Daily Kickoff
QUOTE: “Jon Stewart’s a white ‘Jewish guy’ from New Jersey; ‘I’m not'” — Trevor Noah [LATimes]
DRIVING THE DAY: At 6PM today, President Obama will address the Jewish community on an open phone call. Members of progressive Jewish organizations, including the NJDC and J Street, were asked to invite their members to join the call to hear the President discuss the Iran deal. As of now, the call-in information is 866.254.5934, passcode: 365802.
HEARD YESTERDAY: Israeli diplomat Dore Gold and (Ret.) General Amos Yadlin spoke to around 200 guests of the Conference of Presidents in NYC regarding the Iran agreement. Both Gold and Yadlin stressed the unity in Israel of opposition towards the agreement and pointed to their joint appearance as evidence of such. Yadlin praised the deal in the short term but quickly added that in the long run “it’s a disaster because Iran gets permission to have as much nuclear infrastructure as they want.” Notable attendees, seated in the first row, included former Sen. Joe Lieberman, Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor, and Mort Zuckerman.
Dore Gold on Possible Military Dimensions of the Iranian Nuclear Program: “The paragraph on PMD is a paragraph that directly affects the security of Israel. It talks about nuclear warheads on a Shahab-3 missile. Don’t you think the State of Israel has a right to ask questions about the fact that there is no PMD information on this? I think so and this for me is one other illustration of a problem with the deal that we’ll have to overcome. Hopefully in our discussions with the U.S. this will eventually be addressed. Hopefully, it won’t be limited to a channel between the IAEA and the Iranians.” [SoundCloud]
Eli Lake & Josh Rogin: “The Obama administration wants its relationship with Israel to move past the Iran deal, to start talks on how to counter Iran’s influence in the region. But the Israeli government won’t have that discussion while there is still a slim chance Congress can kill the deal.” [BloombergView]
Peter Beinart: “When will democracy conquer plutocracy in the American Jewish community? When democracy prevails in America itself.” [Haaretz]
Dennis Ross: “How to Make Iran Keep its Word: The alternative to the agreement is not war but a mess with our allies” [PoliticoMag]
Michael Doran: “Those who think the Iranians outwitted us fail to recognize one very important thing: the White House never intended to contain Iran.” [MosaicMag]
Nathan Diament: “Iran Deal’s Inspections Aren’t Kosher” [ToI]
Ido Aharoni: “The problem: Iran’s underlying motives” [DailyNews]
Nicholas Kristof: “Why the Naysayers Are Wrong About the Iran Deal” [NYTimes]
Greg Sargent on the lobbying money wars: “J Street is set to increase its expenditures on the fight over the Iran deal to between $4 million and $5 million, more than double the $2 million it had originally budgeted for it, J Street lobbyist Dylan Williams confirmed. Proponents of the deal are still likely to be dramatically outspent by opponents. AIPAC and other Jewish groups opposed to it are gearing up to spend from $20 million to $40 million.”
“J Street has also enlisted a high profile consultant to help with this battle: David Wade, a former State Department chief of staff and senior adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry. Wade argued to me that the battle over the Iran deal is shaping up as another installment in the war over who gets to own the term “pro-Israel.” [WashPost]
ON THE HILL: “Defense Secretary Ash Carter made clear on Wednesday that the nuclear deal with Iran puts no limits on the U.S. military posture in the Middle East and that “no target” in Iran would be “out of reach” of the United States if Iran was aggressive toward its neighbors or cheated on the agreement.” [Politico; NYTimes] • Watch the Senate hearing that featured Carter, John Kerry, Martin Dempsey, Jack Lew and Ernest Moniz [CSPAN]
“Queens Democratic Congresswoman Slams Obama Iran Deal” by Will Bredderman: “Queens Congresswoman Grace Meng today became the first House Democrat from New York to break with her party’s national leadership and come out against the deal.” [Observer; Statement]
“How Rep. Adam Schiff weighs the Iran pact vote” by Bill Boyarsky: “Schiff said he mentally arranges the information in “three different buckets of issues.” One is: “How workable is the agreement?” The second bucket, he said, revolves around the question of what Iran will do with the billions of its funds that will be unfrozen by the agreement. And finally, there is the bucket with the most difficult question of all: What happens if Congress overrides Obama’s veto?” [JewishJournal] • “Congressman Physicist Weighs Iran Deal” [RealClearPolitics]
Scene The Other Night: “Huckabee’s ‘Holocaust’ comment ignored at private dinner” by Emily Smith: “There was no mention of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s off-key comment about the Holocaust when he dined with influential New Yorkers on Tuesday. The presidential hopeful — who said the Iran deal “will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven” — was fêted at a private dinner hosted by Margo and John Catsimatidis, with guests including Committee to Unleash Prosperity founders economists Larry Kudlow, Steve Forbes, Arthur Laffer and Steve Moore, plus Somers and Jonathan Farkas, RNC Chair Ed Cox and Rita Cosby.” [NYPost]
Amos Yadlin addressed Huckabee’s comments yesterday: “We are not on the platform to Auschwitz. I hate the comparison to the 193os, 1940s. That’s why we founded the state of Israel which is the strongest state in the Middle East. We are strong and will be able to cope with it.”
2016 WATCH: “There’s Something About Bernie” by Molly Ball: “There’s no way this man could be president, right? Just look at him: rumpled and scowling, bald pate topped by an entropic nimbus of white hair. Just listen to him: ranting, in his gravelly Brooklyn accent, about socialism. Socialism! And yet here we are: In the biggest surprise of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, this thoroughly implausible man, Bernie Sanders, is a sensation.” [TheAtlantic]
Scooter Braun, Yael Cohen, and Alex Soros will host Hillary Clinton for a fundraiser in Los Angeles on August 6th. [HC; Instagram]
Steve Tananbaum and Michael Doran are hosting a fundraiser for Scott Walker this morning in NYC [Invite]
“Kasich super PAC raises more than $11 million” by Daniel Strauss: “Of those donations, 34 were of $100,000 or more. Donors who gave $1 million included the Wendt Family Trust, Schottenstein Management Company and Ton Rastin.” [Politico]
“Does the press slice and dice the electorate too finely?” by Al Kamen: “There are, according to the Jewish Data Bank, 6,170 Jews in Iowa. That would make for roughly 4,955 adults eligible to vote. Well, 5.2 percent of Iowans turned out for the GOP caucuses in 2012, we were told by the U.S. Elections Project. So let’s assume that’s how many from the Jewish population will attend. That gets us to a whopping total of about 256 GOP caucus-going Jews attending the state’s 14 caucus locations who might — or might not — have been affected by Huckabee’s overheated invocation of the Holocaust to attack the Iran nukes deal.”[PowerPost]
REAL ESTATE ROUNDUP: “Jonathan Miller is the Most Trusted (and Quoted) Man in New York Real Estate” [Observer] • “Harbor Group sells West Palm Beach apartment complex for $20M” [BizJournal] • “Gary Barnett’s Extell Keeps Changing Height of Its Lower East Side Tower” [Curbed; BoweryBoogie] • NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio appoints new EDC board members including David Lichtenstein and Matthew Hiltzik [REW]
TALK OF THE VALLEY: “That ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech’s Hottest Ticket” by George Anders: “What kind of boss hires a thwarted actress for a business-to-business software startup? Stewart Butterfield, Slack’s 42-year-old cofounder and CEO, whose estimated double-digit stake in the company could be worth $300 million or more. He’s the proud holder of an undergraduate degree in philosophy from Canada’s University of Victoria and a master’s degree from Cambridge in philosophy and the history of science.” [Forbes]
STARTUP NATION: “Canada Just Bought Israel’s Iron Dome Radar Technology” by Ben Makuch: “Canada’s Armed Forces has purchased radar technology that is part of Israel’s famous Iron Dome, the missile system tasked with shooting down Hamas and Hezbollah rockets — and it plans to deploy it within Canada. “Our troops deserve the best — that’s why we’re purchasing the Israeli radar technology behind the Iron Dome,” Defense Minister Jason Kenney tweeted on Wednesday.” [ViceNews]
PROFILE: “Driven by the mother of ambition: Tycoon Yossi Vardi on the culture that forged £25bn pharma deal” by Rupert Steiner: “He is known around the world as the godfather of the start-up industry. Angel investor Yossi Vardi made £250million selling instant messaging application ICQ to AOL in 1998 at the height of the dotcom boom. Since then, he has invested in 86 firms and his career is seen as a model for entrepreneurs and investors across the globe. But his recipe for business success might be impossible to replicate in the UK. The ingredients, he says, include having a pushy Jewish mother, a defiant attitude to authority and being conscripted into national service in the army.” [DailyMail]
SPOTLIGHT: “At SodaStream, a Rush Away From Sugar” by Mike Esterl: “The company that invented the notion of make-it-at-home soda is now recasting itself as a “sparkling water’’ dispenser after hiring a two-star Michelin chef to concoct flavors like “raspberry lychee rose’’ to introduce this summer. This fall it hopes to begin home pick-up of its used carbon-dioxide cylinders. It also is spending more than 70% of this year’s roughly $30 million U.S. marketing budget in the second half, Chief Executive Daniel Birnbaum said in an interview.” [WSJ]
Tel Aviv Pulse: “During Israel’s hottest summer days, Tel Aviv’s most stylish residents tend to travel light.” [WWD]
TALK OF OUR NATION: “This Jewish matchmaking service is the anti-JDate” by Danielle Wiener-Bronner: “This Thursday, at sundown, the Jewish holiday of love will begin. Tu B’Av (in Hebrew, the fifteenth of the month of Av) is comparable to Valentine’s Day, though lesser known, and less pagan. The holiday holds special significance for a small group of New York City matchmakers: the men and women of YentaNet, who have been given as their first challenge the directive to pair up a couple before sundown on the 30th.” [Fusion] • “10 other ‘J’ things for JDate to sue” [ToI]
DESSERT: “Let my people go (to Dodger Stadium’s new kosher hot dog stand)!” by Ellie Frager: “Jeff’s Gourmet Sausage Factory began offering a decidedly Jewish twist to the Dodgers’ traditional ballpark menu July 28, when it set up shop and began selling specialty items like jalapeno dogs and sweet Italian sausage with grilled onions and peppers. It will continue for 14 more games this season.” [JewishJournal]
“Main Line gets a kosher steak house” by Michael Klein: “David Magerman’s Citron + Rose opened at 370 Montgomery Ave. in Merion Station in late 2012 as the Main Line’s poshest kosher destination. In mid-2014, it rebranded as the more family-friendly C+R Kitchen. Now it’s gone back upscale as C+R Kitchen Steak House.” [Philly]
