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15 Jewish House Democrats blast Netanyahu for rejecting two-state solution
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Fifteen Jewish Democrats, including some pro-Israel stalwarts, slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he rejected the idea of creating an independent Palestinian state after the Israel-Hamas war.
“We strongly disagree with the prime minister,” said the brief statement released Friday morning by the office of Rep. Jerry Nadler, the New York representative who is the unofficial dean of Jewish House Democrats. “A two-state solution is the path forward.”
The statement — which comes amid rising calls from some Jewish lawmakers for a ceasefire — signifies growing impatience among Democrats with Netanyahu as the war persists indefinitely. The prime minister, who heads a coalition with far-right elements, has openly rejected the Biden administration’s hopes of forging a postwar two-state outcome.
In a press conference Thursday, Netanyahu used unusually clear language in opposing Biden administration initiatives.
“Therefore, I make clear in any future foreseeable arrangement — with an agreement or without an agreement — the state of Israel must have security control of the entire area west of the Jordan,” he said, referring to territory that includes the West Bank, where some 3 million Palestinians live. “It’s a necessary requirement, and it clashes with the idea of sovereignty, what can you do?”
He continued: “This truth I tell our American friends. And I also obstructed an attempt to coerce us into a reality that would harm the security of Israel. An Israeli prime minister must be able to say no even to our best friends, to say no when necessary and to say yes when possible.”
Netanyahu’s statement was an especially strong rejection of the idea of Palestinian sovereignty, and its substance also reflects what he has said for years about the future of the West Bank. In 2018, he gave a speech proposing a “state-minus” for Palestinians in which Israel retained a military presence across the West Bank. The same idea was reflected in the 2020 plan proposed by then-President Donald Trump, in which Israel would retain security control over the territory of a future Palestinian state. Palestinian leadership roundly rejects that idea.
Netanyahu endorsed the idea of a Palestinian state in a landmark speech in 2009, then backtracked on the eve of an election six years later.
John Kirby, the National Security Council spokesman, was not surprised by Netanyahu’s statement.
“This is not a new comment by Prime Minister Netanyahu,” he told reporters Thursday. “We obviously see it differently. We believe that the Palestinians have every right to live in an independent state with peace and security. And the President and his team is going to continue to work on that.”
Netanyahu and Biden spoke on Friday for the first time since Dec. 23.
Netanyahu’s tough talk appears to have triggered the two-sentence statement, along with other notes of reproval from pro-Israel Democrats. It also drew fire from at least one Jewish Democrat in the Senate, Brian Schatz of Hawaii. “He is, at every opportunity, making things worse,” Schatz told NBC.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, a progressive New York Democrat who is not Jewish and is known for his outspoken defense of Israel, said that closing off any prospect of a Palestinian state was unsustainable.
“I am under no illusion that a two-state solution will happen in the immediate future but to assert that it should NEVER happen — that either Jews or Palestinians should never have self-determination — is morally wrong,” he said Friday on X, formerly Twitter, without directly naming Netanyahu.
The list of 15 Jewish Democrats who issued Friday’s statement was significant for including at least seven lawmakers endorsed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s affiliated political action committee. AIPAC discourages open disagreement with Israeli governments on security issues.
Those seven are Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts, Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon, Dan Goldman of New York, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Mike Levin, Adam Schiff and Brad Sherman of California. (AIPAC endorsed Schiff and Slotkin in 2022; they are running for Senate this year, and the lobby is waiting to see who emerges from the primaries before giving an endorsement.)
Sherman, long one of Israel’s fiercest defenders in Congress, is a standout: He helped found the now defunct Israel Project, launched in the early 2000s to push back against negative portrayals of the country in the media. In a contentious primary race between two Jewish incumbents in 2012, he accused his rival, Howard Berman, of being weak on Iran, and was one of a minority of Democrats who in 2015 opposed the Iran nuclear deal.
Now Sherman has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of Netanyahu. In a post on X, he lashed out at the prime minister.
“First #Netanyahu fails #Israel by basing a highly inadequate portion of the IDF near Gaza in the months before October 7,” Sherman wrote, echoing a critique from Netanyahu’s Israeli critics. “Then he ignores the warnings of October 6. Then this.”
He linked to a Guardian article about Netanyahu’s statements. Reports have said the Israeli establishment ignored substantive intelligence from lower-level officials ahead of Oct. 7 showing that Hamas terrorists were preparing for the massacre they carried out that day, which began the current war.
Slotkin, a CIA veteran, also was outspoken in a post.
“This is plain wrong,” she wrote. “A two-state solution has been official US policy for decades for a reason: because however far away it feels right now, it’s the only way to bring dignity to both Israelis and Palestinians, and lasting stability to the Middle East.”
Sherman and Slotkin did not respond to requests for further comment, nor did spokespeople for a number of the others, including Nadler.
There are 24 Jewish Democrats in the House, and the nine who did not sign the statement include some who are among Israel’s most outspoken defenders, among them Brad Schneider of Illinois, Jared Moskowitz and Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey. Spokespeople for Moskowitz and Schneider said they may issue statements later. Spokespeople for Wasserman Schultz and Gottheimer did not return requests for comment.
Four of the signatories have already made clear their unhappiness with the direction of the war, joining calls for a ceasefire, including Becca Balint of Vermont, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who is also running in a longshot campaign for president.
The other three signatories are Steve Cohen of Tennessee, Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island and Kim Schrier of Washington.
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The post 15 Jewish House Democrats blast Netanyahu for rejecting two-state solution appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Trump Eyes Bringing Azerbaijan, Central Asian Nations into Abraham Accords, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, July 31, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura via Reuters Connect
President Donald Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
As part of the Abraham Accords, inked in 2020 and 2021 during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Azerbaijan and every country in Central Asia, by contrast, already have longstanding relations with Israel, meaning that an expansion of the accords to include them would largely be symbolic, focusing on strengthening ties in areas like trade and military cooperation, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Such an expansion would reflect Trump’s openness to pacts that are less ambitious than his administration’s goal to convince regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia to restore ties with Israel while war rages in Gaza.
The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognize Israel without steps towards Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.
Another key sticking point is Azerbaijan’s conflict with its neighbor Armenia, since the Trump administration considers a peace deal between the two Caucasus nations as a precondition to join the Abraham Accords, three sources said.
While Trump officials have publicly floated several potential entrants into the accords, the talks centered on Azerbaijan are among the most structured and serious, the sources said. Two of the sources argued a deal could be reached within months or even weeks.
Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in March to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Aryeh Lightstone, a key Witkoff aide, met Aliyev later in the spring in part to discuss the Abraham Accords, three of the sources said.
As part of the discussions, Azerbaijani officials have contacted officials in Central Asian nations, including in nearby Kazakhstan, to gauge their interest in a broader Abraham Accords expansion, those sources said. It was not clear which other countries in Central Asia – which includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – were contacted.
The State Department, asked for comment, did not discuss specific countries, but said expanding the accords has been one of the key objectives of Trump. “We are working to get more countries to join,” said a US official.
The Azerbaijani government declined to comment.
The White House, the Israeli foreign ministry and the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Any new accords would not modify the previous Abraham Accords deals signed by Israel.
OBSTACLES REMAIN
The original Abraham Accords – inked between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – were centered on restoration of ties. The second round of expansion appears to be morphing into a broader mechanism designed to expand US and Israeli soft power.
Wedged between Russia to the north and Iran to the south, Azerbaijan occupies a critical link in trade flows between Central Asia and the West. The Caucasus and Central Asia are also rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, prompting various major powers to compete for influence in the region.
Expanding the accords to nations that already have diplomatic relations with Israel may also be a means of delivering symbolic wins to a president who is known to talk up even relatively small victories.
Two sources described the discussions involving Central Asia as embryonic – but the discussions with Azerbaijan as relatively advanced.
But challenges remain and there is no guarantee a deal will be reached, particularly with slow progress in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two countries, which both won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh – an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population – broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
In 2023, Azerbaijan retook Karabakh, prompting about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty on a formal end to the conflict.
Primarily Christian Armenia and the US have close ties, and the Trump administration is wary of taking action that could upset authorities in Yerevan.
Still, US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself, have argued that a peace deal between those two nations is near.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan, we worked magic there,” Trump told reporters earlier in July. “And it’s pretty close.”
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Trump Reaffirms Support for Morocco’s Sovereignty Over Western Sahara
A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base, on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, Sept. 9, 2016. Photo: Reuters / Zohra Bensemra / File.
US President Donald Trump has reaffirmed support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, saying a Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory was the sole solution to the disputed region, state news agency MAP said on Saturday.
The long-frozen conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory as its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state there.
Trump at the end of his first term in office recognized the Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, which has phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds, as part of a deal under which Morocco agreed to normalize its relations with Israel.
His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made clear in April that support for Morocco on the issue remained US policy, but these were Trump’s first quoted remarks on the dispute during his second term.
“I also reiterate that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” MAP quoted Trump as saying in a message to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
“Together we are advancing shared priorities for peace and security in the region, including by building on the Abraham Accords, combating terrorism and expanding commercial cooperation,” Trump said.
As part of the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
In June this year, Britain became the third permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to back an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty for the territory after the U.S. and France.
Algeria, which has recognized the self-declared Sahrawi Republic, has refused to take part in roundtables convened by the U.N. envoy to Western Sahara and insists on holding a referendum with independence as an option.
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Israel Says Its Missions in UAE Remain Open Despite Reported Security Threats
President Isaac Herzog meets on Dec. 5, 2022, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Photo: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open on Friday and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai in cooperation with local authorities.
This includes, the statement underlined, ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats.
On Thursday, reports appeared in Israeli media that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic staff in the UAE after the National Security Council heightened its travel warning for Israelis staying in the Gulf country for fear of an Iranian or Iran-sponsored attacks.
“We are emphasizing this travel warning given our understanding that terrorist organizations (the Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad) are increasing their efforts to harm Israel,” the NSC said in a statement.
After signing the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, the UAE has been among the closest regional allies of the Jewish state.
Israel is concerned about its citizens and diplomats being targeted in retaliatory attacks following its 12-day war against Iran last month.
Earlier this year, the UAE sentenced three citizens of Uzbekistan to death for last year’s murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Cohen.