Plus, major Dem donor calls out 'Jew hate' in party
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President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House on September 25, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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This P.M. edition is reserved for our premium subscribers — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.
It’s me again — Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
As rumors abound about the possibility and timing of U.S. strikes on Iran, the State Department ordered the evacuation of non-essential personnel and their families from the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. “Based on our latest review, we determined it prudent to reduce our footprint,” a State official told Fox News…
Nearby, amid the buildup of U.S. military assets in the region, American refueling and cargo planes were spotted at Ben Gurion Airport…
President Donald Trump denied reports that Pentagon officials, namely Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, are raising concerns about striking Iran, writing on Truth Social this afternoon, “General Caine, like all of us, would like not to see War but, if a decision is made on going against Iran at a Military level, it is his opinion that it will be something easily won.”
“He has not spoken of not doing Iran, or even the fake limited strikes that I have been reading about, he only knows one thing, how to WIN and, if he is told to do so, he will be leading the pack,” Trump said of Caine, while alluding to the potential breadth of military action against Iran…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio pushed back his visit to Israel, originally scheduled for this weekend, to March 2, The Jerusalem Post reports, days after the next round of U.S.-Iran negotiations in Geneva on Thursday…
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), a leader on foreign policy among Democrats in Congress, told Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs that he heard “pretty stark early warning signs of some challenges where core allies do not share our priorities” on a potential Iran strike during his recent trip t0 Europe, which included stops at the Munich Security Conference, along with meetings in Ukraine and Moldova with top European diplomats.
Coons laid out what he hopes to see from the president: “A) Consult Congress. B) Make a case to the American people about why this is in our national security interest. C) Clarify what on earth he’s planning with this Board of Peace … And D) If he’s going to work with close allies to ramp up pressure to try and achieve something at the negotiating table, he should work with close allies”…
Anthony Driver Jr., a union organizer and candidate in Illinois’ 7th Congressional District, doubled down on his recent repudiation of AIPAC, despite previously having little public record on Israel policy issues. Following a press conference last week where Driver, who is running against AIPAC-backed Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, denounced the pro-Israel group, he returned donations from major Democratic Party donor Michael Sacks over the finance executive’s ties to AIPAC.
Sacks, who was a major backer of former President Barack Obama and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, said in his reply, “It is truly sad there is so much anti Israel sentiment and outright Jew hate that Anthony found himself in this position. I can only hope that the electorate rejects hate in all forms”…
As more details emerge about Rep. Tony Gonzales’ (R-TX) alleged affair with a staffer who later committed suicide, a poll commissioned by the campaign of Brandon Herrera, Gonzales’ opponent, shows the congressman trailing Herrera by a whopping 24 points among likely GOP primary voters. The story, which entered the news cycle right as early voting kicked off, could catapult Herrera, a social media influencer with a history of antisemitism, to the Republican nomination and on to Congress…
Investigators at the cryptocurrency giant Binance found last year that about $1.7 billion had been sent from two accounts to Iranian entities with links to terror groups, The New York Times reports, even after Binance pleaded guilty to violating anti-money laundering laws in 2023 and vowed to prevent sanctioned actors from accessing its platform. Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who was jailed for his role in the saga, in October 2025…
The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival backtracked in its defense of a juror selected for a judging panel who had posted antisemitic and anti-Israel content online, whom it had stood behind even after the Israeli Consulate in Atlanta announced it was withdrawing its funding and support of the event over the pick.
The festival changed its tune yesterday, saying it is “first and foremost, a Jewish institution” and has “a responsibility, particularly at this fraught time, to stand firmly against antisemitism and to affirm the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.” It said it would review its “organizational processes and policies, including those related to antisemitism, BDS, and cultural boycotts”…
The French Foreign Ministry has moved to block U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner’s access to government officials after he declined to appear for a summons by Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot today, which was issued after the U.S. Embassy reposted comments by Trump about a far-right French activist who was killed in a clash with far-left protesters. It was Kushner’s second summons, after his first last year when he accused the French government of not adequately combating antisemitism…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye out in Jewish Insider for a look at Sue Altman’s shifting views on Israel as the formerly pro-Israel congressional candidate is now running in New Jersey’s more heavily Democratic 12th Congressional District.
We’ll be watching for mention of President Donald Trump’s thinking on Iran as he delivers the annual State of the Union address tomorrow night. Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger will deliver the Democratic response.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on “advancing national security through commercial diplomacy” with Jacob Helberg, under secretary of state for economic affairs, who recently told JI that he hopes the Pax Silica initiative, which he leads, “will pave the way for peace and economic integration” in the Middle East.
Australia’s royal commission on antisemitism, formed after the Hanukkah terror attack at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, will hold its first public hearing, though no testimony or evidence will be heard.
Stories You May Have Missed
OVERTON WINDOW
Former Democratic Rep. Kathy Manning: ‘There is no doubt that we are living through very difficult times for American Jews’
BIG TENT SHABBAT
The dinner was hosted by Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, the U.S. antisemitism special envoy
Tucker Carlson’s interview with the U.S. ambassador to Israel sparks backlash over comments about Israel’s Biblical land rights and a false claim linking Israeli President Herzog to Epstein
Screenshot
Tucker Carlson interviews U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Feb. 18, 2026.
Tucker Carlson’s interview with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee seemed to get off to a rough start before the commentator had even touched down in Israel, when it became known that Carlson would be conducting the interview from Ben Gurion Airport without plans to leave the complex to engage with the country — about which he spends significant airtime discussing — itself.
The troubles began before the interview aired,with Carlson alleging on social media that the passports belonging to his team members had been taken by Israeli security and that the group had been interrogated at the airport. But Carlson flew into Ben Gurion’s VIP Fattal Terminal, where passports are taken by airport officials to be expedited through a special processing service that avoids the immigration lines at Ben Gurion’s regular terminal. Questioning, as anyone who has flown into or out of Israel knows, is standard procedure and has been for decades.
But it was the release of the interview — nearly three hours long — that caused the most issue for Carlson. The initially released edition of the podcast included comments from Carlson to Huckabee alleging that Israeli President Isaac Herzog had ties to Jeffrey Epstein. “The current president of Israel, whom I know you know, apparently was at ‘Pedo Island,” Carlson claimed. “That’s what it says.”
That was, in fact, *not* what it — it being the Epstein files released earlier this month — said. Carlson appeared to be referencing an email in the trove of documents that referenced “Herzog,” despite no actual linkage between the Israeli president and the disgraced financier.
The outcry, as well as a letter from Herzog’s team and a statement from Huckabee, prompted a swift apology from Carlson, and a rerelease of the interview with that portion of the conversation removed. “They didn’t know each other, they never emailed with each other, never been in the same room. They had no relationship of any kind,” Carlson said. “So I just want to say clearly I’m sorry to imply that I knew something I didn’t know.”
But it was a conversation about the Bible that dominated headlines. The Tucker Carlson Network posted a partial clip on Saturday in which Carlson spoke at length about a passage in Genesis in which God tells Abraham, “to your descendants I will give this land, from the River of Egypt to the great river Euphrates,” then asking Huckabee if he believes that the Jewish people therefore have the right to the land that includes modern-day Jordan and parts of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
“It would be fine if they took it all,” Huckabee said before the video cuts off mid-sentence. The rest of the sentence that was omitted from the clip includes Huckabee saying, “But I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here today,” adding “they” — meaning Israel — “don’t want to take it over; they’re not asking to take it over.”
Huckabee continued: “It was somewhat of a hyperbolic statement if that’s what you feel like we’re talking about, but it isn’t. We’re talking about this land that Israel, the State of Israel, now lives in and wants to have peace in. They’re not trying to take over Jordan … Syria, Iraq or anywhere else, but they do want to protect their people.”
“Huckabee’s Israel land remarks condemned as ‘dangerous and inflammatory’” read the headline from The Guardian. The Hill’s headline was similar: “Huckabee claims it would be ‘fine’ if Israel took all of Middle East.” NBC News went with “Outcry after Ambassador Mike Huckabee suggests Israel has God-given right to Middle East land,” while Axios headlined its story, “Israel has biblical right to the Middle East, Huckabee tells Carlson.”
The cavalcade of stories framing Huckabee as supporting an imagined Israeli territorial conquest of the Middle East prompted a response from a group of Arab and Muslim states and multinational organizations, led by Saudi Arabia, condemning the comments. Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates — all of whom have peace agreements with Israel — signed onto the statement.
The conversation and the resulting diplomatic fallout is not happening in a vacuum, but against the backdrop of escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran as the U.S. pours military assets into the region in anticipation of a possible strike on Iran. The New York Times reported on Sunday that Arab leaders have made calls to their American counterparts to complain about Huckabee’s comments, “[f]urther complicating any final decision on military strikes.”
It’s far from the first time that inaccurate media reports have impacted diplomatic efforts. In October 2023, a trip to Jordan by then-President Joe Biden, weeks after the Oct. 7 attacks, was called off by King Abdullah II amid the uproar over what mainstream outlets from CNN to the BBC, citing Hamas officials, reported was an Israeli strike on Gaza’s Al-Ahli Hospital. It was quickly revealed through intercepted calls that a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket had misfired and hit the hospital complex, though not quickly enough to catch up with the lie that had surged around the world and into the phones and computers of millions of people.
Carlson faced backlash for his handling of the interview from former supporters, including Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN), who said he was “appalled” watching the interview, citing a previous interview with far-right conspiracy theorist Nick Fuentes in which Carlson “gave ample platform and time to Nick Fuentes to share his anti-Semitic vitriol, but constantly interrupted, was impatient, disingenuous, argumentative and disrespectful to Huckabee. Ambassador Huckabee was nothing but gracious and kind.”
Carlson, Stutzman said, “is intentionally divisive with an obvious anti-modern Israel agenda when it comes to the Bible, Christianity and the deep roots of America‘s friendship with the Jewish people.”
While Carlson faced backlash from some on the right, he was met with praise by elements of the far left. Mehdi Hassan, who admitted that he is “not a fan of Tucker Carlson,” said that “as an interviewer, Carlson actually, brilliantly, asks follow-up questions, and keeps going, in a way that pretty much no US TV interviewer has done with pro-Israel guests since Oct 7.”
Flights will begin days before the Passover holiday, when Israel sees a surge in visitors
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
American Airlines plane on October 22, 2025.
American Airlines announced plans on Friday to resume direct flights to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport starting in March, marking the first time since the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks that the carrier will fly directly to Israel.
Flights to Tel Aviv are scheduled to resume on March 28, 2026, just days ahead of the Passover holiday, when Israel typically sees an influx of tourism. Tickets will be available for purchase beginning Monday.
The announcement comes weeks after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire in the Gaza war. American is the last of the major U.S. carriers to resume flights to Israel.
Throughout much of the war, Israeli airline El Al was the only reliable option for direct travel to and from the U.S., leading to a shortage of flights to meet travelers’ demands and soaring ticket prices. The pause sparked debate among lawmakers over whether the airlines’ decisions were influenced by internal and external political pressure.
United and Delta both briefly resumed service between Israel and the New York area for short periods in 2024 after suspending all flights on Oct. 7. Both airlines fully reinstated flights earlier this year.
Tourists stranded in Israel are taking extreme measures to exit the country, navigating a labyrinth of WhatsApp scams, exorbitant prices and sold out tugboats
GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP via Getty Images
The empty departures hall at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv on June 13, 2025 after Israel closed its air space to takeoff and landing.
Last Thursday, Sam Heller went to sleep at a Tel Aviv hotel, thinking that any potential military action between Israel and Iran wouldn’t start until after his flight back to the U.S., scheduled for Saturday night.
He was wrong.
When Home Front Command alerts woke Heller at 3 a.m. on Friday, informing the nation that Israel had launched a preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, he quickly booked the first flight out to Paris from Ben Gurion Airport.
“I went straight to the airport, and they locked the doors to Ben-Gurion, and they stopped letting people in,” Heller told Jewish Insider on Tuesday, safely back home in Cleveland. “They’re like, ‘We’re closing our airspace indefinitely. Your flight’s been canceled. All flights are canceled. You can’t get out.’”
Like some 38,000 other foreign visitors stranded in Israel after the country’s preemptive strikes on Iran prompted days of Iranian ballistic missile attacks on Israel, Heller began to try to think of creative ways to leave the country. First he called an Israeli shipping company and asked if he could travel as a stowaway on a cargo ship heading to Cyprus. They told him yes, at a cost of 87,000 Euros for 12 people. He said no.
Then Heller, who was visiting Israel as the last leg of a monthlong trip after graduating from the University of Michigan in May, called a sailing company from which he had rented a boat two years ago. They told him the only boat suitable for travel to Cyprus was out of commission. Another no. Next, a phone call to a company that offers helicopter tours of Israel, thinking helicopters might not be included in the ban on flying. Nope.
Finally, he tracked down a company that offers private security details in the Middle East. There, he identified a circuitous route out of Israel that took him 36 hours: departing Israel through the Taba border crossing to Egypt, being driven three-and-a-half hours to Sharm el-Sheikh and taking a flight from the Sinai resort town to Istanbul. He left Israel Saturday night after Shabbat and landed in Cleveland at 11 p.m. the next day. That’s a relatively fast trip compared to others who have made it out.
In the days since the Iran-Israel war started, a cottage industry has emerged to help ferry people from Israel to other destinations around the globe.
Israeli airspace was closed for five days and the U.S. Embassy said it was unable to assist Americans seeking to evacuate. After the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, several State Department-led charter flights brought Americans to Athens — but charter flights were not an option following Israel’s attack on Iran and the ensuing war between the two countries. A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on Tuesday.
El Al canceled all flights out of the country through at least June 23, and foreign carriers pulled out of Israel for longer. Israeli carriers El Al, Arkia and Israir announced on Tuesday that they received permission from the Israeli government to organize repatriation flights to bring back Israelis stranded abroad. The first two flights from Larnaca, Cyprus, landed at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday morning.
The Israeli Tourism Ministry launched an effort on Tuesday to facilitate the departure of tourists from the country, distributing a digital registration form for departure flights from the country.
But until those flights begin, in WhatsApp threads, Facebook groups and private messages, Americans stuck in Israel are passing along any information they can find to try to help get themselves and their loved ones home. The details are hard to verify. The costs range from expensive to astronomical.
One graphic shared widely on WhatsApp advertises an emergency evacuation flight from Israel to New York, promising a Wednesday afternoon departure to Eilat and a bus transfer to Sharm el-Sheikh, followed by a charter flight to Milan and then a connection to JFK — “lavish meals included” and “security escorted” — for $2,200 a person. According to the travel company’s website, though, it was already sold out by the time the graphic circulated. Another message advertised a chartered flight from Aqaba, Jordan — near Eilat — to Paris, for $3,000 a person. Abraham Tours, a travel company best known for its hostels in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, advertised a cross-border transfer to Amman for $438.
Adir Fischer is the vice president of marketing at Magnus Safety, a global search-and-rescue company based in Israel that is arranging boats to take people between Haifa and Larnaca, Cyprus. He can fit about 25 people on a tugboat for a 17-hour journey, costing between 1,000 and 2,000 Euros a person.
“If you have three kids and a husband, it’s around 7,000 Euros a trip. Not everyone has it liquid, and it’s prepaid,” Fischer told JI on Tuesday. That’s before adding in the cost of flights from Cyprus back to the U.S. Still, he has turned away over 100 people because there isn’t enough room on the boats.
One American woman who lives in Israel plans to depart on Wednesday on a small boat privately arranged by her husband’s company. They will be traveling with their six-month-old baby and two friends, at a cost of $15,000 for the five people.
“Either I’m brave, crazy or an idiot. I’m not quite sure yet. But we really want to get out,” she said, requesting anonymity to speak about sensitive travel details.
Early Sunday morning, Shira Raviv Schwartz woke up to a red alert. She was in Israel visiting her cousin, a trip she takes most summers. Soon after, her apartment building in Tel Aviv shook violently. In the morning, Schwartz saw that the next block had sustained a direct hit from an Iranian ballistic missile. She decided she needed to leave with her husband, their young adult son and her 84-year-old father-in-law.
“I can’t take another night anxious in the safe room,” Schwartz said from Amman, where the family awaits a flight to Cairo, then another to Athens and finally a flight home to Chicago.
Large tour groups have been luckier than individuals or families, who have to sort through the options themselves. Birthright Israel arranged for a private luxury cruise ship to bring 1,500 American young adults to Cyprus, where they boarded four planes back to the U.S. chartered by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Jonathan Schanzer, who was leading a delegation hosted by his think tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, worked with the organization’s staff to get the group to Amman via the Allenby Bridge, the only border crossing between the West Bank and Jordan. (This is not an option for Israelis, who are not permitted to pass there.) He considered whether driving to Allenby amid the threat of incoming Iranian missiles was too dangerous but decided to risk it.
“Every security specialist warned me that the time in the war away from a shelter was the dangerous period, and I understood that,” Schanzer told JI. “But we were running out of programming for our participants and they were all sleep-deprived, as was I, from the incessant sirens every night. They didn’t sign up for this.”
Jerusalem travel agent Mark Feldman said the key is not to tell clients what to do, but to give them options.
“Let him or her make the choice. I would never want to be responsible for somebody taking a 24-hour boat to Cyprus, throwing up the whole way, and emailing me saying it was the worst time of their life,” Feldman, the CEO of Ziontours, told JI.
His business is at capacity simply trying to get existing clients into and out of Israel. His advice to those without a connection to a travel agent is to stick to trusted sources and avoid the “incredible amount of rumor-mongering.” Mostly, he is advising people to be patient, particularly those who do not have the appetite for a dayslong odyssey through multiple countries.
But those who are waiting until the airspace reopens are not going to have an easy time leaving, Feldman warned.
“Hard as it is just calming people down and relaxing them, the problem will come when the airport is open, and the thousands of people that are stuck here won’t have flights to get out,” said Feldman. If the airspace opens on June 23, the flights departing that day will be the ones that were initially scheduled for June 23 — meaning anyone with a June 23 ticket will have a confirmed seat. Everyone who has been stuck in Israel for days will be competing with each other for the empty seats.
“Many people assume, ‘Because I was bumped, I get first priority,’” said Feldman. “You don’t.”
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