New Jersey’s Rep. Donald Norcross met with Netanyahu in Israel

U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross went to sleep in Saudi Arabia on Oct. 6 after what he felt was a productive talk with the crown prince about the future of Israeli-Middle Eastern relations.

But the unprecedented invasion of Israel, in which Hamas militants killed hundreds of civilians and took others hostage, caused the New Jersey lawmaker and his congressional delegation to change course.

By Tuesday, Norcross and three other congressional members had met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli diplomatic officials, marking the first bipartisan congressional delegation to visit Israel since the weekend attack and ensuing war with Hamas. (A fellow New Jersey congressional member — U.S. Sen. Cory Booker — was in Israel on an unrelated trip at the time of the attack and has since returned.)

The preplanned delegation trip had been part of an ongoing effort to normalize relations between Israel and other Middle Eastern countries — an already-contentious foreign policy issue in Washington — but that mission appears to have hit an abrupt halt in light of the attack.

“The idea of having a peace conversation at this point when the wound is not only open but bleeding is not on the top of anybody’s list,” said Norcross, who returned to the United States on Wednesday.

In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, talks with Israeli officials focused on securing the Gaza border, quelling tensions in the West Bank, and monitoring movement from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north, as well as requests for U.S. military aid, he said.

Norcross — who traveled alongside Sen. Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.), and Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D., Calif.) — said the group also met with family members of Israelis who had been killed in a kibbutz near the southern border.

“There is zero room for excuses, justification or rationale for this inhumane action,” the Camden County representative said, referring to the massacre of civilians by Hamas militants.

Last week, prior to the outbreak of war, 20 Democratic U.S. senators penned a letter to President Joe Biden about the administration’s efforts to normalize Israeli-Saudi relations and whether such a deal would include concessions for the Palestinian territories.

The senators argued that given the Saudi regime’s distressing human rights record and “reckless” foreign policy agenda, brokering a security deal would break precedent, and any treaty would have to include “meaningful, clearly defined and enforceable” provisions for Palestinians, including preserving the option of a two-state solution with Israel.

The congressional delegation has not reapproached the Israeli security agreement with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman since Friday, but Norcross said peacemaking efforts and Palestinian concessions would temporarily take a backseat in light of the war.

Asked about whether the delegation had concerns about Israel’s military response in the sealed-off Gaza Strip, Norcross said the response was justified after Hamas targeted Israeli civilians, including women and children.

“This is war,” he said. “People are going to die, and [Israelis] have a right to secure their borders.”

Hamas has killed more than 1,300 people in Israel, including women, children, and toddlers, according to the Israeli Defense Force. The ensuing Israeli bombardment — with more than 6,000 missile strikes in five days — has killed more than 1,400 people in Gaza, about half of whom were women and children, the Palestinian Health Ministry said Thursday.

Back in Washington, Norcross said the focus now shifts to passing another military aid package through Congress. Those efforts could prove difficult though, according to the New York Times, due to partisan division and disagreements over whether Israeli aid should be tied to Biden’s request for additional military support for Ukraine.