Daily Kickoff
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at challenges facing Democrats in Michigan amid activist threats to sit out the general election over the Biden administration’s stance on Israel, and report from last night’s Washington Wizards Jewish Heritage Night. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. Ted Budd, Adm. John Kirby and Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch.
Axios‘ Barak Ravid reported on Wednesday that the Biden administration is considering a range of day-after options for the Middle East following the eventual end of the Israel-Hamas war — among them the potential recognition of a Palestinian state — setting off shockwaves among experts, observers and former government officials.
The report left a lot of unanswered questions, among them: what the borders of a Palestinian state would look like, who would govern a future state of Palestine and how Israel could be guaranteed security under such a scenario.
“Without confirming a specific report, I will say that, yes, we do have ongoing policy planning processes about how best to advance the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Wednesday afternoon. Conversations about those policy goals, Miller said, are “part of the normal planning process,” adding that “[t]he vast majority of options never usually get implemented because we put things on the drawing board and figure out what will work, what will be effective, and how best to sequence it.”
“So I won’t get into that underlying policy planning process that we go about,” he continued, “but yes, we are actively pursuing the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with real security guarantees for Israel because we do believe that is the best way to bring about lasting peace and security for Israel, for Palestinians, and for the region.”
The Axios report, followed hours later by a New York Times op-ed by Tom Friedman calling for a “Biden doctrine” that includes “an unprecedented U.S. diplomatic initiative to promote a Palestinian state,” came a day before Biden heads to Michigan, a state where he is struggling with Arab-American voters who are frustrated with the administration’s support for Israel. Read more below from Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod on the delicate balance the Biden reelection campaign is seeking to strike in the Wolverine State.
Of course, any proposal at present for the creation of a Palestinian state is dead on arrival in Jerusalem. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid have all ruled out that scenario for the near future as the country continues to cope with the trauma of Oct. 7. Netanyahu and the war cabinet remain focused on the government’s primary objectives: destroying Hamas and bringing home the remaining 136 hostages from Gaza.
The latter issue has been the subject of intensive talks this week, with the National Security Council’s Brett McGurk traveling to the region, and Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer meeting in Washington with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.
But as rumors swirl about an impending deal to release the remaining hostages in exchange for Israel conceding its other war aims and releasing several thousand Palestinian prisoners, Netanyahu made clear that he would not agree to those terms, JI’s senior political correspondent Lahav Harkov reports.
In a video message released in Hebrew, Netanyahu listed three red lines: “We will not end the war; we will not take the IDF out of the [Gaza] Strip; and we will not release thousands of terrorists.”
“We are working to reach another outline for releasing our hostages, but I emphasize that I will not do it at all costs,” Netanyahu said. “We are working all the time to free the hostages and to reach the other war aims, to eliminate Hamas and ensure that Gaza will no longer be a threat. We are working on the three of them together and will not give up on any one of them.”
The prime minister’s statement came hours after a meeting with relatives of 18 hostages, after which he released a statement in which he said of the negotiations: “The more discreet [the effort] is, the greater are its chances for success.”
The Hostages’ Families forum said in response to Netanyahu’s red lines that “time is running out to save the lives of the 136 hostages held by Hamas for 118 days. Securing their release is the top priority — all else can wait. These are critical hours to save lives on the brink of death.”
“Destroying Hamas and saving the hostages are Israel’s top goals,” the forum acknowledged, “but destroying Hamas will take a year; the hostages do not have this long. Releasing terrorist prisoners may be painful but abandoning hostages is worse.” The families’ forum called on Netanyahu and his war cabinet to “seize every opportunity to bring the hostages home alive, not in coffins” and “reach a deal immediately.”
connecting the dots
The White House knows Iran is behind the deadly attacks on its troops, but how will it respond?

Addressing the media on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said that the White House believed Iran was, at least in part, behind this week’s deadly drone attack on U.S. troops stationed in Jordan. While the president seemed to stop short of blaming Iran directly, the U.S. administration has made clear that it will respond to the attack in which three service members were killed, although when, where and how is still unclear. What has become clear, however, is that Iran has allowed small sectarian terror groups to become increasingly emboldened through funding, training and arming them. If such deadly attacks continue, the U.S. will face the thorny dilemma of whether to confront Iran directly or step back from the region to protect its troops, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash reports.
Long game: “Iran can no longer hide behind its proxies,” Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told JI. “Everybody knows who is really behind these attacks and, in some ways, Iran is not even working to hide it any longer.” Iran’s overarching goal, said Guzansky, was to “become a hegemonic power in the region.” The regime, he said, which follows the Shia branch of Islam, has proxies in almost every Shia community in the Middle East from Iraq to Bahrain and Yemen to Lebanon and Syria, as well as links to some non-Shia terror groups, such as Hamas, that might not share Iran’s religious beliefs, but do share its fundamentalist ideology.
Long list: A research paper recently published by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal found at least 19 separate terror organizations, including Hamas and Kataib Hezbollah, the Iraqi militia said to be behind the attack in Jordan, linked to Iran in some way. Most of the terror groups listed in the report, which was penned by Joe Truzman, a senior research fellow at the D.C.-based think tank, appear to be Palestinian, and many operate somewhere along Israel’s border or inside Gaza and the West Bank territory it controls.
Hesitation: “I believe the White House understands the extent of Iran’s involvement,” Truzman told JI. “Nevertheless, they are hesitant to explicitly accuse Iran as it would then necessitate a potential military response from the U.S. whenever a significant incident occurs, and the White House has consistently conveyed its preference to avoid engaging in a war with Iran.”