U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee conveyed a message to the growing isolationist camp on the American right as he submitted his diplomatic credentials on Monday: Maintaining close relations with Israel and countering the Iranian nuclear threat are beneficial to Americans.

“The Iranian regime and all the hostility it has inflicted on the world for 46 years continues to threaten not only the peace of Israel but the peace of the United States,” Huckabee said in the ceremony at the residence of Israeli President Isaac Herzog. “Iranians have always said, ‘Death to Israel,’ and chapter two is ‘Death to America’… Israel is the appetizer, and the United States is the entree.”

Israel is unhappy with the direction U.S.-Iran talks appear to be taking but continues to be in direct communication with the Trump administration, an Israeli official told Jewish Insider on Monday after a second round of talks between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic concluded over the weekend.

“It sure does look like the JCPOA,” the official said, comparing the details that have been made public from the negotiations to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. “Are we happy with it? I don’t think that’s come across in any of the statements the prime minister has made.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Sunday, a week after an arsonist motivated by anti-Israel animus set the governor’s mansion on fire. 

Herzog expressed solidarity with Shapiro after the attack, which took place hours after the governor hosted a Passover Seder. 

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is holding firm in his choice not to label the arson attack that targeted the governor’s mansion on Passover as antisemitic or a hate crime, saying in a Friday interview on ABC News’ “Good Morning America” that he will leave that question to the prosecutors. 

“I think that’s a question for the prosecutors to determine. They’re going to determine motive,” Shapiro said. “I recognize when you’re in these positions of power, there are people out there that want to do you harm, but I try not to be captive to the fear, and I try not to worry or think about why people want to do that harm.”

A group of pro-Israel Jewish House Democrats wrote to Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff on Thursday warning that Iran must restore International Atomic Energy Agency access to its nuclear sites before any deal can move forward in earnest.

Under a reported proposal put forward by Iran, Iran would not allow such inspections to resume until well into the implementation of a nuclear agreement.

Two House Republicans are traveling to Syria for meetings with new Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa and other senior Syrian officials. Reps. Cory Mills (R-FL) and Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) are the first known American lawmakers to travel to the war-torn country and meet with al-Sharaa since the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024.

The two will also meet with Syrian Foreign Affairs Minister Asaad al-Shaibani during their visit, which was organized and funded by the Syrian American Alliance for Peace and Prosperity. The delegation is not sponsored by the U.S. government.

A yearslong debate in a California school district over ethnic studies education culminated on Wednesday night with a unanimous vote to renew a contract with a controversial consultant whose curriculum has sparked antisemitism allegations among local Jewish leaders. 

The move has fueled concern by some of those leaders that the vote could potentially lay the groundwork for other school districts to follow suit. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is pressing the Department of Justice to investigate whether the arson attack on Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence constituted a federal hate crime, suggesting in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi that the federal government’s response has been insufficient thus far. 

But Shapiro himself is deferring to local and federal prosecutors and said Schumer’s letter was unhelpful.