Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Monday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at what policy achievements former — and likely soon-to-be — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his potential coalition partners are hoping to attain in the new government, and get a sneak peek at former Vice President Mike Pence’s memoir. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Mel Brooks, sportswriter Jane Gross and Sam Bankman-Fried.
The third-floor ballroom of New York’s Plaza Hotel was packed with a who’s who crowd last night for the annual Commentary magazine roast. This year’s roastee was writer and media entrepreneur Bari Weiss. Amid salad and salmon courses, attendees were treated to ribbing remarks from Jen Spyra, Jamie Kirchick, Suzy Weiss, Dan Ahdoot and Liel Leibovitz. No quotes (thanks to JPod) and no spotted list (too many of you were there) for today’s newsletter.
President Isaac Herzog tasked former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with forming the next government during a meeting at the president’s residence yesterday.
Herzog said the consultations — broadcast live in continuation of a practice begun by former President Reuven Rivlin — that he held with representatives of all the parties elected to the Knesset prior to making his decision, “underscored the beauty and power of Israeli democracy, which draws its power from the rich and diverse mosaic of voices among us as a society and as a country.”
“I am not oblivious,of course, to the fact that there are ongoing legal proceedings against Mr. Netanyahu MK at the Jerusalem District Court, and I do not trivialize this at all,” he added. “Nevertheless, it is important to note that the Supreme Court has already expressed itself clearly on the matter of pending indictments against a member of Knesset nominated for the role of forming a government, in a number of rulings, including with an expanded panel of 11 justices, when the task of forming a government was assigned to Mr. Netanyahu MK by my predecessor, President Reuven Rivlin.”
Netanyahu addressed concerns that have arisen in recent weeks over his potential alliance with the far-right Religious Zionism party, as well as Shas and United Torah Judaism, “There are many, many who welcome the election results – but there are also those who make outrageous prophecies and frighten the public,” Netanyahu said. “This is not the first time such things have been said. They said it about [first Likud leader Menachem] Begin, they said it about me too; it wasn’t true then and it’s not true now.”
We spoke to Israel-based analysts and political observers about concerns — voiced by Israelis as well as Diaspora community leaders — over the possible role that Religious Zionism’s leaders could play in a future government.
Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and author of the forthcoming Judocracy: The Netanyahu Era to be published in 2023, told JI’s Ruth Marks Eglash that the parties are hoping to pass an override clause that would allow the Knesset to push through legislation to give an acting prime minister – in this case Netanyahu – immunity from prosecution, effectively wiping out the proceedings against him.
Additional concerns raised by Talshir include key changes to the Law of Return that currently allows the grandchild of a Jew to immigrate but which future coalition members would like to see narrowed to more closely mirror Jewish law; the status of the West Bank and the settlements, some of which are defined by Israel’s current laws and international law as illegal outposts; and governance and human rights tied to Israel’s minority Arab population, the politicization of certain official positions and the rules of engagement for Israeli forces operating both inside Israel and in the West Bank. Read more here.
Notable + quotable: “The only times I’ve ever been recognized are in highly Jewish places. My children say that I’m ‘Jewish-deli famous,’ that if I go somewhere, I could reasonably expect a free knish,” Fleishman Is in Trouble author Taffy Brodesser-Akner told the hosts of the “Longform” podcast ahead of the Thursday premiere of the television adaptation of the TheNew York Times staff writer’s first novel. Keep an eye out for our interview with Brodesser-Akner in the Daily Kickoff later this week.
podcast preview
Netanyahu: Israel-Saudi normalization could end Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Israel and Saudi Arabia reaching a formal peace agreement would “effectively end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu predicted in a new interview with “Call Me Back” podcast host Dan Senor, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports.
Saudi sign-off: “Understand that the Abraham Accords, the peace treaties that Israel had with four Arab states: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — that didn’t happen without Saudi approval, because at least some of these countries like to know what their big neighbor, Saudi Arabia, is thinking about [the agreements],” Netanyahu, who is likely to head Israel’s next government following elections earlier this month, said. “And I assure you, [Riyadh] wasn’t negative about it.” Normalization with Saudi Arabia would “open up all sorts of possibilities,” Netanyahu told Senor, the co-author of Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel’s Economic Miracle. The current opposition leader cited the physical results of such an agreement — “connecting the Saudi rail system” — as well as the business perks — giving Saudis “direct accessibility to Israeli innovation and technology” — as benefits of a negotiated agreement between Jerusalem and Riyadh.
Moscow mission: Netanyahu also addressed his previous government’s coordination with Russia in Syria, where Russian forces are on the ground — and where Israeli military units have often targeted Iranian and Syrian facilities and weapons transfers. “[Israeli] pilots would literally run into Russian pilots because they were there with their air force. And so they were literally within spitting distance — I mean that, spitting distance — from each other. And we could have had, basically a Russian-Israeli mini-war develop there, which I don’t think would serve our interests, to put it mildly. So I made sure that we coordinated with Russia not to do that.”
New challenges: But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made Netanyahu rethink Israel’s relationship with Moscow. “Russia had a laid-back, a hands-off policy [in Syria], and our freedom of action in the skies over Syria was maintained, that still remains an issue,” he said. “But I look also at the Ukraine tragedy, and I ask myself, ‘What is it that we should be doing and not be doing?’ And that’s one of the first things I’m going to be briefed on and decide how we should manage it.”
Read more here and listen to the full podcast episode here later today.