
Daily Kickoff: Bill Kristol’s evolution + Burlington, Vt. to vote on a BDS resolution tonight
👋 Good Monday morning!
It’s not the first Monday in May… or September. However, this evening is the annual Met Gala. The New York Times’s Vanessa Friedman has the details.
Diplomats and government officials in Washington and New York are preparing to mark the first anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords, the agreement that normalized relations between Israel and two Arab nations on Sept. 15, 2020.
In New York today, the permanent missions of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco will hold a joint celebration to mark the Accords’ signing. In addition to the ambassadors to the U.N. from those four countries, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield will speak.
In Washington tomorrow, the Israeli, Bahraini and Emirati ambassadors will speak at a panel discussion moderated by Robert Greenway, executive director of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute. Jared Kushner, who as former President Donald Trump’s senior advisor helped spearhead the Accords, will deliver introductory remarks, and two members of the Knesset — Ofir Akunis and Ruth Wasserman Lande, the co-chairs of the Parliamentary Caucus for Promoting the Abraham Accords — will also speak at the event.
Billionaire tycoon Najib Mikati was named Lebanon’s prime minister on Friday, presenting the best chance of a stable government in more than a year for a country ravaged by corruption, a pandemic, a deadly explosion at Beirut’s port and a free-fall economy. Mikati has served in the role twice before.
In Washington, Lebanon experts argued that the new cabinet does not, fundamentally, change the situation on the ground for Lebanon or the region and that Hezbollah remains the most influential actor in the country.
Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JI, “It doesn’t affect anything in terms of the balance of power in Lebanon. The predominant power on every level — military, security, political, financial, economic — is Hezbollah… The birth of this government at this moment came because Hezbollah deemed it so.”
interview
Bill Kristol’s political evolution

Bill Kristol speaking during the event titled “The forgotten Americans: An economic agenda for a divided nation” at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
A life-long conservative, William Kristol raised eyebrows inside the Beltway last month when the McLean, Va., resident endorsed Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s gubernatorial race. Best known for his support for interventionism and the Iraq War, Kristol, who is now editor-at-large of The Bulwark, decided that it would be disingenuous not to weigh in on the heated governor’s race in his home state. In conversation with Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch, Kristol discussed whether he still identifies as a Republican (no, not really), what he makes of the growing contingent of Democrats who are hostile to Israel (“it’s very foolish to just write off the Democrats”) and whether Iraq was really worth it (“I’m uncertain about Iraq”).
On another level: “[VA GOP nominee Glenn] Youngkin fundamentally is unwilling to break with Trump and Trumpism. Some people can say in response, well, that’s just rhetoric. And I think it’s a fair point. I think it’s easier to vote for a Republican for governor than for Congress, because if you’re going to be in Congress, you’re going to be supporting [House Minority Leader] Kevin McCarthy. If you’re in the Senate, you’re going to be voting in conjunction with various Trumpists. That’s a more immediate referendum on Trump.”
Self-identify: “[Transportation Secretary] Pete Buttigieg said during the [2020 presidential] campaign that he hoped he would appeal to, and that he hoped Biden would appeal to if Biden was the nominee, what he called ‘future former Republicans.’ I’ve used that term a few times to describe myself now. As a friend pointed out, there’s only so long you can be a future former Republican. At some point, you have to decide, Are you a former Republican, or are you still? I guess I’m more on the former side.”
Reassessing: “Look, obviously, if you supported [the Iraq War] you’d be crazy not to have thought, rethought and worried about whether you were right.”
Caution: “I say to people who are uncertain about the Democratic Party and Israel, all the more reason to fight to define the Democratic Party on Israel. It’s not going to be a happy story if we have a pro-Israel Republican Party and an anti-Israel Democratic Party.”
Ohio Senate: On what Kristol thinks of the campaign run by Ohio Senate candidate Josh Mandel, a Republican, who was criticized by the Anti-Defamation League for comparing mask mandates to the Gestapo: “It’s horrible and it’s embarrassing.”