Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Friday morning!
Ed. Note: In celebration of Rosh Hashanah and Labor Day, the next Daily Kickoff will arrive on Thursday, September 9th. Wishing all of you a healthy and happy New Year!
For less-distracted reading over the long weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent JI stories, including: Ben Samuels returns to his roots; Bringing the Torah to the blockchain; Inside the effort to extract one family from Afghanistan; A rising tide of cultural tolerance in the UAE as it approaches its 50th year; The ‘Boy With No Job’ gets a new job; and Dara Horn on a world that only teaches about ‘dead Jews’. Print the latest edition here.
A group of Senate Democrats currently in Israel met this morning with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and President Isaac Herzog. “Bipartisanship is a sacred pillar of the U.S.-Israel alliance. Delighted to welcome a delegation of U.S. Democratic Senators to Jerusalem,” Herzog tweeted. “Held an open discussion with Senators Chris Murphy, Richard Blumenthal, Chris Van Hollen & Jon Ossoff about our shared interests and values.”
On Thursday, the delegation visited the Israeli Knesset where they met with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy. The meeting focused on the threat from Iran, improving U.S.-Israel ties and strengthening bipartisan support for Israel, a Knesset source told JI. The senators also raised the issue of reopening the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, which historically served as a base from which to conduct outreach to the Palestinians and was closed by the Trump administration in 2019. Lapid told foreign journalists this week that reopening the office was a “bad idea.” At the end of the meeting, Lapid met privately with the group of senators, the source said.
On their previous stop in Lebanon, the four Democratic senators met with Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati, Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri and Lebanese Armed Forces Commander Gen. Joseph Aoun, in addition to Lebanese President Michel Aoun, JI has learned. The meetings touched on political, economic and security issues as well as the situation in Afghanistan.
The State Department “intends to mark the anniversary of the Abraham Accords,” a State Department official told JI, but the official would not provide details about what those plans will be. Israel’s Kann reported this week that the Abraham Accords Peace Institute would host an anniversary event on Sept. 14, to be attended by current members of the Biden administration; former Trump administration officials; and the ambassadors of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.
A trilateral summit between Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority was held in Cairo on Thursday. The meeting between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II focused on reaching a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Abbas asserted his commitment to “a comprehensive and just peace based on the resolutions of the international legitimacy and under the auspices of the International Quartet,” a reference to the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States, according to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency.
Sisi and Abdullah reaffirmed their support for the Palestinian people and their commitment to a two-state solution, according to the report.
British national and ISIS member Alexanda Kotey pleaded guilty in a federal court in Virginia on Thursday to having participated in the torture and killing of American citizens, including journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley.
Toby Dershowitz, senior vice president the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told JI, “Alexanda Kotey and the others responsible must be held accountable, and justice must be served. At the same time, let us recognize that he was a foot soldier, a pawn in a larger chess game. To succeed in ending this game of whack-a-mole by terrorists, the U.S. needs to identify who enables these pawns. Who funds them? Who recruits and radicalizes them? Which countries provide material support and allow them refuge? Withdrawing from the fight should not be mistaken for victory. The war on terror will continue because our adversaries have not ended their war against us. We should not surrender.”
An ISIS supporter stabbed and wounded at least six people in a supermarket in Auckland, New Zealand, on Friday, before police fatally shot him. Authorities have described the stabbing as a terrorist attack.
Committee Competition
Republicans slam Meeks over blocked NDAA amendment on Iran sanctions

Congressman Gregory Meeks, D-NY, Wednesday, May 22, 2019, at LaGuardia Community College in New York.
Following Wednesday’s marathon National Defense Authorization Act markup in the House Armed Services Committee, some Republicans on the committee expressed frustration that House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Greg Meeks (D-NY) blocked the Armed Services Committee from proceeding with an amendment eliminating a waiver on Iran sanctions, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Background: The amendment, proposed Wednesday night by Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX), with the backing of the Republican Study Committee, would have repealed an exemption to sanctions imposed by the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act of 2012 on the country’s shipping, energy and shipbuilding industries provided to Afghanistan in the 2013 NDAA. That legislation gave the president the latitude to provide a waiver “for reconstruction assistance or economic development for Afghanistan.” Then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed off on the waiver in 2018, under the Trump administration, to allow for Afghanistan to import Iranian oil. The waiver also allowed supplies to be shipped to land-locked Afghanistan via Iran’s Chabahar port.
Crossover: Since the issue fell into the jurisdiction of both the Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, Meeks needed to provide a waiver to allow the amendment to move forward in Armed Services, but declined to do so. Without the waiver, Fallon withdrew the amendment after introducing it.
Frustration: With the Taliban now in control of Afghanistan and Iranian oil sales to Afghanistan resuming, some of the amendment’s supporters argued the waiver should be eliminated.“It baffles me that a bipartisan amendment striking language from a previous NDAA was not granted a waiver by Chairman Meeks,” Fallon told Jewish Insider. “We’re removing an exception from Iranian sanctions meant to benefit the previous allied Afghan government — an exception that now benefits the Taliban and Iran. This shouldn’t be controversial. Additionally, where better to repeal outdated provisions of old NDAAs…than the NDAA.”
Pushback: “Waiving or not waiving jurisdiction is part of the regular negotiations between committees for any bill,” a House Foreign Affairs Committee aide told JI. “When it comes to Rep. Fallon’s proposed amendment, the committee wants to preserve this or any future administration’s ability to provide humanitarian assistance to vulnerable Afghans who may be in need of assistance.”
Read more here.
Elsewhere on the Hill: Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH), Mike Waltz (R-FL), Dean Phillips (D-MN) and Grace Meng (D-NY) are expected to introduce a House bill creating a joint U.S.-Israel artificial intelligence research center today, Jewish Insider has learned. The legislation is a companion to a Senate bill introduced in June by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA).