Federal authorities foiled an alleged terror plot by an anti-Israel, anti-American extremist group, officials announced on Monday. The group — the Turtle Island Liberation Front — appears to also be one of the organizers of an anti-Israel protest that targeted a Los Angeles synagogue this month. 

Four members of TILF were arrested over the weekend in the Mojave Desert, where they had allegedly gathered to attempt to construct improvised explosive devices. According to Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, they planned to set off the pipe bombs in a coordinated attack at midnight on New Year’s Eve targeting U.S. companies in Los Angeles and Orange County, Calif. 

“Last Friday, Dec. 12, the defendants took a significant step to carry out their plans,” Essayli said at a press conference Monday, noting that they traveled to a remote campsite near Twentynine Palms in San Bernardino County to begin assembling the bombs. “They had everything they needed to make an operational bomb.” 

Attorney General Pam Bondi described TILF as “a far-left, pro-Palestine, anti-government, and anti-capitalist group” in a social media post about the arrests. The four people arrested were identified as Audrey Ilene Carroll, Dante Garfield, Zachary Aaron Page and Tina Lai. They face charges of conspiracy and possession of a destructive device. FBI Director Kash Patel announced on Monday that a fifth individual with ties to the plot was arrested in New Orleans. 

Carroll had a poster at her home that said “Death to America. Long live Turtle Island and Palestine,” according to prosecutors. Turtle Island is a phrase used by some Native Americans to describe North America. 

TILF appears to be an organizer of an anti-Israel protest that targeted Wilshire Boulevard Temple, one of the largest synagogues in Los Angeles, earlier this month. 

The group posted a “call to action” on its Instagram urging followers to target the “bloody war criminals” and “genocidal monsters” from Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense company, because of the purported use of Elbit’s AI technology in Los Angeles’ Koreatown neighborhood. “Never let them live in peace,” the caption read. 

The post listed an address on Wilshire Boulevard for the demonstration but did not name the location. The address corresponds with the Wilshire Boulevard Temple building where an event to teach Koreans about security strategies, featuring an AI researcher from Elbit Systems, was taking place at the same date and time. 

Protesters entered the synagogue and disrupted the event, with one person shattering a glass vase and chanting profanities. Two people were arrested during the incident. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass called the activists’ actions “abhorrent” and pledged to send more security to houses of worship. 

Other posts on TILF’s Instagram call for violence.

“Peaceful protest will never be enough,” one graphic reads. “The only way out is through resistance.” 

The account’s most recent post was promoting a Palestine-themed holiday market in Los Angeles last weekend. 

Prosecutors announced on Monday that the investigation into the TILF New Year’s Eve plot was due in part to an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in September “to root out left-wing domestic terror organizations in our country such as antifa and other radical groups,” according to Essayli.

Rabbi Shalom Landau, a Satmar Hasidic leader who posts online videos offering practical, Torah-based advice, has found unlikely supporters in a prominent Jordanian-American tech founder who is outspokenly critical of Israel and within white nationalist online subcultures.  

“Rabbi putting out the best self-help content on the internet rn,” tweeted Amjad Masad, the Dubai-based founder and CEO of Replit, an AI-powered platform for building, coding and deploying web applications. Masad shared one of Landau’s latest videos on Tuesday, which offers advice for dealing with abuse by quoting the Book of Jeremiah: “Cursed is a man who puts his trust in people.”  

Masad has frequently smeared Israel in online posts. On Jerusalem Day last year, he accused Israelis celebrating as “go[ing] around Jerusalem hunting Palestinians to torture and abuse. Think Spanish ‘running the bull’ with all its cruelty but directed at humans. This event is supported by their government and police (and of course US taxpayer).” After Israel carried out strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in June, Masad called the Jewish state “the single most destabilizing force in the world.”

Landau’s approach of providing Jewish wisdom without mentioning Israel has elicited praise from male-dominated, right-wing Internet subcultures as well, where white nationalist ideology and antisemitism are typically rampant. Comments from anonymous accounts on his posts state, “say what you want about them [Jews], but they have a good track record with marriages lasting” and “Why are Christian pastors unwilling to speak this way?”

Some comments are supportive but still carry antisemitic undertones, “When a guy called rabbi shalom gives you money advice, you just listen.” Others have scrutinized Landau’s videos for sexist ideology, such as one about marriage that states, “No woman wants to speak to a husband who gets as weak as she is when she speaks to him… sure she wants empathy but the one that comes from you[r] logic not you[r] feelings.”

Landau, whose videos on marriage, responsibility and financial stability are widely circulated on X and TikTok (where he has 34 thousand followers), was condemned by some Jewish communities when — just weeks before the New York City mayoral election — he hosted then-candidate Zohran Mamdani in his Williamsburg sukkah.

The meeting was part of the mayor-elect’s bid to win over Orthodox Jewish support amid his frequent criticism of Israel. At the time, Landau defended his ties to Mamdani by saying, “We think our voices decide who wins. That’s wrong. God does. We have a mission in exile to live among the nations. Our strength in exile isn’t protest. It’s the Torah.”

The Satmar sect of Judaism, to which Landau belongs, is typically anti-Zionist, believing only the Messiah is supposed to bring about a Jewish state. 

Still, Landau’s Torah videos have also inspired a prominent pro-Israel and modern Orthodox rabbi, Mark Wildes, the founder and director of Manhattan Jewish Experience.

Wildes wrote in a Dec. 2 post, “Every so often, something unexpected happens online that reveals a larger truth about who we are meant to be. Recently, a rabbi named Shalom Landau has become an unlikely voice within corners of the internet that are anything but friendly to Jews.” 

“His Torah videos have received widespread praise among young men from the ‘groyper’ and ‘manosphere’ movements — subcultures laced with grievance and overt antisemitism. People who have spent years resenting Jews are suddenly listening to a Jew, a rabbi no less, teach Torah because they sense wisdom there,” continued Wildes. 

“They are responding not to the endless Hasbara that Israel is ‘just like every Western democracy,’ but to Torah messages about building a life of meaning and responsibility. If we want to be a ‘light unto the nations,’ we must first reclaim our own light and resist becoming defined by whatever the algorithm rewards. We must speak from our Torah tradition, not from insecurity. When we share a message grounded in confidence rather than defensiveness, even the most unlikely audiences notice.”

“With Chanukah on the horizon, maybe that’s the beginning of understanding what it truly means to be a nation that carries light.” 

Sam Rasoul, a Palestinian-American Virginia state delegate with a history of inflammatory anti-Israel rhetoric, announced on Monday that he is considering running for Congress in 2026, pending the outcome of a likely redistricting effort in the state. 

The Virginia state Senate recently adopted a measure kicking off a process to allow mid-decade redistricting, following the lead of other states planning to redraw congressional maps to shore up partisan advantages. Texas initiated the political arms race after facing pressure from President Donald Trump to draw maps more favorable to Republicans, and several other GOP-controlled states have followed — and some Democratic-controlled states, like California and Virginia. 

The new maps are already putting several pro-Israel incumbents at risk in states like Ohio and Florida. 

Rasoul, a Roanoke Democrat who chairs the Education Committee in the House of Delegates, came under fire from prominent Jewish Democrats in the state earlier this year after posting a series of posts on social media that critics say crossed a line into antisemitism. 

“Zionism has proven how evil our society can be,” Rasoul wrote on Instagram in July. He called Zionism a “supremacist ideology created to destroy and conquer everything and everyone in its way,” which, he wrote, “shows us the worst in humanity.” 

Former Virginia House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn, a Democrat, told Jewish Insider in August that Rasoul’s language is “fueling one of the oldest forms of hatred in the world, repackaged in the language of activism.” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said at the time that he “forcefully reject[s] any claim that Zionism — the desire of Jewish people to have a state of Israel — is inherently racist or evil.” 

Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, who was on the campaign trail at the time, did not mention Rasoul by name. But when asked about his comments, she said, referring to the war in Gaza, that “one can and must denounce these tragedies without using antisemitic language, whether intentional or not.”

In a fundraising email announcing his intention to formally explore a congressional run, Rasoul made his opposition to Israel a central part of his pitch.

“Virginians are looking for bold, experienced, progressive leadership that meets this moment and delivers results by guaranteeing healthcare as a human right through Medicare for All, protecting our access to clean air and water through a Green New Deal, and ending all military aid to Israel, which has waged a genocide in Gaza using our taxpayer dollars in violation of American law,” Rasoul wrote. 

Rasoul has served in the House of Delegates for 12 years. 

Virginia’s statehouse will decide in January whether to approve the redistricting effort. If it passes, it will then have to be approved in a statewide ballot referendum. 

Historian Pamela Nadell is very familiar with the rituals of publishing a book, as she has written nine of them: Secure a release date, present at academic conferences, maybe headline a handful of general-public events. Although she is at the forefront of her field at American University — chair in Women’s and Gender History, director of the Jewish studies program and past president of the Association of Jewish Studies — Nadell knows that success in academia does not often translate to strong book sales. 

Things appear to be different for her latest book, Antisemitism: An American Tradition. 

Nadell began to understand how much interest a book on antisemitism would generate when her publisher assigned a full-time publicist to promote the book, which will be published on Oct. 14. Nadell is booked at speaking engagements across the country into 2027, starting with an event at the Washington bookstore Politics and Prose this week. 

The book that she began researching six years ago will now appear on bookshelves at a time when antisemitism has reached record levels since the Anti-Defamation League began tracking data in 1979.

“I had hoped, frankly, that the subject would be seen as a historic subject by the time [the book] came out into the world,” Nadell told Jewish Insider in a recent interview. “And that’s absolutely not the case.” 

Nadell argues in her book that antisemitism is not an aberration in the United States. Instead, she writes, it is intricately woven into the American experience — as American as, say, apple pie. 

Jews came from Europe seeking freedom from religious persecution, and while they escaped the pogroms that had haunted them overseas, they did not arrive in a world magically free from antisemitism. She traced the history of anti-Jewish sentiment in America from colonial days to the present, identifying the aftermath of the Civil War as the moment it really gained a foothold in American society. 

“America is different [from Europe] in that we never had state sponsored violence against American Jews,” Nadell said. “But the roots of anti-Judaism in America start immediately … the roots of anti-Judaism in America rest on traditional Christian ideas about who the Jews are and what they did to Jesus.”

While antisemitism has always been present in America, the tenor and intensity of it has ebbed and flowed. “We’re in a moment,” she said, “where it’s really bad.” 

The reason she is most concerned about the state of antisemitism in America is not just the frequency of antisemitic incidents or the toll of violent attacks on Jews. According to a study published this week by the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Federations of North America, more than half of American Jews now say antisemitism is a normal part of the Jewish experience. 

It’s that doors are once again closing to Jews in a way that reminds her of the quotas, housing covenants and employment restrictions that were baked into American life until the 1950s and 1960s. 

“The perception that [antisemitism] was over was because of how much American Jews ascended into American life as those structural barriers fell,” Nadell said. “The doors to corporations opened up, the doors to the colleges opened up. But antisemitism — it’s like it was a nagging factor.” 

America is now experiencing another period “where Jewish life once again seems to be constricting,” Nadell argued. “Not in exactly the same ways that it did in those years between World War I and World War II, when there were so many structural limitations. But the closing off of spaces to Jews today is happening once again.” 

She pointed to boycotts of Jewish and Zionist writers in the publishing industry, and antisemitic litmus tests appearing in unexpected places like the mental health profession. 

“Being told that you have to denounce Israel in order to join a student club? Those students are going to carry those memories forward into their future,” said Nadell. 

In recent years, and particularly following the wave of antisemitism that was unleashed after the Oct. 7 attacks two years ago, several Jewish thinkers have posited that the American Jewish community’s best days are behind it. Franklin Foer wrote an Atlantic cover story under the alarming headline, “The Golden Age of American Jews is ending.”

Nadell argues that the notion that there ever was a “golden age” is a myth. “The idea that there was a golden age of Jews in Spain actually emerges during the Dreyfus Affair [in 1894], when things are so terrible in Europe,” she noted. Similarly, Nadell argues that the supposedly now-over golden age for American Jews after the end of quotas and de jure discrimination is not really so straightforward. 

“By the time we get to the late ‘60s and on in the 20th century, American Jews feel really secure. The places that used to be closed to us have now opened, and that’s what leads to the perception of the golden age,” said Nadell. “The problem … is the assumption that antisemitism disappeared, but it didn’t.”

Still, Nadell considers herself an optimist. Antisemitism is part of the American fabric. And while that might be a demoralizing conclusion, she views it the other way: Jews have thrived in this country despite antisemitism, and they will continue to do so. 

“The reality is that it is part of the normative Jewish experience to experience antisemitism,” said Nadell. “But I think ultimately, American Jews will be okay in the United States.”

American-Israeli venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg isn’t just watching Israel’s transformation — he’s trying to shape it. As cofounder of the prominent investment fund Aleph, early backer of companies including Lemonade and WeWork, and a longtime thought leader in the intersection of Judaism, economics and technology, Eisenberg has become an influential voice in Israel’s public discourse.

In a wide-ranging conversation on the Misgav Mideast Horizons podcast, co-hosted by Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov, Eisenberg discussed the impact of the war in Gaza on Israeli society and the tech sector, what the government must do to turn postwar recovery into long-term renewal and why he sees young Israelis as a “defining generation.” 

“It’s not just a defining generation for Israel, it’s a defining generation for the West,” Eisenberg said. “These were kids that everybody was worried about, that they were behind their screens, Instagram, TikTok, who put it all aside and got up to defend the values of Israel, the safety of Israel, the people of Israel and by extension, Western civilization, because Islamism is on the rise.”

Eisenberg also made the case for an ambitious AI-powered regional alliance between Israel and its Abraham Accords partners — and warned that Israel’s political dysfunction could squander the opportunity.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Q: When you look at the Israeli tech ecosystem over the next five years, look at Israeli society in general over the next five years, what makes you optimistic and what makes you worried?

Michael Eisenberg: Part of what makes me optimistic is the youth of Israel. Two years into this war that nobody wanted, two years into a war that saw hundreds of thousands of people called up to reserves — [I have] sons, sons-in-law who have probably done more than 1,500 days of reserve duty in Gaza or mandatory service in Gaza. We currently have two kids in the army right now. 

These kids have proven to be what I called already in November 2023 the “defining generation.” It’s not just a defining generation for Israel, it’s a defining generation for the West. These were kids that everybody was worried about, that they were behind their screens, Instagram, TikTok, who put it all aside and got up to defend the values of Israel, the safety of Israel, the people of Israel and by extension, Western civilization, because Islamism is on the rise.

And Hamas is not even an extreme version of Islamism. It is one of the variants of this disease called Islamism, which is a mutant form of Islam promulgated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and these kids stood up, risked their lives, some of them lost their lives. I lost two cousins since Oct. 7.

The most important reason to be optimistic about Israel is the young people here who have shown incredible courage, conscientiousness, responsibility, fortitude and innovation in tackling this problem. I’m a high-tech investor in my day job. The amount of innovation that this war has brought out of Israelis, like magic stuff, the AI and space lasers, etc., but also just simple innovation. Just the amount of ingenuity that has come out is stunning, and people are paying attention to it. The U.S. Department of Defense just issued [a statement that] they want technologies that have been battle-tested. There’s nowhere where technologies have been more battle-tested than Israel, maybe Ukraine second, but certainly kind of the high-tech wizardry and missiles — it’s Israel. I think that sets us up now for a lot of positives. 

What worries me is a lack of political will. And I use one example of it. We need to borrow the money to fight the war, but at the same time, politicians need to rise out of the sectarianism and to make the hard political decisions to cut the budget in places which are not growth investments or investments in security. Period. Full stop. 

Q: What needs to change?

A: Israel is not necessarily on the best path. We went into the war with a debt-to-GDP ratio in the low 60s; we can finance our welfare state for the most part. However, to the best of my knowledge, there’s nobody in the Israeli government or the Ministry of Finance who sits down and says, “OK, these shekels are for investments in future growth; these shekels are just handouts or part of the welfare state.” The only way to get our debt-to-GDP ratio back to where it needs to be, post the war — and again, we should borrow money to prosecute this war and win it as fast as possible — is to grow. In order to grow, you need investments in infrastructure. The investments in infrastructure are more limited because we spend way too much on the spending part of the ledger, which is non-investment, whether it’s supporting ultra-Orthodox yeshivas or unproductive parts of society in general.

Western society has been taken over by progressive nonsense in which you fund the fringes, instead of focusing on the core of society. The core of Israeli society serves. We can’t afford [funding the fringes] and we need to make the cuts necessary to be able to focus on the core needs of society, which is defense. We need to revamp our education system completely from the ground up. We need to make sure that our health system is taken care of, because we’re one of the best health systems on the planet, but it’s falling behind because it’s both underfunded and there aren’t enough doctors and nurses in the system. These are solvable problems, but they need shekels that are being frittered away elsewhere.

Q: Is it just an issue of priorities? At the Knesset last year, at a hearing on AI, you described Israel’s approach as amateurish and said that nobody in the Knesset knows what they’re talking about. What do you think Israel needs to do to ensure its leadership is moving forward in critical tech areas like AI and defense tech?

A: Generally, in technology, civilian innovation wins, and we’re very good at that. Nobody said, “Hey, go do defense tech.” People came out of Gaza and said, “Hey, I saw drones or missiles or AI, I can do this.” Defense tech has popped up without any government help, and that’s the way it should be. 

AI is an entirely different story. AI is infrastructure for the future nation state, like nuclear power, like nuclear weapons. This is what will define the winning nation states of the coming 100 years. And it’s infrastructure, because it needs a lot of energy, because you need a lot of human beings with a lot of degrees. We’re a small country, so we need to bring some of these people either back, because they left, or [bring them] in, because there’s not a small number of Jews or other people who would want to live in Israel that we can bring into this.

Q: You recently said the following about AI: “As Europe declines and the east and south rise, Israel and our Abrahamic partners are perfectly placed as the innovation ecosystem that will help drive their economies and drive an AI future in this region and a realigned world.” How do you think Israeli innovation and AI can change Israel’s standing in the world and change the Middle East more broadly?

A: The leadership of Israel has always been very tactical. Part of it, I think, comes from a survival mentality and instinct. But we are now a regional superpower. We need to think like a regional superpower and that requires much more strategy, but it also requires working with our neighbors. 

The UAE has spent incredible amounts of time, energy, money and professionalism, and they’ve done incredible work on AI strategy. They figured out, to their credit, that what they have in abundance is energy, and their capability to do large projects, I would argue, is almost second to none. The Emiratis are incredible at building infrastructure projects, whether it’s the new airport in Abu Dhabi, the airport in Dubai, the energy fields. It’s mind-boggling and a sight to behold. I admire them greatly. 

The Saudis have launched this initiative called HUMAIN. The Saudis, I think, are behind the Emiratis, but they have abundant energy and abundant money to be able to bring chips in, and perhaps, although I’m skeptical of it, to bring manufacturing in. 

What they all lack is talent. What do we have? We’re way worse than the Emiratis at building big projects. We have way less energy abundance, but we have real innovation talent. Number two, we have a relationship with the United States, which wants to kind of own this sphere of AI, that almost nobody has. Now we have this new energy agreement that was signed by the prime minister when he was in Washington a couple of weeks ago, and an AI agreement and very friendly people coming into the State Department. 

Q: When you look at the coalition politics, the question is, can we get there? You can be supportive of Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu, you can be critical of him, but he has a vision for the Israeli economy and for Israeli technological development. But when you look at the broader political spectrum, you don’t seem to have that kind of strategic thinking and the economic vision is often subsumed by politics. Most of Netanyahu’s partners are not free-market capitalists like he is.

A: I actually think that a not-small part of the Likud party, currently in government, is socialist. All the ultra-Orthodox parties are socialists, even though the bases of these parties are not socialists. I think Prime Minister Netanyahu is a capitalist, but below him on the list are a lot of people who unfortunately have the wrong view of economics, or forgot what socialism is, and certainly the ultra-Orthodox politicians who just want handouts without responsibility. They just want to kind of keep the people underfoot.

Q: So what do you do about it? 

A: To use a different example, because it’s less personal. You ask yourself, How is it plausible that Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the U.K., has said such a dumb thing [recognizing a Palestinian state]? I don’t think there is a dumber statement ever made by a politician. We should say it openly. He may have killed the hostages by caving to Hamas and the Palestinian narrative. [French President Emmanuel] Macron, also. These two may be responsible for the life of our hostages because of stupid things that they said. 

Why are people so stupid? And the answer is, because all politics, at the end of the day, are local. My friend Eugene Kandel, the former economic advisor for the prime minister, said the KPI [key performance indicator] of every politician is to get reelected. That’s what they want. And you look at the voting bases, under Starmer and under Macron, there are a lot of Islamists there in these countries. And so they’re pandering to the base. 

I think a lot of this in democratic politics, unfortunately, comes down to a lack of leadership and people who pander to the base, and populism has become popular again. But the laws of physics for every action is an equal and opposite reaction. I hope that there is going to be an era of leadership that follows this era of populism, because I think people are sick and tired of the amateur hour that has become much of government, technology and economic policy. They’re sick and tired of it. And they’re sick and tired of the cost of living going up here. 

When you want to be a regional superpower, you can’t run a country like this in the modern era, and we need to fix that. This younger generation is incredible. They’re going to fix it. 

Q: We’ve seen the negative impact of campaigns against Israel, not just in Europe, but particularly in the U.S., where we’ve seen a drop in public opinion towards Israel. You’ve talked a lot about narrative and storytelling and how it applies to startups, but when you look at Israel, what do you think it should be doing differently?

A: I did some work at the beginning of the war on bot networks, and how this coordinated campaign got unleashed on Oct. 8. Amazingly, there were Google Drives all over campuses in America that had posters that you could download and print. The people were ready for this. The Network Contagion Research Institute run by Joel Stein has done an incredible job recently of charting this, and there is a very, very well-honed narrative meme-making system, probably funded by Qatar in various ways, that has gotten the best of the West and Israel, too. 

You have a very complicit media. You just look at that picture of the poor kid with MS that ends up on the cover of all these pages, and you look at the inside deliberations of The New York Times where they knew the problem and they still decided to publish it. It is outrageous, by the way. You can read on my Twitter, I’m calling for the New York Times editor Joe Kahn to resign. In this case, Kahn got it right, and he still published it. The guy is complicit in spreading false narratives to a level of nobody anywhere in the world. 

We need to start playing offense and not defense. And unfortunately, I think the government and the narrative are always defensive, rather than offensive, and we wait for the crisis to happen rather than crafting the narrative ourselves. 

What is the narrative? I think the answer is, we are Israel. Israel is the freest, most innovative, most initiative-taking society in the world, and it is the most mutually responsible. You want to raise your children here, because they grow up with mutual responsibility for their society and in an emergent regional superpower. Together with our cousins in the UAE and Saudi Arabia and the southern part of the Mediterranean in Greece and Italy, we can define this region as a future model for the world. 

Q: What impact has the war had on the tech sector and the economy? It seems that things are better than anyone could have predicted.

A: Israel is the best-performing stock market in the world since October 2023. It’s pretty mind-blowing. It’s been very resilient. 

Since the war started, numerous American funds have been set up in Israel. People want to access the innovation. I’ve been working very, very hard to try to develop the finance sector here. I think the current Finance Minister [Bezalel Smotrich] has figured this out, and I think you’ll see some news in the future about a regulatory and tax overhaul to enable the emergence of the finance industry. We need a second industry other than tech. 

In tech, cyber carried us this far, but it’s not enough to carry us to the next phase. We need the AI enabled services businesses to sell globally from here — like Lemonade, which I was lucky to be the first investor in, is the fastest growing insurance company in the world. It’s an AI native business and we now operate globally, we started here. We need these businesses to grow so that we have more engines of growth other than just cyber and defense. 

Q: Now for a more personal question. You have eight kids. How do you manage running a large investment fund, writing books, chairing charitable organizations, owning a winery — and being a dad and grandfather?

A: I think the secret in life is kind of two things. Marry well, and I was very fortunate to meet my wife young, and we’ve had just an incredible relationship and partnership and raising a family together, and incredible business partners and in the nonprofit universe. And we don’t have a television — I say that half in jest, but it’s kind of true, I don’t have that many hobbies in life.

Even on the books that I’ve published, I have an incredible editor who is also a thought partner and challenges me really hard and fine tunes me quicker. So everything in life is who you partner with. And then my only two real hobbies that I have that I enjoy very much are skiing, which you can only do a small number of days a year, unfortunately, and drinking Israeli wine. I just want to write books and help Israel and the Jewish people. That’s my life. And raise our family together. 

I actually don’t believe in work-life balance. I think this is a terrible promise that psychologists make to kids, and it’s just false. What is balanced about the last two years? If I’ve promised you that your life is going to be balanced and you encounter the last two years, you will have failed, because there’s no balance. No one promised my daughter, who had three kids and now had her fourth in the middle of the war and her husband was 300-plus days in reserve duty, any balance this year. What we need to do is to tell people that there are trade-offs in life because there are 24 hours a day and seven days in a week, and we try to be as good as we can at everything, and we’re going to fail. And I think that builds resilience.

What I think Israel has in spades is optimism and resilience. Optimism and resilience. That’s the reason I’m bullish on Israeli society in this generation, that’s because they’re battle hardened. They have built resilience. It hasn’t been easy. Nothing is easy. That’s real life.

We got knocked on our butts, and we got up and gave it back, and it’s had a tremendous price. It still has a price. The hostages are still the price. There’s still people fighting in Gaza, and unfortunately, soldiers being killed and a lot of broken hearts and a lot of widows and orphans who are our responsibility collectively. But we have, unfortunately, through trauma, built resilience, and now we need to get to the post-traumatic growth phase.

Michel Issa, the Lebanese-American businessman nominated by the Trump administration to serve as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, said Tuesday that the Lebanese government and armed forces must act swiftly and decisively to disarm Hezbollah and remove its influence across Lebanese society.

Issa argued at his Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing that the war between Israel and Hezbollah, “while devastating, has opened a narrow but meaningful window for progress,” in combination with the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire deal, the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and recent blows to Iran’s military and nuclear program. 

He praised the new Lebanese government as a “promising development,” saying it has made progress in combating Hezbollah’s influence.

“The Iran-Israel escalation is a reminder of how delicate an opportunity this is that could be squandered if Iran drags Lebanon back down to the path of conflict,” Issa continued. “The government has made clear it will not tolerate any violation of the cessation of hostility, and since implementation, they have begun to curb Hezbollah’s influence. But more must be done. Urgently. The full disarmament of Hezbollah is not optional. It is essential. The time to act is now.”

Finishing that job and rooting out Hezbollah’s influence across Lebanon will be difficult and take time, he added, given its decades of influence and domination across Lebanese society.

“Hezbollah needs to go. Hezbollah needs to be disarmed to bring some kind of hope to Lebanon,” he said. As long as supply lines from Iran remain cut and with continued support from the United States and other partners, he continued, he believes that over time Hezbollah’s influence can be minimized and the government can secure its hold on power.

Issa said that it’s critical that the Lebanese government maintain full control of rebuilding efforts in southern Lebanon, and that it cannot allow Hezbollah to “hijack” that work as it has in the past. He added that the country must work to ensure governance reform and financial stability, accountability and growth.

He also argued that the U.S. should continue to push for a final settlement regarding the borders between Israel and Lebanon and ultimately normalize relations between the two countries.

Issa spoke highly of the Lebanese Armed Forces, saying that they will be critical to efforts to combat Hezbollah and have been a partner to the United States, which the LAF should continue to support and cooperate with. He said that the LAF is one of the few institutions that enjoys widespread trust and support within Lebanon.

“They are doing a great role in creating stability that is very well needed in Lebanon,” Issa said. “I believe they are ready to do whatever they need to do, to take over and to become the sole military power for the Lebanese government.”

Asked about whether the mandate for the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, should be extended, Issa did not offer a definitive answer, saying that its role is changing with the LAF stepping up its role in monitoring the border with Israel and ensuring that Hezbollah does not continue to threaten the Jewish state.

Issa, who was born in Beirut, said that he had renounced his Lebanese citizenship in connection with his nomination, to show his commitment to the American people and the U.S.’ interests.

Duke Buchan, an investment banker who served as U.S. ambassador to Spain in Trump’s first term and is now nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Morocco, testified alongside Issa.

Buchan said repeatedly that he would work to support the Abraham Accords, both to expand the relationship between Israel and Morocco and to urge Morocco to encourage other countries to normalize relations with Israel.

He said it would be one of his “highest priorities” to work to reestablish the Negev Forum dialogue among Israel and its Arab allies, and to convince Morocco to “step up even more.”

Buchan said he supports U.S. recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony claimed by both Morocco and the indigenous Sahrawi people, a significant contingent of whom are refugees living in Algeria. The U.S. agreed to recognize Moroccan sovereignty over the territory when the country joined the Abraham Accords in 2020. 

“Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio reiterated that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” Buchan said. “If confirmed, I will facilitate progress towards this goal.”

But pressed later in the hearing on bipartisan concerns about the U.S.’ decision to recognize Moroccan sovereignty, Buchan said he was not familiar with those concerns and that he would defer to the president and secretary of state to set policy.

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) has stood apart in recent weeks as one of a small number of congressional Democrats who’ve been supportive of the Trump administration’s strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

He argued in an interview with Jewish Insider last week and in a recent op-ed that the Israeli and American show of force, alongside the undermining of Iran’s proxies across the region, could be the key to weakening the Iranian regime to a point where it will agree to a fundamental change of course going forward, unlocking opportunities for regional peace and prosperity. And, he said, it’s critical that the U.S. move forward in a truly unified and bipartisan manner to capitalize on that opportunity.

Landsman told JI he thinks that his Democratic colleagues’ responses to the strikes are motivated by the current political environment, fears about a broader war and concerns about the future of diplomatic talks and the safety of people in the region.

“We’re just in a different political environment than the one I grew up in,” Landsman, 48, said. “The one I grew up in was ‘politics stops at the water’s edge,’ which I loved. … The thinking behind it … is that when we take on these really complicated foreign policy issues, that we do it in a bipartisan way, and that’s not the environment we live in right now.”

He said there’s also a “legitimate concern that it would provoke further attacks or it would instigate a broader war.” Landsman has argued that the current situation is fundamentally different from the run-up to the Iraq war that many skeptics of the strikes have invoked.

Some colleagues, he added, may have also had concerns about compromising diplomatic efforts or “legitimate concerns for people’s safety. But I think for others, and for a lot of folks, it’s just political,” he said.

Landsman said he still hews to the older approach, believing that it’s critical to work toward bipartisan common ground in critical foreign policy questions. He highlighted that the American people overwhelmingly oppose the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon.

“I think the American people want [our Middle East policy] to be bipartisan, all of it,” Landsman said. “I think they’re tired of the partisanship in general, but in particular, as it relates to how we resolve these international conflicts and how we take advantage of international or global opportunities, I think they are done with all of this being so partisan.”

He said he still believes a diplomatic solution with Iran is possible and necessary, but said the regime needed to be weakened and see that the U.S. is willing to use force in order to agree to totally dismantle its nuclear program and allow comprehensive international inspections and to dismantle its terrorist proxies .

Unlike some supporters of the strikes, Landsman said he doesn’t think regime change in Iran is the most productive goal, and that the U.S. should instead leverage the regime’s vulnerability for a more favorable deal and fundamental change to the regime’s posture.

“This regime wants to stay in power. If they decide — which they can, and now they’re so weakened that it’s an easier decision for them, and that’s why the strikes were important — they can decide, ‘We’re going to focus on the Iranian people’” and abandon terrorism and their ambitions to destroy Israel, Landsman said. “They could unlock the talent of tens of millions of incredibly brilliant people that have been stuck in Iran under this regime.”

He said that achieving that will “require real engagement and leadership” from both Congress and the executive branch.

Landsman has proposed establishing a bipartisan and bicameral congressional committee to work toward Middle East peace, and argued that the administration needs an expanded team working on the issue, describing Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff as stretched too thin.

“They need to lay out a vision for ending hostilities with Iran and ending the war in Gaza and giving people a sense of what will happen next in terms of peace and stability and security,” Landsman said.

The congressman argued that these issues are too difficult and too important for Congress to be excluded, or to be treated in a partisan manner. He pushed for deep and ongoing executive branch engagement with Congress, not just providing briefings, but in strategizing and building a lasting solution going forward.

Finally putting the Iranian threat to bed would set the Middle East on a fundamentally different course, Landsman argued. “[The Middle East] should be Europe, [if not] for Iran. It hasn’t been able to break out that way because Iran has been the primary obstacle.”

“Getting to a point where Iran is slowly but surely being removed as a threat opens up all the doors,” he said. “It just changes the dynamic for everybody.”

He said he believes leaders across the region see a path toward ending the war in Gaza and the long-running conflicts and building “a Middle East that’s entirely free from terror and countries are working together” and prospering.

In spite of the deep divisions that have increasingly characterized discussions in the United States on Israel and the Middle East since the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks, Landsman said he still believes that “the list of what we agree on is way bigger than the list of what folks may disagree on.”

The points of agreement across the American political spectrum include: that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon; that Iran needs to be subject to stringent inspections; that Iran needs to cease its support for terrorists; that Hezbollah must be disarmed; that the war in Gaza needs to end; that the hostages need to be returned; that Hamas needs to be removed from power; and that international investment in collaboration with Israel and non-Hamas Palestinian leaders is needed to move Gaza forward.

“More international pressure can be brought to bear on Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis to separate them … and say ‘The world has come together. We are going to pick the side of those who want to rebuild the region and rebuild it free of terror and corruption,’” Landsman said. “Ultimately, when you have the kind of security that any country would need and expect, then you get back to the negotiating table.”

Landsman has spoken on multiple occasions in recent months about his aspirations for an abiding peace in the Middle East, a vision that he says is driven by a lifetime of connection and passion for Israel and the region.

He said his Jewish upbringing had inculcated in him a sense of connection to the importance of Israel for the Jewish people.

Landsman said that efforts to negotiate between Israel and the Palestinians were also a constant feature of his youth, and that he believes that there is still broad agreement on the goal of a durable peace that can provide security for Israel and self-determination and self-governance for the Palestinians.

A Harvard Divinity School graduate, the Ohio congressman has visited Israel numerous times as a lawmaker, but also traveled there frequently and built connections in his previous work in education advocacy. After implementing new preschool programs in the Cincinnati area, Landsman was asked to help work with Ethiopian Israelis to improve educational outcomes, an effort that grew between 2015 and 2020.

He said his time on the ground in Israel showed him that Jews and Palestinians “have a lot in common” — shared history, a shared home and common experiences of expulsion and rejection. And it highlighted to him the extent to which Arab Israelis are part of and integrated into Israeli society.

“I have built up this legitimate affection and love for these two communities of people that, because of circumstance, have been fighting,” Landsman said. “Ending that would transform everything — not just their lives, but the region and the world.”

The IDF found and returned the bodies of U.S.-Israeli citizens Judith Weinstein-Haggai and Gad Haggai, who were killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks, the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office announced on Thursday.

The Haggais were murdered in Kibbutz Nir Oz during Hamas’ onslaught targeting Gaza border communities. Their bodies were held by Hamas, the PMO said.

The couple was on a morning walk when they were shot by terrorists on motorcycles. Weinstein-Haggai called emergency medical services, but the ambulance that was traveling to help them was hit by a rocket, according to her daughter. 

Gad was 72 and Judith, a New York native who also held Canadian citizenship, was 70; they are survived by four children and seven grandchildren.

The Weinstein-Haggai family released a statement via the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, saying that their return “is painful and heartbreaking, yet it also brings healing to our uncertainty. Their return reminds us all that it is the state’s duty to bring everyone home, so that we, the families, together with all the people of Israel, can begin the process of healing and recovery … A grave is not a privilege. A grave is a basic human right, without which personal and national recovery is impossible.”

The family called on leaders to “do everything necessary to reach an agreement that will return all 56 remaining hostages — the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for burial.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the IDF soldiers and Shin Bet fighters who recovered the bodies and added, “We will not rest until we bring all of our hostages home, living and deceased.” 

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz sent condolences to the Weinstein-Haggai family and said that “the State of Israel is morally and nationally committed to returning our brothers and sisters, living and not living, and we will continue acting with determination until the mission is complete.”

The bodies of two American hostages, Itay Chen and Omer Neutra, remain in Gaza, out of a total of 56 hostages, 20 of whom are thought to be alive.

Prominent Palestinian-American DJ and producer Farid Karam Nassar, who goes by the stage name Fredwreck, targeted Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) earlier this week with a series of explicit racial slurs, citing Torres’ support for Israel.

Nassar, who has worked with artists including Eminem, Britney Spears, Ice Cube, 50 Cent, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, won a Grammy in 2020 for an album with R&B artist Anderson .Paak and he assisted with the 2022 Super Bowl halftime show.

In response to a video of a recent public confrontation between Torres and a pro-Palestinian activist, Nassar described Torres as a “s@mbo koon,” using misspellings of two racial slurs for Black people.

Nassar also commented, “He’s lucky I didn’t run into him on the streets.”

The DJ followed up with a direct message to Torres’ Instagram account, shared with Jewish Insider by the congressman’s office, in which he called Torres a “sell out as House Slave” and made a remark referencing AIPAC and gay sex. Torres is openly gay.

“Violence is not a bug but a feature of the Free Palestine movement,” Torres said in a statement. “No amount of harassment and intimidation will deter me from standing up and speaking out against AntiZionism and antisemitism.”

Nassar did not respond to a message requesting comment.
Nassar accused Israel of genocide on Oct. 18, 2023, and posted on Instagram “From the River to the Sea… We will be free… #endapartheidisrael.”

NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is meeting on Wednesday with Palestinian-American leaders.

The meeting — announced in a media advisory as part of de Blasio’s daily schedule — is closed to press, and City Hall declined to release a list of attendees. 

Jose Bayona, the mayor’s director of community and ethnic media, told Jewish Insider that the meeting is part of a practice to regularly meet with community leaders from all faith and ethnic backgrounds.  

“We cannot predict what this group will raise in the meeting,” Bayona added, “but we anticipate conversation about an array of local issues, including the upcoming 2020 Census and efforts to get everyone counted, public schools and civic engagement.”