Israel’s leadership is concerned that international pressure may force the IDF to stop striking Iran before its mission is complete, an Israeli security source told Jewish Insider on Sunday.

The source spoke a day after President Donald Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that “this war in Israel-Iran should end,” and continued to express hope that a deal could be reached between Washington and Tehran, even as the next round of negotiations between the U.S. and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program was postponed.

The president’s remarks came two days after Israel began targeting Iranian nuclear and military sites and Tehran retaliated by striking sites across Israel, including residential areas. 

“We want the U.S. to understand our point of view,” the source said. “The goal is for Iran not to have capabilities that endanger the State of Israel and its existence.” 

“If we’re paying a maximal price” — 13 fatalities, 380 injured in 22 missile impact sites as of Sunday morning — “we should get maximal achievements. That is the approach,” the source added, saying that Iran’s nuclear program should be destroyed and not “wounded.” 

The official aim of Operation Rising Lions, authorized by Israel’s Security Cabinet on Thursday night, is to damage Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The goal did not include toppling the Iranian mullahs’ regime, in part because Israel would be unlikely to have “international legitimacy” to do so, the Israeli source said. In addition, the cabinet did not say its goal was the total elimination of Iran’s nuclear program, because it wanted to set attainable goals.

Among the more surprising cheerleaders for President Donald Trump’s diplomacy with Iran were several progressive foreign policy analysts who had advised former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Now, many of those same voices — including Phil Gordon, Harris’ national security advisor who would likely have stayed in the role if she had been elected president last year — are expressing skepticism about Israel’s preemptive strikes on Iranian military and nuclear sites, and urging Trump to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cool it.

“I would have found it too risky to initiate military force with all that that could unleash,” Gordon told Jewish Insider on Friday. His approach would have been “to try to get an enduring, diplomatically-negotiated nuclear arrangement that prevented Iran from being able to get a nuclear weapon.” 

If he were advising Harris, or another Democratic president, Gordon would’ve wanted “to try to get that accomplished without having used this military action,” he said. 

Gordon also argued that Trump was manipulated into supporting Israel’s strikes by Netanyahu, even as Trump celebrated Israel’s killing of Iranian hardliners, noting that several of Trump’s senior advisors have urged restraint rather than intervention.

“His supporters did not put him in place to get involved in the conflict in the Middle East,” Gordon said. “A lot of his advisors … served in Iraq or are against U.S. military interventions in the Middle East. We know where Vance is in terms of intervention. The Tucker Carlson view, Don Jr. I think Trump really wanted to avoid military conflict and negotiate a deal and be the guy who got a better deal than Obama.” 

Ilan Goldenberg, who served as an Iran advisor at the Pentagon in the Obama administration and who advised Harris on Middle East issues during her 2024 campaign, told JI that Trump should try to encourage parties in the region to tone it down. 

“I think the appropriate position for the United States to be in now is the role of de-escalator,” said Goldenberg, now the senior vice president and chief policy officer at J Street. “The better option, the less risky option that had more good outcomes, was the diplomatic option. Unfortunately, it’s not the way it went. So now we have to see.” 

J Street released a statement on Friday calling for an end to the “cycle of retaliation and escalation,” and for a return to diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran. 

Both Gordon and Goldenberg questioned Israel’s end game in the strikes, which killed several senior Iranian military leaders and destroyed an above-ground uranium enrichment site at Natanz. 

“It definitely has set back the timetable for Iran’s nuclear capacity, but it hasn’t eliminated it, and we also don’t know what happens in terms of retaliation. We’d like to think and hope that Iran has been deterred and won’t respond in a way that we can’t handle,” Gordon said. “So far, so good, but we’re only on the first day, so there were real risks of doing it this way. And that’s why I would have sought, if at all possible, to do it a different way.” 

Goldenberg, who said the most important next step in stopping the violence is for the U.S. to help Israel defend against Iran’s retaliation, said he is unsure whether the Israeli success will turn into a long-term victory.

“The Israelis are incredibly good operationally, but they have challenges sometimes translating that into a strategic kind of sustainable victory, as opposed to just continuing to fight,” said Goldenberg. “What’s the end state here? What are you trying to do? Or is the objective to just be in constant conflict?”

Still, even as they said a return to diplomacy is the best way to move forward, both Gordon and Goldenberg acknowledged that Israel’s Friday attack on Iran had so far gone well for Israel.

“It is a remarkable display of Israeli military and intelligence capabilities,” said Gordon. 

“I think in the immediate [term], it had a lot of success. Very impressive operationally,” Goldenberg noted. 

Trump said in Truth Social posts on Friday that Iran could have a “second chance” at a deal, and that they should return to the negotiating table “before there is nothing left.” 

Goldenberg agrees — and he thinks Israel needs to hear from Trump that they can’t attack Iran forever.

“Make clear to the Iranians that there’s still a deal on the table. We’re willing to negotiate,” Goldenberg said. “And at the same time, make clear to the Israelis, there are limits to this. We can’t see this get out of control.”

Talk show host Tucker Carlson broke with President Donald Trump on Iran on Friday, writing in a scathing commentary in his daily newsletter that the United States should “drop Israel” and “let them fight their own wars.”

“If Israel wants to wage this war, it has every right to do so. It is a sovereign country, and it can do as it pleases,” Carlson wrote of Israel’s preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “But not with America’s backing.”

Trump, for his part, has endorsed Israel’s attacks, which he called “very successful,” and underscored in an interview with Fox News on Thursday night that the U.S. would defend Israel if Iran retaliates. He also warned that the situation “will only get worse” if Iran does not agree to a nuclear deal “before there is nothing left.”

In recent days, Carlson has argued that fears of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon in the near future are unfounded and said that a war with the Islamic Republic would not only result in “thousands” of American casualties in the Middle East but “amount to a profound betrayal of” Trump’s base and effectively “end his presidency.”

Carlson reiterated that claim in his newsletter, accusing Trump of “being complicit in the act of war” through “years of funding and sending weapons to Israel.”

Direct U.S. involvement in a war with Iran, he said, “would be a middle finger in the faces of the millions of voters who cast their ballots in hopes of creating a government that would finally put the United States first.”

“What happens next will define Donald Trump’s presidency,” he concluded.

President Donald Trump told Fox News anchor Bret Baier on Thursday evening that the United States will defend Israel if Iran retaliates following Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets, and that he still intends to resume nuclear negotiations with Tehran.

“Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb and we are hoping to get back to the negotiating table. We will see. There are several people in leadership that will not be coming back,” Trump said, according to Fox News. U.S. officials are still aiming to continue with nuclear talks in Oman on Sunday, Reuters reported.

Trump was aware of the strikes beforehand, and the administration informed “at least one key Middle Eastern ally” that the strikes were happening, Fox News reported, but did not participate, as previously stated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The president told Fox that U.S. Central Command is on high alert for Iranian retaliatory attacks, and will take action to defend both itself and Israel if Iran retaliates. Rubio, in his initial statement on the attack, had not made explicit whether the U.S. would step in to protect Israel as it had in response to previous ballistic missile barrages targeting Israel in April and October of 2024.

He said the U.S. has also replenished Israel’s stocks of Iron Dome interceptors in recent weeks.

A Jordanian government spokesperson said in a statement that it “has not and will not allow any violation of our airspace or serve as a battleground for conflict,” a potential signal that it will also participate in efforts to intercept potential Iranian attacks, as it did last April.

Since the Israeli strike on Iran’s air defenses in October, Jerusalem has sought a green light, or something close to it, from Washington to strike the Islamic Republic’s nuclear sites. President Donald Trump, however, repeatedly told Israel to hold off as he pursued a diplomatic agreement with Tehran to stop its enrichment program. 

Now, after the Iranian nuclear program has continued apace and Trump has voiced frustration over Tehran’s intransigence, it seems that Jerusalem’s patience for diplomacy is running out.

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and Mossad chief David Barnea will be meeting Trump’s top negotiator Steve Witkoff on Friday ahead of the sixth round of talks with Iran in Oman on Sunday “in an additional attempt to clarify Israel’s stance,” an official in Jerusalem said, amid persistent reports and strong indications that Israel is prepared to strike Iran.

After a call with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu last week, Trump said that if Tehran does not agree to give up uranium enrichment, the situation will get “very, very dire.” On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that “there have been plenty of indications” that Iran is moving towards weaponization of its nuclear program, and Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the chief of CENTCOM, said that he presented Trump and Hegseth with numerous options to attack Iran if nuclear talks break down. 

Hours later, the State Department began to move some personnel out of Iraq and the military suggested that servicemembers’ families depart the Middle East, while the U.K. warned about a potential “escalation of military activity” in the region. Such evacuations are often the first step to reduce risk ahead of a large-scale military operation. 

Trump told reporters that the evacuations are happening because the Middle East “could be a dangerous place, and we’ll see what happens.” More on this from Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod here.

Kurilla postponed his testimony before the Senate planned for Thursday. Staff at U.S. embassies and consulates throughout the Middle East were told to take safety precautions, and those stationed in Israel were told not to leave the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, Jerusalem or Beersheva.

Multiple news outlets published reports citing anonymous American officials that Israel is ready to strike Iran without help from the U.S. One possible reason for the timing — moving forward even as Washington and Tehran are set to enter a sixth round of talks on Sunday — is that Iran has reportedly begun to rebuild the air defenses that Israel destroyed last year. Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Mohammad Bagheri reportedly said last month: “We are witnessing a remarkable improvement in the capability and readiness of the country’s air defense.”

Ynet’s well-sourced military analyst Yoav Zitun reported early Wednesday that Israel’s threat to attack Iran’s nuclear program is serious, and the most likely scenario is that Israel would strike Iran on its own but coordinate with the U.S. to receive air defense support. That scenario appears consistent with both Trump’s stated reticence to launch an attack, and the events that took place later that day.

In light of the negotiations set to continue on Sunday, some American analysts told JI that Washington could be acting as though it’s preparing for a possible attack to pressure Iran into concessions. 

If the latest moves successfully pressure Iran, Shira Efron, Israel Policy Forum’s director of policy research, told JI that she hoped it would be “an opportunity to get to a bigger, better deal.” 

However, in Israel, it looks like the moves towards a strike on Iran are serious. 

The fact that Netanyahu is expected to go on a two-day vacation in northern Israel this weekend and his son is getting married next week have been counterintuitively pointed to as indications that a strike is imminent — after all, the Hezbollah pager operation happened when the prime minister was in New York, and the strike on Syria’s nuclear facilities in 2007 took place when then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was set to go on vacation in Europe.

“Yesterday, I thought there was no way something is going to happen,” Efron said, but now, “I think we’re at the money time. It’s more serious than we had thought.” 

“Israel clearly no longer thinks an agreement can work, so it all depends on whether Trump told Israel it can do something before” negotiations between Iran and the U.S. break down, Efron said.

Ben Black, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, had his confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. 

Black will serve as chief executive officer of the DFC, which acts as the federal government’s primary lender and investor in development projects abroad, if confirmed. The DFC was created during the first Trump administration, the result of merging the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Development Credit Authority of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Black was introduced at the start of the hearing by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), who described Black in opening remarks as a “true America First patriot” who “will bring a wide range of experience and expertise to this job.”

“I’m here today to offer my full support for Mr. Black’s nomination to serve in this position.  Created during the first Trump administration, the International Development Finance Corporation facilitates overseas investment projects that better position us to compete with Communist China’s global infrastructure pursuits,” Cotton said.

“This position requires a person with expertise in strategic investment opportunities, an understanding of America’s foreign policy priorities, and tested leadership capabilities. For these reasons, I am confident that President Trump made the right choice in selecting Mr. Black for the job,” he continued.

Black said during his opening statement that if confirmed, “I look forward to working with Congress to shape and to continue to grow DFC’s capabilities and capacity, so that it can properly fulfill the responsibilities it has been given. The challenges facing our nation and the world today can seem overwhelming, but the opportunity for DFC to be part of meaningful solutions is enormous.”

Black is a managing director of Fortinbras Enterprises, a credit investment fund, and CEO and director of Osiris Acquisition Corp, another investment firm. He was a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations from 2015 to 2020. Black previously worked at Apollo Global Management, the firm founded by his father, Leon Black, and was a senior portfolio manager at Knowledge Universe Holdings.

Black is an alumni of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School. He also studied taxation at the New York University School of Law and received his BA in history from the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated with honors. 

The American Jewish Committee criticized President Donald Trump for his executive order barring travel into the United States for citizens of 12 countries as lacking “a clear connection to the underlying problem” of domestic antisemitism and potentially having “an adverse impact on other longstanding immigration and refugee policies.”

The administration framed the announcement as a response to the antisemitic terrorist attack in Boulder, Colo., carried out by an immigrant from Egypt who overstayed a work permit. The AJC’s response echoes the cautious, skeptical approach it and other major nonpartisan Jewish organizations have taken to other actions by the Trump administration to combat antisemitism, including revoking visas from international students and cutting funding from universities.

Trump signed the directive on Wednesday restricting travel from seven countries and outright banned travel from 12 others, arguing the move was necessary to prevent “foreign terrorists” and other national security threats from entering the U.S. The countries whose citizens are now banned from entering the U.S. are Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

Some citizens of Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela will be restricted from traveling to the U.S. Egypt is not covered under the order.

In a statement released on Thursday, the AJC expressed gratitude that the administration “is trying to mobilize as many levers as it can to counter” the surge in antisemitic attacks while noting its concern that the “broad” order will “prevent those in need of real refuge from entering the U.S. in line with the longstanding American tradition of welcoming those forced to leave their countries to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.”

“We fully agree with the administration that entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted and those who overstay visas can pose national security threats. Being able to enter and stay in the United States is a privilege, and thorough protocols to ensure entry of foreign nationals to the U.S. in a way that protects national security are vital,” the statement reads, calling for proper funding for the State Department to vet visa applicants.

The Trump administration is pushing for sweeping State Department funding cuts.

“Throughout AJC’s nearly 120-year history, we have supported fair and just immigration policies for people of all races, religions, and national origins, and advocated for an inclusive America that provides safe haven for those fleeing persecution and seeking to contribute to the United States. It remains our strong belief that it is possible to allow for just immigration and refugee policies while upholding the national security of the United States,” the statement continued. 

The organization went on to urge the Trump administration to lift its suspension of the U.S. Refugee Assistance Program (USRAP), arguing that the pause had left “many already vetted and cleared applicants for asylum with little hope.” It also called for a refugee admissions cap no lower than 75,000.

Several major Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, pushed in the first Trump administration to overturn its travel ban policy, which targeted seven majority-Muslim countries. ADL did not provide comment on the new announcement.

Many progressive-minded Jewish groups have condemned the new travel ban.

Multiple Senate Republicans said Wednesday that they plan to scrutinize President Donald Trump’s nomination of Paul Ingrassia, a far-right figure picked last week to lead the Office of Special Counsel, charged with fighting corruption and fighting federal whistleblowers.

Ingrassia has trafficked in conspiracy theories, including, as early as Oct. 8, 2023, describing the Hamas attack and ensuing war as a “psyop,” as well as defending prominent antisemites including Kanye West, Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes.

Several Republican members said they were not deeply familiar with Ingrassia’s record but planned to dig into it further before his nomination hearing.

“We just got news of the nom[ination] coming forward. Those [comments] are obviously concerning and we’ll have our staff doing a full background check, but those are, on their face, concerning,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told Jewish Insider.

Tillis was a vocal opponent of Ed Martin, previously Trump’s nominee to be U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., over his defense of those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, including a known Nazi sympathizer. Amid that opposition, Trump withdrew the nomination.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said he wasn’t familiar with Ingrassia but that he planned to take a deeper look at him. “I’m not familiar with his record, but I don’t like the guys you just named or their views,” Hawley said, referring to Tate and Fuentes.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) expressed surprise about Ingrassia’s history and affiliations, and said he would “certainly monitor the situation.”

The White House is considering issuing a new executive order banning travel to the United States from certain countries, resurrecting a controversial policy from President Donald Trump’s first term, according to three people who attended a Wednesday White House meeting where the plan was discussed.

The planned executive order was mentioned in a meeting at the White House with Jewish leaders. The meeting, which had several dozen attendees, was organized in response to the deadly antisemitic attack in Washington last month that left two Israeli Embassy staffers dead outside the Capital Jewish Museum. The briefing took place three days after an antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colo., injured 15 people at a march to raise awareness about Israeli hostages in Gaza.

White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf told the group about the order but did not mention which countries would be included in the ban. Scharf said Trump could sign the order as soon as Wednesday. 

“They were just saying that an executive order regarding a travel ban is in the works,” one of the sources told Jewish Insider after the meeting. “Everyone was very careful about what they said and didn’t say.” 

Another source said the planned order was “not directly because of the events in Boulder,” but that the attack in Boulder was mentioned “as a rationale, as proof of why this executive order was so important.” 

The alleged perpetrator in the Boulder attack is an Egyptian national who is in the U.S. illegally, having overstayed his visa, according to the Department of Homeland Security. The suspect’s wife and five children were taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody on Tuesday and were set to be deported to Egypt, but a federal judge on Wednesday halted deportation proceedings against the family members. 

In 2017, days after taking office in his first term, Trump signed an executive order barring travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority nations. Egypt was not one of them. 

Speakers at the meeting included Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff; Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the Department of Justice; evangelical pastor Paula White and Jenny Korn from the White House Faith Office; Noah Pollak, senior advisor at the Education Department; Sebastian Gorka, senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council; Adam Boehler, U.S. special envoy for hostage response; Martin Marks, White House Jewish liaison; and Leo Terrell, chair of the federal antisemitism task force. Yehuda Kaploun, Trump’s nominee to serve as U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, was in the room. 

Attendees at the meeting included a wide range of Jewish communal leaders, with representatives from Chabad, Jewish Federations of North America, the Anti-Defamation League, the Orthodox Union, American Jewish Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, AIPAC, Agudath Israel and several Brooklyn-based Orthodox institutions. 

A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Donald Trump’s full budget request to Congress on Friday recommended Congress hold the Nonprofit Security Grant Program at its current level of $274.5 million, in spite of chronic funding shortages and pressure from both lawmakers and the Jewish community for substantially increased funding at a time of rising antisemitism.

In 2024, at that funding level, and with an additional $180 million available from the national security supplemental bill last year, just 43% of funding requests were fulfilled. Supporters of the program in the House and Senate have urged Appropriations Committee leaders and the administration to allocate $500 million for the program, while Jewish groups asked for $1 billion in the wake of the murder of two Israeli Embassy employees at the Capital Jewish Museum.

The budget requests no funding for two hate crimes prevention grant programs, the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act Program and the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Grants Program.

The administration indicated in the budget top lines it submitted earlier in May that it aimed to eliminate unspecified Department of Justice hate crimes grant programs, which it said had violated free speech rights.

As previewed in the top lines, Trump recommended a cut in funding to the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, responsible for investigating antisemitism claims, from $140 million to $91 million. 

The request also proposes cuts to Federal Bureau of Investigation intelligence and counterterrorism and counterintelligence programs.

The proposal would also significantly cut U.S. military aid to Jordan, cut funding to the State Department by nearly half and ban funding for the United Nations Human Rights Council or United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

In response to the shooting that killed two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum last week, a bipartisan group of 46 House members wrote to President Donald Trump on Friday urging him to support expanded funding for key security programs in his full budget request to Congress, expected as soon as Friday afternoon.

While presidential budget requests are non-binding and are frequently modified by Congress, Trump’s requests are likely to be influential in the GOP-controlled Congress. And the appeals made by the lawmakers, in some cases, constitute calls for Trump to walk back funding cuts he proposed in the high-level budget toplines — known as a “skinny budget” — he submitted to Congress earlier this month.

Highlighting the “sharp rise in threats to the Jewish community,” the lawmakers — most of them Democrats — said that it is “imperative that the federal government take the necessary steps to increase funding for enhanced security measures” and “ensure that the Jewish community is equipped with the necessary tools to prevent loss of life in the case of an attack.”

The legislation calls on Trump to support $500 million in funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, the same funding level that bipartisan groups of House and Senate members have urged Appropriations Committee leaders to support, calling the program “one of the most effective and critical programs for protecting the Jewish community and all faith-based communities from attack.” Jewish groups have called for funding to be increased to $1 billion.

Trump, in his “skinny budget,” had called for a reduction in funding for non-emergency grants at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a category that includes NSGP, but did not put forward a specific request for the program itself. In the past, presidents have not always made any specific funding requests for the NSGP, even in their more detailed budget outlines.

The letter outlines a series of examples that “demonstrate the direct return on investment for communities under threat” from the NSGP,  highlighting incidents in which security upgrades paid for by the program likely saved lives by stopping shooting attacks.

The lawmakers also called for Trump to “explore opportunities,” in collaboration with lawmakers, to provide an additional dedicated fund to allow faith-based organizations to hire security officers.

“Although Jewish institutions can use the NSGP to hire additional security personnel, the majority of Jewish institutions have either not been recipients of these grants or cannot afford the additional costs incurred,” the letter reads. “In light of recent events, it is more clear than ever that Jewish institutions are in desperate need of additional personnel support.”

The letter calls on Trump to support increased funding for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Trump called for a $545 million cut to the FBI’s budget in his “skinny budget”, pledging that the FBI would focus on counterintelligence and counterterrorism and that it would eliminate “duplicative intelligence activities.”

The letter emphasizes the FBI’s role in domestic terrorism investigations, which have been on the rise, and intelligence gathering and the FBI’s responsibility to report to Congress on domestic terrorism threats.

It calls for increased Department of Justice grants for local law enforcement to ensure that hate crimes are properly reported to local and federal law enforcement agencies, and specifically for grant programs to counter hate crimes “to ensure that antisemitic hate crimes are addressed and prosecuted in a timely manner” and their extent is fully understood. 

The “skinny budget” called for cutting $1 billion in DOJ grant programs, including “programs that focus on so-called hate crimes in clear violation of the First Amendment.”

The letter was led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and co-signed by Reps. Max Miller (R-OH), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Brittany Pettersen (D-CO), Laura Gillen (D-NY), John Larson (D-CT), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Nikema Williams (D-GA), David Scott (D-GA), Wesley Bell (D-MO), Shri Thanedar (D-MI), Dina Titus (D-NV), Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Susie Lee (D-NV), Andre Carson (D-IN), Shontel Brown (D-OH), Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Frederica Wilson (D-FL), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Janelle Bynum (D-OR), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), Ted Lieu (D-CA), George Latimer (D-NY), Juan Vargas (D-CA), Julie Johnson (D-TX), Julia Brownley (D-CA), Marilyn Strickland (D-WA), Darren Soto (D-FL), Chris Pappas (D-NH), Brendan Boyle (D-PA), Bill Keating (D-MA), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Benny Thompson (D-MI), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Brad Sherman (D-CA), David Kustoff (R-TN) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC).

Miller and Kustoff, who are both Jewish, are the only Republican signatories.

President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate far-right commentator Paul Ingrassia to head the agency tasked with rooting out corruption and protecting whistleblowers in the federal government. 

Ingrassia, 29, currently serves as the White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security. He briefly served as the White House liaison to the Department of Justice early in Trump’s second term, but was reassigned after clashing with the DOJ’s chief of staff after urging the president to hire only individuals who exhibited what Ingrassia called “exceptional loyalty,” according to ABC News. 

In Trump’s post on Truth Social announcing Ingrassia’s nomination to head the Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency tasked with investigating and prosecuting office government and political corruption, the president called him a “highly respected attorney, writer, and Constitutional scholar.”

Ingrassia has trafficked in a number of conspiracy theories, as have several other controversial administration appointees, including Department of Defense Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson and acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Darren Beattie. 

On Oct. 7, 2023, as the Hamas attacks were still underway, Ingrassia posted on X calling illegal immigration to the U.S. “comparable to the attack on Israel,” writing, “The amount of energy everyone has put into condemning Hamas (and prior to that, the Ukraine conflict) over the past 24 hours should be the same amount of energy we put into condemning our wide open border, which is a war comparable to the attack on Israel in terms of bloodshed — but made worse by the fact that it’s occurring in our very own backyard. We shouldn’t be beating the war drum, however tragic the events may be overseas, until we resolve our domestic problems first.” 

He wrote three days later that the U.S. “should not be committing any foreign aid (as well as military presence) whatsoever to any country – Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, NATO, etc. – until we secure our borders and get a sensible handle over our border crisis. Practically speaking, this will take several years (at least) to get under control. In the meantime: no immigration, no foreign aid, troops, equipment, or anything, period.” 

On Oct. 12, 2023, responding to a post alleging to uncover DNA sequences of “Canaanites, Israelites [and] Judahites,” Ingrassia wrote, “This is further evidence that Israel/Palestine is a deeply complex region of the world with a complicated history, that most Americans don’t adequately understand, nor could be expected to understand.” 

In that post, he bashed former National Security Advisor John Bolton, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), former Vice President Mike Pence and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, calling them “Warmongering Troglodytes” and saying the alleged DNA evidence was “further reason to dismiss the dangerous and reckless calls” made by these officials to strike Gaza. 

On Oct. 15, just days after the attacks, Ingrassia wrote, “I think we could all admit at this stage that Israel/Palestine, much like Ukraine before it, and BLM before that, and covid/vaccine before that, was yet another psyop.”

A year later, on Oct. 3, 2024, he posted that there were no funds for hurricane relief because “we’re too busy stuffing the pockets of Zelenskyy and Netanyahu. What a disgrace our government is! Truly the enemy of the people.”

Ingrassia has further associated himself with white nationalists and antisemites, including Nick Fuentes and Kanye West, now known as Ye, posting a Substack in April 2023 titled “Free Nick Fuentes.” 

In the post, he applauded the social media platform X for restoring certain accounts including that of far-right provocateur Laura Loomer and alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate, but argued that it should go further to restore Fuentes’ and Ye’s then-banned accounts: “Notably, the accounts of once banned high-profile users such as Donald Trump, Andrew Tate, Roger Stone, and Laura Loomer have been reinstated with apparent impunity to use the platform as they please. But for every Trump and Tate, there remains the still banned Fuentes and Ye.”

The attorney has defended Tate and his brother — whom British authorities charged on Wednesday with rape, human trafficking and assault — saying in 2023 that the two “have become public enemies number one and two in the eyes of the Matrix, the deep state, and the satanic elite that attempt to systematically program and oppress all men from womb-to-tomb.”

Prior to joining the administration, Ingrassia was a regular contributor to the Gateway Pundit, a website known for publishing falsehoods and conspiracy theories. He wrote articles on the site falsely alleging Haley was ineligible to run for president in 2024 because she did not qualify as a U.S. citizen, arguing civil rights laws were never intended to protect LGBTQ persons and calling former President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 “beyond all doubt fraudulent,” among others.

Ingrassia has repeatedly used the term “globalists” to describe Jewish public figures, including Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Michigan Senate candidate Sandy Pensler and hedge fund manager Paul Singer.

Last year, following an appearance on Steve Bannon’s War Room show, Ingrassia wrote on X, “Discussed a very important topic this morning on War Room about how some RINO members — like @RepGallagher — of the House, many with dark money ties to notorious anti Trump billionaire globalist, Paul Singer, are actively working behind the scenes to turnover House control to Democratic hands with early retirements and thus pass legislation to remove President Trump from the ballot on bogus 14th Amendment grounds.”

In a letter to President Donald Trump, a bipartisan group of House members renewed calls for a deal to release all of the remaining hostages held in Gaza, including the bodies of four Americans believed to be deceased, urging him to capitalize on potential momentum from the release of Israeli American hostage Edan Alexander earlier this month.

Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said on Wednesday that the administration would soon put forward a “new term sheet” for a potential ceasefire, expressing confidence about reaching a long-elusive deal.

“Building on the momentum of Edan’s release, we strongly urge your Administration to press forward with all available diplomatic efforts to secure the return of all hostages—including the four remaining Americans: Omer Neutra, Itay Chen, Gadi Haggai, and Judi Weinstein Haggai,” the House letter reads.

“While Edan’s return marks a critical breakthrough, the suffering he endured underscores the urgency of this mission,” the letter continues. “Those still in captivity continue to face unimaginable hardship, and we owe it to them and their families to do everything in our power to secure their release. This moment — coming in the wake of Edan’s homecoming — offers a window of opportunity.”

Witkoff said earlier this week that there is a deal on the table to release half of the living and half of the deceased hostages in exchange for a temporary ceasefire of unspecified length before negotiations to free the remaining hostages. Witkoff said Hamas has offered a “completely unacceptable” response.

“We urge you to continue using every diplomatic tool available, in close coordination with our regional allies and partners, to press for the release of all hostages,” the House letter continues. “Edan’s return has brought renewed hope to the nation — and to the close-knit community of Tenafly, New Jersey. Now, we must act swiftly to ensure that hope is realized for every hostage and every waiting community.”

The lawmakers highlighted the physical and mental torture that Alexander endured in Gaza, which many of the hostages still in captivity continue to endure. They thanked the Trump and Biden administrations and others involved in ongoing hostage negotiations and in freeing Alexander.

The letter was led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and co-signed by Reps. Young Kim (R-CA), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Maria Salazar (R-FL), Frederica Wilson (D-FL), Val Hoyle (D-OR), Greg Stanton (D-AZ), Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Tom Kean (R-NJ), Don Bacon (R-NE), Chris Pappas (D-NH), Laura Friedman (D-CA), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Seth Moulton (D-MA), Juan Vargas (D-CA), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Kim Schrier (D-WA), Gabe Amo (D-RI), Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), French Hill (R-AR) and Herb Conaway (D-NJ).

President Donald Trump lambasted “interventionalists” and “neo-cons” who previously led foreign policy discourse in the Republican Party in a speech on Tuesday at a U.S.-Saudi Arabia investment forum event in Riyadh. 

“The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neo-cons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions failing to develop [Kabul], Baghdad, so many other cities,” Trump said. “In the end, the so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.”

“They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves,” Trump continued. “Peace, prosperity and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly.”

Trump also condemned American presidents who “have been afflicted with the focus that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins” — an apparent condemnation of former President George W. Bush. 

He said that it’s “God’s job to sit in judgement, my job to defend America and to promote the fundamental interests of stability, prosperity and peace,” but that he would “never hesitate” to defend the U.S. or its allies.

The remarks were cheered by several notable members of the isolationist wing of the GOP, including Dan Caldwell, a former Pentagon adviser fired for allegedly leaking sensitive information. 

A conservative foreign policy analyst compared the speech to President Barack Obama’s “A New Beginning” speech in Cairo in 2009. “It’s his apology tour,” the analyst told Jewish Insider.

“It’s crazy to air your dirty laundry in a place that bore the Al-Qaida hijackers. This is Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s ‘Blame America’ on the right,” the analyst continued, warning that an “Arabist view” appeared to be making its way into the administration “at the expense of Israel,” a trend they said was previously mainly seen among Democrats. 

Trump also announced the “cessation” of sanctions against Syria “in order to give them a chance at greatness” and the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Syria. He said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be meeting with the Syrian foreign minister this week.

Trump characterized these moves as a favor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill had argued for a targeted, cautious approach to sanctions relief for Syria, in a reversible fashion, in return for measurable progress and results on U.S. priorities. Trump said that “we’re taking them all off.” It was not clear from his remarks if the U.S. would be attaching conditions to that sanctions relief.

The Israeli government has advocated against sanctions relief for the regime out of concerns about the new government’s ties to Islamist extremists.

Addressing the leaders of Iran, Trump said he was willing “to offer them a new path and much better path towards a far better and more hopeful future,” adding that he’s shown he is “willing to end past conflicts and forge new partnerships for a better and more stable world.”

He warned that “if Iran’s leadership rejects this olive branch and continues to attack their neighbors, then we’ll have no choice but to inflict massive maximum pressure, drive Iranian oil exports to zero like I did before … and take all action required to stop the regime from ever having a nuclear weapon.”

Trump also said that the clock is ticking for Iran to accept that offer.

The U.S. president lavished praise on Saudi Arabia and its crown prince for the development the country has seen in recent years. He said it’s his “fervent hope, wish and even my dream that Saudi Arabia … will soon be joining the Abraham Accords.”

“You’ll be greatly honoring me and you’ll be greatly honoring all of those people that have fought so hard for the Middle East, and I really think it’s going to be something special,” Trump said. “But you’ll do it in your own time. That’s what I want, that’s what you want, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

Trump repeatedly insisted that the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel would not have happened had he been president at the time and said that the “people of Gaza deserve a much better future” but that cannot happen as long as the leaders of Gaza continue to pursue violence. He said he wants to see the Gaza war “ended as quickly as possible” and the hostages all returned, a seeming contradiction to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plans to expand Israeli operations in Gaza.

He also said that the U.S. “stands ready to help Lebanon create a future of economic development and peace with its neighbors,” adding that its new government provides “the first real chance in decades for a more productive partnership with the United States.”

Regarding the U.S. strikes on the Houthis, Trump said that the U.S. “got what we came for and then we got out,” referring to the U.S. ceasefire with the group. He said that the U.S. “[doesn’t] want them shooting at Saudi Arabia,” but the deal, as publicly outlined, did not contain provisions to protect Israel, Saudi Arabia or any other U.S. partners.

Houthi attacks on Israel have continued since the deal was struck.
He additionally claimed that he had requested a $1 trillion military budget from Congress to ensure “peace through strength,” adding “hopefully, we’ll never have to use any of those weapons.” But top conservative foreign policy leaders on Capitol Hill have said that the administration’s budget request does not actually meet that $1 trillion benchmark and have called the request insufficient.

FBI Director Kash Patel was pressed on Wednesday about the exclusion of Ed Martin’s ties to an alleged Nazi sympathizer in his FBI background check after Martin was nominated by President Donald Trump to be U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C.

Patel faced questions from Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) while testifying before the House Appropriations Committee about how the FBI background investigation report that was sent to Congress on Martin excluded information on his ties to former Jan. 6 defendant Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, despite the latter’s record of antisemitic public statements and posting photos of himself dressed as Adolf Hitler in 2024. Martin has since apologized for saying Hale-Cusanelli was being “slurred and smeared” by antisemitism allegations and asserts he did not know of his associate’s past comments.

“I’m not familiar with Mr. Martin’s specific BI investigation, but I can tell you how the BIs are done for everybody at the FBI. We have [career staffers] running the entire Inspection Division and HRD component. That has not changed since I’ve been in the seat. And every BI has been held to the same standard by them. And either they pass along the information from their investigations that they cultivate, or they don’t. We do not tell them what to pass on and what not to investigate,” Patel told Meng.

Pressed by Meng on if he believed that type of information would be relevant to a BI report, Patel replied: “That’s up to the field agents, ma’am, I can’t rewrite that for them. They have a way of doing these investigations that I have not inhibited or changed or altered since I got in the seat.”

Later on in the hearing, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) and Patel agreed on the need to continue supporting the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which bring together federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies for counterterrorism missions, with Patel, who used to be a terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice, noting the utility of federal resources to smaller law enforcement operations dealing with terrorism concerns. 

“The best cases I ever made as a terrorism prosecutor was on the task force, because we had embedded state and local authorities with federal authorities. State and federal prosecutors working every day together, bringing cases where you could bring cases, because sometimes you couldn’t bring them in state court, and sometimes you can’t bring them in federal court,” Patel said.

The hearing briefly became heated during a tense exchange between Patel and Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA), when Dean accused the director of being involved in the recent dismissal of some FBI officials, despite testifying during his confirmation hearing that he had no involvement as a private citizen in any firings at the bureau. It is not clear which officials she was referring to, though Dean alleged that the FBI director had “likely committed perjury” as a result, citing “multiple whistleblowers” who had come forward. 

“We should worry more about your lack of candor. You’re accusing me of committing perjury. Tell the American people how I broke the law and committed a felony. Have the audacity to actually put the facts forward instead of lying for political banter so you can have a 20-second donation hit,” Patel retorted.

President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he had called off the U.S. bombing campaign against Houthi targets in Yemen after the terrorist group told the Trump administration this week that “they don’t want to fight anymore.”

Trump made the comments, which he described as “very good news,” while speaking to reporters from the Oval Office ahead of a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. 

“The Houthis have announced that they are not, or they’ve announced to us at least, that they don’t want to fight anymore. They just don’t want to fight, and we will honor that, and we will stop the bombings,” Trump said. “They have capitulated, but more importantly, we will take their word. They say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that’s what the purpose of what we were doing.”

The president added that his team had “just found out” about the developments, which he called “very, very positive.”

Israel conducted intensive strikes against the Houthis on Monday and Tuesday after the terror group struck Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport complex over the weekend, injuring six.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a member of the Houthi Political Council, told Bloomberg News that the group may stop attacking U.S. ships if the bombardment stops “but we will definitely continue our operations in support to Gaza” and that Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and against Israel “will not stop regardless of the consequences until the end of the aggression on Gaza and blockade on its people.”

The foreign minister of Oman, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, said in a statement that “recent discussions and contacts conducted by the Sultanate of Oman with the United States and the relevant authorities in Sana’a … have resulted in a ceasefire agreement between the two sides. In the future, neither side will target the other, including American vessels, in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab Strait, ensuring freedom of navigation and the smooth flow of international commercial shipping.”

Trump told reporters, “They were not going to have a lot of ships going, as you know, sailing beautifully down the various seas. It wasn’t just the canal, it was out of other places. And I will accept their word, and we are going to stop the bombing of the Houthis effective immediately,” later adding in response to a question about the news, “They don’t want to be bombed anymore. I sort of thought that would happen.”

Trump then turned to Secretary of State Marco Rubio to discuss the change in strategy, who stated, “This was always a freedom of navigation issue. These guys are a band of individuals with advanced weaponry that were threatening global shipping. And the job was to get that to stop, and if it’s going to stop, then we can stop. And so I think it’s an important development.”

President Donald Trump said he’d be open to meeting directly with Iran’s president or Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but also suggested that the U.S. could attack Iran to keep it from acquiring a nuclear weapon, in an interview with Time magazine, released on Friday.

When asked if he would consider such a meeting, the president responded, “Sure.”

Pressed if he is worried Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could “drag you into a war” with Iran, Trump responded, “No. By the way, he may go into a war. But we’re not getting dragged in.” The president clarified that he did not mean the U.S. wouldn’t join a war if Israel initiates one: “You asked if he’d drag me in, like I’d go in unwillingly. No, I may go in very willingly if we can’t get a deal. If we don’t make a deal, I’ll be leading the pack.”

Trump further denied reports that he had stopped Israel from carrying out plans to strike Iran, but affirmed that he is unsupportive of an attack without attempting negotiations. “It’s not right. I didn’t stop them. But I didn’t make it comfortable for them, because I think we can make a deal without the attack. I hope we can,” he said. “It’s possible we’ll have to attack because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. But I didn’t make it comfortable for them, but I didn’t say no. Ultimately I was going to leave that choice to them, but I said I would much prefer a deal than bombs being dropped.”

Asked why his administration is revoking visas from and beginning to deport hundreds of foreign students, Trump said, “Tremendous antisemitism at every one of those rallies.” The president said he’s unconcerned about “intimidating students or chilling free speech” through this policy: “They can protest, but they can’t destroy schools like they did with Columbia and others.”

He said he would “look into” having the Department of Justice provide evidence that Tufts University graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish national who was detained by plainclothes federal agents on March 25, has ties to Hamas as the government has alleged, but he’s “not aware of the particular incident.”

On Saudi-Israel normalization, the president said he is confident that Saudi Arabia will join the Abraham Accords, “and by the way, I think it will be full very quickly.”

High-level direct negotiations between the U.S. and Iran will begin on Saturday, President Donald Trump announced in an Oval Office meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.

Netanyahu, who has historically expressed skepticism about the possibility of reaching an effective nuclear deal with Iran, raised the topic, saying that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. If it can be done diplomatically as it was in Libya, that would be a good thing. But if it can’t, we have to ensure it has no nuclear weapons.” 

In response, the president said: “We are having direct talks with Iran. It’ll go on Saturday.”

Iran, however, has yet to publicly agree to enter direct talks with the U.S.

”I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious,” Trump added, a reference to a possible attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “And the obvious is not something I want to be involved with or frankly, that Israel wants to be involved with if they can avoid it.” 

Trump said Iran’s nuclear program is “getting to be very dangerous territory.” 

Asked the level of the delegation to the nuclear talks, Trump said “high level, very high level … almost the highest level.” He would not say where the talks will take place.

The president’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, said he had no comment when asked by Jewish Insider on Monday if he would be involved in the negotiations on Saturday.

Iranian state media reported on Tuesday that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Witkoff will lead the talks, characterized by Araghchi as “indirect,” in Oman. Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi will reportedly serve as the mediator.

The president acknowledged that it’s “a possibility” that Iran is trying to buy time and does not plan to seriously negotiate.

“I think if the talks aren’t successful with Iran, I think Iran is going to be in great danger, and I hate to say it. Great danger,” he said. “Because they can’t have a nuclear weapon. You know, it’s not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, that’s all there is.”

However, Trump stopped short of threatening to bomb Iran, as he did last week.

The president said that if he makes a deal with Iran, “it’ll be different and maybe a lot stronger” than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. 

Deputy Special Envoy Morgan Ortagus said in an interview with Al Arabiya that “what we’re not going to do is get into the Biden trap where you do indirect talks that last for years and the Iranians just string us along. Not happening in this administration.”

“If we’re going to have talks, they need to be quick, they need to be serious about dismantling their nuclear weapons program,” she said. “President Trump wants a peaceful future for both countries, but we’re not going to be extorted like the Biden administration was.” 

Ortagus noted that the U.N. Security Council Resolution underpinning the JCPOA, which would allow parties to the deal to snap back all pre-deal sanctions on Iran, expires in October, and that there have long been grounds to bring back those sanctions, because Iran has been violating the terms of the agreement since 2021.

This story was updated at 4 a.m. ET

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said he would work to support President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon during his confirmation hearing to be U.S. ambassador to Israel on Tuesday, saying that he believes “it is better to bankrupt them than it is to bomb them.”

Huckabee made the comments before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after being asked by Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) if he agreed with the president that Iran must be prevented from having a nuclear weapon, pointing to reports that Trump told Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a recent letter on restarting nuclear talks that the Iranian leader would have two months to reach an agreement “or risk severe consequences.”

“I absolutely believe that the president is taking the right course of action. He did it in his first term. The maximum pressure bankrupted the Iranians. It made it impossible for them to fund the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas. They didn’t have the money,” Huckabee said. 

“When his term ended and President Biden took office, unfortunately they relaxed some of those pressures and the result was Iran had money again. They didn’t use it to help their people, they used it to murder people in Israel through the Houthis, through Hezbollah and through Hamas. I’m grateful to serve a president who recognizes that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and that it is better to bankrupt them than it is to bomb them.”

The former governor received a chilly reaction from Democrats on the committee, who pressed him over his past expressions of support for Israeli annexation of the West Bank and opposition to a Palestinian state. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), pressed Huckabee on how he reconciled his opposition to a two-state solution when the Saudis have conditioned any normalization deal with Israel on Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state. 

Huckabee said a “cultural shift” was necessary on the Palestinian side to allow for lasting peace in the region. 

“To see people who are raised up with an irrational hatred toward Jewish people, that cannot lead to any level of peaceful coexistence, whether it’s here, there or anywhere else on the planet,” Huckabee told Rosen.  

“There can be no peace and two-state solution if there continues to be education from the time a child is five and six years old, living under the Palestinian Authority that says it’s OK, in fact, it’s desirable to murder Jews and to reward them for it.”

Asked again about expanding the Abraham Accords without a commitment from Israel to support a two-state solution, Huckabee replied that this would occur “through the long process of seeing the culture change.”

“There has to be an admission that Israel has a right to exist. There has to be some recognition that there will be a change in the policy of educating children to hate Jews. That does not lead toward a peaceful coexistence anywhere at any time,” he said. 

"We're seeing the results of that antisemitism here in our homeland, which is very distressing to me… To see people who are raised up with an irrational toward Jewish people. And that cannot lead to any level of peaceful coexistence, whether it's here, there or anywhere else on… pic.twitter.com/RFeRqUY8CS

— Jewish Insider (@J_Insider) March 25, 2025

Rosen acknowledged that Huckabee “care[s] deeply about the bonds between the United States and Israel. I have no doubt that if confirmed, you will work tirelessly to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship, meet Israel’s defense needs and free all the remaining hostages held by Hamas.” 

The Nevada senator added that she was concerned, though, about his willingness to work toward maintaining bipartisan support for Israel in Congress and “encourage steps that could one day lead to a durable, lasting peace in the region, that finally provides Israel with long-term security.” 

“To have any chance of achieving what I just laid out, Israel cannot turn into a partisan football here on Capitol Hill,” Rosen said. 

Huckabee vowed, in response, to maintain equal lines of communication with Democratic and Republican offices. 

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) told Huckabee that he believed his top priority as ambassador needed to be getting the remaining hostages home, pointing to New Jersey native Edan Alexander being the last remaining American in Hamas captivity. Asked by Booker what Huckabee thought he could do in his role to help facilitate his constituent’s release, Huckabee replied that getting Alexander home “has to be the first item of business before anything else.”

Multiple Democrats on the committee pressed Huckabee on his long-standing support for Israeli settlement annexation, with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) calling him a “big hero of the Jewish settler movement on the West Bank.” While Huckabee acknowledged that he remains a supporter of annexation efforts, he noted that he recognized his role would not be to create policy but to enforce it. 

“If confirmed, it’ll be my duty to carry out the president’s policies, not mine. One of the things that I will recognize — an ambassador doesn’t create the policy, he carries the policy of his country and his president,” Huckabee said in response to a question from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR). “I have previously supported it, Judea and Samaria, but it would not be my prerogative to make that the policy of the president.”

Asked by Merkley if he was supportive of forcibly displacing Palestinians from Gaza, Huckabee said no. 

Huckabee acknowledged the concerns of Democrats in his opening statement, telling the panel, “I have no illusion that everyone on this committee agrees with President Trump’s policies or his choices for roles in his administration. It is simply my hope that we will be able to engage in a meaningful discussion. I am not here to articulate or defend my own views or policies, but to present myself as one who will respect and represent the president.”

The former governor received a more receptive tone from committee Republicans, who engaged with Huckabee on his long-standing support for Israel. 

Sen. John Boozman (R-AR) praised Huckabee in introductory remarks as “the right person to be our representative to Israel at this critical moment, and I’m thankful to President Trump for selecting such a staunch and passionate advocate for the Jewish state.”

“Mike is not only qualified to serve as our ambassador to Israel, but he is uniquely suited for this role given the way he has championed Israel throughout his entire life, including as a steadfast supporter of Israel’s right to exist and defend itself.”

Asked by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) to share “how important it is to you that the United States stand arm-in-arm with Israel and not show any daylight between ourselves and our ally,” Huckabee replied: “Right now, Israel needs an ally and the Jewish people need to know that they have friends. And I am proud to have the right, as a Christian, to say to the Jews: You are not alone. We will not walk behind you but alongside you.”