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The US Senate voted 53-46 on Wednesday to confirm Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, to be US ambassador to Israel. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) was the only Democrat to join Republicans in voting for the confirmation.

JNS quoted praise from the Republican Jewish Coalition for the new ambassador:

Israel has had no greater friend in the White House than President [Donald] Trump, and Amb. Huckabee will serve with distinction as part of the Trump administration’s pro-Israel dream team," RJC national chairman Norm Coleman and CEO Matt Brooks stated. "B’hatzlacha [with success/good luck], Mr. Ambassador."

President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, key Cabinet officials and members of the administration met this week with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his team of advisors for productive conversations on issues related to economic cooperation, regional security, and the war against Hamas.

Both President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu highlighted the critical work both the United States and Israel are doing to bring the remaining hostages home.

See the full text of their remarks in the Oval Office here.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump invited former hostages Iair Horn and Keith and Aviva Siegel to tell their stories in front of 3,000 guests at the National Republican Congressional Committee.

"President Trump, you saved my life. You saved the lives of 33 hostages," Israeli-American Keith Siegel told the president, referring to those freed during the first stage of the ceasefire and hostage release deal that lapsed last month. "You set the hostage crisis at the highest priority. You got 33 of us home alive. We all owe our lives to you."

He urged Trump to "please continue your tremendous efforts and tremendous actions and tremendous accomplishments. We’ll get, with your help, all of the remaining 59 hostages still in Gaza back home."

Vice President JD Vance met with hostages and hostage families in DC this week as well. The Times of Israel reports that the Israeli participants expressed their appreciation for the Trump administration’s efforts to secure the release of the remaining 59 hostages. Attending the meeting were former hostages Iair Horn, Keith Siegel and Aviva Siegel, along with the relatives of hostages Ziv and Gali Berman, Evyatar David, Omri Miran, Eitan Horn, Edan Alexander, Itay Chen, and Omer Neutra.

Omer Neutra is an American-Israeli whose body is still being held by Hamas in Gaza. Last year, his parents, Ronen and Orna Neutra, were featured speakers at the Republican National Convention. The Neutras also spoke at last year’s Republican Jewish Coalition’s Leadership Summit in Las Vegas, where many in the crowd wore yellow ribbons and dog tags symbolizing the captives’ plight.

A new poll from late March by the Pew Research Center shows that 93% of American Jews feel that the conflict between Israel and Hamas is important to them personally, with 74% considering it very important. Among Republicans nationally, 55% say the conflict is important to them and to US interests.

On the question of whether the Trump administration is handling relations with Israelis and Palestinians correctly, 51% of Republicans say President Trump is striking the right balance, while 50% of Democrats say the President is favoring Israel "too much."

Jonathan Tobin writes that the political realignments that shaped the 2024 election leave Jewish Democrats with a serious question: Will their party be led by the ardently pro-Israel Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) or by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the leader of the leftist "Squad" in Congress?

Tobin continues:

[A]ny assumption that a 2024 post-mortem will incline the Democrats to turn back to the center may be mistaken. By any measure, the energy within the Democratic Party remains with its left-wing base, not its less radical establishment.

... AOC is very much in sync with not merely the anti-Israel activism of left-wing Democrats and fellow "Squad" members in the House. She also supports the pro-Hamas mobs on campuses like Columbia University, even as she hedges her bets by saying that she’s against antisemitism while denying that her anti-Zionist allies are Jew-haters.

...[A] Democratic Party where someone who shares her views can be spoken of as a realistic possibility for 2028 is one that will have abandoned Jewish voters. It will also mean that any hope that Israel hasn’t become a partisan issue for the foreseeable future is officially gone.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has tried again to block vital military aid to Israel as the Jewish state continues to fight Hamas in Gaza, with a pair of resolutions that went down in defeat this week. Both resolutions received only 15 votes, all Democrats.

The 15 who supported the anti-Israel resolutions were Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Tina Smith (D-MN), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM), Peter Welch (D-VT) and Tim Kaine (D-VA). All of them also voted for all three of Sanders’ anti-Israel resolutions in the previous Congress.

Danzig: One of America’s best investments: US military aid to Israel

While people like [Sen. Bernie] Sanders argue that American aid enables the conflict and that Israel’s action to defend itself from attacks by Iran’s Islamist supremacist axis somehow disqualifies it from receiving US military equipment, they overlook the profound strategic, technological and humanitarian benefits the United States receives from its alliance with Israel.

... Unlike many US foreign aid recipients, Israel offers the United States far more than gratitude. It serves as a vital strategic partner in the Middle East—a region where the United States has few reliable allies. Ports like Haifa and Ashdod serve as secure and hospitable docking locations for the US Navy and house emergency military stockpiles for rapid deployment. In contrast to the costly and chaotic redeployments in the Persian Gulf, Israel offers stability, dependability and shared interests.

Bard: J Street’s Dishonest, Anti-Israel, Anti-Peace, Anti-Democracy Manifesto

Since its founding, J Street has established itself as a far-left extremist organization that represents only a sliver of American Jewry. However, it attracts disproportionate media attention because it serves as a "man bites dog" story—Jews who oppose Israel. J Street published a 10-point manifesto to rationalize its positions, but its raison d’être can be summarized in a single sentence: To lobby the US government to impose the views of a small group residing far from Israel, who neither participate in its elections nor contribute their children to its military, upon the people of Israel, who alone bear the consequences of these misguided policies.

Savodnik: Meet Usha Vance: MAGA’s Enigmatic Second Lady

[This is] the first and, so far, only interview [Usha Vance] had granted since her husband was elected vice president of the United States.

Normally, the spouse of the most visible, least important person in a White House administration is supposed to poll well and be invisible. (Doug Emhoff taught a class at Georgetown University. Jill Biden, as Second Lady, oversaw an initiative about the importance of community colleges.)

But JD Vance is not the least important person in the new Trump administration—not by a very long shot.

And ever since Usha made her debut at the Republican convention in July, in that cobalt-blue Badgley Mischka dress wearing nearly no jewelry or makeup, the public has been more than a little fascinated by her.