US reps: ‘Iran must never be allowed to have nuke’

Bipartisan delegation concludes trip to Middle East

WASHINGTON – A bipartisan congressional delegation returned to the US on Monday after spending a week in the Middle East, including Israel, The Palestinian Authority and Qatar. This was the first congressional delegation to any destination since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rep. Gregory W. Meeks (D-New York), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, led the committee, which included nine members of each party.

“This was the first congressional delegation at all since the pandemic started a year and a half ago,” Brad Schneider (D-Illinois) told The Jerusalem Post. “I think it’s significant that we made the decision that the first delegation would be to Israel.”

“One of the reasons we wanted to be there in particular [is] to show our ongoing support for the US-Israel relationship,” he said. “We have expressed that support for

Israel. We talked a lot about the normalization, the Abraham Accords, and the hope that the four agreements signed last year are the beginning of more agreements and expanding engagement within the region.

“This was the first time that the Palestinians were willing to speak with the American government in a while as well,” he emphasized.

“And we had, I think, constructive conversations there – hopefully, leading to engagement with the Israeli government, trying to address many of the challenges in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

In Ramallah, the delegation raised the Taylor Force Act, Schneider said. “We reiterated our concerns about payments [to individuals who commit acts of terrorism.] This is actually the third time I’ve been to Ramallah. I had similar conversations in 2019 and 2017, raising concerns about these payments. And we had a very frank conversation there. We are trying to make sure that any effort to rebuild Gaza does not go to

Hamas.”

“Hamas used the conflict in May to bolster their standing,” he said.

In their meetings with senior officials including Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Schneider said that while the sides “spoke a lot about Iran directly... The threat of Iran affects the conversations on just about everything else.

“There is broad understanding that Iran must never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon; that it’s more than just Iran’s nuclear fuel program, but also their ballistic missiles, as well as their other activities – support for terrorism and sponsorship of Hamas, Hezbollah, etc. – that make Iran such a big threat to the region and to the world.”

The delegation also visited Qatar to meet with the country’s leaders. “We raised the issue of the need to provide humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza; to make sure that we are not advancing the agenda of the interests of Hamas,” he said.