Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Monday morning and moadim l’simcha to those celebrating Sukkot!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Jewish leaders in California following the death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and report on the very public nature of normalization efforts between the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: David McCormick, Alice Shalvi and Moshe Koppel.
As the Biden administration ratchets up its quest to normalize ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, many longtime observers of Middle East politics — even those who support normalization — have wondered why President Joe Biden wants to get the deal done.
During a Friday address at The Atlantic Festival in Washington, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan offered the clearest insight yet into the White House’s thinking on normalization. He connected the normalization push to a broader Biden administration goal of reestablishing America’s presence in a region that has for years begun to view Washington as absent.
“The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades now. Challenges remain,” Sullivan said, “but the amount of time that I have to spend on crisis and conflict in the Middle East today compared to any of my predecessors going back to 9/11 is significantly reduced.”
“So what are we trying to do with Saudi and Israel? Reinforce, deepen and sustain that out in the future, because we believe that regional integration and normalization between significant countries in the Middle East can create a greater and more stable foundation as we go forward,” Sullivan added. Read more below on efforts to broker a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who served more than 30 years in the Senate, was remembered over the weekend by Jewish activists in California as a shrewd politician who made meaningful strides in curbing gun violence and domestic assault, and a pioneering figure who “lifted the spirits and inspired” a generation of women to get involved in politics, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. Feinstein, who was the first Jewish woman to hold a seat in the upper chamber, died on Friday in Washington at age 90.
As mayor and as a senator, Feinstein pursued measures to curb gun violence. She authored the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, which passed, but expired 10 years later. Last year, she helped lead the congressional reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which she had initially voted for in 1994.
“She’s just a really old-school politician in a good way. She was really no-nonsense about getting a job done,” said California state Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat. “She did not need to be loved by everyone all the time.”
In the Senate, Feinstein was generally aligned with AIPAC and supportive of mainstream pro-Israel positions. But at times she diverged from other pro-Israel activists, most notably following Israel’s use of cluster bombs in its 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. She introduced legislation seeking to ban American sales or transfers of the weapons, blamed by human rights groups for the death of Lebanese civilians.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint Laphonza Butler, the president of the pro-choice campaign organization EMILYs List and a former union leader, to fill Feinstein’s seat, Politico reported on Sunday. Newsom had been facing pressure to tap Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who had already announced her 2024 Senate bid, after committing to nominating a Black woman to the seat should there be a vacancy.
shutdown showdown
Congress averts government shutdown as Dems warn of consequences for Middle East and antisemitism

Congress voted on a bipartisan basis on Saturday to keep the government open through late November, capping off a week of uncertainty with last-minute bipartisan votes in the House and Senate, hours before funding was set to expire, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What’s next: The House vote, which split Republicans and required Democratic support, will reverberate into this week. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) announced plans to attempt to unseat House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Republicans are also pursuing measures — potentially expulsion or censure — to punish Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) for pulling a fire alarm in a House office building leading up to the vote; Bowman claims he was trying to open a locked door to get to the Capitol building.
Looking back: At a Friday press conference, a group of 10 House Democrats, all but one of them Jewish, lambasted 198 of their Republican colleagues for voting for a previous stopgap bill that would have cut funding by around 30% to the State Department, Department of Justice and other federal agencies. “If you are deeply cutting the State Department, how are they going to have the personnel in place, coming to work every day to make sure that we can stand up for our agreements, make sure that we can be there with our allies?” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) said, warning that the cuts supported by 198 Republicans would undermine work to expand the Abraham Accords, enforce Iran sanctions and combat antisemitism.
Also on Capitol Hill: Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) announced plans to step down from Democratic leadership in the wake of his repeated public calls for a primary challenge to President Joe Biden. Phillips is reportedly considering challenging Biden. Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) is considering a bid for Phillips’ spot, according to a source familiar with his thinking.