Daily Kickoff
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Jewish leaders concerned about Rep. Marc Pocan’s anti-Israel rhetoric — which at times has veered into antisemitic tropes, report on how anti-Israel activity on college campuses is affecting Israeli students’ study-abroad choices and interview House and Senate Democrats about how their colleagues are approaching Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s still-unscheduled address to Congress. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Volodymyr Zelensky, Stephen Schwarzman and Sen. Jacky Rosen.
The global attention centered around cease-fire discussions in Gaza in recent days has distracted from another pressing Israeli security issue: heightened tensions along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the situation is rapidly deteriorating, Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash reports.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security assessment along the Lebanese border on Wednesday following a sharp escalation in rocket fire by the Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah, amid increasing demands from within his government that Israel begin responding more forcefully to restore peace and security in the area.
Visiting a military base and Israel’s northernmost city of Kiryat Shmona, the prime minister was briefed by the army on the situation, and received an operational assessment on the home front’s preparedness and how the IDF might contend with a second front as the war in Gaza enters its eighth month.
Accompanied by his chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, and his military secretary, Maj.-Gen. Roman Gofman, Netanyahu said that “one way or another” he would “restore security to the north” and respond with force to “whoever thinks they can hurt us,” according to a statement from his office.
Hours after Netanyahu’s visit, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which fought a full-blown war with Israel in 2006, fired deadly armed drones into the Druze village of Hurfeish, one of the few towns where steadfast residents have decided to remain. Dozens of civilians were injured, at least two critically, and one IDF soldier was killed, the army said.
Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner (res.) said in a press briefing this morning that the incident in Hurfeish was “another example of how Hezbollah is trying to penetrate Israel’s defensive mechanisms and that it had the devastating result of a soldier being killed in an explosive drone attack.”
“Hezbollah, for the last eight months, is constantly trying to escalate the situation almost every day,” Lerner said. “We are taking the necessary steps in order to defend ourselves and engage and preempt the attacks that Hezbollah is trying to conduct.”
Netanyahu’s visit to northern Israel came one day after rockets fired by Hezbollah sparked a massive wildfire that raged in the area for more than 24 hours, destroying several homes and large swaths of forest reserves. As firefighters, with assistance from the IDF, battled to control the blaze, Israel’s war cabinet met on Tuesday to discuss the deteriorating security situation along the northern border. Israeli media reported that no definitive decision was made on how to deal with the escalating tensions.
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, who also visited the area, said that Israel was “approaching the point where a decision will have to be made.” He said the army was ready and prepared for a possible offensive.
Hezbollah’s increasingly bold attacks on Israel are directly tied to the rising tensions between Jerusalem and Washington over ending Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, David Daoud, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who has been tracking events on the northern border for the last eight months, told JI.
Owing to the unprecedented tensions between the U.S. and Israel, including the halt of weapons shipments, the continued verbal tensions and following President Joe Biden’s call last week to wind down the war, Hezbollah understands that the U.S. tolerance for war in Gaza or Lebanon is done, Daoud said. “That allows Hezbollah to believe it can get away with hitting Israel harder and that Israel will not be able to respond.”
Israel has two options — either all-out war or peaceful diplomatic efforts — said Daoud. Diplomatic efforts “neither go deep enough nor [will] be sustainable enough … which makes war between Israel and Hezbollah increasingly likely,” he said.
The U.S. expressed its concern over the rising tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border, with State Department spokesman Matthew Miller saying that the situation is “untenable” for Israel right now as tens of thousands of Israelis cannot return home due to “constant Hezbollah shelling & drone attacks.”
Meanwhile on Israel’s southern border, an Israeli air force strike on an UNRWA compound in the Nuseirat area in Gaza overnight killed 20 to 30 terrorists who were hiding in a school, Lerner said. Those who were killed were terrorists who took part in the Oct. 7 attack and had used the facility to plan and launch attacks from the school, according to Lerner.
“A number of steps were taken to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians during the strike,” Lerner said, including “conducting aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence information.”
Pocan posts
In social media war against AIPAC, Rep. Mark Pocan advances antisemitic tropes

For months since Oct. 7, Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) has taken to social media, on a regular basis, to level barbs at the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, offering wide-ranging attacks on the organization’s political spending and support of Israel’s operations against Hamas in Gaza. Pocan is among the most outspoken critics of Israel in the House outside of the Squad and he’s often been even more actively involved in the progressive battle against AIPAC than his more high-profile colleagues, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Back and forth: Pocan’s jabs at AIPAC — often coming in the form of X (formerly Twitter) exchanges with the group, which frequently tags Pocan in its own posts — have frequently echoed or outright embraced a slew of antisemitic tropes, including dual loyalty, control of government and even blood libel, experts say.
Bloodlust: In some of the most striking attacks, Pocan — who maintains a combative social media presence on a range of subjects — has accused supporters of AIPAC of being indifferent to, or even reveling in, the deaths of civilians in Gaza, particularly children. Just last week, responding to a video of an Israeli bombing in Rafah, which included graphic imagery of the attack’s aftermath, Pocan declared, “This is porn for @AIPAC. Doubt they’ll show any regret.”