Daily Kickoff
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Columbia University’s latest attempt to respond to anti-Israel student protesters, and talk to former colleagues and staffers of former Rep. Nita Lowey, who died over the weekend. We also report on former Gov. Mike Huckabee’s upcoming confirmation hearing to be U.S. ambassador to Israel, and cover last week’s Johannesburg City Council meeting in which legislators voted to advance legislation renaming the street where the U.S. consulate sits to honor a Palestinian hijacker. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ryan Turell, Wendy Sachs and Aviva Aron-Dine.
What We’re Watching
- Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is in Israel today for meetings with senior officials, JI’s Emily Jacobs scooped on Friday. Fetterman made his first trip to Israel last June.
- UJA-Federation of New York is holding a memorial tribute tonight to honor Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) on his first yahrzeit. Hadassah Lieberman, Matt Lieberman, Rabbi Ethan Tucker and Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) are slated to speak at the event.
- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) kicks off a week of events around the release of his new book, Antisemitism in America: A Warning, which hits bookshelves tomorrow. Tonight, he’ll speak at Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library.
- Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is in India this week for the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi.
What You Should Know
U.S. strikes against the Houthis in Yemen continued early this morning, after President Donald Trump over the weekend made his most aggressive moves against the Iran-backed group since he resumed office, launching strikes targeting dozens of Houthi sites. The Houthis said the U.S. hit the Al Jaouf and Hudaydah areas early this morning. The terror group also claimed responsibility for its second attack in 24 hours against the USS Harry S. Truman and several of its warships in the northern Red Sea.
The weekend strikes, which National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said “hit multiple Houthi leaders and took them out,” dealt a blow to Iran’s last remaining stable proxy in the region.
“The minute the Houthis say, ‘We’ll stop shooting at your ships, we’ll stop shooting at your drones,’ this campaign will end, but until then, it will be unrelenting,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News.
The Houthis have ceased their attacks on Israel and against vessels transiting through the Gulf — though, the militant group has noted, not at Israeli vessels transiting through the Gulf — since a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas came into effect in January. The attack had hit a fever pitch in late December, with near-nightly ballistic missile attacks targeting Israel for more than a week.
The U.S. strikes come less than two weeks after the Trump administration redesignated the Iran-backed group as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, reversing a decision by the Biden administration to leave the Houthis off the terrorist list.
American officials are saying that the latest U.S. attacks against the Houthis — of which Israel was informed before they began — could last for weeks, and are meant to send a message as much to the Houthis’ Iranian sponsor as to the militant group itself.
In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote, “To Iran: Support for the Houthi terrorists must end IMMEDIATELY! Do NOT threaten the American People, their President, who has received one of the largest mandates in Presidential History, or Worldwide shipping lanes. If you do, BEWARE, because America will hold you fully accountable.”
Waltz was more direct, saying to ABC News on Sunday that the U.S. “will hold not only Houthis accountable but also their Iranian backers.” Meanwhile, Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, extended the message to Hamas, telling CNN that the Palestinian terror group’s latest hostage-release and cease-fire proposal was “a nonstarter” and “What happened with the Houthis yesterday, what happened with our strike, ought to inform as to where we stand with the regard to terrorism and our tolerance level for terrorist actions — and I would encourage Hamas to get much more sensible than how they have been.”
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Noam Raydan told Jewish Insider on Sunday evening that the Houthi leadership’s “defiance” and “unwillingness to stop their attacks” were on display on Sunday.
“The group intends to escalate further, based on the statements that were made on Sunday,” Raydan said. “Accordingly, we should expect the Houthis to continue attempting to attack U.S. warships in the region, and also launching missiles against Israel — depending on the situation in Gaza, given that the Houthis have been linking their actions to the situation there. Meanwhile, risks to commercial shipping in the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, as well as in the Arabian Sea, will remain high.”
So far, Raydan added, “there are no signs the group is willing to de-escalate.”
campus beat
Under pressure from White House, Columbia University cracks down on antisemitism
The intense scrutiny that the Trump administration has placed on Columbia University for failing to address rising campus antisemitism escalated last week in several incidents that culminated in the university expelling several students and the Department of Homeland Security agents raiding two dorm rooms on Thursday night, arresting one student, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
What happened: Last Thursday, the university issued expulsions, multiyear suspensions and degree revocations for students who participated in the anti-Israel encampment and occupation of the university’s Hamilton Hall last spring, after the University Judicial Board found that the participants violated university policy. A university official told JI that Columbia began the disciplinary process against these students immediately following the takeover of the campus building last April — which initially included interim suspensions of several participants. The official added that new revisions — including a designated rules administrator and the development of an Office of Rules Administration — will “allow the Rules process to operate more expeditiously” going forward. The university declined to provide the number of students impacted by these latest actions.
Leftward march: Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA) initiated a letter, signed by over 100 Democrats, to administration officials defending detained Columbia University anti-Israel leader Mahmoud Khalil and questioning the authorities supporting his detention and revocation of his green card, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.
in memoriam
Jewish community ‘lost a giant’ in Nita Lowey, a pro-Israel congressional champion
Nita Lowey (D-NY), a pioneering Jewish congresswoman and the first woman to chair the powerful House Appropriations Committee, was remembered on Sunday as “a force to be reckoned with on so many issues” and “a lifelong champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Lowey, 87, died on March 15 of breast cancer at her home in the suburban New York district she represented in Congress for 32 years, from 1989 to 2021.
Remembering: Lowey was a leading advocate for the U.S.-Israel relationship and Jewish community interests, holding a pivotal role on the committee responsible for setting government funding levels of foreign aid. “She is one of the strongest champions we’ve ever seen in Congress in terms of support for Israel, in terms of foreign aid and support for Israel,” Stephanie Hausner, a former Lowey intern and campaign staffer who is now the chief operating officer of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, toldJI. “When she decided not to run again in 2020, I think we as a Jewish community lost a giant, and her shoes — I don’t know that they’ll ever fully be filled.”
Read the full story here.
barred from office
Netanyahu set to be last Oct. 7-era leader left in office after Shin Bet chief dismissal
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be the last — and most senior — of the country’s leaders tied to the failure to anticipate the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks to remain in office, after he took the first step on Sunday toward firing Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. Netanyahu fired former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November; IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi resigned in January, as did IDF intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Aharon Haliva and the head of its Southern Command, Maj.-Gen. Yaron Finkelman. David Barnea remains head of the Mossad, but his agency is less directly tied to Oct. 7 as its mandate is countering threats from abroad.
Next steps: Netanyahu said that he will bring Bar’s termination to a cabinet vote on Wednesday “due to continuing lack of trust” in the intelligence chief. The process may take longer, however, because Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara — whom Netanyahu’s government is also trying to sack — said that the cabinet must wait for her to assess the legality of the move, and because it is likely to face challenges in the High Court of Justice on the grounds that the dismissal does not have a defensible legal basis.
Read the full story here.
Huckabee’s hearing
Huckabee set for confirmation hearing during week of March 24
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, the Trump administration’s nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Israel, is set for a confirmation hearing during the week of March 24, the chairman of the committee overseeing his confirmation told Jewish Insider, JI’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.
Status check: Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told JI on Friday that Huckabee’s confirmation process is proceeding normally, and said that the hearing will be held when Congress returns from its weeklong recess. The committee began confirmation hearings for the administration’s nominees for country-level ambassadors last week. It’s not clear how much Democratic support Huckabee will muster, but at least one Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), told JI he’s open to voting for the pastor.
On track: Elbridge Colby, the nominee to be the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy, appears to be on track to pass a crucial hurdle toward confirmation in spite of strong GOP concerns earlier in his confirmation process about his dovish past views on Iran, among other issues, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Emily Jacobs report.
honoring a hijacker
Johannesburg votes to name U.S. consulate street after terrorist as councilor chants ‘we want Hitler’
In a stormy session of the Johannesburg City Council last Thursday, a motion to block the renaming of the U.S. consulate’s street after a Palestinian terrorist was voted down and a councilor shouted “we want Hitler” at a Jewish colleague. Members of the council have since 2018 sought to rename a central artery in the South African city after Palestinian terrorist Leila Khaled. Thursday’s vote against the motion to keep the current name, Sandton Drive, was one of the final steps toward making the change, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Significant location: Khaled became known as the world’s first female hijacker for her role in two attacks in 1969 as a member of the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Joel Pollak, Breitbart’s senior editor-at-large, who confirmed reports from South African media and political parties that he is a leading candidate for U.S. ambassador in Pretoria, posted on X after the vote that the American consulate in Johannesburg should be closed if the street is renamed after the terrorist. The Patriotic Alliance, a South African opposition party, said in a statement that “besides the fact that Sandton Drive hosts the U.S. Consulate and it would be profoundly insulting towards [the U.S.] and contrary to South Africa’s diplomatic relations with our second-largest trading partner, there are many deserving South African historical heroes who should rather be considered and who continue to be overlooked.”
Read the full story here.
revitalization nation
Financial experts create vision for Israel’s postwar economic recovery
Israel’s Western Negev Region, also called the Gaza Envelope, was once known for its agricultural fields, kibbutzim and peacenik residents. Now, ravaged by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, continuing rocket attacks and the evacuation of its residents for more than a year, the region is in desperate need of revitalization, estimated to the tune of $6.5 billion to $9.3 billion. Seeing a need, the Milken Institute think tank convened one of its keystone “financial hack-a-thons” called the Financial Innovations Lab, this time bringing together more than 50 venture capitalists, investors, philanthropists and government officials to create a plan for revitalizing Israel’s war-ravaged economy, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen reports.
Devising a funding platform: The “Innovative Finance for Rebuilding Israel’s Regions” report, released by Milken on Feb. 20, says, “The context of the war, marked by significant physical destruction and major disruption to the Israeli economy, has created a profound and widespread need for investments” in industries including infrastructure, housing and economic development. Apollo Global Management, an asset management firm focused on alternative assets that was a major financial sponsor of the Labs, provided its expertise on private credit, educating participants on how private investment-grade securities can be part of a solution for postwar reconstruction, especially given the growing comfort and appetite among institutional capital — insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, asset managers, etc. — to invest in these kinds of securities.
Bonus: The Wall Street Journal reports on the increase in support for Israeli defense startups by VCs that have traditionally backed American defense firms.
Worthy Reads
Getting Real in Gaza: In The Atlantic, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gazan analyst living in the U.S., calls for the Palestinians to adopt a pragmatic approach to the conflict with Israel. “Mine is certainly not a majority position among Palestinians. I have even been told by international media outlets that my perspective is ‘unrepresentative’ and therefore not worthy of being heard. But our community is as diverse in its views as any other. The lack of a political home for divergent, moderate voices has left us without a space to exchange perspectives and stories, or to develop more sophisticated advocacy and policy efforts. I can envision a pragmatic approach to the Palestinian national project — one that rejects violent extremism and armed resistance in favor of a two-nation solution for Palestinians and Israelis. To be pragmatic means abandoning unhelpful and unrealistic demands, such as the right of return to land that has been part of Israel since 1948. It means accepting Israel’s existence, and understanding Israeli security as complementary to the Palestinian pursuit of freedom, dignity, and independence.” [TheAtlantic]
The Promise of ‘Never Again’: In his Substack, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren considers how Israel can restore its citizens’ faith in the post-Holocaust promise of “never again,” after it failed to protect its people from Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. “Restoring Israel’s credibility as the guarantor of Jewish survival is our most fateful challenge today. We must internalize the lessons of October 7 and ask ourselves honestly, even brutally, how they can be tangibly applied. What are the changes — military, diplomatic, political, socio-economic, and even spiritual — needed to guarantee that, from now on, when we say, ‘Never again,’ this time we mean it. Firstly, and as swiftly as possible, we must bring all the hostages home … At the same time, we must alter our strategic thinking. While this week visiting the Nahal Oz base, I heard an observation soldier relate how, prior to October 7, she reported sighting major Hamas exercises and asked her commanding officer whether the IDF would intervene. ‘No,’ she responded, ‘Hamas is training, not attacking, and we can’t pre-empt. Remember, we are the Israel Defense Forces, not the Israel Offense Forces.’ The IDF must now become the IOF.” [Substack]
The Baku Bulwark: In The Wall Street Journal, the Yorktown Institute’s Seth Cropsey and Joseph Epstein look at how the U.S. stands to potentially gain from a trilateral relationship with Israel and Azerbaijan. “Now, Israel aims to bring about Iran’s nightmare: trilateral cooperation among its greatest geopolitical adversaries. Washington should join Jerusalem to create a powerful bulwark against the Islamic Republic. Ideas to strengthen relations are rumbling through the region. Last month a top adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Diplomats involved in the discussion said the topic was expanding the Abraham Accords to Azerbaijan. The dialogue came on the heels of the first-ever delegation visit by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — a pro-Israel lobbying group — to Baku. During that visit, the committee’s president told Mr. Aliyev that his country’s support for Israel ‘will be recognized.’ In a Knesset session, Israeli parliamentarians spoke of adding Azerbaijan to the Abraham Accords and helping to draw it closer to the U.S.” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
American and Israeli officials have reportedly reached out to the governments of Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland about taking in Gazans displaced from the enclave under a White House proposal to move the population of Gaza while the area is rebuilt…
President Donald Trump appointed Gen. Keith Kellogg as special envoy to Ukraine; Kellogg had initially been tapped as the administration’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia but absent, reportedly at Russia’s request, from high-level talks last week aimed at reaching a cease-fire between Moscow and Ukraine…
A 30-day funding freeze enacted by the Trump administration at FEMA has caused an immediate pause to the millions of dollars distributed to help vulnerable nonprofits, including many Jewish institutions, meet their security needs, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch and Marc Rod report…
The Anti-Defamation League announced its opposition to the nomination of Hamtramck, Mich., Mayor Amer Ghalib to be ambassador to Kuwait, citing his backing of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel and his comments about the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks; the ADL warned that having Ghalib served as U.S. envoy to the Gulf country “could further fuel antisemitic beliefs in the country and across the region”…
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) sat for an extensive interview with The New York Times that covered antisemitism, last week’s funding bill vote and the direction of the Democratic Party…
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) died from complications from lung cancer treatment; Grijalva is the second House Democrat to die in office since the start of the new Congress, and the fifth in the last year…
In an op-ed in the Deseret News, former Rep. Mia Love (R-UT), who has an advanced stage of brain cancer, reflects on what she calls the promise of “the America I know” …
Indiana Gov. Mike Braun, a Republican, signed an executive order calling on the state’s Commission for Higher Education to review antisemitism policies at Indiana colleges and universities; at least one Indiana school, the University of Indiana, Bloomington, was notified last week that it is at risk of losing federal funding over campus antisemitism…
The Washington Post reviews “October 8th,” a new documentary by Wendy Sachs that looks at the rise in antisemitism following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks on Israel…
A new exhibition at New York’s Jewish Museum looks at the depiction of Queen Esther in works by Dutch artists, including Rembrant van Rijn, who lived in a heavily Jewish neighborhood of Amsterdam and derived inspiration from his Jewish neighbors…
eJewishPhilanthropy looks at how cuts to federal programs have forced HIAS to cut hundreds of staff and close many of the group’s international offices…
In The Washington Post, Yeshiva University constitutional law professor Zalman Rothschild reflects on the benefits and challenges of nonsecular education, drawing from his own childhood experiences in a Haredi yeshiva…
Members of the Druze community in Syria traveled to Israel to visit a shrine in the Galilee region, the first time in decades that such a trip has happened…
The New York Times spotlights three young men from Israel’s Haredi community who have differing approaches to and views on the country’s Haredi draft laws…
Iran is increasingly using drones, security cameras and phone apps to monitor women’ s adherence to the Islamic Republic’s strict “modesty laws”…
Aviva Aron-Dine was named the director of The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution; Aron-Dine was previously acting assistant secretary for tax policy at the Department of the Treasury and served on the National Economic Council…
Sportswriter John Feinstein, who wrote more than 40 books in addition to a long-running Washington Post column, died at 69… Attorney Roy Prosterman, who worked on land-rights issues across the developing world, died at 89… Dr. Sheldon Greenfield, whose work shed light on medical treatment disparity, died at 86… Philanthropist Marian “Cindy” Pritzker, the Pritzker family matriarch and the aunt of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, died at 101… Film scholar and co-founder of Philadelphia’s Jewish Film Festival, Ruth Perlmutter died at 96…
Pic of the Day
Former Yeshiva University basketball small forward Ryan Turell, now playing with Israel’s Ironi Ness Ziona, won the three-point shooting contest at the Israeli League All-Star game on Friday in Israel
Birthdays
Lead field/floor/sideline reporter for CBS Sports football and basketball broadcasts, Tracy Wolfson turns 50…
Washington columnist for The Dallas Morning News, Carl Philipp Leubsdorf turns 87… Retail and real estate executive, CEO of Wilherst Developers and trustee of publicly traded Ramco-Gershenson Properties Trust, Mark K. Rosenfeld… Oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Fort Wayne, Ind., Michael Iczkovitz… Susan Schwartz Sklarin… USDOJ official for 20 years, he has also served as a defense attorney, author of a NYT bestseller about his time working on the Mueller investigation, Andrew Weissmann turns 67… Founder, president and CEO of Laurel Strategies, Alan H. H. Fleischmann turns 60… Director of legislative affairs at B’nai B’rith International since 2003, Rabbi Eric A. Fusfield… Member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, she served on the board of the San Francisco JCRC, Myrna Elizabeth Melgar turns 57… CEO and president at Las Vegas-based Gold Coast Promotions, assisting nonprofits in fundraising, Richard Metzler… Hasidic singer, entertainer and composer, Lipa Schmeltzer turns 47… Television writer and producer, he co-created the Netflix animated series “Big Mouth,” Andrew Goldberg turns 47… Actor, music producer and stand-up comedian, best known as Gustavo Rocque on the Nickelodeon television series “Big Time Rush,” Stephen Kramer Glickman turns 47… Musician and digital strategy executive, Rick Sorkin turns 46… Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit since 2019, Judge Robert Joshua Luck turns 46… Digital reporter and producer for ABC News including “World News Tonight With David Muir,” Emily Claire Friedman Cohen… Associate professor at GW University in the School of Media and Public Affairs, Ethan Porter turns 40… Senior grants officer at the Open Society Foundations, Jackie Fishman… Senior director and general manager at Uber Eats, Annaliese Rosenthal… Los Angeles-based tech journalist and founder of the TechSesh blog, Jessica Elizabeth Naziri… Account executive at Winjit, Zachary Silver… Director of e-commerce strategy at TAGeX Brands, Zach Sherman…
Recent Daily Kickoff Newsletters
