Fresh off a trip to Israel, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) predicted that a new Iran deal will not be finalized until after the upcoming U.S. midterms and Israeli elections, and previewed plans for multiple legislative initiatives aimed at countering Tehran.

“I don’t think there’s any chance the agreement will be announced before our election, or the Israeli election [set for Nov. 1], because the politics of this agreement are probably not good in either place,” Graham told Jewish Insider on Thursday. But, despite fresh setbacks in the latest round of talks, “I’m assuming that [the administration] will get a deal because they want a deal so badly.”

At an event celebrating the two-year anniversary of the Abraham Accords, United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba referred to the Palestinians as “the elephant in the room,” and called on signatories to the Accords to do more to advance a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

“All the stuff that we’re talking about is great,” Al Otaiba said at a virtual event on Thursday organized by the Washington, D.C.-based Atlantic Council think tank, “but we can’t avoid talking about the two-state solution. We really can’t.”

Democratic Majority for Israel is backing 29 House and Senate candidates in a new round of general election endorsements, the group’s political arm, DMFI PAC, plans to announce on Friday.

The list covers a wide range of pro-Israel incumbents who are seeking reelection in safe blue districts, including Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Adriano Espaillat (D-NY) and Haley Stevens (D-MI), among others.

A Republican-sponsored resolution seeking to force the administration to provide Congress with the still-pending draft text of the Iran deal is headed to a vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee next week, a spokesperson for the bill’s lead sponsor, Alex Ives, a spokesperson for Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), told Jewish Insider.

The resolution, introduced by Foxx and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) would compel the administration to provide Congress with the text of the draft deal and any related side agreements immediately, even if negotiations are still in progress when the bill is passed. It’s unclear if the resolution will have enough support to pass the committee.

A New York state lawmaker is urging the state’s attorney general to probe potential anti-Israel bias in investment firm Morningstar’s environment, social and governance (ESG) ratings system.

Assemblymember Daniel Rosenthal, a Democrat who represents the heavily Jewish Queens neighborhoods of Kew Gardens Hills, Kew Gardens and parts of Forest Hills, sent a letter on Aug. 31 to Attorney General Letitia James, the latest effort to urge state officials to probe the investment firm, which is facing accusations that its subsidiary, Sustainalytics, is biased against Israel. The letter cites New York’s anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy, established by a 2016 executive order.

On Aug. 9, 2001, in the late afternoon of what had been a typical day in Jerusalem, families gathered for lunch, as they often did, at Sbarro on the corner of Jaffa Road and King George Street. A bustling area, the kosher pizzeria was a particularly popular spot among neighborhood children and members of the area’s religious communities. That Thursday, the restaurant was packed. Fifteen-year-old Malki Roth, a citizen of Israel, Australia and the U.S., was there with her best friend.

At the same time, Malki’s father, Arnold Roth, the head of a drug development company, was taking his lunch break amid an afternoon of nonstop meetings. He had just finished when, around 2 p.m., he answered a call from his wife screaming into the phone. There had been an attack.

“Is it possible,” asks Yosef Yerushalmi, a scholar of Jewish history, “that the antonym of ‘forgetting’ is not ‘remembering,’ but ‘justice?’”

This is the question that drives Come to This Court and Cry: How the Holocaust Ends, a new book from journalist Linda Kinstler that explores how society remembers and honors the victims of the Holocaust — and warns that the power of survivor testimony is under threat today from the forces of nationalism and authoritarianism.

Just over half of the applications submitted for Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding in 2022 were approved, according to new data for the 2022 application cycle — a slight improvement from the prior year, even as funding shortfalls for the program continued.

The program, which provides federal funding for nonprofits and houses of worship to improve their security, received 3,470 applications and granted 1,821, according to a source familiar with the data, for an overall acceptance rate of 52%. The applications totaled slightly over $447 million in funding requests, well outstripping the $250 million available for the program; 5% of that $250 million was also set aside for the states that play a role in distributing the funding.