to stabilize the situation and allow there to be prosperity to follow based upon stability.”

The Texas senator told Palladino that his answers were “positively Shakespearean. It was full of sound and fury and yet signifying nothing.”

Cruz then turned to Borkert, the deputy coordinator for programs and military coordination at the Bureau of Counterterrorism, who similarly declined to single out the PF by name. 

“We continue to monitor activities throughout North Africa,” Borkert said. “We continue to see the IRGC and Hezbollah, their activities in that region and globally, and as we look at these activities, we will work with our partner countries in order to counter those threats, and where possible, designate or encourage those countries to designate the IRGC, Hezbollah and those terrorist groups.”

Both men told Cruz that they were not instructed to exclude mentions of the PF in their testimony. Cruz later revealed he did not believe their claims.

“I believe both witnesses were instructed: Do not say a negative word about the Polisario Front,” Cruz said on his podcast that evening. “They were instructed to say nothing about the Polisario Front.”

“The administration is trying to negotiate a big peace deal in Africa. There are folks in the administration who are trying to negotiate a deal in Western Africa, and right now, one of the consequences of that is that they’re reluctant to call out the Polisario Front,” he explained. “I think the Polisario Front is really dangerous. They’re funded by Iran, and so I’m working to call out people who are enemies of America and to impose real costs and consequences on those jihadists that are enemies of America.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called on Saudi Arabia to end what he described as its “attack on the United Arab Emirates” and slammed the country’s silence regarding the Syrian government’s campaign against the Kurds, demanding the kingdom use its influence to “keep the region from falling further into chaos.”

Graham made the comments in a post Tuesday morning on X, hours after announcing his plans to introduce legislation this week imposing sanctions on any government or group involved in targeting Kurdish forces in Syria. Syrian government forces have recently led a campaign against the Kurdish-led and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, resulting in the loss of SDF control over parts of the country’s territory. 

“As previously stated, I am trying to work with the administration and regional partners to prevent a bloodbath in Syria against our Kurdish allies,” Graham wrote. “It is now time for the region to change their ways and man up for decency.”

“To Saudi Arabia: I have tried to work hard to chart a new path for relations between your country, the United States and the region,” he continued. “I have tremendous respect for many of the changes that have been embraced. However, the Kingdom’s attack on the United Arab Emirates and their silence regarding the Syrian government’s constant assault on the Kurds has to change.”

Last month, Saudi forces carried out airstrikes in southern Yemen targeting what they said were weapons shipments from the United Arab Emirates to UAE-backed separatists, escalating tensions between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi and prompting the UAE to announce a withdrawal of its remaining forces from Yemen.

The South Carolina senator continued, “Please understand that I am smart enough to know that Saudi Arabia has influence on the Syrian government, and I expect them to use it to keep the region from falling further into chaos.”

Graham, who has been closely engaged with the Saudis while lobbying the kingdom to normalize relations with Israel, said earlier this month that he would be “dramatically rethinking” the “nature of” the U.S. alliance with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states if they “intervened on behalf of Iran to avoid decisive military action” by President Donald Trump against the Iranian regime.

“All the headlines suggesting that our so-called Arab allies have intervened on behalf of Iran to avoid decisive military action by President Trump are beyond disturbing. The ayatollah’s regime has American blood on its hands. They are slaughtering people in the streets,” Graham said at the time. 

“If it is accurate that the Arab response is ‘action is not necessary against Iran’ given this current outrageous slaughter of innocent people, then there will be a dramatic rethinking on my part regarding the nature of the alliances now and in the future.”

Nearly 100 New Jersey rabbis wrote to now-former Gov. Phil Murphy and members of the New Jersey Assembly this week expressing concerns about reporting from Jewish Insider that Murphy and other Democratic leaders had blocked passage of legislation to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

A source had told JI that Democratic leaders in the state were concerned that lawmakers who supported the legislation would be vulnerable to progressive primary challengers.

“This is a deeply troubling failure of leadership that places political calculations above the safety of the Jewish population,” the 95 rabbis wrote, highlighting a string of violent antisemitic incidents in the state and a report indicating that New Jersey was the state with the highest number of antisemitic incidents per capita in 2024.

“Prioritizing politics over antisemitism signals that Jewish safety is negotiable and subjects our community to further cases of harassment and violence,” the letter reads. “Therefore, we call on our political leaders in New Jersey to immediately revisit and pass legislation that adopts the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and applies that definition to training, education, and hate-crime response systems.”

The letter was first reported by NJ.com and organized by The Jewish Majority.

“Already in 2026 demonstrators have gathered outside Jewish institutions to support Hamas’ murder of Jews, and a synagogue has been burned,” the letter continued. “Now is not the time to play politics with our safety.”

The rabbis also said that the recent mass shooting at a Hanukkah event in Sydney, Australia, shows the “lethal consequences of ignoring such hate” and the necessity to provide “clarity around what constitutes Jew-hatred.”

“We spent a lot of time working on this issue in the legislation, and then when Gov. Murphy killed it very late in his term, [it] was really deflating and hurtful and frustrating,” one signatory, Rabbi David-Seth Kirshner of Temple Emanu-El in Closter, N.J., told JI.

He emphasized that the “worst event to happen in our modern era since the Holocaust [the Oct. 7 attacks] … was met in the diaspora, outside of Israel, with increased hatred towards Jews, and vilification and threatening of Jews” and that “what made it even worse is that when we started to wag a finger in the face of those who were threatening and hurting and intimidating the Jewish people, they were claiming it’s not antisemitic.”

New Jersey lawmakers are likely to pursue efforts to pass the IHRA bill again this year.

Kirshner said that the path forward is clear: “We did all the work, all the legislation. It was all put in front of us. Just put the bill out, and let’s pass it. New Jersey has the largest population of Jewish people outside of New York City. It’s the second largest out of our 50 states. We need to act like it.”

He emphasized that nothing about the bill would silence criticism of the Israeli government, as some critics have claimed. 

“It will give us guardrails, and it will give us a sense of protection that we are desperately seeking for the last 24-plus months since the worst day since the Holocaust,” Kirshner said.

He said that an executive order implementing the IHRA definition, “especially if it has all the nuts and bolts of the IHRA legislation” would be a “good stopgap measure” and would “engender some good will” for the new governor, Democrat Mikie Sherill, but said that it cannot be a replacement for the state legislature passing the bill.

A source told JI that such an executive order had been drafted and presented to Murphy’s office before the end of his term, amid outcry over the failure of the IHRA legislation, but it was not signed.

A bipartisan pair of House lawmakers will reintroduce legislation on Wednesday to address the threat of killer drone strikes by the Iranian regime and other foreign adversaries through increased cooperation between the U.S. and Israel, Jewish Insider has learned.

Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) are the lead sponsors of the U.S.-Israel Anti-Killer Drone Act, which the duo first introduced together back in 2023. That bill proposed increasing annual funding caps for existing U.S.-Israel counter-drone programs from $40 million to $55 million. 

This latest iteration of the legislation increases that annual funding cap to $100 million. It also now includes all unmanned drone systems rather than solely covering aerial drones. The updates to the legislation mirror the expansion of the existing U.S.-Israel counter-drone program to address various types of drones — not only airborne ones — in the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act.

The joint counter-drone program is currently set to be funded at $75 million for 2026, based on the appropriations legislation introduced on Tuesday.

The Gottheimer-Garbarino bill states that it is the sense of Congress that the U.S. and Israel should continue to collaborate and expand their ongoing work in counter-drone technology, increases the proposed funding — though any actual funding allocations would have to be finalized separately — and directs the Department of Defense to report to Congress annually on the program.

The legislation comes as Israeli leaders look to shift the future of U.S. aid to the Jewish state, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing that he wants to wind down direct U.S. financial support in the next decade.

Analysts and experts have predicted that the next U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding, and the future of U.S. aid and cooperation with Israel, could focus more heavily on these sorts of jointly funded cooperative programs, which are appropriated through the Department of Defense and aim to benefit both countries, rather than direct financial assistance to Israel.

The bill’s text runs through a litany of incidents of Iranian and Iranian proxy drone attacks and attempted attacks on Israeli and U.S. targets throughout the region; the expansion and advancement of Iran’s drone production capacity; and Iran’s provision of drones to Russia.

Both Gottheimer and Garbarino cited the Iranian drone threat as reason for promoting the legislation back in 2023.

“Iran’s arsenal of killer drones has only grown in recent years, and attacks across the Middle East have killed and wounded Americans — showing once again why the threat of terrorism remains so pervasive,” Gottheimer said at the time. “We continue to see Iran-backed terrorist groups target innocent civilians which is why we must take concrete action to counter their deadly drone capabilities.”

“Time and again, the Iranian regime has used unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to continue its destabilizing behavior, threatening not only the broader Middle East region, but also American troops, interests, and our greatest ally in the region, Israel,” Garbarino said. 

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced legislation on Wednesday to condemn the Israeli government for allegedly withholding aid in Gaza and to potentially impose sanctions on Israeli government officials.

Under the Accountability for Withholding Aid and Relief Essentials (AWARE) Act, any foreign government officials or those acting on their behalf “found to be restricting, diminishing, undermining, or preventing the delivery and distribution of sufficient humanitarian assistance” would be subject to U.S. financial and visa-blocking sanctions.

The legislation includes a presidential waiver, though that, or the removal of sanctions, can be overridden by a joint resolution of disapproval by Congress. Senior lawmakers would also be allowed to request an assessment of whether a foreign official meets the criteria for sanctions.

The policy would apply globally, but is formulated around the situation in Gaza.

The legislation states that the entire population of Gaza is “facing acute levels of hunger” and that “actual levels of humanitarian assistance remain well below what is needed,” though a U.N. report last week stated that 100% of Gaza’s basic food needs, for the first time since 2023, are now being met.

“The United States must send a clear message to [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu and any other leader who would deny food, medicine, and shelter to vulnerable people: If you are complicit in denying humanitarian assistance to Palestinians or others in need, you will face personal consequences,” Wyden said.

Wyden, who is Jewish, has generally not been a prominent critic of Israel in the Senate, and did not vote with a majority of his Democratic colleagues last year to block certain weapons shipments to Israel.

“As Jews, we have a duty to moral leadership. Netanyahu has failed this duty by all counts,” he continued. “As a lifelong champion for Israel’s security, I believe the actions of the Netanyahu government have made Jews less safe and contributed to horrific suffering in Gaza.”

Under the legislation, the administration would also be required to report annually to Congress on any officials violating the policy and justify any case in which sanctions were not imposed — or to explain their reasoning if they fail to add any individuals to the list.

It further states that it will be U.S. policy that “if a government is unable or unwilling to ensure delivery and distribution of sufficient humanitarian assistance to a territory under its control, that government must allow any and all United States and internationally recognized humanitarian organizations to deliver and distribute sufficient humanitarian assistance to the protected persons in that territory.”

Various international NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF), that are cited in the bill text, as well as the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, have been found by Israel and researchers to have employed members of Hamas and other terrorist groups. Israel recently banned MSF and other international NGOs because they refused to provide information about their staff for vetting.

The legislation condemns both Hamas and Iran, while also condemning Israel for restricting aid flows into Gaza, stating, “actions by the Netanyahu administration that have contributed to the humanitarian crisis and acute suffering of Palestinians are horrifying” and that the Israeli government’s actions are “not consistent with the State of Israel’s core values” and have “eroded the State of Israel’s standing in the world by undermining the rule of law and violating fundamental human rights.”

The legislation is supported by the Friends Committee on National Legislation, New Jewish Narrative, J Street and Refugees International.

“Our Jewish values compel us to stand up against the continued oppressive restrictions on humanitarian aid into Gaza, which exacerbate the destruction inflicted on civilians by two years of war,” J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement. “At a time when humanitarian groups are facing increasing obstacles to providing help on the ground, those who intentionally restrict access to humanitarian assistance must face real consequences.

“Humanitarian aid should never be used as a weapon of war. Nor should the suffering of a people be exploited for diplomatic leverage,” NJN CEO Hadar Susskind said. “Unfortunately, the current Israeli government has a demonstrable record of doing just that. Gazans continue to suffer to this day. By introducing this bill, Senator Wyden is reasserting American values, and backing them up with real consequences.”

A high-profile New Jersey bill adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism is not expected to pass in the current New Jersey Assembly session, four sources familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider. 

Two sources familiar with the legislation said that Gov. Phil Murphy opposed the legislation and was a key obstacle to its passage.

Assemblyman Gary Schaer, the Democratic lead sponsor of the legislation, told Politico on Thursday that he had been told by the assembly speaker that the legislation would not be on the docket for the assembly’s final session next week because it did not have “the necessary votes to get where we wanted to.”

“Leadership in the assembly, in the Senate and in the governor’s office have tried significantly to get it done, but they have not been able to get it done,” Schaer told JI. “My office worked closely with any number of agencies and organizations, but the effort was just — cannot get it done. Do I think the bill can pass at some point? The answer is yes, but it requires a political will which does not seem to be evident.” 

The legislation was cosponsored by a significant majority of the assembly, but — assuming any Democrats not cosponsoring the bill would have voted against it — it would not have been able to pass with Democratic votes alone.

The bill would have instructed law enforcement to take the IHRA definition into account when determining if violations of state or federal anti-bias law have occurred or whether criminal acts were motivated by antisemitism, and to use it for training public officials and responding to antisemitic incidents. 

The legislation, which has been a priority for Jewish state leaders, became a flashpoint among Democratic gubernatorial candidates and in Democratic politics last year. After much debate, it moved through committee in the state Assembly, but hasn’t received a full-chamber vote in either the Assembly or the state Senate. The legislature’s session ends on Monday, and Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill will be sworn in the following week.

Two sources familiar with the legislation blamed Murphy, the outgoing governor, for its failure, alleging that he did not want to be forced to make a decision whether to sign it.

One source familiar with the situation emphasized that the legislation had the support to pass, but that Democratic leaders were reluctant to move the bill forward to a full vote — concerned that support for the bill would place some Democratic members in danger of progressive primary challenges in the future. Concerns about such primary challenges are already widespread, and leaders were concerned that the IHRA bill could give challengers additional ammunition against Democratic incumbents.

The legislation has been attacked by progressive Democrats as an attempt to silence free speech and criticism of Israel, despite provisions in the legislation protecting free speech and its narrow application in criminal matters.

The Murphy administration declined to comment on pending legislation, but emphasized that Murphy “unequivocally condemns all forms of violence and discrimination based on religious belief” and pointed to past statements and initiatives he has supported to combat rising antisemitism in the Garden State.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) told Politico that Murphy would have signed the bill had it passed the legislature.

Another source familiar with the situation said that there had been significant finger-pointing between Murphy, Senate President Nicholas Scutari and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, with each blaming the others for the legislation’s failure to pass. Scutari and Coughlin did not respond to requests for comment.

Assemblyman Mike Inganamort, the lead Republican sponsor of the legislation, told JI he’s “disappointed” the legislation has not made it into law.

“This has been going on for a long time now, preceding even my time in the legislature,” he said. “I think advocates are tired of getting jerked around. Frankly, what I’m hearing from them is they’re tired of the lip service … all we’re asking for is a simple up-or-down vote.”

He emphasized that the legislation is co-sponsored by approximately three-quarters of the Assembly but votes have repeatedly been postponed — “so does the majority rule or not?”

He said that he’s not involved in internal discussions among Democrats about the bill, but said, “the reality is, it’s highly likely that there is a very vocal fringe that is opposed to this legislation. And I sure hope they’re not the ones calling the shots.”

Inganamort said that he’ll work with his fellow sponsors to “fight again in the new term,” though he said that he’s not “terribly optimistic that we’re going to achieve more success in a new term under a new governor,” saying he had been “cautioned to re-read” Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill’s “exact words” on the subject.

Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill told JI in February 2025 that she “supported the IHRA definition in the U.S. House, and would support the current state Senate bill to combat the alarming rise of antisemitism in New Jersey.” Some Jewish leaders told JI that she made comments later in the campaign that included caveats about free speech concerns — which is protected in the existing legislation — but ultimately clarified and strengthened her position.

A new bill introduced by several prominent House progressives blasts the Trump administration’s agenda and actions on combating antisemitism, while also implementing new posts and requirements across a series of federal departments to fight Jewish hate.

The new bill, the Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act, is led by Reps. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), Becca Balint (D-VT) and Maxwell Frost (D-FL).

The legislation accuses the Trump administration, at length, of weaponizing antisemitism to “pursue ideological and partisan political objectives unrelated to protecting Jewish communities,” including attacking educational institutions, suppressing speech and enforcing “ideological conformity.”

Citing the Heritage Foundation’s Project Esther report, which the legislation describes as the framework for the administration’s strategy, the lawmakers link the Trump administration’s actions to a “Christian Zionism theology and beliefs that Jewish presence in the Holy Land will precipitate End Times.”

It claims the administration has used the “false pretext of antisemitism investigations” to undermine academic freedom on college campuses, eliminate diversity and Middle Eastern studies programs and silence criticism of Israel.

The legislators also allege the Trump administration “inappropriately appropriated the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism as a tool for immigration enforcement and deportation proceedings,” citing the administration’s efforts to deport students engaged in antisemitic and anti-Israel activity and scrutinize the social media activity of visa applicants.

They accuse the administration of holding Jewish institutions’ security “hostage” to political objectives through new conditions on Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding.

The legislation downplays the IHRA definition of antisemitism, describing it as one of “several definitions of antisemitism which serve as valuable tools to raise awareness and increase understanding of antisemitism,” despite widespread adoption by the mainstream Jewish community and its use by multiple administrations of both parties.

The bill describes various definitions, also naming the Nexus Document, as “valuable tools to raise awareness and increase understanding of antisemitism” which “should be utilized by Federal, State, and local agencies” and as “non-legally binding educational tools [which] should not be applied in punitive legal contexts.”

It further emphasizes that “criticism of Israeli government policies, when not motivated by or expressed through antisemitic tropes or discrimination against Jews, is a form of political speech protected by the First Amendment and does not constitute antisemitism.”

And it states that “the weaponization of antisemitism accusations to pursue partisan political agendas undermines genuine efforts to protect Jewish communities and breeds additional antisemitism.”

The legislation includes some provisions which have enjoyed bipartisan support, including several aspects of the Protecting Students on Campus Act: requiring universities to publicize to students how to file discrimination complaints and to report annually to the Department of Education on the complaints they have received and for the Department of Education to report to Congress monthly for a year on the complaints it has received and how long they remain open.

The Protecting Students on Campus Act was re-introduced by its bipartisan sponsors — Reps. Lucy McBath (D-GA), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Don Bacon (R-NE), Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ) and Haley Stevens (D-MI) — on Thursday, the same day Nadler’s legislation was announced.

The Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act additionally requires the administration to create an office in the Department of Justice to combat antisemitism, to be headed by a career DOJ official as the full-time national coordinator to counter antisemitism, similar to a provision previously sought by the mainstream Jewish community and included in bipartisan legislation in the prior Congress.

The bill requires the Department of Education to reopen and staff all regional offices of the Office for Civil Rights that were closed earlier in the Trump administration, and prevents the department from closing such offices going forward. It proposes providing $280 million for the program annually.

It also requires colleges and universities to designate a Title VI coordinator to handle complaints.

Additionally, it requires the FBI to establish a hate crimes reporting center, to be led by a designated coordinator, for the purpose of collecting and overseeing hate crimes data. It proposes $50 million in funding annually for the office.

Regarding the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, the legislation requires the administration to ensure sufficient personnel to support the implementation of the program and prohibits the imposition of conditions on DEI, immigration, political advocacy or affiliation or protected characteristics for grant awardees. It mandates the administration provide specific detail to Congress on approved and rejected grant applications.

It proposes providing $500 million for the program annually. 

The legislation makes repeated reference to the Biden administration’s national strategy on antisemitism, and is framed as an effort to build off of that approach.

“This bill shows that moderates and those aligned with the current Israeli government do not enjoy a monopoly over the fight against antisemitism and hate,” Nadler said in a statement. “I am proud to introduce, with my cherished colleagues, the Antisemitism Response and Prevention Act, which embodies a comprehensive and principled framework — one that steadfastly upholds and celebrates progressive values without compromise, diminution, or equivocation.” 

DeLauro said the bill “lays out a national strategy for combating the rising threat of antisemitism while protecting freedom of speech, and calls out the Trump Administration’s co-opting of antisemitism for its own political agenda.”

Balint said the legislation would provide critical resources while also implementing “strong Congressional oversight and guardrails to prevent any administration from politicizing antisemitism to further attack their opponents.”

Frost said the legislation “creates a coordinated, whole-of-government response to confront antisemitism wherever it appears in our communities. Unity is our greatest strength, and when we act together, hate has nowhere to take hold.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the lead Senate sponsor of legislation to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, criticized members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee for voting to modify the House version of the bill, removing key provisions requiring the designation of Muslim Brotherhood branches and the organization as a whole as a terrorist group.

“Last week, frustratingly, the House version of my bill was advanced but terminally weakened by the House Foreign Affairs Committee,” Cruz said during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Thursday. “They took out the ‘designation’ part of the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act. The Senate should do better, and we should move the full bill on our side.”

Cruz suggested that some House lawmakers “did not believe that Congress should have a role in crafting sanctions, which are to be implemented by the executive.” He said he considers that argument “specious” and that most Senate colleagues agree.

A spokesperson for the House Foreign Affairs Committee insisted they remain aligned with both Cruz and the Trump administration, when asked about his comments. 

“We are in full support of the administration designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. That process is well underway. We are in lockstep with Sen. Cruz’s goal and look forward to reviewing his bill once it passes the Senate,” the spokesperson said.

Cruz’s remark came as he questioned Gregory LoGerfo, the acting coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, who has been nominated to fill that position in a permanent capacity. LoGerfo is a career State Department official who has filled the acting role since January.

LoGerfo affirmed his commitment to tackling the Muslim Brotherhood, explaining that the U.S. has had concerns about the group “over decades,” particularly following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, and said that it poses a threat to the United States.

Though the Trump administration’s executive order does not require designating the entire Muslim Brotherhood or require officials to assess every branch of the organization for terrorist activity — as Cruz’s bill does — Cruz described his bill and the executive order as pursuing the same goal.

“The president’s executive order is part of a broader ‘bottom-up’ strategy to designate Muslim Brotherhood chapters and then evaluate designating the global Muslim Brotherhood,” Cruz asserted at the hearing, echoing comments he made in a statement to JI earlier this week.

LoGerfo affirmed that the specific branches that the executive order instructs the administration to evaluate are a “first step” toward taking broader action against the Muslim Brotherhood.

During his opening statement, LoGerfo also warned that, “in addition to the global jihadi network, antisemitism and anti-government animus have become significant motivating factors in today’s terrorist threat environment.”

And, he added, “although Iran has been greatly weakened, Tehran and its terror proxies, including the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas, continue to destabilize the Middle East and show interest in expanding their reach to regions.”

A new bipartisan and bicameral bill is pushing for greater accountability and transparency on China’s violations of U.S. oil sanctions on Iran.

China is the largest importer of Iranian oil, in spite of the sweeping U.S. sanctions regime targeting the Iranian oil and gas industry, as well as newer sanctions that target importers of that oil, which have been recently applied to some firms in China. 

Recent reports by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies have found that Iran oil exports, primarily to China, have remained near their peak level in spite of U.S. sanctions, which FDD has attributed to a “failure of U.S. sanctions enforcement.”

The new bill, led by Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Reps. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and Ben Cline (R-VA), requires the administration, within a year of the bill’s passage, to determine whether the People’s Republic of China is conducting sanctionable activities with regard to Iran.

In advance of that determination, the bill requires the administration to report to Congress within 180 days on China’s purchases of Iranian oil, including how China is using shell companies and other methods to dodge sanctions, as well as on Chinese efforts to sell or transfer chemical precursors to Iran to support its ballistic missile program.

Recent reports have found that Iran has been importing materials from China to rebuild its ballistic missile program, an effort that has prompted concern on Capitol Hill.

“China’s growing purchases of Iranian oil and its support for Iran’s ballistic missile program are not just violations of U.S. sanctions—they are direct threats to regional stability and to our allies,” Krishnamoorthi said in a statement, adding that the legislation “gives Congress the intelligence and transparency needed to expose how the PRC enables Iran’s most dangerous activities.”

“By bringing these transactions into the light, we strengthen our ability to enforce sanctions and hold malign actors accountable,” Krishnamoorthi continued.

Krishnamoorthi is mounting a bid for the U.S. Senate in his home state.

“China’s continued purchases of Iranian oil and its role in enabling Iran’s missile program to pose a direct threat to U.S. national security and to the stability of our allies in the Middle East,” Cline said. He called the legislation and the reporting it requires “a necessary step toward exposing how the PRC uses shell companies, transshipment schemes, and other avenues to evade sanctions.” 

“This report will give Congress and the Treasury Department the insight needed to strengthen enforcement, close loopholes, and ensure that hostile regimes, and those who bankroll them, are held accountable,” Cline continued.

Blumenthal said that China’s purchases of oil are “providing significant financial support for Iran’s terrorist activities in the Middle East and beyond.”

“Transparency is the first step towards accountability, which is why our bill would require a full report on China’s oil and ballistic missile-related transactions with Iran. This information will support robust sanctions enforcement and provide a path forward for additional legislative action,” Blumenthal said.

Graham called the bill “the first step in fully understanding how China and other nations prop up the Ayatollah’s war machine.”

President Donald Trump’s recent executive order directing a review of Muslim Brotherhood chapters for potential terrorism designations is limited in scope, and leaves out scrutiny of Qatar and Turkey — a strategy that experts say reflects both legal realities and geopolitical constraints.

The order, which was signed on Nov. 24, directs Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to identify which branches of the Muslim Brotherhood — with a focus on chapters in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt — should be designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and which should be deemed Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

Rather than apply a terrorist designation to the entire Muslim Brotherhood as a whole, Trump’s executive order first looks at individual branches. This strategy is echoed in a Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), which requires an assessment of every branch of the Muslim Brotherhood in an effort to designate the organization for its involvement. 

The House version of the legislation was modified in committee last week and now more closely resembles the Trump executive order.

Michael Jacobson, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the approach “makes sense,” adding that a “one-size-fits-all” designation would be unproductive. He also noted that it will allow the administration to more effectively pursue chapters of the organization.

“The bottom-up approach will allow the administration to proceed in a more strategic and calculated fashion,” said Jacobson. “Targeting individual chapters and entities could also open up additional avenues for investigation and action. Once individual branches are designated, the Treasury could then use its authorities to sanction those supporting these branches. I believe that this approach is also more likely to gain support from other governments.”

This same sentiment was echoed by Cruz, who called the “bottom-up” approach the “correct and sustainable strategy.”

“That strategy is built into both the president’s executive order, which was a bold and critical breakthrough in advancing American national security, and my bipartisan legislation,” Cruz told Jewish Insider. “It’s the consensus strategy, and it’s the right one.” 

David Adesnik, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JI that while a single designation done in “one fell swoop” might be appealing, it faces legal and factual challenges. 

“The administration was rightly concerned that a judge could overturn a designation of the entire organization if he or she assessed that it didn’t meet the legal thresholds. This would have serious consequences in several respects,” said Michael Jacobson, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “If a judge ruled against a Muslim Brotherhood ban, it would be interpreted by some as a signal that the MB is not a terrorist organization, end of story — also a message the administration was likely eager to avoid.”

“This is not a single unified organization,” said Adesnik. “There’s no headquarters, no address, no person who is the head. It’s very hard to make a terror designation if you’re not exactly sure who you’re designating.”

Jacobson said the administration also looked to avoid a blanket designation out of concern that any legal challenges that followed could hurt efforts to reign in the Muslim Brotherhood. 

“The administration was rightly concerned that a judge could overturn a designation of the entire organization if he or she assessed that it didn’t meet the legal thresholds. This would have serious consequences in several respects,” said Jacobson. “If a judge ruled against a Muslim Brotherhood ban, it would be interpreted by some as a signal that the MB is not a terrorist organization, end of story — also a message the administration was likely eager to avoid.”

Some critics of the executive order, including far-right influencer Laura Loomer, who is a confidant of the president, have expressed frustration over the administration’s decision not to name Qatar and Turkey in the order.

“The Muslim Brotherhood designation signed by President Trump today doesn’t have any teeth,” Loomer posted on X on Nov. 24. “This designation is probably the weakest designation of the Muslim Brotherhood we could have ever received, as it doesn’t even apply to Qatar and Turkey.”

Both Qatar and Turkey have strengthened ties with the United States during Trump’s second term, however the two countries are also significant supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and have been known to provide sanctuary for their members. 

“Claiming to get tough on the Muslim Brotherhood without a serious strategy to clamp down on the support provided by the movement’s most important state sponsors in Qatar and Turkey is not a serious policy,” said John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “Out of consideration for America’s longstanding partnerships with both countries and President Trump’s particular affinity for their leaders, one hopes that there is a plan to bring real pressure to bear on both Doha and Ankara in private to cease and desist their wide-ranging support for MB affiliates across the Middle East and globally.”

But while Qatar and Turkey’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood are problematic, experts said they were not included because they do not currently have chapters of the organization in their countries, which the executive order focuses on.

“If we’re targeting chapters of the Brotherhood, there are no Brotherhood chapters in those countries,” said Adesnik. “So the real question is, how do you deal with what are effectively state sponsors of the Brotherhood? And does that state sponsorship cross the line into terrorism or sponsorship of terrorism?”

The Senate bill also does not address how Turkey and Qatar would be targeted as state sponsors of the organization. 

However, experts and legislators remain wary of the threat posed by the two nations and have expressed that plans to root out the Muslim Brotherhood should account for Turkey and Qatar.

“Claiming to get tough on the Muslim Brotherhood without a serious strategy to clamp down on the support provided by the movement’s most important state sponsors in Qatar and Turkey is not a serious policy,” said John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “Out of consideration for America’s longstanding partnerships with both countries and President Trump’s particular affinity for their leaders, one hopes that there is a plan to bring real pressure to bear on both Doha and Ankara in private to cease and desist their wide-ranging support for MB affiliates across the Middle East and globally.”

With the current executive order, the White House is seeking to first designate branches in countries that experts said are involved in violence from within the country. This will also likely include entities that finance other Foreign Terrorist Organizations, according to Jacobson. 

In Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, threats connected to the Muslim Brotherhood have become national issues of concern. 

“The Islamic Group [Muslim Brotherhood chapter in Lebanon] clearly built up the ability to carry out attacks against Israel and cooperated very openly with Hezbollah,” said David Adesnik, vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Authorities there really aren’t doing anything about it, partly because they lack power and have other issues to address. So it’s a pretty fair point.” 

In April 2025, Jordanian authorities arrested 16 individuals and thwarted a plot that was to involve rocket and drone attacks inside the country. The suspects were linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the government’s largest opposition group. Following the arrests, the Jordanian government banned the group entirely. 

Adesnik said that while Jordan has initiated a “thorough crackdown” to address the problem, it is notable that there was “clearly a branch that had migrated toward planning for terrorism.” 

In Lebanon, he called the Muslim Brotherhood a “persistent issue.”

“The Islamic Group [Muslim Brotherhood chapter in Lebanon] pretty openly built up a capability to carry out attacks against Israel and cooperated very clearly and openly with Hezbollah,” said Adesnik. “Authorities there really aren’t doing anything about it, in part because they don’t have a lot of power and they have a lot of other problems to deal with. So it’s a pretty reasonable case.” 

Adesnik called the administration’s targeting of Egypt the “thorniest case from a definitional perspective.” He noted that while Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi’s regime in Cairo has spent more than a decade cracking down on the Brotherhood “aggressively,” concerns still remain over the presence of branches such as Harakat Sawa’d Misr, also known as Hasm, which was already designated by the U.S. as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist Entity in 2018. 

“The question is just what’s left of the Brotherhood there?” said Adesnik. “Is it doing enough to merit a designation?”

The House Foreign Affairs Committee removed key provisions of a bill designed to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization when it approved the legislation last week, prompting concerns from some conservatives. 

The bill was amended by a voice vote to strip out provisions mandating the designation of eligible Muslim Brotherhood branches and the entire Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, including backing from the committee’s chairman, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL).

The original legislation, introduced in both the House and Senate, included language requiring that the secretary of state assess each branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and report to Congress on whether those branches meet the criteria for designation as a terrorist group under either of two authorities. 

It then mandated that the administration designate those branches that meet the criteria as terrorist groups and impose sanctions pursuant to those designations, and required that those sanctions remain in place for at least four years. It would also impose sanctions on the entire Muslim Brotherhood.

The amended legislation mandates only the assessment of Muslim Brotherhood chapters “that pose a threat to United States national security interests,” rather than all branches of the group — potentially allowing some branches of the group to duck scrutiny — and requires a report to Congress on whether those branches “ha[ve] been designated” as terrorist groups. Most significantly, it removes the specific mandate that the branches in question and the full Muslim Brotherhood be designated as terrorist groups and sanctioned pursuant to the findings of that report.

In effect, the changes remove key provisions that made the legislation broader than an executive order issued by the Trump administration last month, which authorized the designation of certain Muslim Brotherhood branches as terrorist organizations, but did not mandate an assessment of all branches for terrorist activity or require that the entire organization be designated and sanctioned.

“The bill reported out of committee codifies the Trump administration’s bold efforts to counter the Muslim Brotherhood,” a House Foreign Affairs Committee spokesperson told Jewish Insider, when asked about the changes. 

“This is one part of a broader process to work directly with the administration as they advance towards imposing a full designation. There should be no question about House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans’ commitment to hold terrorist groups accountable, and we are in lockstep with the administration in doing so.”

A spokesperson for Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), the lead Republican sponsor of the bill, said he is “thrilled the bill made its way out of committee and is grateful to Chairman Mast for providing that opportunity,” adding that discrepancies between final House and Senate legislation would need to be worked through in a conference committee. “We look forward to engaging throughout the process,” the spokesperson added.

An official at a pro-Israel organization, reflecting concerns about the amended legislation among some conservatives, said that the legislation should be stronger.

“While the legislation is still a step in the right direction, the version approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee lacks the teeth of the original House bill as well as the current legislation in the Senate put forward by Senator [Ted] Cruz,” the official told JI. 

“President Trump has been crystal clear about the threat posed by the Muslim Brotherhood. When President Trump says that we will not tolerate those who fuel and fund radical terrorism, it should be backed up with the strongest possible legislation that will cement his legacy on this issue.” 

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) on Monday introduced legislation to codify a policy in the Coast Guard prohibiting displays of swastikas and other hate symbols, following backlash last week over a new Coast Guard policy that loosened the previous ban on such displays.

Amid bipartisan pressure from Congress and public outcry, the Coast Guard walked back the policy, which would have classified swastikas, nooses and other similar symbols as “potentially divisive” and would not have banned them outright.

Torres’ bill would prohibit the Coast Guard from issuing, without congressional approval, “any guidance that is less restrictive on prohibiting divisive or hate symbols and flags” than the updated policy issued following the public backlash, which partially, although not fully, reinstated the previous policy. The new policy states that “divisive or hate symbols and flags are prohibited,” including swastikas.

The legislation does not specify how “less restrictive” would be defined or determined in practice.

The latest iteration of the Coast Guard’s policy keeps in place changes made to the investigative process for such incidents — previously, they would be subject to a full investigation, now they are subject to a potentially less stringent inquiry by the relevant commanding officer.

Torres’ bill is not likely to move forward in its current form given the unified GOP control of the government.

Just over a week after the Trump administration announced moves to designate branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is set to discuss and vote on legislation that aims to classify the entire organization globally as a terrorist group on Wednesday.

The bipartisan House legislation, led by Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), would instruct the Department of State to assess whether each branch of the Muslim Brotherhood operating globally meets the requirements for designation as a terrorist group. It would then use those determinations to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group in its entirety.

The legislation may go further than the current executive action on the issue, which does not specifically mandate assessments of each Muslim Brotherhood branch and does not directly aim to proscribe the entire Muslim Brotherhood.

Some analysts have raised concerns that the executive branch action does not directly target the Muslim Brotherhood branches in Qatar and Turkey, as it names only the branches in Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt.

But others have argued that designating the entire Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group is legally and logistically problematic, given that the group does not have any central organization or leadership and that some Muslim Brotherhood branches are not directly tied to terrorism.

Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), the committee chairman, told Jewish Insider prior to the administration’s announcement that the committee was looking to take up legislation on the issue.

Companion legislation in the Senate led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has not yet been scheduled for a markup.

In addition to the Muslim Brotherhood bill, the Foreign Affairs Committee will vote on legislation — led by Reps. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Bill Keating (D-MA) and Moskowitz — to impose sanctions on the Houthis and their members under the Global Magnitsky Act and the Robert Levinson Hostage Taking and Accountability Act in response to the group’s obstruction of humanitarian aid, human rights violations and involvement in taking U.S. nationals hostage. 

The sanctions would phase out after five years, and the legislation would also require reports to Congress on Houthi indoctrination efforts, obstruction of humanitarian aid and human rights violations.

The Committee is also set to discuss the Protecting Europe from Antisemitic Crime and Extremism (PEACE) Act, led by Reps. Randy Fine (R-FL) and Max Miller (R-OH), which instructs the State Department to diplomatically engage with European governments to address antisemitism in their countries and to consult with Congress on the issue.

It will additionally consider a bill by Fine and Moskowitz that aims to harmonize various U.S. sanctions lists, instructing the administration to assess whether individuals included on some  designation lists should be sanctioned under other authorities as well, and to report to Congress on those determinations.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced on Thursday that he will introduce a resolution condemning neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes and his white supremacist views after President Donald Trump declined to condemn Fuentes or Tucker Carlson’s platforming of him. 

Schumer announced the move while criticizing Trump’s comments from over the weekend, in which the president noted that Carlson has “said good things about me over the years” and defended his decision to host Fuentes on his show. 

After calling Trump’s remarks “disgusting, Schumer warned that antisemitism in the U.S. has “reached a dangerous tipping point. Jewish Americans are facing threats, harassment and violence at levels we have not seen in generations.”

“For Donald Trump to continue to excuse and protect the spread of Nick Fuentes’ ideology, confirms what many of us have long said: white supremacy and antisemitism are taking deep roots, unfortunately, within the Republican Party,” Schumer said from the Senate floor on Thursday.

“Just as we saw from the leaked texts from Young Republicans, just as we saw from text messages of administration officials, the Nick Fuentes saga on the right reveals that antisemitism and white supremacy have been growing with disturbing currency within the right wing,” he continued. “I know this is not true of everyone on the Republican side, especially not for many Republicans in this chamber.”

Schumer said that his resolution will be focused on “rejecting Nick Fuentes and his white supremacist views, condemning Carlson’s platforming of hate, and condemning antisemitism and white supremacy wherever and whenever it occurs.” He added that he plans to lobby senators on both sides of the aisle to consider supporting the resolution.

“I hope my Republican colleagues will join me in this effort and co-sponsor this resolution. Calling out antisemitism should not be a partisan issue,” Schumer said. “When we refuse to condemn antisemitism, we stay silent and fail to reject antisemitic rhetoric, when we normalize hateful figures spewing disgusting antisemitism, that is when antisemitism spreads throughout society like a poisonous wildfire.”

“Americans don’t want to see that happen, so my resolution will give every single senator a chance to make an important stand against hatred,” he continued. “The country must see us unite and fight this awful form of bigotry.”

The firebombing of a hostage-release march in Boulder, Colo., this summer triggered a wave of calls from lawmakers — particularly Republicans — for action to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod report.

Legislation to that effect was introduced in both the Senate and House in July, taking a new approach to designating the group as compared to previous legislative efforts that had stalled over the course of the last decade.

The legislation would require the imposition of sanctions on the Muslim Brotherhood, making it illegal to provide support to the group, making its members and affiliates inadmissible to the United States and blocking transactions involving assets held by Muslim Brotherhood members in U.S. financial institutions.

There were also calls from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for the Trump administration to investigate the group and take action to designate it through executive authorities. The secretary of state has the authority to designate a group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), and the White House could issue an executive order on the subject.

But so far, none of those efforts have come to fruition. The Senate bill currently sits at 11 co-sponsors, having recently picked up Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) as its first Democratic supporter, while the House bill has 19 co-sponsors from both parties — below the levels of support previous iterations of the bill had amassed.

Fetterman’s co-sponsorship could help the bill receive consideration by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as the panel often only considers legislation with bipartisan support. A source familiar with the matter tells JI that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the bill’s co-sponsor in the Senate and a member of the committee, is pushing for the panel to mark up the bill at their next business meeting. 

Neither bill has been called up yet for a vote in committee — a process further slowed by the ongoing government shutdown — and it is currently not included in either the Senate or House versions of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, a potential vehicle for legislation of this sort.

The White House declined to comment. A spokesperson for Cruz told JI: “Sen. Cruz is pushing for the bill to be advanced through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and then to be passed by the full Senate. Sen. Fetterman is showing commitment and leadership to American national security interests by providing this measure with bipartisan backing here in the Senate, and it’s time to move it forward.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who is not currently a co-sponsor of the Senate bill but is supportive of efforts to counter the Muslim Brotherhood, told JI on Wednesday that the issue is not top of mind for many colleagues and it will take time to build interest and support for moves like designating the group.

Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Trump administration official, told JI that, within the executive branch, FTO designations are a time-consuming process — requiring extensive legal consultations as well as significant behind-the-scenes work to understand potential implications, unintended consequences and diplomatic fallout, as well as assembling a list of visa exemptions needed for diplomats.

Based on public comments from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the National Security Council’s Sebastian Gorka indicating support for a terrorism designation, Goldberg said that he believes that there is momentum in the administration, further fueled by the election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, anti-Israel protests around the country and evidence of growing Islamist influence on the far right as well. He said that the fact that no designation has been announced should not necessarily be read as a sign that it is not actively being worked on in private.

Goldberg also said that any action on the designation from Congress would likely be timed to coordinate with potentially pending action by the Trump administration, given the high-profile nature of the issue and the administration’s expressed interest.

One potential obstacle to the efforts: Qatar and Turkey, with which the administration has been strengthening ties. Both have extensive links to the Muslim Brotherhood and could be resistant to such a designation. Goldberg, however, said he has not heard any discussion of those countries actively trying to stop a designation, and urged the Trump administration to push forward, describing the Muslim Brotherhood as both a threat to homeland security and President Donald Trump’s desire for Middle East peace.

The return of the final, living hostages to Israel last week has reopened discussion of putting the Palestinian perpetrators of the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities in Israel on trial.

Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin threw his support behind legislation to allow for the formation of a special tribunal to prosecute Hamas terrorists who are part of the Nukhba, the terrorist group’s special forces unit, on charges of genocide, which carries the death penalty.

The bill is meant to “ensure that the legal process will be run efficiently and to ensure that justice will be done and seen,” Levin said in a joint statement with the bill’s sponsors, Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee Chairman Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionist Party and Yisrael Beytenu lawmaker Yuli Malinovsky. The group plans to bring the legislation to a first vote as soon as possible and usher it through the process “at the greatest speed, with a shared aim to bring the Nukhba terrorists to justice soon.”

Levin, Rothman and Malinovsky said that the office of the Israeli state attorney, the country’s chief prosecutor, has drafted indictments against Nukhba terrorists.

They noted that during the two years since the Hamas attacks on southern Israel, the State Attorney’s Office, police and Shin Bet have interrogated the Nukhba terrorists and collected evidence “of an unprecedented scope,” including thousands of hours of video of the atrocities and of testimony. 

During that time, the Law, Constitution and Justice Committee held a series of meetings to examine possible ways to put the Nukhba terrorists on trial and ensure they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

“We met with the Justice Ministry once every few months,” Rothman told Jewish Insider. “Levin finally supports [the bill]. Every obstacle was standing in our way, and [Levin] didn’t make an effort to remove them. Now, there’s nothing preventing it from moving forward.”

The move toward putting Oct. 7 perpetrators on trial comes soon after the return of the living hostages, as well as weeks after a heated debate in the Knesset over instituting the death penalty for terrorists. The legislation’s explanatory portion says it is meant to “nip terrorism in the bud and create a heavy deterrent.” 

The death penalty has only been carried out once in Israel’s history — following the conviction of senior Nazi official Adolf Eichmann for crimes against the Jewish people and crimes against humanity.

The bill, which applies to terrorists broadly, not only those who participated in the Oct. 7 attacks, was proposed by members of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party and brought before the Knesset National Security Committee, chaired by Tzvika Foghel, also of Otzma. The Prime Minister’s Office asked Ben-Gvir to postpone the vote. 

Gal Hirsch, the coordinator for the hostages, said in the committee meeting that Ben-Gvir’s effort was potentially harmful to the ongoing discussions to secure the release of the remaining hostages. Representatives from hostage families have also pleaded with the lawmakers to stop the proceedings, concerned that the moves could endanger their loved ones.

On Monday, Ben-Gvir made an ultimatum to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that either the death penalty bill passes a first Knesset vote in the next three weeks, or his party will no longer vote with the coalition. 

“When terrorists remain alive, the terrorists outside are motivated to carry out kidnappings in order to free their Nazi brothers in future deals,” Ben-Gvir said. “If they murder a Jew, they do not stay alive.”

Rothman argued that his bill is significantly different from Ben-Gvir’s, and pointed out that he held a committee meeting the same week as the one that courted controversy, and neither Netanyahu nor Hirsch asked him to hold off.

“It’s a question of whether you want real results. [Otzma lawmakers] don’t understand what they’re dealing with. The law they want to pass [is so broad], I think it would end up giving a Jewish Israeli the death penalty first,” he remarked.

While Rothman said that having all of the living hostages home will help the Oct. 7 trials to move forward, when he asked senior defense figures over the last two years whether there was a risk to the hostages’ lives from his actions, “they said no. They said when there’s a conviction or maybe even an indictment, possibly, but just building the framework is not a risk.”

As such, Rothman said that though it may seem like a long time has passed, “the time hasn’t been a waste. A lot of material was collected and we oversaw the legislative and political decisions that needed to be made.”

Rothman and Malinovsky’s bill would establish a special tribunal for those who participated in the Oct. 7 attacks, with the proceedings made public. The legislation sets different rules for presenting evidence to protect the privacy of victims and their families, and to streamline the process of prosecuting large numbers of defendants. It also allows for non-Israeli judges to be appointed. In addition, it would establish a committee of representatives of Israel’s justice minister, defense minister and foreign minister to determine government policy as to whether to prosecute the Nukhba terrorists on genocide charges, which carry the death penalty, taking national security into consideration.

In a Knesset Law, Constitution and Justice Committee meeting on Wednesday, the first since Levin publicly supported the bill, Malinovsky said that she and Rothman “understand that it was difficult to gather evidence … and I know that law enforcement and the State Attorney’s Office overturned every stone to find evidence. [Regular] criminal justice proceedings do not have a response for the events of Oct. 7, therefore MK Rothman and I wrote this bill to regulate the jailing and prosecution of the terrorists who participated in the Oct. 7 massacre.” 

Malinovsky said that there is difficulty tying specific terrorists to specific murders, and genocide is a collective crime, by which they can be charged as a group. In cases in which there is no evidence tying a terrorist to genocide, they can be tried in a military court as illegal fighters who committed acts of terror against Israel, a crime that carries a life sentence. 

Much of the bill is focused on clear criteria for genocide charges.

“At first, the Justice Ministry said that genocide charges won’t work,” Rothman recalled earlier this week, “but today, I think they understand that they need to go there.”

The special tribunal is meant to prevent the Oct. 7 trials from getting caught up in the Israeli justice system’s significant backlog.

“It’s a lot of heavy cases that will block up the whole justice system” if the trials are in regular courts, Rothman explained. 

In addition, he said, “I don’t want a situation where a judge is with the Nukhba in the morning and in the afternoon is dealing with an Israel who stole a car. We could end up lowering the standards of defendants’ rights in all of Israel. When we authorized preventing meetings [of terrorists] with lawyers, [judges] used it for all kinds of other cases, just because they can. We’re not going to allow that.”

Rothman said that the question of appointing foreign judges to the tribunal remains open, because it may be too complex. However, he said, “bringing a major jurist from the U.S. or somewhere else can give the trials an international imprimatur.”

Malinovsky said at the committee meeting that the Oct. 7 attacks “are like nothing else in the world, and I invite anyone who has knowledge to speak. We need creative solutions, outside of the box, and therefore we need a change of attitude, especially in the Justice Ministry.” 

Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Jefferson Shreve (R-IN) and Rich McCormick (R-GA) are set to introduce legislation on Monday allowing the U.S. to send seized Iranian weaponry to U.S. allies.

The bill is the House version of the Seized Iranian Arms Transfer Authorization (SEIZE) Act introduced last month in the Senate by Sens. Ted Budd (R-NC) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ).

The SEIZE Act would allow the U.S. to quickly distribute to U.S. partners any weapons or other materiel confiscated by the U.S. in transit from Iran to its Houthi proxies in Yemen, by treating any seized weapons as part of the U.S.’ own stockpiles and authorizing the president to use Washington’s drawdown authority to distribute such weapons to U.S. partners.

Per administration data, the U.S. Navy seized 9,000 rifles, 284 machine guns, 194 rocket launchers, 70 anti-tank missiles and 700,000 rounds of ammunition between May 2021 and January 2023 during operations in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.

Drawdown authorities have been used at various points in recent years to supply U.S. allies including Ukraine and Israel.

“Iran — the world’s largest state-sponsor of terror — continues to arm terror proxies that threaten American troops, our bases, and our allies. The SEIZE Act ensures that when these illegal weapons are intercepted, they help our allies who need them, instead of our adversaries,” Gottheimer said in a statement. “Our bipartisan, bicameral legislation will cut through red tape, strengthen our strategic partnerships, keep Americans safe, and counter Iranian aggression.”

The House Foreign Affairs Committee, during a marathon markup of legislation to reform and reorganize the State Department, resoundingly rejected amendments seeking to condition U.S. aid to Israel on a bipartisan basis.

The committee also engaged in vigorous debate over the U.S. relationship with Turkey and the future of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. The markup began Monday morning and did not end until early Tuesday evening.

By two votes of 45-5, the committee rejected a pair of amendments by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) that would have added new conditions to $1 billion of the $3.3 billion in direct military funding the U.S. provides to Israel each year.

Jayapal and Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Sara Jacobs (D-CA), Jonathan Jackson (D-IL) and Madeline Dean (D-PA) voted in favor of the amendments.

The first of the two amendments would have conditioned aid to Israel on ending settlement expansion and illegal settlements; stopping plans to annex portions of the West Bank; holding accountable individuals involved in settler violence; holding Israeli security forces accountable for “grave human rights violations”; cooperating with U.S.-led investigations into the killings of U.S. citizens in the West Bank and providing compensation to victims; not targeting “educational, religious, agricultural and cultural sites”; allowing humanitarian aid workers and journalists to enter and travel throughout Gaza; and implementing reforms to protect “freedoms of expression, association and peaceful assembly” in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The second amendment was more narrow, maintaining only the conditions relating to violence against U.S. citizens.

Jayapal’s amendments were modeled in part on human rights conditions Congress previously applied to U.S. aid to Egypt — though those conditions could be, and consistently were, waived by the State Department for most of the funds. The Jayapal amendments contained no waiver provision.

The committee voted in favor of an amendment, led by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), that would require the administration to notify Congress of any decision to delay or withhold an arms transfer to Israel, and provide a path for Congress to override such a delay. 

Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and George Latimer (D-NY) voted with most Republicans in favor of the amendment, and Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) voted with most Democrats against it.

An amendment by Castro that would have prohibited any U.S. foreign military funding to be used to purchase weapons outside the United States after 2029 failed by a 25-24 vote. Lawler voted with Democrats in favor of the amendment.

The provision was designed to prevent Israel from using U.S. funding to purchase weapons from its own defense industry under the next memorandum of understanding with the United States. Such domestic procurement funding is being phased out over the course of the current MOU.

The committee also debated a series of measures relating to the strained U.S.-Turkey relationship and Turkish hostility toward Israel, approving two and rejecting a third.

By a 35-13 bipartisan vote, the committee approved an amendment by Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) mandating that the administration consider the impact of any U.S. arms sales to Turkey on Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge, a condition that by law is applied to other Middle East nations.

Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Ronny Jackson (R-TX), Young Kim (R-CA), Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Ryan Zinke (R-MT), Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA), Castro, Jacobs and Jayapal and Dels. Auma Amata Radewagen (R-AS) and James Moylan (R-GU) voted against the amendment.

Another amendment by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) that would have allowed the State Department to reassign Turkey from its European bureau to its Middle East bureau was rejected by a voice vote.

Schneider argued that, given that it is no longer realistic that Turkey will be joining the European Union and that the U.S.’ concerns relating to Turkey increasingly relate to its activity in the Middle East, reassigning it would reflect the country’s current global posture.

Opponents argued that, as a key member of NATO, Turkey must be kept in the Europe bureau to ensure proper NATO coordination. They also warned that reclassifying Turkey would only drive Turkey further from the U.S. and toward its adversaries, and said that Turkey has been an important and reliable ally for decades.

An amendment requiring a report to Congress on Turkey’s purchase and operation of a Russian S-400 missile defense system and on Turkish relationships with Russian intelligence was adopted as part of a bipartisan package of amendments.

Touched off by a Lawler amendment revoking diplomatic privileges and immunity from United Nations Relief and Works Agency personnel, the committee engaged in a vigorous debate about the agency and its future. The amendment passed by a 27-21 vote. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) was the only Democrat who supported it.

Lawler argued that the amendment would help “force the U.N. to gut this agency and eliminate it altogether.”

Democrats, ranging from staunch supporters of Israel to some of its most outspoken critics, cautioned against immediately attempting to shut down the agency.

Even as he acknowledged the longstanding issues with UNRWA and said that the agency needs to be replaced, Schneider argued that the agency should not be disbanded until a viable alternative is ready, warning that terrorist groups could fill the gaps UNRWA’s elimination would leave.

“I share the concern and I want to see UNRWA replaced with something else, but I don’t want it replaced with a vacuum that leaves a population without education, a population without housing and food that is more likely to be radicalized and a continued threat than to create a possibility of a partner for peace,” Schneider said.

He said that “until it can be replaced, you sometimes have to work with very flawed institutions,” a seeming shift in Schneider’s past stances on the issue.

Other Democrats went significantly further, downplaying or dismissing allegations and evidence of widespread links between the agency and Hamas.

“UNRWA is attacked because of what it represents for the Palestinian people, the hope for statehood, the hope to return to lands and homes stolen from ancestors, the hope for a life marked by dignity and equality, but most of all the hope to just be able to survive from day to day,” Jayapal said.

Dean cited a U.N. report that nine UNRWA employees “may have been” involved in the Oct. 7 attacks, and suggested that was the sum total of links between the agency and Hamas.

By a 28-21 vote, with Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL) and Moskowitz voting in the affirmative with Republicans, the committee voted in favor of legislation that would block U.S. funding to United Nations agencies and bodies that restrict Israel’s participation or expel the Jewish state.

By a voice vote, the committee approved an amendment to prohibit U.S. funding to any U.N. agency that provides any upgraded status to the Palestine Liberation Organization or Palestinian Authority, a response to the U.N. General Assembly’s move last year to grant the Palestinians expanded privileges.

An amendment to prohibit U.S. funding to the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice — in part in response to their moves against Israel — was approved by a 31-18 vote, with Reps. Greg Stanton (D-AZ), Lieu, Latimer, Schneider and Cherfilus-McCormick voting in favor.

The committee voted along party lines to prohibit the U.S. from participating in the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The committee approved by voice vote an amendment to prevent Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, from receiving a U.S. visa — a move already implemented under executive order by the Trump administration.

Also by a voice vote, the committee added additional vetting requirements for U.N. agencies receiving U.S. funds — matching the vetting requirements in place for other recipients of U.S. aid.

And by a bipartisan 28-19 vote, it rejected a proposal for the State Department to assess the possibility of relocating the United Nations headquarters out of New York.

Amid scrutiny and public outcry — primarily from progressives — Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) withdrew a provision in the original unamended legislation that would have allowed the secretary of state to revoke passports for any individual they deem to have provided material support for terrorism.

A Jacobs-led amendment that would have required the secretary of state to provide notification and a justification to Congress each time they use discretionary foreign policy authorities to revoke visas — the authority invoked in the attempted deportations of Mahmoud Khalil and other anti-Israel activists — failed by a party-line vote. As did one by Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA) that would have prohibited the revocation of visas based upon individuals’ speech.

The committee voted 32-19, with Reps. Brad Sherman (D-CA), Jim Costa (D-CA), Moskowitz and Jackson voting in favor, to require the State Department to brief Congress on the suspension of former Iran envoy Robert Malley’s security clearance — a set of events that remains shrouded in questions and prompted an as-yet-unresolved FBI investigation.

Malley has been accused of improperly disclosing classified information.

As part of a bipartisan amendment package, the committee approved legislation that would reauthorize the mission and position of the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism and add to statute a responsibility for the special envoy to work to implement the Global Guidelines for Countering Antisemitism adopted under the Biden administration.

The package would also codify the State Department’s use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

The legislation would prohibit the antisemitism envoy from serving in a dual role with other responsibilities in the executive branch, as well as reauthorize the special envoy for Holocaust issues.

A separate bipartisan amendment would direct the State Department to engage with European allies on countering antisemitism in Europe.

The committee passed, along party lines, as part of a package of amendments, a provision repealing a decades-old law that restricted the construction of new diplomatic facilities in Israel and the West Bank.

Other provisions approved as part of bipartisan packages of amendments included reauthorizing the U.S. security coordinator for the Palestinian territories, placing the security coordinator under the authority of the U.S. ambassador to Israel, declaring that Congress considers the Gaza Health Ministry to be an unreliable source of information and allowing the Gulf Cooperation Council to establish a diplomatic mission in Washington.

The committee also approved amendments aimed at preventing Iran from establishing a foothold in the Port of Sudan, protecting U.S. allies from the Houthis and preventing the Houthis from disseminating weapons and dual-use technologies from Yemen into the Horn of Africa.

Additional amendments would create a database of information on Iran’s global trade ties and membership in international organizations, and a centralized repository of all required reports to Congress about Iran.

Lawler was the only Republican who voted with Democrats for a failed amendment to reauthorize the Middle East Regional Cooperation program, which facilitates scientific cooperation between Israel and Arab states. Many of those grants were slashed with the shutdown of the United States Agency for International Development.

Numerous amendments led by Democrats failed along party lines, including ones that would have blocked military sales to any country — potentially including the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — providing weapons to either side of the civil war in Sudan; and requested reports on U.S. funding for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, on the U.S. citizen population in Gaza, on U.S. citizens killed in the West Bank, on the controversial U.S. chip deal with the United Arab Emirates and on whether any U.S.-origin weapons have been used in Sudan.

The committee also blocked, on party lines, an effort to mandate that most U.S. nuclear energy cooperation agreements with foreign countries prohibit domestic enrichment and reprocessing of nuclear material — which could have complicated a long-gestating nuclear energy deal between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

It remains unclear whether this legislative package stands any chance of passing Congress. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee put forward its own, much more limited, State Department reauthorization effort as part of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, but that legislation has stalled on the Senate floor and the committee has shown little interest in taking up such a sweeping overhaul effort.

It’s also not yet guaranteed when the full House will take up these bills.

Democrats on the committee have cried foul about the process that produced the legislative package behind closed doors, from which they said they were largely excluded, despite GOP claims that the legislation is bipartisan.

They also accused Republicans of failing to hold regular oversight hearings with administration officials or markups of individual pieces of legislation as they focused on this larger package.

Members of the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center met with Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Wednesday to discuss federal efforts to counter antisemitism and new legislation promoting school choice.

The meeting came amid a backdrop of concern from inside and outside the administration that negotiations with colleges and universities will prioritize hefty financial settlements rather than lasting reforms on antisemitism.

“We … spent time talking about combating antisemitism at universities, and — while expressing appreciation for the aggressive approach the department has taken — urging them to keep doing things that are going to make for lasting changes, and not things that could get rolled back when another administration comes into office,” Nathan Diament, executive director of public policy for the OU, said.

Diament said that OU is pushing for concrete policy changes at universities including “enforcement of policies protecting the rights of students, more careful scrutiny of faculty hiring and curriculum content.” He said that the issues on some campuses have “abated, but that could easily be reversed.”

Diament said that McMahon was “very much in agreement” with the OU group and conveyed that “that’s [the department’s] goal.”

The group also discussed the implementation of the Educational Choice for Children Act, which creates a national tax credit for donations to scholarship programs that can be used for a range of purposes including religious schooling.

Though the program is being primarily implemented through the Treasury Department, Diament said that the Department of Education has an important role to play and that the administration will need to make some key policy decisions on how it will carry out the program.

He said the OU wants to ensure that state governments, which need to approve scholarship programs on a state-by-state basis under the law, will not seek to limit or condition the eligibility of certain types of scholarship programs for funding.

Diament said that the OU leaders also met with lawmakers including Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) about Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding.

“The good news, so to speak, is that they all agree with the need to increase the funding of NSGP significantly above where it’s currently funded,” Diament said. “They recognize the need of the Jewish community. … On the other hand, it’s a very challenging appropriations environment, but these were very important discussions with key people to try to keep the ball rolling in the direction of funding this program.”

He added that a significant increase in the number of Catholic organizations applying for the grants is expected next year, in light of the Annunciation Church shooting in Minneapolis in August.

Responding to heightened campus antisemitism, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul will sign legislation on Tuesday afternoon that requires all colleges in the state to designate anti-discrimination coordinators to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, her office confirmed to Jewish Insider.

The new bill, which passed the New York State Legislature unanimously in June, was introduced by Assemblywoman Nily Rozic and state Sen. Toby Ann Stavisky, both Democrats from Queens, amid an uptick in antisemitism on college campuses in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

“By placing Title VI coordinators on all college campuses, New York is combating antisemitism and all forms of discrimination head-on,” Hochul, a Democrat, told JI. “No one should fear for their safety while trying to get an education. It’s my top priority to ensure every New York student feels safe at school, and I will continue to take action against campus discrimination and use every tool at my disposal to eliminate hate and bias from our school communities.”

The legislation centralizes colleges’ enforcement of Title VI, which prohibits discrimination in federally funded programs based on race, color and national origin, by mandating a designated Title VI coordinator to address student complaints and directing the New York State Division of Human Rights to develop training to support such efforts.

It was backed by several Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League, UJA-Federation of New York and the American Jewish Committee. 

Ted Deutch, chief executive of the AJC, called the legislation “a significant step in protecting Jewish students across the state.”

“This bipartisan legislation signed by Gov. Hochul will combat the alarming rise of antisemitism and ensure Jewish students’ concerns are heard and taken seriously,” he said in a statement. “By requiring every college and university in the state to have a properly trained Title VI Coordinator, this law is a meaningful tool to make our campuses places where students can learn without fear of discrimination.”

The bill comes as Democrats have faced criticism nationally from Republicans over their approach to countering antisemitism and supporting Israel amid its war in Gaza. It also comes as President Donald Trump has moved to dismantle the Department of Education — an effort that has raised questions among Jewish leaders over the government’s ability to investigate Title VI complaints and to hold schools accountable for incidents of antisemitism.

In anticipation of the bill and amid the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown on campus antisemitism, some schools in the state, including Columbia University, New York University and the State University of New York system, have already announced commitments to hire designated Title VI coordinators.

Hochul, who is facing a potentially competitive reelection campaign as she seeks a second full term, has tackled the issue of rising campus antisemitism during her time in office, meeting with hundreds of college officials last year to address the matter, among other efforts.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), a Republican whose viral questioning of university leaders over their handling of campus antisemitism seized the national spotlight, is mulling a challenge to Hochul in next year’s election.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) introduced legislation on Friday to repeal a decades-old provision in U.S. law relating to the construction of new diplomatic facilities in Israel and the West Bank.

The provision, enacted in 1986 as part of a package designed to improve security for U.S. diplomats and combat terrorism, banned funding from that bill from being used for “site acquisition, development, or construction of any facility in Israel, Jerusalem, or the West Bank except for facilities to serve as a chancery or residence within five miles of the Israeli Knesset building and within the boundaries of Israel as they existed before June 1, 1967.”

The language was intended to force the relocation of the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, according to a report at the time. The Reagan administration opposed the move, resisting efforts to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital ahead of a negotiated agreement between Israelis and Palestinians about Jerusalem’s final status.

Congress later passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act in 1995, mandating the relocation of the embassy and recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, though it was waived by successive presidents until President Donald Trump made the move in 2017. Republicans repeatedly accused President Joe Biden of seeking to undo that move or reopen the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem that primarily served Palestinians.

Lawler’s bill, the Keeping Official Territories Eligible for Land-use (KOTEL) Act, named for the Jewish holy site, would repeal the language from the 1986 bill.

“Israel is one of America’s closest allies, and this 40-year-old inactive prohibition serves no purpose. The KOTEL Act removes these outdated restrictions so we can continue to ensure the bond between the U.S. and Israel remains ironclad,” Lawler said in a statement.

It’s not clear how much impact Lawler’s initiative would have on current efforts to acquire or build new diplomatic facilities — the funding to which the 1986 provision applies has expired. But it could head off future attempts to challenge such construction.

Lawler plans to introduce the bill for consideration as part of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s upcoming, wide-ranging State Department reauthorization effort.

Good Wednesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to college students about the Trump administration’s efforts to reach settlements with schools over their handling of antisemitism on campus, and have the scoop on new legislation, introduced by Reps. Virginia Foxx and Josh Gottheimer, that would restrict federal funding to universities that engage in boycotts of Israel. We also report on the death of Blackstone executive and Jewish communal lay leader Wesley LePatner, who was killed in Monday’s shooting at the company’s headquarters, and look at stalled congressional efforts to address antisemitism. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Leonardo DiCaprio, Michel Issa, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Penny Pritzker.

What We’re Watching

• The Senate is expected to vote today on two resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) on blocking arms sales to Israel. More below.
• House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is slated to meet with Democrats in Texas today amid a broader debate over mid-decade redistricting, following President Donald Trump’s call for the Lone Star State to redraw the state’s congressional districts to give Republicans up to five additional seats.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MARC ROD

It’s been two months since the Capital Jewish Museum shooting in Washington and the Boulder, Colo., firebombing attack.

The two attacks prompted unified condemnation from lawmakers and calls from the Jewish community for Capitol Hill to take aggressive action against the escalating antisemitism crisis in the United States. 

But as Congress heads into its August break, that initial momentum has produced little concrete action.

The House and Senate have passed resolutions condemning the attacks, but key legislation related to antisemitism remains stalled, even as lawmakers individually and in groups continue to press for action.

There are still no clear prospects for passage of the Antisemitism Awareness Act, a key element of congressional efforts to address antisemitism, after a contentious Senate committee hearing in April in which Democrats, joined by Republicans including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), voted to add amendments that most Republicans supporting the bill view as nonstarters. House leaders have made no public moves to advance the legislation.

And despite calls from Jewish groups for significant increases in nonprofit security funding to as much as $1 billion next year and a push from a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers for $500 million, the funding levels under consideration in the House are little different from those discussed in prior years.

Read more from JI senior congressional correspondent Marc Rod here.

MORE THAN MONEY

Pro-Israel students: University reforms must go beyond cash payments

When hundreds of pro-Israel college students from around the country gathered in Washington earlier this week for the Israel on Campus Coalition’s three-day annual national leadership summit, the rise of antisemitism on campuses sparked by the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks nearly two years ago was still a topic of conversation throughout panels and hallways. This year, however, some students, in conversations with Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen, also said that antisemitism is lessening — though they offered mixed views about what is leading to the improved campus climate. 

Students’ perspectives: Some attributed it to the Trump administration’s ongoing pressure campaign on universities to crack down on antisemitic behavior, which has included federal funding cuts from dozens of schools. Others said their campuses started to take a serious approach to antisemitism, before President Donald Trump was reelected, in the fall semester following the wave of anti-Israel encampments from the previous spring. But many student leaders from universities that have been targeted by the Trump administration — facing billions of dollars in slashed funds — said that if their school enters into negotiations to restore the money, they would like a deal to include structural reforms, unlike the one made last week between the federal government and Columbia University. 

Read the full story here.

Suit settled: The University of California, Los Angeles settled a federal lawsuit this week with Jewish students who alleged that the university permitted antisemitic conduct during the spring 2024 anti-Israel encampments on the campus, according to a settlement agreement shared by the university on Tuesday, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

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EXCLUSIVE

Foxx, Gottheimer aim to restrict federal funding to colleges that boycott Israel

Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) introduced legislation on Tuesday that would make colleges that engage in a “nonexpressive commercial boycott” of Israel ineligible to receive federal student aid funding, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.

About the bill: The legislation, the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, would require schools to certify annually that they are not engaged in such boycotts, and would instruct the Department of Education to annually publish a list of schools that fail to submit such certification. The legislation would apply both to boycotts of Israel as a country or companies and other entities operating under Israeli law. 

Read the full story here.

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ELEVATING THE ISSUE

Senate Democrats call out humanitarian crisis in Gaza, say GHF failed

A group of 40 Senate Democrats, nearly all of the caucus, wrote to administration officials on Tuesday raising concerns about the humanitarian situation in Gaza and calling for a significant expansion of aid, describing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation as a failure, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What they said: The letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, led by Sens. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV), highlights the extent of the concern even among Democratic leaders and pro-Israel stalwarts. The lawmakers called for aid to be significantly expanded through “experienced multilateral bodies and NGOs.” A group of 21 progressive Democrats went further earlier this week, calling for the U.S. to stop all funding for the GHF.

Read the full story here.

Déjà vu: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) introduced a joint resolution of disapproval on Monday to block an arms transfer to Israel, setting up a Senate floor battle on Wednesday over U.S. aid to Israel — the third since November of last year, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

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through thick in thin

Rep. Ritchie Torres offers muscular defense of Israel amid flurry of Dem criticism

In comments to a supportive crowd of pro-Israel college students in Washington, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said Tuesday that the world needs to be reminded that “Hamas is the central cause of the war in Gaza,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.  

What he said: “We have to remind the world that despite the amnesia, Hamas is the central cause of [Israel’s] war in Gaza. The primary responsibility for a war lies with its cause … Hamas is morally responsible, principally responsible for the war in Gaza,” Torres, a pro-Israel Democratic stalwart in Congress, told about 700 attendees gathered in Washington for the Israel on Campus Coalition’s three-day annual national leadership summit.

Read the full story here.

More from Torres: Torres warned, in an interview with The Bulwark on Tuesday, that the war in Gaza appears to be turning into a “quagmire” akin to the Iraq war, without clear objectives or any realistic end point, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

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IN MEMORIAM

Jewish philanthropist Wesley LePatner killed in Manhattan shooting

Wesley LePatner, a Blackstone executive who was involved with Jewish communal organizations in New York City, was killed in the Monday shooting at the firm’s Midtown headquarters, the company confirmed on Tuesday, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. LePatner was the global head of Core+ Real Estate at Blackstone and CEO of Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, according to Blackstone’s website. A Yale graduate, she joined the company in 2014 after more than a decade at Goldman Sachs. She served on the board of trustees at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School, a pluralistic Jewish day school in New York, and she joined the board of directors at UJA-Federation of New York earlier this month.

Legacy: “Wesley was extraordinary in every way — personally, professionally, and philanthropically,” the federation said in a statement. “In the wake of Oct. 7, Wesley led a solidarity mission with UJA to Israel, demonstrating her enduring commitment in Israel’s moment of heartache. She lived with courage and conviction, instilling in her two children a deep love for Judaism and the Jewish people.”

Read the full story here.

More from Blackstone: The company’s president, Jonathan Gray, said that LePatner was well-liked at the firm, where she “just instilled such a sense of confidence in her” and “wanted other people to win.” 

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AMBASSADORIAL ASSESSMENT

Lebanon ambassador nominee: There is a ‘narrow but meaningful window for progress’

Michel Issa, the Lebanese-American businessman nominated by the Trump administration to serve as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, said Tuesday that the Lebanese government and armed forces must act swiftly and decisively to disarm Hezbollah and remove its influence across Lebanese society, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Looking ahead: Issa argued at his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing that the war between Israel and Hezbollah, “while devastating, has opened a narrow but meaningful window for progress,” in combination with the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire deal, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and recent blows to Iran’s military and nuclear program.  

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

Bibi’s Bind: The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg considers the challenge facing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he attempts to prosecute the war in Gaza and keep his government — which includes far-right members with a different vision for the enclave — from collapsing. “Every step he authorized had to be dual use: ostensibly for a strategic purpose but also capable of potentially advancing the far right’s plan. In practice, pursuing these two goals at the same time is incompatible with a just and successfully prosecuted war: It is impossible to provide aid and also withhold it, to pursue a limited war against Hamas to free hostages and also a war of conquest. The longer the conflict has gone on, the more obvious the compromised nature of Netanyahu’s decision making has become.” [TheAtlantic]

Keir’s Veer: The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board critiques British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s declaration that the U.K. will recognize a Palestinian state unless Israel meets certain conditions before September. “Framing recognition as a threat to Israel — unless it does x, y and z — lays bare the move’s punitive nature. At least this means we can dispense with the usual pabulum that planting a hostile state in the heart of Israel is a gift for which Israelis would be grateful if only they could see their true interests as clearly as they appear from Paris and London. It is also striking to demand that Israel accept a cease-fire when it has done so over and over, only for Hamas to torpedo talks. That was the Biden team’s conclusion and now the Trump team’s as well. When Israel made difficult concessions last week, Hamas reneged on what it had agreed to previously. The U.K. now gives Hamas a reason to reject future cease-fires; if the terrorists hold out, Mr. Starmer will give them a reward.” [WSJ]

Word on the Street

The New York Times published an editor’s note regarding a story about malnutrition in Gaza that failed to note that one of the children featured in the article — whose pictures went viral — suffered from preexisting health conditions affecting his brain and his muscle development…

In a thread on X laying out his positions on the war in Gaza, Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) argued that “Qatar should take into custody every Hamas leader in Qatar until every hostage is released and the war is over”…

The Times of Israel published a document signed at this week’s U.N. conference on a two-state solution by 17 countries, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, calling for Hamas to disarm and end its rule over the Gaza Strip…

President Donald Trump said that the U.S. would partner with Israel on “a new aid plan” to open new food distribution sites in the Gaza Strip…

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly discussed mounting a gubernatorial run in Tennessee next year, when Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, will be term-limited…

New guidance released this week by the Office of Personnel Management expressed support for religious expression, including proselytization, in federal workplaces…

A new poll from Gallup found record-low U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza since it first polled on the issue in November 2023; 60% of Americans surveyed earlier this month disapprove of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, up from 45% in November 2023…

The Wall Street Journal looks at Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker’s push to bring quantum computing technology to Chicago…

Italian authorities are investigating as a hate crime an attack on a French Jewish man and his young son that occurred at a rest stop north of Milan; according to video of the incident, the man was assaulted after several individuals, including a cashier at the rest stop, shouted “Free Palestine” at him and his child…

Jewish leaders at the University of Edinburgh are urging the school not to drop its support for the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, following a report that the school is reconsidering its prior adoption of the definition…

The European Commission proposed barring Israeli participation in the Horizon Europe research program over the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip…

The Tel Aviv District Planning and Building Committee approved construction plans for a new luxury hotel in Herzliya being built by the Hagag Group in partnership with actor Leonardo DiCaprio…

Israeli media reports that the country’s ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, Yossi Shelley, will soon be sent back to Jerusalem following a months-old incident at an Abu Dhabi bar in which Shelley acted in an “undignified” manner; the Prime Minister’s Office denied both the report and that Shelley is being removed from the posting…

Israeli actor Alon Aboutboul, who appeared in such films as “The Dark Knight Rises” and “Munich,” died at 60…

Crown Heights, N.Y., community member Ben “Ziggy” Faulding died at 41…

Pic of the Day

Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA), addressing attendees on Tuesday at the Israel on Campus Coalition’s three-day annual national leadership summit in Washington, said that Israel’s response to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks “changed the landscape in ways that could be for the good” and lead to the “possibility of a secure region,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports from the conference. 

Birthdays

Commissioner emeritus of Major League Baseball, his 2019 memoir is For the Good of the Game, Allan Huber “Bud” Selig turns 91…

Retired attorney from the firm of Hatton, Petrie & Stackler in Aliso Viejo, Calif., Ronald E. Stackler turns 88… Longtime owner and editor-in-chief of The New Republic, he was chairman of the Jerusalem Foundation for 12 years, Martin H. “Marty” Peretz turns 86… The first woman justice on the Nebraska Supreme Court, as a teen she won two gold medals and a silver medal as a swimmer at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, Justice Lindsey Miller-Lerman turns 78… Actor, director and producer, Ken Olin turns 71… Philanthropist and investor, of Uzbek Bukhari background, known as the “King of Diamonds,” Lev Leviev turns 69… Former mayor of Arad, Israel, and then a member of the Knesset for the Kulanu and Likud parties, Tali Ploskov turns 63… President of C&M Transcontinental, he served as COO for the first two Trump campaigns, Michael S. Glassner turns 62… Emmy Award-winning actress, comedian and producer, Lisa Kudrow turns 62… Head coach of men’s tennis and director of tennis operations at Columbia University, Howard Endelman turns 60… Best-selling nonfiction author, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone magazines, he is a co-creator of the HBO series “Vinyl,” Rich Cohen turns 57… District director for Rep. Jerrold L. Nadler (D-NY), Robert M. Gottheim turns 54… Assistant attorney general for antitrust at the Department of Justice during most of the Biden administration, Jonathan Seth Kanter turns 52… Motivational speaker, author and entrepreneur, he served as a law clerk in 2008 for Justices O’Connor and Ginsburg, the first blind person to clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court, Isaac Lidsky turns 46… President of MSNBC since February, Rebecca M. Kutler… Member of the Knesset for the Otzma Yehudit party, Limor Son Har-Melech turns 46… Senior producer at Vox and host and producer of the podcast of the Association for Jewish Studies, Avishay Artsy… President and founder in 2014 of Dallas-based ECA Strategies, Eric Chaim Axel… Team supervisor at Pittsburgh Mercy Health System, Lewis Sohinki… Author of Jerusalem Drawn and Quartered: One Woman’s Year in the Heart of the Christian, Muslim, Armenian and Jewish Quarters of Old Jerusalem, Sarah Tuttle-Singer turns 44… Former director of policy and public affairs for the Jewish Community of Denmark, now in the renewable energy and offshore wind industry, Jonas Herzberg Karpantschof… Attorney and member of the Los Angeles County GOP Central Committee for Assembly District 42, which includes Pacific Palisades, Elizabeth Barcohana turns 42… Head of digital operations at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel until this past April, Tamar Schwarzbard… Managing principal of West Egg Development, Samuel Ezra Eshaghoff turns 33… Director of business development at Israel’s economic mission to the South and Midwest U.S., Joshua Weintraub… Winner of the Miss Israel pageant in 2014, now a businesswoman, Mor Maman turns 30… Actress, as a 10-year-old she starred as Ramona Quimby in the comedy film “Ramona and Beezus,” Joey Lynn King turns 26…

It’s been two months since the Capital Jewish Museum shooting in Washington and the Boulder, Colo. firebombing attack.

The two attacks prompted unified condemnation from lawmakers and calls from the Jewish community for Capitol Hill to take aggressive action against the escalating antisemitism crisis in the United States. But as Congress heads into its August break, that initial momentum has produced little concrete action.

The House and Senate have passed resolutions condemning the attacks, but key legislation related to antisemitism remains stalled, even as lawmakers individually and in groups continue to press for action.

There are still no clear prospects for passage of the Antisemitism Awareness Act, a key element of congressional efforts to address antisemitism, after a contentious Senate committee meeting in April in which Democrats, joined by Republicans including Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), voted to add amendments that most Republicans supporting the bill view as nonstarters. House leaders have made no public moves to advance the legislation.

And despite calls from Jewish groups for significant increases in nonprofit security funding to as much as $1 billion next year and a push from a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers for $500 million, the funding levels under consideration in the House are so far little different from those discussed in prior years.

One Republican senator working on the Antisemitism Awareness Act told Jewish Insider they have not seen much movement among colleagues who have continued concerns about the legislation, in conversations with those colleagues and the White House.

The senator said they are frustrated by unresolved disputes about the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism on the Republican side of the aisle, noting as well that there are steps the administration can take independently.

Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said at a press conference last week that “there needs to be, for sure” more focus from Congress on tackling antisemitism. A key part of that, he said, will be sidelining extreme voices.

“I think too often extremes on both ends kind of warp the conversation and insist that the definition of antisemitism somehow needs to include things like the false charge of ‘the Jews murdered Jesus,’ or the claim that anti-Zionism is never antisemitism,” Greenblatt said, alluding to the objections from both sides of the aisle to the Antisemitism Awareness Act. 

“All the Jews didn’t murder Jesus, and anti-Zionism is antisemitism. I think I’d like to see the extremes marginalized so the vast majority of members of Congress on both sides can get the stuff done that needs to happen once and for all,” he continued.

Several sources familiar with the situation said that the bill is “stuck,” for the moment. Senate Republicans could attempt to bring the bill to the floor and utilize procedural means to eliminate the poison-pill amendments added to the bill in the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee, but that would require Democratic support and could rehash the same ugly debates seen in the HELP committee.

It could also be added to a must-pass legislative package — but that same plan failed last year.

A source who has advocated for the legislation said that the recently passed budget reconciliation package sapped attention for antisemitism legislation in recent months, but argued that passing the Antisemitism Awareness Act is critical because there are no realistic alternative proposals for tackling antisemitism on Congress’s agenda at this point. 

The Senate has also been focused on confirming presidential appointees.

The source said that advocates for the bill need to find strategies to work around the obstacles to the legislation, “and that has not been easy,” but insisted that they and others are not giving up on the bill.

“There just hasn’t been a lot of legislation [moving] in general,” Nathan Diament, the executive director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, said — arguing that the slow progress is not unique to the Antisemitism Awareness Act or antisemitism generally.

Sen. Jacky Rosen’s (D-NV) office told JI that she is continuing to advocate for the Antisemitism Awareness Act, and is also looking at potential other legislation that could move forward on antisemitism. Rosen, the co-chair of the Senate antisemitism task force, is the lead Democratic sponsor of the Antisemitism Awareness Act.

Senate Republicans had vowed, coming into the majority, to pass the bill.

“Republican control of the Senate means that this institution will no longer turn a blind eye to the growing threat of antisemitism in our country or the numerous threats that our ally Israel faces on all sides,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told JI after Republicans won the Senate majority. “We will empower committees to advance legislation addressing antisemitism and protecting students on campuses, and we will increase oversight into Iran’s malign actions.”

On the House side, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) told JI last week that “we’re working on” the Antisemitism Awareness Act. Pressed on whether Congress is moving strongly enough to respond to antisemitic violence, Lawler said, “It continues to be a strong focus of mine and many of my colleagues, and we’re working through the legislation.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) did not respond to a request for comment.

Observers believe the House, which passed the bill last year only for it to fail to move forward in the Senate, is waiting on the Senate to move first this year and prove that it can pass the bill.

Another source argued that, given the action the administration has taken to address antisemitism on college campuses, the Antisemitism Awareness Act is “less necessary” in the near term.

On NSGP funding, the House Appropriations Committee approved a bill that would allocate $335 million for the program in 2026 — the same funding level that the House backed for the program in 2025, though final funding levels ultimately fell short of that mark.

The Senate Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, has yet to finalize its homeland security funding bill. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), the ranking member of the subcommittee responsible for such funding, told JI last week that lawmakers are “still negotiating” it.

Congress will have just a month to finalize government funding or pass a stopgap bill when it returns from August recess.

A Republican senator working on the issue said they’ve been focusing on ensuring that outstanding NSGP funding for this year is disbursed from the administration before turning to the appropriations process for next year.

“First things first on it, let’s get the grant money out so people can actually create a more secure environment where they’re physically located,” the senator said. The administration opened applications for the 2025 grant program on Monday, but some supplemental funding remains to be allocated.

Diament said that Congress is in the “fourth or fifth inning out of nine” on government funding, and that the process will likely play out mostly in September or October. He also argued that, given the “tight fiscal environment,” particularly for homeland security funding, the fact that advocates were able to secure a $30 million increase in NSGP funding from the initial proposed level of $305 million, on a bipartisan basis in the House Appropriations Committee is very “valuable in the process going forward.”

In “the later innings of the process, it laid very good groundwork” for further bipartisan movement to increase funding as the process proceeds, Diament continued. “We made sure to work it on a bipartisan basis and we’re moving in the right direction.”

“Given everything else on the legislative calendar and where we are on the legislative calendar, I don’t feel like we’re behind,” he continued.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), a co-chair of the House antisemitism task force, asked about congressional action on antisemitism last week, said that “there’s a place for legislation” but argued that other steps are also needed to make antisemitism unacceptable in public discourse.

“In the end, Americans have to speak out on this,” Bacon said at a press conference on legislation aiming to tackle support for terrorism on social media. “We have to make it like it’s embarrassing to be standing on that side saying those things. So we got to speak up. And you can’t legislate that.”

Several Democrats said last week that more needs to be done legislatively to tackle antisemitism.

“We’ve had an unlimited amount of hearings, and the speaker has now come out with a security plan [for members] for the summer, and a lot of that, obviously, is tied to the amount of hate and threats that we are getting, but we still haven’t passed the Antisemitism Awareness Act,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) said. “No, we’re not doing enough to combat antisemitism and other forms right now of hate and demagoguery that’s going on.”

“The language and the culture, it’s just completely toxic,” Moskowitz continued, adding that Congress is “also not doing enough on the security grants. … They gave ICE $140 billion. We’re trying to get more money for security when the community is in grave danger, and these threats are out of control, at all-time levels.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said that “there can never be too much focus on antisemitism, and I see, frankly, too little right now, in light of events that are unfolding around the country.”

“I wish there were more focus on bias and bigotry of all forms, because it is growing, and so is violent extremism and the confluence of the two make for a very dangerous recipe for potential disaster,” Blumenthal continued.

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), a co-chair of the House Jewish Caucus, said that “it’s not business as usual” on antisemitism, and that lawmakers are “working on it and we’re trying to take constructive steps.”

But he added that “we have to do more. We’re seeing antisemitism rising all across the country, being normalized in ways that should never be normalized” on both sides of the political spectrum. 

Schneider said that “it is critical that everybody, Democrats, Republicans, House, Senate, stand together, stand united against anti semitism and not what about ism in here, we need to stand against hate. But antisemitism is rising at a rate that should give everyone concern.”

He primarily blamed Republicans for the lack of progress on legislation like the Antisemitism Awareness Act.

Jewish Insider’s congressional correspondent Emily Jacobs contributed reporting.

Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) introduced legislation on Tuesday that would make colleges that engage in a “nonexpressive commercial boycott” of Israel ineligible to receive federal student aid funding.

The legislation, the Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, would require schools to certify annually that they are not engaged in such boycotts, and would instruct the Department of Education to annually publish a list of schools that fail to submit such certification.

The legislation would apply both to boycotts of Israel as a country or companies and other entities operating under Israeli law. 

Schools would be required to certify to the Department of Education that they allow students to participate in programs including conferences, study abroad, research and collaborative activities in Israel under the same terms as such programs in other countries, and to allow Israeli students to participate in programs on their campuses as applicable.

The bill defines a “nonexpressive commercial boycott” as “commercial action (including engaging in refusals to deal and terminating business activities) … intended to limit commercial relations with a major strategic partner” and “not based on a valid business reason.” 

“The antisemitic rot that has corroded college campuses must be eradicated — enough is enough. The safety and security of Jewish students, faculty, and staff should never be threatened under any circumstances,” Foxx said in a statement. “If an institution of higher education chooses to capitulate to the caustic BDS movement, there will be consequences — starting with this bipartisan legislation.”

Gottheimer said in a statement that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement seeks to destroy Israel and that it has no place on college campuses or in the United States.

“At a time when our Jewish students are facing death threats, being physically assaulted, and blocked from going to class simply for who they are, we must do everything possible to ensure they can learn safely, speak freely, and get the education they deserve,” Gottheimer continued. 

“That’s why I’m proud to help introduce the bipartisan Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act to give the Department of Education a critical new tool to combat the dangerous, hate-fueled, antisemitic BDS movement on college campuses,” he said. “We cannot allow antisemitism to run rampant and endanger Jewish students, staff, and faculty. Now more than ever, we must stand up and protect our Jewish community.”

The legislation also includes language stating that, “limitations on cooperative efforts by institutions of higher education, consortia of such institutions, or partnerships between non-profit educational organizations and institutions of higher education with [Israel] do not serve the security, stability, and economic vitality of the United States.’’

Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) will introduce legislation on Thursday requiring the National Education Association to expand its federal charter to prohibit the nation’s largest teachers’ union from “engaging in electoral politics or lobbying” in response to the group’s proposal to cut ties with the Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Insider has learned. 

Lummis began working on the STUDENT Act in response to the NEA’s representative assembly, the union’s governing body, voting earlier this month at an annual leadership conference to adopt a measure barring teachers from using, endorsing or publicizing any materials from the ADL. The NEA’s board of directors announced on Friday it would not implement the contentious resolution after determining that it “would not further NEA’s commitment to academic freedom, our membership or our goals.”

In addition to the moratorium on involvement in political causes, the bill would add language to the NEA charter banning the “promotion of antisemitic beliefs, including harmful stereotypes about Jewish people, Holocaust denial or minimization, and hatred based on Jewish identity or connection to Israel,” according to a readout from Lummis’ office. It would also bar the organization from “promoting or requiring adherence to critical race theory concepts,” eliminate the union’s tax-exempt status in Washington, prevent them from “calling strikes or work stoppages” and require “all NEA officers to be U.S. citizens.”

Lummis said in a statement on the bill that the NEA had “exploited its federal charter to advance a radical political agenda that puts ideology before education.”

“Federal charters should be reserved for organizations that serve patriotic, charitable, historical, or educational purposes — not for unions that push divisive and antisemitic ideologies,” Lumis said.

Lummis told JI she found the NEA’s original decision on the ADL “to be completely ridiculous and misguided.”

“The fact that such a resolution passed the representative assembly — made up of thousands of NEA members — was reason enough for me to be concerned. Our educational institutions should be strengthening their partnerships with organizations committed to protecting Jewish Americans and combating hatred, not severing these important ties,” Lummis explained, referencing the more than 6,000 union delegates who took part in the three voice votes that were ultimately called in favor of the measure. 

The Wyoming senator said the developments prompted her “to examine the NEA’s charter more closely, which revealed how significantly the organization has deviated from its original mission and misused its federally granted charter privileges.”

“It’s evident that the NEA lacks the leadership and vision necessary for self-correction, which is why I’m proposing this legislation. We cannot allow the NEA and other federally chartered organizations to slide toward antisemitic positions,” she told JI. 

Sens. Jim Risch (R-ID), Pete Ricketts (R-NE), Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Tim Sheehy (R-MT) cosponsored the bill. Rep. Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI) is working on companion legislation on the House side.

“The NEA long ago transformed from an educational association into a political machine, pushing a progressive agenda that puts activists ahead of students’ needs. The STUDENT Act reins in NEA’s federal charter, restores accountability, and demands a return to its original purpose: educating, not indoctrinating, American children,” Fitzgerald said in a statement.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted on Tuesday to advance legislation that aims to expedite arms sales to U.S. partners that are members of the Abraham Accords, as well as bills to review the U.S.-South Africa relationship and to combat the proliferation of Western-made parts in Iranian drones.

The arms sales bill comes as part of a broader push by House Republicans to speed up military transfers to U.S. allies. It would cut the congressional review period for sales to Abraham Accords partners that work with the U.S. on countering Iran and its proxies from 30 days to 15, in line with the review period for key U.S. defense partners including NATO members.

The bill, led by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), advanced by a 31-19 vote, with Republican Reps. Scott Perry (R-PA), Tim Burchett (R-TN) and Warren Davidson (R-OH) voting against the bill and Democratic Reps. Ted Lieu (D-CA), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), Greg Stanton (D-AZ), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Jim Costa (D-CA), George Latimer (D-NY) and Brad Schneider (D-IL) supporting it.

Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL), the committee chairman, argued that arms sales to the countries in question, which comprise a significant portion of U.S. military sales globally, suffer from “egregious delays,” prompting U.S. partners to consider buying from other countries, despite the U.S.’ interests in supporting its partners and ensuring their systems are compatible with those of the United States.

“There is a clear recognition that it’s simply not enough for our equipment to be the best,” Mast said. “Those procuring U.S.-origin weapons must also have the confidence that our equipment will be delivered on time in a transparent manner. Streamlining the foreign military sales process is critical if the U.S. is to remain the partner of choice, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa.”

Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the committee, and other Democrats argued that the legislation would create “quid pro quo arrangements or enticements” for countries to join the Abraham Accords and would overlook human rights issues and other malign behavior by some Middle East partners, as well as diminish the role of Congress in the arms sales process.

“I don’t believe it is appropriate to equate long-standing allies like the U.K., like France or Canada, all countries with which the United States has detailed comprehensive defensive agreements, to countries who have thus far had inconsistent and checkered records regarding the use of U.S. weapons and conflicts and protections of sensitive defensive technologies,” Meeks said. “We do provide an expedited timeline to our closest allies because of the presumption of approval. I can’t say that we have a presumption of approval, in this case.”

He also described the legislation as an extension of the Trump administration’s business deals with Middle East nations.

By voice votes, the committee approved two amendments by Schneider, one of which would set a 20-year sunset for the bill. The other makes reference to the U.S.’ goal of expanding the Abraham Accords.

The South Africa legislation would require a review of the bilateral relationship between Washington and Pretoria, given South Africa’s deepening ties with authoritarian U.S. adversaries and its genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. It would require the administration to assess whether to impose sanctions on South African officials for corruption or human rights abuses.

The bill advanced by a 34-16 vote, with Democratic Reps. Brad Sherman (D-CA), Bill Keating (D-MA) and Johnny Olszewski (D-MD) joining Lieu, Moskowitz, Costa, Latimer and all Republicans in supporting it. It advanced through the committee by a similar vote in the previous Congress.

Mast argued that, given South Africa’s increasing alignment with authoritarian regimes and its posture since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, the U.S. needs to “reset the expectations” it has in its relationship with South Africa, but “not sever ties.”

“This bill is not anti-South Africa, it is pro-accountability. For too long, we’ve watched a key partner drift closer to authoritarian regimes,” Mast said, adding that South Africa’s “actions raise serious questions about the ANC’s alignment with the democratic values and U.S. interests.”

Other Republicans, including the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), said that “South Africa has abandoned America and our allies and increasingly aligned itself with our adversaries,” and is working to undermine U.S. interests and partners, particularly Israel.

Meeks argued that the bill would set the U.S. and South Africa, which are longtime partners, on the wrong path, and that the U.S. should prioritize “diplomacy and dialogue” to address concerns, rather than punitive action.

“I do not believe Congress should further enable or double down on President [Donald] Trump’s misguided approach when we disagree with our partners, including on the continent of Africa. We should handle that responsibly by using diplomacy and presenting convincing arguments,” Meeks said. “Unfortunately, this bill fails to do that, so I strongly oppose this legislation and urge all of us to look for future opportunities to steer United States-South Africa relations in a more productive direction.”

Other Democrats said that the bill would undermine U.S. interests on the African continent and globally.

The committee rejected, along party lines, a series of amendments introduced by Democrats focused on issues including refugee resettlement, refuting claims of white genocide and persecution of white farmers in South Africa, the history of aparthied in South Africa and the results of U.S. AIDS prevention funding to South Africa.

Republicans largely dismissed those amendments as unnecessary or attacks on Trump and his administration’s policies.

An amendment specifying that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was “illegal” — language included in last year’s version of the bill — was approved by a 48-2 vote, with only Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) and Davidson voting no.
The Iranian drone bill, which requires the administration to develop a strategy to prevent Iran from obtaining sensitive American and other Western-made technologies for use in Iran’s attack drones, passed the committee unanimously.

The House Financial Services Committee is set to consider legislation by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) this week that aims to create oversight and set conditions for lifting sanctions on Syria, but stops short of full repeal of the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act sanctions bill that other lawmakers are pushing on a bipartisan basis.

That the House is moving forward with Lawler’s legislation, which sets conditions for waiving Caesar Act sanctions, rather than the bipartisan Caesar Act repeal effort may indicate a level of continued skepticism from some House members about the prospect of full sanctions relief for the new Syrian government that has been pushed by the Trump administration.

“This bill modernizes the existing sanctions regime on Syria, requires assessments on existing sanctions relief provisions, and sets out goals for the Syrian government to meet anti-money laundering and anti-corruption standards,” Lawler said in a statement. “As the Trump Administration is already reviewing sanctions policy, we must ensure they have the tools to do so that reflect the current security environment.” 

“The al-Sharaa Administration certainly has a lot of work to do to reintegrate Syria with the U.S. and our allies. While this job should be difficult given the circumstances, it shouldn’t be impossible,” Lawler continued.

The Lawler bill would amend the Caesar Act to allow the president to waive the sanctions as long as the Syrian government meets a number of conditions, including that it not bomb its civilian population; allow humanitarian aid, medical access and freedom of travel; releases political prisoners detained by the Assad regime and allows international human rights groups to inspect prison facilities; does not target medical facilities, schools, residential areas, markets and community gatherings; combats production and proliferation of the illicit drug Captagon; and does not target or detain religious minorities.

The legislation also extends the waiver period for the sanctions from 180 days to two years. I would sunset the Caesar Act entirely when the administration verifies that Syria has been in compliance with those conditions for two years or at the end of 2029, whichever comes sooner.

Another section of the legislation instructs the administration to brief Congress on regulatory and enforcement relief provided to the Central Bank of Syria through the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, allowing the bank to re-integrate with the global financial system. 

It also asks the administration to assess whether the Export-Import Bank should be allowed to support exports to Syria; it is currently banned from doing so.

In addition, it instructs the administration to work to support policies to combat money laundering, weapons proliferation and corruption, as well as support financial connectivity and economic growth in Syria at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

A bipartisan House bill set to be introduced on Tuesday aims to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, a step forward for an effort that saw renewed interest following the terrorist attack in Boulder, Colo., targeting Jews advocating for the release of hostages in Gaza by a man who appeared to have expressed support for the group years earlier.

Similar efforts have been pursued at multiple points in the past, but the latest legislation has been updated significantly and focuses on the various branches of the Muslim Brotherhood responsible for terrorism.

The bill, led by Reps. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), notes that Hamas is a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate that has long been designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. and that receives material support from the Muslim Brotherhood. It also highlights the destabilization efforts by other Muslim Brotherhood branches in various Arab partner countries of the U.S.

The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Randy Fine (R-FL), Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN), John Rutherford (R-FL), Andy Barr (R-KY) and Mike Bost (R-IL).

“Today, I once again introduced legislation to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a foreign terrorist organization,” Díaz-Balart said in a statement. “The global Muslim Brotherhood has numerous regional branches, including terrorist organizations such as Hamas, and spreads violence and instability throughout the Middle East. For this reason, it is crucial to U.S. national security interests that we prohibit U.S. dollars from enabling the Muslim Brotherhood’s dangerous activities, and that we ensure Muslim Brotherhood members are blocked from entering the United States.”

“This important legislation gives the Trump Administration the additional authority it needs to protect Americans, and our closest allies, from this insidious threat,” he continued.

Moskowitz said in a statement, “The Muslim Brotherhood has a documented history of promoting terrorism against the United States, our allies, and our society.” 

“Countries such as Bahrain, Egypt, Austria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and France have already taken important steps to investigate and crack down on the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. The U.S. government has to have the authority to crack down on the serious threats posed by this group as well,” Moskowitz continued. “That’s why I’m joining Rep. Diaz-Balart and Sen. Cruz to introduce the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act. This bill builds on my call for an investigation into designating the Muslim Brotherhood a Foreign Terrorist Organization, and it ensures we are taking crucial steps to protect our national security.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced companion legislation in the Senate on Monday.

The legislation instructs the secretary of state to identify all branches of the Muslim Brotherhood operating globally and provide a determination of whether each of those branches meets the requirements for designation as a foreign terrorist organization.

The legislation would use those determinations to designate the global Muslim Brotherhood organization as a terrorist group, in light of its support for those branches.

The bill also pursues three methods of designating the group as a foreign terrorist organization: by revising the Anti-Terrorism Act, which was initially targeted at the Palestine Liberation Organization, to include the Muslim Brotherhood, by seeking State Department designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and seeking Treasury Department designation as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group.

The three designations grant the federal government various sanctions authorities and bar Americans from supporting the groups. The bill would also make Muslim Brotherhood members ineligible for entry into the United States and could impose financial sanctions on them.

Previous efforts to designate the group focused on the entire Muslim Brotherhood, rather than starting by targeting specific branches, and only pursued FTO designation.

A fact sheet by the legislation’s sponsors states that the previous “top-down … strategy failed because not all MB branches are currently violent and would therefore meet the criteria for designation.” It described this new approach as “bottom-up,” and similar to the approach the Trump administration took to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group — citing its support for the Quds Force, which was designated as a terrorist group.

Fine has separately introduced legislation to designate the Council on American Islamic Relations as a terrorist group.

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) introduced bipartisan legislation on Thursday that would expedite arms sales to U.S. partners that normalize relations with Israel and work with the U.S. in its efforts to counter Iran and its terrorist proxies. 

The Abraham Accords Defense Against Terror Act would “narrow the timeline for congressional consideration after arms sales are accepted, while maintaining existing eligibility criteria for arms sales themselves,” according to a press release on the bill. The legislation would provide “the same preferential treatment that our NATO allies receive” to eligible countries.  

Reps. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Ryan Zinke (R-MT), Don Davis (D-NC), Bryan Steil (R-WI), Don Bacon (R-NE), Michael Baumgartner (R-WA), Buddy Carter (R-GA), Jeff Crank (R-CO), Chuck Edwards (R-NC), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Brad Finstad (R-MN), Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN), Andrew Garbarino (R-NY), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ), Dave Kustoff (R-TN), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Mark Messmer (R-IN), Zach Nunn (R-IA), John Rose (R-TN), Maria Salazar (R-FL), Pete Stauber (R-MN), Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Joe Wilson (R-SC) signed on to the bill as co-sponsors.

“This legislation will … [provide]  greater benefits to our Abraham Accords and counterterrorism partners. It represents a key step toward implementation of the Abraham Accords and turning shared diplomatic commitments into real-world cooperation. Lastly, it sends a strong message to adversaries: the United States and its allies will not allow Iran’s proxies to destabilize the region unchecked,” Lawler, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement.

He continued, “I am committed to strengthening our relationships with regional partners and putting our ally Israel in the best position possible to do the same. There is no question that fostering deeper security relationships is key here.”

“The Abraham Accords have been a historic model for peace between Israel and its neighbors, and we should be doing everything we can to expand it and bring more states into the fold,” Moskowitz said. 

“This common-sense bill builds on the progress of the Abraham Accords to incentivize others to normalize relations with Israel and cooperate against the threat of Iran and Iranian proxies, safeguarding our ally Israel’s very right to exist in the process,” he added.

Efforts to expedite arms sales to U.S. partners has been a long-term priority for lawmakers and administrations on a bipartisan basis, and the House currently has a dedicated task force on overhauling the military sales process.

“There are too many bureaucratic barriers that prevent us from assisting our closest allies in global security,” Zinke, who chairs that task force, said in a statement. “This bill strengthens the ties forged by the Abraham Accords by ensuring our partners have expedited access to the tools they need to stand against Iran and its terrorist proxies. Israel is one of our closest and most vital allies, and peace through strength is the only way to secure the region and protect American interests.”

Sens. Jim Banks (R-IN) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) are set to introduce legislation on Wednesday to reauthorize the U.S. weapons stockpile in Israel through 2029 from its current expiration date of 2027.

The stockpile allows the U.S. to preposition weapons in Israel that it can provide to Jerusalem for use in crisis scenarios. Lawmakers had also worked in recent years to pass legislation to review and modernize the weaponry stored in the stockpile.

“This bill strengthens America’s military readiness and ensures we’re prepared for any crisis in the region. Supporting Israel, our most important Middle East ally, directly protects U.S. interests and helps keep Americans safe,” Banks said in a statement.

“I’m proud to help introduce this bipartisan legislation that will bolster our defensive posture as well as continue to enable us to swiftly support our ally Israel with the resources it needs to protect itself,” Rosen added.

The bill’s introduction comes amid the Senate Armed Services Committee’s 2026 National Defense Authorization Act markup this week.

A group of House members introduced legislation on Friday that aims to bolster efforts by Holocaust survivors’ families to reclaim or receive recompense for art stolen from their relatives during World War II, addressing issues in past legislation that have hampered repatriation efforts in the courts.

Identical legislation was recently introduced in the Senate by Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT). The House bill is being sponsored by Reps. Laurel Lee (R-FL), Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Maggie Goodlander (D-NH).

The new bill, the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act Improvements of 2025, aims to fill gaps left by the original HEAR Act, passed in 2016. The legislation eliminates a time limit included in the original bill that led some courts to dismiss suits filed under the original law. It also extends the law in perpetuity, beyond its original 2026 expiration date.

The bill also specifically addresses issues raised in recent Supreme Court cases, in which the court has ruled against the families of Holocaust survivors, stating that, “in order to effectuate the purpose of the Act to permit claims to recover Nazi-looted art to be resolved on the merits, these defenses must be precluded.”

The new bill aims to ensure that the defenses used in those cases cannot be applied going forward, and aims to ensure that such cases are not thrown out or defeated on technicalities.

“The Nazi regime stole not only lives but legacies, including cultural and family treasures that carry deep personal and historical meaning,” Lee said in a statement. “This bill ensures that families who lost everything during the Holocaust are given a fair shot at justice. These claims should be decided on the truth, not on legal loopholes or paperwork deadlines. With this legislation, we reaffirm our commitment to standing with Holocaust survivors and their families. They deserve to have their stories heard and their property returned. It’s never too late to do the right thing.”

Nadler, a lead sponsor of the original HEAR Act said, “As a matter of principle, we affirm that in the United States, everyone who has a credible claim deserves to have their day in court. This bill realizes that principle and ensures that every family has the right to a fair and just process based solely on the merits of their claim. We cannot fix the past, but this bill is a promise to the victims of the Holocaust that the United States is committed to creating a fair judicial process for the return of property that was wrongfully stolen during the darkest period of human history.”

David Schaecter, a Holocaust survivor and president of Holocaust Survivors Foundation USA, said, “To allow museums here and in Europe, and foreign governments to keep Nazi looted art perpetuates the crimes of the Nazi regime, and demeans the memory of six million Jewish souls.  We applaud Congress for making sure that families can recover their treasured legacies, and that the true history of the Nazis’ brutal campaign of murder and theft cannot be erased or trivialized by the scoundrels who refuse to return looted art.”

Gideon Taylor, the president of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, said that reclaiming these stolen belongings “is not simply about returning possessions; it is about restoring history, identity, and a measure of justice to those who lost everything.”

Joel Greenberg, president of Art Ashes, which helps fund the recovery of Nazi-looted art, said the legislation “renews and strengthens the HEAR Act, which is set to expire, by closing critical loopholes and addressing key oversights.”

“It reaffirms our commitment to ensuring that rightful owners of Nazi-looted art — and their families — receive the restitution they are owed,” Greenberg continued. “Any museum that knowingly retains stolen works is complicit in perpetuating the injustice inflicted on Holocaust victims. We have both a moral and legal obligation to correct these wrongs and to ensure the crimes of the Holocaust are neither forgiven nor forgotten.”

The legislation is supported by around two dozen Jewish and pro-Israel organizations.

Bipartisan groups of House and Senate members have introduced legislation to repeal the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, sanctions legislation passed in 2019 targeting the former Syrian government led by Bashar al-Assad, a step that proponents say will help remove obstacles to reconstruction and stabilization efforts in post-Assad Syria.

The administration recently announced that it would be lifting all sanctions on Syria, but the Caesar Act sanctions can only be temporarily waived, for periods of 180 days, barring a full repeal by Congress. Administration officials have indicated that they’d support such a step, and sanctions relief, in principle, has broad support on both sides of the aisle.

The sanctions, named for a pseudonymous individual who documented the Assad regime’s torture of civilians, also targeted Syrian critical industries, individuals and businesses that supported or did business with the Syrian government and Iranian and Russian entities that supported the Syrian government. 

Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Rand Paul (R-KY) introduced legislation on Wednesday to repeal the sanctions. 

Reps. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), Lou Correa (D-CA), Jack Bergman (R-MI), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and Mike Levin (D-CA) introduced a similar bill in the House last week.

“We can keep the new Syrian authorities accountable without decimating the economy,” Shaheen said in a statement. “Sustained diplomatic engagement can yield tremendous results.”

Paul argued against the Caesar Act sanctions in principle, saying they had been too broadly targeted.

“While the Caesar Act was intended to isolate the Assad regime, it has ended up punishing everyday Syrians — fueling poverty, crippling recovery, and blocking progress toward peace,” Paul said. “This repeal is about restoring a more targeted, principled approach that holds bad actors accountable without inflicting unnecessary suffering on the very people we claim to support.”

The timeline for the repeal effort is somewhat unclear: Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified in May that the administration’s ultimate goal would be to repeal the act, conditioned on the new Syrian government “mak[ing] enough progress” on U.S. priority issues. 

But U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who also serves as U.S. envoy to Syria, indicated greater urgency, calling for Congress to repeal the sanctions within the first 180-day waiver period, which is renewable if the sanctions are not repealed before then.

“I promise you the one person who has less patience with these sanctions than all of you is President Trump,” Barrack said during a visit to Syria to meet with President Ahmad al-Sharaa last month.

The House lawmakers leading the repeal legislation represent a broad spectrum of the House,  ranging from a former chair of the House Progressive Caucus to a former House Freedom Caucus member, and including Israel hawks on both sides of the aisle.

“The Assad regime sanctioned by the Caesar Act no longer exists, and it is time to repeal the law to provide long-term certainty to those who would like to invest in the reconstruction and rebuilding of Syria,” Wilson said in a statement.

Panetta said that repealing the sanctions would help the U.S. “position itself as a partner for continued progress” as adversaries aim to gain a foothold in Syria.

“The repeal of these broad sanctions will give foreign partners the certainty they need to invest in the Syrian economy and give their new government a chance to succeed,” Jayapal said.

A group of four House Democrats introduced legislation on Wednesday that aims to exempt Israel and Ukraine from the recent global tariffs that President Donald Trump imposed by executive order.

Trump announced a 17% tariff on Israel in April, above the global 10% minimum tariff that the president said he would apply to U.S. trading partners.

The Trump administration is “alienating some of our closest allies around the world, including those that are currently facing aggression from hostile nations,” Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), the bill’s lead sponsor, said in a statement. “I support efforts to increase domestic manufacturing, but those efforts shouldn’t come at the expense of our global standing, our national security, and the strength of our economy. Congress has to stand up to the destruction these tariffs are threatening against American families and our allies Israel and Ukraine, and I’m leading the charge to do it.”

The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ).

Moskowitz accused the administration of placing on Americans “the largest tax increase since 1968” through the tariffs, describing them as “a tax on American families that makes goods inaccessible, threatens retirement accounts, and takes a sledgehammer to U.S. economic growth.”

The legislation is a companion to a bill Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) introduced in early April. She sought unanimous consent in the Senate at the time to pass the bill, but was blocked by Republicans.

“Both these countries are currently under attack. They need the United States to be standing with them, not hitting them with nonsensical tariffs that could cause them even more harm,” Cortez Masto said at the time. “It is outrageous that my Republican colleagues blocked an opportunity to fix this and come together to protect our allies.”

Some Republicans have been critical of the administration’s decision to place tariffs on Israel, particularly since Israel announced it would lift all of its own tariffs on the United States, but most have opposed efforts by Democrats in the Senate to force votes on legislation to block the tariffs.

The administration has delayed the implementation of tariffs and multiple federal courts have ruled that the president does not have the unilateral authority to impose them.

A group of 22 left-wing House Democrats introduced legislation pushing for a series of sweeping and unprecedented new restrictions on U.S. aid to Israel, requiring specific authorizations from Congress for each transfer of numerous key weapons and guarantees from Israel about their use.

The legislation would prohibit the administration from transferring or selling a series of arms to Israel including several types of bombs, bomb guidance kits and tank and artillery ammunition without the passage of a distinct law from Congress authorizing the individual transfer.

The bill would require Congress, in those authorizations, to identify “the specific purpose or purposes for which such articles or services may be used for.” And Israel would have to provide “written assurances satisfactory to the President” that the weapons would be used in accordance with those specified purposes, as well as in line with existing U.S. arms sales law — which is already binding on Israel — and international law.

The proposal, which stands no chance of passing in the current Congress, goes beyond the conditions that have previously been proposed for U.S. arms sales to Israel or in place for any other recipients of U.S. aid. It contains no emergency waiver provision for the administration, should Israel face an attack.

Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Military and Political Power and a former Senate staffer, told Jewish Insider that the bill “would be an extraordinary measure targeting Israel alone in a unique manner with the clear purpose of depriving Israel of some of the munitions it needs most” and is “among some of the most concerning anti-Israel legislation we’ve seen in recent years.” 

He said that, while Congress has placed conditions on arms transfers to other nations in the past, the requirement of specific congressional approval for each transfer is “particularly aggressive.” He described the bill as “part of a campaign on the far left in this country focused on depriving the world’s only majority Jewish state of the means of self defense.”

“If it were to become law, it essentially is an arms embargo against Israel for these munitions,” Bowman said, making it “incredibly time consuming” to provide those weapons and slow the transfers down by months, and giving anti-Israel members opportunities to further derail the process through procedural means.

The bill is led by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) and co-sponsored by Reps. Sara Jacobs (D-CA), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Mark Pocan (D-WI), Becca Balint (D-VT), Andre Carson (D-IN), Greg Casar (D-TX), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Veronica Escobar (D-TX), Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Chuy Garcia (D-IL), Jonathan Jackson (D-IL), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Summer Lee (D-PA), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Lateefah Simon (D-CA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Nydia Velazquez (D-NY) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ).

A Ramirez spokesperson told JI that Ramirez introduced the legislation prior to the news of the murder of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington last week. “Out of an abundance of respect and care for the communities and loved ones impacted by the murders of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, Ramirez and the cosponsoring legislators decided to hold any plan to discuss it publicly, honoring the intention of the legislation to uphold our shared humanity and interconnectedness. We will be sharing more information on the legislation once members return to DC,” the spokesperson said.

Bowman noted that the group in support of this bill is nowhere near a majority in either chamber, but “could be increasingly problematic” as their numbers grow and members gain leadership roles in key committees.

He said the weapons in question are critical for Israel’s operations against Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as for preventing imminent launches of rockets toward Israeli cities. And, he noted, some of the weapons included, like the bomb guidance kits, are designed to improve targeting and decrease civilian casualties, making the effort counterproductive.

Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) introduced bipartisan legislation last week aimed at eliminating loopholes used by museums and other stakeholders to continue possessing Nazi-looted artwork that Jewish families have been trying to recover.

Introduced on Thursday, the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act would expand on Cornyn’s 2016 legislation of the same name, which was passed at the time by unanimous consent, by ending the Dec. 31, 2026, sunset date on the original bill and strengthen the existing procedural protections to ensure that victims’ claims are not dismissed due to non-merit-based factors such as time constraints. 

“The artwork wrongfully ripped from Jewish hands during the Holocaust bears witness to a chapter in history when evil persisted and the worst of humanity was on full display. I’m proud to introduce this legislation to support the Jewish people and Holocaust survivors by helping them recover art confiscated by the Nazis that they are rightfully owed and give them the justice and restitution they deserve,” Cornyn said in a statement. 

“The theft of art by the Nazi regime was more than a pilfering of property — it was an act of inhumanity. Our bipartisan effort seeks to strengthen measures to bring long overdue justice to families whose cherished art was brazenly stolen by the Nazis,” Blumenthal said. 

Many families of Holocaust victims in the U.S. who have located artwork from deceased relatives and sued to recover those items face the deadline at the end of next year before the statute of limitations sets in. Thousands of stolen works of art remain unreturned to their rightful owners from the Nazi plunder, and there are scores of ongoing cases to resolve disputes over ownership of those items. 

“Unfortunately, many museums, governments, and institutions have contradicted Congress’ intent and obstructed justice by stonewalling legitimate claims, obscuring provenance, and employing aggressive legal tactics designed to exhaust and outlast Survivors and their families. Rather than embracing transparency and reconciliation, too many have chosen to entrench and litigate, effectively preserving possession of stolen works rather than returning them to their rightful owners,” a press release for the bill states.

Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), John Fetterman (D-PA), Eric Schmitt (R-MO) and Katie Britt (R-AL) co-sponsored the bill, which was endorsed by a number of Jewish organizations including Agudath Israel of America, the American Jewish Committee, Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Federations of North America, StandWithUs and World Jewish Congress, among others. 

“This legislation helps to right a historic wrong committed during one of the darkest chapters in history. By eliminating unnecessary legal obstacles, the HEAR Act establishes a clear path to restitution for Holocaust survivors and their families, ensuring that art and cultural property stolen by the Nazis can finally be returned to their rightful owners,” Tillis said.

Fetterman said in a statement, “Eighty years after the Holocaust, we have a moral responsibility to do right by the victims of these atrocities and their families. I’m grateful to join my colleagues from both sides of the aisle in introducing the HEAR Act to help return artwork stolen by the Nazis to its rightful owners.”

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), a candidate for governor of New Jersey, challenged his fellow candidates to pledge to sign bipartisan state legislation to codify the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in response to the murder of two Israeli Embassy officials outside the Jewish museum in Washington.

That legislation has become a major dividing line in the gubernatorial race — Gottheimer and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) support it, while Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop opposes it, but said recently he would not veto it. Other candidates did not respond to requests for comment on the issue earlier this year. Critics of the legislation say that the IHRA definition — which identifies some criticism of Israel as antisemitic — violates free speech protections.

“I’m heartbroken by the tragic act of violence that took the lives of two young Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, D.C. Wednesday night … While the investigation continues, one thing is undeniable: antisemitism is fueling violence in this country, and it’s getting worse,” Gottheimer said in a statement shared with Jewish Insider. “Here in Jersey, we feel the effects of hate firsthand in our communities and synagogues. New Jersey had the third highest amount of antisemitic incidents last year, according to the ADL.”

“No one should have to live in fear simply for being Jewish. We must call out antisemitism wherever it appears and hold those responsible for spreading hate and violence accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” he continued. “As Governor, I’ll immediately sign New Jersey’s IHRA bill into law, and I’ll push to dismantle antisemitism and hate in any form whenever it rears its ugly head.”

Gottheimer visited the scene of the shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum on Thursday morning.

A bipartisan group of House members introduced legislation this week to redesignate Turkey at the State Department as a Middle Eastern country, rather than a European country, describing the move as a message to Turkey about its turn away from its relationships with Europe and the United States and shift toward U.S. adversaries.

The bill is designed “to send a clear message to Ankara: The United States recognizes Turkey’s turn to the Middle East and no longer sees Turkey prioritizing its relationship with Europe,” according to a statement from the bill’s lead sponsors, Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL).

The statement says that the designation change is consistent with Turkey’s growing ties with Russia, China and Iran, its backing of Hamas and its hostile military actions toward Greece and Cyprus, which “are fundamentally at odds with Western security interests”; its “increasingly anti-Western posture, turning away from its European aspirations”; and its “growing authoritarianism and continued hostility toward NATO allies.”

They noted that the redesignation would leave Turkey in the same category as Iran, Syria and Libya.

“Turkey is at a crossroads, but Erdoğan has made his choice,” Schneider said in a statement, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. “His government harbors Hamas operatives, props up [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s war machine, and obstructs NATO unity — while still demanding the privileges of a Western ally. It’s time for American diplomacy to stop pretending that Turkey is still part of Europe.”

The bill is being introduced under the auspices of the Congressional Hellenic Israel Alliance.

“Turkey has consistently demonstrated a complete disregard for following international law,” Bilirakis said in a statement. “Erdoğan repeatedly acts contrary to American interests, with his dangerous behavior contributing to the instability of the region. The time has come for official U.S. foreign policy to more accurately reflect the realities of this hostile regime’s conduct and for Erdoğan to be held accountable.”

The bill is co-sponsored by Reps. Dina Titus (D-NV), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Chris Pappas (D-NH) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), and comes days after a congressional hearing where lawmakers voiced concerns about Turkey’s role in the U.S. alliance system.

The bill also requires the State Department to report to Congress on the impacts of Turkey’s move away from Europe.

New Jersey legislation codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism is splitting the Democratic field in the gubernatorial race, after one leading candidate said last week he’d veto the bill.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) told JI this week that she supported legislation under consideration in the state that would codify the IHRA definition as New Jersey’s official definition of antisemitism for assessing cases of antisemitic discrimination. “I’ve supported the IHRA definition in the U.S. House, and would support the current state Senate bill to combat the alarming rise of antisemitism in New Jersey,” Sherrill said in a statement to JI.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer’s (D-NJ) campaign indicated in a statement that he also supports the bill. His campaign manager, Chelsea Brossard, noted that he “helped write and pass” the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which codifies the IHRA definition at the Department of Education. 

“Since October 7th, antisemitic incidents have skyrocketed to an all-time high in New Jersey. This is unacceptable, and Josh will continue working tirelessly at all levels of government to protect Jewish students and families from all forms of hate,” Brossard said.

Those comments come after Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, who has touted his Jewish heritage on the campaign trail, said he was opposed to the legislation, arguing that it could infringe on criticism of Israel and ultimately exacerbate antisemitism.

Three other candidates in the race — Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller and former state Sen. Steve Sweeney — did not respond to requests for comment on the IHRA issue.

Fulop and Sherrill have both recently come under scrutiny for campaigning alongside progressive leaders who’ve been outspoken against Israel. 

A Jewish leader in the state told JI that Fulop’s IHRA stance, in combination to his ties to anti-Israel figures including Sadaf Jaffer, an outspoken anti-Israel former state assembly member, have generated growing frustration and a sense of betrayal among members of the Jewish community.

Fulop aggressively rejected the notion that his IHRA stance was motivated by politics, and said his comments have been misconstrued by various constituencies. “What I said was a very thoughtful, careful, deliberate answer that serves very little political benefit because I answered it honestly,” Fulop told JI.

He said that, in the same comments about IHRA, he had supported the New Jersey-Israel Commission and anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions legislation and said that Gov. Phil Murphy had not been aggressive enough in response to antisemitism on college campuses.

He also said Jaffer was only a campaign volunteer and that they don’t agree on all issues. “Anybody who says that I’m antisemitic or I don’t sympathize with the Jewish community is totally misguided, and they’re purely political.”

Another Jewish leader said that many Jewish politicos see Gottheimer’s record as the strongest on antisemitism and supporting Israel, but that without an aggressive advocacy effort highlighting the differences in the candidates’ records, the Jewish vote could end up split among various candidates, with voters prioritizing other issues.

A key political dynamic in the race is becoming the fight between New Jersey’s Democratic machine and those casting themselves as outsiders opposing that machine. Institutional support has largely been divided between Sherrill and Gottheimer, but some leaders who had initially backed Gottheimer recently switched their allegiance to Sherrill.

“Party leadership in New Jersey is a little bit scared,” Dan Cassino, the executive director of the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, told JI. “There’s a strong incentive for that group, for institutional Democrats, to unify behind one candidate and make sure that candidate gets the nomination, to preserve at least the perception that they’re able to pick the candidates and therefore maintain their power.”

If Sherrill and Gottheimer split the moderate vote, one of the other candidates could muster enough support to achieve victory. No reliable polling is available in the race at this point.

Fulop and Baraka seemed to pick up momentum from strong performances in a recent debate and have been making strides in fundraising, Cassino added. In that debate, Sherrill appeared to be “riding the fence,” he continued, and avoiding controversial policy positions, while Gottheimer was on the receiving end of criticism from several other candidates.

As they’re trying to lock down a winning coalition, some candidates are trying to balance appealing to both left-wing constituencies critical of Israel and the state’s sizable Arab and Muslim populations, as well as the state’s significant Jewish population and the moderate voters they’ll need to win the general election.

Baraka’s candidacy could raise concerns in the Jewish community given that his father, poet Amiri Baraka, claimed in a 2002 poem that Israelis knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance. A Baraka-backed initiative in Newark held an event on Oct. 7, 2023, honoring the elder Baraka, which featured multiple speakers who have been accused of antisemitism. Baraka has defended his father from accusations of antisemitism.

A Jewish leader in the state said that Baraka’s base largely coincides with anti-Israel parts of the Democratic Party.

Sweeney, a moderate Democrat and the former senate president, supported anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions legislation when he was in the state Senate and led legislation to combat antisemitism in schools in 2019 which largely utilized the IHRA definition. Hailing from southern New Jersey, his base of support is expected to come largely from that part of the state, potentially including some Jewish voters in the Cherry Hill area.

The Jewish leader said that Sweeney’s record on Jewish issues has been unobjectionable.

Spiller, the former mayor of Montclair, N.J., could face issues among Jewish voters in the state over concerns about antisemitism in New Jersey’s public schools, though he has offered condemnations of antisemitism in the past. He’s leaning into education issues on the trail. The Jewish leader described the teachers’ union as having a poor record on Israel issues.

The QAnon conspiracy theory has seen a massive surge in public attention in the month since Marjorie Taylor Greene, a promoter of the conspiracy theory, won the Republican run-off in Georgia’s 14th congressional district, all but ensuring she will be in Washington come January. But a bipartisan group of congressmen is trying to push back.

Reps. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) and Denver Riggleman (R-VA) have introduced a resolution, co-sponsored by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), condemning the conspiracy theory. The resolution enumerates a series of concerns, including the numerous violent and criminal acts which have allegedly been inspired by the conspiracy theory, as well as the antisemitic elements central to QAnon.

Both Malinowski and Riggleman told Jewish Insider that QAnon’s increasing prominence — including Greene’s primary victory and President Donald Trump’s recent approving comments — convinced them to take congressional action.

Malinowski emphasized that parts of QAnon’s central conspiracy theory — which claims, falsely, that wealthy political, financial and media elites are part of a cabal that sexually abuses and eats children — constitute “the ancient blood libel in new guise.” Riggleman noted that QAnon also echoes the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

The conspiracy theory seems to have become increasingly mainstream amid the pandemic. A recent Civiqs poll found that more than half of Republican voters believe QAnon is mostly or partly true. It has also found traction in alternative health spheres.

Riggleman said he was shocked by those poll results — although he questioned their accuracy. If they are true, he added, “the Republican Party’s in trouble,” and “we need a massive education effort in the Republican Party to identify what’s ridiculous about QAnon.”

While several Republican leaders — including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) — have condemned QAnon, Riggleman and Kinzinger have been more outspoken than most of their colleagues on the issue. And many Republicans — including McCarthy — have declined to distance themselves from Greene.

“There’s gonna be people who don’t want to sign on to this, obviously, but I really don’t care about that,” Riggleman said. “There’s certainly Republicans that have jumped on this… but there certainly hasn’t been enough and I believe a lot of it has to do with — they’re scared of voters or they’re scared of the backlash that they might have going out against something like QAnon.”

Voters will not have an opportunity to punish Riggleman electorally for this resolution — he already lost his Republican primary to a religious conservative challenger in June. But he is considering running for Virginia governor in 2022, possibly as an independent.

Riggleman said the president’s recent comments about QAnon — Trump said last month: “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate” — shocked him.

“I think a lot of that has to do with, there’s so many conspiracy groups out there,” he said. “And I would hope once the president learns more about QAnon and what they’re talking about… that he would see that and eventually come out and condemn it.”

Riggleman is also a member of the House Freedom Caucus, a strongly conservative group of House Republicans, several of whom supported Greene. The Caucus’s affiliated PAC, the House Freedom Fund, donated more than $200,000 to the Georgia congressional candidate.

Riggleman said he does not have any input on the PAC’s spending, but he would not have given Greene “a penny.” 

“Maybe those endorsements are because 80% of what she believes is in line with fundamental conservative principles on spending and things like that,” he said. “But I do think we have to draw a line when you have those who espouse conspiracy theories.”

Malinowski said he’s found his Democratic colleagues are now taking the QAnon threat seriously. “We’re all catching up to the reality that this is extremely dangerous, that it’s not a fringe movement anymore,” he said. “At this point, it is easier to get Democrats to want to do something about QAnon, partly because it’s been associated with the right. The important thing is to demonstrate that there is bipartisan rejection.”

Although only two additional backers have signed onto the resolution so far, Malinowski said he expects that “the overwhelming majority of members” will support the bill if it makes it to the floor. But he acknowledged that the window for that is closing.

“I’m hoping that we will [get a vote],” he said. “If we do, I think you will see a pretty solid bipartisan vote on this.”

But Malinowski acknowledged that this resolution will do little to shake QAnon believers from their views. He plans to introduce legislation addressing social media companies’ recommendation algorithms, noting that his experience in international human rights work showed him how social media can foment violence, extremism and social strife.

“I think that they need to fundamentally change the way their algorithms work,” he said. “The algorithms are designed to keep us glued to our screens by feeding us information that engages our basest emotions. That’s a problem and the companies have been protected from any liability for the harm they cause by encouraging this kind of content to spread, and I think we need to look at them.”

Riggleman — whose background is in military intelligence — said he’s considering legislation boosting funding and information sharing for FBI and Department of Homeland Security operations to counter domestic extremism.

“We need to have a larger cyber presence. They’re using the same type of methodology that radical Islamic terrorists use,” he said. “I think we need to utilize some of the protocols that we perfected to track terrorists and actually use that to identify those who are using coded language to go after law enforcement or to go after innocents.”