Daily Kickoff: The Antisemitism Awareness Act’s path in GOP-controlled D.C.
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at possible pathways forward for the Antisemitism Awareness Act in the new Congress and report on President–elect Donald Trump’s appointment of Morgan Ortagus as deputy Mideast envoy. We do a deep dive into the Brussels-based organization pushing for the arrests of IDF soldiers abroad, and cover Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s comments on Lex Fridman’s podcast about how his grandfather survived the Holocaust. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Israeli MK Moshe Tur-Paz, Adrien Brody and Nadav Eyal.
What We’re Watching
- The House of Representatives will vote to certify the results of the presidential election this afternoon in Washington.
- Amos Hochstein is in Beirut today after weekend meetings in Saudi Arabia focused on the evolving situation in Lebanon. Hochstein’s trip comes amid concerns that the temporary truce between Israel and Hezbollah may collapse, following Hezbollah’s failure to retreat beyond the Litani River — a key stipulation of the cease-fire.
- Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is slated to travel to the U.S. this week for meetings with outgoing Biden administration officials and representatives from the incoming Trump administration.
What You Should Know
When The New York Times published its extensive interview on Saturday with outgoing Secretary of State Tony Blinken, his reflections and insights into the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war shone a light on the efforts to reach Israeli-Saudi normalization in the weeks prior to Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks and how perceived daylight between the U.S. and Israel played a key role in Hamas’ refusal to agree to a cease-fire and hostage-release deal.
But his revelatory comments were largely overshadowed by the odd questioning of his interviewer, New York Times reporter and “The Conversation” host Lulu Garcia-Navarro, who pressed him on U.S. foreign policy vis-a-vis the Israel-Hamas war and continued support from Washington for Israel, Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss writes.
Among the assertions made by Garcia-Navarro in the interview: that Israel’s response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks was “extreme”; that the IDF’s actions in Gaza have been “fairly indiscriminate” with “entire areas flattened”; that Gaza’s “population has been completely decimated”; and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “never seemed to listen” to Blinken.
Garcia-Navarro also repeated falsehoods, such as that Netanyahu scuttled a July hostage-release deal — an allegation Blinken called “not accurate” and noted that what “we’ve seen time and again is Hamas not concluding a deal that it should have concluded.”
In her final question to Blinken on the matter of the Israel-Hamas war, Garcia-Navarro asked the secretary of state, “Do you, Secretary Blinken, worry that perhaps you have been presiding over what the world will see as a genocide?”
Only twice did Garcia-Navarro mention Hamas — including when she suggested the terror group was “no longer deemed a threat in the way that it was” — while Blinken referenced Hamas more than a dozen times.
This is not the first time that Garcia-Navarro has pressed interview subjects on Israel in a slanted manner. In an October interview with Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), Garcia-Navarro told the senator, “I would love to understand where your affinity with the state of Israel actually comes from” — a prompt unlikely to be given to, for example, Rep. Marc Pocan (D-WI) or Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), two of the most vocal Israel critics on Capitol Hill, about their support for the Palestinians.
Garcia-Navarro also asked Fetterman, a vocal supporter of Israel, “if [he’d] tried to understand the other side of this conflict,” and if “the price that’s been paid [by Gazans] is fair.” She also asked him about his support for Israel’s pager operation in Lebanon last year, which killed dozens of Hezbollah operatives and effectively crippled broad swaths of the Iran-backed group’s rank-and-file, noting that a child was killed in the operation — but not noting, as Fetterman did, that the child’s father was a Hezbollah operative and in possession of one of the pagers.
The debut episode of “The Conversation,” which aired last spring, featured former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who has led Israel’s opposition since late 2022. In that interview, Garcia-Navarro described Israel’s response to Hamas’ attacks as “swift and brutal” and uncritically cited Hamas casualty statistics. Garcia-Navarro also suggested that the Netanyahu government has “almost tried to embarrass the Biden administration,” asking, “Biden has been a real friend to Bibi, but is Bibi a friend to Biden?”
Garcia-Navarro’s lines of questioning recall an October 2023 interview by her New York Times colleague Sabrina Tavernise during an interview with Rachel Goldberg-Polin for the publication’s podcast, “The Daily.” Tavernise asked Goldberg-Polin, who only weeks prior had been thrust into the spotlight as she fought for the release of her son, about the suffering of Gazans. “And I wonder, as a mother, how you see the civilian casualties in Gaza,” Tavernise asked. “Is that upsetting to you? Is that something that comes into your mind?”
next steps
Antisemitism Awareness Act faces bumpy path even in Republican-controlled Washington
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle say they’ll try to pass the Antisemitism Awareness Act in the new Congress after failing to get the bipartisan bill across the finish line before the end of 2024, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. The legislation never received floor time in the Senate after passing the House by a 320-91 vote in May. Then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), reportedly concerned about divisions over the legislation among Senate Democrats, declined to bring the bill forward as part of a stand-alone Senate vote. Instead, he wanted to add the legislation as an amendment to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, one of Congress’ annual “must-pass” bills that funds the Pentagon and also serves as a vehicle to pass other legislative priorities. That effort failed after House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) rebuffed the request.
Starting over: With the 118th Congress in the rear-view mirror, members of the 119th Congress will have to reintroduce and pass the legislation again in the House and do the same in the Senate to send the bill to the president’s desk. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has expressed interest in getting the bill passed. “I would love to get a vote on [AAA],” he told JI last month. Asked if that meant he was actively considering bringing the bill up for a vote in the coming months, Thune replied, “Yeah, we’re talking about it.”
Read the full story here with additional comments from Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and John Fetterman (D-PA).
travel troubles
Organization with terror ties is trying to get IDF soldiers arrested around the world
Yuval, a survivor of the Oct. 7 Nova Festival massacre and an IDF veteran of the war in Gaza, was relaxing in Morro de São Paulo, an idyllic island town in Brazil, with a group of friends, when he got a call that disrupted what was meant to be a time of rest and recuperation. There was a warrant for his arrest in Brazil for alleged war crimes, the Israeli Consulate in São Paulo told Yuval. From that moment, he and his friends sprung into action to get out of the country. Over the course of a day, they made calls and traveled by land, and by Sunday morning, Yuval had crossed into a third country. Similar stories have occurred to IDF soldiers visiting Cyprus and Sri Lanka in the last two months, and an unknown number of IDF soldiers who are either vacationing or hold dual citizenship remain in the same danger in Chile, Thailand, France and other countries, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Who’s behind it: The organization hounding Israeli soldiers around the globe is called the Hind Rajab Foundation, and it has strong ties to Hezbollah. The Brussels-based organization, founded in September and named for a 5-year-old Palestinian girl alleged to have been killed by the IDF in Gaza, takes legal action against what it calls “perpetrators, accomplices and inciters of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine.” The Hind Rajab Foundation is led by Dyab Abu Jahjah and Karim Hassoun, longtime anti-Israel activists with ties to terrorist organizations. The Beirut-born Jahjah was once called “Belgium’s Malcolm X” by The New York Times for founding immigrant rights group the Arab European League, which was behind multiple riots in the streets of Antwerp at the beginning of the century, including violence against Jews in the city and burning an effigy of an Orthodox Jew. Jahjah told the Times that he joined Hezbollah as a young man. “I had some military training; I’m still very proud of that,” he said.
mixed message
Trump announces Morgan Ortagus as deputy Mideast envoy, while criticizing her
President-elect Donald Trump expressed uncertainty about appointing former State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus as deputy special envoy for Middle East peace – while announcing his decision to give her the role. Trump said in an unusually tepid statement posted to his Truth Social platform on Friday that he was “pleased to announce” that Ortagus would be serving as deputy to Steve Witkoff, his longtime friend and golfing partner who he appointed as special envoy to the Middle East in November, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Yes, but: After the warm opening, Trump called out Ortagus for past criticism of him and suggested that he was only offering her the job at the behest of Republicans. “Early on Morgan fought me for three years, but hopefully has learned her lesson,” Trump said, referencing Ortagus’s tenure as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s spokeswoman. “These things usually don’t work out, but she has strong Republican support, and I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing it for them. Let’s see what happens. She will hopefully be an asset to Steve, a great leader and talent, as we seek to bring calm and prosperity to a very troubled region. I expect great results, and soon!”
staffing up
ADL hires lobbying firm close to Trump for work fighting antisemitism
The Anti-Defamation League has hired the lobbying firm Ballard Partners — which has close relationships with the incoming Trump administration — to assist with its work on antisemitism policy, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The move is a sign of the ADL’s preparations for the incoming GOP administration. The ADL has had a rocky relationship with President-elect Donald Trump, most recently accusing him of invoking antisemitic tropes during the 2024 campaign.
What they’re saying: “ADL is a non-partisan organization that has worked with elected officials across the political spectrum for over 100 years to combat antisemitism and all other forms of hate,” ADL’s executive vice president and chief engagement officer, George Selim, said in a statement to JI about the deal with Ballard Partners. “We look forward to working with the incoming administration and with Congressional officials across the political spectrum and at all levels of government to protect Jewish communities from hate and discrimination.”
BOOK SHELF
Officer, lawmaker, now author: MK Tur-Paz publishes his war diary
Yesh Atid MK Moshe “Kinley” Tur-Paz was a typical opposition lawmaker for most of 2023. He perhaps stood out most for his kippah and residence in Kfar Etzion, a West Bank settlement, despite representing a party that, by reputation and voting statistics, generally represents secular residents of central Israel. Yet, like so many other Israelis, Tur-Paz took on new responsibilities in the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attacks and ensuing war with Hamas, becoming, as the title of his book suggests, An MK on the Night Shift. During the day, Tur-Paz was chief of operations for the IDF’s Gaza Division. His book, released in September, is subtitled “War Diary,” and tells the story of the 85 days he spent on IDF reserve duty in Gaza. “I was voting in the plenum and a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee dealing with national security, and at the same time doing 14-hour shifts managing all the operations in Gaza, deciding where to bomb, where not to bomb, when to do a rescue operation,” Tur-Paz said in an interview with Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov.
People’s army: Tur-Paz recounted that in one of the first weeks of the war, the head of the French Senate’s Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Forces Committee visited Israel and expressed shock that he was serving as a senior officer in the army and a Knesset member at the same time. “I told him, it’s unusual, but it has its advantages,” he said. “We are the army of the people, and the elected representatives of the people are serving. I can present what is happening in the field to the Knesset in the most authentic way, and ensure that we are not disconnected.”
PODCAST PLAYBACK
Volodymyr Zelensky recalls his Jewish heritage on Lex Fridman’s podcast
In an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman published on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of his family who perished in the Holocaust and his grandfather, Semyon Ivanovich Zelensky, the sole survivor in his family, who fought in the Red Army against the Nazis in World War II, Jewish Insider’s Tamara Zieve reports.
War wounds: “He was in the infantry and he fought through the entire war. He had many wounds, as they used to say back then, ‘His chest is covered in medals,’ and it’s true,” Zelensky told Fridman during their discussion, which also covered the Russia-Ukraine war, President-elect Donald Trump’s upcoming inauguration and prospects for peace between Russia and Ukraine. “He didn’t like to tell details about the war. He never boasted, although I asked him as a boy would, ‘How many fascists did you kill?’ He never talked about it,” Zelensky said. “He believed that the war was a great tragedy — a tragedy for everyone. And Ukraine was occupied, and it was a tragedy for Ukraine, a tragedy for Europe and a tragedy for the Jewish people. His own brothers, his entire family were executed.”
Worthy Reads
Left Out: Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria examines why the left is losing support, comparing and contrasting how policies and regulations in New York and Florida are motivating voters at the polls. “The crisis of democratic government then, is actually a crisis of progressive government. People seem to feel that they have been taxed, regulated, bossed around and intimidated by left-of-center politicians for decades — but the results are bad and have been getting worse. … For years, New York has been losing people to states such as Florida. This same story can be told with minor variations about California and Texas. Basically, big red states are growing at the expense of big blue states, which will translate politically into more Republican representation in Congress and more electoral votes. There is now an interesting effort by people such as Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to combine cultural conservatism and economic nationalism with the radical reform of government. That could be an appealing ideology for many voters who are frustrated by a government in which nothing seems to work that well. On the other side, if Democrats do not learn some hard lessons from the poor governance in many blue cities and states, they will be seen as defending cultural elites, woke ideology and bloated, inefficient government. That might be a formula for permanent minority status.” [WashPost]
Tehran Reeling: The Wall Street Journal’s Benoit Faucon looks at the challenges facing Iran during a second Trump administration, as Tehran finds itself weakened by Israel’s military successes against its regional proxies and facing internal dissent over its human rights violations. “Iran’s economy has already been crippled by a mix of bad management, corruption and existing sanctions. Power shortages have shut down government offices, schools and universities and disrupted production at dozens of manufacturing plants. At the same time, Iran’s military threat has been blunted by Israel’s battering of allies Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the now-collapsed Assad regime in Syria and much of Iran’s air defenses. The Islamic Republic’s difficulties represent the biggest challenge to its clerical leaders since 2022, when the country was rocked by widespread unrest sparked by the death of a young woman in police custody after allegedly wearing an improper veil. Authorities crushed the uprising with brute force that human-rights organizations said killed hundreds. While protests over the worsening economic picture remain limited, the regime appears more vulnerable to unrest now.” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
The Biden administration recently notified Congress it intends to move forward on an $8 billion weapons sale to Israel; including in the package are medium-range air-to-air missiles, Hellfire AGM-114 missiles and 500-pound bombs…
The White House is expected to announce an easing of restrictions on humanitarian aid to Syria, but will not yet lift sanctions on the country following the ouster of the Assad regime a month ago…
Rep. Jonathan Jackson (D-IL) is considering a bid for chair of the Democratic National Committee ahead of next month’s vote…
The University of California, Los Angeles lost a multimillion-dollar donation over the administration’s handling of anti-Israel protests on campus last spring…
The chancellor and president of the University of Pittsburgh will oversee the school’s effort to create a working group to address antisemitism on campus and in the Pittsburgh area; the committee was initially going to be overseen by Pitt’s Equity, Inclusion and Anti-Discrimination Advocacy Committee…
Jewish leaders in Oakland, Calif., are calling on the city’s leaders to act following a spate of antisemitic incidents…
A newly formed group in New York City, the Jewish Voters Action Network, aims to put $7 million into efforts to mobilize the city’s Jewish voters ahead of municipal elections later this year…
“The Brutalist,” about a Jewish architect who survived the Holocaust, took home the Golden Globe for Best Drama; Adrien Brody won Best Actor for his role in the film…
Director Brett Ratner, who reportedly lives in Israel after past #MeToo allegations in Hollywood, is slated to direct an upcoming documentary for Amazon about incoming First Lady Melania Trump…
The New York Times looks at how religious leaders are incorporating AI into their sermons and pastoral work…
Newly discovered documents unearthed during an investigation into Credit Suisse indicate that the bank concealed the extent to which Nazi officers used their accounts with the bank to move and store looted funds…
Germany cut its funding to two left-wing Israeli NGOs which, respectively, call for a right of return for Palestinians and advocate for Israelis to forgo their army service as conscientious objectors…
Hamas released a three-and-a-half-minute video of 19-year-old hostage Liri Albag, who was kidnapped from the Nahal Oz military base…
Three Israelis were killed today in a terror attack on Route 55 in the West Bank…
Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal discussed Israel’s recently declassified September operation targeting an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps missile factory in Syria on the latest episode of Dan Senor’s “Call Me Back” podcast…
Dozens of Haredi men enlisted in a new IDF unit specifically for religious soldiers as part of the army’s creation of an all-Haredi unit…
The Washington Post talks to residents of Israel’s north, where just 20% of the population has returned following the cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah in November…
Hezbollah confirmed that former head Hassan Nasrallah was killed in the terror group’s war operations room during an Israeli airstrike in September…
Naor Ihia announced his departure as spokesperson for Israeli President Isaac Herzog…
Playwright Richard Foreman, who founded the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in 1968, died at 87…
Director and screenwriter Jeff Baena, who co-wrote “I Heart Huckabees,” died at 47…
Dr. Martin Karplus, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in chemistry and who fled Nazi Europe as a child, died at 94…
Pic of the Day
A monastery with a mosaic floor and a Greek inscription, a sophisticated winepress and other buildings were discovered in an Israel Antiquities Authority excavation, conducted as part of the Israel Land Authority’s development works for the establishment of the Karmey Gat North neighborhood, north of Kiryat Gat in southern Israel. The monastery is dated to the Byzantine period (5th-6th centuries CE), and it is part of an ancient site that already existed during the Roman period, according to the Israeli Antiquities Authority.
Birthdays
President and CEO of United Wholesale Mortgage, he is the majority owner of the Phoenix Suns of the NBA and Phoenix Mercury of the WNBA, Mat Ishbia turns 45…
Retired EVP and senior counsel of the Trump Organization, he was also one of the advisors on “The Apprentice,” George H. Ross turns 97… International businessman and philanthropist, Nathan “Natie” Kirsh turns 93… Canadian businessman, investor and author, Seymour Schulich turns 85… Co-founder of private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Henry R. Kravis turns 81… Chairman, president and CEO of Phibro Animal Health Corporation, Jack C. Bendheim turns 78… Yiddish-language author, journalist, playwright and lyricist, Boris Sandler turns 75… Attorney general of Oregon until today, she was elected to four-year terms in 2012, 2016 and 2020 but she did not run again last year, Ellen Rosenblum turns 74… Film, theatre, and television director and writer, Jan Pringle Eliasberg turns 71… Consultant to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, Michael Harris turns 69… Retired television executive and political commentator, Mark E. Hyman turns 67… Founder and executive director of Healthcare Across Borders, Jodi Lynn Jacobson… Israeli celebrity chef, Eyal Shani turns 66… Member of the Ukrainian Parliament and president of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, Oleksandr Feldman turns 65… English food writer and television cook, Nigella Lucy Lawson turns 65… Daniel G. Slatopolsky… Founder of Pure California Beverages, Sarah Beth Rena Conner… Member of the Knesset for the Religious Zionist Party, Michal Miriam Waldiger turns 56… Actor, painter and fashion designer, he is the nephew of Ralph Lauren, Greg Lauren turns 55… Author of 13 spy fiction novels and four non-fiction books, Alex Berenson turns 52… Israeli actress, best known for her role in “The Zookeeper’s Wife,” Efrat Dor turns 42… Founder and CEO at GTTFP Holdings and Jewish dating sites, Harei At and Jedding, Eli Ostreicher turns 41… Investigative reporter at WCCO/CBS in Minneapolis, both of his parents are rabbis, Jonah P. Kaplan… Director of community engagement at CAMERA, Aviva Slomich Rosenschein… Philanthropic advisor at the Community Foundation for a Greater Richmond, Sarah Arenstein Levy… One of the youngest to ever sign a Major League Soccer contract at age 15, he is now a VP at Acacia Research, Zachary “Zach” Pfeffer turns 30… Olympic rock climber for Team USA, Jesse Grupper turns 28… Value accelerator lead at Goldman Sachs Growth, Anna Phillips… Rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary and a rabbinic intern at Park Avenue Synagogue, Aiden Pink…
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