Daily Kickoff
Good Thursday morning.
Ed. note: The next Daily Kickoff will arrive on Tuesday, Sept. 3. Enjoy the long holiday weekend!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the impact of AIPAC’s strategic shift into congressional primaries, and have the exclusive on a letter from Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) to the CEOs of major American airlines over their prolonged suspensions of flights to Israel amounting to an ‘effective boycott.’ We also report on concerns from Jewish House Democrats over a U.N. exhibit on victims of terror that failed to include Israelis and take a close look at how French President Emmanuel Macron has approached his country’s far-left political party. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Eric Levine, Jonathan Conricus and Sally Kornbluth.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: AIPAC emerges as moderate force in political primaries; Why several leading labor unions abandoned their long-standing support for Israel; The cafe uniting a Negev moshav’s evacuees; and The GOP Senate candidate betting on the Jewish vote to win Pennsylvania. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- Vice President Kamala Harris, joined by Gov. Tim Walz, will sit for her first interview since President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race last month. Harris and Walz will sit with CNN’s Dana Bash for the interview, which airs at 9 p.m. ET.
- U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is slated to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris today. Their conversation is expected to touch on the Israel-Hamas war and Middle East concerns.
What You Should Know
With relative calm restored in Israel following last weekend’s confrontation with Hezbollah, attention is again turning to the West Bank, where the IDF has ramped up its efforts to defang terror cells operating in the enclave.
Israel announced earlier today that it had killed Palestinian Islamic Jihad commander Muhammed Jabber in an operation in Tulkarem.
This week’s operations focused in Tulkarem, Jenin and the Jordan Valley are part of a broader effort to address terrorism concerns in the West Bank, which had been on the rise even before the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in southern Israel. IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said the West Bank threats against civilians and troops have been steadily increasing and the type of terror acts intensifying since the Oct. 7 attacks.
Those types of terrorist activities included an explosion that rocked Tel Aviv last week — believed to be the first attempt at a bomb attack in the city in 12 years. One bystander was injured in the blast, in which the terrorist carrying the bomb was killed. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the failed attack the following day.
Jonathan Conricus, the former IDF spokesperson who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash that this week’s military moves were the “first stage of an inevitable and long overdue Israeli operation.”
“We’ll likely see similar operations in Nablus, perhaps Jericho, in the near future,” Conricus continued, adding that it would mark a shift in Israel’s “position along the Jordan border as it erects defenses, tech and troops to make it much more difficult for weapons to be smuggled in.”
Conricus added that the IDF’s operations in the Jordan Valley to stem the flow of weapons into the West Bank was of particular note. “To me, that’s the most important one because that is where the weapons are coming in from — across the Jordanian border,” he said. “It’s a race against time, because up until now, terrorist organizations have not been able to get their hands on strategic, game-changing weapons such as high-quality anti-tank missiles, explosive devices and surface-to-air or shouldered missiles.”
Brig. Gen. (retired) Amir Avivi, CEO of the Israel Defense and Security Forum, attributed the rise in West Bank tensions to Iran’s efforts to “ignite” the enclave “by sending in huge amounts of money and smuggling in weapons through the Jordanian border.” As a result of the growing threat, he said, the IDF has been forced to deploy tactics — such as aerial strikes on cars — that it had not previously used in the West Bank. Read more here.
pac playbook
AIPAC emerges as moderate force in political primaries
In late 2021, the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC announced it would soon begin wading directly into campaign politics — launching a political action committee and super PAC to wield its resources in high-stakes congressional elections. The pivot was seen at the time as a risky and controversial maneuver threatening to sow backlash and risk diminishing its clout in Washington, where it has long been engaged in bipartisan lobbying to uphold support for Israel, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
‘A real force’: But nearly three years and two election cycles later, AIPAC’s new efforts have made a significant impact on the primary landscape, strategists say, pointing to a waning influence of the far left that had been ascendant in the Democratic Party, where divisions over Israel have fueled rising tensions in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks. “AIPAC has become a real force in Democratic primaries,” Chris Coffey, a Democratic strategist, told JI. The group has “picked races carefully and made a big mark. Campaigns will surely assess AIPAC’s future potential spending and how it affects their own races.”
donor daze
Top GOP donor criticizes Trump for RFK Jr., Gabbard outreach
A top Republican donor harshly criticized former President Donald Trump on Wednesday over his recent decision to add Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard to his presidential transition team, calling them “fringe candidates” who will alienate voters, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
‘Self-destructive announcement’: “It is hard to imagine a more self-destructive announcement,” Eric Levine, a board member with the Republican Jewish Coalition and a prominent GOP fundraiser in New York, said in an email letter he sent to his network and shared with JI. “Rather than seeking and coveting the endorsement of fringe candidates with fringe policy positions that offend most Republicans and independents,” he added. “Trump would be better served by announcing he has added Nikki Haley to his transition team. It is her voters he should be focusing on.”
scoop
Rep. Torres accuses U.S. airlines of practically boycotting Israel
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is urging U.S. airlines to reconsider their prolonged suspensions of flights to Israel “in order to prevent the appearance and the substance of discrimination against the Jewish State.” Torres, who serves on the House Financial Services Committee, sent a letter on Wednesday to the CEOs of American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines expressing his concerns over their decisions to suspend flights to Israel without FAA guidance that such flights are unsafe. Torres’ letter comes just over a week after American Airlines announced that it would extend its suspension of flights to Israel through April 2025, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Lack of competition: “The suspension has been so prolonged and so pervasive that El Al, an Israeli airline, has become the sole carrier offering direct flights from America to Israel. The lack of competition has made air travel to Israel less available and less affordable, putting customers at the mercy of a de facto monopoly that can easily gouge prices with impunity,” Torres wrote to American Airlines CEO Robert Isom, Delta CEO Ed Bastian and United CEO Scott Kirby.
paris politics
Macron’s stand against the far-left a relief to French Jewry
French President Emmanuel Macron is resisting pressure to appoint a left-wing prime minister, as the political deadlock plaguing the country since its parliamentary election in July continues. By keeping a left-wing alliance out of government, Macron has blocked from power the far-left France Unbowed (LFI), a party that 92% of French Jews think is antisemitic, according to a recent survey by the American Jewish Committee Europe, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Party background: LFI has a history of antisemitism. The party’s leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, disregarded chants of “Dirty Jews” at a rally as “gossip” that did not need to be addressed. He also accused Jews of killing Jesus, called French Jewish umbrella organization CRIF one of the “aggressive communities that lecture the country” and said the chief rabbi of the U.K. was behind a campaign against former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has also peddled in antisemitic remarks. The party called the Oct. 7 attack on Israel an “armed offensive by Palestinian forces” against Israel’s “policy of occupation.” Mélenchon’s deputy Daniele Obono called Hamas a “resistance movement” and Mélenchon stood by a LFI member of the European Parliament who called the Oct. 7 attack a “legitimate action.”
glaring omission
Jewish House Democrats blast U.N. for ignoring Israeli terrorism victims
A group of Jewish House Democrats blasted the United Nations for excluding Israeli and Jewish victims of terrorism, including the victims of the Oct. 7 attack, from a recent U.N. headquarters exhibit honoring victims of terrorism, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What they said: “This clear and conspicuous omission of Israeli victims of terrorist attacks, including the horrific Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, is an insult to these innocent victims and seriously undermines the UN’s credibility on terrorism and human rights,” the lawmakers, led by Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), said in a letter to Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday.
collective memory
How Jewish communities around the world will commemorate the Oct. 7 attacks
In just under six weeks, Israel and Jewish communities around the world will mark the one-year anniversary of the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust and the start of an ongoing war in Gaza and fighting along the Lebanese border, as well as a major rise in global antisemitism. While these ceremonies will likely focus primarily on the commemoration of the murder of some 1,200 people, the injury of thousands more and the kidnapping of more than 250 — nearly half of whom remain in captivity — they are also among the first official opportunities to establish the narrative of the Oct. 7 massacres, to place that watershed moment in the context of Jewish history writ large, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports.
Looking to the leaders: “Designing this memory has always been [the responsibility of] Jewish leadership. Some generations have succeeded and given us the best stories, which really make sense of who we are and what should be done. Some generations failed and these moments in history we don’t even collectively remember,” Naama Klar, director of the Koret International School for Jewish Peoplehood at Tel Aviv’s ANU – Museum of the Jewish People, said at a discussion organized by ANU and the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia last week.
Read the full story here and sign up for eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.
Worthy Reads
Right and Wrong: In The New York Times, Peter Kuras raises concerns about the rise in support for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, whose messages are penetrating discourse despite the party having been politically isolated. “The fact that [regional AfD leader Bjorn] Höcke used Nazi slogans at his rallies is important and demands a response from the country’s political class. But all too often, Germany has focused on the symbols of Nazi injustice while ignoring or even condoning the continuation of the brutality they represent. In practice, that has meant the far-right penetration of the security services, the laundering of extreme ideas in the media and the willingness of other political parties to adopt racialized fearmongering as an electoral tactic. While the AfD has been kept from power, the kind of hateful language that built its support has become a significant part of German political life.” [NYTimes]
Back to School: The Washington Post editorial board looks at how universities are preparing to deal with renewed protests on campus when classes resume in the coming weeks. “As a new school year approaches, colleges need to avoid their past mistakes, such as maintaining vague and selectively enforced campus speech rules, or meeting disorderly protests with a response that is either insufficient or heavy-handed. Public universities can and should follow the constitutional framework the Supreme Court has set down: They may not police content unless it is threatening or harassing, but they may regulate protests’ time, place and manner to preserve public order. Over the decades, this framework has proved capable of balancing the right to free speech and the imperative of public order, and private universities, though not bound by it, are well advised to embrace it.” [WashPost]
Word on the Street
Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign hired Egyptian-American attorney Brenda Abdelall as head of its Arab American outreach effort…
The U.S. has moved over a dozen warships to the Middle East and surrounding areas, amid heightened concerns of an attack on Israel by Iran and ongoing tensions with the Houthis in Yemen…
Israel agreed to a tactical pause of some operations in Gaza as a polio vaccine campaign gets underway in the enclave following a confirmed case…
Israeli forces in Gaza recovered the body of an IDF soldier killed by Hamas on Oct. 7; the soldier, whose identity is not being released at the request of the family, was killed before his body was taken to the enclave…
The U.S. announced sanctions on the Israeli group Hashomer Yosh over alleged violence against Palestinians in the West Bank…
N.J. state Sen. Nellie Pou became the de facto winner of the Democratic primary to succeed Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), who died last week, following Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly’s withdrawal from the race; Pou will face Republican Billy Prempeh in the deep blue district in November…
The Zioness Movement has launched a new political action fund, Efrat Lachter reports for eJewishPhilanthropy…
Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPresidentSally Kornbluth denounced leaflets distributed at the school’s freshman orientation that directed students to the antisemitic “Mapping Project” that provided the locations of hundreds of Jewish institutions, including synagogues and organizations, in the Boston area…
Religion News Service spotlights the Lithuanian Jewish community’s effort to preserve the Yiddish language…
A 3,500-year-old jar on display in Haifa’s Hecht Museum was shattered after a boy attempted to peer into the artifact, which was not behind glass…
Jewish National Fund-USA and Keren Kayemet Le’Israel-Jewish National Fund inked a $50 million agreement to collaborate on the rehabilitation of southern Israeli communities attacked by Hamas…
U.S. and U.N. officials are raising concerns about the potential for a disastrous oil leak from a tanker that is moored in the Red Sea after being struck by the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen…
High-end personal shopper Betty Halbreich, whose clients included Estée Lauder and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), died at 96…
Pic of the Day
Flag bearers Lihi Ben David and Adam Berdichevsky led the Israeli delegation at the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympic Games in Paris 2024 on Wednesday.
Birthdays
Winner of the Tiberias Marathon and the Jerusalem Marathon, Haredi mother of five children, Bracha “Beatie” Deutsch turns 35…
Longtime actor, born as Elliott Goldstein, Elliott Gould turns 86… Former U.S. secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration, Robert Rubin turns 86… Retired IDF major general, he is the founder of Commanders for Israel’s Security, Amnon Reshef turns 86… Head of Yeshiva Ahavat Shalom in Jerusalem, Rabbi Yaakov Moshe Hillel turns 79… Hotel and real estate mogul, she is the U.S. ambassador to Malta since 2022, Connie Milstein turns 78… Former dean of Duke Law School following 17 years as a U.S. District Court judge, David F. Levi turns 73… Founder of Yad Sarah and former mayor of Jerusalem, Uri Lupolianski turns 73… Los Angeles resident, Warren B. Stern… U.S. ambassador to Israel, he was the secretary of the Treasury during the Obama administration, Jacob Joseph ‘Jack’ Lew turns 69… Former senior counsel at the Federal Communications Commission for 23 years, Amy L. Nathan… President and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation since 2017, Richard E. Besser turns 65… Director of operations at Kesher Israel: The Georgetown Synagogue, Laura Kamer-Israel… CEO of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Ariel Zwang… Journalist, author and blogger, Lisa Frydman Barr turns 60… District attorney of Queens, Melinda R. Katz turns 59… Associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Neil Gorsuch turns 57… Director, screenwriter and editor, Ra’anan Alexandrowicz turns 55… Head of the global business group at Facebook / Meta, Nicola Sharon Clyne Mendelsohn turns 53… Partner at DC-based HLP&R Advocacy, Jerr Rosenbaum… Election law guru at Dickinson Wright PLLC, Charles R. Spies… Hip-hop fashion designer, entrepreneur and artist, born in Lakewood, N.J., Marc Ecko turns 52… Author and staff writer at The Atlantic, Gal Beckerman… Rosh Yeshiva and Head of School at Bnei Akiva Schools in Toronto, Rabbi Seth Grauer… Israeli computer hacker, known as “The Analyzer,” Ehud Tenenbaum turns 45… Rabbi of Congregation Sons of Israel in Cherry Hill, N.J., Michael Z. Davies… Ice hockey defenseman for 18 seasons, Dylan Paul Reese turns 40… Actress Lauren Collins turns 38… Actress, singer, and songwriter, known professionally by her first and middle names, Lea Michele Sarfati turns 38… Robin Rubin… Adam Shapiro…
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