Daily Kickoff
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s comments on Iran at yesterday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, and cover former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s confirmation hearing yesterday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We also look at the state of the race in Florida’s deep-red 6th Congressional District, where state Sen. Randy Fine, a Republican, is being heavily outspent by his Democratic challenger ahead of next week’s special election, and report on how Jewish social services agencies are preparing for widespread funding cuts. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Michael Dell, Ilana Gritzewsky and Ilan Goldenberg.
What We’re Watching
- A day after the Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing on worldwide threats with Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and FBI Director Kash Patel, the House Intelligence Committee will hold a similar public hearing today. We expect that “Signalgate” — the Trump administration’s use of a popular and unsecured messaging app to communicate plans to strike the Houthis in Yemen, which inadvertently included The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg — will again come up in the hearing. More on yesterday’s Senate Intel hearing below.
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is convening a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing on “Anti-American Airwaves,” which will include testimony from the heads of PBS and NPR, as well as the Heritage Foundation’s Michael Gonzalez.
- Israeli President Isaac Herzog is holding an event tonight for Jewish communal leaders, a day before Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli’s convening on antisemitism, which saw a number of participants drop out over a program that included several far-right European leaders. Tonight’s convening at the President’s Residence will include a panel discussion with William Daroff, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Wendy Kahn, the national director of the South African Board of Jewish Deputies; Rabbi Menachem Margolin, the head of the European Jewish Association; Alon Cassuto, CEO of the Zionist Federation of Australia; and Muriel Ouaknine-Melki, the head of France’s Organisation Juive Européenne. Following the panel, former Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky will speak in conversation with Israeli antisemitism envoy Michal Cotler-Wunsh. Chikli and Herzog will also speak at the event.
- The Orthodox Union Advocacy Center and Teach Coalition are holding a webinar tonight to discuss how the Trump administration’s plans to dismantle the Department of Education will affect the Jewish community.
What You Should Know
Video emerged late Tuesday of what appeared to be large demonstrations of Palestinians in Gaza protesting against Hamas, which for nearly two decades has ruled the enclave with an iron fist and wrought destruction and misery on its 2 million residents, Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss reports.
The protests, which largely occurred in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, are the largest anti-Hamas protests since the terrorist group launched its attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering 1,200 people and taking hundreds hostage.
Video posted online from the protests showed throngs of men chanting, “Out, Out, Out, Hamas out” and “We want an end to the war.”
Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a U.S.-based researcher from Gaza who has been outspoken about his opposition to the terror group, called the protests “organic, popular-led, and entirely authentic expressions of frustrations, anger, rage, fury, and exhaustion by a people being held hostage by Hamas’s ruthless terrorism & criminality.”
Earlier this week, Israeli forces moved to evacuate portions of Beit Lahiya, from which Palestinian Islamic Jihad had fired rockets at Israel.
The protests come after the renewal of the war in Gaza following a two-month lull in fighting during a ceasefire brokered by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar, during which time Hamas had time to regroup, and residents had the time and space to consider a potential future free of war before the death toll began to rise again and fresh evacuation orders were issued by the IDF. In recent days, the IDF has killed a number of senior Hamas officials, including participants in the 10/7 attacks.
The ceasefire collapsed after an impasse over disagreements on moving forward with the ceasefire and hostage-release deal. Israel sought to extend the first phase of the deal after it was completed several weeks ago, instead of negotiating the second phase that was expected to involve further Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which Israel is opposed to while Hamas remains in power. U.S. negotiators suggested two interim deals with the aim of maintaining a ceasefire through Ramadan and Passover, which ends in mid-April, but Hamas did not agree to the terms, insisting on continuing to the second phase of the original agreement.
Israel reportedly sent messages to Palestinians in Gaza yesterday, telling them, “the solution is in your hands, and Hamas is insisting on taking you to hell.”
Hamas has long been accused of stealing and redirecting humanitarian aid that has come in through Israeli and Egyptian border crossings — and then taxing what aid does make it to Gazans and keeping the revenues to bolster its coffers.
Beyond that, Hamas has for years used civilian installations — including hospitals, schools and U.N. facilities — to conduct attacks on Israeli targets, putting those Palestinians in the vicinity of those facilities in danger.
A Gallup poll of Palestinians in Gaza taken earlier this month and reported this week by the U.K.’s Telegraph found that just over half of Gazans would consider leaving the enclave — either permanently or temporarily — if given the opportunity to do so, with younger Gazans and those living in the areas of Khan Younis and Gaza City more likely to want to leave.
This week’s protests in Gaza are the first sign of a potential tide shift on the ground that could destabilize the terrorist regime that has wrought death and destruction on the people of Gaza. But protests alone will not be enough to destabilize Hamas, which still enjoys support from its sponsors across the region. It’s a moment of opportunity for negotiators to seize upon — but only by doing so strategically will they be able to chart a new course for the region.
intel assessment
Gabbard: Iran is not currently developing nuclear weapons

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said Tuesday that the intelligence community maintains its assessment from prior years that Iran is not currently actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, but that open discussion of nuclearization has increased inside the regime, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Status update: “The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamanei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003,” Gabbard said in her opening remarks at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing. But, Gabbard added, “In the past year, we have seen an erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus. Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons.”