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This Week:

• Dems on the Offensive Against Israel
• Jewish New Yorkers Pan Mamdani's Antisemitism Rollout
• Sonderling, Grandson of Holocaust Survivors, Confirmed as Labor Secretary

• Israeli Heroes in the Sky

• Remembering 10/7

• Short Takes
• Week's Best Tweets
• Upcoming Events

Dems on the Offensive Against Israel

Last month Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies warned that the "formidable financial warfare machine" being used against Iran by the US is now being turned against Israel. That machine includes sanctions imposed on individuals, then companies and entire sectors, and finally on the financial system itself. As Dubowitz notes, President Joe Biden authorized sanctions against individuals and entities in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) in 2024. President Donald Trump revoked that order upon returning to office, but the precedent remains.

Democrats on Capitol Hill are already at work on legislation to sanction Israelis beyond the Green Line.

Last Friday, Marc Rod reported at the Jewish Insider that Democrats have introduced a bill in the House that has 173 co-sponsors - the West Bank Violence Prevention Act would reimplement West Bank sanctions established by the Biden administration and repealed by the Trump administration.

This week, Rod reports that more than 40 House Democrats introduced the Stop the Settlements Act on Wednesday, which would place sanctions on anyone involved in further settlement expansion in the West Bank or Gaza and ban imports from Israeli settlements. He notes:

The bill is another signal of a significant appetite among congressional Democrats to take a hard line toward Israeli settlements and Israeli policy in the West Bank, which would likely be a focus of Democrats' Israel policy if they retake the majority in either chamber in November.

Also this week, the Senate voted on a Democrat resolution, introduced by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), that would have required the Trump administration to report to Congress on Israel's human rights practices and the deaths of American citizens in Judea and Samaria.

Republicans sent it down to defeat, 47-51. Politico quotes Republican Senator Steve Daines of Montana, who said of the resolution: "This is sadly another cynical ploy by Democrats to isolate our closest ally in the region and to turn Israel's righteous war of self-defense into a domestic political issue."

Jewish New Yorkers Pan Mamdani's Antisemitism Rollout

Debra Nussbaum Cohen reports at JNS that New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's plan to fight Jew-hatred is drawing widespread criticism, because it ignores anti-Israel hostility:

"Grateful as I am for the steps outlined," Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, senior rabbi of Park Avenue Synagogue, a Conservative congregation on the Upper East Side, told JNS, "to construct a plan to address N.Y. Jewish insecurity without addressing anti-Zionism is like writing a report on lung cancer without mentioning smoking."

Ofir Akunis, Israeli consul general in New York, stated that "money can't buy values."

"Until you recognize that your language against the Jewish state, which you don't recognize as the homeland of the Jewish people, is the fundamental reason for the rise of antisemitism in New York City, it will continue to increase," the Israeli envoy told the mayor.

"Truly combating antisemitism requires readopting the IHRA working definition of Antisemitism, which you overturned as the first decision of your administration on day one," Akunis stated.

Sonderling, Grandson of Holocaust Survivors, Confirmed as Labor Secretary

JNS reports:

The Senate voted 47-41 on Wednesday to confirm Keith Sonderling, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, as U.S. labor secretary.

Sonderling told JNS that defending Jews from workplace bias is "personal" for him.

"President Trump's administration has made this a priority, to make sure that not just antisemitism is eliminated but all religious bias is eliminated," he previously told JNS.

Sam Markstein, national political director and spokesman for the Republican Jewish Coalition, called Sonderling a "longtime friend" of the RJC.

"Under President Trump and Secretary Sonderling's leadership, the Labor Department has gotten out of the way of job creators and back to the business of building up American workers by expanding registered apprenticeships and skilled-trades pathways, cutting red tape that strangles small businesses, cracking down on unemployment insurance fraud and preparing America's workforce for the technologies that will define the next generation," he told JNS.

"Notably, as the grandson of Holocaust survivors who were denied jobs because they were Jewish, Secretary Sonderling has made confronting antisemitism and religious discrimination a departmental priority," Markstein told JNS. "President Trump picked the right man for the job."

Secretary Sonderling credits the Republican Jewish Coalition with helping him get his start in public service. See his remarks at the 2026 RJC Annual Summit here.

Israeli Heroes in the Sky

Yesterday the co-pilot of a Flydubai airplane traveling from Dubai to Israel attacked the pilot and attempted to crash the plane. The attacker was subdued through the incredible bravery of the seriously wounded pilot, Captain Smit Machchhar, and several Israeli passengers.

According to news reports, the four Israelis credited with rushing the cockpit, stopping the attacker, and saving the lives of 177 crew and passengers are: banker Zvika Manes (whose wife and daughter heard cries from the cockpit and alerted people in the cabin), plumber Yaniv Hayoun, dentist Shota Musayev, and businessman Asaf Rajuan. By now, the story of their actions is well known.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee wrote on X:

We thank God and breathe a deep sigh of relief that the passengers of Fly Dubai FZ1073 are now safely in Israel. Their heroism in the face of terror averted catastrophe.

Israel endures because its people refuse to surrender. And tonight we are even more proud to call this extraordinary nation our true partner.

Remembering 10/7

On October 7, 2023, Hamas conducted a brutal attack on Israel in which they killed some 1,200 people and took 251 people hostage. Today, all the surviving hostages are home, thanks to Israel's commitment to leave no one behind and President Donald Trump's peace plan of October 2025. But the mourning continues for the young people at the Nova festival, the families in the southern communities, and the brave soldiers, police and first responders who died that day.

The Hebrew calendar date of 24 Tishrei was chosen for the official Israeli remembrance day. This year, that day falls on October 5, although there will also be public gatherings in Israel on October 7.

The Times of Israel painstakingly compiled a memorial for the civilians and soldiers killed on October 7, 2023 and in the Gaza war until the ceasefire of October 2025. Each individual is remembered with a photo, a name, and a bit of their personal story. It is a fitting remembrance and worthy of your time: Those We Have Lost.

Short Takes

Mandelbaum: The Morality of the Gaza War

No event in recent history better illustrates the adage that "a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on" than the war in Gaza.  It began on October 7, 2023, with the attack on southern Israel by Hamas, the Islamic fundamentalist group that effectively governed Gaza at that time.  Almost immediately after the attack took place, the charge that Israel was committing genocide began circulating.  It has gained such wide acceptance that American public officials and candidates for public office have taken to repeating it as if it were a fact.

It is not a fact.  The charge is false.

Mandel: Why Israeli Arabs Stand By Their Country

[On October 7, 2023] Israel's Arab population defied Yahya Sinwar's expectations that they would rise up and join the wanton destruction of their own country, the State of Israel.

Sinwar underestimated Arab Israelis. He also underestimated Israel's resilience as a nation-state. There is great normalcy in what happened: A state's citizens did not join a foreign invasion against their country.

Times of Israel: 'Distorted, misleading, and disingenuous': IDF publishes full response to 'NAZA' film

The Israel Defense Forces on Thursday published a 10-page English response to the film "NAZA," which is centered on allegations that Israel intentionally killed tens of thousands of civilians in the Gaza Strip using artificial intelligence, among a slew of other war crimes, after a military representative was finally able to view the documentary almost three weeks after it premiered.

In response, the military said the film "presents a distorted, misleading and disingenuous picture of the IDF's target planning and striking process" and that its narrative is "based on substantial factual errors stemming from manipulative misrepresentations of reality."

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