The new Irish government plans to roll back some of its anti-Israel policies, sparking speculation that it is doing so to appease the Trump administration, even as it remains committed to pursuing a war crimes lawsuit against Israel.

The Dáil, as the Irish parliament is known, convened with its new members on Wednesday for the first time since the country’s November election, and with a more moderate governing coalition than in previous years, formed by centrist parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. 

As President Donald Trump’s administration, and the new GOP-controlled Congress, take shape, much is still unknown about how they’ll approach the domestic antisemitism crisis that has accelerated since Trump’s last term in office. 

American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch, who represented his South Florida district in Congress for 12 years, has some recommendations.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) took a procedural step on Thursday to set up a vote in the coming days on the House-passed legislation placing stringent sanctions on the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants against Israeli officials.

The legislation passed the House for a second time by a bipartisan 243-140 vote earlier this month and Thune had pledged to make it a top priority to pass the legislation promptly, even as the Senate works to confirm members of Trump’s Cabinet. The bill will need 60 votes, the filibuster threshold, to pass the upper chamber. 

President Donald Trump refuted reports that Steve Witkoff, his Middle East envoy, will take over the Iran file, while also lauding Witkoff for his work helping negotiate the cease-fire and hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. 

“No,” Trump said on Thursday after signing a series of executive orders, when asked by a reporter whether he would put Witkoff in charge of Iran strategy and speaking directly with the Iranians. “But he’s certainly somebody I would use. He’s done a fantastic job. He’s a great negotiator.”

After initially declining to criticize billionaire White House advisor Elon Musk for a gesture that some argued was a Nazi salute, two major U.S. Jewish groups are now condemning him for a series of Nazi jokes he made on social media.

Musk came under fire on Monday after he repeatedly performed a gesture resembling a Nazi salute at a Monday rally for the presidential inauguration. The Anti-Defamation League defended Musk, arguing that the gestures were not intentional and suggested he made an “awkward gesture.” The ADL faced criticism, predominantly from liberals,for defending Musk. The American Jewish Committee did not weigh in at all.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is urging the Trump administration to “steer clear of Pentagon advisors who make their Obama and Biden predecessors look tough by comparison,” as Republicans grow increasingly concerned over recent high-ranking hires at the Department of Defense opposed to U.S. engagement in the Middle East — and the individual who hired them. 

In a rebuke of the viewpoints held by at least one recent Pentagon hire and the staffing process that resulted in their appointments, McConnell, the longtime former Senate Republican leader, told Jewish Insider he finds it “alarming” that such individuals had survived the vetting process given each of their well-documented records on Middle East policy. 

A senior House Republican national security voice is urging House and Senate leaders to prioritize passing legislation codifying maximum-pressure sanctions against the Iranian regime — rather than relying on executive orders alone — and heading off any attempt at a new nuclear deal with the regime.

The Trump administration implemented the maximum-pressure program during its first term. Though the Biden administration never formally repealed any of the sanctions, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle accused the Biden administration of failing to fully enforce them. House Republicans, particularly the members of the influential Republican Study Committee, repeatedly pushed legislation during President Joe Biden’s term to codify the sanctions, to ensure that neither Biden nor any future president could unilaterally lift them.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres predicted on Wednesday that the Middle East would be “deeply reshaped” by the conflicts and emerging new governments across the region in the last year.

“We face widening geopolitical divisions, rising inequalities and assault on human rights, and we see a multiplication of conflicts, some of which are leading to the reshaping of different parts of the world, not least the Middle East,” Guterres said in his remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.