Daily Kickoff
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the cease-fire and hostage-release agreement finalized in Doha overnight and look at the next steps in its implementation. We interview outgoing White House Jewish liaison Shelley Greenspan about her tenure in the Biden administration and report on concerns over the potential pick of Joe Kent, a former congressional candidate with ties to right-wing extremist groups, to head the National Counterterrorism Center. We also cover calls from House Republicans for the incoming Trump administration to appoint an Abraham Accords envoy, and talk to Ilya Shapiro about his new book about higher education. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ashley Moody, Alex Ryvchin and Michael Kadoorie.
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: Lipstadt: U.N.’s Guterres said U.N. Special Rapporteur Albanese is ‘a horrible person’, Shari Redstone praises CBS News’ hiring of Susan Zirinsky following concerns over editorial bias; and Imam ridiculed by Sean Hannity is giving benediction at Trump’s inauguration. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- President-elect Donald Trump is slated to meet today with New York City Mayor Eric Adams at Mar-a-Lago. Trump will head to Washington this weekend ahead of Inauguration Day on Monday.
- French President Emmanuel Macron is in Beirut today for his first visit to Lebanon in more than four years. Macron will meet with Beirut’s new leadership, President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, the former head of the International Court of Justice.
- U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is also in Beirut today for meetings with political leaders. He is also expected to travel to the south of the country to see the U.N. peacekeeping force. Guterres was welcomed at the airport by Lebanon’s caretaker foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib.
- Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is in Moscow today to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two are expected to sign a “comprehensive strategic partnership.” Iran’s ambassador to Russia said on Thursday that the pact would not include a mutual defense clause similar to Moscow’s agreements with North Korea and Belarus.
What You Should Know
In the hours before Shabbat, Israelis collectively held their breath as senior Israeli government officials took steps toward approving a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement following the announcement Thursday night that both Israel and Hamas had agreed to the terms of the agreement being brokered in Doha, Qatar.
The next step is an Israeli security cabinet meeting to vote on the deal, which began late morning local time, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. The full cabinet will then convene at 3:30 p.m. local time to approve the deal.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is expected to resign and pull his party out of the coalition, having announced last night that he would do so if the deal is approved. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich opposed the deal but plans to stay in the government following negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in which they agreed that the IDF could continue fighting in Gaza after a temporary cease-fire and control the entry of humanitarian aid. Smotrich and his party threatened to quit the coalition government if the war ends. Ben-Gvir’s departure will not topple the governing coalition, but if Smotrich follows, along with Likud minister Amichai Chikli, who made a similar threat, Netanyahu’s government will be seriously destabilized.
After the full Cabinet vote, the Israeli Justice Ministry is expected to release the names of the Palestinian terrorists to be released from prison, and the families of those terrorists’ victims will be given 24 hours to appeal to the High Court of Justice against their release. The court rejected all such appeals following the November 2023 hostage deal.
The first three hostages are expected to be released on Sunday. Secretary of State Tony Blinken told reporters on Thursday that he was “confident” the Israel-Hamas cease-fire deal will be implemented on Sunday. Read more on Blinken’s comments here.
In the first stage of the deal,a total of 33 hostages are expected to be freed over the course of six weeks, including Americans Keith Siegel and Sagui Dekel-Chen. As many as 1,000 Palestinian terrorists could be released at that stage, depending on how many of the released Israeli hostages are alive or dead.
The IDF will remain along the Philadelphi Corridor between Egypt and Gaza to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza, a senior diplomatic source said. That would include continued patrols, lookout towers and crossings, but the soldiers will be spread out differently than they are currently.
Talks on the second stage of the deal will begin 16 days after the first stage commences. The second stage would include the release of male IDF soldiers, including American citizen Edan Alexander, in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
But comments by a senior Israeli diplomatic official who spoke to JI raise doubts as to whether the deal would advance to its second stage — a major concern among hostage families regarding the fate of the remaining 65 hostages not included in the first group of 33 set to be released.
“If Hamas does not agree to Israel’s demands for ending the war” — meaning Hamas would agree to cede control of Gaza — “Israel will stay in the Philadelphi Corridor on the 42nd and the 50th day. In other words, in practicality, Israel will stay in Philadelphi until further notice,” the official said.
The deal also states that Israel will retain a buffer zone around Gaza’s perimeter but will withdraw from the Netzarim Corridor bisecting Gaza from east to west, which will be subject to “security arrangements,” an Israeli official said this week.
The third and final stage of the deal would include exchanges of hostages’ bodies for the bodies of Palestinian terrorists held by Israel. It would also entail a full withdrawal of Israeli troops to the perimeter of Gaza, and the entry of a yet-to-be-determined third party to govern Gaza.
exit interview
White House Jewish liaison Shelley Greenspan on how the kosher sausage gets made

In Shelley Greenspan’s early meetings with Jewish communal leaders after she assumed the role of White House liaison to the Jewish community in the summer of 2022, she heard the same request over and over again: that President Joe Biden should draft a national strategy to fight antisemitism. The request was a lobbying priority for Jewish groups but was not yet on the radar of the White House officials who would need to actually craft that document. Greenspan resolved to make it happen. “It wasn’t easy. It had never been done before. It isn’t something that we set out to do from the onset of this administration,” Greenspan recalled in a recent interview with Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch, where she offered a peek at how the kosher sausage gets made as she gets ready to leave her post after more than two years.
Chutzpahdik: Greenspan maintains that her support for Israel is one of the reasons she went to work for Biden. “I am so proud of the way that this president responded [after Oct. 7]. I think he’s the most pro-Israel president we’ve ever had in this country,” she said. Meanwhile, in the same White House, some of her colleagues were releasing anonymous open letters criticizing Biden’s support for Israel. “I definitely had to lean into my own chutzpah and my own moral courage at times, especially when navigating the complexities of these diverse perspectives. There were challenges internally and externally,” she acknowledged. “That’s the most I’ll say on that.”