Daily Kickoff
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on concerns within GOP pro-Israel circles over the appointments of critics of the U.S.’ approach to the Middle East to key foreign policy roles in the new administration, and report from Rep. Elise Stefanik’s hearing to become U.N. ambassador. We cover Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s comments on a two-state solution at the World Economic Forum and report on the disruption of a class on Israeli history at Columbia University. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Larry Ellison, Gov. Josh Shapiro and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.
What We’re Watching
- At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, today, Iranian Vice President for Strategic Affairs Mohammed Javad Zarif, who until 2021 was the country’s foreign minister, will sit in conversation with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. Former Secretary of State John Kerry is slated to speak on a panel later this afternoon on climate change. Later on, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa, PA Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian and Asaad Hassan Al Shibani, Syria’s new foreign minister, will also sit for separate one-on-one conversations.
- In Washington, the House Homeland Security Committee is holding a hearing on global cyber threats this morning. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Rear Admiral (ret.) Mark Montgomery is slated to testify.
What You Should Know
Last night’s terror attack in Tel Aviv, at first, looked like one of the many attacks that have taken place in the city — and around Israel — over the last several years. Nearly all of those attacks — whether car rammings or stabbings — had been committed by Palestinians living in the West Bank or east Jerusalem or Israeli Arab citizens of Israel, Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss reports.
But identification taken from the body of the terrorist who stabbed four people in a highly trafficked pedestrian area, indicated that the assailant was not Palestinian, but Moroccan, and that he had traveled to Israel on a tourist visa in recent days from the U.S., where he held a green card that was issued in 2022.
The type of green card was listed as DV-1, known as a diversity green card that is distributed through a lottery system.
“We are aware of these reports,” a State Department official told JI. “We extend our deepest condolences to the victims and to the families of all those affected. We have no further comment.” The spokesperson referred questions on the assailant’s residency to the Department of Homeland Security.
The terrorist’s identity and his ability to secure a U.S. visa are likely to shine a light on the Trump administration’s approach to both counterterrorism and border security at a time when both issues were already front of mind on Capitol Hill.
Moreover, it is likely to heighten scrutiny of President Donald Trump’s top foreign policy and national security picks at a time when pro-Israel Republicans are raising concerns about the Middle East positions of some Trump appointees and nominees. More on that below.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was unanimously confirmed by the Senate earlier this week, will face questions this week about the Tel Aviv terror attack as his State Department also deals with rising tensions in the West Bank, where Israel is working simultaneously to clamp down on settler violence and to combat terror groups operating in the territory that are clashing with Palestinian Authority forces.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the launch yesterday of Operation Iron Wall, “an extensive and significant military operation to defeat terrorism” in the West Bank city of Jenin, where Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad forces have for weeks been fighting PA security troops.
The West Bank itself is set to dominate conversations about the Mideast in the Trump administration. Testifying yesterday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) confirmed, in response to a question from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), that Israel has a “biblical right” to the territory. (More below on Stefanik’s hearing.) Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, Trump’s pick to be ambassador to Israel, regularly uses the term “Judea and Samaria,” the biblical term for the territory, to refer to the West Bank.
Trump, who campaigned on ending global conflicts, said in his inauguration speech on Monday that he wants to be “a peacemaker and a unifier.”
Between the tenuous Israel-Hamas cease-fire, regular terror attacks in Israel — including one that has now pulled in the U.S. — and a devolving security situation in the West Bank, Trump will have his work cut out for him.
ON defense
Pro-Israel Republicans alarmed over Trump’s Defense Department appointee

The Trump administration’s pick for deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East brings a record on Iran, the Houthis and the region that is alarming pro-Israel conservatives, having described Iran’s missile attack on Israel as “fairly moderate” and urged the U.S. against bombing the Houthis, instead calling for American pressure on Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Matthew Kassel report.
Resume: Michael DiMino, who was a military analyst at the CIA and an official at the Defense Department during the first Trump administration, has been a fellow at Defense Priorities, a Koch-funded isolationist think tank founded by allies of libertarian Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) that advocates for more restraint in U.S. foreign policy. He has called for a reduced U.S. presence in the Middle East and argued that the U.S. does not have any critical interests in the region.