Daily Kickoff
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Israel’s efforts to destroy Hamas’ expansive underground tunnel system, and talk to Hillel International President and CEO Adam Lehman about the climate on college campuses. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Dr. Ruth Gottesman, Adam Rubenstein and Jared Kushner.
Wereported last weekon the “uncommitted” campaign in Michigan’s Democratic presidential primary, taking place today and serving as a rough proxy for anti-Israel sentiment within the battleground state.
But the effort by some critics of President Joe Biden’s Israel policy to urge Democrats to cast their vote for “uncommitted,” rather than for Biden, is also serving as a referendum on how Democratic voters view the president’s overall leadership by giving a larger swath of voters an opportunity to express a vote of no-confidence, Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar writes.
Israel isn’t the only reason that some Michigan Democrats are dissatisfied with Biden. Many have concerns about his advanced age. Biden is losing about one-fifth of Black voters to former President Donald Trump, according to two newMichigan polls, with economic frustrations playing a pivotal role. Rank-and-file auto union members have been trending towards Republicans, in part because of the administration’s aggressive push for electric vehicles.
Asked about the Michigan primary, a Biden campaign official brushed it off and jumped to November — and pitched Biden as a “stark contrast” to Trump, including on the Israel-Hamas war. “When it comes to foreign policy, Trump has a lot of chaos. It’s a lot of xenophobia. It’s a lot of racism. Biden has really approached this issue with a lot of compassion,” the official said.
One outside group that is spending a bit to boost Biden’s prospects in the primary is the pro-Israel Democratic group Democratic Majority for Israel, which is spending over $125,000 on digital ads reminding Michigan Democrats to “be committed” for the president. DMFI circulated a memo to reporters on Monday night that minimized the significance of the “uncommitted” campaign while arguing that being pro-Israel is good politics. The group pointed out that in 2020, with seven Democratic presidential candidates on the ballot, “uncommitted” still won nearly 20,000 votes (which made up just 1% of the overall Democratic vote).
The one public poll that tested the Democratic primary matchup — conducted by Emerson College — showed “uncommitted” winning support from just 9% of Democratic voters — short of the expectations laid out by one group backing the effort. Winning less than one-tenth of Democratic voters is hardly a significant showing, especially given the publicity the anti-Israel, anti-Biden effort has received in national media.
Biden isn’t the only Democrat with a lot on the line in Tuesday’s results. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, viewed as a future presidential prospect, would be deeply embarrassed if Biden lost a significant share of the Democratic vote in her backyard.
Whitmer, for her part, has struggled to speak clearly about the Middle East as she tries to balance general sympathy for Israel and her Jewish constituents without alienating the state’s sizable Arab-American vote. Whitmer made one of the more politically tone-deaf statements in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, failing to mention Israel in her response to the terrorism. (Whitmer’s first trip as governor, in 2019, was to Israel, on a delegation organized by the Detroit Jewish Federation.)
Biden said on Monday that it is his “hope” that a cease-fire can be reached by next Monday. Biden appeared to be speaking about the negotiations currently underway toward a deal that would include the release of some hostages and a temporary pause in the fighting. But his use of the term “cease-fire” — which many have used as a catchall term for the end of the war — was new. Recently, White House officials have been coordinated in the use of the term “temporary cease-fire.”
The terminology used here matters, because for months the Biden administration entirely avoided using the word “cease-fire,” which has become a rallying cry on the left. The White House did not respond to requests for clarification on Monday as to what Biden meant by the term “cease-fire.”
Jerusalem is “less optimistic” about the prospect of reaching a deal by Monday, an Israeli diplomatic source told Jewish Insider.
hidden challenge
After four months of war, how much of Gaza’s terror tunnel network remains?

As Israeli troops push southward through the Gaza Strip, there are almost daily reports of new tunnel shafts, lavish bunkers, subterranean weapons factories and storage facilities being discovered. Yet recent estimates by Israeli and U.S. officials suggest that only a small fraction of the vast and intricate underground system built beneath the Palestinian enclave by the Hamas terror group has so far been demolished, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash reports.
Threat assessment: While the IDF is certainly detecting and even mapping a growing portion of what observers believe could be more than 300 miles of underground passageways – roughly half the New York City subway system – it is not clear exactly how much progress has made in eliminating the threat posed by this elaborate subterranean network, which Israelis often refer to as the “Gaza metro.”
Quality over quantity: IDF spokesman Lt. Col. (res.) Peter Lerner told JI this week that no formal assessment had been made public of how much of Hamas’ tunnel system had been destroyed or neutralized, emphasizing instead that the goal was quality over quantity. “The magnitude is less important than what actually is the makeup of that magnitude,” he explained, highlighting that the army was focused more on “dismantling key components of the tunnel infrastructure that gives [Hamas] a tactical and operational advantage.”
Strategic asset: Daphne Richemond-Barak, author of the 2017 book Underground Warfare and a professor at Reichman University in Herzliya, told JI that taking the fight underground was not only a tactical advantage for Hamas but also a carefully planned strategic asset. “I would say it is absolutely and completely necessary for Israel to destroy all the tunnels and not just neutralize them,” Richemond-Barak said. “Neutralizing them is just a temporary measure, while a destruction is a hard kill that leads to the collapse of its structure – its walls and its ceiling, making it totally unusable.”
Bonus: The Washington Post interviews Israeli security officials who believe that Yahya Sinwar is hiding in tunnels beneath Khan Younis along with Israeli hostages who are being used as human shields to protect the Oct. 7 mastermind. The IDF announced yesterday that it had uncovered a tunnel network connecting the north and south of the Gaza Strip.