Daily Kickoff
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we preview the special election to replace ousted Rep. George Santos in New York’s Third Congressional District, and report on the support for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks espoused by Democratic Muslim officials leading efforts to protest President Joe Biden over his support for Israel. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sheryl Sandberg, Eric Schmidt and Gov. Josh Shapiro.
“Believe women.”
A phrase that five years ago was a rallying cry for American progressives around the Senate confirmation of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh has turned into a desperate plea for the world to acknowledge the rampant sexual violence that took place during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks, Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss reports.
The call has hit a fever pitch amid a campaign by the United Nations’ Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, generally known as UN Women, titled “16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence.” UN Women — and the United Nations more generally — has faced blowback for what has been criticized as a slow response to Hamas’ acts of sexual violence. Last week, the U.N. posted — and then deleted — a tweet condemning the attacks. An official from UN Women, speaking to CNN’s Bianna Golodryga last week, avoided any condemnation of Hamas. UN Women’s lackluster response drew a bipartisan call from nearly 90 House lawmakers urging the body to take a stronger stance against Hamas’ sexual violence.
On Saturday, UN Womenissued its first statement directly addressing sexual violence on Oct. 7, “unequivocally” condemning “the brutal attacks by Hamas on Israel” and saying the organization was “alarmed by the numerous accounts of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence during those attacks.”
In recent weeks, detailed reports of widespread rape and violence against women on Oct. 7 have begun to emerge. A report published in the U.K.’s Sunday Times relayed one man’s firsthand account of witnessing gang rape at the Nova music festival. An Israeli woman who was being raped by 8-10 men, the witness said, “was screaming, ‘Stop it already! I’m going to die anyway from what you are doing, just kill me!’” When the terrorists had finished raping her, the witness said, “they were laughing, and the last one shot her in the head.”
In a particularly tense conversation aired on Sunday, CNN’s Dana Bash pressed Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on the legislator’s lack of condemnation of the sexual crimes that took place on Oct. 7. When pressed about Hamas’ sexual crimes, Jayapal spoke instead about Israel’s responsibility to adhere to international humanitarian law.
Bash called out Jayapal on the pivot, saying she “was just asking about the women, and you turned it back to Israel. I’m asking you about Hamas.” Jayapal insisted she’d answered the question before rattling off statistics about casualties in Gaza, adding that “we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians.”
“And it’s horrible,” Bash acknowledged. “But you don’t see Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian women.”
“I don’t want this to be the hierarchies of oppressions,” Jayapal responded.
In the hours after the CNN segment aired, Democratic members of Congress took to social media to weigh in on the controversy. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) reposted a clip of Jayapal’s CNN interview, calling it “outrageous” for “anyone to ‘both sides’” sexual violence. “Hamas terrorists raped Israeli women and girls,” Wasserman Schultz wrote. “The only ‘balanced’ approach is to condemn sexual violence loudly, forcefully and without exceptions.”
“Rape and sexual violence against Israeli women calls for nothing less than unequivocal condemnation,” Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) posted on X, without naming Jayapal directly. “Israel did not invade Palestinian homes and rape and sexually violate Palestinian women. Hamas did invade Israeli homes and did rape and sexually violate Israeli women. There is no ‘balance’ or ‘both sides’ or ‘moral equivalence’ here. Period.”
Tensions will come to a head today at Turtle Bay in New York at a special session being convened by the Israeli Mission to the U.N. and a collective of Jewish groups including National Council of Jewish Women, Hadassah and the World Zionist Organization. Israel’s envoy to the U.N., Ambassador Gilad Erdan, is slated to give opening remarks before a keynote delivery by former Meta executive Sheryl Sandberg. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will address attendees via video.

antisemitism watch
Several Muslim leaders protesting Biden at Michigan conference defended Oct. 7 Hamas massacre

A group of Islamic leaders who gathered on Saturday in Michigan to urge Muslim Americans to vote against President Joe Biden in 2024 because of his handling of the Israel-Hamas war included a coterie of controversial figures, including several who praised the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, one of whom was ousted from the leadership of a nonprofit due to accusations of harassment and abuse and one who has been sanctioned by Israel for supporting terrorism, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Checkered pasts: The small group of activists, who met at a conference titled “Abandon Biden,” introduced themselves as leaders of Muslim communities in swing states including Florida, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia. They professed that their greatest aim in 2024 will be to convince Muslims Americans to vote against Biden, arguing that his “complicity” in “genocide” in Gaza will stain his legacy. (Biden has supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, while cautioning it to try and limit civilian deaths.) But many of the anti-Biden speakers have their own checkered pasts.
Speaker’s scandal: “We are ready to mobilize the entire Florida Muslim community to abandon Joe,” said Hassan Shibly, who for a decade led the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations until he was forced to step down in 2021, after his estranged wife accused him of domestic abuse. After he offered his resignation, several former employees of his accused him of bullying and sexual misconduct.
Under sanction: Khalid Turaani, an activist from Michigan, was sanctioned by Israel in 2020 for sitting on the board of IPALESTINE, a British organization that is affiliated with Hamas and is designated as a terror organization in Israel.
Justifying terrorism: Several at the conference also offered justifications for the Oct. 7 attacks. Tom Facchine, an imam from upstate New York, said in a video posted on the TikTok channel of Utica Masjid, a mosque in Utica, N.Y., where he is the resident scholar, that he would offer “no equivocations, no apologies, no condemnations.”
And in Pennsylvania: Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters demonstrated outside Goldie, a kosher Philadelphia restaurant co-owned by Mike Solomonov; Gov. Josh Shapiro denounced the protests as a “blatant act of antisemitism.”