Iran Re-Closes Hormuz as Wednesday Nuclear Deadline Looms — War Powers Fight Opens in Congress

The Strait of Hormuz has been re-closed by Iranian forces after a brief opening, as Tehran fires on tankers and rejects transferring enriched uranium abroad — directly challenging the terms of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire set to expire Wednesday, April 22. Trump is warning he may resume bombing if no deal is reached, while simultaneously blocking Israel from striking Lebanon. On Capitol Hill, Democratic senators led by Schiff, Murphy, and Baldwin introduced S.J.Res. 184 to force U.S. forces out of Iran operations, and Rep. Fitzpatrick filed a House companion invoking War Powers Resolution compliance. The Iran deal clock is ticking — and the political pressure from both Tehran and Congress is intensifying simultaneously.

• Iran’s navy re-closed the Strait of Hormuz Saturday, announcing via radio that the waterway is ‘shut again’ after IRGC-linked gunboats fired on a tanker near Oman — hours after briefly declaring it open.
• Trump warned Friday he may not extend the ceasefire if no Iran nuclear deal is reached by Wednesday’s deadline, threatening to ‘drop bombs again’ and adding that preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon ‘supersedes everything else.’
• Iran rejected the U.S. proposal to transfer enriched uranium to a third party, calling its uranium ‘sacred’ and refusing foreign custody — the central sticking point in ceasefire-to-deal negotiations.
• Senate Democrats led by Adam Schiff (D-CA) introduced S.J.Res. 184 to direct removal of U.S. forces from Iran hostilities, while GOP Sens. Collins and Tillis signaled they could break with Trump if the war hits the 60-day War Powers threshold.
• The 10-day Israel-Lebanon ceasefire, which began April 8, remains technically in effect — but IDF struck Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon Saturday after a French soldier was killed, and Hezbollah threatened Lebanon’s president over talks with Netanyahu.

The Wednesday deadline is the most consequential near-term variable in the Iran conflict: if talks collapse, the U.S. resumes strikes and the Hormuz crisis escalates to a full naval confrontation. ICAN's core concern is the parallel War Powers pressure — a Congressional vote to force U.S. withdrawal would directly damage Israel's strategic position by removing the American military umbrella that degraded Iran's capabilities and made Hezbollah's disarmament negotiable.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) went on CNN Saturday to blast his party for tolerating antisemitism, calling out Democratic associations with Hasan Piker — the anti-Israel streamer whose popularity among Democratic politicians has drawn sharp criticism. Fetterman was one of just seven Senate Democrats who voted against both of the arms sale blocking resolutions last week. Political strategist James Carville warned on Fox News that the ‘possibility of Fetterman switching parties is a real threat’ to Democratic Senate plans — a sign the Israel rift is now threatening caucus math, not just rhetoric.

• Fetterman told CNN his party has a problem tolerating antisemitism in its ranks, specifically targeting Democratic associations with Hasan Piker, who has called for genocide charges against Israeli leaders.
• Only 7 Senate Democrats opposed both arms-blocking resolutions: Schumer, Gillibrand, Rosen, Cortez Masto, Blumenthal, Fetterman, and Coons — a stark illustration of how isolated pro-Israel Democrats are within their caucus.
• NJ-11 winner Graham Platner — the anti-Israel candidate — told Zeteo that Fetterman is ‘the bane of my existence,’ signaling the incoming progressive wing’s explicit hostility to the last pro-Israel Democrats.

The Fetterman-Carville exchange makes the Israel realignment inside the Democratic Party impossible to ignore. ICAN's core strategic question — whether to write off the Democratic Party or fight to hold the remaining allies — is being answered in real time by this dynamic. If Fetterman leaves or is primaried out, the pro-Israel Senate caucus effectively collapses.

Progressive activist Analilia Mejia, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy and J Street-endorsed candidate who has accused Israel of genocide, won the NJ-11 special election Thursday. Despite the win, Mejia underperformed in heavily Jewish towns compared to generic Democratic performance — a signal that Jewish voters’ defection from anti-Israel Democrats is measurable at the precinct level. AIPAC’s Super PAC had spent millions against frontrunner Tom Malinowski in the February primary, inadvertently boosting Mejia’s insurgent campaign.

• Mejia, who called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, won the Democratic general election in the heavily Democratic NJ-11 district but polled significantly below baseline Democratic performance in majority-Jewish precincts.
• AIPAC’s PAC targeted Malinowski — who had a largely pro-Israel record but questioned unconditional aid — handing Mejia the primary in what is now being called an operational own-goal that elevated a far more hostile candidate.
• Incoming Rep. Platner also won his own seat on Tuesday, representing Maine’s 2nd — completing what The Atlantic has called an inflection point where anti-Israel activists have become the face of Democratic primary politics.

Mejia's win is the latest data point confirming that J Street's pipeline of anti-Israel progressives into Congress is operational and accelerating. The Jewish precinct underperformance is the one silver lining — and the metric ICAN should be tracking and amplifying to push the Democratic establishment toward accountability.

Over 1,000 entertainment industry figures — including Mila Kunis, Amy Schumer, Helen Mirren, Gene Simmons, Debra Messing, Liev Schreiber, and Sharon Osbourne — signed an open letter rejecting calls to expel Israel from the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest, organized by Creative Community for Peace. Spain’s state broadcaster RTVE announced it will not air the contest for the first time ever, joining Iceland, Slovenia, Ireland, and the Netherlands in protest of Israel’s participation. The cultural BDS battle over Eurovision has become the highest-profile proxy war for Israel’s place in Western cultural life.

• More than 1,000 entertainment industry figures signed a letter calling Eurovision ‘a celebration of unity that should not be used as a tool for politics’ — directly countering the cultural BDS campaign targeting the Vienna competition in May.
• Spain’s RTVE became the first of the ‘Big Five’ mandatory broadcasters to refuse to air Eurovision, which media outlets have called the ‘biggest crisis in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest.’
• The boycott campaign is organized under the ‘No Music for Genocide’ banner, using geo-blocking and broadcast refusals to pressure Eurovision’s governing body to bar Israel — tactics that mirror cultural BDS but applied to a broadcast media context.

The celebrity counter-letter is a significant allied signal — Hollywood-adjacent support for Israel's cultural inclusion counters the narrative that the entertainment industry is uniformly hostile. The Spain/broadcast boycott is a hostile escalation that ICAN should track for potential spread to U.S. cultural institutions.