Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) said she came away from her recent visit to Israel feeling resolute in her determination to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship and support the Jewish state in its efforts to bring all remaining hostages in Gaza home.

Gillen, a freshman lawmaker who represents a Nassau County, Long Island, swing district with a significant Jewish population, took part in a delegation of 14 House Democrats to the Jewish state last week. The trip was sponsored by the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation, which organized a similar visit to Israel for House Republicans the week prior that overlapped for several days with the Democratic trip. 

Seb Gorka, the White House senior director for counterterrorism and a deputy assistant to the president, aired his grievances with the anti-Israel faction within the Republican Party on Tuesday, alleging that the wing of the GOP aligned with podcast host Tucker Carlson is  “basically Pat Buchanan in a new guise.”

Gorka made the comments in a conversation on counterterrorism and U.S. strategy at the Hudson Institute after being pressed on the foreign policy disputes within the MAGA movement and Carlson’s grievances with President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities in June. 

Ron Halber, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, strongly criticized Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) over his recent decision to support legislation that seeks to severely restrict U.S. aid to Israel, casting the congressman’s move as part of a troubling pattern that has sparked concern among pro-Israel activists in his Maryland district.

“Jamie’s signing on that legislation was extremely disappointing,” Halber said in an interview with Jewish Insider on Tuesday, referring to the Block the Bombs Act, a bill led by far-left lawmakers that would place unprecedented new conditions on U.S. weapons transfers to Israel. 

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said on Tuesday he is “optimistic” while also remaining “realistic,” about the latest round of ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations with Hamas. 

“I want to be optimistic about a deal with Hamas but I’m also aware of who we are dealing with, we’re not dealing with a nation state. We’re dealing with savages,” Huckabee said during an online briefing co-hosted by the American Jewish Congress and World Zionist Organization. 

The head of the American Association of University Professors said in a recent interview that the United States should not send defensive weapons to Israel amid its war against Hamas, which he called a genocide in Gaza. 

“We believe strongly that no weapons should be sent to Israel, at all. Not defensive or offensive, nothing,” Todd Wolfson, the president of AAUP, told Inside Higher Ed. 

Rev. Johnnie Moore, executive chairman of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has spent the past two weeks under “24/7 protection while evil wants to kill me,” he told attendees of the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute’s annual National Jewish Retreat, held last week at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington. 

Moore was referring to some 50 anti-Israel demonstrators who have protested outside of his Northern Virginia home multiple times in recent weeks — making death threats and painting graffiti.  

After a video surfaced last week of Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), the House minority whip, referring to Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, Clark walked back the remark on Monday — and maintained her endorsement from AIPAC amid the controversy, a spokesperson for the group told Jewish Insider. 

“Last week, while attending an event in my district, I repeated the word ‘genocide’ in response to a question,” Clark told the Jewish News Syndicate on Monday. “I want to be clear that I am not accusing Israel of genocide. … We all need to work with urgency to bring the remaining hostages home, surge aid to Palestinians and oppose their involuntary relocation, remove Hamas from power and end the war.” 

The American Association of Geographers became the latest professional association to face pressure to adopt a boycott of Israel after a recent member petition urged the association “to endorse the campaign for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions.”

The campaign also calls for “financial disclosure and divestment of any AAG funds invested in corporations or state institutions profiting from the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people.”