Israel’s defense establishment learned of the International Criminal Court’s effort to issue arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday through CNN’s report on the issue, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss has learned. The defense establishment did not have prior notice that the ICC was preparing to issue the warrants, a senior official with knowledge of the matter said. Officials found out about the move when CNN International’s communications team touted the “exclusive interview” between CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour and ICC prosecutor Karim Khan.

PR stunt: “We were informed of the warrants via a CNN interview,” the official said. “The ICC produced a PR stunt — reflecting their political and corrupt nature over professional channels or even over communicating via its official platforms. Aside from the method of publication, in requesting the warrants themselves, the court is making a mockery out of its own values and the entire premise of humanitarian law.” The official added, “the double standard and refusal to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself, as well as the failure to recognize our extraordinary efforts to protect human lives, is in fact, antisemitic.”

Nixed visit: A delegation had been slated to travel to Israel on Monday to prepare for an upcoming visit by  Khan, but did not board the plane. Khan announced his application for the arrest warrants in an official statement shortly after the publication of the CNN interview.

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Speaking to a gathering of the Jewish Democratic Coalition of America on Monday night, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC) accused Republicans of politicizing Israel and antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Calling out: Schumer emphasized the need for bipartisanship on Israel, attacking Republicans who he said, “seem to care more about attacking Democrats on Israel than they actually care about keeping U.S.-Israeli relations strong.” Schumer claimed that the GOP legislation relating to Middle East policy and antisemitism “doesn’t make meaningful progress, doesn’t ensure that Israel has the tools it needs to defend itself, but [is] just to make a political point.”

Community comms: He said he had told Jewish communal groups in a private meeting that “they and we have an obligation to fight partisanship when it comes to Israel. We can’t have half of America desert Israel, whether it’s the younger half or the more progressive half, or whatever. That hurts Israel.” Even as Schumer painted the legislation as partisan, some leading Jewish organizations have embraced the GOP-led bills.

Campus crisis: Manning, who sits on the House Education and Workforce Committee that has grilled university presidents on campus antisemitism, said she’s “glad that our committee is highlighting those problems. However, my Republican colleagues care only about grabbing the news headlines, and they have no real interest in actually solving this frightening and growing problem.”

Eyes on November: Schumer also made the case for why Jews should stick with the Democratic Party, amid intensified GOP efforts to attract Jewish voters concerned about the administration’s shifting posture on Israel. “What the other side doesn’t understand is that Jewish voters are not a monolith,” he said, highlighting issues like abortion rights and democracy. “The values we hold as Jewish Americans are intimately tied to the values we all hold.”

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A bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers is pushing for increased funding in 2025 for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which helps religious institutions and nonprofits beef up their security, while an overlapping group of more than 30 Democrats is asking for $400 million — a record-high request level, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Record levels: One letter, signed by 33 Democrats, requested $400 million for the program, the highest-ever request level from Capitol Hill lawmakers for full-year funding for the NSGP. It surpasses a $385 million request from bipartisan House lawmakers last month. The letter was led by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and Gary Peters (D-MI).

Increasing demand: “The NSGP is a critical component to the nation’s response to domestic and international threats targeting the nonprofit sector, but the program is significantly over-subscribed,” the letter reads, revealing that there was a 97% increase in applications this year to the tranche of NSGP funding for non-urban institutions, outpacing the number of applications for the entire NSGP funding pool in 2020. The letter also notes that, for the first time, institutions in all 55 eligible states and territories applied for NSGP funding.

Very robust: A second letter, which is bipartisan, calls for “very robust funding” for the NSGP, without specifying a request level, as has often been the practice in the Senate in past years.The letter’s text is otherwise exactly identical to the Democratic letter. The bipartisan letter was signed by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) and Kevin Cramer (R-ND).

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Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, is today among the most famous antagonists of Israel and the Jewish people. Yet in 2011, when the Oct. 7 mastermind was released from Israeli prison as one of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners exchanged for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, he was not seen as one of the most dangerous terrorists to release, Emi Palmor, a member of the Israeli negotiating team, told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov in a recent interview.

‘Butcher of Khan Younis’: While the Shin Bet “stood on its hind legs” to strongly oppose the release of terrorists who murdered Israelis, Sinwar was not one of them, Palmor recounted.  “A lot of people don’t know this, but Sinwar’s nickname is ‘the butcher of Khan Younis’ because he was known for his cruelty to the Palestinians,” she said. “He was in Israeli prison for murdering Palestinians, not Jews. He murdered four Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel. He killed them himself – he strangled one, he hanged another by his feet… He is a sadist; there is no question.”

No petitions: According to the law in Israel, victims of a violent or sexual crime have the right to submit their opinion on any request for clemency or a pardon for the perpetrator to the Justice Ministry’s Pardons Department, which Palmor led at the time. Because Sinwar was not in prison for killing Israelis, “there were no families who said at the time, in 2011, ‘don’t free the man who murdered our father,’ which is the classic Israeli response,” she said. Palmor, who later became director-general of Israel’s Justice Ministry and is now a member of Meta’s Oversight Board, was the only member of the Shalit negotiations team who was part of the process for all five years. As a result, Palmor said, “I know Sinwar’s whole file.” 

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An unverified claim by an Islamist terror group with roots in Bahrain that it launched a drone strike against Israel last month is a clear indication that Iran is working to broaden its proxy war against the Jewish state with new fronts across the region, analysts and experts on Iran and its militant offshoots told Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash last week. The Al-Ashtar Brigades, a U.S.-designated terror group originating from the Gulf state but not based there, said in a statement on May 2 that a week earlier it had targeted the headquarters of Trucknet Enterprises, an Israeli transportation company with headquarters in Eilat, which provides services between countries that are signatories to the 2020 Abraham Accords.

Uptick in attacks: While Israeli authorities did not confirm such an attack took place, over the past eight months – since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel – there has been an increase in drones, rockets and missiles being fired towards Israel from the east and south by an increasing number of Iranian-backed groups. On April 13, Iran — which is now in a state of mourning over the death this week of its president, Ebrahim Raisi — launched a full-scale missile attack against Israel directly from its territory.

Northern front: That was thwarted by a coalition of mostly regional countries led by the U.S.’ Central Command but Israel’s northern border continues to be battered daily by the militant Shiite group Hezbollah, Iran’s closest terror ally, based in Lebanon. Hezbollah’s attacks have significantly intensified in the past few weeks, with at least a dozen Israeli civilians and soldiers killed.

Other players: From the south, most of the projectiles have been attributed to the Houthis, an Iranian-backed militia based in Yemen, who have disrupted global shipping routes via the Red Sea. And from the east, most likely Iraq, the attempted attacks – none of which have succeeded in hitting Israeli targets – come from an array of extremist groups that are believed to be receiving funding, arms, and orders directly from Tehran. 

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It was a meeting that began like countless others at the White House: “Thank you for inviting us to meet with you today. We are so honored to be here,” said Hazel Nisenbaum, the advocacy group’s leader. She wore a sky-blue suit and white kitten heels. What followed made clear that the group’s business in Washington was anything but typical, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. “We are a group of second grade girls at Bernard Zell Anshe Emet Day School in Chicago, Ill.,” Hazel continued, before White House Jewish liaison Shelley Greenspan interrupted and asked if she could take notes. Eight-year-old Hazel, all business, agreed. “We may only be 7 and 8 years old, but we know we can make a big difference in the world. We are proud to be Jewish and are proud to be girls.” 

Busy day: In the Friday meeting at the White House, Hazel was tasked with introducing the Jewish Girls Rights Club, whose 11 members were in Washington with their mothers for a high-level advocacy day that even the most seasoned Washington veterans would envy. Their day began on Capitol Hill, in meetings with Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and the chief of staff to Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and a private tour of the Capitol, followed by a White House visit that included conversations with Greenspan, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby and White House Gender Policy Council Director Jennifer Klein. They ended the day at the Supreme Court. (They all read I Dissent, a biographical picture book about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, before the trip.)

Grown-up issues: “I was so encouraged by how tenacious and precocious these girls were. Yet as young as they all were, I was very impressed by how they had a keen sense of the ancient prejudices that fuel this recent rise in antisemitism that they have grown up with, and the need to stand up for the rights of women and girls,” Wasserman Schultz told JI on Monday.

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