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The Importance of Israel
For the past 40 years, AJC CEO David Harris has been a leading advocate for strengthening Israel’s place in the community of nations, deepening ties with key countries, and advancing Israel’s quest for enduring peace and security. Tune in to hear Harris discuss why Israel is central to the Jewish people, AJC, and Jewish advocacy.
MEP David Lega: “The EU Should Not Inadvertently Fund Terrorism”
On October 22nd, the Israeli Ministry of Defense designated six Palestinian NGOs as terror groups, operating under the cover of civil society organizations, but constituting an arm of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), blacklisted by the EU, U.S., Canada and Israel. While the European Parliament failed to hear Israel's voice on the matter, and rather gave a platform to one of the newly-designated terror groups’ representative, Swedish MEP David Lega of the EPP Group sat down with AJC Transatlantic Institute Director Daniel Schwammenthal and issued a powerful call for moral clarity.
AJC Leadership Delegation Conducts Meetings in UAE, Bahrain, Oman
Continuing AJC’s 25-year-plus engagement with regional governments and building on the breakthrough of the 2020 Abraham Accords - the normalization agreements between Israel and two Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, - as well as warming ties with Oman, the leadership delegation concluded a week of consultations with government ministers and other senior officials, policy analysts, and civil society and business leaders, covering a wide array of topics, from combating extremism and regional threat, to promoting interfaith dialogue, and the further strengthening of economic, political, and cultural ties.
Why Germany’s Iran Policy is Dangerous
Interviewed by Europe’s largest-circulation newspaper BILD, AJC CEO David Harris covers a wide range of current issues, including Germany-Iran ties, Germany-Israel relations, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and Holocaust relativization.
AJC’s Transatlantic Friends of Israel Opens Austrian Chapter - Video
After the launch of the Transatlantic Friends of Israel (TFI) inter-parliamentary group in the EU Parliament in July 2019, the first national chapter opened on October 13 in the Austrian parliament, under the leadership of Chair MP Martin Engelberg and the support of lawmakers from the Greens, the Social-Democrats and NEOS, the liberal party. With over 150 parliamentarians from both sides of the Atlantic as members, the growing TFI network is the first-ever cross-party friendship caucus specifically committed to strengthening the trilateral partnership between the U.S., Israel, and Europe.
The Impact of the UN Antisemitic Durban Conference: 20 Years Later
At the sidelines of the General Assembly of the United Nations, the 2001 Durban conference was meant to unite countries in the fight against racism. Instead, it became an antisemitic hate fest. While its ugly legacy has fueled Jew-hatred for over two decades, 30+ countries decided to skip the anniversary event last month. Gilad Erdan, Ambassador of Israel to the United States and the United Nations, and Joëlle Fiss, Author of The Durban Diaries, joined AJC’s Felice Gaer and Simone Rodan-Benzaquen for a timely conversation on Durban’s ugly legacy.
Can the UN Finally Cease Its Relentless Anti-Israel Bias?
Will EU Member states and other democracies finally end the systemic discrimination against Israel at the UN? In a column for Newsweek, AJC TAI Director Daniel Schwammenthal and TFI Chair Lukas Mandl argue that apart from harming the world’s only Jewish State, the UN’s anti-Israel bias also hurts the organization itself. “The UN's own reputation is greatly damaged in the process—as are the many genuine victims of grave human rights violations around the globe. They are far too often neglected as the UN is busy pursuing its anti-Israel obsession”
The Deep Roots of the Abraham Accords
The historic Abraham Accords were preceded by years of behind the scenes work trying to bring Israel and Gulf countries closer together. In his JNS column, AJC Chief Policy and Political Affairs Director Jason Isaacson reveals how AJC played a crucial role in these developments by meeting prominent Gulf leaders since the 1990s.
AJC Opens Office in Abu Dhabi
A year ago the UAE normalised relations with Israel. Following this development AJC decided to open its first office in an Arab country--AJC Abu Dhabi: The Sidney Lerner Center for Arab-Jewish Understanding. AJC Abu Dhabi is also AJC’s 13th overseas mission. On the 15th of September AJC Abu Dhabi launched its Twitter account (@AJCintheGulf), reaching out to an impressive audience of already 25.000 followers. Be sure to follow them!
Israel’s Security and Political Challenges Under the New Government
On 12 June 2021, Naftali Bennett, leader of Israel’s New Right party, was sworn in as Prime Minister as part of a rotation agreement with Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party. The unprecedented coalition holds only a wafer-thin majority and brings together political parties with vast ideological differences, including for the first time an Arab party. MEP Lukas Mandl, Lahav Harkov, Jerusalem Post Senior Contributing Editor and Diplomatic Correspondent, Daniel Schwammenthal, AJC Transatlantic Institute Director, and Roland Freudenstein, Wilfried Martens Centre Policy Director discussed how the new government will address domestic issues and foreign affairs.
European Commission President Vows to Strengthen Ties with Israel and Fight Antisemitism at AJC Global Forum
Addressing thousands of participants worldwide at AJC Global Forum 2021, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged to strengthen ties with Israel, “a vitally important country for the European Union, not only because of our common past, but also because of our common future,” and underlined the EU’s commitment to fight rising antisemitism across the continent.