VIEW FROM JERUSALEM: “‘Trump Effect’ Is Already Shaping Events Around the World” by Peter Baker: “Nowhere has the Trump Effect been more visible than in Jerusalem, where the political right has openly rejoiced at the election. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has had a prickly relationship with Mr. Obama, has made clear to associates that he is overjoyed at Mr. Trump’s ascension. Members of Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition expect Mr. Trump to abandon the practice of Mr. Obama and presidents of both parties who tried to restrain Israel from building housing in the West Bank and East Jerusalem… Betty Herschman, the director of international relations for Ir Amim, a group that opposes settlement construction, said it was too early to know what Mr. Trump’s policy would actually be. But she said one thing was clear: “The Israeli right is already celebrating.”” [NYTimes]

“Netanyahu Warns Cabinet: Legalizing Outposts Could Lead to International Probe Against Israeli Officials” by Barak Ravid: “Netanyahu and his diplomatic advisers said U.S. President Barack Obama’s “lame duck” period should also be taken into account. In order prevent the evacuation of the Amona outpost, the bill must pass before the court-stipulated evacuation date of December 25, less than a month before Obama steps down on January 20. Netanyahu and his advisers told the cabinet that passing the bill may push Obama in favor of a UN Security Council move over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or lead him to withhold a U.S. veto over a Palestinian draft resolution.” [Haaretz] 

NYTIMES OP — Jimmy Carter calls on Obama to recognize an independent Palestinian state before leaving office: “I am certain that United States recognition of a Palestinian state would make it easier for other countries that have not recognized Palestine to do so, and would clear the way for a Security Council resolution on the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Security Council should pass a resolution laying out the parameters for resolving the conflict. It should reaffirm the illegality of all Israeli settlements beyond the 1967 borders, while leaving open the possibility that the parties could negotiate modifications.” [NYTimes] 

Stu Loeser: “Wow, Pres Carter’s NY Times Op-Ed “US Must Recognize Palestine” is on page A1  (!) of the NY Times Tuesday.” [Twitter] 

TRANSITION TOWER: “Trump keeps eye on Romney for State Dept. despite scorn from some loyalists” by Philip Rucker and John Wagner: “Trump is looking for assurances that Romney, the 2012 GOP presidential nominee who has championed a muscular and at times interventionist foreign policy, could be trusted to defend and promote Trump’s markedly different worldview in capitals around the globe… Trump’s team has determined that it may be challenging and even unlikely for Giuliani to win Senate confirmation.” [WashPost]

“Challenging the Boss in Public? For Kellyanne Conway, It’s Part of the Job” by Michael Shear and Maggie Haberman: “Ms. Conway quickly dialed Mr. Trump, as well as Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and confidant, seeking reassurance that the headline was wrong. She got it.” [NYTimes; AP]

“Conway plays the outside game” by Eliana Johnson, Alex Isenstadt and Ken Vogel: “Conway’s Sunday broadsides against Mitt Romney have exacerbated an increasingly strained relationship with Donald Trump and his senior advisers, including son-in-law Jared Kushner, according to more than a half-dozen sources involved in the transition efforts. Conway, who served as Trump’s campaign manager, has slowly receded from the president-elect’s innermost circle— she is not included either in interviews with potential cabinet nominees or in the deliberations over those candidates… One source said the interviews to date, which usually include Vice President-elect Mike Pence and one of his aides… as well as Kushner — can take on a circus-like atmosphere, with several people streaming in and out of the room.” [Politico]

“Donald Trump Son-in-Law Could Face His Own Conflict of Interest Questions” by Peter Grant: “Kathleen Clark, a government ethics lawyers and law professor at Washington University, said she didn’t think Mr. Kushner would run afoul of rules if he participated in broad policy issues involving such things as the direction of interest rates or whether the U.S. military should side with Israel in a war. “These are not specific matters involving particular parties,” she said. A spokeswoman for Mr. Kushner said in an email: “If Jared were to serve in some capacity in the new administration, Kushner Companies would put a rigorous process in place to ensure that no conflicts exist.”” [WSJ] 

“Trump Sees Petraeus as Secretary of State Fight Continues” by Kevin Cirilli and Jennifer Epstein: “A top transition official said that many in Trump’s camp support having Petraeus fill the position. Trump is “inclined” to pick Petraeus, according to the official, yet he is weighing whether it’s a good idea to have two retired generals heading the State Department and Pentagon. General James Mattis has been under consideration to lead the Defense Department.” [Bloomberg]

“Jewish Democrats cry hypocrisy over US general’s Israel remarks” by Michael Wilner: ““I do think that is a double standard,” said Ron Klein, a former member of Congress and chairman of Jews for Progress, a super-PAC that campaigned against Trump during the general election. “I don’t suggest that General Mattis is anti-Israel. But when he uses words like apartheid and those kinds of terms – very hard-edged words – I think that’s very problematic.” … “I’m not saying General Mattis is anti-Israel, but if he were under consideration to be secretary of defense for President Obama or a President-Elect Hillary Clinton, Republicans would be tripping over themselves to condemn the Democrat as hostile to Israel,” said Aaron Keyak, who runs Bluelight Strategies.” [JPost]

HAPPENING TODAY: Agudath Israel of America to host a congressional panel to discuss “National Security Decisions Awaiting the Next President in His First 100 Days: The View from Congress” at Alliance Bernstein Global Wealth Management in Manhattan. Participants will include Reps Eliot Engel (D-NY), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Randy Weber (R-TX). 

SPOTTED — At the Eagles – Packers game in Philadelphia last night: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker with Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks. Walker tweeted that Brooks was “wearing the wrong green!” [Pic]

The Links Between an Australian Billionaire and Netanyahu’s Family: “Channel 10’s Raviv Drucker reported Monday evening that Yair Netanyahu had flown to New York in September 2015 along with his father’s delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, and stayed in a luxury hotel in Greenwich Village – with Packer footing the bill… According to the report, Packer was also involved to some extent in Netanyahu’s speech to the UN. In a letter he sent to his friends, Packer said he and Netanyahu went over the speech together and he even boasted about having a copy of the speech. According to the letter, Netanyahu even promised Packer a place in his entourage and a seat next to Sara Netanyahu.” [Haaretz]

“Top US firefighters ‘dropped everything’ to help Israel battle the blazes” by Andrew Tobin: “We’re just firefighters. When guys hear about a situation like this one, where the Israelis are working as hard as they can, they want to come help,” said Billy Hirth, a Protestant who retired last year after a 24-year career as a firefighter in Arlington, Texas, and has been coordinating the American effort from Jerusalem. “It’s a brotherhood. Firemen are firemen.” [JTA] • Amid Flames and Suspicions in Israel, Acts of Jewish-Arab Cooperation [NYTimes]

Tevi Troy: “Netanyahu learned the Carmel fire’s lessons: Despite all we hear about Israel’s so-called isolation, many nations helped out with equipment, including Russia, Turkey, Greece, France, Spain, Canada, and the US. Even the Palestinian Authority contributed equipment and firefighting crews… Israel appears to have learned from its missteps of 2010, and Netanyahu deserves credit for bouncing back from an early setback in his administration to lead a more successful response this time around.” [ToI] 

TOP TALKER: “Time Inc.’s stock spikes amid billionaire’s offer” by Keith J. Kelly: “Time Inc.’s stock surged Monday on news that billionaire Edgar Bronfman Jr. and two other private equity billionaires — Len Blavatnik and Israeli businessman Ynon Kreiz — are sizing up the company to take it private in a $1.8 billion deal. The trio of executives have a long and friendly relationship. Kreiz is on the board of Warner Music Group, which is controlled by Blavatnik’s Access Industries. “The ball is in the company’s court now,” said one Wall Street source. “Do they have flexibility to listen to a reasonable offer or are they just stiff arming?”” [NYPost; DealBook]

STARTUP NATION: “Uber is deactivating New York drivers for ‘advertising’ for (Israeli startup) rival Juno” by Johana Bhuiyan: “At least one Uber driver has been deactivated for “displaying advertising of other ride-sharing companies while on Uber trips,” according to a text sent to the driver from Uber… Since launching in May, Juno managed to hit one million rides in just four months, and now performs 20,000 rides a day… Juno, which pitches itself as the “driver-friendly” app by only charging drivers 10 percent commission and offering them a stake in the company, also achieved that growth without any formal advertising. Instead, Marco says, it depends on the drivers to act as evangelists and spread the word to other drivers and, more importantly, passengers.” [Recode] • Conscription, the secret behind Israel’s army of geeks [FinancialTimes]

SPOTLIGHT: “Big Names Take Hit on Theranos” by Christopher Weaver, John Carreyrouand Michael Siconolfi: “Several large investments from families and individuals helped infuse Theranos with $632 million in its latest funding round, which stretched from 2014 to 2015… Those investors include Rupert Murdoch and family-controlled Cox Enterprises Inc., which put about $100 million each into Theranos… In its early years, Theranos got most of its investments from Silicon Valley, including venture capitalists there. Later, the company filled its board of directors with high-profile members such as former Secretary of State George Shultz and turned to wealthy families and individuals for funding, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Murdoch and other major investors, including the Walgreens drugstore chain, toured Theranos’s facilities and were shown versions of the company’s proprietary devices… Early investors in Theranos included more typical backers of startup companies, including Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison.” [WSJ] 

“Kushner loans Moskovits $33M for Bushwick project” by Katherine Clarke: “As traditional banks tighten the purse strings, Jared Kushner is seeing through a commitment to establish his firm as a peer-to-peer lender. A debt fund under the Kushner Companies umbrella provided a $33 million loan to Toby Moskovits’ Heritage Equity Partners for a new mixed-use office-and-retail project at 215 Moore Street, according to records filed with the city Monday.” [TheRealDeal]

“A Mysterious New Instagram Account Targets Ivanka Trump (And Her Art Collection)” by Michelle Ruiz: “The first Instagram popped up six days ago: a sultry (presumably vintage) cleavage-revealing photo of Ivanka Trump with the caption: “Dear Ivanka, I’m afraid of the swastikas spray painted on my park”— a reference to the defiled playground at Brooklyn’s Adam Yauch Park… And so began the mysterious new Instagram account, @dear_ivanka, which targets the embattled fashion mogul and Trump executive with first-person pleas to somehow save the world from her father’s impending presidency. .. one post— “@dear_ivanka will you keep another Jew like me safe from Steve Bannon and the KKK?”—appears to be written by designer/filmmaker Arden Wohl. “ [Vogue] • Artists Lay Their Fears at Ivanka Trump’s Door [NYTimes]

MEDIA WATCH: “How to cover a Page Six president” — Maggie Haberman on Glenn Thrush’s podcast: “Her father, Clyde Haberman— a wise-cracking, worldly and bookish child of the Jewish Bronx — was a longtime Times columnist himself… Her first byline came at age 7 when her father, then working for the Daily News, brought her into City Hall to talk to legendary Mayor Ed Koch. The result was a kids-page column and a series of photos of the incipient reporter sitting on Koch’s lap asking him questions. “I yammered at him for a while, because every picture is just him looking and my mouth is open,” she recalled of the motor-mouthed mayor. “It was no small feat.”” [Politico] 

–Haberman to Glenn Thrush: “We were hanging out at the Blue Room (briefing room for the NYC mayor), we were waiting for a Bloomberg press conference to start. Glenn and the late Stan Brooks… were sitting behind me talking about something… and you said something about being Jewish, and I whipped my head around and I said, ‘Since when are you Jewish?’ and you said, ‘Since they cut my foreskin off when I was a baby,’ and I laughed, and we have been friends ever since.” [OffMessage]

HEARD on The Axe Files – Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin tells the story of how a Long Island girl ended up at Colby College in Maine: “It’s a crazy story in its own right. My boyfriend, who was a year ahead of me, went to Cornell, and it was the only school I wanted to go to… But the problem was he was Jewish and I was Catholic, and his parents were quite worried about this relationship. So they made a promise that if I would go to another school they would sanction our being together. Otherwise, they were going to really fight it. When I think about this now, it’s just crazy.” [CNN]

BOOK REVIEW: “In the novel ‘Judas,’ Amos Oz wrestles with Jewish attitudes toward Jesus” by Ron Charles: ““Judas,” a new novel by Amos Oz, is a paradox of stillness and provocation. The Israeli author, a long-rumored contender for the Nobel Prize, has reduced the physical action of this story to a tableau of domestic grief. But beneath a scene of fermented woe, he incites a storm of theological and political arguments about the founding of Israel and the origins of Christianity.” [WashPost]

BIRTHDAYS: Heiress of the UK’s Tesco supermarket empire, philanthropist (especially in Israel) and former Lord Mayor of Westminster, Dame Shirley Porter turns 86… One-half the reknowned film-making team of the Coen Brothers, Joel David Coen turns 62… Consul General of Israel in New York since August 2016, following seven years as Chairman of the Yesha Council, Dani Dayan turns 61… Comedian, actor, television host and, since 2010, a judge on NBC’s America’s Got Talent, Howie Mandel turns 61… Mayor of Chicago since 2011, previously member of Congress (2003-2009) then White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel turns 57… Foreign policy and public diplomacy advisor since 1990 to seven consecutive Israeli Prime Ministers, now a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Institution, Shalom Lipner turns 51… San Francisco based math teacher and editor of the Ferenstein Wire, a syndicated publication on tech, health and politics, Greg Ferenstein turns 34… Chanoch Yaacov… Andrea Glick…