Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Tuesday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the internal politics roiling Israel’s Likud party, and publish an exclusive excerpt from Barak Ravid’s book, Trump’s Peace, the English translation of which comes out this week. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Walter Russell Mead, Sam Bankman-Fried and Amy Spitalnick.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides will depart his posting this summer, Axios’ Barak Ravid reports this morning. Nides, a former vice chair of Morgan Stanley and deputy secretary of state for management and resources during the Obama administration, has become widely known in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for his affability, work to move Israel into the U.S.’ Visa Waiver Program and visits to the homes of families affected by terrorism.
“The Ambassador informed senior Embassy staff this morning (Tuesday, May 9) of his intent to step down this summer,” a U.S. Embassy spokesperson tells us. His departure comes at a time of deepening tensions in Israel — and within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party — over the government’s proposals to reform the country’s judiciary. More on that below.
Among those under consideration for the role at the start of President Joe Biden’s term were former Ambassador Dan Shapiro, who held the position during the Obama administration; Ambassador Dennis Ross; former Reps. Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Steve Israel (D-NY); Amos Hochstein, who was recently appointed special presidential coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security; and Miami-based developer Michael Adler, who now serves as ambassador to Belgium.
Israel’s military launched Operation Shield and Arrow in Gaza overnight, killing three senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad officials in response to the launch of over 100 rockets from the Palestinian enclave into Israel this month, which have been attributed to the terror group. The IDF targeted weapons manufacturing sites and military compounds belonging to the Islamic Jihad, as well as a site used for manufacturing concrete for building terrorist tunnels, the army said.
The IDF named the officials as Khalil Bahtini, who, it said, was responsible for the rocket fire toward Israel in the past month; Jahed Ahnan, secretary of the Islamic Jihad Military Council; and Tarek Az Aldin, who directed operations in the West Bank from Gaza. The Islamic Jihad figures were among at least 13 casualties, including their wives and some of their children, according to Palestinian reports.
“Overnight, the IDF and ISA [Israeli Security Agency] conducted a precise operation against the leadership of the Islamic Jihad terror organization in Gaza,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said. “The State of Israel seeks stability in the region, while the Iranian-funded terror group launches attacks. At the same time, it harms its own people — the Palestinian residents of Gaza.”
“The State of Israel will not tolerate rocket fire, terrorism or any threats to the sovereignty of our state and security of our citizens,” he added.
“Striking three senior figures in the military arm of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement is an impressive achievement,” said Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) Managing Director Major Gen. (res.) Tamir Hayman in a statement. “The Palestinian Islamic Jihad is expected to respond, despite not having the capabilities of Hamas, it can still challenge Israeli population centers. As far as Israel is concerned, Hamas is not the target of the operation but the main question that will determine the intensity of this conflict and its duration is whether or not Hamas will join the campaign.”
U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinkenspoke yesterday with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and discussed “recent developments in Sudan, Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and cooperation on countering Iranian malign influence,” according to State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
“The Secretary reaffirmed that U.S. support for Israel’s security remains ironclad,” he added. “The Secretary noted the importance of recent meetings in Aqaba and Sharm El Sheikh aimed at de-escalating tensions and urged that both Israel and the Palestinian Authority take additional steps to stabilize the situation in the West Bank and promote a durable calm.”
A statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry also noted that Cohen updated Blinken on recent Israeli activity “with the aim of advancing regional stability” and the two discussed possible normalization agreements with additional countries within the framework of the Abraham Accords and the Negev Forum. The statement also noted that Cohen met in Jerusalem yesterday evening with Hochstein to discuss diplomatic initiatives in the region.
Cohen, who arrived in India this morning, said that he is cutting short the visit after having received a security update upon his arrival in Delhi, and will return to Israel after meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
party pressures
Netanyahu struggles to hold pragmatists and conservatives together within Likud

In a pro-government rally held late last month in Jerusalem, Israeli Justice Minister Yariv Levin told an estimated crowd of 600,000 that he was determined to push ahead with polarizing judicial reforms despite ongoing mass public protests and international criticism. “We are here on this stage with 64 [total coalition] mandates to right an injustice. No more inequality, no one-sided judicial system, no court whose judges are above the Knesset and above the government,” Levin told those gathered outside the Knesset on April 27. Levin’s words that night — along with other recent statements, including comments last week accusing the U.S. State Department of supporting protests against the government’s plans, have put him increasingly at odds with the position of his boss, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash reports.
Plummeting popularity: The apparent clash between Netanyahu and Levin, 53, who comes from a longtime Likud-supporting family, is unusual and indicative of growing dissent within Likud. The largest party in Israel’s 120-seat parliament with 125,000 paid members, Likud’s popularity has been plummeting in the polls, as has support for Netanyahu. With increasingly vocal grumblings from more moderate quarters of Likud, some are starting to question the future of the country’s “legacy party.”
Different camps: “I don’t think the party is going to split apart, but there are signs, and they are growing, that there are serious disagreements in the party on a scale that we’ve rarely seen under Netanyahu,” Neri Zilber, a Tel Aviv-based journalist and advisor to the Israel Policy Forum, told JI. “You can really see the rise of at least two camps,” he explained. “People talk about the more pragmatic wing led by Bibi [Netanyahu’s nickname], [Defense Minister Yoav] Gallant and [Strategic Affairs Minister Ron] Dermer and the more hardline wing led by Levin, [Minister within the Justice Ministry] Dudi Amsalem and lower-profile but vocal Knesset members primarily over the issue of the judicial overhaul.”