Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick waits for the results of a machine recount at the Voting Equipment Center in Lauderhill, Fla.

Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, a Democrat who prevailed by just five votes in South Florida’s recent special congressional primary, emphasized her continued support for Israel in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel. The 41-year-old healthcare executive said she met with AIPAC on Thursday in Washington, D.C. “We were able to have a long conversation, break down everything, understand what policies are there, and where everything is right now,” she told JI. Funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system, she said, was one major topic of discussion. (AIPAC declined to comment.)

Iron Dome: The defense funding was a high-profile issue in Cherfilus-McCormick’s race, where 11 candidates vied to succeed the late Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), a staunch pro-Israel advocate who died in April. Only one candidate, state Rep. Omari Hardy, opposed the recent legislation that would give Israel $1 billion in supplemental aid for the Iron Dome system. Cherfilus-McCormick, for her part, made clear — as did most other candidates in the race — that she would have voted in favor of the funding.

Her approach: Cherfilus-McCormick, who advocates for such progressive policies as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, suggested she would continue to speak up in support of the U.S.-Israel relationship, even as her Middle East foreign policy views put her at odds with some otherwise like-minded progressive lawmakers in the House. “I don’t think there should be tension because I think that we can have commonality in certain positions and policies but not have to be identical, and that’s necessary, especially, when you look at my district and who I represent,” she told JI. “I represent the people, and not necessarily someone else’s ideas.”

Strengthening alliances: Cherfilus-McCormick is all but assured a seat in Congress after the Jan. 11 general election in Florida’s heavily Democratic 20th Congressional District. The CEO of Trinity Home Healthcare poured millions of dollars of her own money into the race — her third bid for the seat. She will be the first Haitian-American Democrat in Congress if she is elected. “From the beginning, I always said that I believe that the Jewish community and the Black community are intimately tied,” she told JI, “and part of us moving forward is having our alliances.” She plans to visit Israel in February with a delegation of freshman Democratic House members sponsored by the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation.

Read the full story here.

With the aftereffects still being felt from the 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas in May, Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, joins Jewish Insider’s “Limited Liability Podcast” to discuss his new book, Gaza Conflict 2021: Hamas, Israel and Eleven Days of War, in which he argues that the Biden administration’s initial support of the Palestinian Authority election in April indirectly sparked the conflict.

Early start: “My view is that the war was probably put in motion a month before the conflict erupted. And that stemmed from a decision — an ill-fated decision — by the Biden administration when they first came in to accept the decision of the Palestinians to hold elections in April… Hamas was slated to take part in those elections. It would have undoubtedly led to a disastrous consequence had Hamas actually been able to take part because it would have meant that Hamas was going to hold seats in the parliament and take part in whatever the next government would look like. And that would trigger laws that would defund the Palestinian Authority here in the United States… In April, the U.S. prevailed upon the Palestinians to cancel the elections. But that left Hamas feeling pretty raw, left out of the political arena, and looking for a way to make themselves relevant again. And there is no better way for Hamas to make itself relevant than by waging war against Israel.”

Indirect result: “I’m not saying that they caused it directly; what I would say is that they made a disastrous decision. And I actually remember talking to a relatively senior Biden administration official when they made the call that they were going to move forward with these elections initially. And I asked, I said, ‘You know, don’t you think that it’s a bad idea that Hamas is taking part, given that Hamas is a designated terrorist organization here in the United States?’ And the response that I got was, ‘Well, far be it from us, after the disastrous events of January 6, for us to tell anyone who can take part in an election, what democracy should look like, how it should operate.’”

The chameleon: “Hamas is many things to many people or many regimes. It is one of Iran’s most important proxies based in the Gaza Strip. It is also a proxy of Turkey. It’s a proxy of Qatar. It’s even maybe, to some extent, a proxy of Malaysia, which gets very little attention. But I would argue that the group has really benefited over the last several decades from the largesse of Iran, and it has become a tool of Iran, even as its leaders maintain some semblance of independence from its paymasters in Tehran.”

Lightning round: Favorite Yiddish phrase? “It’s a phrase that I heard from my grandparents when they were mad at at people they would say ‘Gay kaken ofn yahm!’ One of my all-time favorites.” Favorite Arabic word? “I probably shouldn’t say this on your podcast, but I had an Egyptian friend that taught me five different words for fart. Which I have to say was really shocking to me.” Most memorable Middle Eastern dish? “It’s an Iraqi fish called masgouf. I think it comes out of the Euphrates River. It’s like a carp. And it’s a freshwater fish, very light, very flaky and when it is served with the rest of the Iraqi trappings, it’s tremendous. I had it, actually, in the town of Hilah, in central Iraq, in 2004. And it was incredibly memorable and then just had it again very recently, in Riyadh, and it lived up to expectations.”

Read more here and listen to the full podcast here.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Political Affairs Seyyed Abbas Araghchi (C) and Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service Enrique Mora (R) are seen as they are leaving after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Joint Commission Iran talks meeting in Vienna, Austria on June 02, 2021.

A group of Republican attorneys general and staffers from 11 states met in Washington, D.C., in early November to discuss strategies for keeping pressure on Iran if the Biden administration reenters the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or eases sanctions against the Islamic regime, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Come together: A panel of experts — Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (who also co-hosts Jewish Insider’s “Limited Liability Podcast”); Jonathan Missner, a partner at the law firm of Stein Mitchell Beato & Missner and board chair of Pro-Israel America; and Avi Jorisch, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council — addressed a group organized by the Republican Attorneys General Association with suggestions for steps that the state officials can take to counter Iran, especially in its efforts to fund terrorist activities. The gathering took place on the sidelines of a Federalist Society conference.

Follow the money: Goldberg said he laid out a number of ways that states and state AGs can deter in-state businesses from doing business with Iran. He proposed modernizing state pension laws to block investment in any business with ties to a number of Iranian financial, energy and construction sectors, in line with current U.S. sanctions. Current state pension laws addressing Iran are largely outdated, he explained. Goldberg also recommended that AGs warn financial institutions in their states against any association with banks that transact with Iran’s financial sector.

Reinforcements: Missner told JI that he focused on the role that AGs can play in supporting victims of Iranian terrorism who are suing the regime under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) — an issue with which his law firm has long been involved.  Missner said he offered to help connect AGs with Gold Star families who have been the victims of Iranian terrorism, and urged the AGs in attendance to “[push] back hard” against any attempts to rescind the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ designation as a terrorist organization, which he said could make JASTA suits more difficult.

Moving forward: “I think there’s going to be a lot of follow-up conversations and discussion and coordination with attorneys general across the country,” Goldberg said. “This is a big opportunity for attorneys general to send a message to President Biden that Republican attorneys general will do everything within their power to prevent Iran from gaining access to the banking sector and to resources that can fund terrorism, no matter what Biden does on the nuclear agreement.”

Read the full story here.

Deborah Lipstadt

Amid delays to her confirmation as the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, Deborah Lipstadt said on Sunday that she does not approach her work combating antisemitism from a partisan perspective, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Envoys abound: Lipstadt was speaking at a virtual event organized by the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a Holocaust memorial museum in Lower Manhattan, alongside Ira Forman, who served as the special envoy during the Obama administration. Her confirmation process for the special envoy post is being slow-tracked by Republican members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee concerned about her past tweets, particularly those about members of the committee.

Balls and strikes: “Someone once asked me, ‘Do you fight antisemitism on the right or the left?’ I said, ‘I am like an umpire. I am like what Chief Justice John Roberts believes Supreme Court justices should be,’” Lipstadt said. “I call balls and strikes as I see them. Then I throw up my umpire’s uniform and I become a fighter. I’m on the offensive when people are acting in a certain way and I’m going to defend those who are being attacked.”

Intent vs. content: “I don’t know what’s in someone’s heart. That’s between them and their cardiologist… But I don’t care. If a person acts in an antisemitic fashion, I’m going to call that out. I rarely call someone an anti-Semite — I have — but I rarely do,” Lipstadt added. “Very frequently, I’ll say that person expressed antisemitism or engaged in antisemitism.”

Making distinctions: Also during the event, Forman addressed the nine members of the House who voted against $1 billion in supplemental aid for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system.  “I think the vote against it was stupid, I think it was unknowing, it was a false premise, it was a double standard. And it can be criticized on other terms. So I think we have to be careful not to overuse [antisemitism].”

Read more here.