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Senators describe ‘optimism’ after Middle East tour, leaving questions on Israel’s extremist leaders unanswered
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Judging by her response to a question at a press briefing on Tuesday, Jackie Rosen had likely read the headlines involving Israel she had made over the past week. She was prepared to deflect.
Had she really nixed meetings with two government ministers in Israel’s extremist Religious Zionist bloc, as Axios had reported?
“Let’s focus on what these historic agreements mean,” the Nevada Democrat said, referring to the Abraham Accords, the 2020 normalization agreements with multiple Arab countries that edged Israel closer to its dream of peaceful coexistence with its neighbors. Rosen and six other U.S. senators last week toured four of the five signatories to the accords, including Israel — where Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, who have incurred international criticism, currently hold powerful positions in Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition.
“The real optimism between these countries for partnerships, for people to people relationships, things that benefit their people on the ground, like markets … energy, agriculture technology, and, just coming out of the global pandemic, healthcare,” Rosen added.
For all their optimism on Tuesday, however, the senators acknowledged, in guarded language, that plans by Smotrich to annex territories in the West Bank and Ben-Gvir’s provocative actions on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount could not only undercut the aim of their tour — to seek ways to expand the accords to other countries — but could also scuttle them entirely.
“We were very clear when we spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu that it is important that they would maintain the status quo and they not do anything that would impede the progress of the Abraham accords and a negotiated two-state solution,” Rosen said. “I believe we were very clear.”
The United Arab Emirates threatened to pull out of the accords before they were formally launched in the summer of 2020, when Netanyahu sought then to advance partial annexation. Netanyahu retreated and the accords went ahead.
The only senator who spoke at length about the most fragile element of the effort — how to extend the peacemaking to the Palestinians — was Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat.
“A lot of us talked about the optimism, but there are also a lot of risks,” Kelly said. “The visit that we had with the Palestinian Authority highlighted to me that there is a lot more work to do, not just with the Abraham Accords, but the work needed to get to a resolution — the plight of the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a two-state solution.”
The Palestinian Authority declined to be part of the Abraham Accords process, saying the deal, brokered under former President Donald Trump, ignores Palestinian national aspirations. The Biden administration hopes to bring the Palestinians in through economic incentives and by keeping the two-state outcome alive, although Netanyahu and his government have renounced it.
Rosen, who says she got her political chops as a synagogue president in suburban Las Vegas, never answered the question about whether she would have met with Smotrich, the finance minister who has a stake in the trade side of the accords, if he had asked for a meeting.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, ran interference for Rosen.
“I would just add that Prime Minister Netanyahu was very clear that he spoke for his government, and that the meeting we had with him was the most important meeting to hear — what his strategy was and why the Abraham Accords was such a huge opportunity,” Gillibrand said.
The group of senators — which also included Dan Sullivan, an Alaska Republican; Ted Budd, a North Carolina Republican; and Michael Bennet, a Colorado Democrat — toured Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Israel as well as the Palestinian areas. They did not tour Sudan, which is a party to the accords, but is currently in turmoil.
They described witnessing the benefits of the accords, but in a curiously one-sided way — noting the masses of Israeli tourists who have visited the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, but not mentioning that there was little to no movement in the other direction.
Pressed by a reporter, the senators acknowledged that enthusiasm for the accords in the Arab countries was for now confined to the elites, and that support for the deals has yet to trickle own to the everyday citizen level.
“We’re outsiders stepping in, we’re meeting with leaders, we’re meeting with key people. We’re not interacting with everyone on the streets and doing polling in the streets,” said Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma.
Gillibrand said leaders admitted that they had to make the case for normalization with Israel to their peoples.
“Every head of state that we spoke to said ‘This is where I’m leading my people. I know it’s going to take time for people to understand why and why it’s so important, but I’m doing what it takes to lead my people for a safer security region, for greater economic ties, so that actually benefits [the people] over time’,’” she said. She described changes in education that the governments introduced to promote better understanding of Jews and others.
There was also talk of the benefits the senators hoped the accords would bring stateside. The senators from western states, including Kelly, Bennet and Rosen, spoke about Israeli and Emirati drought expertise they hoped to put to use at home.
“We hope to learn a lot about the work that’s being done to try to deal with drought and deal with the shortage of water in the region. We’re facing many similar challenges in the Rocky Mountain West,” Bennet said.
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Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.
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Iran’s Guards Declare ‘Red Line’ on Security as Tehran Seeks to Quell Unrest
FILE PHOTO: Protesters gather as vehicles burn, amid evolving anti-government unrest, in Tehran, Iran, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video released on January 9, 2026. Social Media/via REUTERS/File Photo
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned on Saturday that safeguarding security was a “red line” and the military vowed to protect public property, as the clerical establishment stepped up efforts to quell the most widespread protests in years.
The statements came after US President Donald Trump issued a new warning to Iran’s leaders on Friday, and after Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday declared: “The United States supports the brave people of Iran.”
Unrest continued overnight. State media said a municipal building was set on fire in Karaj, west of Tehran, and blamed “rioters.” State TV broadcast footage of funerals of members of the security forces it said were killed in protests in the cities of Shiraz, Qom and Hamedan.
Protests have spread across much of Iran over the last two weeks, beginning in response to soaring inflation, but quickly turned political with protesters demanding an end to clerical rule. Authorities accuse the US and Israel of fomenting “the riots.” Rights groups have documented dozens of deaths of protesters.
ARMY SAYS ‘TERRORIST GROUPS’ SEEK TO UNDERMINE SECURITY
Authorities continued to impose an internet blackout.
A witness in western Iran reached by phone said the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) were deployed and opening fire in the area from which they were speaking, declining to be identified for their safety.
In a statement broadcast by state TV, the IRGC – an elite force which has suppressed previous bouts of unrest – accused terrorists of targeting military and law enforcement bases over the past two nights, killing several citizens and security personnel and saying property had been set on fire.
Safeguarding the achievements of the 1979 Islamic revolution and maintaining security was “a red line,” it added, saying the continuation of the situation was unacceptable.
The military, which operates separately to the IRGC but is also commanded by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced it would “protect and safeguard national interests, the country’s strategic infrastructure, and public property.”
In a country with a history of fragmented opposition to clerical rule, the son of the last shah of Iran who was toppled in the 1979 Islamic revolution has emerged as a prominent voice abroad spurring on the protests.
PAHLAVI SAYS GOAL IS TO PREPARE TO ‘SEIZE CITY CENTRES’
In his latest appeal on the X social media platform, US-based Reza Pahlavi said: “Our goal is no longer merely to come into the streets; the goal is to prepare to seize city centres and hold them.”
He also called on “workers and employees in key sectors of the economy, especially transportation, and oil, and gas and energy,” to begin a nationwide strike.
Trump said on Thursday he was not inclined to meet Pahlavi, a sign that he was waiting to see how the crisis plays out before backing an opposition leader.
Trump, who bombed Iran last summer and warned Tehran last week the US could come to the protesters’ aid, issued another warning on Friday, saying: “You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too.”
“I just hope the protesters in Iran are going to be safe, because that’s a very dangerous place right now,” he added.
Some protesters on the streets have shouted slogans in support of Pahlavi, such as “Long live the shah,” although most chants have called for an end to rule by the clerics or demanded action to fix an economy hammered by years of US and other international sanctions and pummeled by the 12-day war in June, when Israel and the US launched air strikes on Iran.
A doctor in northwestern Iran said that since Friday, large numbers of injured protesters had been brought to hospitals. Some were badly beaten, suffering head injuries and broken legs and arms, as well as deep cuts.
At least 20 people in one hospital had been shot with live ammunition, five of whom later died.
On Friday, Khamenei accused protesters of acting on behalf of Trump, saying rioters were attacking public properties and warning that Tehran would not tolerate people acting as “mercenaries for foreigners.”
The Revolutionary Guards’ public relations office said three members of the Basij security force were killed and five wounded during clashes with what it described as “armed rioters” in Gachsaran, in the southwest.
Another security officer was stabbed to death in Hamedan, in western Iran. The son of a senior officer, Brigadier General Martyr Nourali Shoushtari, was killed in the Ahmadabad area of Mashhad, in the northeast. Two other security personnel were killed over the past two nights in Shushtar, in Khuzestan province.
The protests pose the biggest internal challenge in at least three years to Iran’s clerical rulers, who look more vulnerable than during past bouts of unrest amid a dire economic situation and after last year’s war.
The leaders of France, Britain and Germany issued a joint statement on Friday condemning the killing of protesters and urged the Iranian authorities to refrain from violence.
Authorities have described protests over the economy as legitimate while condemning what they call violent rioters and cracking down with security forces.
Iran’s clerical establishment has weathered repeated past bouts of unrest, including student protests in 1999, over a disputed election in 2009, against economic hardships in 2019, and the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests.
Iranian rights group HRANA said it had documented 65 deaths including 50 protesters and 15 security personnel as of January 9. The Norway-based human rights group Hengaw said more than 2,500 people had been arrested over the past two weeks.
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Yemen’s Main Separatist Group Denies It Is Disbanding
FILE PHOTO: A soldier stands guard outside the headquarters of the Southern Transitional Council in Aden, Yemen January 8, 2026. REUTERS/Fawaz Salman/File Photo
Yemen’s main separatist group, the Southern Transitional Council, denied on Saturday it was disbanding, contradicting a statement by one of its members that the group had decided to dissolve itself.
The conflicting statements highlight a split in the STC, a group backed by the United Arab Emirates that seized parts of southern and eastern Yemen in December in advances that heightened tensions with another Gulf power, Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE used to work together in a coalition battling Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen’s civil war but the STC advances exposed their rivalry, bringing into focus big differences on a wide range of issues across the Middle East ranging from geopolitics to oil output.
Saudi-backed fighters have largely retaken the areas of southern and eastern Yemen that the STC seized, and an STC delegation has traveled to the Saudi capital Riyadh for talks.
But STC leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi skipped the planned meetings and fled Yemen on Wednesday, and the Saudi-led coalition accused the UAE of helping him escape on a flight that was tracked to a military airport in Abu Dhabi.
In an announcement broadcast on Saudi state media on Friday, one of the group’s members said the STC had decided to disband.
But in a statement issued on Saturday, the STC said it had held an “extraordinary meeting” following the announcement in Riyadh and declared it “null and void,” saying it had been made “under coercion and pressure.”
The group also said its members in Riyadh had been detained and were being “forced to issue statements.”
The STC reiterated calls for mass protests in southern cities on Saturday, warning against any attempts that target the group’s “peaceful activities.”
Authorities in Aden that are aligned with Yemen’s Saudi-backed government on Friday ordered a ban on demonstrations in the southern city, citing security concerns, according to an official directive seen by Reuters.