This week: What Bibi and Hamas Don't Want You to Know ⚠️ | A Dialogue About Dialogue ➡️ | Democrats Need to Change the Way They Talk About Israel 🗣️ | Save Your Seat at the J Street 2026 Convention 🎟️ | This Week's Must-Reads/Listens 📖 | Our Pro-Democracy To-Do List 🗳️ | And much more.
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⚠️ What Bibi and Hamas Don’t Want You to Know: Since the beginning of the US-backed ceasefire took effect in Gaza, over 350 Gazans have been killed by Israeli fire and bombings, while Hamas and other militants have killed three Israeli soldiers.
- “The truth: Both the Netanyahu government and Hamas want this horrific status quo to be frozen in place: Hamas so it can stay in power, and Netanyahu so he can use Hamas as a foil, keep an occupying force in Gaza and prevent progress toward a Palestinian state,” J Street Chief Policy Officer Ilan Goldenberg wrote in an email to supporters.
- “Every crossing of the poorly defined yellow line bisecting Gaza cannot result in Israel shooting first and asking questions later after civilians have been killed. Hamas was supposed to begin disarming and allow others to come in. Instead, it has violently reasserted control over its half of Gaza. Israel was supposed to allow the Rafah crossing to open; it hasn’t. The Netanyahu government has loosened its restrictions on aid, but the amount getting in remains insufficient,” writes Ilan Goldenberg in Word on the Street. Read and share here >>
✍️ Demand that the US use its leverage to end to the horrors >> ✍️
➡️ A Dialogue About Dialogue: A Peter Beinart lecture at Tel Aviv University sparked backlash from both Israeli right-wing groups opposed to his views and pro-Palestinian activists who accused him of violating their boycott of Israeli institutions.
- “Tel Aviv University is arguably the most open-minded major university in Israel. Its community is made up of exactly the people who rarely hear Peter’s arguments in Israeli media or political discourse. Reaching them – challenging them – is not 'normalizing' injustice. It is modeling the kind of pluralist engagement any open, democratic society requires," J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote on Word on the Street. Read the full piece here >>
- Jeremy joined Peter Beinart’s podcast for a productive conversation about his visit to Tel Aviv University and the backlash he received from the BDS movement:
“There isn’t going to be an end to this if there isn’t a coexistence movement – if there isn’t an effort to bring Israelis and Palestinians together at the people-to-people level,” Jeremy said about the necessity to engage with Israeli society about the conflict. Listen to the full conversation here >>
🗣️ Democrats Need to Change the Way They Talk About Israel: Ben Rhodes of Pod Save the World joined Jeremy and Ilan to discuss his recent piece about the Democrats’ failure to address the Gaza war and the urgency to respond to a rapidly shifting electorate.
- “We need Palestinians to have a voice in our party and in these debates and in these discussions […] The core unifying point of the Democratic Party is a belief in equality and multi-racial democracy – if we see Palestinians as equally human as Israelis and Americans, it logically leads to different policies. And that doesn't come at the expense of Jewish identity. It should not have to even come at the expense of caring about Israel,” Rhodes said. Listen to the full Word on the Street here >>
🎟️ Save Your Seat at the J Street 2026 Convention: From working to lock in this ceasefire to fighting for our democracy at the ballot box, J Street’s work has never been more important.
- Our 2026 convention will feature pro-peace leaders from Israel and Palestine, pro-democracy champions in the House and Senate, and challengers looking to defeat MAGA incumbents up and down the ballot. Don't miss out on the largest gathering of our pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy movement next year! Learn more and register here >>
📖 This Week’s Must-Reads/Listens:
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This Is the Story of How the Democrats Blew It on Gaza
"During the Biden presidency, it was short-handed the 'hug Bibi' strategy — the idea that smothering Mr. Netanyahu with unconditional support would give the U.S. leverage to influence his actions" [...] "This approach made Democrats hypocrites when defending a 'rules-based order,' racial equality and democracy. It alienated elements of their base and placed them out of step with younger voters. And in an age of authoritarianism, fealty to an Israeli strongman who routinely humiliated them made Democrats appear weak," writes Ben Rhodes in the New York Times.
- The End of the Israel Exception
"For the United States, this long-overdue adjustment is a strategic, political, and moral imperative. From preventing Israel’s annexation of the West Bank to forging a common strategy to address Iran’s nuclear program, a normal U.S.-Israeli relationship would produce better outcomes than an exceptional one that too often incentivizes dangerous Israeli behavior and depletes Washington’s global influence," Former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli-Palestinian Affairs Andrew Miller writes in Foreign Affairs.
- [Watch] JSU Leader Talia Winiarsky Speaks at Chicago’s Annual Luncheon
“If Jews want the right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, then why would Palestinians not? If Jews have wanted to return to the state of Israel after millennia of exile, why would Palestinians not? It is because of my Zionism, not in spite of it, that I believe in a Palestinian state. Because I believe that Palestinians share many of the same feelings that my ancestors had. I lean on this history to guide me towards a just future.”
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