Qatar’s checkbook diplomacy bounces
Plus, Bibi's budget-or-ballot deadline looms
👋 Good Friday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how a court’s decision to restore Voice of America’s operations could impact the broadcaster’s coverage in Iran, and report on Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s efforts to put some distance between herself and her controversial aides. We have the scoop on a call from 150 House lawmakers to increase Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding to $1 billion for the next fiscal year 2027, and report on the upcoming deadline for the Israeli government to pass a budget, or risk triggering early elections. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Jared Moskowitz, Ted Deutch and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik, Lahav Harkov and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- Israel confirmed Iranian state media reports this morning that Ali Mohammad Naini, the spokesperson for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, had been killed in a strike, hours after he rebuffed a claim by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran was no longer able to manufacture ballistic missiles.
- Meanwhile, the U.S. is kicking off what is expected to be a multiweek operation to open the Strait of Hormuz. In a joint statement released last night, the U.K., France, Japan, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, joined later by Canada, said they backed the American effort to restore freedom of movement through the crucial waterway.
- In New York City, the House Appropriations Committee is holding a field hearing today on accountability and reform at the U.N.
- The Fanatics Flag Football Classic is taking place tomorrow in Los Angeles after being moved from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, due to the ongoing war.
- Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter will appear on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
- The Leffell Foundation’s third annual rabbinical conference kicks off on Sunday in Florida.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV
Over the last three weeks, Qatar’s leadership has woken up to a reality it had long seemed determined to disprove: that money will only take you so far. And so Doha has fallen back on a longstanding Middle Eastern tradition of blaming Israel for its problems.
Qatar is the top foreign contributor to American universities, World Cup host, patron of the arts and donor of the new Air Force One, and the influence that comes with philanthropy led much of the world to turn a blind eye to the dark side of the Al Thani royal family’s generosity: Funding perhaps the world’s most effective propaganda arm for radical Islam, Al Jazeera, hosting the leaders of Hamas and other terrorist groups, and more.
With a massive real estate portfolio that includes properties in London and Manhattan, its efforts to bail out White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in 2023 and 2025, and its work with former lobbyists now in the Trump administration — such as Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel — Doha appeared to have built a winning strategy to ensure its voice was heard in the White House.
Despite public opposition from Qatar and other Gulf states, the U.S., alongside Israel, went to war with Iran. Now, Doha finds itself on the receiving end of attacks from the Islamic Republic. Tehran’s attacks on Qatari gas facilities have led to a loss of 17% of Qatar’s capacity to export liquefied natural gas and an estimated $20 billion loss of annual revenue for the next three to five years, QatarEnergy CEO Saad al-Kaabi told Reuters.
The latest Iranian assault on Doha’s gas industry came after Israel struck the Iranian side of the South Pars gas field, shared with Qatar. In a message that appeared, at least in part, an attempt to appease Doha, President Donald Trump blamed Israel — in mild terms by Trump standards — and said he had no idea about the attack, a claim experts and former Israeli and U.S. officials have said is unlikely to be true. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a Thursday night press conference that Israel “acted alone” and will respect Trump’s request that Israel not bomb the gas field again.
In addition, Trump threatened that if Iran attacks “a very innocent, in this case, Qatar,” the U.S. will “massively blow up the entirety of the South Pars Gas Field at an amount of strength and power that Iran has never seen or witnessed before.”
Ariel Admoni, a Qatar expert at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), said Trump’s statement shows “great anger” in Doha “expressed through pressure on Trump and a demand to clarify that he wasn’t part of this, in order not to hurt [Qatar’s] image” of being well-connected to the administration.
Persian Coverage Push
Court ruling reviving VOA sparks cautious hope for expanded Iran coverage

A federal judge’s ruling this week that voided the Trump administration’s efforts, overseen by Kari Lake, to shutter Voice of America, restoring more than 1,000 journalists and other employees by Monday, is raising some hopes that the embattled international broadcaster funded by the federal government may now be able to ramp up its Persian-language coverage to reach Iranians at a crucial moment amid war with the U.S. and Israel, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Near shutdown: While VOA had resumed some of its Persian news broadcasting in recent months, it has been hobbled by a yearlong near shutdown ordered by the Trump administration that had reduced the organization to a skeletal staff. Earlier this month, the judge ordered that Lake’s appointment as acting chief had been unlawful and nullified her aggressive moves to gut VOA. One USAGM source expressed optimism that the judge’s decisions would result in “more resources,” but cautioned that “there are still leadership issues” in the Persian service — once one of VOA’s largest divisions — stifling its ability to report exhaustively on news developments and offer coverage without the appearance of bias.











































































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