Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

President Donald Trump continued to voice his frustration today with Hamas’ ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip, including a recent ceasefire violation where Hamas terrorists shot an anti-tank missile at IDF machinery and killed two soldiers, though he stopped short of calling for action against the terror group. 

At a bilateral lunch at the White House with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Trump told reporters, “We made a deal with Hamas that they’re going to be very good, they’re going to behave, they’re going to be nice and if they’re not, we’re going to go in — we’re going to eradicate them if we have to, they’ll be eradicated.” 

Trump claimed the violence was committed by rogue members of the terror group: “I don’t believe it was the leadership — they had some rebellion in there among themselves — and they killed some people, a lot of people.” 

Despite his phrasing, Trump emphasized that the U.S. will not send troops into Gaza. “We don’t need to [have U.S. boots on the ground] because we have many countries, as you know, signed on to this deal,” he said. “We had countries calling me when they saw some of the killing with Hamas, saying, ‘We’d love to go in and take care of the situation ourselves.’ In addition, Israel would go in in two minutes if I asked them to go in. … But right now we haven’t said that. We’re going to give it a little chance and hopefully there will be a little less violence”…

Trump advisors Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, in Israel to help shore up the ceasefire, reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their meeting today not to take any action that could risk the first phase of the agreement, Israeli media reports, despite the recent violations by Hamas…

Netanyahu appointed Israeli-American businessman Michael Eisenberg as his representative to the U.S.-led international body monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire, according to Israeli media. Eisenberg previously helped establish the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Vice President JD Vance, set to land in Israel tomorrow, is expected to visit the monitoring body’s command center…

The Trump administration’s nominee for ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, former Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), is also in Israel this week on a trip focused on “religious freedom, unity and resilience after the release of hostages.” Yesterday, he met with American hostage families and today visited Yad Vashem and the Western Wall…

The military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said today it was handing over the remains of a hostage held in Gaza to IDF troops. The army announced the casket is now in Israel and headed for identification…

Meanwhile in the U.S., Politico reports that Paul Ingrassia, the Trump administration’s nominee to head the Office of Special Counsel, said on a text chain of Republican operatives last year that he has “a Nazi streak” in him “from time to time” and that all holidays commemorating Black communities “need to be eviscerated.”

Ingrassia, who has a history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, including calling the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel a “psyop,” is scheduled receive a confirmation hearing in the Senate on Thursday…

The Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit against Northwestern alleging that the university violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by adopting time, place and manner restrictions on student protest and requiring students to watch an antisemitism training video, Jewish Insider‘s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.

Among other allegations, the suit, filed in federal court in Illinois, claims Northwestern violated students’ rights by requiring them to agree to the school’s code of conduct, which now incorporates the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, as well as mandatory bias training that includes a video on antisemitism created in collaboration with the Jewish United Fund, the city’s Jewish federation…

Dartmouth College joined five other universities in rejecting the Trump administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence” over the weekend. With a deadline of today, the University of Arizona, the University of Texas at Austin and Vanderbilt University are the only schools offered early access to the compact that have yet to respond publicly…

John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council under the Biden administration, is set to become director of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics on Nov. 15, according to Axios…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on the U.K. Jewish community’s reaction to rising antisemitism in the country after the Yom Kippur attack on a Manchester synagogue and reflections from a 21-year-old Argentinian activist who was awarded with a trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for her work in tolerance.

This evening, Aish is hosting former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in conversation with Elisha Wiesel on “the future of New York City” about the upcoming mayoral elections. 

Tomorrow, the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control will hold a hearing on Hezbollah’s drug trafficking activities in Latin America.

Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman will appear at 92NY in New York City tomorrow evening to discuss “the state of Judaism on campus.”

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Hamas continues to delay its return of the deceased hostages in Gaza, citing difficulty in locating and unearthing them. The terror group has so far returned nine out of the 28 bodies it holds, though Israel told mediators yesterday that it believes Hamas knows the whereabouts of at least six other bodies, Arab officials told The Wall Street Journal. Israel shared some of its own intelligence on their locations today and is convening an international task force, including Egypt and Turkey, to work on recovering the rest of the remains…

Hamas is also continuing its campaign to execute its rivals in the enclave; President Donald Trump posted this afternoon on Truth Social, “If Hamas continues to kill people in Gaza, which was not the Deal, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them”…

Israel took credit for the death of Houthi Chief of Staff Muhammad al-Ghamari, announced by the terror group today, as a result of an Israeli strike on Houthi leadership in Yemen in August. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that al-Ghamari has “joined his comrades from the thwarted axis of evil in the depths of hell”…

Meanwhile on the campaign trial, New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani refused to say that Hamas should disarm on a Wednesday appearance on Fox News, instead asserting, “I don’t really have opinions about the future of Hamas and Israel beyond the question of justice and safety, and the fact that anything has to abide by international law. That applies to Hamas, that applies to the Israeli military, applies to anyone you could ask me about.”

In response, Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY), a Long Island swing district Democrat who has remained vocally opposed to Mamdani’s candidacy, said on social media, “Pro-Hamas Zohran is unfit to hold any office in the United States”…

Despite maintaining his anti-Israel positions, Mamdani continued his outreach to Jewish leaders in the city over the holiday of Sukkot, including meeting with representatives of the Satmar Hasidic community in Williamsburg as well as with leadership at Reform Congregation Beth Elohim in Park Slope, The New York Times reports. 

The conversations have not assuaged communal concerns over his potential mayoralty, with at least one meeting ending with Mamdani and “some attendees ‘totally apart from one another’ on key issues.”

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, a progressive Reform leader and senior rabbi at Manhattan’s Stephen Wise Free Synagogue, likewise was unpersuaded in a video and statement he released today, telling Mamdani, “I do not speak for all Jews, but I do represent the views of the large majority of the NY Jewish community, which is increasingly concerned about your statements about Israel and the Jewish people”…

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), mounting a primary challenge to Israel critic Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), said today that he is returning political donations he has received from AIPAC and will reject the group’s support going forward, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. 

AIPAC said in a statement that Moulton “is abandoning his friends to grab a headline, capitulating to the extremes rather than standing on conviction. His statement comes after years of him repeatedly asking for our endorsement and is a clear message to AIPAC members in Massachusetts, and millions of pro-Israel Democrats nationwide, that he rejects their support and will not stand with them.”

Moulton’s changed stance on accepting support from AIPAC is yet another sign of how even more-moderate Democrats are facing pressure from the party’s activist base to distance themselves from embracing Israel… 

CNN unearthed since-deleted social media comments from Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, who has made opposition to Israel and AIPAC a central focus of his campaign, on a range of far-left issues, including calling himself a communist, saying he’s “disgusted” with America and repeatedly disparaging police officers. “I can honestly say that that is me just being an a**hole on the Internet,” Platner said about the posts…

Claudia Milne, senior vice president for standards and practices at CBS News, announced today that she is stepping down from her position, the first executive to do so since Free Press founder Bari Weiss was named editor-in-chief of the outlet. 

Milne oversaw the standards department during a period of perceived anti-Israel bias by the news organization, including when the department instructed CBS employees not to refer to Jerusalem as being in Israel (reported on by The Free Press)…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on the New York City mayoral debate and an appearance by Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and antisemitism envoy nominee Yehuda Kaploun at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, both taking place this evening.

On Sunday evening, Americans for Ben-Gurion University will hold a benefit in New York City featuring a performance by comedian Alex Edelman and honoring special guest Sasha Troufanov, who was held hostage by Hamas for almost 500 days.

We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat Shalom!

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

President Donald Trump heaped praise on the leaders of Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Indonesia at a Cabinet meeting at the White House today, lauding them as key parties responsible for getting Israel and Hamas to agree to the first phase of his peace plan for the region, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

Trump also confirmed in his remarks that his team is organizing a Mideast trip for him to commemorate the deal, which would include stops in Egypt and Israel, where he’s been invited to address the Knesset.

The president said he is planning to depart from Washington on Sunday and hopes to time his trip to be there when the remaining hostages are released, which he said will happen on Monday or Tuesday. That’s later than some reports which speculated they could be returned to Israel as soon as this weekend… 

Israeli and Hamas negotiators signed the final draft of phase one of the deal in Egypt today, and the Israeli Cabinet is now meeting to vote to approve it.

Former Mideast envoy Jared Kushner and current envoy Steve Witkoff joined the Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, coming off of negotiations in Egypt and having already met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The deal is expected to be approved, despite statements from National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that their parties will oppose it. The meeting, as well as an earlier Security Cabinet briefing, were delayed after Ben-Gvir demanded to retain a veto on the release of specific Palestinian prisoners in the exchange, according to Israeli media…

Preparations are underway for Trump’s brief visit, with the Knesset lit up today in red, white and blue and the King David Hotel reportedly getting ready to boot out guests staying in the luxury lodgings for Sukkot to accommodate the president and his entourage…

Anti-Israel Democratic lawmakers offered tepid support for the deal throughout the day, while reiterating their strident criticisms of Israel, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) didn’t explicitly praise the deal but said he hopes it will lead to the end of a “horrific war.” He made no mention of the Israeli hostages set to be released, but asserted one-tenth of the Gazan population was killed or injured during the war. Read more reactions from lawmakers here…

Joining the pack, New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani told a local radio station today that he hopes the deal is “lasting” and “brings peace” but that it shouldn’t erase “Hamas’ horrific war crime on Oct. 7 … and the Israeli government’s horrific war crimes since then”…

The Atlantic Council’s Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, who grew up in Gaza, writes in The Free Press about the “self-styled peace activists” in the West denouncing the peace deal as a “colonial attempt to continue the genocide” who have “little understanding or interest in how dealmaking works.”

“One of the first steps to freeing Palestinians from the horrors of war is to free them from the ‘Free Palestine Movement’ in the diaspora and Western world. The unholy alliance between the far left, far right, and Islamist hooligans who normalize Hamas’s narrative is harmful first and foremost to the Palestinian people,” Alkhatib argues…

In her first week as editor-in-chief of CBS News, The Free Press founder Bari Weiss reportedly told staff today that former secretaries of state Hillary Clinton, Antony Blinken and Mike Pompeo have agreed to appear on a Middle East roundtable on the network…

The New York Times profiles Jewish stand-up comedian Mordechi Rosenfeld, known as Modi, who has a “personal mantra that guides his comedy: ‘Moshiach energy’ … For Mr. Rosenfeld, the slogan reflects a Messianic idea inspired by the last leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox movement, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson. Mr. Rosenfeld interprets it as a mandate to pour positive energy into the world to help bring the Messiah”…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on the Senate’s agreement, which had been stalled for weeks, to move toward passage of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act today.

Tomorrow, NOTUS will host a virtual event on “Mapping the New Global Order” with former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE) and Jason Crow (D-CO).

Over the weekend, we’ll be keeping an eye on President Donald Trump’s travels to the region and engagement with Israeli officials, as well as developments in the hostage-release process.

In observance of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, we’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Thursday. Chag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom!

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

The clock continues to tick on whether Hamas will accept President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the war in Gaza, presented with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House yesterday.

The plan itself says in Point No. 4 that “within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.”

Trump affirmed that timeline, telling reporters this morning that he would give Hamas “three or four days” to agree to the ceasefire and said later during remarks to military leaders in Quantico, Va., “We have one signature that we need, and that signature will pay in hell if they don’t sign”…

Officials from Egypt, Qatar and Turkey are urging Hamas to agree, despite being angered by several changes to the plan negotiated by Netanyahu, particularly on the conditions and timeline for the IDF’s withdrawal from Gaza, before it was presented to the public yesterday, Axios reports…

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee postponed a rare trip to Egypt, originally planned for Sunday, to mid-October. Huckabee said the purpose of his visit, requested by Egyptian officials, is to “build dialogue, trust and understanding,” without providing further details on the agenda or the reason for the delay…

The Israeli Foreign Ministry today claimed that the Sumud Flotilla currently making its way to Gaza, including anti-Israel activist Greta Thunberg and around 500 others, was organized and funded indirectly by Hamas through the Palestinian Conference for Palestinians Abroad, an organization led and endorsed by Hamas affiliates.

The flotilla and the Israeli Navy are expected to make contact as the ships approach Gaza tomorrow. Italy and Spain dispatched their own navies to accompany the flotilla, though those ships will turn back before reaching Israeli waters.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called in a statement today for the flotilla to cease its operation for risk of “blowing up” the “fragile balance” created by Trump’s peace proposal. In the U.S., meanwhile, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and 18 other House progressives wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding that the U.S. protect the flotilla…

Elon Musk and several right-wing influencers misrepresented the Anti-Defamation League’s classification of the antisemitic Christian Identity movement as an extremist group, circulating a partial, out-of-context screenshot on social media purporting that the civil rights organization was disparaging the Christian religion at large, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod report.

Musk said the ADL “hates Christians” and called it a “hate group,” while Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) said the group is “intentionally creating a targeted hate campaign against Christians.” In reality, the Christian Identity movement, which the ADL lists on its website as an extremist group, “is a virulently antisemitic and loosely organized movement that has nothing to do with mainstream Christianity,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote on X…

Trump told reporters this afternoon that his administration is close to reaching a deal with Harvard after a monthslong deadlock and legal battle that will see the university pay around $500 million to open and operate trade schools. “They’re going to be teaching people how to do AI and lots of other things,” Trump said at an executive order signing.

The potential deal comes after the Department of Health and Human Services said yesterday that it was initiating the process of “debarment” against Harvard, which would cut the school off from future federal research funding, a large blow to its financial standing.

Harvard had sent a scathing letter to the administration on Sept. 19 accusing it of relying on “inaccurate and incomplete facts” in determining that the school had violated civil rights laws, The New York Times reports. The letter also said the administration failed to meet legal requirements to prove discrimination and relied on findings from a fraction of a percentage of the student body…

Meanwhile, a federal judge ruled today that the Trump administration’s moves to arrest and deport international students for actions at anti-Israel protests were illegal, saying that the Department of Homeland Security and State Department aimed to “tamp down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorize” students. 

A DHS official testified during the trial that the department relied heavily on the advocacy work of the pro-Israel group Canary Mission, creating reports on between 100-200 student protesters based of the group’s profiles of people involved in anti-Israel activity on campus…

In another legal loss, the administration was forced to restore almost all of the 500 National Institutes of Health grants it had suspended from the University of California, Los Angeles after a federal ruling last week…

Another campus drawing attention: The University of Maryland’s Student Government Association is set to consider a resolution at the start of Yom Kippur on Wednesday evening, calling on the university and its charitable foundation to implement a boycott of companies and academic institutions with ties to “Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation,” JI’s Haley Cohen reports…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on the rise of DSA-aligned candidates in key congressional and mayoral contests.

On Sunday, Democratic Jewish Outreach of Pennsylvania, a Jewish Democratic PAC, will present its annual Defender of Democracy award to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker at an event with special guest Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. 

Also on Sunday, the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York will open its exhibit honoring the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.

In observance of Yom Kippur, we’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. G’mar chatima tova and Shabbat shalom!

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

In a press conference this afternoon at the White House, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel had agreed to sign onto the White House’s 20-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza. 

The plan, which has not yet been agreed to by Hamas, would see the release of all of the remaining hostages in Gaza in exchange for an immediate end to the war and the release of 2,250 Palestinians in Israeli jails, including 250 serving life sentences. Hamas would be removed from power in Gaza with its members offered amnesty if they “commit to peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons.” 

Netanyahu and Trump weren’t in lockstep on the future of Gaza, though. The Israeli PM said in his remarks that “Gaza will have a peaceful civilian administration that is run neither by Hamas nor by the Palestinian Authority,” while the White House’s plan says that the PA will control Gaza once the body has reformed (a process that could take years).

Even if Hamas rejects the plan, humanitarian aid operations will continue to be scaled up, and terror-free areas of Gaza will be handed over from the IDF to an international stabilization force. But Trump said that Israel will have the “full backing” of the U.S. to resume fighting in Gaza if Hamas does not accept. 

“If Hamas rejects the deal — which is always possible, they’re the only one left. Everyone else has accepted it. But I have a feeling that we’re going to have a positive answer. But if not, as you know, Bibi, you’d have our full backing,” said Trump. Read JI’s coverage of the press conference here…

During their meeting beforehand in the Oval Office, Netanyahu and Trump held a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, where Netanyahu apologized for killing a Qatari serviceman in an attempted strike on Hamas leadership in Doha and promised not to violate Qatari sovereignty again. 

The conversation came after Trump has repeatedly expressed his dissatisfaction with Israel’s decision to strike a major non-NATO U.S. ally without providing sufficient notice to the White House.

The apology was met with frustration and scorn from Netanyahu’s right-wing political allies and left-wing opponents in Israel. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich compared the apology to U.K. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Adolf Hitler during World War II. Netanyahu’s “groveling apology to a state that supports and funds terror is a disgrace,” Smotrich said on X…

A New York Times/Siena College poll released today found dramatic declines in American support for Israel, with slightly more American voters saying they sympathize more with Palestinians (35%) than with Israelis (34%) for the first time since the Times started asking the question in 1998, though there remains a large segment of the population that is unsure or that sympathizes with both equally (31%).

Around 60% of voters said that Israel should end the war in Gaza “in order to protect against civilian casualties” even if the remaining hostages are not released and even if Hamas is not fully eliminated. Among Democrats, that figure is an overwhelming 81%. 

The majority of the shifting sentiment against Israel comes from Democrats: 59% also think that Israel is intentionally killing Gazan civilians. Within the party, the biggest shift is coming from white, college-educated, older voters. In a similar poll two years ago, Democrats ages 45 and older “sympathized with Israel over Palestinians 2-to-1. That is now reversed, with 42% saying they sympathize more with Palestinians, compared with 17% who feel more sympathetic toward Israel”…

Among Israel’s detractors, New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani declined to denounce Hamas on Friday, when asked if he agreed with Netanyahu’s remarks at the U.N. General Assembly that Hamas is a terrorist group that needs to be destroyed. 

“I’m not going to echo the words of Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mamdani said. “I can, however, share my own words and say them right here, which is that my politics is built on a universality. I can think of no better illustration of that than from the words of the hostage families themselves: Everyone for everyone.”

“What has been so infuriating to me and so many New Yorkers, frankly, is Benjamin Netanyahu’s use of the hostages as a justification to continue a war that has only continued to endanger the lives of those very hostages, as well as of so many Palestinians,” Mamdani said…

A new study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs found that antisemitism is “thriving” on the social media platform X in an analysis of over 679,000 posts. The study found that X took action on only 36 out of the 300 most-viewed posts espousing antisemitic conspiracy theories and only four of them received community notes, which X owner Elon Musk has touted as the antidote to harmful content instead of increased moderation…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for the latest reporting and analysis of the White House’s Gaza peace plan and a breakdown of the anti-Israel candidates running for all four open Chicago-area House seats in hotly contested Democratic primaries.

Tomorrow evening, Democratic Majority for Israel will host a virtual briefing with Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) and Jacob Magid, The Times of Israel‘s U.S. bureau chief, on the implications of today’s White House meeting, the status of the war, political developments in Jerusalem and Landsman’s reflections from his recent trip to Israel.

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Asked about reports that he had told Arab leaders this week he will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, President Donald Trump confirmed to reporters in the Oval Office this afternoon, “I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank, nope, I will not allow it. It’s not gonna happen.”

Pressed if he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the issue, Trump said, “Yeah, but I’m not going to allow it. Whether I spoke to him or not — I did — but I’m not allowing Israel to annex the West Bank. There’s been enough, it’s time to stop now”…

The comments came shortly after Trump met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the White House today, where Trump suggested that he may permit Ankara to purchase F-35 fighter jets, which it has been prohibited from doing since it acquired a Russian S-400 missile defense system in 2017.

Trump said without mentioning the F-35s or the less-advanced F-16 jets by name that he expected Erdogan would “be successful with buying the things” he would “like to buy.” “He needs certain things, and we need certain things, and we’re going to come to a conclusion. You’ll know by the end of the day,” Trump said.

The prospect of the sale has sparked concern from lawmakers: Bipartisan groups have urged the administration on several occasions not to change policy on the issue, including in a new letter today…

Elsewhere in the White House, one of the architects of the Trump administration’s negotiations with universities said that the large financial sums being extracted in the settlements are meant to bring attention to the administration’s aggressive approach to tackling discrimination in higher education, rather than punish the schools financially.

May Mailman, a conservative attorney who until last month served as a senior White House strategist, told The New York Times that “These are small dollar figures compared to the amounts that they are getting every year from the federal government and from their donors — but I think it provides a seriousness and a focus on these in ways that promises only wouldn’t.”

“When you see numbers like that, then you pay attention, and you look, and then you’re able to learn a little bit more, something maybe you wouldn’t normally learn,” Mailman said…

Getting in the holiday spirit, New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani joined Rosh Hashanah services on Monday night at Kolot Chayeinu, a Brooklyn synagogue known for its anti-Zionist activism, where the rabbi spoke extensively about Israel carrying out a “genocide” in Gaza. 

The congregation, one of the first to call for a ceasefire just weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks, faced criticism last year for promoting anti-Israel views in its Hebrew school curriculum. One of its rabbis, a member of Jewish Voice for Peace’s Rabbinical Council, was kicked out of a White House event for disrupting former First Lady Jill Biden to call for an arms embargo on Israel.

Two of Mamdani’s challengers also spent time in NYC synagogues over the holiday: Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo joined the Park East Synagogue for its services and Mayor Eric Adams spoke to the Sephardic Lebanese Congregation.

Mamdani also plans to join Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) for Yom Kippur services next week, where Nadler said some of the congregants will be “frankly very upset to see” Mamdani. It remains unclear which synagogue they will attend; the B’nai Jeshurun synagogue on the Upper West Side, which Nadler frequents, told Jewish Insider that Mamdani “will not be joining services with our community”…

Also in New York, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the U.N. General Assembly by video today after the Trump administration revoked his visa to attend in person. He called Israel’s actions in Gaza “war crimes” and said the PA would be willing to govern the enclave, which he said is an integral part of a future Palestinian state…

Elon Musk’s xAI announced today it has reached a deal with the Trump administration to allow federal agencies to use its AI chatbot Grok, just months after the bot went rogue on X proclaiming itself to be “MechaHitler” and espousing extreme antisemitic rhetoric…

Over 1,200 celebrities including Mayim Bialik, Debra Messing, Sharon Osbourne, Howie Mandel, Haim Saban, Gene Simmons and Liev Schreiber have signed on to an open letter urging over 4,000 of their Hollywood colleagues to reconsider their signatures on a recent pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions. “We cannot stay silent when a story is turned into a weapon, when lies are dressed up as justice, and when artists are misled into amplifying antisemitic propaganda,” the letter reads…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider for reporting on Microsoft’s decision to restrict the IDF’s use of its software after repeated protests by its employees and on what the sale of TikTok’s U.S. business may mean for the platform’s algorithm, which has been accused of promoting antisemitic and anti-Israel content.

This evening, UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk will speak on Jews United for Democracy & Justice’s “America at a Crossroads” series about President Donald Trump’s approach to higher education. Read JI’s interview with Frenk here. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be the first world leader to speak at the U.N. General Assembly tomorrow morning, after many of the week’s speeches by world leaders included condemnations of Israel and recognition of a Palestinian state. On Monday, Netanyahu will meet with Trump at the White House.

Also tomorrow, the Nova Music Festival Exhibition opens in Boston.

We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

President Donald Trump said at a press conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer today that the recognition of a Palestinian state, which the U.K. plans to do this weekend, is “one of [the] few disagreements” between the two leaders.

“We want [the war] to end. We have to have the hostages back immediately. That’s what the people of Israel want, they want them back. And we want the fighting to stop,” the president continued.

Asked why he couldn’t recognize a Palestinian state next to Trump at the press conference — the British PM delayed the announcement of recognition until after Trump departs — Starmer said, “Let me be really clear about Hamas. They’re a terrorist organization who can have no part in any future government in Palestine.” Trump patted Starmer on the back and said, “That’s good”…

One of Starmer’s predecessors, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, was authorized by Trump to develop a plan for postwar Gaza; a draft of that plan, obtained by The Times of Israel, would create a Gaza International Transitional Authority and guarantee Gazans the right to return to properties they vacate voluntarily in the enclave…

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani was on Capitol Hill today lobbying lawmakers to repeal the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, the remaining congressionally mandated sanctions on Syria. The move has bipartisan support in both chambers. 

Shaibani, fresh off a visit to London where he met with Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and U.S. envoy Tom Barrack to discuss Israel-Syria security arrangements, met with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-AZ) and Treasury Department officials, among others, and is scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Marco Rubio tomorrow. It’s the first visit of a Syrian foreign minister to Washington in more than 25 years…

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa told reporters yesterday that Syria and Israel could reach such a security agreement “within days”…

French President Emmanuel Macron told Israel’s Channel 12 that, despite European attempts at negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program, U.N. Security Council snapback sanctions will be implemented at the end of the month, likely on Sept. 27…

i24 News reports it has obtained recent audio of Macron speaking to former French parliament member Meyer Habib where Macron is heard saying, “I will not recognize a Palestinian state without the release of the hostages,” contrary to his reported plan to do so next week…

Two Israelis were killed today at the Allenby Crossing between Jordan and the West Bank by an assailant driving a truck of humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip…

Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) called on the House today to advance the long-stalled Antisemitism Awareness Act in response to New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s stated plans to revoke the city’s use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

The lawmakers, in a joint statement, called Mamdani’s effort “shameful, dangerous, and completely disgusting”…

Jay Jacobs, the chair of the New York Democratic Party, said in a statement today that he will not be endorsing Mamdani because he “strongly disagree[s] with [Mamdani’s] views on the State of Israel, along with certain key policy positions,” including the Queens assemblyman’s affiliation with the Democratic Socialists of America…

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, meanwhile, facing backlash to her own endorsement of Mamdani, is still trying to “please the hyper-engaged hard-left, protect vulnerable House members and still win reelection with a statewide electorate that is far more moderate than in New York City,” per Politico.

“Behind closed doors, Hochul has pledged to anxious private sector leaders that she will use her power to act as a check on Mamdani’s agenda — much of which relies on state approval”…

Former President Barack Obama said that the firing of Karen Attiah — the anti-Israel Washington Post columnist who justified the Oct. 7 attacks and was let go from the Post earlier this week over social media posts on Charlie Kirk’s killing — is “precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent”…

The board of directors of Turning Point USA, the organization Kirk founded, unanimously named Erika Kirk, his widow, as its new CEO and board chair…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for a look at how three Biden administration officials’ views have diverged over Israel since leaving the White House.

The Atlantic Festival continues in New York City through Saturday. 

Also in New York, an event on “Breaking the Chain: Global Action Against Hostage-Taking” will take place tomorrow and feature the first public remarks from former Israeli hostage Na’ama Levy. Also speaking are a Yazidi survivor of ISIS captivity; Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N.; Dorothy Shea, acting U.S. representative to the U.N.; and Ibrahim Olabi, Syria’s ambassador to the U.N.; among others.

Chabad at Vanderbilt University will honor Vanderbilt Chancellor Daniel Diermeier with Chabad’s Lamplighter award tomorrow. Read JI’s interview with Diermeier and Washington University in St. Louis Chancellor Andrew Martin here. 

On Saturday, the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream is opening with its flagship exhibition, the “American Dream Experience,” in Washington.

On Sunday, Charlie Kirk’s memorial will be held at the State Farm Stadium in Arizona, where speakers will include President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and far-right podcast host Tucker Carlson, who has advanced conspiracy theories in the aftermath of Kirk’s murder claiming the conservative activist was being pressured by Israel.

The high-level meetings of the U.N. General Assembly are set to begin next week, with several countries expected to announce their recognition of a Palestinian state.

We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

In a moment of Democratic soul-searching, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said in remarks at a security briefing hosted by Jewish groups on Capitol Hill today that she’s grown concerned with left-wing animus towards the Jewish community.

“We’re used to the right-wing side. What is new and what I think has so many in the Jewish community on our heels is that new left-wing antisemitism and how to approach it. How do we counteract it? How do we protect against it? How do we educate?” she said.

“And certainly, we’re watching, on many college campuses, a lot of young people who actually maybe didn’t grow up with the Jewish community at all, get to campus and maybe repeat what they’re hearing, sometimes not even understanding or knowing. I would just say that one of our responsibilities as Jewish leaders and Jewish activists is to try and really parse through how to deal with antisemitism on the left, since antisemitism on the right isn’t good, but it’s more of a well-known threat,” Slotkin continued…

On the other side of the aisle, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told a group of pro-Israel leaders in a private meeting today that he’s attempting to push back on the isolationist wing of the GOP in the House and in his candidate recruiting efforts, but that the party is likely bound for a major debate on the issue after President Donald Trump leaves office, attendees told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod…

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) separately accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza today, the first Jewish lawmakers to do so…

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer delayed his announcement to recognize a Palestinian state until this weekend, after Trump has departed from his state visit to London…

On the campus beat, Education Secretary Linda McMahon said this morning at the Federalist Society and the Defense of Freedom Institute’s annual Education Law & Policy Conference that the Trump administration is hopeful in reaching a settlement with Harvard and seeing changes in its approach to antisemitism implemented on the elite campus without a protracted legal battle.

“Harvard has already started to put in place some of the things we wanted them to do. They reassessed their Middle East policies. They actually fired a couple of their professors. They are looking at having safe measures on campus, and so without even admitting any guilt in any way, they have started to change their policies, and that is the ultimate goal of our investigation, of making sure that things are proper on campus,” McMahon said.

A federal court recently ruled in favor of Harvard in its First Amendment lawsuit against the Trump administration; McMahon said they intend to appeal…

Engaged in its own negotiations with the Trump administration over hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen federal funding, regents of the University of California met today in San Francisco; this month, UC Berkeley notified 160 people connected to allegations of antisemitism that it had given their information to the federal government as part of the investigation into the school, sparking community uproar at the meeting…

The New York Times spotlights the upcoming governors’ races in New Jersey and Virginia, considered predictive for the 2026 midterms. Yesterday, the Democratic National Committee announced it was doubling its support of Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) in the Garden State to a total of $3 million, the most it’s ever contributed to a New Jersey gubernatorial election, in a sign of tightening polls in the Democratic state…

Meanwhile in New York, The Gothamist reports on growing tensions between Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani and City Comptroller Brad Lander, just months after they cross-endorsed each other in the primary race.

Lander is reportedly insinuating behind closed doors that he’ll be appointed first deputy mayor, the mayor’s right hand, should Mamdani win the election, while Mamdani is said to have told him to back off and insists no personnel decisions have been made… 

Billionaire pro-Israel philanthropist Ronald Lauder injected $750,000 to the Fix the City PAC, which is backing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in his bid to defeat Mamdani as an independent, despite Cuomo’s recent turn away from his full-throated support of Israel…

The Israeli Ministry of Defense announced today that it has completed the development of the Iron Beam laser missile interception system, which will be operational by the end of the year. Each laser interception costs less than $5, while Iron Dome interceptions cost around $40,000-$50,000 each…

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted to advance several nominees out of committee for consideration of the full Senate, including Sergio Gor for ambassador to India, Mike Waltz for U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Michel Issa for ambassador to Lebanon and Richard Buchan for ambassador to Morocco…

Top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas announced plans today for the EU to impose tariffs on Israel and sanction Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, following on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s call last week for the EU to suspend free trade measures with Israel.

The tariffs on Israeli imports, which currently receive preferential access to the EU under existing free trade initiatives, would require a majority of EU countries’ support, while the sanctions would have to be unanimous, neither of which currently has the requisite support from European capitals to pass. While Kallas’ proposals are more limited than some European leaders have called for, the move is another sign of the increasing demand for action against Israel in Brussels…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for a rundown of what to expect from the reimposition of U.N. Security Council snapback sanctions on Iran.

Tomorrow morning, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will hold a hearing on the state of K-12 education.

The Atlantic Festival begins in New York City tomorrow, opening with a session including former Vice President Mike Pence and former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster. 

In the evening, the Israeli Embassy will host its Rosh Hashanah reception in Washington.

United Hatzalah will hold its 2025 Los Angeles gala with honorary guest Gal Gadot. Israeli Eurovision performer Yuval Raphael will receive United Hatzalah’s Hero Award and American venture capitalist Shaun Maguire, fresh off a visit to Israel, will receive its Am Israel award.

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced today that President Donald Trump invited him to the White House on Sept. 29, after the prime minister’s Sept. 26 speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. This will be Netanyahu’s fourth visit to the White House during Trump’s second term…

At the same press conference, Netanyahu attempted to walk back comments he made yesterday about Israel needing to look towards a self-sufficient, or “autarkic,” economy after the Israeli market reacted negatively, saying that it was a “misunderstanding.” 

Netanyahu pointed out the performance of the Israeli stock market and the shekel, unemployment numbers and foreign investment into the country as signs of economic strength, and said he had specifically been speaking about the Israeli defense industry, which has been impacted by western European arms embargoes…

As the IDF begins its takeover of Gaza City, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF’s chief of staff, responded to concerns about the safety of the remaining hostages, many of whom are thought to be held in the city, in a statement on the operation, saying, “I want to emphasize: the return of our hostages is a war aim and a national and moral commitment.”

Noa Argamani, a former hostage whose boyfriend, Avinatan Or, remains held in Gaza after they were kidnapped together on Oct. 7 from the Nova Music Festival, said on X, “I cannot breathe watching the fighting inside Gaza City. As a former hostage, I know exactly what these moments feel like. The booming blasts, the gunfire, the walls shaking, the helplessness and despair that take over. The emotions come rushing back all at once, and it is unbearable. Right now, I fear deeply for Avinatan’s life”…

In a view from the U.S., former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said that as of May 2024, concessions that the U.S. would make to Saudi Arabia in exchange for Saudi-Israel normalization were “all but finished,” having continued to be negotiated even during the Israel-Hamas war, but that the deal cannot be finalized until the war ends.

Speaking at a briefing hosted by the Democratic Majority for Israel, he characterized Netanyahu’s “autarky” comments as the opposite of the goal of the Abraham Accords and regional integration.

Shapiro also called Hamas leaders in Doha “legitimate targets” and said it’s “appropriate” for Israel to eliminate them, but that the “who and the how and the where matters” and the Israeli strike in Doha has “backfired” for Israel.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), who spoke after Shapiro, encouraged Israel to let Western press into Gaza to see that the issue with humanitarian aid is the U.N.’s failure to distribute it, rather than a lack of it. Shapiro said the humanitarian situation is “not nearly as dire” now as a few months ago but that international reporting hasn’t reflected that…

On the domestic front, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said in an address at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit today in Pittsburgh that “we need to create more opportunities for peaceful and respectful dialogue, respecting each other’s fundamental rights as Americans.”

He invoked the Priestly Blessing, sent to him by a chaplain of a local fire department after his residence was attacked by an arsonist last Passover, which he said he recites to his children every night. “Those are words of healing, words of hopefulness to me. They are also words that again remind us of our shared humanity.” 

After his address, Shapiro, who is seen as a Democratic contender for the 2028 presidential election, answered questions from reporters about Israel’s campaign in Gaza City, saying, “I’ve been very outspoken about the fact that these children in Gaza need to be fed, that the violence needs to end, the hostages need to come home, and this war needs to be over.”

“I’ve also been very clear that I think Benjamin Netanyahu is taking Israel down a very dark and dangerous path, isolating Israel in the world even more than they were before, which I think threatens Israel’s security,” Shapiro continued, following on comments he made last month calling Netanyahu’s claim that there is no starvation in Gaza “quite abhorrent”…

Meanwhile in New York, Carl Heastie, the Democratic speaker of the New York State Assembly, is expected to endorse New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani this week, The New York Times reports, one of several state leaders in the party who have thus far resisted doing so. Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, is reportedly also set to do so on Monday…

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) introduced a bill that would “prohibit state and local law enforcement from arresting foreign nationals within the United States” solely based on warrants from the International Criminal Court, as Mamdani has threatened to do to Netanyahu…

After selling Paramount to Skydance Media, Shari Redstone has taken on a new venture: The media mogul was named chair of the Israeli production company Sipur, which she called a “hands-on investment” to build a “global production powerhouse”…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for an analysis of a new poll of Gen Z conservatives’ views on Israel and antisemitism.

This evening, Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Dave McCormick (R-PA) will join Fox News’ “Special Report” to discuss political civility.

Tomorrow morning, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a markup of bills aimed at reorganizing and reforming the State Department. Read JI’s breakdown of the legislation here.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote to advance a series of nominees out of committee — including Michel Issa to be ambassador to Lebanon; Richard Buchan to be ambassador to Morocco; Ben Black to lead the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation; and a second vote on the nomination of Mike Waltz, the former national security advisor, to be U.S. ambassador to the U.N., in order to prevent a procedural challenge from Democrats.

Also on the Hill, the U.S. Helsinki Commission will hold a briefing on “conspiracy theories, antisemitism and democratic decline.”

The annual Defense of Freedom-Federalist Society Education, Law & Policy Conference begins in D.C. tomorrow, including featured speakers Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Brandeis Center Chairman Ken Marcus. 

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicted that Israel will have to become increasingly self-reliant as countries call for embargoes and sanctions against the Jewish state. Speaking at a Finance Ministry conference in Jerusalem today, Netanyahu said, “We will increasingly need to adapt to an economy with autarkic characteristics.”

“I am a believer in the free market, but we may find ourselves in a situation where our arms industries are blocked. We will need to develop arms industries here — not only research and development, but also the ability to produce what we need,” the Israeli PM said…

Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Jerusalem today, where they gave remarks on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the Abraham Accords. “Imagine, despite the difficulties the region has confronted over the last few years, how much more difficult it would have been had the Abraham Accords not been in place,” Rubio said…

Elsewhere in the region, after an emergency summit of Arab states convened in Qatar to discuss last week’s Israeli strike in Doha, the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries today directed the GCC defense ministers to hold an “urgent meeting” to “assess the defense situation of the Council states.”

The countries also issued a communique calling on states to “review diplomatic and economic relations” and “initiate legal proceedings” against Israel…

At the International Atomic Energy Agency’s annual conference happening now in Vienna, Iran is circulating a resolution to censure the U.S. and Israel over their strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June. Iran was unexpectedly elected by other Middle Eastern countries to serve as vice president of the gathering.

Mohammad Eslami, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said in an interview that “if [participating countries] want to obey the law of the jungle and the rule of coercion and force” by blocking the motion, “it’ll end in chaos”…

Stateside, Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) announced he will not be endorsing Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani for New York City mayor, on the heels of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s announcement that she’s supporting the candidate.

Suozzi, who represents a swing district on Long Island, said that, “While I share [Mamdani’s] concern about the issue of affordability, I fundamentally disagree with his proposed solutions. Like the voters I represent, I believe socialism has consistently failed to deliver real, sustainable progress.”

On Hochul, Suozzi said that he did not discuss his decision with her and is “not in a position to give the Governor political advice considering the fact that when I ran against her she beat me soundly”…

In another high-profile New York race, Micah Lasher, a state assemblyman and former aide to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), officially launched his campaign for his former mentor’s congressional seat today, joining a Democratic primary that’s likely to become crowded in the heavily Jewish Manhattan district. Nadler is expected to offer Lasher his support, a key endorsement in the race…

The New York Times investigates a series of trade and business dealings over the UAE’s access to AI chips that appear to be connected with cryptocurrency windfalls for the Witkoff and Trump families.

When David Feith, then senior director for technology on the National Security Council, attempted to change AI chip policy, which would have inhibited that access, he was fired by President Donald Trump, after a conversation with his influential advisor Laura Loomer…

The fallout from Charlie Kirk’s killing continues: Semafor’s Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith writes about Kirk’s legacy on Israel within the GOP and how both the isolationist and pro-Israel camps of the party are now claiming him as their own.

“A bereft White House official told me that Kirk functioned as something like a Republican chairman and Rush Limbaugh ‘rolled into one.’ Clips of his speeches and debates are everywhere, but movement-building is a subtler thing, and Kirk’s public statements, friends said, often reflected attempts at intraparty diplomacy,” Smith wrote…

Karen Attiah, an opinion columnist at The Washington Post who regularly espoused anti-Israel views, was fired from the paper over her posts on social media about Kirk’s death, including mischaracterizing some of his positions and positing that her “journalistic and moral values” prevented her from “engaging in excessive, false mourning” for Kirk.

Attiah, the Post’s founding Global Opinions editor, retweeted social media messages justifying the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel as they were taking place and wrote a piece on Oct. 13, less than a week after the attacks, headlined, “We cannot stand by and watch Israel commit atrocities”…

Also in the media, Jewish influencer Hen Mazzig reacts to Jewish actress Hannah Einbinder’s pro-Palestinian commentary at the Emmys last night in The Hollywood Reporter: “Hannah should know there is no such thing as a ‘good Jew’ who can launder antisemitism. The ‘good Jews’ trope — the ones who sign boycott pledges or reassure progressives that this isn’t about hatred — are always used as cover. They are never enough. And at the end of the day, the people demanding ‘good Jews’ don’t actually believe there is anything good about being Jewish”…

After the Vuelta a Espana bike race in Madrid was called off during its finale on Sunday due to anti-Israel protests on the route, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called today for Israel to be banned from sports events due to its military campaign in Gaza, despite the team being protested, Israel-Premier Tech, not being an official Israeli team. 

The international union of cyclists voiced its disapproval of Sánchez’s stance, saying in a statement that it “strongly condemns the exploitation of sport for political purposes in general, and especially coming from a government”…

Lynn Forester de Rothschild is exploring a sale of a minority stake in the parent company of The Economist magazine, according to Bloomberg, which would mark the publication’s first ownership shake-up in over a decade…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for an interview with Yaakov Katz, former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, on his new book about Oct. 7 and an interview with Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA), a rising national security voice on Capitol Hill.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro will deliver a major address on political violence at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit in Pittsburgh tomorrow, nearly a week after the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk and several months after the firebombing of Shapiro’s residence over Passover. 

Also speaking at the summit will be KIND Snacks founder and former CEO Daniel Lubetzky alongside Lonnie Ali, founder of the Muhammad Ali Center with her eponymous late husband. 

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing tomorrow morning on oversight of the FBI with FBI Director Kash Patel.

Democratic Majority for Israel will host a live briefing tomorrow with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro on Gottheimer’s recent trip to Israel, next steps for the Abraham Accords and the latest in the Israel-Hamas war.

The Center for a New American Security will hold a live fireside chat tomorrow with Adam Boehler, the U.S. special envoy for hostage response.

Alan Dershowitz, a former Harvard Law School professor and prominent defense attorney and Israel advocate, will speak tomorrow at the JFK Jr. forum at Harvard at the first “Middle East Dialogues” event of the academic year, hosted by professor Tarek Masoud, who invites polarizing speakers to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the evening, American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) will host its Lamplighter Awards at D.C.’s Union Station. This year’s honoree is Palantir CEO Alex Karp, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) will receive a leadership award.

Magen David Adom will host its 2025 New York City Gala in Manhattan, where political commentator Meghan McCain will receive its Champion of Israel Award. 

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Lawmakers, candidates and officials from across the political spectrum continued to reel in the aftermath of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Utah yesterday, with many changing their planned appearances. 

Vice President JD Vance went to pay his respects to the Kirk family in Salt Lake City instead of attending a 9/11 memorial ceremony at Ground Zero in New York. Kirk’s casket will be flown back to his home state of Arizona on Air Force 2 along with his family and friends. 

In addition, President Donald Trump moved a Pentagon 9/11 memorial event to a more secure location, as his team was especially shaken by Kirk’s death; Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico devoted his campaign kickoff speech in San Antonio last night to memorializing Kirk; right-wing media personality Ben Shapiro, a close friend of Kirk, canceled an event tonight at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation in California; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) announced she is postponing a rally in North Carolina this weekend out of respect for Kirk and security concerns; and more…

The fallout continues from Israel’s strike against Hamas leaders in Doha this week, with Democratic Majority for Israel accusing Trump in a new scathing statement of betraying Israel by coming out publicly against the strike and potentially foiling its effectiveness by tipping off Qatar (though U.S. and Qatari officials have said that the warning call from Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff came as the strike was already underway).

The statement puts the group at odds with many Democratic lawmakers, who have come out against the strike. 

“After years of criticizing Democrats — despite our party’s 75-year history of supporting Israel — President Donald Trump yesterday broke with our vital ally in an unprecedented manner,” DMFI CEO Brian Romick said. “The White House must answer whether their pre-warning of the attack in any way compromised Israel’s ability to eliminate Hamas’ terrorist leadership”…

Doubling down in its displeasure, the Trump administration joined a unanimous U.N. Security Council statement today that condemns the strike, though it does not mention Israel nor Hamas.

“Council members underscored the importance of de-escalation and expressed their solidarity with Qatar. They underlined their support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar, in line with the principles of the UN Charter. Council members recalled their support for the vital role that Qatar continues to play in mediation efforts in the region,” the statement read…

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani will travel to Washington tomorrow to discuss the incident, Israeli media reports, meeting with senior Trump administration officials and potentially the president himself, and Qatar will host an emergency summit beginning Sunday with Arab states.

Al Thani said in an interview that, prior to the strike, a meeting had been scheduled for Friday between himself, Egyptian and Turkish intelligence officials and Witkoff, but Israel’s attack “destroyed the mediation efforts” for a ceasefire with Hamas and “extinguished the last glimmer of hope”…

Back in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized a plan to build the long-disputed E1 settlement project, which would make a contiguous Palestinian state nearly impossible, at a signing ceremony today at the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, where the new units will be added.

“We said a Palestinian state will not be established — and indeed, a Palestinian state will not be established,” Netanyahu said at the event…

The New York Times’ Jerusalem bureau announced that David Halbfinger is returning to Israel to serve as the paper’s bureau chief, and Isabel Kershner was named senior correspondent.

The newly merged Paramount Skydance is now preparing a bid to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery, The Wall Street Journal reports, including its cable networks and movie studio. The bid is backed by the Ellison family — Paramount owner David Ellison is the son of billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on the belated passage of a K-12 antisemitism bill in the California Legislature that pitted Jewish Democrats and their allies against teachers’ unions in the state.

The Capital Jewish Museum in Washington will host a gala Sunday evening honoring Esther Safran Foer, the former executive director of D.C.’s Sixth & I Synagogue, and David Rubenstein, chairman of the Carlyle Group.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to land in Israel early next week, with a planned appearance at the opening of the Pilgrimage Road at the City of David archaeological site on Monday. (Read JI’s coverage of the Pilgrimage Road excavation here).

A bipartisan delegation of 250 U.S. state legislators will also land in Israel for a trip next week.

The Climate Solutions Prize Tour, in partnership with the Jewish Climate Trust, will begin in Israel on Sunday, after several days in the UAE.

We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk died this afternoon after being shot in the neck while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University.

President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us.”

Kirk, 31, was a highly influential right-wing leader, co-founding Turning Point USA, one of the most prominent conservative youth organizations in the U.S. The Republican Jewish Coalition said in a statement, “Charlie has been a shining light in these troubled times for the American Jewish community, and we are deeply saddened at his passing. All people of good will must condemn this horrific murder and demand justice for Charlie.”

Law enforcement officials told CNN that there is no suspect in custody. Prior to news of Kirk’s death, the shooting was condemned by lawmakers and activists across the political spectrum…

Ahead of the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks tomorrow, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement today that Israel “also [has] a Sept. 11,” comparing it to the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, and drawing parallels between Israel’s strike yesterday targeting senior Hamas officials in Doha, Qatar, to the U.S. killing Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. 

Netanyahu highlighted the U.S. resolution at the U.N. Security Council, passed two weeks after 9/11, that said “governments cannot give harbor to terrorists,” accusing Qatar of providing “terrorist chieftains” with “sumptuous villas” and safe haven.

“And I say to Qatar and all nations who harbor terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice. Because if you don’t, we will,” Netanyahu concluded. 

The Israeli PM’s remarks seem to contradict the White House, after Trump made clear yesterday that he’s “very unhappy with every aspect” of the strike and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president had assured Qatari leaders “that such a thing will not happen again on their soil”…

Netanyahu’s opposition was busy on Capitol Hill, meanwhile, with Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid spotted walking into House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (D-NY) office — Lapid declined to tell reporters what they discussed — and MK Benny Gantz meeting with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), the two of whom covered “the importance of leaving no stone unturned in eliminating terrorist Hamas; in Gaza or abroad.” Lapid and Gantz are both attending the MEAD Summit in Washington this week…

Nearby at the White House, Trump met with a delegation of former hostages, including Ohad and Raz Ben Ami, and hostage families, including Ilay and Yeela David, siblings of Evyatar David…

Another former hostage, Elizabeth Tsurkov, the Israeli-Russian academic held captive by an Iranian-backed militant group in Iraq since 2023 and released to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad yesterday, has landed in Israel, the Prime Minister’s Office and Mossad announced…

On the campaign trail, Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills is reportedly interviewing staff for a potential bid against Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Punchbowl News reports. Mills would be a strong contender in the race, likely overshadowing Democratic candidate and oyster farmer Graham Platner, who has made his anti-Israel stance a focus of his bid thus far…

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the body would propose suspending EU free trade measures with Israel, in an annual state of the union speech to the European Parliament today. The move is unlikely to be put into effect as it would need broad support from EU countries, which remain divided on the issue, but it’s a concerning step from the EU, which is Israel’s largest trading partner…

In an excerpt from former Vice President Kamala Harris’ forthcoming book, 107 Days, released in The Atlantic, Harris remarks on those in the Biden administration who were worried her visibility as VP would negatively impact President Joe Biden’s standing. 

She writes about her appearance in Selma, Ala., in March 2024 where “I gave a strong speech on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. … It was a speech that had been vetted and approved by the White House and the National Security Council. It went viral, and the West Wing was displeased. I was castigated for, apparently, delivering it too well”…

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison surpassed Elon Musk as the world’s richest person today after the software giant reported higher quarterly earnings than expected, largely due to significant AI contracts…

Also getting in on the AI rush is Jared Kushner, whose AI firm Brain Co., co-founded with Israeli angel investor Elad Gil and former Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, came out of stealth today with an announcement that it raised $30 million in its first funding round…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for news on a surprising congressional endorsement of Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani. 

On the Hill, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a nomination hearing tomorrow for several diplomats including Sergio Gor, former head of the Presidential Personnel Office, to be ambassador to India. Read JI’s coverage of Gor’s departure from the White House here.

In Jerusalem, the Jewish National Fund and U.S. Embassy will be hosting a 9/11 Memorial Ceremony.

• We’re keeping an eye on the situation in the Middle East and Washington following Israel’s targeting of senior Hamas officials in Doha yesterday. More below.
• The California Senate’s Education Committee is holding a hearing this afternoon on AB 715, legislation meant to address antisemitism in the state’s K-12 schools. One of the legislators supporting the bill told The Jewish News of Northern California that the text had become “narrower” after the bill’s backers “compromised on numerous things with our colleagues who expressed concerns” over the legislation.
• Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Ari Berman will serve as the Senate’s guest chaplain today. C-SPAN’s Howard Mortman, author of When Rabbis Bless Congress, notes that Berman, who delivered the benediction at President Donald Trump’s inauguration earlier this year, will become the third rabbi to have prayed both in Congress and during a presidential inauguration.
• Elsewhere on Capitol Hill today, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s subcommittee on early childhood, elementary and secondary education is holding a hearing on antisemitism in K-12 schools. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Brandy Shufutinsky, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law’s Rachel Lerman, Defending Education’s Nicole Neily and T’ruah’s Rabbi Jill Jacobs are slated to testify.
• Brandeis University is unveiling its “New Vision for American Higher Education” this afternoon at the National Press Club. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is slated to speak at the event. Across town, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is speaking at a Heritage Foundation event focused on the Muslim Brotherhood.
• The American Jewish Committee is holding an event this morning marking the upcoming fifth anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords.
• This afternoon, the Jewish Democratic Council of America is hosting “Israel and Gaza: Two Years Later and What Comes Next” with Israel Policy Forum’s Michael Koplow.
• Elsewhere in DC, the National Union for Democracy in Iran and MEAD are continuing their conference in Washington today.
• Some MEAD attendees are heading to Israel for the Jefferies TechTrek conference in Tel Aviv, which kicked off with a welcome reception last night. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, Paul Singer, Bill Ackman, Shaun Maguire and Dan Loeb are among those gathered for Jefferies.
• The Climate Solutions Prize Tour kicks off today in the United Arab Emirates, before moving to Israel on Sunday.
• Israeli President Isaac Herzog arrived in London today for a two-day visit.
• In Canada, “The Road Between Us,” about Israeli Maj. Gen. (res.) Noam Tibon’s efforts to rescue his son’s family from their Gaza envelope home on Oct. 7, 2023, will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, after it was previously removed from the slate of films over what organizers said was a failure to get Hamas to approve the use of its videos of the attacks.
• In Pennsylvania, representatives from the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh will deliver a victim impact statement at the sentencing of Talya Lubit, who pleaded guilty in May to charges of conspiracy and defacing and damaging Chabad of Squirrel Hill.

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS AND Lahav harkov

Nearly a day after an Israeli airstrike targeted a meeting of high-level Hamas officials in Doha, Qatar, there are more questions than answers, both in Jerusalem and Washington. Israel has not confirmed which officials were killed in the strike, while Hamas has said that five officials from the group, including the son of Hamas’ chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, were killed in addition to a member of the Qatari security forces. 

Israeli reports earlier today indicate that the strike did not kill the most senior echelon of the terror group, which for years has been based in Qatar, a U.S. ally.

Amid ongoing uncertainty over the success of the strike, the operation was met with rare condemnation from the White House, first from Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and then from President Donald Trump himself, who said he “was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect” — perhaps, in part, because the operation is not believed to have taken out the most senior Hamas officials.

But it was Trump himself who said over the weekend on his Truth Social site that he had “warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting” the ceasefire and hostage-release deal that had been put forward by the U.S.

At the same time that Trump officials, including the president, were criticizing the operation, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee was embracing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the U.S. Embassy’s belated Independence Day celebration in Jerusalem, where the prime minister addressed a smaller group of VIPs attending the party.

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.

Empty Gestures: The New York Times’ Bret Stephens considers the ramifications of the “gesture politics” that politicians and activists engage in around the Israel-Palestinian conflict. “What, then, do these gestures accomplish? The legitimate needs of the Palestinian people are these: an end to this war; an end to being dragged into future wars by Hamas; an end to the chronic misgovernance of the Palestinian Authority; the establishment of a self-governing political order that improves the lives of Palestinians without endangering the lives of Israelis; the eventual creation, under conditions of mutual trust, of a Palestinian state. Immediate recognition of such a state advances none of this. It is the proverbial cart before the horse. France and its fellow travelers aren’t aiming to do much to help actual Palestinians. Mainly, they seek to congratulate themselves. Countries achieve irrelevance when moral onanism takes the place of serious policy as the principal instrument of national policy.” [NYTimes]

Bullish Economy: In The Wall Street Journal, Nimrod Sapir considers why Israel’s economy has “defied expectations and displayed remarkable resilience” over nearly two years of war and growing international isolation. “Demographics further bolster Israel’s prospects: a growing, youthful labor force. Israel has the highest population growth rate among Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, and that growth goes far beyond the Haredi and Arab sectors. Surging global demand for Israeli defense systems likewise strengthens the export base and opens new markets. Israel’s military achievements — particularly in neutralizing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and diminishing threats from its proxies — are reshaping the geopolitical landscape. For the first time in decades, investors can anticipate a gradual easing of geopolitical risks that have long weighed heavily on Israel’s economic potential.” [WSJ]

New Stage of War: The Free Press‘ Jay Solomon spotlights Qatar’s years of engaging in “one of the Middle East’s most dangerous games of double-dealing” by hosting Hamas officials as it benefits from its allyship with Western nations. “Israel’s attack on Qatari soil, and the U.S.’s connivance, marks the crossing of another boundary in the Jewish state’s two-year war with Hamas, sparked by the October 7 attack. … Israel’s attack inside Qatar may open a new chapter of direct conflict between Netanyahu’s government and the Al Thanis, though likely not involving their militaries. Qatar is one of the world’s richest nations per capita and possesses vast resources to challenge the legitimacy of the state of Israel through Doha’s global media operations, including the Al Jazeera television network and support for international bodies like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court.” [FreePress]

Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Ritchie Torres (D-NY) wrapped up a bipartisan delegation to Italy, Tunisia and Morocco…

Democrat James Walkinshaw is won the special election in Virginia’s 11th Congressional District, succeeding Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA), who died earlier this year and for whom Walkinshaw served as chief of staff until 2019…

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa is slated to travel to the U.S. for the U.N. General Assembly later this month; al-Sharaa, who will speak to the gathering on Sept. 24, is expected to meet with President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the annual confab…

Northwestern University announced the hiring of Henry Bienen to succeed outgoing President Michael Schill; Bienen previously led the school from 1995-2009, during which time he spearheaded the launch of Northwestern’s campus in Qatar…

The FBI is investigating threats made to several Pittsburgh-area Jewish organizations, including the Tree of Life… 

Police in Oregon are searching for an individual who spray-painted swastikas on the Oregon Jewish Holocaust Museum earlier this summer…

Actress Scarlett Johansson said she intentionally cast Holocaust survivors in “Eleanor the Great,” her directorial debut, about an elderly American Jewish woman who assumes the childhood storyline of a deceased friend who had survived the Holocaust…

United Against Nuclear Iran CEO Mark Wallace sent a letter to the head of the U.S.-based Marriott International, inquiring about the hotel chain’s hosting of Hamas officials at the Ritz Carlton in Doha, Qatar…

The Wall Street Journal reports that Turkey and Egypt warned Hamas officials abroad in recent weeks to tighten security measures around their meetings…

Spain banned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, amid rising tensions between Jerusalem and Madrid over the war in Gaza and a Spanish arms embargo on Israel…

Former National Security Council staffer Oliver North quietly married his former secretary, Fawn Hall, nearly four decades after the Iran-Contra affair both were involved in…

The son of a British couple detained since January in Iran said his parents’ situation is “dire” following their meeting with the British ambassador in Tehran…

The International Atomic Energy Agency reached an agreement with Iran to resume inspections of the country’s nuclear facilities, three months after cooperation ceased amid the 12-day Israel-Iran war…

Zachary Isakowitz, who previously worked at the Semiconductor Industry Association as head of government affairs and at the Treasury, is joining Nvidia as a director of government affairs.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee (on guitar) and Paul Singer (on keyboard) jammed out to Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” at the embassy’s belated Independence Day celebration last night at the Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem.

Writer, columnist and author of four New York Times bestsellers, Amity Ruth Shlaes turns 65…

Chairman of Shamrock Holdings, Roy Disney’s private investment company, Stanley Gold turns 83… Retired realtor in Southern California, Dianne Varon… Former EVP and general counsel at Chicago’s futures broker Rosenthal Collins Group, Gerald Fishman… Past president of Congregation Ahavas Israel in Passaic, N.J., Howard Penner… Retired coordinator at Truman Heartland Community Foundation, she had been a Hebrew teacher at Congregation Beth Torah in Overland Park, Kan., Henri Goettel… Houston attorney, and Republican Party activist, Gary M. Polland turns 75… Denver attorney and politician, he served in the Colorado House of Representatives for eight years, Joel Judd turns 73… Executive assistant to the office managing partner of the E&Y office in Tampa, Nancy Carol Finkel… U.S. senator (R-WY), Cynthia Lummis turns 71… Retired VP at Goldman Sachs, now a part-time elementary school teacher, Matthew Fried… Real estate attorney in South Florida, Steven A. Greenspan… Award-winning journalist and author, he wrote a 2024 book on Bernie Madoff, Richard Behar… Former acting administrator of the DEA, now a senior counsel at D.C.’s Crowell & Moring, Charles Philip “Chuck” Rosenberg turns 65… Founder and managing director at Beacon Global Strategies, Andrew Shapiro… NYC trusts and estates attorney, Lawrence Ira Garbuz… Co-founder and partner of One Madison Group, Jonathan Soros turns 55… Television writer and producer whose work includes “The Big Bang Theory,” Eric Kaplan turns 54… Executive director of the Maryland/Mid-Atlantic region of Agudath Israel, Ariel Sadwin… Writer, actress and comedian, she was a writer for “Saturday Night Live,” Sarah Schneider turns 42… Principal at Blue Zone Partners and managing partner at Precision Infrastructure Management, Charles Szold… PR strategist, Josh Nass… Chief foreign correspondent for Fox News, his 2024 book, Black Saturday, covers the events of Oct. 7 and the war that followed, Trey Yingst turns 32… Jennifer Meyer…

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

President Donald Trump was unhappy with Israel’s surprise strike this morning on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt conveyed in a statement on behalf of the president today. 

Leavitt said Trump was made aware of the strike by the U.S. military, without specifying whether Israel had alerted it or if the operation was detected independently, and “immediately directed” Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to notify Doha about the impending attack.

(The Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs said reports that Qatar was informed in advance are “baseless” and the “call from a U.S. official came during the sound of explosions caused by the Israeli attack.”)

“Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals,” Leavitt said. “The president views Qatar as a strong ally and friend of the United States and feels very badly about the location of this attack.”

The White House spokeswoman said Trump had spoken with Qatari leaders and assured them “that such a thing will not happen again on their soil” and conveyed his displeasure about the location of the strike to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…

The president’s reaction puts him at odds with many senior Senate Republicans, who told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod that they view the attack as justified and unsurprising. Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, “I think Hamas has got to be destroyed, and there’s no sense in doing half measures.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) posted on X, “To those who planned and cheered on the October 7 attack against Israel, the United States’ greatest ally in the region: This is your fate.”

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, described the strike as “aggressive,” “provocative” and “unfortunate,” saying it jeopardized ceasefire negotiations and was an insult to Qatar, a longtime U.S. ally. 

Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the move “extremely disruptive, provocative and dangerous” and a “great strategic mistake.” (Read comments from more lawmakers here).

The only Democrats to publicly break with the partisan line were Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who told JI that “anything done to destroy Hamas’ leadership or its terrorist capability or military capacity is a step in the right direction,” and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA)…

Also condemning the strike are several world leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron who called it “unacceptable, whatever the reason,” and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said it “violate[s] Qatar’s sovereignty and risk[s] further escalation”…

Hamas released a statement claiming Israel failed to assassinate its top leadership in the strike but killed five of its members, including the son of the group’s chief negotiator…

In another hostage crisis, Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Russian-Israeli academic from Princeton University, has been released from captivity of the Kata’ib Hezbollah Iraqi militant group, Trump announced on Truth Social this afternoon.

Tsurkov was kidnapped while doing research in Baghdad in March 2023 and was “tortured for many months,” Trump said.

Tsurkov’s sister, Emma, said on X that their family is “so thankful to President Trump and his Special Envoy, Adam Boehler. If Adam had not made my sister’s return his personal mission, I do not know where we would be”…

Meanwhile, the IDF ordered the first full-scale evacuation of Gaza City in preparation for Israel’s impending takeover, after several days of issuing limited evacuations before targeted strikes and demolitions of buildings in the area. Leaflets dropped by the IDF in the city instructed residents to follow a coastal road to designated humanitarian zones in the south of the enclave…

In Jerusalem, Netanyahu appeared at a belated U.S. Embassy Fourth of July celebration at the Museum of Tolerance where he said in remarks that he convened the heads of Israel’s security organizations earlier today to authorize “a surgical precision strike” on Hamas leaders in Doha after the terror group took responsibility for the death of four IDF soldiers in Gaza and six civilians at a bus stop in Jerusalem yesterday.

“These are the same terrorist chiefs who planned, launched and celebrated the horrific massacres of Oct. 7 … They were meeting in exactly the same place where they celebrated this savagery almost two years ago. At the beginning of the war, I promised that Israel would reach those who perpetrated this horror. And today, Israel and I have kept that promise,” Netanyahu continued.

The event was later briefly interrupted by a missile fired by the Houthis, with rocket sirens causing guests to move temporarily into bomb shelters.

The celebration continued with a musical performance, including U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on guitar and philanthropist and major Republican donor Paul Singer playing the keyboard, as captured by JI’s Lahav Harkov…

Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman is also in Jerusalem this week, meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog today and reportedly attending Jefferies TechTrek, Israel’s largest institutional investor technology conference.

Also attending Jefferies are Singer, DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, venture capitalist Shaun Maguire, hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides…

The MEAD Summit in Washington is lacking some punch this year with no Saudi representation, as opposed to years past, Israeli journalist Yaakov Katz said during an on-record panel with Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID) at the convening…

Down south, Texas state Rep. James Talarico, seen as an up-and-coming leader in Texas politics, jumped into the Democratic primary to run against Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) today. Talarico will face a competitive race against former Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX), also a former NFL player. Cornyn faces his own high-stakes primary against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. 

Talarico, 36, is pitching himself for Senate as a Washington outsider coming to shake up the system. When asked by HuffPost today if Israel’s war in Gaza constitutes a genocide, Talarico answered, “I worry that some of these debates happening within elite political circles tend to be a distraction from the immediate goal, which is stopping the human suffering in Gaza. And so getting into discussions about particular legal terms, or, you know, history from, you know, a century ago, to me, feel like more like playing politics than actually trying to get something done”…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for an interview with friends of twins Gali and Ziv Berman who are turning 28 tomorrow, the second birthday they’ve marked in Hamas captivity. 

“The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” a documentary about retired Israeli general Noam Tibon’s historic rescue of his family from Kibbutz Nahal Oz on Oct. 7, is scheduled to premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival tomorrow, after the festival initially canceled the screening due to the film’s usage of Hamas footage from the attacks, saying the terror organization had not approved it for use.

The House Committee on Education and Workforce’s Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education will hold a hearing tomorrow morning titled “From Playground to Classroom: The Spread of Antisemitism in K-12 Schools.” 

Also on the Hill, the American Jewish Committee will host an event marking the fifth anniversary of the Abraham Accords including remarks from Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter and co-chairs of the House and Senate Abraham Accords caucuses: Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Reps. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Craig Goldman (R-TX).

Around Washington, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) will give remarks at the National Press Club at a Brandeis University event on “Reimagining Liberal Arts Education: A National Conversation on Real-World Readiness,” and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will speak at the Heritage Foundation on “the Muslim Brotherhood Threat, National Security, and America’s Global Leadership.”

In Pittsburgh, Talya Lubit will be sentenced on charges of conspiracy and defacing and damaging a religious building for vandalizing the Chabad of Squirrel Hill and the Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh in July 2024.

Abroad, Israeli President Isaac Herzog is heading to London on a trip his office said was organized to deliver speeches at Jewish organizations’ conferences and to “show solidarity with the Jewish community, which is under severe attack and facing a wave of antisemitism.” His office did not say if he would meet with Prime Minister Keir Starmer or other officials; though Starmer hosted Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas yesterday. 

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

We’re watching developments in ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations after President Donald Trump called for Hamas to accept the latest U.S.-sponsored deal over the weekend, which would see all the hostages, living and dead, released on the first day of the ceasefire. 

Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and former Trump Mideast advisor Jared Kushner met with Israeli Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer in Miami today to discuss developments in Gaza, Axios’ Barak Ravid reports.

Hamas had claimed it was ready to “immediately sit at the negotiating table” in response to Trump’s statement, but sources for the terror group told a Saudi newspaper today that a complete hostage release would not be possible immediately, claiming a ceasefire would have to go into effect first to reach all the bodies…

In other national security news, The New York Times spotlights the race between defense firms to develop technologies for a future “Golden Dome” missile-defense system.

“Companies chosen for Golden Dome are likely to become the new cornerstones of U.S. defense, military officials involved in the project said,” and firms including Palantir and Anduril as well as innovative startups have been in discussions with the Trump administration, the Times reports. 

Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center for Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said, “There are more than 100 companies out there with a sensor, satellite or other devices they want to sell to Golden Dome. This is the Wild West, and this is a massive opportunity for whoever is selected”…

Diplomatic tensions are rising between Israel and Spain after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced today that his country would be formalizing an existing de facto arms embargo against Israel and banning anyone who has participated in “genocide” in Gaza from entering Spain as well as ships carrying fuel for the IDF from Spanish ports. 

“This is not self-defense, it’s not even an attack — it’s the extermination of a defenseless people,” Sanchez said of Israel’s war in Gaza.

In response, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced that Israel had banned two anti-Israel Spanish ministers from entering the country; Spain then summoned its ambassador in Tel Aviv, all shortly after a young Spanish immigrant to Israel was killed in this morning’s terror attack on a bus stop in Jerusalem…

The U.K. has come to a different conclusion about Israel’s actions in Gaza, according to a letter sent last week by former Foreign Secretary David Lammy before he was replaced in a reshuffling of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Cabinet. 

Lammy wrote to the chair of the U.K.’s international development committee that the Foreign Office had found in an assessment that Israel was not committing a genocide as it was missing “intent” to do so. It’s the first time the U.K. has said so explicitly, previously holding that the matter of genocide was up to international courts to determine, just weeks before the country is expected to recognize a Palestinian state…

Former Hudson Institute CEO and President Kenneth Weinstein will serve as CBS News’ ombudsman, a new role that oversees editorial concerns from employees and viewers, Paramount announced Monday. Alongside reports that Paramount is expected to purchase Bari Weiss’ Free Press and bring her into an editorial role at CBS, the moves mark a new era for the network that has been accused of systemic anti-Israel bias…

Embracing their anti-Israel bona fides, hundreds of actors, filmmakers and film industry workers recently signed a pledge to boycott Israel, which says it was inspired by filmmakers who refused to screen their films in apartheid South Africa.

The signatories, including Hollywood stars such as Alyssa Milano, Mark Ruffalo, Anna Shaffer, Ayo Edebiri, Cynthia Nixon, Hannah Einbinder and Ilana Glazer, promised “not to screen films, appear at or otherwise work with Israeli film institutions — including festivals, cinemas, broadcasters and production companies — that are implicated in genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people”…

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) said in comments to Jewish leaders in New York City today that some of her fellow Democratic lawmakers are inadvertently fueling antisemitism through the rhetoric and slogans they use, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

“When they say words like ‘river to the sea,’ whey they say words like ‘globalize the intifada,’ it means end Israel. It means destroy Jews,” Gillibrand said. Intifada, she continued, is “not a social movement. It’s terrorism, it’s destruction, it’s death.”

The New York senator had previously offered strong condemnation of NYC Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani for his refusal to condemn the “globalize the intifada” slogan and has not endorsed his bid for mayor…

Mamdani’s opponent, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, meanwhile, officially dropped the ballot line “EndAntiSemitism,” running only on the “Safe & Affordable” line, after the New York City Board of Elections said he couldn’t run on both. Adams’ campaign spokesperson said he intends to pursue legal options over the issue…

Graham Platner, an anti-Israel Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, wrote in a high school op-ed shortly after 9/11, during the Second Intifada in Israel, that the media provides an “incomplete story” of terrorist acts and writes “incomplete coverage” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “where a sometimes-oppressive Israeli state can be, and often is, portrayed as a victim.” 

Platner and his co-authors argued in the article in a local Maine outlet, unearthed by the Free Beacon, that ending terrorist acts would be “best achieved by understanding the circumstances under which they were committed”…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for an interview with former Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz, whose new book As A Jew: Reclaiming Our Story From Those Who Blame, Shame, and Try to Erase Us, comes out Tuesday. 

It’s a busy week in Washington, where the 2025 MEAD Summit will kick off tomorrow. The high-profile but elusive gathering will bring together top American and U.S. security officials, diplomats, lawmakers, philanthropists, CEOs and journalists. If you’re attending, make sure to say hello to JI’s Josh Kraushaar and Gabby Deutch!

The Iran Conference, hosted by the National Union for Democracy in Iran, will also begin in Washington tomorrow for analysts, policymakers and activists to discuss Iran policy, just two months after U.S. and Israeli strikes decimated Tehran’s nuclear and military infrastructure.

On the Hill, the House Education and Workforce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions will hold a hearing on “unmasking union antisemitism.”

Virginia’s 11th Congressional District is holding its special election tomorrow to fill the seat of the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA). James Walkinshaw, Connolly’s longtime former aide, is the heavy favorite to win. Read JI’s interview with Walkinshaw here. 

Looking to New York City, The MirYam Institute will hold an international security benefit briefing tomorrow featuring former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett; nearby, the Soufan Center will begin its Global Summit on Terrorism and Political Violence, meant to honor the memory of 9/11 victims and address emerging global threats.

The Florida Holocaust Museum is reopening tomorrow with a ribbon-cutting ceremony after an extensive period of renovation.

Abroad, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem will host its belated July 4 party tomorrow, and the Hili Forum will convene its last day in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, covering trade, tech and governance. DSEI U.K., a large defense trade show, is starting up in London, where protests are expected against the dozens of Israeli firms that are participating.  

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Kicking off the new school year, embattled Northwestern University President Michael Schill announced today he is stepping down as president, remaining in an interim role until his successor is chosen.

Schill’s tenure coincided with a period of antisemitic turmoil on the Chicago-area campus and he was accused of handling the issue poorly, leading some lawmakers to call for his resignation. 

A brief recap of Schill’s troubled tenure: He acceded to several demands of an anti-Israel encampment on campus in the spring of 2024, drawing condemnation from Jewish leaders and leading several Jewish members of Northwestern’s antisemitism advisory committee to step down. He then defended the move in a heated House Education and Workforce Committee hearing as being in the interest of Jewish students and was recalled by the committee this spring due to his alleged failure to live up to his own commitments from the previous hearing.

Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) said in a statement today that “President Schill will leave behind a legacy of not only failing to deter antisemitism on campus but worsening it. … Northwestern’s next president must take prompt and effective action to protect Jewish students.”

In his resignation announcement, Schill said that “from the very beginning of my tenure, Northwestern faced serious and often painful challenges. … I was always guided by enduring values of our University: protecting students, fostering academic excellence, and defending faculty, academic freedom, due process and the integrity of the institution”…

Columbia University, meanwhile, hired Jonathon Kahn as its senior associate dean of community and culture, a new position created to “build and lead initiatives that cultivate curiosity, civic purpose and meaningful dialogue” and “reimagine what a liberal arts and sciences education can be in the next century,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Kahn signed a 2021 letter supporting the Palestinian “indigenous resistance movement” and rejecting “the fiction of a ‘two-sided conflict,’” accusing Israel of carrying out “settler colonialism, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing”…

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called an Israeli proposal by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to annex parts of the West Bank “wholly predictable” in response to European countries’ planned recognition of a Palestinian state. 

Rubio said, “We told all these countries. We said, if you guys do this recognition stuff — it’s all fake, it’s not even real — if you do it, you’re going to create big problems. There’s going to be a response from Israel … and it may even trigger these sorts of actions that you’ve seen, or at least these attempts at these actions. So we’re watching it closely.”

Rubio, who was asked about the issue today at a press conference in Quito, Ecuador, continued, “What you’re seeing with the West Bank and the annexation, that’s not a final thing. That’s something that’s being discussed among some elements of Israeli politics. I’m not going to opine on that today.”

“And by the way, let me tell you something. The minute, the day that the French announced their [intent to recognize a Palestinian state], Hamas walked away from the negotiating table. … We also warned that that would happen, and it did. Sometimes, these guys don’t listen,” Rubio said.

The issue of West Bank annexation was due to be discussed in a high-level meeting convened by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today but was reportedly removed from the agenda after the UAE warned such a move would be a “red line” for regional normalization…

Israeli officials told The Wall Street Journal that Mossad Director David Barnea and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar have joined IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir in expressing hesitation to Netanyahu over the IDF’s plan to expand its offensive into Gaza City. They have also argued in favor of reaching a partial hostage-release deal with Hamas as an alternative to the comprehensive deal Israel is currently seeking…

A viral accusation that the IDF killed an 8-year-old Palestinian boy at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid site in May was proven false when the boy was found to be alive and safely extracted from the Gaza Strip. The claim had been made by Anthony Aguilar, a former GHF contractor and Green Beret, who repeated the story on far-right and far-left media outlets.

Johnnie Moore, head of the GHF, said in a statement today, “When this lie was brazenly, cravenly shared from the press to the halls of Congress, our team set out to find this little boy — whatever it took.” He attributed the success to “veterans who never stopped working to find him and bring him to safety in the most complex environment imaginable”…

A report by the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, obtained by the Associated Press, found that, as of one day before Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities began, Iran had escalated its nuclear enrichment and increased its stockpile of near weapons-grade enriched uranium to where it could soon produce at least one atomic bomb…

On the Hill, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) asked the FBI to investigate the Palestinian Youth Movement as a “threat to U.S. national security” after one of its leader, Aisha Nizar, called for Palestinian activists to “disrupt” the supply chain for F-35 fighter jets at the recent People’s Conference for Palestine in Michigan…

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA), who is running for Senate in Georgia, filed a resolution today to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) for “promoting and cheering on terrorism and antisemitism” at the same conference…

Semafor’s David Weigel reports from this year’s National Conservatism conference, which is winding down in Washington today and featured a host of high-level right-wing personalities from Trump administration officials to lawmakers and influencers. 

Conference speakers and attendees were jubilant over what they view as conservative successes in President Donald Trump’s second term, but there was one “possible future sore point that conference organizer Yoram Hazony acknowledged openly: Israel.”

“Hazony was upset by the ‘depth of the slander of Jews as a people’ that he saw in corners of the online right. The Israel critics in their fold could make the nationalist ‘revolution consume itself,’ he added, and risk everything,” Weigel wrote…

In long anticipated news, United Airlines announced today it’s restarting direct flights to Tel Aviv from Chicago O’Hare and Washington Dulles in early November…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on a new cross-faith initiative to address antisemitism led by Robert Kraft’s Foundation to Combat Antisemitism.

This weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will be campaigning with New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani in the next installment of Sanders’ Fighting Oligarchy tour, after an appearance in Maine last weekend with anti-Israel Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner. 

We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom! 

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Advisors to President Donald Trump have discussed giving New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa positions in the president’s administration, sources tell The New York Times, in order to consolidate New York City voters behind former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, running as an independent, as a bid to block far-left Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani’s path to Gracie Mansion. 

Adams has already been offered a position at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Politico reports.

Cuomo told a group of donors last month that he anticipated Trump would get involved in the race and help bolster his prospects…

Turning internationally, Trump appeared to support Israel’s desire for a comprehensive deal to end the war in Gaza, as he posted this morning on Truth Social, “Tell Hamas to IMMEDIATELY give back all 20 Hostages (Not 2 or 5 or 7!), and things will change rapidly. IT WILL END!”

The figure of 20 hostages likely refers to the hostages thought to still be alive; there are a total of 50 hostages being held in Gaza…

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee held a closed-door briefing for members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee this morning on issues including the hostages and developments in the West Bank, lawmakers told Jewish Insider. 

“Given the insistence on the part of the French and other Europeans to recognize a Palestinian state, I thought it was important for my colleagues to have a greater understanding of what we’re actually talking about with respect to Judea and Samaria, or the West Bank, and how it is actually governed post-Oslo,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who organized the briefing, said.

Asked whether the group had discussed a potential declaration of Israeli sovereignty in that area, Lawler responded, “No, we had a broad discussion on the entirety of the situation there”…

On the campaign trail, former Sen. John Sununu (R-NH) is considering a bid for Senate to replace retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), telling a local outlet he will make a decision by the end of the month. 

Sununu would be a formidable candidate in the race, given his name recognition and family connections. (His brother, Chris, served as the state’s popular governor from 2017-2025, and his dad was both the state’s former governor and former President George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff.) 

But in a year that’s shaping up to be favorable for Democrats, Sununu would face a challenging race against Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), the expected Democratic nominee with a history of winning tough races in a swing district.  Pappas launched his candidacy in April shortly after Shaheen announced her retirement… 

In academic news, a federal judge ruled today that the Trump administration broke the law in freezing billions of dollars of Harvard’s research funding.

The government had argued that Harvard was no longer deserving of the funds due to antisemitism on campus, but Judge Allison Burroughs wrote, “We must fight against antisemitism, but we equally need to protect our rights, including our right to free speech, and neither goal should nor needs to be sacrificed on the altar of the other … Harvard is currently, even if belatedly, taking steps it needs to take to combat antisemitism and seems willing to do even more if need be.”

The ruling strengthens Harvard’s position in settlement talks with the administration, which were expected to result in a $500 million fine for the university…

After the International Association of Genocide Scholars adopted a resolution accusing Israel of committing genocide, pro-Israel activists made a mockery of the organization by registering to become members online, highlighting that anyone could join the respected academic and professional organization by paying a nominal fee, not necessarily by having recognized expertise. 

IAGS took down its member profiles on its website and shut down its X account after the issue was made public…

Yair Rosenberg chronicles the rise of Hitler apologists among far-right media personalities, including Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, in The Atlantic, highlighting several guests on Carlson’s podcast who have sought to recast Hitler’s actions as misunderstood.

“Carlson and his fellow travelers on the far right correctly identify the Second World War as a pivot point in America’s understanding of itself and its attitude toward its Jewish citizens. The country learned hard lessons from the Nazi Holocaust about the catastrophic consequences of conspiratorial prejudice. Today, a growing constituency on the right wants the nation to unlearn them,” Rosenberg writes…

In a move exciting political junkies and congressional watchers around the nation, C-SPAN announced it will be coming to YouTube TV and Hulu this fall…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for an interview with Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter on the future of U.S. aid to Israel and reporting on a leading Democratic candidate for Senate in Iowa’s support for conditions on Israel’s fight against terror.  

Tomorrow, Israeli President Isaac Herzog is set to meet with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican (after a brief diplomatic kerfuffle over who initiated the meeting) to discuss the hostages and the war in Gaza. Herzog was meant to meet with the pope’s predecessor, Pope Francis, before his death. 

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is unusually focused on anti-Israel attacks in his bid to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Jewish Insider‘s Marc Rod reports. Every one of Platner’s active ads on Facebook and Instagram, as well as many of his written advertisements, include a repudiation of AIPAC and around half accuse Israel of genocide…

In another Senate race to keep an eye on, Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) hinted she’ll be running to replace Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), who this afternoon officially announced her retirement from the Senate at the end of her current term. Hinson said she would be President Donald Trump’s “strongest ally in the Senate” and “will have an announcement soon”…

Meanwhile in Foggy Bottom, a State Department cable sent to U.S. embassies on Aug. 18 indicated the department has suspended approvals for almost all Palestinians seeking to enter the U.S. on visitor visas, The New York Times reports, shortly before the department revoked visas for Palestinian Authority officials ahead of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York this month. The suspension could prevent Palestinians from entering the country for medical treatment, attendance at American universities, business travel and more…

French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced today that they will co-chair another conference on the two-state solution on Sept. 22 on the sidelines of the UNGA, where several European countries are expected to announce their recognition of a Palestinian state.

Macron called the U.S.’ decision to revoke the visas of PA officials “unacceptable” and said it must be reversed.

Palestinian Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio similarly asking him to reconsider the revocation of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ visa to attend the UNGA, arguing it was made on “false pretenses,” according to Axios…

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee recently told Israeli officials the Trump administration is concerned about the security implications of a potential economic collapse of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. “If the Palestinian economy completely collapses, it will not be a victory for anyone. … Desperate people do desperate things,” Huckabee told Israel’s Channel 12…

Rubio is expected to visit Israel the week of Sept. 14 where he will reportedly attend the Sept. 15 inauguration ceremony for the “Pilgrimage Road” at the City of David archeological site, a recently discovered path that led to the Temple Mount during the Second Temple Period. (Read JI’s coverage of the Pilgrimage Road excavation here)…

Also making the long flight, several high-profile venture capitalists, including Palantir co-founders Peter Thiel and Joe Lonsdale as well as Elad Gil and Keith Rabois, were in Israel this past weekend where they attended the wedding of VC investor Zach Frenkel. Some of the attendees reportedly met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while in town…

Michael Velchik, the Department of Justice’s lawyer defending the Trump administration in its battle against Harvard in federal court, called Hitler’s Mein Kampf his favorite book and wrote a paper from the dictator’s perspective during his time as a Harvard undergraduate, which “so unnerved the instructor that he was asked to redo the assignment,” The Boston Globe reports. Velchik said in court in July that Harvard no longer deserved federal funding based on its “wanton” and “deliberate indifference to antisemitism”…

Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, called the International Association of Genocide Scholars’ declaration that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza “one of the most egregious examples of the dereliction of scholarly responsibility in recent history.” 

The IAGS resolution, approved by less than a third of its members over the weekend, “reflects not one iota of original or independent research,” Satloff wrote, instead relying on findings from the U.N., Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese and anti-Israel human rights organizations…

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on China’s shifting rhetoric on Israel amid its aggressive posturing on the international stage, as well as an interview with Rep. George Latimer (D-NY) about his recent trip to Israel with a delegation of freshman Democratic members.

We’re tracking the many potential candidates who may join the race to succeed Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), after he announced his retirement last night. 

Though Nadler is expected to support his former aide, state Assemblyman Micah Lasher, as his successor, politicos speculate other contenders for the Manhattan district could include high-profile New Yorkers from Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), who represents a neighboring district, to Lina Khan, the former commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. 

Liam Elkind, a 26-year-old Jewish nonprofit leader who launched his bid in July to unseat Nadler in a generational challenge, is also still in the race. Stay tuned to JI for coverage as the field develops.

Tonight, the House Appropriations Committee‘s Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Programs Subcommittee will vote on a funding bill for the Department of Education that includes sweeping new provisions restricting federal funding for universities that fail to address antisemitism but also cuts funding for the Office for Civil Rights.

Also tonight, the Senate will begin the process of finalizing the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which may include votes on several amendments relating to Middle East defense programs in the coming days.

Tomorrow, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is holding a members-only virtual briefing with Huckabee focused on the West Bank.