
Daily Kickoff: Tom Nides’ shiva visits across Israel
👋 Good Wednesday morning!
President Joe Biden will travel to Israel on July 13 for a two-day visit, the White House announced on Tuesday morning. His visit to the country will reportedly include a state dinner with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on July 14. The purpose of the visit, according to White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, is to “reinforce the United States’ iron-clad commitment to Israel’s security and prosperity.”
Biden will also travel to the Palestinian territories, where he will meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and “reiterate his strong support for a two-state solution,” according to Jean-Pierre.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennettpredicted that Biden will “integrate Israel into the Middle East” during the trip.
From Israel, the president will travel to Saudi Arabia, where he will attend a summit with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Iraq, Jordan and Egypt.
“I have no doubt that the challenge that Iran poses to the region and beyond will be high on the agenda when President Biden is in Israel next month and when he is in Saudi Arabia next month meeting with the GCC and meeting with his Saudi partners as well,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at a Tuesday briefing.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken told PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff that regional changes brought about by the Abraham Accords will likely also come up when the president is in Saudi Arabia.
“We’ve seen remarkable things happen in the last few years in bringing countries in the region closer together, including Israel, and that, I’m sure, will be a topic as well,” Blinken told Woodruff.
Last night in Nevada’s 1st Congressional District primary, Republican military veteran Mark Robertson beat out Maccabee Task Force Executive Director David Brog and former Latinos for Trump organizer Carolina Serrano to advance to the general election against Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) — who easily beat a progressive challenger backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt coasted through the Republican Senate primary to the general election, where he’ll face off against Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), seen as one of the most endangered Senate Democrats this cycle.
In South Carolina, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) survived a challenge from former state Rep. Katie Arrington, who was backed by former President Donald Trump. Rep. Tom Rice (R-SC), who voted to impeach Trump, lost his primary to former state Rep. Russell Fry, who had the former president’s endorsement.
In Texas’ 34th Congressional District, Republican Mayra Flores beat Democrat Dan Sanchez in a special election to serve out the remainder of former Rep. Filemon Vela’s (D-TX) term.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will receive a classified briefing today from Iran Envoy Rob Malley and National Security Council Middle East Coordinator Brett McGurk on Iran’s nuclear program and the U.S.’s strategy.
sensitive diplomacy
Ambassador Tom Nides’ shiva chronicles

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides (C) arrives to present his credence letters to the Israeli President in Jerusalem, on December 5, 2021. (
It wasn’t his first set of condolence calls. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, who had been on the job for just four months, had already visited the relatives of those killed two weeks earlier in a stabbing and vehicular attack in Beersheva, as well as those of two Border Police officers killed in Hadera a few days later. He also spent time with grieving families in Bnei Brak, where five people were killed, including a young Christian police officer from Nazareth. But for Nides, the deadly shooting in the heart of Tel Aviv in April that killed three Israelis drove home what it’s like to live in a place embroiled in constant conflict.
Personal touch: “I don’t think people really understand,” Nides told Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash in an interview last week. “They might read about what happens here in the newspapers, but unless you go to a house in Tel Aviv and sit with the fiancée of the 27-year-old kid who got shot in the bar in Tel Aviv, and you hold her hand and she says to you, ‘I just don’t get it, he just proposed to me three weeks ago,’ … then you really don’t know.” Nides’ own son is 27.
America cares: While it’s not unusual for an American ambassador to pay condolence calls to the families of terror victims, Nides appears to have made it his personal mission. During the most recent wave of violence earlier this spring, the top U.S. diplomat in Israel has met with the relatives of many of the victims killed as a result of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Last month, he attended the wake of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed while reporting on clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants. The U.S. has called for a joint investigation into her death. “This is not about me, it’s about America,” Nides told JI. “It’s about showing up and telling people how much we care about them and how much the United States cares about their tragedy.”