Daily Kickoff
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “We spent a lot of time developing detailed policy papers. Given this clearly, unpredictable election season, clearly there just wasn’t a lot of interest in those policy papers.” — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal explaining why he dropped out of the 2016 presidential race. [VanityFair]
DRIVING THE WEEK: “As Release Nears, Jonathan Pollard Shielded From Public Embrace He Once Sought” by Nathan Guttman: “Concerns over Pollard’s safety have led his supporters to put on hold, at least temporarily, any public celebration, and to keep his future plans under wraps… For the Jewish community, which has struggled to define its attitude toward Pollard, a traitor to most Americans and a hero to many in Israel, the upcoming release poses one final dilemma: How to welcome a convicted spy back into the community?” [Forward]
TOP TWEET: Michael D. Shear — “In Asia with Jeffrey Goldberg for APEC. When I saw him, I thought: I wonder whether he knows this is the Asian APEC, not the Jewish one.” [Twitter]
John Kerry: “Something Different” About Last Week’s Terrorist Attacks “From Charlie Hebdo” by Katherine Miller: “There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that,” Kerry told the staff and families of the U.S. Embassy in Paris. “There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.”… “This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate,” he continued. [BuzzFeed; Time]
Matthew Levitt: “How to Beat ISIL Without 50,000 Troops” [PoliticoMag]
Thomas Friedman: “Cabs, Camels or ISIS” [NYTimes]
Noah Feldman: “Islamic State Has More to Gain in Beirut” [BloombergView]
David Horovitz: “Will the West now adopt Israel’s anti-terror strategies?” [ToI]
David Suissa: “Europe should label terrorists, not tomatoes” [JewishJournal]
2016 WATCH: “Hillary Clinton Faces Foreign-Policy Challenges” by Peter Nicholas and Laura Meckler: “After the Paris massacre, Mrs. Clinton must navigate a tricky set of questions involving the Obama administration’s response to the rise of Islamic State, the group that carried out the attack. Policies she championed, such as toppling Col. Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, look less successful in hindsight. And despite the death of Osama bin Laden, the world still feels to many voters more vulnerable to catastrophic terrorist attacks.” [WSJ]
Hillary to deliver a national security address on Thursday at 92Y: “According to a news release by the Clinton campaign, the former Secretary of State will deliver an address in the wake of the Paris attacks “outlining her strategy for defeating ISIS and eliminating the immediate threats it poses,” as well as “lay out her vision for the role American leadership must play in supporting our allies, protecting our homeland, and forging a safer world.”” [JI]
DRIVING THE DAY: Jeb Bush will deliver what’s being billed as a major foreign policy address today at The Citadel military school in Charleston, S.C. at 12PM EST. He’s expected to call for increasing the size of the military and to lay out what would be his plan for defeating ISIS. [CSPAN]
–Excerpt from Jeb’s prepared remarks: “As we gather today, in the aftermath of the bloodshed in Paris, let it be said that this generation knew the cost of war, but also knew the even greater cost of acquiescence to an enemy with which there is no co-existence. Radical Islamic terrorists have declared war on the western world. Their aim is our total destruction. We can’t withdraw from this threat, nor negotiate with it. We have but one choice: to Defeat It.”
–From Jeb’s new white paper: “The United States must have a comprehensive strategy not merely to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, but also to confront Iranian aggression, terrorism, and malign activities that have stoked such sectarian violence and destabilized the region. To accomplish this, the U.S. will have to repair broken alliances and partnerships, above all with Israel.”
–Jeb on Bloomberg’s WADR yesterday: “Our friends, our potential friends, no longer trust us. Look, in the Middle East, the first signal that we’re not serious is when we disrespect Israel, when there’s space between Israel and the United States, the rest of the Arab world goes, well, how are we going to get a fair shake if Israel doesn’t?” [WADR]
“Kasich: Create agency to promote Judeo-Christian values” by Tom LoBianco: “Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Tuesday that he would create an agency to broadcast “Judeo-Christian, Western values” in hostile countries as part of a broader war of ideas that he says the U.S. is losing.” [CNN]
“Christian groups break with GOP over Syrian refugees” by Nahal Toosi: “Evangelical Christians, as well as Christians more broadly, are a core group in the Republican electoral base and are among the most passionate advocates for aiding refugees.” [Politico] • “These Numbers Explain the Sudden Republican Antipathy to Muslim Refugees” [Bloomberg] • “Holocaust Museum Sees a U.S. Duty to Syrian Refugees” [BV]
“Ben Carson Is Struggling to Grasp Foreign Policy, Advisers Say” by Trip Gabriel: “Nobody has been able to sit down with him and have him get one iota of intelligent information about the Middle East,” said Duane R. Clarridge, a top adviser to Mr. Carson on terrorism and national security. He also said Mr. Carson needed weekly conference calls briefing him on foreign policy so “we can make him smart.” [NYTimes] • “Ben Carson confidant: Here’s the real story behind that bombshell NYT report” [BI]
“Rubio escalates foreign policy feud with Cruz” by Burgess Everett: “It’s a calculated risk to say that Cruz weakened national security: Many Republicans sided with him in a vote that split the party over how to balance surveillance reforms with national security. But the Rubio campaign believes this is its opening to expose Cruz as being in step with Democrats on an issue that will drive the next three months of the campaign… Cruz fired back, saying that Rubio is trying to distract from his record of working on the Senate’s comprehensive immigration bill.” [Politico] • Howard Jonas, who held a fundraiser at his home in Riverdale earlier this month for Rubio, is also planning to host a fundraiser for Ted Cruz [JI]
RHC Models RJC: “New Hindu Republican Group Aims to Build Conservative Hindus’ Influence” by Kristina Peterson: “Kumar said he modeled the group after the Republican Jewish Coalition, after attending its annual conference and leaving impressed by its influence on conservative policy toward Israel. “I was sort of surprised at the way it caught fire,” Mr. Kumar said of his idea. “I went to my friend who I consider to be the smartest man on this earth, [former House] Speaker Newt Gingrich. Before I said more than two sentences, he said, ‘Great idea!’” Mr. Gingrich is the group’s honorary chairman.” [WSJ; TheHill]
HAPPENING TODAY: At 5PM, the Simon Wiesenthal Center holds a Capitol Hill reception for a historical exhibition on “People, Book, Land — The 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land” in the Rayburn HOB. Scheduled speakers include Rep. Ed Royce, Rep. Eliot Engel, Mrs. Irina Bokova, and Rabbi Marvin Hier.
TOP TALKER: “Tension at Meeting Between J Street U and Head of Boston Jewish Federation” by Debra Nussbaum Cohen: “The recent meetings are an indication of a growing dialogue between the Jewish establishment and J Street U, which many Jewish leaders view as instrumental in the fight against BDS on campus. In an exchange of sorts, the students of J Street U have been allowed to voice their objections to occupation and settlements and to present their campaign to prevent communal funds from going over the Green Line.” [Haaretz]
CAMPUS BEAT: “Yale President responds to racial tension on campus and pledges to make ‘significant changes'” by Abby Jackson: “Yale President Peter Salovey sent an email to the Yale community on Tuesday that addressed the recent protests on campus and pledged to do better.” [BusinessInsider] • “Famous Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz rips into ‘tyrannical’ student protesters, saying they want ‘superficial diversity'” [BI]
BUSINESS BRIEFS: Jay Zeidman launches a new $25 million angel investment fund named Resolute Venture Partners [BizJournals] • “Meet the Goldman Sachs Silicon Valley Hotlist, 2015 Edition” [ReCode] • “Durst settles case over its buildings’ accessibility” [Crains] • “A Canadian developer is dropping plans to construct The Lakeshore Grand, a 96-unit senior building, on B’nai Torah’s lakefront property” [ChicagoTribune] • “Steinitz: Foreign investments in gas will be strongest ‘growth engine’ for Israeli economy” [JPost]
TALK OF THE VALLEY: “The Silicon Valley Suicides” by Hanna Rosin: “Why are so many kids with bright prospects killing themselves in Palo Alto?” [TheAtlantic]
“How a bottle of Russian salad dressing inspired corporate social responsibility” by Ken Pucker: “As chief operating officer of Timberland, I worked to demonstrate the ultimate compatibility of profitability and sustainability… Much of this agenda was driven by Jeff Swartz. In mid-2005, Swartz invited his senior staff to a meeting of show-and-tell where he displayed a bottle of Russian salad dressing. Jeff called our attention to the nutrition label, and gave the team six months to provide equal transparency to consumers of Timberland’s 20m pairs of footwear. That meant sharing the footprint – in energy, other natural resources and human capital – of the product line.” [TheGuardian]
MEDIA WATCH: “Nick Denton’s Gawker to Retool as Politics Site” by Ravi Somaiya: “The change, which is part of a broad reorganization of the site’s parent company, Gawker Media, was announced in a memo to the staff on Tuesday. The site, wrote Gawker’s founder, Nick Denton, “will ride the circus of the 2016 campaign cycle, seizing the opportunity to reorient its editorial scope on political news, commentary and satire.”” [NYTimes]
Bob Lefsetz on Summit at Sea: “The majordomo is Elliott Bisnow. Who dropped out of college to help his father establish a flourishing newsletter business. He and his buddies, Jeff Rosenthal, Jeremy Schwartz and the aforementioned Brett Leve, decided to book Bill Clinton for a gig in New York. You know, the ex-Pres. will go anywhere if you cough up the dough. And they did. Although they were short and Russell Simmons kicked in the extra cash. That’s right, these guys know everybody! And then there was a ski weekend and a boat trip and the Squaw Valley escapade and then…They bought Powder Mountain. And the goal is to build a community atop the mountain. Kind of an Aspen meets Sun Valley meets Chautauqua for the younger set.” [Lefsetz]
LongRead: “Iran Has Been Hiding One of the World’s Great Collections of Modern Art” by Peter Waldman: “At the museum, that means the directors, who report to the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, hang a few dozen Western pieces each year for several weeks. They’re careful—usually—not to rile government conservatives with racy images, or bait them with the idea that the museum’s most significant portfolio is its world-class collection of post-World War II works by Americans, many of them gay or Jewish.” [Businessweek]
DESSERT: “Teaming up, Welch’s and Manischewitz challenge kosher grape juice monopoly” [JTA]
BIRTHDAYS: Haim Harari turns 75… Laurie Luskin… Roland Tovar… Roberta Goldstein… Shira Dicker…
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