Washington DC

13 July 2023; MEMO: Democratic US lawmaker, Ilhan Omar, has announced she will not be attending Israeli President Isaac Herzog's address to a joint session of Congress, condemning the state's 2019 decision banning her and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib from entering Israel.

12 July 2023; MEMO: US President Joe Biden has told CNN that the Palestinian Authority has "lost its credibility." Biden made the claim earlier this week.

"I think that the fact [is] that the Palestinian Authority has lost its credibility," he said, making clear that this assessment had nothing to do with Israel, but is related to the nature of the PA itself. "It has created a vacuum for extremism… among the Palestinians," he added.

10 July 2023; MEMO: An increasing number of countries are repatriating gold reserves as protection against the sort of sanctions imposed by the West on Russia, according to an Invesco survey of Central Bank and sovereign wealth funds published on Monday, Reuters reports.

The financial market rout last year caused widespread losses for sovereign money managers who are "fundamentally" rethinking their strategies on the belief that higher inflation and geopolitical tensions are here to stay.

01 July 2023; AA: The US is contemplating the possibility of supplying cluster munitions to Ukraine, said Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said on Friday.

"The Ukrainians have asked for it, other European countries have provided some of that, the Russians are using it," said Milley in his remarks at National Press Club. "There’s a decision-making process ongoing".

He said no final decision has been made.

30 June 2023; MEMO: The US State Department, on Thursday, condemned the burning of a copy of the Quran in Sweden but said it demonstrates, by the issue of a permit, the support for freedom of expression, Anadolu Agency reports.

State Department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, said at his press briefing that the US is "deeply concerned by the act," but supports freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly as elements of democracy.

26 June 2023; MEMO: The United States informed Israel yesterday it will halt all funding towards scientific and technological research cooperation projects taking place in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Syrian Golan Heights.

The decision reverses a policy imposed by the Trump administration in 2020 that enabled US taxpayer funding to be used for science and technology projects in the settlements for the first time since 1967.

27 June 2023; MEMO: The United States will test Palestinian-Americans' freedom of travel in Israel next month as part of preparations for proposed US visa exemptions for Israelis, an official briefed on the preparations said on Monday, Reuters reports.

Israel has satisfied some conditions for the US Visa Waver Program (VWP), to which it hopes to be admitted by October.

26 June 2023; MEMO: The US administration has requested the provision of $1.45 billion in annual aid to Jordan for fiscal year 2024, in line with the Memorandum of Understanding on Strategic Partnership concluded in September 2022.

26 June 2023; MEMO: The US administration called on Sunday for Israel to investigate the recent settler "riots and terror" in Palestinian villages and prosecute the perpetrators, Israel's Army Radio has reported.

The US Advisor on National Security Affairs, Jake Sullivan, is said to have spoken on the telephone with his Israeli counterpart Tzachi Hanegbi and discussed the settler violence against the Palestinian villages.

15 June 2023; MEMO: The US yesterday announced that it is requesting Israel provide it with further information after the military said no criminal charges will be filed against soldiers who killed an 80-year-old Palestinian-American last year during a raid in the occupied West Bank.