Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Tuesday morning!
The Senate unanimously passed a resolution introduced by Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK) condemning the recent uptick in antisemitic violence.
The resolution also urges President Joe Biden to nominate an ambassador to monitor and combat antisemitism, allocate “sufficient resources” for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, engage international organizations to combat antisemitism and advance Holocaust education.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and apologized for previously comparing mask and vaccine mandates to the Holocaust. When prompted by a reporter, she declined to retract remarks comparing the modern Democratic Party to the Nazi Party.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN)told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that while “it was good” that Greene went to the museum and apologized, Greene’s refusal to stop comparing the parties indicate that she “didn’t learn a lot” from the visit.
Twenty-two Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee argue in a new letter to President Joe Biden that it is “impossible to simply ‘return’” to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and that any agreement with Iran must be submitted for congressional review.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach towards American political partisanship “careless and dangerous,” in a speech delivered yesterday.
Israel’s contentious nationalist Flag March is set to take place in Jerusalem today. The march, which parades Israeli flags around the Old City, is expected to inflame already-existing tensions. Israeli security forces are preparing for violence in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza border, including the deployment of additional Iron Dome missile-defense batteries to the country’s south. Hamas has threatened rocket attacks, should the march take place.
Energy Nation
Israel-focused energy organization pivots to focus exclusively on Abraham Accords
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahyan and Bahrain Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, stand on the Blue Room Balcony during the Abraham Accords signing ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House, Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2020, in Washington.
Council for a Secure America (CSA), a nonprofit originally founded in the 1980sto build ties between the American energy industry and the pro-Israel community, is rewriting its mission to focus primarily on furthering the goal of the Abraham Accords within the energy industry, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
New mission: According to the new mission statement, which was unveiled last week, CSA will work to connect people working in the oil and gas industry in the U.S. with counterparts in Israel and Gulf nations, and to make American professionals aware of the benefits of working with Israel.
Resource connection: Victoria Coates, a former Trump administration official and an architect of the normalization agreements between Israel and the Arab nations, argues that the deals would not have been possible had Israel not begun commercial production of natural gas in 2019. “It’s my position that the Abraham Accords, absent the shift in Israel’s energy posture, would not have occurred,” Coates, who served as special advisor to Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette in the Trump administration, told JI. She is spearheading the project as a recent addition to CSA’s advisory board.
Remaining relevant: CSA’s new mission comes as alternative forms of energy have gained traction in recent years, particularly in the wake of climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The organization worried about staying relevant as political winds shifted against the core of its mission. “There is a major, major, major movement away from fossil fuel towards alternative fuels,” said Fred Zeidman, the co-chair of CSA’s board and a longtime oil industry executive and Republican activist. “We decided we had to come up with some way to expand the agenda of the Council for a Secure America. What we could not do was to forsake fossil fuel, because that was 100% of our whole mission.” Cooperating with Gulf nations was an easy choice; energy is those countries’ primary source of revenue.
New ecosystem: CSA joins the small but growing industry of think tanks and other nongovernmental organizations looking to further the work of the Abraham Accords. CSA plans to work with the Abraham Accords Institute for Peace, a nonprofit founded earlier this year by former senior Trump administration officials Jared Kushner, Avi Berkowitz and Rob Greenway to increase trade and tourism between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan — the countries that signed onto the agreements.
campus beat
Complaint filed against Stanford University for disregarding antisemitism
Stanford University
Two Stanford University mental health services providers filed a complaint against the California university for creating a hostile environment for Jewish staffers, according to documents obtained by Jewish Insider on Tuesday.
Details: The employees, Sheila Levin and Dr. Ronald Albucher, allege in a complaint filed by the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights that university officials did not act to address reported concerns over programming hosted by the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) committee within the school’s Counseling & Psychological Services (CAPS), where Levin and Albucher were both employed, reports Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss. Albucher headed CAPS until 2017 and now serves as a staff psychiatrist there, as well as an associate professor at the university’s medical school; Levin left the university last month.
Background: The complaint states that the DEI committee began holding weekly seminars beginning in January 2020. Despite requests to include antisemitism in the trainings, program facilitators — themselves CAPS staffers who had not received any special training to run DEI programming — declined to do so. Levin and Albucher describe a series of incidents that occurred in the months after the program’s inception.
Warm welcome: The initial announcement that the department would adopt DEI programming was welcomed by both Levin and Albucher. “As a mental health counselor, it’s an important thing to understand other cultures, religions and so on so that you can do a better job connecting with your patients,” Albucher said. “This would be the last place I really would have expected something like this to happen. It’s made it even all the more shocking that in the midst of a program dedicated to inclusion, Jews were being deliberately excluded.”
Allegations: During one weekly seminar, staffers were separated into “affinity groups” with membership determined “on the basis of race or perceived race.” Levin was grouped with white staffers, despite protestations. The two staffers also allege that requests last spring to address antisemitism in the context of the disruption of an event on the campus — a “Zoom-bombing” in which racist symbols, including a swastika, were displayed — were rejected by DEI committee members. “Everybody started attacking [Albucher],” Levin recalled. “Staff just tore Ron up just for asking why they omitted swastikas from the discussion… They were talking about his privilege and that he was basically wanting to take up time talking about antisemitism, rather than focusing on anti-Black racism, which really wasn’t true. He just wanted to know why there were swastikas in the Zoom bombing.”
airwaves
Pro-Israel America United airs ad against Omar on Minnesota TV
Screenshot
Pro-Israel America United is running a new and highly critical ad against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), following recent comments in which she appeared to equate Israel and the United States with Hamas and the Taliban. The 30-second spot, which airs this morning, will run on digital platforms and all week in the Minneapolis media market.
What it says: “She’s gone too far,” the narrator intones. “Now Ilhan Omar says the United States has committed ‘unthinkable atrocities,’ like Hamas and the Taliban. Hamas is a terrorist group that targets and murders innocent civilians. The Taliban protected Osama Bin Laden while he killed 3,000 Americans. And Ilhan Omar says we’re the same as them? Ilhan Omar is a United States representative. Tell her to start acting like one.”
On the Hill: Three House Republicans introduced a resolution to censure Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), accusing them of “inciting antisemitic attacks across the United States” and “defending foreign terrorist organizations.”
Vote Count: Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), who signed a statement condemning Omar last week, would not support removing her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a spokesperson told Jewish Insider. Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) also said he would not support such action.
Worthy Reads
🤜🤛 Strange Bedfellows: Despite worries over the potential longevity of Israel’s new eight-party governing coalition, Aaron David Miller argues in Foreign Policy the government is “more stable than it looks.” While opposition to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu served as the catalyst for the coalition, that driving principle has melded a consensus-seeking coalition. “The new coalition may have the best of intentions to promote consensus and keep disagreement under control,” Miller writes. [FP]
🤝 Wait and See: While a four-decade relationship with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu was key to negotiating the cease-fire with Hamas last month, President Joe Biden eagerly welcomed the elevation of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday. But while the Biden administration hopes a new Israeli government led, for the first time in 12 years, by someone other than Netanyahu offers the chance for a refresh in U.S.-Israel relations, the White House is reportedly waiting to see what policies the right-wing Bennett, who has never met Biden, implements in his first weeks in office. [WSJ]
🤯 Thrown for a Loop: Bret Stephens writes in the New York Times how the makeup of Israel’s new government “must be a puzzle for anyone who thinks of the Jewish state as a racist, fascistic, apartheid enterprise.” [NYT]
Around the Web
🪧 On the Hill: Members of the Jewish Democratic Council of America and the Orthodox Union are virtually lobbying legislators this week to do more to combat antisemitism.
😷 Opening Up: Israel is loosening its remaining coronavirus restrictions and will no longer require masks to be worn indoors.
💣 Caught in the Act: Israeli forces seized a small weapons cache during an attempt to smuggle them into Israel from Jordan.
🧥 Animal Rights: Israel became the first country to ban fur clothing, but left loopholes open for fur shtreimels — hats worn by ultra-Orthodox men.
🧍Human Rights: Four GOP senatorscalled on United Nations Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield to “focus the international community’s attention” on human rights abuses by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen.
💸 Raising Dough: Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has founded the Champion American Values PAC to help fundraise for GOP candidates, as the former Kansas congressman tours the country in leadup to a possible presidential run.
📊 New Poll: A new survey from the Anti-Defamation League estimated that 60% of American Jews experienced antisemitism as a result of the recent tensions between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
🙅♂️ Never Again: Jewish organizations are pushing back on Arizona’s potential moves to begin using gas chambers for executions.
🚑 Need for Speed: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill recognizing United Hatzalah as an official emergency service, allowing its ambulances to use lights and sirens.
🪑 Musical Chairs: As many workers return to the office part-time, they are finding seating more limited with so-called “hot desks” replacing assigned space.
🎥 Silver Screen: Natalie Portman will star alongside Julianne Moore in Todd Haynes’s new drama “May December.”
📺 Small Screen: Monica Lewinsky has signed a producing deal with 20th Television, as she nears completion of her first production, “Impeachment: American Crime Story.”
💼 Transition: Former Labour MP Joan Ryan, who left the party in 2019 over internal antisemitism, will oversee the new U.K. office of ELNET, the European Leadership Network, which promotes ties between Europe and Israel.
Birthdays
Dana Bash attends the Turner Upfront 2017 arrivals on the red carpet at The Theater at Madison Square Garden on May 17, 2017 in New York City.
Chief political correspondent for CNN, Dana Bash turns 50…
Swedish author and psychologist, a survivor of both Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, Hédi Fried turns 97… Iranian-born British businessman, his companies employ 70,000 people across 67 countries, Baron David Alliance turns 89… Co-founder with his father and brothers in 1961 of Canadian radio and television conglomerate Astral Media, Ian Greenberg turns 79… Former president of the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Phoenix, Stuart C. Turgel turns 73… Author, attorney and former president of the National Rifle Association, Sandra S. “Sandy” Froman turns 72… Ethicist and professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, Laurie Zoloth turns 71… Authority on Yiddish folk and theater music, Zalmen Mlotek turns 70… Vice president of the Eurasian Jewish Congress, Alexander Bronstein Ph.D. turns 67… President and CEO of Edelman, Richard Winston Edelman turns 67… Chief rabbi of Poland, Rabbi Michael Schudrich turns 66… Israeli Druze politician who serves as a member of the Knesset for Likud, Fateen Mulla turns 61… Writer and journalist, Jill Eisenstadt turns 58… Tax manager at Berdon LLP, Reuben Rutman turns 57…
Los Angeles-based attorney, Daniel Brett Lacesa turns 56… Regional director of the ADL based in Los Angeles, Jeffrey I. Abrams turns 54… Deputy managing editor at The New York Times, Clifford J. Levy turns 54… Retired news anchor for Israel Public Broadcasting, she is married to Gideon Saar, Geula Even-Saar turns 49… White House speechwriter for former First Lady Michelle Obama, she wrote a 2019 book Here All Along about her Judaism, Sarah Hurwitz turns 44… Ethiopian-born Israeli marathon runner, Zohar Zimro turns 44… Senior global affairs analyst at CNN, Bianna Golodryga turns 43… Co-founder of Evergreen Strategy Group, he is a former director of speechwriting for Hillary Clinton and was also the principal collaborator on HRC’s two memoirs, Daniel Baum Schwerin turns 39… Director of corporate communications and public affairs at Google, Rebecca Rutkoff turns 36… VP of leadership development at Birthright Israel Foundation, Jackie Soleimani turns 35… Training and development specialist at UBS, Victoria Elian Edelman turns 35… Foreign affairs producer at PBS NewsHour, Ali S. Weinberg Rogin turns 34… President and COO at Georgetown University Student Investment Fund, Elli Sweet turns 21…
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