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What to know about ‘Not On Our Dime,’ Zohran Mamdani’s bill targeting donations to Israeli settlements
In May 2023, a member of the New York State Assembly introduced a bill aimed at blocking nonprofits from funding Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It was swiftly rebuked by his colleagues and never came to a vote.
That bill was called “Not on our dime!: Ending New York funding of Israeli settler violence act,” and the assemblymember was democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. Now, Mamdani is an emblem of shifting sentiments against Israel — among New Yorkers and Americans nationwide — as he verges on being elected the mayor of New York City.
While “Not On Our Dime” had a short run in Albany, its specter has loomed large over the mayor’s race, particularly for Jewish New Yorkers who are wary of Mamdani because of his attitudes about Israel. Over 1,150 rabbis nationwide, including hundreds in New York City, have signed a letter warning that Jews would be stripped of their “safety and dignity” if anti-Zionism is “normalized” in the city’s halls of power.
Mamdani told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a questionnaire last week that he would prioritize his local affordability agenda as mayor. But he also did not reject the idea of enacting “Not On Our Dime”-style legislation in New York City.
“Charities and nonprofits that receive a taxpayer subsidy should not support the violation of international law, and that’s what the right-wing Israeli settlement project is doing,” said Mamdani. “An effort that goes against the stated foreign policy of our own government, going back several decades.”
Here is what “Not On Our Dime” actually said, what its supporters and critics argued, and what its implications could be for New York City under Mamdani.
What the legislation said
“Not On Our Dime” proposed amending the state’s nonprofit law to “prohibit not-for-profit corporations from engaging in unauthorized support of Israeli settlement activity.” Mamdani said it would stop the flow of about $60 million a year from New York-based charities to settlements deemed illegal under international law.
The bill defined “unauthorized support for Israeli settlement activity” as “aiding and abetting” any violation of the 1949 Geneva Conventions by Israel or its citizens. According to the bill, this included the illegal transfer of Israelis into “occupied territory” (defined as the West Bank and East Jerusalem), acts of violence against people living in occupied territory, forced eviction and the seizure or destruction of Palestinian land or property. Mamdani did not tell JTA whether he believed that “unauthorized support” should extend to humanitarian aid for Israelis in the relevant areas.
The bill said nonprofits that spent at least $1 million in violation could be sued, fined by the state attorney general and lose their tax-exempt status. Palestinians and others who said they were harmed by a violation would also be allowed to sue the nonprofits.
“Not On Our Dime” was co-sponsored by four other democratic socialists in the Assembly — Sarahana Shrestha, Phara Souffrant Forrest, Marcela Mitaynes and Emily Gallagher — along with the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. It emerged from a campaign from left-leaning nonprofits such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, the Adalah Justice Project and Jewish Voice for Peace.
The groups said on a website for the campaign that they believed nonprofits supporting Israeli settlements should be shut down. “This pioneering legislation makes explicit what is implicit–that a certain class of activities are fundamentally inconsistent with a charitable purpose, and should therefore subject an organization to dissolution,” the website said.
Mamdani told the Jewish Press, an Orthodox newspaper in New York, that he had met with those groups before proposing the legislation, which was accompanied by a state Senate version sponsored by DSA member Jabari Brisport. He also said he viewed the legislation as unlikely to prevail — but crucial to raising awareness about an important issue.
“I believe the attorney general has the jurisdiction now to pursue measures of accountability with regards to these organizations. The likelihood of that is minimal and I think that’s why there is the necessity for this legislation,” he told the newspaper at the time. “I’m under no illusion about the long journey that this legislation has to travel on. I do believe it is a critical first step to even inform New Yorkers.”
There was no precedent for a law that sought to block U.S. charities from funding Israeli settlements. Several states, including New York, have passed measures that took an opposite stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by punishing organizations that boycotted Israel.
Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani’s closest competitor in the mayoral race who is running as an independent, enacted one of these policies as the governor of New York. In 2016, he passed an executive order that banned state agencies from investing in companies and organizations that promoted or engaged in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.
Mamdani has long supported that movement, which calls for government measures to pressure Israel into withdrawing from the West Bank and granting full equality to Palestinians.
What happened when it was introduced
The legislation sparked a surge of energy among pro-Palestinian activists, with over 500 people marching in support in New York City. In Albany, Mamdani announced the bill together with pro-Palestinian activists including Rosalind Petchesky, a retired political scientist who would later feature prominently in his mayoral campaign.
Petchesky, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace, told the press that “Jews are not a monolith.” She added, “We do not all support the state of Israel, we are not all Zionists, many take the position of supporting Palestinians and Palestinian human rights.”
But in the state government, backlash was quick. Democratic Assemblymembers Nily Rozic and Daniel Rosenthal — who are both Jewish, with Rosenthal since leaving for a position at UJA-Federation of New York — denounced “Not On Our Dime” in an open letter signed by 25 lawmakers. They said the bill was “a ploy to demonize Jewish charities with connections to Israel” that would “further sow divisions within the Democratic Party.”
Their letter did not mention Israeli settlements, but said that “Not On Our Dime” sought to attack Jewish groups with “missions from feeding the poor to providing emergency medical care for victims of terrorism to clothing orphans.”
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie told the Forward the bill was a “non-starter,” and it did not advance. (Two years later, Heastie endorsed Mamdani for mayor in September.)
Meanwhile, all 48 Assembly Republicans denounced the bill as “utterly vicious” in their own joint letter. “This bill seeks to penalize non-profit entities that have any affiliation with the state of Israel and is effectively an attack on Jews and Israel,” they wrote. “As Americans, we find this bill to be not only discriminatory but also deeply anti-Semitic.”
What the bill’s advocates said
Supporters of the legislation said it would cut off a major source of funding for organizations that push Palestinians out of their homes and support violent extremists. Between 2009 and 2013, private donors sent over $220 million to West Bank settlements through about 50 tax-exempt nonprofits, according to a 2015 investigation by Haaretz.
“Aiding and abetting war crimes is not charitable, period,” said Vince Warren, director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which backed the bill, in 2023. “This bill goes a long way toward ensuring that New York is not inadvertently subsidizing war crimes, but rather creating paths for accountability.”
Mamdani and other advocates rejected the idea that the bill would constrain appropriate charitable work. “Organizations, including Jewish organizations that feed the poor, provide emergency medical care and clothe orphans take up noble causes for which New York state should provide the benefits of charitable status,” he told the Jewish Press at the time. “This is why the bill does not apply to such groups. The rhetorical tactics employed by this letter to suggest otherwise is an attempt to avoid the issue at hand: settlements.”
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Mamdani and his co-sponsors relaunched “Not On Our Dime” in May 2024 as Israel and Hamas battled in Gaza, saying they would revise the bill to prohibit “aiding and abetting” Israeli resettlement of Gaza and “unauthorized support” for Israeli military actions that broke international law. Mamdani said he believed the bill had a better chance then, as it reflected “newfound consciousness in our country with regards to the urgency of Palestinian human rights.”
In fact, “Not On Our Dime” had no better prospects in Albany — but it gained traction on the national stage. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive star who represents the Bronx and Queens but rarely steps into state politics, gave the bill her endorsement.
“It is more important now than ever to hold the Netanyahu government accountable for endorsing and, in fact, supporting some of this settler violence that prevents a lasting peace,” said Ocasio-Cortez at the time. Her backing, a year before she would endorse Mamdani for mayor, signaled the rising crescendo of a left wing animated by criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
What the bill’s critics said
Critics said the bill would punish Jewish organizations that provide a range of humanitarian services internationally, including to people living in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Sara Forman, who leads the pro-Israel group New York Solidarity Network, called it “antisemitic and unconstitutional state-level nonsensical legislation.”
“This bogus bill, which is extremely vague, would force Jewish charities to quadruple check every penny and every cause related to Israel, tie up their time, cast suspicion on all their work, and stifle critical dollars dedicated to meaningful causes in Israel and the United States, from education to anti-poverty efforts,” Forman said in 2024.
Even some people who partly share Mamdani’s critique of the settlement movement and the Israeli government said the bill went too far.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, head of the rabbinic human rights organization T’ruah, has herself attempted to block U.S. funding to the most violent Israeli settler groups. Since 2016, T’ruah has filed complaints with the IRS about nonprofits like the Central Fund of Israel, which funnels millions in tax-exempt donations to Israeli groups that fund militant Jewish supremacists. T’ruah’s reasoning was that leaders of these extremist organizations have been indicted or convicted of terrorism in Israel, and U.S. law prohibits sending tax-exempt donations to terrorist groups.
Mamdani specifically mentioned the Manhattan-based Central Fund of Israel during his 2023 press circuit for “Not On Our Dime.” But Jacobs opposed the bill, even as her own efforts failed to stop the flow of money to extremist groups. She said it was too broad, allowing for the possibility of targeting nonprofits beyond terrorists and groups directly involved in building settlements.
“Because of the vagueness of the language, it could potentially be construed to relate to any nonprofit that is putting the baseline of $1 million into settlements,” Jacobs said in an interview. “It could include a group that’s doing support for victims of terror, and a large percentage of them might be living over the Green Line. It could be construed to include American Friends of Hebrew University, because that’s in East Jerusalem.”
In criticizing the legislation, Jacobs referenced the Talmudic idiom “tafasta meruba lo tafasta” — or, “if you grasped too much, you did not grasp anything.”
What “Not On Our Dime” means for a Mayor Mamdani
New York City mayors have long endeavored to show support for Israel, dating back even before it became a state in 1948. In 1923, Mayor John Hylan called on New Yorkers to contribute “generous support” to a fund for building a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Then as now, the city had the largest Jewish population in the world.
But this year, the mayor’s race overlapped with a war that sent opinions of Israel in the United States plunging to new lows, with images of dying Palestinian children and destruction spreading across social media and protesters, including many American Jews and New Yorkers, rallying against Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
Mamdani surged in that context, winning the Democratic mayoral nomination and rocketing to fame at the same time as Israel drew its sharpest and most widespread criticism. The timing was right for Mamdani, who is 34 and formed his political identity as a young man around a cause that had never before found a champion in Gracie Mansion: Palestinian rights and independence.
He has pledged to take some actions locally to advance those views, including arresting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if the Israeli leader sets foot in New York City, not investing the city’s pension funds in Israel bonds and dismantling a New York-Israel economic cooperation initiative.
Mamdani has not said he would propose legislation comparable to “Not On Our Dime” as mayor. Still, some New Yorkers concerned about his stances on Israel are asking if he would attempt a city-level version of the bill — and how that would affect their lives.
In August, a caller to WNYC’s “Brian Lehrer Show” asked whether such legislation would penalize their synagogue for donating to Jewish emergency response groups that operate globally, including in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. In an on-air interview, Lehrer relayed this question to Mamdani, who brushed off the concern.
Jacobs said that outcome would be unlikely under the legislation as it was written, given its $1 million threshold.
“I guess if there were a synagogue that was raising $1 million for a settlement, then if this bill had passed, maybe it would say that synagogue couldn’t do that. But I don’t know if that is a situation that actually exists,” she said.
Jeremy Cohan, a leader in the New York City chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, is part of the Jewish left that has strengthened Mamdani’s rise. In his own interview with Lehrer in October, Cohan articulated his understanding of “Not On Our Dime” and why he believed it would resonate with New York City voters.
“The ‘Not On Our Dime’ bill was designed to say, ‘Hey, if you’re committing violations of international law, if you’re funneling money to organizations that are committing violations of international law, that are aiming to dispossess people of their land illegally, that are complicit in war crimes, we are going to not subsidize that as New York State. New York State stands for something. We don’t stand for war crimes,’” he said.
“I do think that so much of the choice, or a decent part of the choice, facing New Yorkers is, do New Yorkers want a mayor who takes war crimes seriously, or do they want a mayor like Andrew Cuomo who defends war crimes and genocide,” Cohan continued. “I think they want a mayor who opposes war crimes and prioritizes their interests, which Zohran Mamdani will do.”
“Not On Our Dime” shows Mamdani is a politician with a track record of taking action on his beliefs, whether or not he believes he will quickly effect change. And in his victory speech after the Democratic primary, he identified himself as one of “millions of New Yorkers who have strong feelings about what happens overseas.”
He acknowledged that many in the city disagreed with his ideas and said he would seek to understand their perspectives. But in a sign of how he would hold to his views of Israel and Palestine as the mayor of New York City, he said, “I will not abandon my beliefs or my commitments grounded in a demand for equality, for humanity, for all those who walk this earth.”
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The post What to know about ‘Not On Our Dime,’ Zohran Mamdani’s bill targeting donations to Israeli settlements appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Israel is dominating Democratic politics. How did we get here?
For decades, American politicians considering a presidential run have traveled to Iowa cornfields and New Hampshire town halls to introduce themselves to voters before launching their campaigns.
Last week, two potential 2028 presidential contenders chose a different route.
Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff, traveled to Tel Aviv, where he delivered a speech defending the U.S.-Israel relationship but also cautioning about the growing erosion of Democratic support for the Jewish state in the wake of the Gaza war and amid settler violence.
A tiny fraction of the target audience was in the room. The majority was back home in the U.S., considering who in their party could possibly win as their party’s White House nominee — and more immediately how to use their votes this year to regain power.
Meanwhile, Rep. Ro Khanna, a leading progressive Democrat from California, took a high-profile trip to the occupied West Bank, where he was caught in an altercation with armed Israeli settlers who blocked his route to an elementary school that extremist settlers had destroyed. Khanna said he plans to share what he witnessed firsthand about the Palestinians’ “injustice” on the campaign trail if he runs.
The contrasting trips reflected a trend already reshaping Democratic politics. Graham Platner, the Maine Senate nominee who was forced to withdraw from the race following allegations of sexual assault, made opposition to Israel and AIPAC one of the defining themes of his campaign. His defiant parting message — in which he denied the allegations — included a vow to keep working to “end the genocide.”
On Tuesday, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, hoping to become speaker after the midterm elections, added his voice to the mix. In guidance issued to his members ahead of a vote to cut off aid to Israel — introduced by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie from Kentucky and co-sponsored by Khanna — Jeffries said that while he’ll oppose the measure, “given the strongly held views throughout the Caucus in this important area of foreign policy, we are not whipping this vote” against it. He added that going forward, “a meaningful change in direction is needed.”
The episodes in the past week highlight how quickly and powerfully the U.S. relationship to Israel — which has been receiving $3.8 billion annually under a 10-year memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Israel, which runs through 2028, plus additional billions in arms sales — has come to dominate Democratic Party politics.
A stew of different factors are in the mix — ranging from President Donald Trump’s fateful decision to wage war on Iran alongside Israel, the success of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America in showing how to mobilize voters on the issue, and voter backlash against massive spending on elections by U.S. supporters of military aid to Israel, all against the backdrop of the Gaza war and Israel’s continued military action in the region.
Sudden shifts
Israel’s role in Democratic politics this year signals a major shift — especially after a wave of insurgents who made condemning Israel central to their campaigns beat mainstream Democrats in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Colorado primaries.
The Democratic revolt is not entirely new. In the 2024 presidential race, the conflict in Gaza spurred some voters to stay home rather than cast ballots after the “uncommitted” movement blamed President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for civilian deaths — missing voters who may have swayed the results in Michigan, a swing state with a large Arab-American population. Activists said Democratic National Committee officials acknowledged that the Biden administration’s support for Israel contributed to Harris’ loss to Donald Trump.
But the protest movement has since swelled to include a bigger constituency — one not content to sit out elections or confined to moments of war. For many progressive candidates, challenging the U.S.-Israel alliance and advocating for Palestinian rights have become a marker of ideological identity and the party’s future.
Bill de Blasio, who himself evolved from a staunch supporter of Israel and an ally of AIPAC after he left office as New York City mayor and mounted an unsuccessful campaign for Congress, said in an interview that the shift reflects a deeper emotional connection to the conflict that is driving the engagement and organizing. Disaffected voters feel personally implicated by U.S. support for Israel, de Blasio said: “It’s a sense that this was done with our weapons and our money.”
In some districts with entrenched incumbents, such lines of attack by challengers went nowhere in Democratic primaries. But in some districts where the grassroots Democratic Socialists of America endorsed candidates and mobilized voters, they have scored significant upsets.
The result is a growing wave of democratic socialists and progressives winning Democratic primaries, portraying support for Israel as incompatible with progressive values.
Matt Duss, a former senior foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, said Gaza became a breaking point for many Democratic voters because of its human toll, but added that the political shift runs deeper. “It has come to stand for an issue of the establishment versus the insurgent populist left,” Duss said. Gaza, he added, “created this breaking point” where the “floodgates opened” to challenging the pro-Israel consensus that has dominated American politics for so long.
The Mamdani model
Zohran Mamdani’s left-field victory last year as New York City mayor showed candidates nationally that running against Israel could energize voters even in a local election. Mamdani, a young democratic socialist, rose to power by embracing pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel activism in a mayoral campaign otherwise focused on economic justice and progressive reform. Mamdani defeated establishment candidates despite refusing to scale back on his support for boycotts and declining to condemn the slogan “globalize the intifada” even as many Jewish voters heard it as a call to violence. Public opinion polls showed that Mamdani’s unapologetic criticism of Israel resonated with a majority of New York City voters.
The wins of three candidates endorsed by Mamdani in congressional primaries last month reinforced running against Israel as a winning strategy in progressive-leaning districts. Brad Lander, the former city comptroller allied with Mamdani, defeated two-term incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman by labeling Goldman as insufficiently activist on Israel, even as both — identifying themselves as liberal Zionists — touted similar views on addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lander was the first Jewish candidate to call for an end to U.S. aid to Israel.
In Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, lost to Darializa Avila Chevalier, a former organizer of the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia. Avila Chevalier drew backlash for inflammatory comments about Israel and for attending a Times Square rally on Oct. 8, 2023, widely condemned for celebrating Hamas — but won anyway.
And in Brooklyn, Assemblymember Claire Valdez beat the establishment favorite for an open House seat. Her supporters condemned her opponent, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, for refusing during much of the campaign to call the Gaza war a genocide and for taking a 2015 trip to Israel.
The AIPAC factor
The trend is not limited to New York. Across the country, Israel has become a defining issue, even in races with relatively small Jewish electorates or where foreign policy would once have played little role. In Colorado, Melat Kiros, a democratic socialist, unseated a 15-term incumbent using Israel as a wedge throughout the campaign.
In California, State Sen. Scott Wiener, a candidate for Congress who is one of the leading Jewish Democrats statewide, has found himself navigating intense pressure and confrontations from progressive activists even after he capitulated to demands that he characterize Israel’s military campaign in Gaza as a genocide.
According to data compiled by Milan Singh, a fellow at The Argument, a liberal opinion-focused media publication, insurgent progressive candidates for Congress mentioned Israel in 48% of their fundraising emails.
Opposition to AIPAC and criticism of the Israeli government have increasingly become shorthand for challenging “entrenched power, big money politics and the party establishment,” said Democratic strategist Lis Smith.
Nowhere is the changed climate being tested more vigorously than in Michigan’s open Senate race. The Aug. 4 primary between Rep. Haley Stevens and former Wayne County health director Abdul El-Sayed has become one of the most expensive races in the country this year.
Like other candidates who have run campaigns with Israel front and center, El-Sayed has focused heavily on condemning AIPAC, the campaign group backing congressional candidates who support U.S. military aid to Israel.
AIPAC has returned the favor with massive spending to attempt to defeat El-Sayed. Its super PAC, the United Democracy Project, has already spent $14.9 million backing Stevens. AIPAC also raised several million dollars for Stevens by directing its donors to online portals that funnel money directly to the candidate’s campaign.
Until this year, AIPAC was obscure to most voters. But its massive spending to support favored House and Senate candidates has been matched by progressive opponents using it to rally voters to shun those candidates.
In primaries this year, AIPAC and -aligned groups are pushing back against candidates who made Palestinian rights and support for restricting offensive arms sales to Israel a theme of their campaigns. AIPAC is also spending heavily to defend a seat in St. Louis, Missouri, that it helped win in 2024.
Duss said the politics surrounding Israel increasingly functions as a broader test of credibility for candidates seeking to dislodge Democratic Party leaders seen as holding back progress — not just on Israel, but also on such goals as Medicare for All. “It’s become an issue that you could speak out on if you want to demonstrate your anti-establishment bona fides,” he said.
In Michigan, voter scrutiny has broadened beyond just Israel to the question of why powerful interests are aligned with Stevens.
The changing politics is beginning to impact how incumbents are voting in Washington. In April, 40 Senate Democrats voted to block $295 million for the transfer of bulldozers — used by the Israeli military to demolish homes in the West Bank and Gaza — and 36 of them also supported a measure to block the sale of 1,000-pound bombs to the Jewish state. Those counts shattered a previous high of 27 Democrats who backed a similar pair of resolutions last year.
The governing challenge
The electoral victories may only be the beginning. The real test will come should the Democrats regain control of the House in November.
Matt Bennett, executive vice president at the centrist Democratic group Third Way, said that Israel “has exploded as a divisive issue in democratic politics” at a moment when Democrats have no power, as the minority in both the House and Senate, to shape the foreign policy of the United States. “It’s remarkable how anger is being directed at people who have no agency over these questions.”
If they win back the House, he said, those divisions will become much harder to avoid.
Whether driven by outrage over Gaza, frustration with the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or broader resentment of political institutions, Israel has become a defining issue — something few Democratic strategists expected even a few years ago.
Smith, who advises political organizations Majority Democrats and the Bench, called the events of the 2026 primary seasoin a “turning point” in the Democratic Party’s stance toward Israel. “I think that relationship is going to be strained for the foreseeable future,” she said.
The combination of Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank, and Trump’s actions in the war on Iran, are going to have a “lasting impact on our politics,” said de Blasio. “I don’t think that it can be put back in the bottle.”
Israel’s election crossroads
Throughout the debate over Israel, mainstream Democrats have tried to direct their criticism at Netanyahu and his far-right partners. Even Bernie Sanders, the elder in the progressive caucus, framed the charge for ending U.S. military aid as opposition to the “extremist Netanyahu government.”
Israelis will get a chance to change leadership in the upcoming Oct. 27 Knesset election. Recent polls show that Netanyahu, seeking a seventh term in office, is trailing an opposition bloc led by two contenders for premier — former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot.
If Netanyahu loses, some centrist Democrats believe a different Israeli government will help ease tensions.
“The intense emotion surrounding the issue could lessen somewhat,” said Matt Bennett of Third Way. Though the next Israeli leader will not dramatically break with Netanyahu’s policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or Gaza, “not having Netanyahu there would matter a lot because he has become he has inserted himself into partisan politics in the United States to such a degree that he has become the face of these campaigns,” he added.
Progressives are less convinced. They see the shift and generational reassessment of the U.S.-Israel relationship as a larger challenge. “If you had a different figure, one who is not so odious, that would give an opportunity to change the relationship,” Duss said. “But I don’t think it’s going back because the differences here are not just about one person; they are systemic.”
The post Israel is dominating Democratic politics. How did we get here? appeared first on The Forward.
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UK lawmakers press government on why West Bank imports haven’t yet been banned
(JTA) — British lawmakers from across the political spectrum are pressing the government to ban imports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying that explanations for why such a ban has not yet been imposed were inadequate.
During a three-hour House of Commons debate on Thursday, lawmakers argued that Britain’s long-standing position that the settlements are illegal under international law means it should fall in line behind other countries advancing bans, particularly at a time of rising settler violence and efforts to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
The debate — the latest in a number of formal discussions about a potential ban in Parliament — was led by Abtisam Mohamed, a politician from the governing Labour Party who is the first Arab woman and first Yemeni member of Parliament. She was denied entry into Israel in 2025, a year after being elected.
“I want to pose a simple question to the government today, a question that sits at the heart of this debate,” Mohamed said in opening the session. “If settlements are illegal, why have we not made an outright ban on trade? What exactly is it that we’re waiting for?”
Lawmakers from other parties piled on.
“There is no excuse that we have to wait for other countries to move because they’ve moved ahead of us,” said Ellie Chowns from the left-wing Green Party, which has made opposition to Israel part of its platform. “There is no excuse that this is too technically difficult because the legal framework already exists.”
And a member of the Conservative party, which has traditionally favored strong ties with Israel, said he was unconvinced by the argument, made recently by a government official, that other measures that are potentially less complicated to administer could achieve the same pressure on Israel.
“We’ve done everything except the obvious, which is just the ban,” said the lawmaker, Kit Malthouse. “The question I’m left asking is, why? Why the reluctance? Why the hesitation? Nobody’s buying the complexity argument.”
On Monday, EU foreign ministers met to discuss a ban on products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, in order to gauge if there is enough support for the move. The EU’s foreign minister said a ban on imports was the most popular option under discussion and said she expected that the conversation would soon advance.
The discussion in the House of Commons comes as the British Labour government is in flux, with a new prime minister set to take over from Keir Starmer next week. It also comes as the government is taking steps to reassure a Jewish community that has been rattled by a number of violent incidents. This week, the government both allocated more than $300 million in security funding for Jewish institutions while also formally declaring Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, seen as tied to many of the attacks, to be a terrorist group, in a move that enables more intense prosecution.
In an appearance before the Foreign Affairs Committee earlier in July, the government’s top Middle East minister fended off allegations that the Labour government was slow-walking pressure on Israel. Hamish Falconer also noted that British Jewish leaders are urging against an import ban.
“There are legitimate and reasonable concerns from the British Jewish community that if we were to take steps which were crude, which were untargeted, could have unintended consequences on the lives of the community who are already under considerable pressure,” he said. “I do take that seriously for obvious reasons.”
The Board of Jewish Deputies, an umbrella organization for almost 200 Jewish groups in Britain, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that it was reluctant to comment on a potential ban on West Bank imports before a new prime minister is installed. But the group has previously weighed in strongly against efforts to boycott Israel, arguing in a 2017 report that “to hasten a solution to the settlements would be to assist the chances of negotiations through promoting peace, rather than the problematic boycott campaign.”
Falconer also signaled that all bets could be off if the Israeli government moves forward with a settlement project known as E1, telling the Foreign Affairs Committee, “I have said repeatedly that no one should benefit from a profit made on land that has been unlawfully procured.”
The E1 initiative would expand Jewish settlements on a stretch of land east of Jerusalem, bisecting the West Bank, and is seen by both its proponents and critics as a bid to undercut a potential future Palestinian state. The current right-wing Israeli government has moved the E1 project significantly toward actualization, approving it formally.
If the project proceeds further, Falconer told lawmakers, “then we and our friends and allies would take tangible action in response.”
The post UK lawmakers press government on why West Bank imports haven’t yet been banned appeared first on The Forward.
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Cori Bush to fellow progressives: My reelection would be ‘the knockout’ punch to AIPAC
(JTA) — Cori Bush told fellow progressives during a virtual rally on Monday night that she intends to deliver a “knockout” punch to AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, by winning her congressional primary next month.
When Bush, the two-term progressive Democratic congresswoman, was defeated in a bruising primary two years ago, both she and her adversaries attributed the loss in part to AIPAC.
The group’s PAC spent more than $4 million to defeat Bush, who was one of two members of Congress to vote against a measure to deny entry to the United States to Hamas terrorists who perpetrated Oct. 7, and declined to call Hamas a terror group on the campaign trail.
Now, as AIPAC has rapidly transformed into a radioactive bogeyman among Democrats and Bush’s fellow progressives have mounted an ascent across the party, Bush is out for revenge.
“Jamaal Bowman says it best: He said that Chris Rabb gave a jab to AIPAC. He says that Darializa and Claire … they gave uppercuts to AIPAC,” Bush said. “But then when I win, that will be the knockout.”
Bush is currently running against Missouri incumbent Rep. Wesley Bell in a field with three other candidates. In 2024, Bell defeated Bush 51.1% to 45.6% in a field of four candidates. A February poll sponsored by Bush’s campaign had Bell and Bush tied, with Bush receiving 44% of the votes, while Bell had 40%. (The survey had a margin of error of 5.4%.)
Bush was referring to a list of prominent progressives, including one, Bowman, who like her was primaried out of Congress in 2024, and three who won primaries decisively in Pennsylvania and New York this year. She was speaking at an online rally organized by Our Revolution, the group formed by Sen. Bernie Sanders to advance the progressive movement.
The rally came as the movement tries to move past a setback in Maine, where Graham Platner, a progressive and staunch critic of Israel, withdrew after winning the Democratic Senate primary amid allegations of sexual assault. One of the candidates vying to replace Platner on the ticket, Troy Jackson, joined other leading progressives including Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and California congressman Ro Khanna in taking the virtual stage.
Jackson did not mention Israel or AIPAC in his comments, even after announcing in recent days that he believes Israel committed genocide in Gaza. Instead, he listed an array of other issues animating left-wing voters.
“I know that there’s real pain, anger, and disappointment, and I’m not going to try and minimize that. But look, this movement has always been bigger than one person,” he said, alluding to Platner’s exit. “It’s about taking on a system rigged against working people, fighting for Medicare for all, strong unions, higher wages, reproductive freedom, and an economy where billionaires and corporations finally pay their fair share.”
Other candidates took aim more squarely at Israel and its supporters. El-Sayed, who in recent days has taken to calling Israel a “rogue state,” noted that AIPAC and its allies have spent more than $40 million to defeat him. (AIPAC has spent nearly $15 million on the race to date.)
“Donald Trump is not himself the disease in our politics; he’s the worst symptom of the disease of our politics,” El-Sayed said. “The disease is the system that allows big corporations, billionaires, special interest groups like AIPAC, to buy and sell politicians in ways that leave them rigging the system against us.”
El-Sayed also took aim at foreign military aid in his remarks, telling those gathered, “It shouldn’t be this hard to pay your taxes and know that that money is going to be spent on you and your kids rather than to annihilate somebody else and their kids.”
Minnesota congressional candidate Kaela Berg similarly cast her refusal to accept AIPAC money as part of a broader rejection of corporate influence in politics.
“We are the revolution, we are bringing that working class voice, that lived experience, two and a half decades of fighting the bosses, being people in Congress who cannot be bought, being the antidote to corporate Democrats and to Republicans,” Berg said. “I do not take AIPAC money. I do not take corporate money.”
Khanna, fresh off a trip to the Middle East during which he claimed that Israeli soldiers took the side of armed settlers who detained him in the West Bank, used his remarks during the town hall to shift attention from his detention to the treatment of Palestinians.
“Yes, people know I was detained, but if there’s one obligation, I feel I want to tell in every part of this country the story of apartheid in the West Bank,” Khanna said. “The story of these Palestinians who are being treated in an inhumane, undignified way, and if we can tell that story, I believe we will finally get change.”
Khanna, who has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics in Congress since Oct. 7, also told attendees that the progressive wins across the country reflected growing support for the movement’s policy positions, including its opposition to Israel.
“We are winning, and we’re winning not because of candidates,” Khanna said. “We’re winning because we stand for Medicare for all. We stand against the genocide. We stand against foreign wars.”
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