Latest news with #J-Street
Telegraph
18-04-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Trump calls for ‘peace for Israel' in handwritten note placed in Western Wall
Donald Trump has called for peace in Israel in a handwritten prayer pushed into the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, visited one of the holiest sites in Judaism on Friday morning, where he placed a 'special note' from Mr Trump with the words: ' For peace in Israel – Donald Trump.' 'It is an honour for me to be here on behalf of president Trump and to bring the prayer he personally wrote last Thursday at the White House, with the instruction that my first act as ambassador be to take his prayer – in which he expresses his hope for peace in Israel – and place it in the Western Wall and pray for peace in the land,' Mr Huckabee said. 'I also come with a prayer that all of the hostages will come home. That is the prayer of the president,' he said, on the final evening of Passover. Shmuel Rabinowitz, Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites and Mordechai Eliav, the director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, welcomed Mr Huckabee at the Western Wall. 'Words cannot describe the emotion felt by the citizens of Israel and throughout the Jewish world upon hearing the announcement that you would come directly upon landing to the Western Wall, to pray and place a note on behalf of the president of the United States – one of Israel's greatest friends,' Rabbi Rabinowitz said. 'Especially in these difficult days of war, pain, and uncertainty – your acts of friendship, faith, and support give the people of Israel strength and hope,' he added. Mr Trump became the first sitting US president to visit the Western Wall during his first term in 2017. He later called it a 'great honour,' adding: I can see a much deeper path, friendship with Israel.' He moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem a year later, in a move that delighted Israelis and infuriated Palestinians. Israel's government regards Jerusalem as the eternal and indivisible capital of the country, although that is not recognised internationally. Palestinians feel equally strongly, saying that East Jerusalem must be the capital of a future Palestinian state. Mr Huckabee, a Baptist minister and former governor of Arkansas, is considered among the most pro-Israel ambassadors the US has ever had, visiting the country about 100 times and leading more than 10,000 on trips to the holy land since 1981. The ambassador is a staunch supporter of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which he doesn't see as occupied territory but as a part of Israel. American Jewish organisations are divided over their views on Mr Huckabee, with left-wing liberals being particularly critical of him. The chief executive of left-wing organisation J-Street said his 'embrace of annexation, extremist settlers and fanatical Christian Zionism stands in stark contrast to the Jewish, democratic values held by the overwhelming majority of our community – and in stark contrast to Israel's founding values of justice, equality and peace'. Meanwhile, the Zionist Organization of America president Morton Klein, applauded the nomination of Mr Huckabee as the next US ambassador. 'Governor Huckabee is a great American patriot and friend of the Jewish people, and a man of sterling character and compassion, with widely-praised executive abilities. Gov Huckabee has an extraordinary understanding of Israel's history, legal rights to her land and on-the-ground realities,' Mr Klein said.
New York Times
12-04-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Jewish Groups and Synagogues Defend Students Detained by ICE
They are a group of progressive Jewish organizations and congregations, and they are coming to the defense of Rumeysa Ozturk, a Muslim graduate student at Tufts, who faces deportation after she helped write an essay critical of Israel. The coalition includes synagogues in places like West Newton, Mass., San Francisco and the Upper West Side of New York, along with J-Street, a pro-Israel advocacy group. On Thursday, they filed a brief in federal court in Burlington, Vt., objecting to the tactics the government was using against Ms. Ozturk in the name of combating antisemitism. In the brief, the groups argued she should be released from the Louisiana immigration detention center where she has been held for over two weeks, after masked immigration agents surrounded and arrested her on a street near her home in Somerville, Mass. 'Jewish people came to America to escape generations of similar predations,' the brief says. 'Yet the images of Ozturk's arrest in twenty-first century Massachusetts evoke the oppressive tactics employed by the authoritarian regimes that many ancestors of amici's members left behind in Odessa, Kishinev, and Warsaw.' There have been reports of almost 1,000 international students and scholars at universities across the country who have lost their legal status since mid-March, according to the Association of International Educators. Anecdotally, the visas have typically been revoked with little or no notice and without telling the students what they might have done wrong. In some cases, students have committed legal infractions, like speeding or driving while drunk, according to universities and lawyers that are monitoring the revocations. But some have not. If the students do not leave voluntarily, they face deportation. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
