NYC Mayor Adams signs business agreement with Israel, blasts calls for divesting from country amid Gaza war

The U.K. suspended free trade talks with Israel on Tuesday and hit West Bank settlers with sanctions, less than a day after vowing “concrete actions” if Israel didn’t stop its new military offensive in Gaza.

The move also came a day after New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed a business engagement agreement with Israel’s government.

Adams, who has centered his re-election bid on a need to combat antisemitism in the city, signed the agreement with Israeli Economic Minister Nir Barkat while appearing together at The Jerusalem Post conference in Manhattan.

The agreement establishes a council, staffed by City Hall and Israeli government reps, tasked with finding ways to “enhance economic cooperation.” Specifically, the panel will “support Israeli companies” seeking to set up shop in New York, with a focus on firms in the artificial intelligence, life sciences and environmental innovation sectors, per the agreement.

In remarks before signing the agreement, Adams pushed back against calls for sanctions against Israel and aligned himself with Israel, while referring to Barkat, a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling party, as his “good friend” and “brother.”

“Several politicians in this city and some running for mayor have called for the disinvestment in Israel. Well, they got another thing coming,” he said, adding that the city will continue to foster business ties with Israel “as long as I am mayor.”

British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the U.K. government couldn’t continue talks on upgrading its existing trade agreement with an Israeli government pursuing what he called egregious policies in Gaza and the West Bank.

Israel’s ambassador to the U.K., Tzipi Hotovely, was summoned to the Foreign Office, where Middle East minister Hamish Falconer said he would call the 11-week blockade of aid to Gaza “cruel and indefensible.”

Separately, European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc was reviewing an EU pact governing trade ties with Israel over its conduct of the war in Gaza. She said “a huge majority” of member nations are “very keen on sending this message that the suffering of these people is untenable.”

She did not provide clear details on timing and mechanisms for review.

Israel pressed ahead Tuesday with its new military offensive in Gaza despite the mounting international criticism.

Under pressure, Israel agreed this week to allow a “minimal” amount of aid into the Palestinian territory.

U.N. spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said that although the aid has entered Gaza, aid workers were not able to bring it to distribution points where it is most needed, after the Israeli military forced them to reload the supplies onto separate trucks and workers ran out of time.

Netanyahu said he decided to let in limited aid after pressure from allies.

Criticism against Israel’s conduct in Gaza also came at home. A leader of center-left politics — Yair Golan, a retired general and leader of the opposition Democrats party — said Tuesday that Israel was becoming an “outcast among nations” because of the government’s approach to the war.

Netanyahu swiftly slammed Golan’s remarks, calling them “wild incitement” against Israeli soldiers and accusing him of echoing “disgraceful antisemitic blood libels” against the country.

At an evening news conference, Golan said he refused to be silent. He called on the opposition to band together to oppose the government’s plans for Gaza.

On Tuesday, Netanyahu said he was recalling his high-level negotiating team from the Gulf state of Qatar after a week of ceasefire talks failed to bring results. A working team will remain in the Qatari capital of Doha.

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said a “fundamental gap” remained between the two parties and that none of the proposals were able to bridge their differences.

Hamas said no real ceasefire talks have taken place since Saturday in Doha. The terrorist group accused Netanyahu of “falsely portraying participation” and attempting to “mislead global public opinion” by keeping Israel’s delegation there without engaging in serious negotiations.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led terrorists attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 others. The terrorists are still holding 58 captives, around a third of whom are believed to be alive, after most of the rest were returned in ceasefire agreements or other deals.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 53,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count.