J Street

Working for Israeli-Palestinian peace, defending Jewish and democratic values.

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

This moment demands a reset. J Street is calling for the U.S. to end unconditional financial military subsidies to Israel and to move towards a relationship where we treat Israel like any other ally.

J Street supports:
– Phasing out taxpayer-funded military aid by 2028, when the current agreement ends.
– Ensuring Israel can defend itself, by selling – not subsidizing – the weapons it needs, including Iron Dome.
– Enforcing U.S. law on how American arms are used, including withholding certain weapons when those laws are not met.

Why now? The current U.S. aid agreement expires in 2028. This is the moment to chart a smarter path forward. At the same time, after the devastation in Gaza and ongoing suffering in the West Bank, it is clear that the status quo is no longer sustainable.

Israel is strong, prosperous and capable of paying for its defense. Treating Israel as an exception and supplying it with a blank check worth billions has made support for the country more divisive and less sustainable.

Simply put, the U.S. should treat Israel like any other partner. The normalization of this relationship doesn’t weaken the alliance – it strengthens it, protects democracy and secures long-term bipartisan support.

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

The Holocaust isn’t a political prop, and comparing Democrats to the Third Reich is ridiculous and offensive.

It’s worth asking why some Jewish leaders are so quick to let rhetoric like this slide when the person saying it is sufficiently “pro-Israel.” You don’t get a pass on antisemitism because of your unconditional support for an extreme right-wing Israeli government.

https://t.co/TcDdD5h7jY

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

Israel’s Supreme Court struck down the racist attempt by Netanyahu’s extremist government to ban Palestinian Arab parties and lawmakers from the Knesset.

Two crucial takeaways from this decision. First, the pro-democracy movement’s fight to preserve judicial independence remains a vital line of defense against the extreme government. And two, a democracy cannot strip minority citizens of their right to political participation.

https://t.co/tTkxVPcKpZ

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

Before the end of Sukkot tonight, and as we prepare to return to the warmth of our homes, two million Palestinians in Gaza face an impending winter in worn-out tents and unstable ruins.

Reconstruction is stalled, and Israeli authorities continue to restrict the entry of aid, including materials for shelter.

Tell Congress to act now 👇

https://t.co/Be2goc5XN8

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

🚨 Israel’s security establishment is warning that the government’s annexationist policies in the West Bank would come at a steep security cost.

It could fuel radicalization, collapse the Palestinian Authority, strain the IDF, undermine security coordination with Jordan and Egypt and further isolate Israel internationally.

Annexation doesn’t make Israel safer. It puts Israel’s security at greater risk.

[מפקדים למען ביטחון ישראל @cisorgil]

תנועת מפקדים למען ביט��ון ישראל הצטרפה לעתירה לבג"ץ נגד מהלכי הסיפוח של הממשלה, לצד "כחול לבן", התנועה הדמוקרטית האזרחית וקובי ריכטר.

בנספח הביטחוני-מדיני שהגשנו אנחנו מזהירים כי מדיניות הסיפוח מאיימת להביא להקצנה, להתחמשות ולהתגייסות פלסטינים לחמאס, להכבדה משמעותית על צה"ל - בזמן שכוחו כבר מתוח עד הקצה במספר חזיתות, ולקריסת הרשות הפלסטינית שתחייב השתלטות צה"ל על כל השטח וניהול (ומימון) חיי שלושה מיליון פלסטינים.

מהלכי הסיפוח עלולים לפגוע גם בתיאום הביטחוני עם ירדן (החיוני מול איראן) ומצרים (גם בהקשרי הרצועה), לערער את הסכמי אברהם, להעמיק את השחיקה במעמדה האזורי והבינלאומי של ישראל ובתמיכה בה בארה"ב, ולהגביר את גל הסנקציות נגדה, כולל בתחום הביטחון.

על הממשלה לעצור את מהלכי הסיפוח לפני שהמחיר הביטחוני יהפוך לבלתי נסבל!
סיפוח פוגע בביטחון ישראל.
הוא ישאב את צה"ל לזירה נוספת על חשבון מוכנות למשימות ביטחון חיוניות!

[Rep. Don Beyer @RepDonBeyer]

We cannot negotiate a lasting peace while Israeli settlements continue to expand illegally into Palestinian territory.

The U.S. has opposed this territorial expansion for decades, and our legislation makes clear that we will not tolerate it any longer.

[Rosa DeLauro @rosadelauro]

Israel’s support for settlements means the continuation of displacement & forced statelessness. That is why I join my colleagues @JoaquinCastrotx, @RepDean, @RepCasar, @RepSaraJacobs, & @RepEscobar in introducing the Stop the Settlements Act.

I witnessed firsthand how Israeli settlers in the West Bank pursue violent attacks on innocent Palestinians every day. The settlements must end.

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

The Oscar-shortlisted film HOLDING LIAT is now available to watch on digital 📺

In the weeks unfolding after Liat is kidnapped, her father resists efforts to use her captivity to justify escalating violence in Gaza, exposing political and emotional rifts within his family as they struggle to find a way to bring her home.

WATCH NOW on Apple, Google, Kanopy and Kinema: https://t.co/N0Eleq6HuV

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

Yesterday, a 90-year-old American citizen was assaulted and pepper-sprayed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

Just days ago, 47 senators voted to investigate human rights conditions in the West Bank but Republicans blocked the resolution.

Families across the West Bank deserve justice. The political landscape is shifting, but we cannot lift our foot off the gas.

[Ihab Hassan @IhabHassane]

BREAKING: Israeli settler terrorists assaulted and pepper-sprayed Jameel Alnasan, a 90-year-old American citizen, in the village of Al-Mughayyir in the West Bank.

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

Antisemitic tropes are not new, but today, they can be hard to recognize when they’re repackaged in coded language.

Our new guide with @NexusProjectUS breaks down six common tropes, how they’re used, and how we can name and challenge them.

Read: https://t.co/LLKQ7A883M

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

The Israeli activists attacked in Janta were putting our values into action: Protecting their Palestinian neighbors and refusing to accept a future of occupation. We stand with them.

[עומדים ביחד نق�� معًا Standing Together🟣 @omdimbeyachad]

Several of our activists were just attacked by violent Israeli settlers with clubs, pepper spray and stones while doing protective presence work, along with the groups Rabbis for Human Rights and Bnei Abraham, in the village of Jannatah in the occupied West Bank. Settlers target Palestinians first, but anyone who stands alongside them against terror and forced displacement can also become a target. What our activists experienced is only a small taste of the violence Palestinian communities endure every day.

We will continue standing with Palestinian communities confronting violent settler terror every day, violence enabled, backed, and funded by the Israeli government and military.

Help us sustain our Solidarity Guard by donating, and add your name to our petition against settler terror. 

Sign our petition: https://t.co/dd1ZYJwYVg
Donate: https://t.co/5mIGnlBubi

[CNN @CNN]

A CNN investigation has found that while Jared Kushner acted as a key Middle East peace negotiator, his private equity firm held the largest stake in an Israeli company backing businesses tied to Israel's military campaign in Gaza, including its largest arms manufacturer. https://t.co/zPxwBqGzs0

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

Three years after October 7, 2023, how are Israelis navigating this moment and the road ahead?

Join us for an important discussion featuring Yehuda Cohen, who advocated fiercely for the release of his son Nimrod, and Israeli activist/writer Mika Almog.

📅 Monday, October 7 | ⏰ 11am Eastern
An early start because of our Israel-based speakers! Recordings available after!

🔗https://t.co/EH05U4eyDK

[Ben Samuels @Bsamuels0]

40 leading House Democrats, led by @JoaquinCastrotx, introduce the "Stop the Settlements Act." They propose asset freezes, visa bans & import restrictions in bid to attach consequences to Israeli policies destroying the possibility of a two-state solution https://t.co/bk2xZTXgP5

[Joaquin Castro @JoaquinCastrotx]

Under Netanyahu’s government, settlers are engaged in a violent land grab that’s ripping Palestinians from their land.

Sanctions can help stop it.

The Stop the Settlements Act gives any person or company looking to take Palestinian land in the West Bank or Gaza a choice: if you pursue settlements, you can’t do business with the United States.

[Ilan Goldenberg @ilangoldenberg]

This is either incredibly dishonest or just a very lazy lazy take. Read the legislation. It focuses on new settlements in the West Bank and Gaza or existing settlements in areas that threaten a viable Palestinian state. No that doesn’t include the Jewish quarter of the old city. 

This is exactly the type of deceptive/lazy “analysis” you used to help tank the JCPOA making things up about the agreement and how it would quickly lead to a nuclear bomb while claiming that of course you didn’t want a war just more pressure. Now we’ve had that war you supposedly didn’t want, but then cheerlead for, and it’s been a catastrophe for US interests.  Glad you are bringing your sharp “analysis” to this new problem.

[Joaquin Castro @JoaquinCastrotx]

Settlers are driving Palestinians from their homes in a violent land grab. Sanctions can stop it.

I'm introducing legislation—alongside Reps. Dean, Beyer, Casar, Jacobs, Escobar—that imposes sanctions against anyone looking to take Palestinian land in the West Bank or Gaza.

Under the Stop the Settlements Act, anyone pursuing settlements can’t do business with the United States.

In addition, thank you to all of the my colleagues who are co-sponsoring this bill:

Rep. Becca Balint (VT-AL)
Rep. Salud Carbajal (CA-24)
Rep. Troy Carter (LA-02)
Rep. Sean Casten (IL-06)
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT-03)
Rep. Chris Deluzio (PA-17)
Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (CA-10)
Rep. Maxine Dexter (OR-03)
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (TX-37)
Rep. Maxwell Frost (FL-10)
Rep. Adelita Grijalva (AZ-07)
Rep. Val Hoyle (OR-04)
Rep. Jared Huffman (CA-02)
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA-07)
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (CA-37)
Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17)
Rep. Stephen Lynch (MA-08)
Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet (MI-08)
Rep. Jim McGovern (MA-02)
Rep. Analilia Mejia (NJ-11)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14)
Rep. Chellie Pingree (ME-01)
Rep. Mark Pocan (WI-02)
Rep. Emily Randall (WA-06)
Rep. Andrea Salinas (OR-06)
Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (PA-05)
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09)
Rep. Lateefah Simon (CA-12)
Rep. Melanie Stansbury (NM-01)
Rep. Mark Takano (CA-39)
Rep. Bennie Thompson (MS-02)
Rep. Jill Tokuda (HI-02)
Rep. Paul Tonko (NY-20)
Rep. Derek Tran (CA-45)
Rep. Nydia Velázquez (NY-07)

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

The quiet brutality of occupation can be measured in hours stolen from people’s lives. The hours spent at checkpoints, the school and work missed or even the ambulances delayed.

This @WIRED investigation shows how checkpoints systematically choke Palestinian life – a different kind of violence, but part of the same system of injustice.

https://t.co/pP39unFZIU

[עומדים ביחד نقف معًا Standing Together🟣 @omdimbeyachad]

The magnitude of the destruction is almost impossible to comprehend. No appropriate words to describe this footage.

Street after street, neighborhood after neighborhood – gone. Homes, schools, shops and entire communities have been crushed into mountains of rubble, with more than 10,000 people estimated to still be buried underneath. And while Gaza lies in ruins, Palestinians are still being bombed and killed under something the Israeli government continues to call a “ceasefire.” This is not a ceasefire. 

The bombing and gunfire must stop now. Civilians must be protected, aid and medical supplies must be allowed in without obstruction, and rescue teams must be given the equipment and access to recover those buried beneath the rubble. Gaza’s families deserve to live without fear, to bury their loved ones with dignity and to begin rebuilding what remains of their lives. We need a real, immediate and permanent ceasefire, now.

[Ilan Goldenberg @ilangoldenberg]

For 50 years, American leaders have asked Israel to stop expanding settlements in the West Bank. For 50 years, Israeli governments have refused. It is past time to stop asking and start imposing consequences, and in the past week we are starting to see the beginnings of a new approach.

First with a narrower bill in the Senate led by Senators Coons, Warren, Wyden, and Gallego that would impose sanctions on anyone supporting construction in E1. And now a broader bill in the house led by Castro, Dean, Beyer, Casar, and Jacobs with 40 of their colleagues.

It is time for the United States to impose targeted sanctions on entities that finance, build and support settlement expansion that threatens the viability of a Palestinian state, and on officials responsible for it.

This is bigger than Netanyahu. Settlement growth has continued under Israeli governments across the political spectrum. The settlement movement is organized and politically powerful. Palestinians living under occupation cannot vote in Israeli elections. There is little domestic political counterweight. Polite or even loud American objections have never been enough to change that calculation. Targeted sanctions could.

How would you do this? Start by actually designating the worst offenders: organizations and entities supporting the tremendous boom in farming outposts over the past few years from which most of the violent attacks and officials such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir who are behind the effort. Make an example of them and make it much harder for them to operate.

Then give other companies and financial institutions a deadline to wind down activities that support settlement construction.

What you would likely get relatively quickly is a de facto settlement freeze on Israeli construction in the West Bank. Israeli banks are quite risk averse and deeply value their connection to the U.S. and international banking system. They would respond relatively quickly by pulling out from all of these projects. You’d have to couple that with continued targeting of the most problematic settlements and activities that threaten the viability of a Palestinian state, but you could fundamebntally shift the momentum.

Over time there would also be a change in incentives for settlers. Many live in the West Bank because housing is cheaper and subsidies are generous. If living in the settlements becomes financially harder, if new construction and roads aren’t happening, if businesses are pulling out since it’s simply too risky to operate, some of these settlers will choose to move inside green line Israel and you start changing the overall momentum on the ground.

Importantly, this approach targets the settlement enterprise, which makes it distinctly different from the BDS movement which calls for sanctions on al of Israel and boycotts on Israelis including those working for a better future with Palestinians.

And once Palestinians and Israelis can agree on a map, which likely means Israel keeping many of the settlements in exchange for unpopulated land beyond the Green Line, Israelis can build to their hearts content inside those borders.

The reality is that only the President of the United States with the tools of the executive branch can fully implement such an approach. But it is vital for members of Congress to start going on the record, building political support for a future policy, and beginning to signal to Israeli companies that it's time to stop investing in or supporting the settlements. That is why the new legislation this week is so important.

After 50 years of failed persuasion, the settlement movement needs to face consequences.

https://t.co/MS3OPNTC02

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

Our full statement here: https://t.co/L29B8sGC4X

[J Street @jstreetdotorg]

For more than 50 years, American and international leaders have opposed Israel’s settlement expansion, creeping annexation of the West Bank and efforts to permanently deny Palestinians their right to freedom and self-determination.

Friends of Israel, including J Street, have warned successive governments that deepening the occupation and expanding settlements threaten Israel’s security and its ability to maintain the state’s democratic character and Jewish identity.

American leaders have also warned that these actions are deeply destabilizing and threaten US interests in the Middle East.

Those warnings have gone unheeded, and the Netanyahu government has approved the establishment of 104 new West Bank settlements in just three years.

The Stop the Settlements Act is an important step toward giving meaning to America’s longstanding opposition to settlement expansion by backing up its words with action.

We remain deeply committed to Israel’s security as well as to Palestinian self-determination and continue to believe that those goals are mutually reinforcing.

We commend the sponsors of this legislation for reinforcing the distinction between supporting the State of Israel and opposing the occupation and settlement expansion beyond the Green Line. We urge Congress to adopt this legislation and help prevent Netanyahu, Smotrich and the settlement movement from perpetuating indefinite conflict and foreclosing the possibility of Palestinian statehood and peace.
https://t.co/obENXa2iUc