The State Executive Committee of the North Carolina Democratic Party passed a resolution last weekend calling for an arms embargo on Israel, along with a series of other anti-Israel resolutions, moves that Republicans are already planning to use against statewide candidates as a sign of the party’s leftward drift.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has already seized upon the resolutions as a political weapon against current and potential Democratic Senate candidates — including the race for the battleground seat of retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) — with pro-Israel voters.

As the Senate closed out its marathon session of amendment votes on Republicans’ budget bill, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, it added back a provision fought for by Orthodox Jewish groups, creating a major new national school-choice program, which had been stripped from the bill days earlier. 

The program, known as the Educational Choice for Children Act, passed through the House but was ultimately struck from the bill by a ruling of the Senate parliamentarian, a nonpartisan official responsible for ruling on whether provisions meet the standards for a reconciliation bill, which is limited to certain budgetary and tax matters.

Text messages obtained by the House Committee on Education and Workforce published in a letter on Tuesday revealed that Claire Shipman, acting president of Columbia University, suggested that a Jewish trustee should be removed over her pro-Israel advocacy and called for an “Arab on our board,” amid antisemitic unrest that roiled the university’s campus last year. 

“We need to get somebody from the middle east [sic] or who is Arab on our board,” Shipman, then the co-chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees, wrote in a message to the board’s vice chair on Jan. 17, 2024. “Quickly I think. Somehow.” 

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) apologized to Zohran Mamdani for recently saying that he had made “references to global jihad,” as New York Democrats continue to weigh their response to the 33-year-old democratic socialist’s stunning upset in New York City’s mayoral primary last week that sent shockwaves through the party establishment.

The senator, who is among several Democratic leaders who have so far refrained from endorsing Mamdani in the general election, claimed in a radio interview last week that the Democratic nominee had made comments that are alarming to Jewish voters in New York, alluding to his controversial defense of calls to “globalize the intifada,” a phrase critics interpret as provoking violence against Jews.

Elbridge Colby, the Trump administration’s under secretary of defense for policy, announced on Tuesday the nominations of Alex Velez-Green and Austin Dahmer to be, respectively, deputy under secretary of defense for policy and assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans and capabilities, both senior policy roles under Colby in the Department of Defense.

Velez-Green and Dahmer, both former advisors to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), are aligned with the faction of the Republican Party that advocates for more selective U.S. engagement abroad, particularly limiting involvement in Europe, though both have been generally supportive of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s White House visit next week is a chance to “take advantage of the victory” in Iran, he said at the start of a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

The trip to Washington “comes as a continuation of the great victory we achieved in Operation Rising Lion,” Netanyahu said, referring to Israel’s 12-day operation against Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, which the U.S. joined. “Taking advantage of the victory is no less important than achieving the victory.” 

The parents of an 11-year-old Jewish student at a private school in Northern Virginia say their daughter faced months of antisemitic harassment that went unaddressed by school officials, who also cancelled an annual event featuring a Holocaust survivor due to concerns that the event might exacerbate tensions related to the Israel-Hamas war. 

Days after the parents addressed the campus environment with school leadership, all three of their children were expelled, according to a complaint filed on Tuesday with the Office for Civil Rights in the Virginia Attorney General’s Office, Jewish Insider has learned. 

Several Senate Democrats told Jewish Insider on Monday that calls to “globalize the intifada” are unacceptable and must be condemned, amid concerns from Jewish leaders and organizations over presumptive New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s defense of the slogan.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who has thus far not endorsed Mamdani, told JI he plans to meet with Mamdani in a few weeks, when asked about Mamdani’s refusal to condemn the slogan.