Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Friday morning!
Ed note: In honor of Memorial Day, the next Daily Kickoff will arrive on Tuesday morning. Wishing you all a restful long weekend.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent JI stories, including: A new soccer field in the Bronx courtesy of the Abraham Accords; Emiratis estimate trade volume with Israel will reach $5 billion in the next few years; Israeli CEOs fly to Casablanca to offer Morocco a dose of startup culture; Cora Neumann’s sweet home Montana; Small-town Michigan mayor Kelly Garrett takes on Rashida Tlaib; Delia Ramirez hopes Springfield will be her springboard to Congress; and Socialist staffer on Jamaal Bowman’s team details congressman’s efforts to placate DSA. Print the latest edition here.
A new study from the Pew Research Center released on Thursday found a softening of attitudes toward both Israelis and Palestinians, with 67% of Americans having a favorable view of the Israeli people, and 52% having a favorable view of the Palestinians, up from 64% and 46%, respectively, when compared to a similar survey in 2019.
But the study also found declining support for Israel in respondents under the age of 30, more of whom (61%) view the Palestinian people more positively than Israelis (56%). The Israeli government and Palestinian Authority fared much worse among the younger cohort, with favorability ratings of 34% and 35%, respectively.
Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Jewish Insider, “Among younger Americans (under 30) the Pew poll reveals a trend line that has been in evidence for some time now – a growing tendency among young Americans not just to look at the Israeli-Palestinian issue with more balance than with a traditionally more reflexive pro-Israeli sensibility, but to actually identify somewhat more with Palestinians.”
The survey found that Americans of all ages were divided on the best possible outcome in the region: 35% support a two-state entity, 27% back a one-state solution with a joint Israeli-Palestinian government and 37% — many of whom fell in the under-30 bracket — said they were unsure what the best outcome should be, which Miller attributed to “the absence of any kind of credible peace process leading to two states in recent years.”
The Pew survey also found that just 5% of U.S. adults have heard at least “some” about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and express support for it, and 2% of U.S. adults strongly support it. Eighty-four percent say they have heard “not much” or “nothing at all” about BDS.
The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act failed a procedural vote on the Senate floor yesterday amid Republican opposition. The bill was backed by the Orthodox Union, Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Democratic Council of America.
Nathan Diament, executive director of the OU Advocacy Center, told Jewish Insider, “We are disappointed that what started as a relatively modest — but useful — bipartisan piece of legislation to help combat domestic violent extremism became a partisan political football.”
A spokesperson for the ADL told JI the group was “deeply disappointed” by the vote and that “America is less safe because of it.” The spokesperson called on Congress and the administration to pursue alternate paths to combat domestic terrorism.
Halie Soifer, CEO of the JDCA, told JI, “It’s been 12 days since a white supremacist targeted and murdered 10 Black Americans in Buffalo, yet every single Senate Republican had the audacity to oppose legislation that would combat these extreme and dangerous forms of hate.”
Iraq’s parliament passed a law this week criminalizing “normalization with the Zionist entity.” The law is broad in scope, and prohibits all travel to Israel, communication with Israelis and professional partnerships of any kind.
Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies told JI that the legislation does not have significant practical ramifications because “even without the law, [people who call for ties with Israel] are being abused.” The sponsors of the law are “trying to prove that the pro-Iran militias cannot outbid them in being anti-Israel, anti-West, anti-America, anti-Imperial, you name it,” said Abdul-Hussain.
podcast playback
Robert Nicholson warns that Middle East Christians at on-going risk

Robert Nicholson
Christian communities in the Middle East remain at risk of persecution, warned Robert Nicholson, executive director of the Philos Project, a Christian advocacy group focused on advancing pluralism in the Middle East. Appearing on Jewish Insider’s “Limited Liability Podcast,” Nicholson said that despite “a lot of advocacy for these communities over the last few years, especially since ISIS, [there has been] unfortunately very little in terms of impact.”
History: “Part of our work at the Philos Project is trying to build a community of Christian leaders from different backgrounds [and] denominations to understand better and engage better on Near East or Middle East issues,” Nicholson said of his advocacy work in the region. “[A] big part of that is [the] Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but the other big part, as you can probably guess, is the plight of these Christian communities, all of which go back, you know, 2,000 years.”
Restricted freedom: Nicholson specifically cited Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Jordan as the countries of particular focus to Philos. Even in Lebanon, where Christians make up 35% of the population and have in recent years been represented in government, Nicholson, who has been banned from entering the country for life, said the community has been “squeezed” by restrictions. “What you find is that Christians have the technical right to worship — right, you can go to Mass on Sunday morning, [in] most of these places, but the cultural environment, and certainly the political environment, is set up in such a way to either exclude you or even to target you,” he explained.
Top of list: “Even if the American people care about this issue, it is never going to be a top foreign policy priority for any administration, Republican or Democrat,” Nicholson, a former Marine, admitted. “Even [former President Donald] Trump, who arguably did the most on this front, didn’t actually do that much.”