Daily Kickoff
Good Tuesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the Israeli High Court’s ruling this morning mandating the conscription of Haredi men, cover comments made at the Aspen Ideas Festival by Dartmouth President Sian Beilock about why the Ivy did not experience anti-Israel encampments and talk to Rachel Goldberg-Polin about the newly released video of her son, Hersh. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew, Susquehanna co-founder Jeff Yass and State Department official Derek Chollet.
What We’re Watching
- Day two of the Herzliya Conference is taking place at Israel’s Reichman University today. Today’s speakers include: Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, former Defense Minister Benny Gantz, MK Avigdor Liberman, former Israeli National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, Rob Greenway, Elliott Abrams, Victoria Coates, David Makovsky, Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Eyal Waldman.
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant will be on Capitol Hill today, where he’s expected to meet with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), as well as Reps. Michael McCaul (R-TX), Steve Scalise (R-LA), Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Greg Landsman (D-OH). Yesterday, Gallant met with Secretary of State Tony Blinken, CIA Director Bill Burns and Deputy Assistant to the President Amos Hochstein. Gallant had dinner with Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) last night.
- It’s Primary Day in New York, Colorado and Utah. More below on the races we’re watching — including the big Bowman-Latimer Democratic primary.
- Today at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Ford Foundation CEO Darren Walker, author Simon Schama and Tree of Life CEO Carole Zawatsky will discuss antisemitism past and present. Later today, Israelis and Palestinians who have lost loved ones in the conflict will take the stage for a session titled “Israeli and Palestinian Voices of Peace.”
- The Israel Economic Forum is honoring Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Palantir CEO Alex Karp tonight as the group gathers in Jerusalem.
What You Should Know
Today’s New York primaries will be a hugetest of the power of the Democratic mainstream against its hard-left, anti-Israel Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) faction.
Today’s primaries in Colorado and Utah offer major tests of the power of the Republican Party’s anti-establishment MAGA right wing against more mainstream forces, Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar writes.
So far, the pragmatists are holding their own.
In the race to succeed retiring Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), Rep. John Curtis (R-UT), a congressman with a record much closer to Romney than former President Donald Trump, is favored to win the Republican nomination against a Trump-endorsed challenger, Riverton Mayor Trent Skaggs.
The battle for Curtis’ congressional seat is coming down to a battle between two candidates on the opposite side of the GOP’s ideological spectrum. State Sen. Mike Kennedy hails from the MAGA wing, and has campaigned as an isolationist skeptical of foreign funding for Ukraine and as an anti-immigration hard-liner. His leading rival is self-funding businessman Case Lawrence, who has aired ads touting his willingness to work across the aisle to get things done.
Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-UT), another moderate-minded Republican, is favored to win the nomination in Utah’s 2nd District against a right-wing candidate, technology executive Colby Jenkins, who is backed by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).
In Colorado, where the state Republican Party is now led byright-wing hard-liner Dave Williams, pragmatists are favored in two key GOP primaries — while controversial right-wing Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) holds a significant edge in the third.
Boebert’s decision to run in Colorado’s 4th District turned the battle for her old seat into a contest between attorney Jeffrey Hurd, the centrist former chair of the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce, against a crowd of more hard-line candidates, including failed 2022 Senate candidate Ron Hanks.
An outside Democratic group has boosted Hanks in hopes of making this GOP-leaning district winnable in November, but a Hurd victory would likely keep it under Republican control. The Democratic nominee will be Adam Frisch, who came within 546 votes of defeating Boebert in 2022 but faces a tougher task against a more mainstream nominee.
Boebert, who moved to a safer Republican seat given her political vulnerability, is benefiting from crowded opposition from six candidates in the primary. She may only win with a plurality of the vote, but Republicans haven’t coalesced behind one alternative.
And in the Colorado Springs-based 5th District, the right-wing Dave Williams, whose leadership of the state party has been mired in controversy, is facing off against Jeff Crank, a longtime GOP operative who ran for the seat before. Crank has the backing of most Republican leaders, while Williams landed an endorsement from Trump. The Cook Political Report reports that local Republicans view Crank as holding a sizable edge.
landmark ruling
Israel’s High Court rules that Haredim can no longer be exempt from the army
The Israeli High Court of Justice ruled unanimously on Tuesday that Haredim are no longer eligible for blanket exemptions from army service, a landmark decision that could have implications for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The panel of nine judges ruled that the government has no legal basis for distinguishing between yeshiva students and other Israelis who are eligible for IDF service, and authorized the freezing of funds to yeshivot that do not comply with its ruling, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov and Tamara Zieve report.
Weight of the war: The court ruled that the government’s position in granting exemptions to yeshiva students has been made more problematic “in view of the ongoing war against terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip and on the northern front, for a period of more than eight months.” It emphasized that “the current position of the security establishment is that there is a concrete and urgent need for additional personnel,” and the court “made it clear that in the midst of a difficult war, the burden of inequality is more acute than ever — and requires the advancement of a sustainable solution to this issue.”
arms argument
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew cites ‘supply issues’ behind pace of weapons transfers to Israel
The initial rate at which the U.S. delivered weapons to Israel after Oct. 7 “isn’t physically sustainable because you start running into supply issues,” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew said on Monday in his speech at the two-day Herzliya Conference at Reichman University, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Haley Cohen reports for Jewish Insider. “The U.S. system is moving quickly still,” Lew said, but “perhaps not at the speed of October 8.”
Postwar plan: Lew emphasized that the Biden administration is supporting Israel in its conflict with Hamas. His remarks came on the heels of the release of a video by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling on President Joe Biden to expedite arms shipments as Israel’s war in Gaza enters its ninth month. “We firmly support Israel and will continue to do so,” Lew said. “We’ve been transparent with Israel about the current status and future steps.” Lew added, “The critical issue is having a vision for Gaza’s future … It’s essential to avoid reverting to previous conditions.” Among those issues, Lew said, was “a pathway toward a better future” for the Palestinians.
speaking out
‘Dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic and un-American’: Biden condemns anti-Israel protests that sparked violence outside L.A. synagogue
After anti-Israel protests outside a synagogue in a heavily Jewish Los Angeles neighborhood escalated into violence on Sunday, President Joe Biden blasted the instigators for blocking access to the synagogue and turning violent toward Jewish counterprotesters and congregants, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Not acceptable: “I’m appalled by the scenes outside of Adas Torah synagogue in Los Angeles. Intimidating Jewish congregants is dangerous, unconscionable, antisemitic, and un-American,” Biden wrote in a post on X on Monday morning. “Americans have a right to peaceful protest. But blocking access to a house of worship – and engaging in violence – is never acceptable.” The statement coming directly from Biden was a rare example of a quick response from the president, who has in recent months usually first dispatched his communications staff to weigh in on antisemitic incidents.
Also at the White House: A newly promoted White House staffer walked back and deleted past controversial tweets on Israel, though he did not address any specific comments he had previously made. “Past social media posts from when I was younger do not reflect my current views. Period. I support this Administration’s agenda — and will continue my communications work focused on our climate and environmental policies,” Tyler Cherry, who was recently named associate communications director at the White House after working for several years at the Interior Department, wrote on X on Sunday.
nonpoisonous ivy
Dartmouth president says campus encampments go against ‘academic mission’
At the end of a school year marked by strife at campuses around the United States, few prestigious universities have managed to avoid the accusations of discrimination and harassment that have now become routine as higher education institutions grapple with the fallout of the Israel-Hamas war. Dartmouth College may be the rare exception. Speaking at a panel at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Monday, Dartmouth President Sian Beilock was introduced with a rare accolade: Dartmouth is the only Ivy League college that has not faced a federal civil rights investigation over its handling of allegations of antisemitism and Islamophobia on campus, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports from Aspen.
Define free speech: The school saw more than 25 protests on the war, Beilock said, but she made clear why no encampment was able to last at Dartmouth beyond a few hours. “One thing that we were clear about from the beginning is that protests can be an important form of free speech. But there’s a difference between protest and then taking over a shared space for one ideology and excluding another. That is taking over someone else’s free speech. That is not at the heart of our academic mission,” Beilock said. “As such, we’ve been very clear about the consequences of having encampments on campus.”
unrwa accusation
Lawsuit charges that UNRWA served as Hamas money laundering operation
A new lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court on Monday by victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack and their family members alleges that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency played a central role in enabling the attack by serving as a de facto money laundering operation for Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Funneling funds: The civil suit hones in on UNRWA’s insistence on paying employee salaries and other expenses in Gaza in U.S. dollars, rather than in local currency as it does in other areas, including the West Bank. It alleges that this system required recipients to pay currency exchanges — which are largely controlled by or affiliated with Hamas — significant fees to exchange dollars for shekels they could use in Gaza. The suit claims that this system funneled millions per month to Hamas and gave the terror group a reliable supply of U.S. currency to pay weapons smugglers who would not deal in Israeli currency.
hostage update
In new video from Oct. 7, hostages, including Hersh Goldberg-Polin, seen being driven to Gaza
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum released footage on Monday of hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Or Levy and Eliya Cohen moments after being kidnapped from a bomb shelter near the Nova music festival on Oct. 7. In the video, Goldberg-Polin, a dual American-Israeli citizen, can be seen covered in blood, with a makeshift tourniquet wrapped around his left arm to stem the bleeding after a grenade exploded in the shelter in which he and others were hiding before being taken to Gaza. Levy and Cohen are also visible in the video, which runs for one minute and 45 seconds and appears to be taken by a GoPro affixed to a Hamas terrorist. Goldberg-Polin appears dazed but conscious in the video, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports.
Mother’s reaction: Goldberg-Polin’s mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, told JI that her husband and daughter viewed the newly discovered footage after it was first brought to the families’ attention last week, but that she had opted not to, feeling that there was nothing to be gained from seeing months-old footage of her son’s trauma — though she later saw parts of it yesterday while sitting in the Channel 12 studio. She drew a contrast between the new footage and the initial footage, which she viewed shortly after the attacks and which showed her son alive and injured. “That was actually very helpful for us, because it showed us that he was abducted. We did see the extent of his injury. That was important.” But the new video, she told JI, “is just watching the people who stole him sort of having fun with these young men in the truck. And it’s painful to watch people be tormented.”
Worthy Reads
In the Fight Together: In The Wall Street Journal, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett looks at the shared threats to Israel and the U.S. as he highlights the relationship between Jerusalem and Washington. “While Israel is in Iran’s crosshairs today, it is only one battleground in a global war between the forces of freedom and those that would extinguish it. I was in Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, and in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Both acts of pure evil remind us that we must always be prepared to fight for our freedoms. If Gaza is returned to Hamas and further ground is ceded to Iran’s allies in the region, terror will soon return to the streets of New York. In this battle of values and competing visions for the future, Israel’s fight is America’s fight. The fate of the hostages, the rehabilitation of Gaza and the hope of a free and peaceful Middle East all rest on the continued alliance of our two peoples. This alliance is worth investing in, now more than ever.” [WSJ]
Self-Inflicted Wounds: New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait writes about Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s (D-NY) political self-destruction: “Bowman has simply gotten so carried away with the logic of progressive-movement politics that he’s lost all sight of the practical opportunities to build an electoral coalition rooted in the liberal side of the intra-Jewish debate…Bowman seems almost to crave political martyrdom. But if he does lose, it would be more accurate to attribute his demise to political suicide.” [NYMag]
Egypt’s ‘Big Guy’: The Financial Times’ Andrew England spotlights Egyptian businessman Ibrahim al-Organi, whose close ties to Egypt’s military and security establishments have allowed his companies to flourish. “The connections to Egypt’s military and security elites have given Organi a special influence in the Sinai and the neighbouring Gaza Strip. For years anybody wanting to get goods into the enclave through the Egyptian border has faced one main option: working with Organi’s companies. It is a role he cultivated over a decade that went largely unnoticed. But since Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, Organi’s interests have come under the spotlight, not least because of the vast sums his company Hala has earned helping desperate Gazans flee. ‘Millions and millions they collect from us to get out of Gaza, and . . . they charge a large fee to secure and transport into Gaza,’ said a Gazan businessman. ‘He’s the big guy.’” [FT]
Yass, Sir: Bloomberg’s Annie Massa profiles Susquehanna co-founder Jeff Yass, who has become a major GOP donor in the past decade and has been courted in recent months by former President Donald Trump. “By day, Yass, who has a personal fortune of $47 billion, oversees Susquehanna International Group LLP, a trading firm burrowed deep in the machinery of modern finance. It’s a giant force in options, stocks, energy, bonds and foreign exchange — and also in more esoteric stuff. It runs a Bermudan subsidiary that sells niche insurance for lottery payouts and natural disasters, a Bahamian cryptocurrency operation and an Irish sports-betting group. It backs startups around the world, including in China and Israel. And it arrived relatively early to Bitcoin — Yass purchased some from a U.S. marshals auction following their seizure from the illegal marketplace Silk Road, according to a person familiar with the matter.” [Bloomberg]
Word on the Street
The U.S. is indirectly signaling to Hezbollah that it may not be able to stop a potential Israeli strike should the Iran-backed group terror group in Lebanon continue its attacks on Israel; one senior Defense Department official told Politico, “Israel’s gotta do what they gotta do”…
Hamas leaders in Qatar are reportedly considering a move to Iraq amid mounting pressure from Washington and Doha to push its Gaza leadership to accept a cease-fire and hostage-release deal with Israel…
The head of U.S. Africa Command said that Islamic terrorism on the continent has increased tenfold over the last several decades…
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin tapped Derek Chollet, a top aide to Secretary of State Tony Blinken who has played a key role in the administration’s involvement in the Israel-Hamas war, to serve as chief of staff at the Pentagon; State Department senior advisor Tom Sullivan, the brother of National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, will replace Chollet in Foggy Bottom…
CNN political commentator Van Jones condemned the anti-Israel protests that turned violent outside a Los Angeles synagogue, saying: “This is unacceptable… You protest a policy, you don’t protest a people…you don’t bum rush a Jewish neighborhood, and run up on a synagogue”…
Notable quotable from Adam Jentleson, adviser to Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), in The New Yorker: “Most voters do not form their political views through the lens of Israel. What they formulate is more intangible and is a sense that the Democratic Party is being led around by the far left”…
Sen. Joe Manchin’s (I-WV) leadership PAC is planning its first donations to centrist GOP lawmakers in addition to Democrats, weeks after reregistering as an Independent; the PAC is expected to give money to Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Angus King (I-ME) and John Curtis (R-UT), as well as Democratic congressional candidate John Avlon…
The Associated Press declared the GOP primary between Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) and state Sen. John McGuire III in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District too close to call…
Rep. Burgess Owens (R-UT) is calling on Northwestern University to sever its official partnership with Al Jazeera…
Former Washington Commanders owner Dan Snyder listed his Fairfax County, Va., estate for $60 million, months after donating his Potomac property to the American Cancer Society after it failed to attract a buyer…
Alan Rosen, the owner of New York’s famous Junior’s cheesecake chain, is considering mounting a bid for mayor on the Republican line…
New York-based kosher bakery chain Pastis filed for bankruptcy…
The New York Times spotlights an effort to preserve and translate a 1933 book about the history of Jewish magicians whose author was killed during the Holocaust…
Global shipping costs are again on the rise as the Houthis in Yemen scale up their attacks on commercial vessels transiting through the Red Sea…
An Israeli committee of inquiry sent a warning letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over potential national security issues tied to the purchase of submarines from a German company eight years ago…
The New York Times looks at how debate over the enforcement of Iran’s restrictive hijab laws has become a key campaign topic in the run-up to the presidential elections slated for Friday…
Pic of the Day
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Herzog spoke at an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Embassy of Israel in Washington on Monday honoring Israel’s delegation to the SelectUSA investment summit. Many of the companies present came from the technology and biotech spaces, including in AI.
Diane Farrell, the acting deputy undersecretary of commerce, in remarks, expressed a strong personal connection to Israel, saying, “we wish you, your country, your leadership good luck, grace. We want to see the hostages come home as soon as possible, but please know that in our hearts, we stand with Israel.”
Birthdays
Founder and CEO of The Agency real estate brokerage, Mauricio Umansky turns 54…
Music publicist in the 1970s and 1980s for Prince, Billy Joel and Styx, later an author on human behavior, Howard Bloom turns 81… Founder and CEO of Bel Air Partners, a financial advisory firm for automotive retailers, Sheldon J. Sandler turns 80… Real estate developer and founder of The Continuum Company, Ian Bruce Eichner turns 79… Florida resident, Joseph C. Goldberg… Southern California-based mentor, coach and consultant for business executives through Vistage International, Gary Brennglass… Associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Justice Sonia Sotomayor turns 70… Former member of the Knesset for the Meretz party, Michal Rozin turns 55… Managing director of A-Street (investment fund focused on seeding and scaling innovative K-12 student learning), Mora Segal… Senior media and PR specialist at Hadassah, Helen Chernikoff… Israeli philosopher, writer and publicist, he teaches at Yeshivat Har Etzion and Midreshet Lindenbaum, Rabbi Chaim Navon turns 51… Founder and director of The Biblical Museum of Natural History in Beit Shemesh, popularly known as the “Zoo Rabbi,” Natan Slifkin turns 49… Former fashion model and television presenter, Michele Merkin turns 49… Congressional liaison at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, Zachary Silberman… President of Gratz College in Melrose Park, Pa., Zev Eleff turns 39… Manager of strategic content at Leidos, Isaac Snyder… VP of strategy at Saint Paul Commodities and co-founder of Veriflux, Daniel “Dani” Charles turns 37… Medical resident at Temple University School of Medicine, Avital Mintz-Morgenthau, MD… Senior producer covering the White House for CNN, Betsy Klein… Center fielder in the San Francisco Giants organization, he was the 10th overall pick in the 2019 MLB draft, Hunter David Bishop turns 26…
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