One Saudi message in D.C., another in Mecca
Plus, in Doha, UpScrolled founder rails against 'Zionist money'
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In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on Friday’s meeting between the Saudi defense minister and Jewish leaders in Washington, and talk to the State Department’s Jacob Helberg about the Trump administration’s efforts to push AI as a uniting force in the Middle East. We report on South Africa and Israel’s tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions amid a deepening rift between Pretoria and Jerusalem, and have the scoop on a new bipartisan letter from Reps. Josh Gottheimer, Claudia Tenney, and Jared Golden blasting progressive groups over their silence on Iran’s crackdown on protestors. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Greg Meeks, Deni Avdija and Craig Newmark.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- The annual Web Summit conference kicked off on Sunday in Doha, Qatar. Earlier today, Issam Hijazi, the founder of new social media app UpScrolled, took the main stage, from which he boasted that the app “[doesn’t] have to rely on Zionist money, or Silicon Valley money.” Read more on Hijazi’s remarks from JI’s Lahav Harkov here.
- Lebanese Armed Forces Commander Gen. Rodolphe Haykal is in Washington today for meetings with senior U.S. officials, two months after a previously planned trip was scrapped at the 11th hour over a statement put out by the military criticizing Israel.
- Following last week’s decision by the European Union to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror group, Iran summoned EU ambassadors stationed in the country over the designation. The move comes shortly after Iran’s parliament speaker said that the country considers the militaries of all EU member states to be terrorist groups.
- LionTree’s Aryeh Bourkoff is hosting his annual MediaSlopes gathering in Park City, Utah, ahead of the 10th Annual Silicon Slopes Summit, which kicks off Wednesday.
- Pedestrian transit resumed at the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt today, 10 months after it was closed following the collapse of a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
Pro-Israel candidates and organizations showcased healthy financial hauls over the final three months of 2025, according to newly released fundraising reports. The strong totals were headlined by AIPAC’s United Democracy Project super PAC, which ended last year with an imposing $95.8 million on hand (up significantly from $40.7 million last cycle at this time), after raising $61.6 million in the final six months of 2025.
In many of the closely watched Democratic primaries pitting pro-Israel candidates against anti-Israel antagonists, both sides posted strong fundraising figures.
In Michigan’s hotly contested Senate race, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) raised $2.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 and banked $3.05 million at the end of the year. Stevens, a stalwart ally of the state’s Jewish community, narrowly outraised physician Abdul El-Sayed ($1.8 million raised), who has made hostility to Israel central to his campaign, and state Sen. Mallory McMorrow ($1.7 million), who has tagged Israel’s war against Hamas as a genocide.
Stevens also has significantly more cash on hand ($3 million), aided by her time spent raising money in the House. Both McMorrow and El-Sayed have just under $2 million cash on hand.
In Illinois’ closely watched open 8th District race, former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL) showcased her fundraising skills to comfortably lead the crowded primary field, bringing in $772,000 in the fourth quarter. Bean, a pro-Israel moderate during her last stint in Congress, nearly doubled the fundraising haul of Junaid Ahmed, a leading anti-Israel challenger, who brought in $360,000.
In the race to succeed retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), pro-Israel state Sen. Laura Fine raised an impressive $1.2 million — three times her fundraising total in the previous quarter — and banked $1.4 million. Her haul outdistanced her two anti-Israel rivals: Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss (who raised $659,000 and banked $1.37 million) and social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh (who raised $1.1 million, but spent $1.4 million, leaving her with $811,000 cash on hand).
REASSURANCE ATTEMPT
Saudi defense minister pushed back on realignment concerns in meeting with Jewish leaders
Several Jewish and pro-Israel leaders met privately with Saudi Arabia’s defense minister in Washington on Friday afternoon, as Riyadh draws scrutiny for its increasingly hostile posture toward Israel and promotion of antisemitic messaging, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Matthew Kassel report.
Prince’s position: According to several sources familiar with the discussion, Prince Khalid bin Salman denied to attendees that increasing antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric out of the kingdom was reflective of the monarchy’s position and emphasized that Riyadh and Jerusalem have mutual understanding and ongoing military, security and intelligence cooperation. He praised Israel’s actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon but said he doesn’t agree with Jerusalem’s recent decision to recognize Somaliland’s independence.
Yes, but: The same day of the meeting, a Muslim cleric in Medina, Saudi Arabia, gave a sermon calling for “victory” over the “Zionist aggressors,” while an imam in Mecca preached, “O God support them in Palestine and substitute their weakness with strength.” Hussain Abdul-Hussain, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted that the Saudi government selects speakers to deliver Friday sermons.
Coordination confirmation: The Wall Street Journal reports on the “increasingly anti-Israel tone” taken by Saudi government-backed media outlets, noting that Saudi officials confirmed that the campaign “has been directed by the kingdom’s leadership and takes aim at [Israel-United Arab Emirates] ties, which make for an easy target to swing public opinion.”
SUPPLY CHAIN DIPLOMACY
Jacob Helberg is betting AI will be a bridge across a fractured Middle East
Jacob Helberg, the under secretary of state for economic affairs recently returned from a trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, where he presided over a series of signing ceremonies for Pax Silica, an effort by the Trump State Department to bring American partners together to develop AI supply chains that rely less intensively on China. In an interview with Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch last week, Helberg said the trip was “incredibly significant, because this is the first time that Israel and Qatar have been brought under the same framework and signed the same document to actually agree that shared supply chains are more important than shared ideologies.”
Eye on the prize: “Our goal has been the expansion of the Abraham Accords, and the president’s been very, very clear and vocal about that,” said Helberg, a China hawk who is leading the Pax Silica initiative. “When people do business together, when people focus on shared goals, you inherently create, identify and focus on things that people agree on. It’s certainly my hope that this will pave the way for peace and economic integration of the region.”
RHOADES’ RUN
Swing district Democratic congressional candidate in Omaha blasts rivals over their criticism of Israel
Democrat Crystal Rhoades, the district court clerk of Douglas County, Neb., is running for Congress in the state’s 2nd District on an unapologetically pro-Israel platform, with the explicit goal of blocking a progressive whose record on Israel has raised concerns from becoming the party’s nominee in the critical swing district, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What she’s saying: Asked by JI in an interview last week why she’s running for Congress, Rhoades answered simply, “to stop John Cavanaugh,” referring to the Democratic state senator seen as the front-runner in the race. In her interview with JI and a position paper she authored on Israel, Rhoades expressed a deep commitment to the Jewish state, its security and the U.S.-Israel relationship, and offered significant criticism for fellow Democrats who are critical of Israel. She traced her support for the Jewish state to her time as a teenager working in a nursing home, where she helped take care of a Holocaust survivor and first learned about his story, antisemitism and the Holocaust.
DIPLOMATIC SPAT
South Africa banishes Israeli diplomat days before vote in Congress on trade benefits
South Africa and Israel banished each other’s highest-ranking diplomat serving in each country, after a video of Israel offering water technology and medical aid to minority tribes angered Pretoria last week, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Zoom out: The diplomatic row took place days before Congress is expected to vote on renewing the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which would allow many products from the continent to enter the U.S. duty-free. The Trump administration has considered removing South Africa from the program because it is a “unique problem,” as U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer described it in December. Removal from AGOA would adversely affect about half of South Africa’s exports to the U.S., its second-largest trading partner, Bloomberg reported.
EXCLUSIVE
Reps. Gottheimer, Tenney, Golden blast progressive groups over silence on Iranian crackdown on protests
Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Jared Golden (D-ME) blasted a roster of progressive groups for their silence regarding the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown on recent protests, following the organizations’ outspoken criticisms of Israel over the past two years, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What they said: In a letter sent on Monday addressed to the League of Conservation Voters, Democratic Socialists of America, Sierra Club, Council on American-Islamic Relations, Jewish Voice for Peace, Queers for Liberation, Sunrise Movement and Justice Democrats, the lawmakers said that “as the Iranian regime guns down peaceful protesters, tortures dissidents, and shuts off the internet to hide its crimes, your voices are unfortunately and conspicuously silent.”
Preemptive action: Sens. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and Rand Paul (R-KY), leading voices in the Senate on war powers issues, introduced a war powers resolution on Friday to block military action against Iran without congressional approval.
TOXIC TECH TALK
In Doha, UpScrolled creator alleges Jewish tech execs are ‘controlling the media,’ rejects ‘Zionist money’
Issam Hijazi, creator of the new social media platform UpScrolled, presented his app as a way to escape “control [of] the narrative” by pro-Israel figures and said that he doesn’t need to rely on “Zionist money,” in his remarks at Web Summit Qatar in Doha on Sunday night. UpScrolled topped the charts in Apple’s app store in recent days, after an American investor group finalized a deal to buy part of TikTok from its Chinese owners, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
What he said: Hijazi, a Jordan-born Australian citizen who identifies as Palestinian, said in an onstage interview that “we cannot keep blaming the algorithm or tech” for censorious social media, “because there are people who are gilding this tech … who train this algorithm to flag things that don’t really go well with their propaganda or agendas. It became very obvious from the latest acquisition of TikTok by Larry Ellison and [Michael] Dell, and [Ellison] is one of the biggest donators [sic] for the Friends of the IDF.” The UpScrolled founder evoked a classic antisemitic trope to describe the Jewish tech entrepreneurs: “They’ve been controlling the media, as in the TV news outlets, for the past, I don’t know, six years, and now they understand social media is the new way to get information out, so they want to control the narrative again.”
Worthy Reads
‘Loose’ Nukes: In The Wall Street Journal, David Albright and Andrea Stricker address concerns about the fate of Iran’s stockpile of nuclear material should regime change occur in the Islamic Republic. “These ‘loose’ assets risk falling into the hands of rogue actors, militias or nonstate groups. They also pose severe hazards to people in the region through accidental release or abandonment. The international community, led by the U.S. and Europe, with Russian and Chinese buy-in, must develop contingency plans to prevent this. … Risks to nuclear and radioactive materials during state collapse aren’t new, and effective prevention depends on proactive planning. Disaster following the collapse of the Soviet Union was averted largely by quick actions of the U.S. government, working in cooperation with former Soviet states.” [WSJ]
Red Sea Signal: In his Substack “The Abrahamic Metacritique,” Hussein Aboubakr Mansour considers the role of the Red Sea corridor in the political shifts underway across the Middle East. “If the Saudi pivot is a strategy, the Red Sea littoral is its primary theater of application; if the Abraham Accords represented a vision of an integrated regional order anchored in normalization and infrastructure interdependence, the Red Sea is where that vision encounters the structural obstacles to its realization. … What appeared as discrete events — Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, the Southern Transitional Council’s (STC) military offensive across southern Yemen, Saudi airstrikes on Emirati weapons shipments, Somalia’s abrogation of all agreements with the UAE — are, as a matter of fact, moves within a single interconnected contest, each triggering countermoves across nominally separate theaters.” [AbrahamicMetacritique]
Word on the Street
President Donald Trump nominated Kevin Warsh, the son-in-law of philanthropist Ronald Lauder, to be chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve on Friday, elevating an outspoken critic of the Fed’s current leadership who has recently indicated support for Trump’s broad goals of lowering interest rates, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports…
The U.S. would prefer a negotiated agreement with Iran to dismantle its nuclear program, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said in an interview that aired on Israel’s Channel 12 on Saturday night, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports…
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, alleged on Friday that the Trump administration sidestepped standard congressional review procedures to fast-track a $6 billion arms sale to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
Gregory Bovino, the head of U.S. Border Patrol, reportedly made antisemitic comments about Daniel Rosen, the U.S. attorney in Minnesota, who was unavailable to work on Shabbat, during a recent phone call with federal prosecutors; read JI’s October 2025 interview with Rosen, during which he said he was motivated to take the position because of the “rapid escalation of violent antisemitism”…
Former Harris County, Texas, Attorney Christian Menefee won the special election in the state’s 18th Congressional District to succeed Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-TX), who died last year; Menefee runoff victory over former Houston City Councilmember Amanda Edwards further shrinks House Republicans’ majority, 218-214…
The California Department of Education found that the Oakland Unified School District engaged in antisemitic discrimination in multiple instances since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and called for the Bay Area district to take corrective measures, including training for faculty and students regarding antisemitism awareness…
In the 46th annual State of World Jewry address at the 92NY in Manhattan, The New York Times‘ Bret Stephens said that the effort to fight antisemitism, “which consumes tens of millions of dollars every year in Jewish philanthropy, is a well-meaning but mostly wasted effort,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports for eJewishPhilanthropy…
The New York Times profiles Forward senior political reporter Jacob Kornbluh, the “London-born former professional lox-slinger” who is “ubiquitous on the forever-circuit of Jewish politics” as he covers New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani…
Israeli basketball sensation and Portland Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija has been selected as a Western Conference reserve for the NBA All-Star Game, becoming the first Israeli-born player to earn an appearance in the league’s marquee midseason showcase, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports…
Gal Hirsch, who who was appointed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to coordinate the government’s hostage-release efforts, said that the Biden administration’s pressure on Israel during hostage negotiations was “screwing up the negotiations” and “giving [Oct. 7 mastermind and former Hamas head Yahya] Sinwar exactly what he wants”…
Israel is halting the Gaza operations of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) over the group’s refusal to provide the names of its Palestinian staffers for vetting for possible links to terror groups; MSF slammed the decision, saying it was a “pretext to obstruct humanitarian assistance”…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights the Gen Z protesters who have taken to the streets of Iran in recent weeks during the country’s widespread protests…
Iranian screenwriter Mehdi Mahmoudian, who co-wrote Oscar nominee “It Was Just An Accident,” was arrested for signing onto a letter criticizing the Iranian government for its recent crackdowns on protesters in the country…
Emirates is preparing to restart flights to and from Israel in the coming months after a two-year pause following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza…
United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed canceled a planned trip to Japan this week amid elevated tensions between the U.S. and Iran, citing “domestic circumstances”…
The Wall Street Journal reports on a $500 million investment deal between a UAE-linked investment fund and the Trump family’s crypto company, World Liberty Financial, that will give the Emirati firm a 49% stake in World Liberty; meanwhile The New Yorker’s David Kirkpatrick does a deep dive into the Trump family’s finances and recent business dealings, finding the family had made $4 billion since Trump’s second inauguration by leveraging the power of the White Hosue…
The New York Times covers a clandestine Egyptian military base in the country’s west that is being used to aid in drone warfare in neighboring Sudan, where Cairo is carrying out strikes targeting the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces battling the country’s military…
Pic of the Day
Philanthropist and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark addressed the Jewish Community Relations Council-New York’s annual Congressional Breakfast on Sunday in New York. Speakers at this year’s breakfast included Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Jerry Nadler (D-NY).
Birthdays
Actress and comedian, Lori Beth Denberg turns 50…
Chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp and Expedia, Barry Diller turns 84… Mayor of Irvine, Calif., Larry Agran (family name was Agranowsky) turns 81… Host of the Food Network program “Barefoot Contessa”, Ina Rosenberg Garten turns 78… Actor, comedian and singer, Brent Spiner turns 77… Journalist, novelist and author, Michael Zelig Castleman turns 76… U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) turns 74… “Washington Secrets” columnist at the Washington Examiner, Paul Bedard… Science fiction publisher and author, Selina A. Rosen turns 66… Rabbi at the Pacific Jewish Center (the Shul On The Beach) in Venice, Calif., he is also a practicing attorney, Shalom Rubanowitz… Sportscaster who currently does play-by-play for the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, Kenny Albert turns 58… Movie and theater actress and screenwriter, Jennifer Westfeldt turns 56… Tony Award-winning actress, Marissa Jaret Winokur turns 53… Board-certified ophthalmologist, she is married to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and sits on the board of the Kennedy Center, Dr. Dana Blumberg… Basketball coach for many Israeli teams over more than 20 years, Dan Shamir turns 51… Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose stage name is Mayer Hawthorne, Andrew Mayer Cohen turns 47… Assistant professor at Clemson University, Rebecca Shimoni Stoil, Ph.D. … Senior staff writer at GovCIO Media and Research, Ross Gianfortune… U.S. senator (R-AL), Katie Boyd Britt turns 44… Television and radio host, David Pakman turns 42… Deputy special envoy to combat and monitor antisemitism during the last three years of the Biden administration, Aaron Keyak… Actress and musician, Zosia Russell Mamet turns 38… Former Team Israel baseball catcher, he is now director of business development at a hospital in Las Vegas, Nicholas Jay “Nick” Rickles turns 36… Avi Katz…
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