In Congress, bipartisan support grows for bills backing expanded Israeli-Arab ties
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The top Democratic and Republican lawmakers from the House Foreign Affairs Committee have joined a bill that supports the expansion of normalization agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
It’s a sign of increasing bipartisan support for the initiative launched by former President Donald Trump.
Rep. Gregory Meeks, the New York Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and his Republican counterpart, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, are among the co-sponsors of the measure introduced Wednesday. A companion bill in the Senate also has bipartisan backing.
The bill would task the State Department with identifying opportunities to expand last year’s Abraham Accords, as well as obstacles. The pro-Israel lobby AIPAC backs the legislation. Trump brokered the accords between Israel and Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan and Morocco.
Democrats at first were cautious about backing the Abraham Accords and were particularly skeptical of some of Trump’s incentives, including the sale of stealth combat jets to Saudi Arabia. One of the co-sponsors of this latest normalization bill, Brad Schneider, a Jewish Democrat from Illinois, for a time led a bid to stop the sale of the F-35s.
President Joe Biden froze the sale upon assuming office, but earlier this month gave it the go-ahead.
The bill features language emphasizing that the accords would be a means to an end of reaching an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Trump officials and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had all but set aside Israeli-Palestinian peace moves by the time the Abraham Accords were brokered in September, and McCaul recently told AIPAC that he understood that marginalizing the Palestinians to be Trump’s intent. Biden has renewed ties with the Palestinians.
Other leading sponsors of the bill are Republicans Peter Meijer of Michigan and Anne Wagner of Missouri, as well as Sylvia Garcia, a Texas Democrat.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 3
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 4
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
In Case You Missed It
-
Books What is ‘Zionism without Zion?’ New history asks, but can’t answer
-
Fast Forward Shapiro recites Priestly Blessing given to him by fire chaplain after Passover arson
-
Opinion Israel just threw another wrench in the peace process — and possibly doomed the last hostages
-
Culture In the new Fantastic Four trailer, a glimpse of Yancy Street’s Yiddishkeit
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.