Daily Kickoff
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we profile U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Yael Lempert, and report on former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s first major stump speech of his Senate campaign, delivered at a Potomac synagogue. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rob Satloff, Benny Gantz and former Vice President Mike Pence.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on his opposition to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) push last week for Israel to call new elections, telling CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday that the remarks were “totally inappropriate.”
“That’s something that Israel, the Israeli public does on its own, and we’re not a banana republic,” Netanyahu added.
Netanyahu, whose support has precipitously dropped in Israel in the months following the Oct. 7 terror attacks, cited recent polls indicating that a majority of Israelis back the government’s efforts in Gaza, including an operation in Rafah. “Most Israelis overwhelmingly support the position that we have to go in,” he said. “They oppose the idea of ramming down a two-state solution or a terrorist state against their will, because they think that this is — will endanger Israel’s future.”
The prime minister said that calling for new elections — which aren’t scheduled to be held until 2026 — would result in “at least six months of national paralysis,” which “would be not only a defeat for Israel, but a defeat for America too, because our victory is your victory.”
An election could be triggered in the near term under a number of scenarios, among them, if Netanyahu’s coalition members decide to break up the partnership and team up with the opposition to pass a law dispersing the Knesset. In addition, Netanyahu can call an election via a dispersal bill if he thinks his coalition has become untenable. Regardless of who backs such a law, it would set in motion a campaign period of at least 90 days ending in a new election, per Israeli law. A less likely scenario by which Netanyahu could be ousted is via an affirmative vote of no-confidence, in which a majority of the Knesset must also vote in a new prime minister.
Netanyahu stopped short of directly criticizing President Joe Biden. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the decades-long relationship between the two leaders “appears close to an open rupture” amid “their clashing political agendas and conflicting war aims.”
Speaking at his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu blasted those “in the international community who are trying to stop the war now, before all its goals are achieved,” alleging that “those who say that the operation in Rafah will not happen are the same ones who said that we will not enter Gaza, that we will not operate in Shifa [hospital], that we will not operate in Khan Younis and that we will not resume fighting after the [temporary] cease-fire” that occurred in November.
The IDFmounted a new operationat Gaza’s Shifa hospital on Monday morning, targeting Hamas operatives believed to be using the building for operations. Elsewhere in Gaza, Hebrew-language media cited Palestinian sources saying that Hamas deputy commander Marwan Issa was believed to have been killed in an IDF strike last week and that Israel will try to remove his body to use as a bargaining chip.
Back in Jerusalem, the Knesset voted unanimously on Sunday to mark the 24th day of Tishrei on the Hebrew calendar as a national day of remembrance for the victims of the Oct. 7 terror attacks. But questions remain as to how it will be observed on the first anniversary — which falls on Shabbat.
In Tel Aviv, roughly 600 philanthropists and grantmakers are gathering for the Jewish Funders Network convening. Whereas previous JFNs have featured high-profile speakers and a series of large events, this year’s conference has a heightened focus on Israeli communal needs in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks.
tough gig
Meet Yael Lempert, the Jewish-American ambassador in Amman

When Yael Lempert was sworn in as Washington’s new ambassador to Jordan in August, she arrived in a relatively calm Middle East. She presented herself in her Senate confirmation hearing as an optimist with a forward-looking vision for the Middle East. As the No. 2 official working on the region at the State Department, she was Foggy Bottom’s biggest behind-the-scenes booster of regional integration and the Abraham Accords. But that optimism has been pushed to the back burner, if not outright extinguished, since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in Israel. The resulting hostility toward Israel, including from some of Jordan’s leaders, has put Washington in an uncomfortable position: navigating diplomatic ties with two neighboring nations who technically have a peace treaty and rely heavily on each other for security purposes, despite an undercurrent of public animosity toward Israel among Jordanians. Lempert’s role involves communicating America’s backing for Israel to a country with growing animosity towards the Jewish state, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports in a new profile of the diplomat.
Fine line: “She has to express the empathy and the anxiety of what the Palestinians are feeling [while] at the same time supporting the president’s position. You have to walk a fine line. The good news for her, she knows how to do that,” said former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, who worked closely with Lempert before stepping down from his post last summer. Lempert’s tenure as career foreign service officer has taken her to diplomatic posts across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.
Discreet mediation: That line has never been thinner than this month, as Hamas threatens additional violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which ends on April 9. Jordan maintains a special role overseeing Muslim access to the holy sites in Jerusalem. It’s a unique responsibility for the kingdom that requires discreet security cooperation with Israel, with the U.S. serving as something of a mediator.
Jewish in Jordan: Lempert is the first Jewish-American ambassador to Jordan, a distinction that would have once been almost unthinkable; for decades, the State Department kept Jewish diplomats from serving in the Middle East as a matter of unwritten policy. That her status as the first Jewish person to serve in the role has not received any headlines is a sign of how far Washington has come. But that doesn’t mean Amman has followed. Elliott Abrams, who served in high-level foreign policy roles in the George W. Bush and Trump administrations, pointed out that there is a “fair amount of antisemitism” in Jordanian society, but he speculated that that would not affect the Jordanian government’s dealings with Lempert. “Officials understand that they cannot let that affect official relations, or the treatment of the ambassador — or if they do so, it’ll be at their own peril,” said Abrams. Lempert is known to have a close relationship with Secretary of State Tony Blinken.