Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Wednesday morning!
President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden, along with Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, will light Hanukkah candles tonight at 5:30 PM in a small event in the East Room of the White House, with approximately 150 guests attending.
Speaking last night at a virtual congressional Hanukkah celebration, Emhoff reflected on the “honor” of being the first Jewish spouse of a president or vice president.
Emhoff said, “To think of those humble beginnings, a kid born in Brooklyn, raised in central New Jersey, and now living in the vice president’s residence and being able to light a menorah, it’s humbling… This representation really matters. I feel it for my 84-year-old father, and his friends.”
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) told Jewish Insider that he has reached out to House leadership about including the $1 billion Iron Dome supplement in the upcoming short-term government funding resolution (continuing resolution) but has not received a response.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters earlier Tuesday that he was looking to bring the bill to the floor as soon as today.
Gottheimer added that “it’s unclear” how long the stopgap funding might last, “so I think a lot of that will play in,” but said he and the more than 80 lawmakers who signed a recent letter on the subject “think it should be included in the continuing resolution, and I feel strongly about that.”
Michael Adler, the Miami real estate developer nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Belgium, will appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a confirmation hearing today.
Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin will visit Richmond’s Keneseth Beth Israel synagogue this afternoon, where he will attend Mincha services and light Hanukkah candles with the community.
Bipartisan leaders on the House Foreign Affairs Committee — Reps. Greg Meeks (D-NY), Michael McCaul (R-TX), Ted Deutch (D-FL) and Joe Wilson (R-SC) — introduced a bill that would sanction any individual involved in the direct or indirect supply, transfer or sale of combat drones to or from Iran.
The Stop Iranian Drones Act also states that it is U.S. policy to prevent “Iran and Iranian-aligned terrorist and militia groups” from acquiring drones that can be used against U.S. and partner nations’ personnel, including commercially available parts.
power move
Amid electricity crisis, Lebanon likely to receive Israeli fuel

U.S. Bureau of Energy Resources Special Envoy Amos Hochstein delivers a speech during opening ceremony of Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) in Thessaloniki, Greece on May 17, 2016.
Egyptian gas could start flowing to Lebanon in the next two to three months, the U.S. State Department’s senior advisor for global energy security, Amos Hochstein, said in a CNBC interview earlier this week. But unspoken in Hochstein’s Monday interview — and in public comments about the deal from leaders in the four Arab nations — is that the natural gas reaching Lebanon will almost certainly include not just Egyptian but also Israeli gas, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
In plain sight: “I think it is the worst-kept secret in town, and in fact, it’s not secret anymore. Everybody in the region knows,” said David Schenker, who served as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in former President Donald Trump’s administration. “Hezbollah is well aware of this, and once again, they’re in a difficult position. They can’t say no. Beggars, in this case, can’t be choosers.”
‘Stealth’ normalization? The natural gas that reaches Jordan from Egypt is mixed with natural gas from Israel, so the two products are typically indistinguishable, according to the Atlantic Council. But Schenker, who is currently the Taube Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, cautions that just because Lebanon accepts the reality of using Israeli natural gas at a moment of acute crisis does not mean the country is preparing to build ties with Israel. People may be tempted to call it “stealth normalization,” Schenker said, but “I don’t think it’s going to improve the environment at all between Lebanon and Israel.”
On the brink: “This notion that Lebanon always teeters but never falls? That’s not necessarily true,” Hochstein told CNBC. “We need to be vigilant and we need to do everything we can.” The natural gas would flow from Egypt to Lebanon through Jordan and Syria. Lebanon is in the midst of an economic recession and an electricity crisis, with rolling blackouts leaving most people in the country with just a few hours of electricity a day.
Outdone by Iran: The deal required special involvement from the U.S. due to sanctions imposed by Washington on Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria after more than 10 years of civil war. But the U.S. also sought to play a role after Lebanon received shipments of Iranian fuel in September, secured by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. “I think this administration was somewhat embarrassed or chagrined to see the Iranians smuggling oil into Syria, which was a re-transfer into Lebanon,” explained Schenker.