Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Friday morning, and shana tova to those celebrating Rosh Hashanah, which begins at sundown this evening. We at Jewish Insider wish you a happy and healthy 5784!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the looming intraparty debate over the Democratic platform regarding Israel, and spotlight Riyadh’s Expo 2030 bid amid the backdrop of talks to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Chaim Bloom, Michele Lowe and Richard Haass.
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 Jewish Insider, eJewishPhilanthropy and The Circuit stories, including: Harriet Schleifer looks to maintain Jewish unity as new Conference of Presidents chair; Thirty years on, are the Oslo Accords still relevant?; The political lessons of Oslo reverberate on the Israeli right 30 years later.Print the latest edition here.
Three years after Israel signed the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — and later renewed diplomatic relations with Morocco — ties between the countries are thriving.
Over a million Israelis have visited the UAE since the Accords were signed, with over 200 flights between the countries each week reflecting warm people-to-people relations not seen in Arab countries that previously made peace with the Jewish state. The number of Emiratis visiting Israel, however, falls far short of that. Among the Israelis who have fallen in love with Dubai is one of the country’s biggest pop stars, Omer Adam, who has relocated to the Gulf state and written multiple hit songs about it.
Israeli aid workers arrived in Morocco this week to search for and provide medical care to the victims of the devastating earthquake that hit the North African state. Earlier this year, Israel recognized Western Sahara as Moroccan, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received an invitation from Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
Senior ministers and the IDF’s top brass regularly visit Bahrain, stopping at the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet based there. Israel even has a naval officer permanently stationed in Manama.
The Accords have also been a boon for trade, which spiked this year. The massive infrastructure project President Joe Biden announced at the G20 last week, connecting South Asia to the Middle East and Europe through railways and ports, has the potential to keep the momentum going.
However, some diplomatic efforts to bring the countries closer stalled in the last year. The Negev Forum, which brought together the aforementioned countries, plus Egypt and the U.S., has not reconvened its foreign ministers’ summit amid controversy over settlement construction and Israel’s responses to Palestinian terrorism. One Arab diplomat told Jewish Insider in recent weeks that the countries are reticent to give what looks like a reward to the current government in Jerusalem.
Sources in Washington were cautiously optimistic about the Negev Forum’s prospects and said, before the earthquake, that Morocco was considering an October date for hosting the summit. But on Wednesday, Washington’s representative in the Negev Forum dialogue said only that the ministerial meeting will happen “at the right time.”
The anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords coincides this year with the beginning of Rosh Hashanah. On a call yesterday evening with hundreds of rabbis, Biden offered Rosh Hashanah wishes and touted his administration’s national strategy to counter antisemitism and his support for Israel. He also noted his recent pick to be U.S. ambassador to Israel, former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, whom Biden said would make an “outstanding ambassador.”
“Jewish Americans today continue to enrich every part of American life. That’s the message. That’s the message of Rosh Hashanah,” Biden said. “We always have to stay open. I’ve always believed our actions have the power to shift the balance of our faith, our nation and our world for the better.”
After speaking for 10 minutes, Biden left the call and Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden answered questions from the rabbis. Tanden is the administration official responsible for overseeing the implementation of the antisemitism national strategy, and she delivered public remarks on the plan for the first time.
“We are really pleased with how aggressively agencies are taking up the work, but our work with you is so vital to ensure that you ensure that we are maximizing the potential of the strategy,” said Tanden, who started at the White House days after the plan was released in May. More specifically, she pointed to the plan’s approach to fighting antisemitism on college campuses.
“Obviously, there’s been a rising concern on campus on antisemitism, and the strategy really propels action on the part of the part of the [Department of Education] and the Office of Civil Rights to really be aggressive in addressing antisemitism as we look at and investigate other issues of discrimination,” said Tanden, who pointed to a settlement the Department of Education reached with the University of Vermont in April that said the university had not adequately responded to antisemitism on its campus.
dem debates
Democrats anticipate messy debate over Israel in crafting 2024 platform

As the Republican presidential primary heats up, the Democratic Party appears set to avoid a major primary fight in 2024 — meaning that if President Biden is renominated, Democrats will defer divisions within the party over its ideological direction to 2028, when internal debates between moderates and progressives will almost certainly come to a head. But while Biden has secured the support of party leaders from the left and the center in his reelection bid, intraparty factions could still have one opportunity to do battle next year in the writing of the party platform, a wonky exercise that has in recent years played host to major ideological debates, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. In the last three presidential election cycles, Israel has emerged as an issue that splits the party’s establishment from its left-wing activists.
Start a debate: In a president’s reelection year, the party’s platform usually remains relatively unchanged from four years earlier. The main goal, Democratic activists tell JI, is to avoid controversy and cede control to the president to set the agenda. But that doesn’t mean activists critical of Israel will not take the opportunity to try to force a messy debate over Israel to the forefront, and bring that internal debate to the public.
Committee selection: The committee tasked with drafting the platform will not be named until next year, and Democrats don’t expect any movement until at least the spring. One key question is who will serve on the committee. Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison has the final say and is ultimately responsive to the president. But in 2016 and 2020, Democrats included activists from the party’s progressive wing on the committee to placate progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
‘Everybody loses’: According to one former party leader, Democrats’ goal should be simple: “I am sure everything possible will be done so that there’s no fight over it, because everybody agrees that if there’s a fight about Israel, everybody loses,” said Susie Turnbull, a former DNC vice chair.