ISSUES

At CUFI, we are focused on several key issues with the goal of defending Israel’s strength, security, and sovereignty.

If you want to keep up with all things Israel, sign up for CUFI’s Daily Briefing – our daily news roundup created exclusively for CUFI members. Every morning, Monday through Friday, receive an email with some of the top headlines in the news so you are always informed and ready to debunk lies with the truth.

Palestinian Authority

Palestinian Islamic Jihad: We can launch more than 1,000 rockets at Israel a day for months

Islamic Jihad warned on Thursday that it has the capability to launch more than 1,000 rockets a day into Israel for months".
Speaking to Hezbollah affiliated TV channel Al-Manar on Thursday, Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhal said "we operated with little military capability (in the latest round of fighting in Gaza). I do not exaggerate when I...

Israeli Society

200,000 pray at Jerusalem mosque after stabbing attack

Israel implemented heightened security on Friday as some 200,000 Muslim worshipers were expected in Jerusalem's Old City as the month-long Ramadan holiday neared its end.
Friday morning already saw several incidents that resulted in the death of two Palestinians and two wounded Israelis.
Early Friday morning, a Palestinian assailant injured two...

Antisemitism

Note reading ‘Hitler is coming’ posted on Brooklyn Jewish Children’s Museum

(JTA) — A note reading “Hitler is coming” was found on a billboard  designed for comments by visitors to the Brooklyn Jewish Children’s Museum.

Police are investigating the note, left Thursday, as a hate crime, a spokesperson told the New York Post.

Visitors alerted police to the anti-Semitic note at the Crown Heights museum. The city’s...

US-Israel Relationship

U.S. Military cadets visit Israel for educational tour

40 cadets from the United States military landed in Israel on Thursday for the Israel Strategy and Policy Tour (I-SAP), running through June 11. The cadets are from West Point Military Academy, the Air Force Academy and the Virginia Military Institute, and will meet with high level Israeli decision-makers from the IDF and police in order to gain a...

Hamas

New book unmasks Ramallah- and Gaza-based academic and cultural boycotts of Israel

(May 29, 2019 / JNS) In the wake of Iceland’s pro-Palestinian gesture at Eurovision and related discussion promoted by the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), Dan Diker and Adam Shay of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs have published an English book titled The PACBI Deception: Unmasked.

The book reveals PACBI’s...

US-Israel Relationship

American and Israeli college presidents unite to oppose academic boycotts

(May 29, 2019 / JNS) Professor Melvin L. Oliver, president of Pitzer College in Claremont, Calif., who defied pressure to boycott Israeli academia by vetoing the vote by a Pitzer governance body to suspend the college’s study-abroad exchange with University of Haifa, gave the keynote lecture at University of Haifa’s 47th annual board of governors...

US-Israel Relationship

Israel to host ‘unprecedented’ US-Russia security summit on Middle East

The United States and Israel confirmed on Thursday that a US-Russia security summit on the Middle East will be held in Jerusalem next month.
“In June, United States National Security Adviser Ambassador John Bolton, Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, and Russian Secretary of the Security Council Nikolay Patrushev will meet in...

US-Israel Relationship

Florida cabinet meets in Israel, brushing off threat of legal action

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (AP) — Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida cabinet met in Israel on Wednesday, waving away complaints that the setting was illegal. They presented a proclamation of support for Israel and heard from Israelis on several issues important to Florida.

The Republican governor then signed a bill that prohibits anti-Semitism in...

US-Israel Relationship

Kushner, Greenblatt arrive in Israel on third stop of Middle East tour

Jared Kushner arrived in Israel, on a third and final stop of a Middle-East tour to garner support for the Deal of the Century.
Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt were meant to meet the prime minister on Thursday at noon, but the meeting was now uncertain, after Netanyahu lost a battle to form a coalition - and the Jewish State was headed to...

Israel Defense Force (IDF)

IDF reveals ‘longest, most significant’ Hezbollah tunnel on northern border

The Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday revealed a cross-border Hezbollah attack tunnel that was discovered running into Israeli territory from Lebanon during this past winter’s Operation Northern Shield, saying it was “the longest and most significant” subterranean passage found in the effort.

The military released the additional details about...

US-Israel Relationship

As it sets diversity record, West Point quietly graduates 1,000th Jewish student

WEST POINT, New York — When West Point graduated its 1,000th Jewish cadet Saturday, it was more than a historical moment.

For the 12 Jewish cadets graduating this year out of a class of 980, and the hundreds of Jewish alumni before them, this milestone shows how much Jewish life has grown here since the military academy’s 1802 founding.

The...

Iran

US national security adviser: Iran seeking nuclear arms

US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser said Wednesday there was “no reason” for Iran to back out of its nuclear deal with world powers other than to seek atomic weapons, a year after the US president unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.

Speaking in Abu Dhabi, the Emirati capital, John Bolton said that without more nuclear...

Hamas

Hamas music video celebrates murder of Jews

(May 29, 2019 / PMW) The same day that Hamas official Fathi Hammad promised to “slaughter, exterminate and annihilate” Israel, Hamas TV broadcast a music video on May 15 promising to “blow up” Tel Aviv and showing the staged stabbing of a religious Jew by a masked Palestinian:

“We have not yet drawn weapons, and yet we have brought down the...

Archeology

Israeli scientists find evidence of humans ‘recycling’ 400,000 years ago

A new Tel Aviv University study found that there is evidence that 400,000 years ago, prehistoric humans "recycled" their broken flint, the researchers announced on Wednesday. They transformed their discarded flint tools to make smaller utensils with specific functions.

Recycling was a way of life for these people,” said Prof. Ran Barkai, one of...

Israel Defense Force (IDF)

Israel again reduces Gaza fishing zone to 10 miles after arson balloons

Israeli authorities are set to scale Gaza's authorized fishing zone back to 10 nautical miles on Wednesday morning, the local Fishermen's Committees said in the night between Tuesday and Wednesday.
COGAT, the defense ministry unit responsible for the relationship with the Palestinians, confirmed the move on Wednesday morning.
"This decision was...

US-Israel Relationship

Florida governor, Cabinet sued over plans to meet in Israel

TALLAHASSEE, Florida (AP) — An open-government watchdog group and several news outlets sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and members of the Cabinet on Tuesday in an effort to stop them from holding a Cabinet meeting while on a trade mission in Israel.

The lawsuit argues that the meeting, scheduled for Wednesday, violates the state’s constitution and...

Iran

Iran Has Been at War for 40 Years

The U.S. plans to send 1,500 troops and other military assets to the Middle East to counter the Iranian threat. Those who worry about the possibility of war ignore that Iran is already at war and has been for almost 40 years. Its recent sabotage of commercial vessels in the United Arab Emirates and pipelines in Saudi Arabia continues a long...

Israel Defense Force (IDF)

Lebanese media: Israeli Air Force destroys own spying device north of border

An Israeli aircraft on Monday struck and destroyed a spying device in Lebanese territory, a local media outlet with ties to the Hezbollah terror group reported.

According to the report in al-Mayadeen the Israeli device was bombed between Nmairiyeh and Zefta in the south of the country. It said security forces were working to locate the remains of...

US-Israel Relationship

Florida governor forges new ties, makes history on Israel visit

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding between Florida State University and Ariel University on Monday, becoming the first sitting governor to establish a relationship between a U.S. state and an Israeli university in Judea and Samaria.

The majority of the international community considers Israel’s presence in...

Israeli Society

Over 1,000 fires extinguished throughout Israel

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The more than one thousand fires which led to the evacuation of thousands of people from their homes have been extinguished, Israel’s National Fire and Rescue Services announced.

The fires, aided by dry and hot weather conditions, burned from Thursday until Saturday night.

Among the causes of the fires were faults in electrical...