Daily Kickoff
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to some of the Israelis caught up in the largest internal displacement in the country’s history following the Oct. 7 attacks, and spotlight the United Democracy Project’s first forays into the 2024 elections. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick and Jeff Zucker.
Some of Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-MI) Democratic allies are starting to speak out against the lawmaker’s anti-Israel extremism, after she posted a video on Friday accusing President Joe Biden of supporting “genocide” for backing Israel’s war against Hamas. The video also featured footage of a pro-Palestinian rally in Michigan where attendees chanted a slogan widely perceived to be an antisemitic call for the elimination of the State of Israel.
In the video, Tlaib threatens not to support Biden’s reelection in 2024. “Mr. President, the American people are not with you on this one,” the congresswoman said, adding, “We will remember in 2024.”
Tlaib also defended her promotion of the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in the video on X after receiving widespread criticism. She called the slogan an “aspirational call for freedom, human rights, and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction, or hate.”
All this was enough for two of Michigan’s leading Democratic officials to call out Tlaib and demand she retract her statement.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a liberal Democrat, wrote on X: “@RashidaTlaib, I have supported and defended you countless times, even when you have said the indefensible, because I believed you to be a good person whose heart was in the right place. But this is so hurtful to so many. Please retract this cruel and hateful remark.”
Nessel’s comments followed an X post by state Senate President Pro Tem Jeremy Moss, a Democrat, who told Tlaib that Hamas uses the “from the river to the sea” slogan as a call to kill all Jews.
And late Sunday, Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who is running for the Senate, put out a more delicately worded response critiquing her colleague. “As the only Jewish member of MI’s congressional delegation, I have worked to reach out to Arab & Muslim constituents who I know are feeling fear and anguish right now, & I have tried to reflect that empathy in my approach to this crisis. I ask the same of @RepRashida,” Slotkin wrote on X. “The phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ is one of division & violence, & it is counterproductive to promoting peace.”
It’s not just Michigan Democrats who are calling out Tlaib. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), who is up for reelection in 2024, wrote on X on Sunday: “’From the river to the sea’ is a call for eliminating the state of Israel that rejects a two-state solution & puts Jews in danger. We must reject extremism, no matter which side of the aisle it comes from. America’s support for Israel remains unwavering.” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) is collecting signatures on a letter that denounces the use of the phrase, which the letter says “is used by many, including Hamas, as a rallying cry for the destruction of the State of Israel and genocide of the Jewish people.”
It’s not the first time Tlaib has run into trouble for using the phrase. In 2020, she retweeted a post including the same slogan, before deleting it amid criticism from the Jewish community — suggesting she’s aware of how the phrase is viewed by the Jewish community.
All this comes as outside pro-Israel Democratic groups are preparing to target Tlaib in 2024. The Democratic Majority for Israel PAC went up with its first ad of the 2024 election last week, attacking Tlaib for being “on the wrong side of history and humanity.”
On Capitol Hill, the ranks of lawmakers supporting a humanitarian pause in the fighting in Gaza grew to over 100 on Friday, although the calls remain largely relegated to progressives. Nearly 60 lawmakers joined a letter stating that they are “gravely concerned by Israel’s military operation and conduct that fails to limit harm to non-combatants and vulnerable populations,” as well as raising concerns about settler violence in the West Bank and calling for diplomacy to achieve a two-state solution.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) became the 24th lawmaker to call for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in a statement on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), while calling for an end to the Israeli bombing campaign in Gaza, said on CNN that he doesn’t “know how you can have a permanent cease-fire with an organization like Hamas, which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos and destroying the state of Israel.” Asked what his plan would be to eliminate Hamas, Sanders said he didn’t know, adding that was best left to military experts.
First in JI: Several Jewish organizations are partnering with a major law firm to launch a free legal protection hotline for students who have experienced antisemitism on college campuses, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. The hotline’s creation is one attempt to remedy the maze of complicated legal and bureaucratic jargon — see our report from last week — facing students who wish to report instances of antisemitism on campus.
CALL, the Campus Antisemitism Legal Line, will be staffed by a team of volunteer lawyers and overseen by Hillel International, the Anti-Defamation League, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP. Students, parents, faculty members and staff can report an incident online or by texting “CALLhelp” to 51555.
gaza war: day 31
Israeli forces prepare to enter Gaza City

Israeli forces were reportedly preparing to enter Gaza City on Monday after strengthening their perimeter positions over the weekend around the area considered to be the heart of Hamas’ military operations, effectively cutting the Palestinian enclave in two. IDF updates on Monday said that fighter jets had struck some 450 targets in the Gaza Strip, including tunnel infrastructure, observation posts and anti-tank missile launch posts. The IDF also said that ground forces had taken control of at least one Hamas military compound and killed several of the terror group’s commanders. Among those killed, said the army, was Jamal Mussa, whom it said was responsible for Hamas’ special security operations and who had carried out an attack against IDF troops in 1993, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash and Lahav Harkov report.
Israeli death toll: In addition, the Israeli military said eight IDF soldiers were killed in battles in the northern Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of soldiers killed since Israel began its ground incursion a week ago to 33. The army also notified the family of Yam Glass, 20, an observer in the Border Defense Corps who had been thought to be among the 241 hostages in Gaza, that her body had been identified.
No cease-fire: Speaking to troops at the Ramon Air Force Base on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his position that there would be no cease-fire without the return of all the hostages. “This [idea of a cease-fire] should be completely removed from the lexicon,” he said. “We say this to our friends and to our enemies. We will simply continue until we defeat them. We have no alternative.”