KOENIG

The House voted Tuesday to oust Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a vote that hasn’t taken place in more than 100 years.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) followed through on his promises and moved Monday to force a vote on a motion to vacate. On Tuesday afternoon, the chamber voted 216-210 on the motion to vacate, following a 208-218 vote on a motion to table Gaetz’s resolution to oust McCarthy.

All Democrats voted to remove McCarthy.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), a close McCarthy ally, will serve as Speaker pro tem, or as temporary acting Speaker. With a sharp bang of the gavel, he declared the chamber in recess.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday shot down Iran’s attempts at sowing criticism toward Israel’s growing normalized status in the Middle East.

"Iran will not prevent [Israel] from further expanding the circle of peace for the benefit of Israel's citizens, the peoples of the region, and all of humanity," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday in response to Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's public dismissal of the "Zionist regime."

Earlier on Tuesday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said countries seeking to normalize relations with Israel “are betting on a losing horse,” Iranian state media outlets reported.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas charged that “America is occupying Palestine” just as Secretary of State Antony Blinken was reportedly planning to visit Israel and the West Bank.

His attack on the Biden administration and Israel comes amid work on a security arrangement between Washington and Riyadh, including an Israeli-Saudi normalization deal and a possible interim agreement with the Palestinians.

The United States is pushing to include Palestinian issues in the deal and Blinken’s potential trip is seen in part as an opportunity to advance that possibility.

There is growing frustration among Israeli and Saudi officials over what they see as an overemphasis by Washington on having Jerusalem make concessions to the Palestinians as a means of moving forward in the normalization process between the kingdom and the Jewish state.

Sources familiar with the ongoing talks said the Biden administration’s focus on this has hampered the process’s momentum and obstructed possible breakthroughs.

There is growing frustration among Israeli and Saudi officials over what they see as an overemphasis by Washington on having Jerusalem make concessions to the Palestinians as a means of moving forward in the normalization process between the kingdom and the Jewish state.

Sources familiar with the ongoing talks said the Biden administration’s focus on this has hampered the process’s momentum and obstructed possible breakthroughs.

Israeli Communication Minister Shlomo Karhi departed on Monday for Saudi Arabia, in the second visit by an Israeli Cabinet member to the kingdom in as many weeks.

The back-to-back ministerial trips to Riyadh are the latest indication that a normalization deal between the two countries, seen as increasingly likely in the coming months, is indeed in the offing.

The communications minister, a Likud Party Knesset member and close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is attending a global conference of the Universal Postal Union in Riyadh, which he is slated to address.

Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant accepted the invitation of the American Secretary of Defense, General Lloyd Austin, and will go for an official visit to Washington during the month of October.

At their meeting, the two will discuss ways to strengthen the special security ties between Israel and the US, and discuss the various security challenges and political opportunities in the Middle East.

This will be Gallant's first official trip to Washington as the Israeli defense minister.

Iran has the infrastructure in place and the know-how to make a nuclear weapon in less than two weeks, according to the U.S. Department of Defense’s 2023 Strategy for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction report.

“It is assessed that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapons program at
this time, but has the capacity to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear device in less than two weeks,” said the report, which outlines Washington’s strategic approach to countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction globally.

The Israel Defense Forces reportedly carried out airstrikes near Damascus after midnight on Sunday, targeting an Iranian weapons shipment that appeared to be making its way to Lebanon.

The airstrikes were reported by news sites affiliated with the Syrian opposition and were not confirmed by state media.

The strikes targeting sites belonging to the Syrian army and pro-Iranian militia groups took place in al-Dimas, just west of Damascus, the reports said.

Israel and Saudi Arabia are moving toward the outline of a historic US-brokered deal to normalize relations, the White House said on Friday.

US President Joe Biden is hoping to transform the Middle East — and score an election-year diplomatic victory — by securing recognition of the Jewish state by Saudi Arabia, the guardian of Islam’s two holiest sites.

“All sides have hammered out, I think, a basic framework for what, you know, what we might be able to drive at,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

The threat of a federal government shutdown suddenly lifted late Saturday as President Joe Biden signed a temporary funding bill to keep agencies open with little time to spare after Congress rushed to approve the bipartisan deal.

The package drops aid to Ukraine, a White House priority opposed by a growing number of GOP lawmakers, but increases federal disaster assistance by $16 billion, meeting Biden’s full request. The bill funds government until Nov. 17.

After chaotic days of turmoil in the House, Speaker Kevin McCarthy abruptly abandoned demands for steep spending cuts from his right flank and instead relied on Democrats to pass the bill, at risk to his own job. The Senate followed with final passage closing a whirlwind day at the Capitol.

Record-setting rain overwhelmed New York City’s sewer system Friday, sending a surge of floodwater coursing through streets and into basements, schools, subways and vehicles throughout the nation’s most populous city.

The water rose fast and furious, catching some commuters off guard as they slogged through Friday morning’s rush hour. First responders jumped into action where needed, plucking people from stranded cars and basements filling like bathtubs.

More rain fell in a single day at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport – nearly 8 inches – than any other since 1948. A month’s worth of rain fell in Brooklyn in just three hours as it was socked by some of the storm’s most intense rainfall rates Friday morning.

Mark Vogel, who lives in the Bronx borough of New York City and runs a website about Jewish and kosher travel, spoke for many of his neighbors when he posted a video on Instagram of his sukkah being pounded by rain, standing forlornly in the middle of his flooded backyard.

“I built a Sukkah,” he wrote in a caption. “I should have built an ark.”

Vogel, and many of the other millions of Jews in the tri-state area, have been coping with the reality that Sukkot, the most outdoor holiday on the Jewish calendar, has coincided with heavy rains that have flooded highways, shut down subway lines and triggered a state of emergency in and around New York City. More than 8 inches of rain had fallen at John F. Kennedy airport by Friday afternoon, and more is expected into Saturday.

Biden told Netanyahu that he wants agreement to include measures that maintain prospects for two-state solution; Netanyahu kept his affirmative response vague.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly told US President Joe Biden during their meeting last week that he is prepared to take steps that would keep the possibility of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement alive as part of the normalization agreement that Washington is trying to broker between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Netanyahu has said publicly since the New York meeting that the Palestinians should be part of the US-Israel-Saudi agreement — but that they should not have a veto over it. A willingness to extend that Palestinian element to steps relating to a future peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians — as vague as that might be — is not something he has acknowledged publicly.

According to a Thursday report on the Walla news site, Netanyahu’s aides met with senior White House officials Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein the night before the prime minister’s meeting with Biden on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. During that preparatory meeting, the US officials asked their Israeli counterparts what concessions to the Palestinians Netanyahu would be prepared to offer Biden during their sit-down.

Saudi Arabia will not hold up a peace deal even if Israel does not offer major concessions to Palestinians in their bid for statehood, three regional sources familiar with the talks said.

The Palestinians could get some Israeli restrictions eased but such moves would fall short of their aspirations for a state. As with other Arab-Israeli deals forged over the decades, the Palestinian core demand for statehood would take a back seat, the three regional sources familiar with the talks said.

"The normalization will be between Israel and Saudi Arabia. If the Palestinians oppose it the kingdom will continue in its path," said one of the regional sources. "Saudi Arabia supports a peace plan for the Palestinians, but this time it wanted something for Saudi Arabia, not just for the Palestinians."

The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) suspended train services at many stations, and there were extensive delays where New York City subway trains were still running on Friday morning.

“There is only extremely limited subway service available because of heavy flooding caused by rainfall. Service may be suspended on certain stations,” MTA said on its website.

The latest storm, although non-tropical in nature, is another thorn in the side for coastal locations still reeling from the effects of Ophelia. Well after its demise, the former tropical storm brought days of cloudy, cool, wet and windy weather to portions of the Northeast earlier this week and contributed to a prolonged period of pounding surf, coastal flooding and erosion.

Saudi Arabia is determined to secure a military pact requiring the United States to defend the kingdom in return for opening ties with Israel and will not hold up a deal even if Israel does not offer major concessions to Palestinians in their bid for statehood, three regional sources familiar with the talks said.

The US has raised its concern “at the highest level” about Israel’s continued settlement activity, its UN envoy told the Security Council as she pledged her country’s commitment to a two-state solution and the normalization of Israeli ties in the region.

“Make no mistake: the expansion of settlements undermines the geographic viability of a two-state solution, exacerbates tensions, and further harms trust between the two parties,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

She spoke in the aftermath of a dramatic spike of 303% in housing starts from the first and second quarters of 2023, according to data from the Central Bureau of Statistics published this month.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, had harsh words for both Israelis and Palestinians at the U.N. Security Council’s monthly meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian file on Wednesday.

The U.S. envoy criticized Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria regarding the “sharp rise” in violence against local Arabs, which she said was deeply alarming. She added that those who commit violent acts against civilians, whether Israeli or Palestinian, must be held accountable.

he also blasted Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas over his recent Holocaust denial, which included blaming Jews for the Shoah. 

The comments were “blatantly antisemitic” and “wrongly maligned the Jewish people and distorted the Holocaust,” said Thomas-Greenfield. “These kinds of divisive and hateful remarks only undermine prospects for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday in Berlin signed an agreement to provide Israel’s Arrow 3 missile defense system to Germany. At an estimated value of $3.5 billion, the deal is the largest of its kind in Israel’s history.

The first missile battery, including radar, launch and interception management systems, is to be supplied to the Germans by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) by the fourth quarter of 2025.

Germany is the first foreign purchaser of the system.

Arrow 3 is the upper-tier layer of Israel’s missile defense program, designed to intercept ballistic missiles during the exoatmospheric portion of their trajectory, at altitudes above 100 kilometers (62 miles).

Newly appointed Saudi ambassador to the Palestinians Nayef al-Sudairi arrived in Ramallah Tuesday to present his credentials to the Palestinian Authority, saying that Riyadh was “working to establish a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.”

His arrival, which marks the first time Saudi Arabia has sent a delegation to the West Bank in three decades, comes as the kingdom edges closer to a normalization deal with Israel.

Al-Sudairi presented his credentials to PA President Mahmoud Abbas and to Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, who praised the depth of the deep-rooted historical and fraternal relations that bind the two people, according to the PA’s official Wafa news agency.

Tourism Minister Haim Katz was welcomed to Riyadh in comments by his Saudi counterpart on Wednesday, while he held an unprecedented trip to the Gulf nation as rapprochement between the countries appears closer than ever.

The United States has announced new sanctions targeting individuals in China and Iran, as well as entities in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Hong Kong. 

The sanctions were unveiled on Wednesday and were documented on the Treasury Department's website.

One of the primary targets of these sanctions is a network allegedly aiding in the procurement of sensitive components for Iran's drone program. 

The U.S. government has accused that network of facilitating shipments and financial transactions that support Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in obtaining crucial components for its Shahed-136 drones.

Paraguay is set to open the doors of its new Jerusalem embassy in November, in a sign of growing support for Israel in Latin America, Paraguayan officials said on Wednesday.

The move comes as an increasing number of countries have recently voiced their intention to relocate their diplomatic missions to Israel’s capital based on faith-based diplomacy.

Saudi Arabia's first ambassador to the Palestinian Authority, Nayef al-Sudairi, arrived in Ramallah on Tuesday morning, implying in a statement to reporters that the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in east Jerusalem would be a central pillar of any future deal with Israel.

Sudairi announced as well that the Kingdom intends to open a consulate in east Jerusalem. Such a move would seemingly require the approval of Israeli authorities.

In response to a question about the fate of the two-state solution if Saudi Arabia and Israel normalized relations, the ambassador told reporters on Tuesday that "the Arab Peace Initiative is the central point of any upcoming agreement," according to the Palestinian Authority's WAFA news agency.

Tourism Minister Haim Katz arrived Tuesday in Saudi Arabia for a United Nations conference, becoming the first Israeli minister to lead a delegation to the kingdom, according to his office.

Katz is on a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia as part of a United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) event that coincides with World Tourism Day on September 27.

“Tourism is a bridge between nations,” Katz said in a statement. “Cooperation in the field of tourism has the potential to bring hearts together, and economic progress.”