Good Monday morning!

Campus Beat:College students at Duke and University of North Carolina spoke with The New York Times about their mixed feelings on Trump’s recent executive order on antisemitism — amid a rash of disturbing campus incidents. 

In New Jersey, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and State Department Envoy on Antisemitism Elan Carr will visit the site of the Jersey City terror attack. More below.

Transition: Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley has joined United Against a Nuclear Iran as a senior advisor. 

Third anniversary: Yesterday marked the third anniversary of President Donald Trump’s appointment of David Friedman as U.S. ambassador to Israel. “Will Trump’s ambassador to Israel box in Bibi from the right?” was the question at the time. 

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INTERVIEW — New Jersey governor says social media allows hate to rapidly spread

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy discussed his state’s response to the horrific Jersey City terror attack and his commitment to fighting the growing threat of antisemitism during an interview with Jewish Insider’s Jacob Kornbluh.  

Stronger together: Murphy says his message to the Jewish community following the attack is that “we have the back of the community… that we’re all here for each other. That when you take a shot at one community in New Jersey, you take a shot at all of us and we rise and fall as one.” 

Targeted attack:The New York Timesreported on Sunday that police recovered 10 guns and more than 400 rounds of ammunition from a pawnshop almost 40 miles south of Jersey City. The owner was arrested on criminal weapons charges after his phone number and address were found written on a note tucked into the back pocket of one of the killers. “It is quite clear these folks had hate,” the governor said, noting that the investigation is still ongoing. “They had hate towards the Jewish community and toward law enforcement.” 

Words kill: According to Murphy, the attack at the Jersey City grocery is the continuation of violent attacks that have targeted the Jewish community over the past year and a result “of a new era where social media is allowing hatred to spread much more aggressively and quickly.” He pointed to the antisemitic targeting of the Hasidic community by Rise Up Ocean County in Lakewood, New Jersey, and in Rockland County, New York, as “gasoline that’s fanning the flames.” 

Leadership matters: Murphy maintained that it is “incumbent on all leaders to use their bully pulpit, to use that bullhorn, and preach tolerance, preach common ground and respect for others” in addition to security measures. “I think this is a moment for leadership more than anything else.” The governor also suggested that federal hate crimes laws should be applied to social media platforms to root out hate. “I shudder to think what the Nazis would have done in the ‘20s and ‘30s if they had access to social media,” he said. “I think the private sector players, the social media hosts, have to be much more aggressive, much more forward-leaning than they have been.” 

Murphy on Trump’s executive order to combat antisemitism on campus: “I have not read into it —  honestly — to have an informed answer for you. I think getting the balance right of free speech and the First Amendment rights, which we hold dear, [is important], but there’s a line we have to draw. We must chew gum and walk at the same time. We have to protect free speech, but we have to call out hatred and shut it down when it rears its head like that.” 

Read the full interview here.

Scene yesterday: The New Jersey governor hosted the state’s annual Hanukkah reception at his residence in Princeton, N.J. Israeli Consul General to New York Dani Dayan delivered remarks at the gathering. 

In one voice: Murphy, flanked by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, and Reps. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) and Albio Sires (D-NJ), hosted an interfaith roundtable at Temple Beth El in Jersey City on Friday. 

Call for action: Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, is calling on local, state and federal officials to address the rise of antisemitism and provide the needed tools and funds to secure the Jewish community across the country. 

New details: In an in-depth feature on last week’s shooting, The New York Times revealed new details about the attack, including the shooter’s hate-filled ideology, the small but growing Jersey City Jewish community and the hours-long standoff with police that ended in tragedy.  

IN HINDSIGHT — Four months after the Tlaib & Omar ban, have U.S.-Israel ties suffered?

On August 16, the Israeli government barred two Democratic congresswomen from entering the country. The move, a reversal of an initial decision to allow Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) to visit Israel on an organized tour, was met with widespread criticism from Jewish leaders and political figures alike. The decision, some said, would “advance the cause of BDS.” Others warned that it would “further the partisan politicization” of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Days after the ban was announced, Israeli officials reversed course and said that Tlaib would be allowed entry to visit her family in the West Bank; however, the freshman representative from Michigan ultimately declined to make the visit.

Four months later, Israel has remained a focal point of foreign policy conversations, with several 2020 candidates expressing support for leveraging aid to Israel. The House of Representatives passed — mostly along party lines — a resolution that reaffirmed U.S. support for a two-state solution and opposition to annexation.

Jewish Insider’s Jacob Kornbluh and Melissa Weiss examine whether the predictions from four months ago have panned out and the significance of the ban for U.S.-Israel relations.  

The ramifications: The move had “negative repercussions” on the U.S.-Israel relationship, Ron Halber, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, suggested in an interview with Jewish Insider. The decision to bar entry to Democratic lawmakers, coupled with recent comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suggesting that Israel would annex large swaths of the West Bank, “embolden people on the extreme, progressive left against Israel” and make the discussion of Israel in the 2020 election “exactly where we don’t want it to be,” Halber said. “We don’t want Israel to be a major focus of discussion in the Democratic primary. We want Israel to be assumed [as] a bipartisan area of agreement.” 

No bend on broad support: Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) tells JI’s Jacob Kornbluh that he doesn’t believe Israel’s decision had an impact on the bipartisan nature of support for Israel. There’s “broad support among a super-majority of the Democratic party“ for military aid for Israel in Congress, he said. Gottheimer described the presidential candidates who expressed support for leveraging aid to Israel as “splintered Democrats” and “far-left.” 

Add it to the list: Susie Gelman, chair of the Israel Policy Forum, told JI that while the entry ban on Tlaib and Omar didn’t “directly impact” the discussion on conditioning aid, it has the same “lasting, negative impact” on Democrats’ views on Israel similar to Netanyahu’s appearance before a joint session of Congress in 2015, when he pressed the body to reject then-President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Warning sign: According to Shalom Lipner, who worked in the Israeli prime minister’s office for 26 years, the trip incident “compounded together with other points of contention — such as Israel’s open identification with Trump… exacerbated an already fraught relationship and endangered fragile bipartisanship.” The debate among certain candidates over U.S. aid to Israel “is one definite symptom of this predicament,” Lipner said. 

Wrong move: New York Times opinion editor Bari Weiss, who wrote about the incident at the time, tells JI’s Melissa Weiss: “It was stupid and counterproductive, mostly because it just makes Israel look so weak and small, and like it has something to hide. The occupation is an ugly thing, but there’s also a lot of other excellent things that, on balance, when most people go to Israel and the Palestinian territories, they come away more — I hate the word pro-Israel — but more pro-Israel, not less. Or [they have] more of a sense of the complications of it.”

View from the right: Jack Rosen, a longtime donor to Democratic candidates and president of the American Jewish Congress, defended Israel’s decision. “Countries under attack, like Israel, have to be careful how they handle those who support their enemies. I think people understand that,” Rosen explained. “Americans are smart. They get it. They certainly understand that Israel has to take extra precaution given its situation. There’s a growing number of people on the left who are anti-Israel. This is nothing new in America. It’s only a small minority who feel emboldened.”

INTERNAL INTRIGUE — The debate within J Street over conditioning aid to Israel

The Intercept’s Maryam Saleh and Ryan Grim detail the internal debate that preceded J Street’s decision to take a lead on garnering support in favor of conditioning aid to Israel: 

“When the policy was debated internally earlier this year, it appeared that [J Street President Jeremy] Ben-Ami and, as a result, the board, were ready to get behind it, but sources with knowledge of the debate say that objections from the group’s Israel office derailed it. Specifically, Yael Patir, J Street’s Tel Aviv-based Israel director, warned that if it endorsed conditioning aid, J Street would lose any influence it had in the Knesset or Israeli politics generally. That influence, countered backers of the policy, was already at zero, so it shouldn’t be a hold-up. But the argument carried the day.”

Asked to respond, Ben-Ami told The Intercept he wouldn’t comment on J Street’s “sausage-making process,” and blasted the leakers: “It’s unfortunate, as always, in these situations when you want to have freedom to have conversations, and some folks decide to talk about them outside the room,” he said. 

Patir declined to comment in an email to JI.

WORTHY READS

📺 Media Watch: The Atlantic’s Elaina Plott takes a closer look at the success of Fox News host Tucker Carlson in the Trump era, his controversial remarks, and the anti-interventionist viewpoints on his prime-time daily program. [TheAtlantic] 

🤝 Dealmaking:The Associated Press’ Matt Lee details how Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) leveraged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s Senate hopes to get the State Department to release part of an internal legal opinion saying the U.S. has the right to demand U.N. snapback sanctions. In exchange, Cruz lifted his hold on the nomination for Stephen Biegun to serve as Foggy Bottom’s number two official, putting him in line to succeed Pompeo instead of David Hale, who testified in the impeachment inquiry. [AP]

🗳️ Learning Curve: Commentary’s Noah Rothman wonders whether Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will face the same scrutiny as the defeated U.K. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over his campaign’s affiliation with Corbyn, list of surrogates and aides with problematic antisemitic and anti-Israel views.