(Photo by PAUL J. RICHARD/Getty Images)

For former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, the Middle East is hardly a new topic. But now he is looking at it from another man’s perspective. In his latest book, Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the Art of Middle East Diplomacy, published today by Random House, Indyk delves into the diplomatic approach employed by the famed secretary of state toward the notoriously difficult region. In the book and in conversation on Jewish Insider’s “Limited Liability Podcast,” Indyk describes Kissinger’s strategy as an “incremental” advance towards peace.

Kissingerian approach: “We need a Kissingerian incremental process in which each side takes smaller steps without defining what the actual outcome should be, other than the general proposition of an independent Palestinian state living alongside the Jewish state in peace and security. But beyond that… leave the end game to later, and let’s see if we can identify steps that start to rebuild confidence, start to build a more positive relationship, start to give the Palestinians, in Kissinger’s words, the ‘attributes of sovereignty,’ start to try to create a kind of what he called a ‘state in the making,’ but not trying to push it. Just try to move it in the right direction as much as the traffic would bear.”

On a two-state solution: “In the Holy Land, there’s a difference between being dead and [being] buried. For all intents and purposes, it [a two-state solution] looks dead at the moment. But I would say that, if you look at the other so-called solutions, they’re not solutions. They’re just recipes for continued conflict. The only solution, even though we don’t have a way to get there, that actually resolves the conflict is a two-state solution.”

‘Accidental peacemaker’: “I give the Trump administration credit for the Abraham Accords — but in particular, Avi Berkowitz, and also Jared Kushner — not because they intended to achieve this normalization, but because when the Emirates… came forward and said, ‘We’ll normalize if you stop the annexation,’ and to Kushner and Berkowitz’s credit, they pivoted and recognized that there was an opportunity here and got behind it and drove it as far as they could in terms of getting the Sudan and Bahrain and Morocco on board as well… I called Trump the accidental peacemaker in this case, but it was important. And it was important because it was exactly what Kissinger predicted. Kissinger expected that over time, the powers in the region would exhaust themselves and come around to recognizing that they needed to make peace.”

Advice to Tom Nides: “My advice to him is, ‘Get ready for a great ride.’ The most enjoyable and most interesting job I’ve ever had was in Israel — was the reason I went twice. Every door will be open to him and every Israeli will have an opinion. And the wonderful thing about that is that the opinions change every week.”

Lightning Round: Favorite Yiddish word? Chutzpah. Favorite Jewish food? Bourekas. Recent book recommendation? Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury by Evan Osnos.

Read more and listen to the podcast here.

Rep. Anthony G. Brown (D-MD) speaks at a press conference about President Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Capitol Wednesday, July 18, 2018.

Hours after Rep. Anthony Brown (D-MD) announced his run for Maryland attorney general, attention is turning to the candidates — two of whom have already filed the paperwork — vying to replace him in the state’s 4th Congressional District, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. The majority-Black district is the most Democratic in the state, encompassing parts of Prince George’s County and Anne Arundel County.

Early entrants: Glenn Ivey is a former state’s attorney in Prince George’s County who ran for the seat in 2016 and lost to Brown in the Democratic primary. Jazz Lewis is a member of the Maryland House of Delegates and a senior advisor to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), whose congressional district sits next to Brown’s. Lewis, who filed with the Federal Election Commission yesterday, is expected to announce his candidacy this morning.

Community connections: Lewis “is in the mold of Hoyer — a stalwart defender of the relationship [between the U.S. and Israel] and someone who I think aspires to strengthen the Hoyer legacy in that regard,” said Daniel Silverberg, who served as Hoyer’s national security adviser until earlier this year and worked closely with Lewis. “Glenn has a really good relationship with the Jewish community,” said Susan Turnbull, who was the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor in Maryland’s 2018 gubernatorial race.

Edwards again: Another rumored candidate is Donna Edwards, who represented the district before Brown but left to mount an unsuccessful Senate campaign in 2016. She is now a contributing columnist at The Washington Post and an analyst on MSNBC and NBC News. Edwards faced criticism from members of the Maryland Jewish community in her 2016 Senate run for her views on Israel, including a “present” vote on a near-unanimous 2009 House resolution asserting Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas.

Trends: “When she was in Congress, she was pretty much a lonely voice” on Israel, said Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt, rabbi at the Conservative Congregation B’nai Tzedek in Potomac and head of the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition, regarding Edwards. “Now there’s a ‘Squad,’ there are others who share her attitude towards Israel. It should be that much more of a concern to the pro-Israel community.” Edwards told The Washington Post in 2015 that “I am a staunch supporter of Israel and fully back America’s commitment to Israel’s security. I’ve traveled throughout Israel and seen her promise and the threats to her existence.”

Read the full story here.

Deborah Lipstadt walks a red carpet for ‘Denial’ during the 11th Rome Film Festival at Auditorium Parco Della Musica on October 17, 2016 in Rome, Italy.

Deborah Lipstadt, the Biden administration’s nominee to be the State Department special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, discussed her nomination, the recent antisemitism controversy involving the Sunrise Movement’s D.C. chapter and her approach to and concerns about modern antisemitism at an event on Monday night, reports Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod. The Holocaust historian and Emory University professor addressed a virtual audience from the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston. Her participation in that event was a somewhat unusual move for a nominee awaiting Senate confirmation, but offered clues as to how she might tackle the position if confirmed.

Sunrise story: Lipstadt addressed a recent statement from the D.C. chapter of the climate activist organization Sunrise Movement, in which the group announced it would not collaborate on voting rights issues with several pro-Israel Jewish groups. “It was an overtly antisemitic act,” Lipstadt said. “If you support the existence of the State of Israel according to this, then you are a racist… What it is saying is that, ‘You Jews, as a people, you do not have a right to a national identity.’” She noted that the group did not have the same objections to non-Jewish groups that also support Israel, like the American Federation of Teachers.

Campus beat: Lipstadt also drew a distinction between the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement at large and individual supporters of BDS, particularly students on college campuses who she said may have “backed into antisemitism… Young people on campuses who support BDS because they see it as a way of changing Israel’s policies, I don’t label them as antisemitic. I think they’re wrong. I think it’s a mistake,” she said. “But if you look at the founding documents of the BDS movement, you see an effort to destroy the State of Israel. There’s no question about it. That I find antisemitic.”

Stepping in: Lipstadt said she’s been asked why, given her tenured position at Emory, she decided to take up the role, and that initially she did not want to be considered. “I wasn’t going to let my name be put in the hat, but someone said to me, ‘Deborah, you can make a difference,’” she recalled at the event. “And I can think of no better thing to aim at being able to do. I won’t solve the problem, no one person can solve the problem. But if I can make a difference… dayenu, it will be enough.”

Read the full story here.

HaMakom’s hot chicken sandwich (Danny Kim)

After years of having just a single kosher meat restaurant in Washington, D.C., the city will gain a second when HaMakom opens in the coming weeks in the new George Washington University Hillel building, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Hits the spot: HaMakom — Hebrew for “the spot” — will serve a globally inspired “meat and vegan” menu with some Jewish standbys, like chicken noodle soup and a pastrami sandwich. The restaurant is operated by Yehuda Malka, the co-owner of the Schmaltz Bros food truck. (The company also offers a catering service.) HaMakom will borrow some of the most popular Schmaltz Brothers menu items, like its Nashville hot chicken sandwich.

Read the full story here.

Sawsan Natur-Hasson, director of the Middle East Economic Relations Department at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs

When Sawsan Natur-Hasson was growing up in a Druze village in northern Israel, there was no such thing as a female role model for a budding diplomat. The path from Dalyat al-Carmel, a tradition-minded hill town on Mount Carmel, to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she is today the director of the Middle East Economic Relations Department, had not been blazed.  And while a decade has passed since she became the first Druze woman to join the country’s diplomatic corps — and few have followed her lead, in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Tamara Zieve, she remained optimistic that the door she kicked open will stay that way.

Paying it forward: “This is why I feel that there is a responsibility for how I’m reflecting this position and what I do for the women in my community — but not only in the community,” she said. Now a role model herself for a new generation of Druze women whose community is slowly broadening its horizons, Natur-Hasson lectures at universities and schools, seeing it as a personal mission to share her experiences and empower other women.

Duty calls: The road from Dalyat al-Carmel to Jerusalem is a long one, but Natur-Hasson leaned on the advice from her parents, who taught her to seek out ways to serve her country. Druze women in Israel are not required to serve in the Israeli Defense Forces, and Hasson instead carved out a career path through which she could contribute to her country. In 2010, she broke the glass ceiling for Druze women at the Foreign Ministry, taking a post in the Egypt department.

New era of business relations: She assumed her current role at the beginning of this year, several months after Israel signed the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, normalizing relations with the two Gulf countries, later joined by Morocco and Sudan. The Middle East Economic Relations Department is part of working groups and joint committees with representatives of Arab countries who together tackle obstacles and barriers faced by the business sectors. It works to push forward the development process of economic agreements; it facilitates business delegations, webinars and regional projects, aimed at assisting business communities in the region to interact.

Community in transition: Although she broke that glass ceiling over 10 years ago, to date there is only one other Druze female diplomat who has joined Israel’s diplomatic service, though there are other Druze women working in the Foreign Ministry. Hasson explained that her conservative community is going through a transition period in which women are taking up more senior positions, such as those of lawyers, doctors, judges and academics. She has been happy to lend counsel to others interested in pursuing similar paths, noting that one Druze woman is currently enrolled in the Foreign Ministry’s cadets course and several others are taking the exams to qualify for it, while more plan on doing so in several years. “So this is really encouraging,” Hasson said.

Read the full interview here.