Beginning on Sunday, Christians United for Israel will be holding its annual summit – albeit virtually. Announced speakers include Secretary of State Pompeo, Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Rivlin, Ambassadors Friedman and Dermer, Senators Blackburn, Cotton, Cruz, Lankford, Rosen, Rubio, and Scott, Rep. Crenshaw, and many more government officials and subject matter experts. If you have not already done so, please visit CUFI.org to register for this important event. Israeli Sovereignty While we’ve been hard at work preparing for the Summit, we’ve also been focused on ensuring our position on the news of the day is known in Washington and throughout the country. Specifically, this past week, CUFI founder and Chairman Pastor John Hagee authored an op-ed discussing CUFI’s view of Israel potentially extending sovereignty over portions of Judea and Samaria as envisioned by the Trump peace proposal. In the thoughtful and nuanced piece, Pastor Hagee writes, “CUFI and its more than 8 million members, supported and continue to support the Trump Peace Proposal in its entirety. This includes Israel exercising its sovereignty over portions of Judea and Samaria and once again offering the Palestinians an opportunity to have a prosperous and independent existence.” He goes onto note, “It is now up to the Palestinians to make a decision. They are unquestionably the masters of their own destiny… Israel cannot be expected to acquiesce to the demands of a Palestinian leader who refuses to talk about peace but has no problem talking about the supposed evils of the Jewish state.” In sum, CUFI
will continue to support the decisions of the democratically elected Government of Israel. And we expect Washington to keep its promises to Jerusalem. Namely, that Palestinian intransigence will not be allowed to impede progress on the peace proposal. Iran Nukes and Arms Elsewhere in the region, two Iran-related issues we’ve been following closely made news this week. First, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling upon Iran to “fully cooperate with the Agency and satisfy the Agency’s requests without any further delay, including by providing prompt access to the locations specified by the Agency.” Such warnings, while relatively mild, are somewhat rare for the IAEA. While progress on this front is not as we would hope, the IAEA’s action constitutes something – which remains better than nothing. It was also reported this week that the US has drafted a UN Security Council resolution extending the arms embargo - set to expire in October - against Iran. The CUFI Action Fund wholeheartedly supports this effort. However, as the resolution requires the support of 9 of 15 Security Council members, and could be vetoed by any of the permanent members of the body including Russia and China, the Action Fund has been examining alternative ways to deal with the arms embargo’s expiration, which were detailed in an op-ed authored by our Director of Public Policy and Strategy last month. These and many other issues will be discussed during the Virtual Summit beginning on Sunday. We hope you can join us, and as always, we are deeply grateful for your decisions to stand up and speak up for the US-Israel relationship.
Sincerely,
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