Netanyahu’s New York minute
Plus, Cruz's wake-up call
Add JewishInsider on GoogleGood Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we preview Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s U.N. General Assembly address, report on Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s invocation of the Holocaust to justify his anti-Israel rhetoric and cover Sen. Ted Cruz’s warning that Christian leaders are failing to address rising antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment among younger Christians. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: House Speaker Mike Johnson, Alina Habba and Wayne Rooney.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Tamara Zieve.
Today’s Agenda
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address the U.N. General Assembly around 2 p.m. ET today during his brief visit to the U.S.
Before departing for New York last night, Netanyahu traveled to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, where Neria Leiter, a son of Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, was in critical condition after injuries sustained in a car-ramming attack at a West Bank checkpoint earlier in the day. More below.
Speaking to reporters earlier today at the hospital, Leiter said his son was still “hanging in the balance” but had been stabilized by medical workers. “The next few days will be critical,” the ambassador added.
Security in the area around the U.N. headquarters in Turtle Bay will be tight during Netanyahu’s speech, owing to several protests planned around the Israeli leader’s trip to New York. Read our previous coverage on how the NYPD is preparing to handle UNGA-related protests.
In Washington tonight, President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will host a state dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping, with a guest list that includes several tech and finance executives.
An International Court of Justice panel could rule as soon as today on an effort to change the threshold for defining genocide in a case between Gambia and Myanmar that would have implications for South Africa’s case against Israel in the court.
One Thing To Know
analysis
By Gili Cohen
For a few hours, Israel’s deeply polarized political arena, just a month before the elections, found rare unity following the news that Neria Leiter, son of Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Yechiel Leiter, was critically injured in a car-ramming terror attack in the West Bank.
But even before the attack, which could affect the content of Netanyahu’s speech, the prime minister’s trip to New York was set to be entirely different from prior UNGA appearances. The prime minister’s brief video message about his speech on Tuesday referenced only one individual: New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Not Iran, not Hamas, nor Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Sources close to the prime minister claim Mamdani is the reason for Netanyahu’s unprecedented brief visit. The concern, his aides claim, stems from potential protests or political posturing by Mamdani, despite him admitting he has no authority to arrest Netanyahu, a key campaign pledge of the mayor’s. However, a former official involved in coordinating prime ministerial trips offered a different explanation: As long as Netanyahu remains in New York for only a few hours, the absence of a meeting with President Donald Trump becomes far less conspicuous.
The Big Reads
no compromise
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate nominee in Michigan, refused to tone down his hostile rhetoric toward Israel, including his repeated accusations of genocide, during a newly released podcast interview, even as his stances risk alienating Jewish Democrats who are otherwise eager to support his campaign in a key battleground state, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. In an appearance on the “Raging Moderates” podcast hosted by Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov, who are both Jewish and disagree with his stances on Middle East policy, El-Sayed doubled down in defense of his repeated use of the term genocide to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza, invoking the Holocaust to justify his position.
sanctions push
Nineteen Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), introduced a bill on Wednesday that would impose sanctions on companies, individuals and others involved in the construction and development of Israeli settlements in the E1 area of the West Bank, which the lawmakers argue would be a severe blow to the viability of a Palestinian state, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The far-reaching sanctions would also target financial institutions and government officials and entities involved in supporting or facilitating E1 settlement construction.
wake-up call
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned on Wednesday that Christian leaders are “asleep” and failing to recognize the degree to which antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment have spread among Christian youth, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. The Texas senator made the comments while accepting the leadership award at the American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) annual Lamplighter Awards in Washington. Cruz voiced concern that older Christian leaders, specifically evangelicals, were not acknowledging that younger adherents have ideologically drifted from previous generations. “If you look at the polling, young evangelicals are turning systematically against Israel, and there are millions of dollars that are being spent to turn them against Israel,” he said.
The Rundown
alternate reality
security advocacy
envoy debate
memorial event
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Oman and Azerbaijan halted flights to and from Iran, in accordance with a deadline set by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Economic Outcast; Iraq, whose president pledged last week to crack down on Iran-backed militias operating in the country, also suspended flights from Baghdad.
Tehran, meanwhile, threatened to paralyze the airports of countries in the region who comply with the U.S.’ block on flights to and from the Islamic Republic…
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, urged President Donald Trump to press Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to the White House this week on Chinese companies’ provision of satellite imagery to Iran that helped the regime target American military installations in the Middle East, and China’s continued evasion of U.S. sanctions on Iranian oil…
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said the war with Iran needs to be brought “to a resolution,” arguing that the U.S. has achieved its objective of preventing Tehran from obtaining a nuclear capability and pointing to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz as driving up gas, fuel and grocery costs…
American Priorities PAC, which backed several successful Democratic socialist congressional campaigns, said it plans to target nine House Democrats in 2028; the group will focus on challenging Reps. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), George Latimer (D-NY), Laura Gillen (D-NY), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Greg Landsman (D-OH) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), as well as current candidates Melissa Bean, Adrian Boafo and Ben McAdams, all of whom won their primaries and are expected to join the next Congress…
Florida’s attorney general filed a lawsuit against The New York Times on behalf of a group of shareholders alleging that the newspaper’s board of directors failed to hold the Times newsroom to its own editorial standards regarding its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war; the lawsuit claims that the paper’s editorial standards were “weaponized within the company to serve the personal agendas of unchecked editors”…
The attorney general of Missouri launched an investigation into Students for Justice in Palestine’s fundraising activities in the Show-Me State, saying, “We will use every tool the law allows to expose deceptive fundraising, trace where the money goes, and stop any effort to channel charitable donations to violent or terror-linked actors”…
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced the repatriation of three dozen antiquities to Syria, more than a dozen of which had been housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art…
A federal judge sentenced a Massachusetts man to nearly 10 years in prison for making interstate threats targeting Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) and his family in August 2024…
Alina Habba, a former lawyer for Trump who briefly served as acting U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey last year, is reportedly set to marry Turkish businessman Turhan Mildon, whose company has overseen projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Venezuela…
A Philadelphia educator and anti-Israel activist who claimed to be Black and Palestinian publicly acknowledged that she was Jewish, with family living in the West Bank, prompting local activist groups with which she was affiliated to distance themselves from her…
Sunkist Fruit Gems, a staple at many a Jewish simcha for the last half century, has been discontinued, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports…
A 19th-century Albert Lang painting was restituted to the descendants of the German-Jewish art collector who owned the work, which was determined by authorities in Germany to have been looted by the Nazis, before she fled the country in 1938…
The Netherlands will rejoin the Eurovision Song Contest in 2027, after its Avrotros public broadcaster refused to take part in this year’s competition as well as the one slated for next year over Israel’s participation; the umbrella body of Dutch broadcasters determined that the NOS will provide coverage instead of Avrotros, while a Dutch contestant will be selected by an independent panel…
Longtime Manchester United star Wayne Rooney, who played for D.C. United after leaving Manchester United in 2017, said in a new docuseries, which includes a trip with his wife and sons to Auschwitz, that his Polish-born maternal great-grandmother was Jewish…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Iran’s BFF: The Wall Street Journal’s Rory Jones, Jon Emont, Vera Bergengruen and Summer Said look at how China is quietly assisting Iran as it faces crippling sanctions spearheaded by the U.S., even as the White House prioritizes good relations with Beijing. “Washington has launched hundreds of sanctions targeting Iran since the war began on Feb. 28, including penalties against companies and individuals in China it believes are helping Tehran. Those steps, along with an embargo of Iranian trade, have caused a contraction of Iran’s economy. But the White House has proven reluctant to more seriously confront Beijing over its support for Iran, which has continued launching attacks on U.S. forces and oil infrastructure in the Middle East.” [WSJ]
Regional Realignment: In an excerpt from his new book The Cauldron: The Making of the Modern Middle East, published in The Atlantic, Simon Sebag Montefiore considers the evolution underway in the Middle East. “The United States, Russia, and China still intervene in the Middle East, but in a manner that is Olympian, erratic, and inconsistent. Behind them lurks a deeper conflict of entire systems: the open world, still (just) led by America, versus the closed world that is the axis of China and Russia. A parallel, simultaneous battle, centered within the Middle East, rages among different versions of, or attitudes toward, the practice of Islam and its complex relationship with the West.” [TheAtlantic]
Picture of the Day
Nova music festival survivor Shalev Biton (right) appeared onstage at yesterday’s rally against antisemitism near the U.N. headquarters in New York alongside Yunes Alkarnawi (left), a Bedouin from southern Israel who saved Biton and dozens of others during the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. Read more about Alkarnawi’s rescue of Biton here. Michael Priest Photography
Birthdays
Marc Guggenheim, screenwriter, television producer, comic book writer and novelist, turns 56
Joanne Greenberg, author of 26 books, best known for the semi-autobiographical novel I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, turns 94
Judith Margolis, artist working visually in paintings, drawings, artist’s books and multimedia collages, turns 82
Rafael Eldad, retired Israeli diplomat who served as Israel’s ambassador to Peru, Argentina, Brazil and Chile, turns 77
David Pecker, former CEO of American Media, publisher of celebrity and health and fitness magazines, turns 75
Franz Lidz, feature writer for Sports Illustrated for 27 years, he is a 2015 inductee into the Philadelphia Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, turns 75
Michael Weiss, attorney and former judge advocate
Jeffrey Hecktman, founder, executive chairman and CEO of Hilco Global, turns 73
William Gross, lead public safety success manager at FirstNet by AT&T
Christopher L. Eisgruber, president of Princeton University since 2013, in his mid-40s he discovered that his mother was Jewish, turns 65
Alan Popovsky, co-founder and principal at DC-based PRG Hospitality
Chanina Sperlin, EVP of governmental affairs at the Crown Heights Jewish Community Council
Noreena Hertz, economist, best-selling author and a great-granddaughter of former British Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz, turns 59
Yael Goldman-Pfeffer, Israeli television host, actor and model, turns 48
Jessica Schumer, Yale Law graduate and head of New York policy and community engagement at Amazon
Alexandra Jaffe, former White House reporter at the Associated Press, now editorial manager at Elastic
Ben Platt, actor, singer and songwriter, turns 33
Benjamin David Goldberg, rap musician, known professionally as Token, turns 28
Please log in if you already have a subscription, or subscribe to access the latest updates.
Continue with Google
Continue with Apple