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.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
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 the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.