Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Wednesday morning!
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid met in Washington, D.C., yesterday with Vice President Kamala Harris, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL), Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Joe Wilson (R-SC).
Schneider told Jewish Insider, regarding the meeting with House legislators, “This was a small, bipartisan group that had a chance to talk about the priorities for Mr. Lapid on his visit,” including Iran’s nuclear program, Iron Dome funding and the two-state solution. “It’s a great honor to be with the foreign minister and reaffirm the bipartisan commitment to a strong U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Lapid called Harris “one of the best friends Israel has in Washington,” despite recent criticisms of the vice president by some pro-Israel advocates over her handling of an exchange with a George Mason University student who accused Israel of “ethnic genocide.”
In remarks to reporters prior to a private meeting, Lapid praised Pelosi for “some sleepless nights” spent moving supplemental Iron Dome funding through the House over objections from some members of her party.
Lapid reportedly warned Sullivan that the U.S. needs an alternative plan to address Iran’s nuclear ambitions if it is unable to reenter the 2015 nuclear agreement.
Today, Lapid will participate in a trilateral meeting with Secretary of State Tony Blinken and United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed.
The three officials are expected to jointly announce working groups on religious coexistence and water and energy issues, which the officials described as an outgrowth of the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and the UAE last year.
Tomorrow, Lapid will meet with Jewish leaders from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, according to an invitation obtained by JI.
Government officials and Jewish leaders are in Malmö, Sweden, this week for the Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating Antisemitism. Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai was set to meet with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven to discuss the first-ever European Union Commission strategy on antisemitism and how best to serve the Swedish Jewish community. Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Blinken addressed the forum virtually.
“When criticism of a particular Israeli policy mutates into questioning Israel’s very right to exist — this is not diplomacy, this is demonization and antisemitism, because Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People,” Herzog said, calling for international cooperation to fight antisemitism and stressing the need to remove antisemitic content from social media.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt called on participants to address three core issues surrounding antisemitism: violence, cyberhate and education. “If we can work together to tackle those three issues, Jewish communities around the world will live more confidently and more freely in a much better and safer world,” he said. American Jewish Committee President Harriet Schleifer also addressed the conference.
squad like
In the Florida 20 special election, one candidate declares opposition to Iron Dome funding

Florida State Rep. Omari Hardy
In the crowded special House primary to succeed Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), no fewer than 11 candidates are competing for the rare open seat that had long been occupied by the former dean of Florida’s congressional delegation, who died in April at 84. Even with just a few weeks remaining until voters cast their ballots on Nov. 2, the race remains somewhat in flux. But experts who spoke with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel identified a group of top-tier candidates who are likely to emerge from the crowded field, including such elected officials as state Sen. Perry Thurston, state Rep. Bobby DuBose and Broward County Commissioners Dale Holness and Barbara Sharief, the latter of whom earlier this week notched an endorsement from Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL).
Voting no: While the leading contenders all seem largely aligned in their support for Israel — a cause championed by Hastings during his time in Congress — one staunchly progressive wild-card candidate, first-term state Rep. Omari Hardy, is sharing more critical views of the U.S.-Israel relationship. In an interview with JI on Monday, Hardy, 31, expressed his firm opposition to legislation that would grant $1 billion in supplemental aid for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system. The bill, which is currently stalled in the Senate, was overwhelmingly approved last month by both parties following an emotionally charged House vote in which just eight Democrats and one Republican voted against the measure. “I would have voted no,” Hardy said bluntly. “Some folks have argued that voting against the billion dollars is taking the position that Israel doesn’t have a right to defend itself or that America should not help Israel defend itself,” he added. “I think that’s disingenuous given that we’re still providing $3.8 billion of military aid to Israel this year.”
BDS and conditioning aid: Hardy supports conditioning aid to the Jewish state, arguing that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank amounts to a series of human rights violations that the U.S. is effectively funding by proxy. “I can’t vote to send military aid to Israel as long as the human rights abuses continue,” he said. “My conscience won’t let me support some of the very problematic practices there…The funding is leverage that we have to ensure that Palestinians are not mistreated,” Hardy elaborated, “and to the extent that we have leverage to generate an outcome that is in comportment with our values, we should use that leverage.” Though critics have argued that the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement also unfairly targets Israel, Hardy said he supports the cause out of a conviction that non-violent resistance is the last avenue of legitimate recourse available to the Palestinians.
Outside the norm: While Hardy’s positions on Israel stand well outside the Democratic mainstream, they are even more striking because they go beyond what some of the most outspoken Israel critics in the House have been willing to say publicly. Even the leading far-left candidates across the country who are now mounting congressional primary challenges with backing from Justice Democrats, the feisty political group that had at one point labeled Israel a “human rights violator,” have balked at calls to boycott Israel, instead advocating for conditioning aid to the Jewish state.
Varying disapproval: Local Jewish leaders in and around South Florida’s 20th Congressional District, which includes Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, expressed varying levels of disapproval with regard to Hardy’s Middle East foreign policy views, despite his appeal to transparency. “On the BDS stuff, that’s obviously disappointing, and on the Iron Dome stuff that’s obviously disappointing,” said Mitchell Berger, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer and prominent Hardy campaign donor. “On how much you fund Israel, that’s a legitimate topic for debate right now.” He said he would continue to support Hardy in spite of their disagreements on Israel. “I’ll certainly try and educate him as to why he is wrong on these things,” Berger told JI.
Change of tone: “We are concerned about him, there’s no question about it,” said Richard Stark, who chairs the Broward County Democratic Party Jewish Caucus and cohosted a candidate forum last month in which Hardy participated. During the forum, as Stark recalled, Hardy seemed significantly more sympathetic to Israel than his current views would suggest, even explicitly stating his opposition to BDS. “That doesn’t mean that he was not speaking the truth,” Stark told JI. “But what’s getting out is that he may not be so pro-Israel like he portrayed himself in our meeting.”