Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Monday morning!
It’s primary week in Michigan. Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod is on the ground in the Detroit area, where he’s talking to voters and candidates ahead of tomorrow’s primaries.
In the final days of the Democratic primary race in the state’s 11th Congressional District, one poll has Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) leading Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI), who has been calling in support from prominent progressive allies — and some Israel critics.
On Friday, Levin held a rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). He also participated in a Zoom discussion with Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart on Friday. The prior week, he held events with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI).
Tlaib, whose close relationship with Levin was one reason some Jewish voters told JI they were siding with Stevens, did not mention Israel in her remarks and alluded generally to outside spending opposing her. One group, Urban Empowerment Action PAC, which describes itself as a “broad coalition of Black and Jewish… leaders,” has spent $678,00 in the district, but more prominent pro-Israel groups have not.
At the grassroots level, a group called Jews for Andy — some of whose members are affiliated with the far-left group IfNotNow, which has promoted the group — has been conducting outreach for Levin both on the ground and through virtual phone banks.
book preview
Kushner: Qatar ‘expressed openness’ to normalizing ties with Israel

Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani meets Jared Kushner (L) in Doha, Qatar on December 2, 2020.
As Israel builds ties with Arab nations in the Middle East, talk in Washington and Jerusalem has centered around what country will next join the Abraham Accords. One Gulf nation is rarely considered, given its ties to Hamas and strong alignment with the Palestinian cause: Qatar. But Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, said in 2020 that he is open to normalizing ties with Israel, according to an excerpt from Jared Kushner’s new book, Breaking History: A White House Memoir, which was obtained by Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch. The book will be published on Aug. 23.
Wrong time: “Tamim expressed openness to doing so at the right time,” Kushner wrote, recalling a 2020 meeting in which the Qatari leader cited “the many areas where Qatar was cooperating constructively with Israel.”
Order of priorities: A key obstacle, according to Kushner, was that at the time, Qatar and Saudi Arabia remained locked in a three-year-long diplomatic standoff, which Saudi Arabia and its ally the United Arab Emirates claimed was due to Qatar’s support for terrorism. In Kushner’s telling, Al Thani “wanted to solve the blockade with Saudi Arabia first,” before pursuing relations with Israel.
No progress made: The diplomatic rift ended in early 2021, but neither Qatar nor Saudi Arabia has pursued an official relationship with Israel. Saudi leaders have since said they hope to do so at some point, when the Israeli-Palestinian issue is resolved. The two countries have taken small steps in recent weeks: They agreed to a deal over contested islands in the Red Sea, and Saudi Arabia agreed to allow all Israeli flights to fly through Saudi airspace.
Read the full story here.
Bonus: The Wall Street Journal’s Dion Nissenbaum highlights portions of Kushner’s book that focus on the development of the relationship between Kushner and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS.