Mamdani’s arrested development

Good Tuesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on a fundraiser for Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed that is being cohosted by a Democratic Party operative who praised her grandfather’s Nazi service, and spotlight Ed Miliband, who was announced as the U.K.’s foreign secretary on Monday. We talk to Jewish Democrats in Washington state who feel increasingly isolated in their own party, and interview Joel Rubin, a former Jewish liaison for Sen. Bernie Sanders, about his concerns that his one-time boss is promoting antisemitic candidates. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Micah Lasher, Ron Dermer and Khalil Al-Hayya.

We have also launched a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

President Donald Trump is slated to meet today with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at 11 a.m. ET. The meeting comes as Israel moves forward with its plan to withdraw from “pilot zones” in southern Lebanon where the Lebanese Armed Forces will move in and administer the area in accordance with the framework agreement established last month between Beirut and Jerusalem.
The White House is reportedly mulling a proposal from Middle East mediators including Qatar, Egypt and Pakistan for a 10-day ceasefire to halt fighting between the U.S. and Iran. Earlier today, officials in Bahrain confirmed that sirens sounded in the Gulf state ahead of what was believed to have been another Iranian attack.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine are slated to appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee this morning to testify about the Trump administration’s $88 billion supplemental funding request for the Pentagon.
The House Intelligence Committee is convening a hearing today on the next generation of terror threats, with former National Security Advisor H. R. McMaster set to testify.
Arizona is holding its primaries today, with the GOP’s gubernatorial race between Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Dave Schweikert (R-AZ) taking center billing. The winner will face Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs in November.
We’re also closely watching the primary results in Arizona’s 1st District, a swing district based in Scottsdale with a sizable Jewish population, which Schweikert is vacating to run for governor. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is backing former TV news anchor Marlene Galan-Woods over former state Rep. Amish Shah, who was the party’s 2024 nominee. The GOP front-runner is former NFL kicker and CBS Sports sideline reporter Jay Feely.
In New York, Jewish Women International is hosting a day-long workshop series focused on Jewish women in the workplace.
More than a dozen Jewish and pro-Israel groups, including the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Israeli-American Council, the Jewish Federations of North America and Christians United for Israel, are hosting a virtual tribute to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) tonight ahead of his funeral next week.
The three-day Gulf Research Meeting kicks off today in Cambridge, U.K. Speakers include Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud; Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari; Mohammed Ibrahim Al Dhaheri, the deputy director of the United Arab Emirates’ Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy; and Arab World Institute President Anne-Claire Legendre.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

In recent weeks, following the collapse of the memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has fired dozens of times on Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

At the same time, it has sustained fire from the U.S., whose military bases across the region have been targeted by the Islamic Republic, with several service members killed. And all the while, Tehran has targeted commercial ships transiting through the strait.

But as focus on the conflict with Iran has shifted from addressing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions to the Strait of Hormuz, Israel has stayed out of the fighting — despite Iranian threats earlier this month to target the Jewish state if the U.S. attacks did not cease.

There is no upside for Israel to reenter the fight, especially when the issue of the Strait of Hormuz falls outside of the objectives set by Israel at the start of the war earlier this year. (This, despite the widespread sentiment among Israelis that this year’s war did not improve Israel’s security situation, according to polling last month from the Israel Democracy Institute.)

Key among the goals laid out by Israel was degrading Iran’s ballistic missile program and setting back elements of its nuclear program. Reopening Hormuz is an American objective, not an Israeli one. With Israel having made the calculus that the most immediate Iranian threats have been blunted — at least in the short term — the current mission has become an American one.

“Israel’s best move is to not move — yet,” Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Jewish Insider this morning. “Washington does the striking. Israel keeps its fire and its threats in reserve, waiting for one of two triggers: a U.S. request to join, or an Iranian regime foolish enough to hit Israel and invite the reprisal that has been promised.”

Despite Iran’s threats to target Israel, such a move would likely be a strategic misstep for the Islamic Republic. Iran’s blockade of the strait and its attacks on Arab and Gulf states are an attempt to reassert its dominance over the region and demonstrate its ability to impact the global energy market. Tehran also appears to be betting that sustained attacks across the region will push Arab states to pressure the U.S. to accept an agreement to reopen the strait, handing the Islamic Republic a win.

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.

BLUE STATE BLUES

Washington state’s Jewish Democrats fight for a place in a party they no longer recognize

A demonstration by Shut It Down for Palestine (SID4P) and various local groups at the University of Washington campus in Seattle, Washington, on March 15, 2025. (JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images)

The past few years of rising tensions in the Democratic Party over Israel and antisemitism have been marked for many Jewish Democrats in Washington — one of the country’s bluest states, which has a Jewish population of about 90,000 — by disappointment, anger and a growing sense of isolation within a party they have spent decades supporting. But the answer, they say, is not to walk away; rather, it’s to try to reclaim influence from within, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.

Rebuilding: That effort begins with rebuilding the party’s own Jewish infrastructure. The Washington State Democratic Party’s Jewish caucus has gone “by the wayside, because it takes a lot of organizing and energy to keep it up,” said Linda Clifton, a longtime member of the caucus. “It’s all volunteer [work], and people had other jobs and other things they had to pay attention to. I think we need to revive it, and there’s been some effort to do that … but I think people are so disheartened that that becomes very difficult,” she continued.

Read the full story here.