Plus, a way for Israel to compete with checkbook diplomacy
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
U.S. President Donald Trump stops and talks to the media before he boards Marine One on the South Lawn at the White House on June 15, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Good Wednesday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we continue to report on the latest developments in the war between Israel and Iran, including President Donald Trump’s call for “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” and the potential for U.S. involvement in strikes targeting the Fordow nuclear facility. We also highlight stories of stranded Israelis attempting to enter the country and stranded tourists attempting to exit it, and report on NYC mayor candidate Zohran Mamdani’s defense of the phrase “globalize the intifada.” Also in today’s Daily Kickoff, Sen. Josh Hawley, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and David Zaslav.
What We’re Watching
- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine are testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee this morning on the Pentagon’s 2026 fiscal year budget.
- Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) will appear in a new interview with Tucker Carlson, slated to be released later today. Clips released ahead of the full interview show clashes between the Texas Republican and conservative commentator, whose policy positions on Iran and Israel are increasingly at odds with the Trump administration.
- The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York is holding a memorial event tonight for Dr. Ruth Westheimer.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS
While the last two months have been an exercise in diplomacy for Trump administration officials, who have crisscrossed the Middle East and Europe in an attempt to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear program, the last 24 hours have seen a sharp pivot from President Donald Trump to a more hard-line approach to Tehran.
“UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER,” the president posted on his Truth Social site on Tuesday afternoon, understood to be a message to Iran after more than five days of Israeli attacks meant to degrade Tehran’s military and nuclear infrastructure. Iranian reprisals that have paralyzed Israel, but resulted in damage that has fallen far short of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s threats. (Khamenei responded on Wednesday that “the Iranian nation will not surrender.”)
Trump’s latest comments underscore his shift away from the isolationist elements of the GOP that have dominated his administration since a purge of more traditional foreign policy-minded Republicans, including former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz. As The New York Times’ Ross Douthat wrote on Tuesday, Trump’s isolationist supporters “imagined that personnel was policy, that the realists and would-be restrainers in Trump’s orbit would have a decisive influence. That was clearly a mistake, and the lesson here is that Trump decides and no one else.”
On Capitol Hill, while Republicans appear publicly split on the level of involvement that the U.S. should have in the conflict — from working with Israel to destroy the Fordow nuclear facility to forcing Iran’s hand in diplomatic talks — JI’s conversations with legislators indicate a different approach behind the scenes. One senior Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss internal conference dynamics estimated that nearly the entire GOP conference is privately united on the issue of the U.S. supporting Israel in bombing the Fordow facility if Israel needs such support. Read more from JI’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod here.
“I think the president has struck the right position,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told JI, “which is supportive of Israel’s right of self-defense, which is what this really is, and supporting them publicly while they defend themselves. I think that’s the right position to stick on.” Read more of Hawley’s comments here.
ISRAEL-IRAN WAR, DAY 6
Over 50 Israeli warplanes strike in Tehran area overnight
Israel struck a centrifuge production site in Tehran early Wednesday, after successfully intercepting more than two dozen missiles launched by Iran toward Israel in the preceding hours. Over 50 Israeli Air Force jets flew to Iran, where they struck a facility in which centrifuges were manufactured to expand and accelerate uranium enrichment for Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports. “The Iranian regime is enriching uranium for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. Nuclear power for civilian use does not require enrichment at these levels,” the IDF said.
Military update: The IDF also said it struck several weapons manufacturing facilities, including one used “to produce raw materials and components for the assembly of surface-to-surface missiles, which the Iranian regime has fired and continues to fire toward the State of Israel.” Another facility that the IDF struck manufactured components for anti-aircraft missiles. Effie Defrin, the chief military spokesman, said on Wednesday that the IDF “attacked five Iranian combat helicopters that tried to harm our aircraft.” Defrin added, “There is Iranian resistance, but we control the air [over Iran] and will continue to control it. We are deepening our damage to surface missiles and acting in every place from which the Iranians shoot missiles at Israel.”
FORDOW FACTOR
Israeli national security advisor: Iran operation will not end without strike on Fordow nuclear facility
Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear site is a key target in the current operation against the Islamic Republic, Israel’s national security advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, said on Tuesday. “This operation will not conclude without a strike on the Fordow nuclear facility,” Hanegbi told Israel’s Channel 12 News. The Fordow facility is home to thousands of centrifuges, crucial to Iran’s weapons-grade uranium enrichment program, and is located 295 feet underground beneath a mountain. Israel is thought to have neither the munitions nor the aircraft to destroy it from the air, while the U.S. does, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
American angle: Washington, however, has yet to make clear if it will take part in the offensive on Iran, though it has shot down Iranian missiles headed for Israel in the last few days. Hanegbi said that he does not believe the Trump administration has made a decision on the matter yet. Hanegbi denied that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked the U.S. to join Israel in bombing Iranian nuclear sites: “We didn’t ask and we won’t ask. We will leave it to the Americans to make such dramatic decisions about their own security. We think only they can decide.”
Decisive decision: A decision by Trump on whether or not to join Israel’s strikes against Iran could make the difference between the full destruction of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program and a more drawn-out war with a less conclusive end, Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher in the Iran and the Shi’ite Axis Program at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told JI’s Lahav Harkov on Tuesday.
Word of warning: Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) cautioned on Tuesday that bombing Iran’s underground Fordow nuclear facility would leave significant enriched uranium buried underground. “I’m a little confused on all the conversation about dropping a bunker buster on a mountain that’s filled with enriched uranium, and how that solves the problem. If you’re going to try to get enriched uranium out of the country, dropping a big bunker buster on it may disable the centrifuges in [Fordow], but you still have 900 pounds of enriched uranium sitting there,” Lankford told JI’s Marc Rod.
UNIQUE OFFERING
Is this the way Israel can compete with checkbook diplomacy?
Midway through June, the Middle East looks very different than it did when President Donald Trump traveled to the region just last month. Trump was feted by Gulf monarchs, as Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates sought to make their mark on a business-savvy president by touting hundreds of billions of dollars in investments and trade deals. Now, with Israeli strikes on Iran entering their sixth day, the best way to get Trump’s attention in the region — at least for the moment — is no longer financial prowess. It is firepower, according to at least one observer, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Expert view: “I think what you saw over the last few days is Israel’s alternative model to checkbook diplomacy,” author and podcast host Dan Senor said in a Saturday episode of “The Prof G Pod,” hosted by NYU professor Scott Galloway. “Israel has its own way of competing, because what Israel is demonstrating is, ‘Yeah, we’re not going to be the country that personally has sheikhs and emirs who can write checks for billions and trillions of dollars into the American economy,’” Senor said. “‘But we are the most capable ally in the world, and you, the United States, are going to get more out of this relationship than you give.’”
REVERSE EXODUS
Let my people leave — by land or by sea
Until flights out of Israel begin, Americans stuck there are passing along any information they can find — in WhatsApp threads, Facebook groups and private messages — to get themselves and their loved ones home. The details are hard to verify. The costs range from expensive to astronomical, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Moment of truth: When Home Front Command alerts woke Sam 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 JI 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.’”
At all costs: 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, Egypt, followed by a charter flight to Milan, Italy, and then a connection to JFK Airport in New York — “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, Jordan, for $438.
Pressure push: A bipartisan group of 45 House members led by Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Wesley Bell (D-MO) wrote to President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday urging officials to act promptly to facilitate evacuations of American citizens from Israel, or at least provide them with additional information on efforts to allow for such evacuations, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
GILDED CAGE
How a Mediterranean vacation destination for Israelis turned into a displaced persons hub
An American couple who were en route to Israel to celebrate their wedding but had their flight diverted. Two Israeli single mothers on holiday looking for a quick refresh, now stranded. A group of injured Israel Defense Forces soldiers on a healing retreat. These are some of the nearly 2,500 Jewish people that Rabbi Arie Zeev Raskin, the chief rabbi of Cyprus, and his wife, Shaindel, unexpectedly found themselves hosting for Shabbat last Friday after at least 32 flights from the United States and Europe were diverted to the island in the Mediterranean amid Israel’s preemptive military campaign against Iran, which was launched early Friday morning, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Old Faithful: Shabbat at Chabad “was amazing, a crazy experience,” said Tzvi Berg, a Jerusalem resident who was flying home from a wedding in New York on Thursday night when — just moments away from landing in Tel Aviv — his flight was rerouted to Larnaca, a port city in Cyprus. But as Shabbat ended — with Israeli airspace still shuttered as Iranian missiles continued to strike in Tel Aviv and elsewhere — “the challenge began again,” Raskin said. And those in need are knocking on Chabad’s door looking for food and accommodations, as many Jews do in moments of crisis around the world.
CHANT CONTROVERSY
Zohran Mamdani says ‘globalize the intifada’ is expression of Palestinian rights
Zohran Mamdani, a leading candidate in next Tuesday’s New York City mayoral primary, refused to condemn calls to “globalize the intifada” during a new podcast interview with The Bulwark released on Tuesday, arguing the phrase is an expression of Palestinian rights. In an exchange about antisemitic rhetoric on the left, Mamdani was asked by podcast host Tim Miller to share his thoughts on the phrase, which has been invoked at anti-Israel demonstrations and criticized as an anti-Jewish call to violence, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
What he said: “To me, ultimately, what I hear in so many is a desperate desire for equality and equal rights in standing up for Palestinian human rights,” said Mamdani, a far-left assemblyman from Queens who has long been an outspoken critic of Israel. “And I think what’s difficult also is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic, because it’s a word that means struggle,” he said, apparently referring to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. He added that, “as a Muslim man who grew up post-9/11, I’m all too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning.”
Surveys say: Two new polls — from the Marist Institute for Public Opinion and the Manhattan Institute — show former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo leading New York state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani in next week’s Democratic mayoral primary in New York City. The Marist poll has Cuomo ultimately prevailing over Mamdani in the seventh round of ranked-choice voting, 55-45, while the Manhattan Institute poll has Cuomo beating Mamdani 56-44 in 10 rounds.
Worthy Reads
From Hands-Off to Hands-On: The New York Times looks at how President Donald Trump’s approach to the Israel-Iran war shifted as the war has unfolded. “When he woke on Friday morning, his favorite TV channel, Fox News, was broadcasting wall-to-wall imagery of what it was portraying as Israel’s military genius. And Mr. Trump could not resist claiming some credit for himself. In phone calls with reporters, Mr. Trump began hinting that he had played a bigger behind-the-scenes role in the war than people realized. Privately, he told some confidants that he was now leaning toward a more serious escalation: going along with Israel’s earlier request that the United States deliver powerful bunker-busting bombs to destroy Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordo[w].” [NYTimes]
Axis of Illiberality: In The Washington Post, Michal Cotler-Wunsh, Israel’s special envoy for combating antisemitism and a former member of Knesset, considers the role of China, Russia and North Korea alongside Iran in advancing antisemitism around the world. “While ‘intersectionality’ once was intended to advance the foundational principles of life and liberty, it can now be applied to a contemporary target: authoritarian and illiberal regimes’ efforts to tear apart those very foundations. The declared intention is destroying liberal democracies. … There are many ties that bind Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Oil, arms and food bring them together; stoking global antisemitism is a useful tool in a divide-and-conquer strategy. These regimes pursue their agendas in ways that may outwardly vary, but they share a common goal: the West’s downfall. They all recognize that the liberal principles of democracies and the international rules-based order can be exploited to sow fear, despair and distrust.” [WashPost]
Word on the Street
President Donald Trump, traveling back to Washington from the G7 in Canada, dismissed a public assessment by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard made earlier this year that Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports; Politico looks at the “widening gap” between Trump and Gabbard as the two clash on Middle East policy issues…
A new bipartisan resolution introduced by Reps. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Brad Sherman (D-CA) and 14 co-sponsors on Tuesday praises Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities and condemns Iran’s retaliatory missile attacks on Israeli civilian targets, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
An Army general who served as the Levant and Egypt branch chief at the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s J5 planning directorate was removed from the joint staff amid an investigation into his social media posts, which included a reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Netanyahu and his Judeo-supremacist cronies” and allegations that American pro-Israel activists are prioritizing “support for Israel over our actual foreign interests”…
Tablet interviews the Institute for Science and International Security’s David Albright, a former International Atomic Energy Agency inspector, about the state of the Iranian nuclear program and Israeli capabilities to target the Fordow facility without U.S. assistance…
Former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) said he would consider a bid for the House seat held by Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) if Sherrill prevails in the November gubernatorial election…
Colorado’s two Democratic senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, wrote to Senate leaders on Tuesday calling for funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to be increased to as much as $500 million following the antisemitic attack on a hostage awareness march in Boulder, Colo., Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports; they also urged lawmakers to ensure that the funding can be used to “pay permanent security guards and other critical personnel”…
Oracle announced a new program, Oracle Defense Ecosystem, to help smaller vendors sell technology to the Pentagon, including artificial intelligence; participating vendors will be able to utilize Oracle’s office space and expertise with the Defense Department’s procurement system, as well as receive a discount for Palantir’s cloud and AI services…
Warner Bros. Discovery is cutting CEO David Zaslav’s pay when the company divides in two next year, though it will provide him with extra stock options that will pay out if the company hits share-price targets, in order to better tie pay to performance…
A Bay Area man is facing federal hate crimes charges for his participation in what the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office called an “antisemitic group beating” of two people, one of whom was Jewish; a physical confrontation escalated after members of the group reportedly shouted “free Palestine” and “f–k the Jews”…
A Maryland man was charged with allegedly sending numerous threats to Jewish organizations in Pennsylvania over a period of more than a year, from April 2024 to May 2025…
The Birmingham City Council became the first in the U.K. to recognize the Jewish identity of residents when collecting demographic data…
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that Israel was doing the “dirty work” of striking Iran “for all of us”…
A new poll from the Council for a Secure America found overwhelming support (79%) among the Israeli public for Israel’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities…
The Wall Street Journal speaks with Israeli entrepreneurs about how the war between Israel and Iran is impacting Israeli startups — destroying homes and offices, calling up reservists, canceling conferences, halting business travel and affecting productivity…
The U.S. withdrew troops from two bases in northeastern Syria, amid concerns from U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces in the region that the vacuum could provide an opening for extremist groups…
Turkey is ramping up its production of medium- and long-range missiles amid the escalation between Israel and Iran…
Pic of the Day
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) met on Tuesday with Yair Lapid, the opposition leader, the first time the two have met for a security briefing in more than a month.
Birthdays
Music mogul, Scott Samuel “Scooter” Braun turns 44…
Chicago-based attorney, he is the only ordained rabbi to have served as an alderman on the Chicago City Council, Solomon Gutstein turns 91… Former Washington Post editor and reporter, Fred Barbash turns 80… Retired IT management advisor at Next Stage, Steven Shlomo Nezer… Croatian entrepreneur, he was previously the minister of economy, labour and entrepreneurship in the Croatian government, Davor Stern turns 78… Rabbi at Or Hamidbar in Palm Springs, Calif., he previously led congregations in Israel and Stockholm, Rabbi David James Lazar turns 68… Rebecca Diamond… Best-selling author and journalist, she was editor-in-chief of USA Today, Joanne Lipman turns 64… Retired professor of English at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Helene Meyers… Executive of the William Pears Group, a large UK real estate firm founded by his father and grandfather, Sir Trevor Steven Pears (family name was Schleicher) turns 61… Vice chairman and president of global client services at BDT & MSD Partners, she recently joined the board of Meta/Facebook, Dina Powell McCormick… White House senior aide during the Trump 45 administration, he is a principal of Cordish Companies, Reed Saunders Cordish turns 51… Film director and screenwriter, Jonathan A. Levine turns 49… Actor, comedian, satirist and writer, known professionally as Ben Gleib, Ben Nathan Gleiberman turns 47… Television producer and writer, Jeremy Bronson turns 45… Baseball pitcher for Team Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics, he is now the director of pitching development for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Jeremy Bleich turns 38… Of counsel at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Esther Lifshitz… Israeli musician, producer, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, known by his stage name Dennis Lloyd, Nir Tibor turns 32… Investor at Silver Point Capital, Jacob E. Best… Rachel Hazan…
The resolution, with 16 co-sponsors, marks a bipartisan show of support for the Israeli operations as members of the far left and far right oppose Israel’s operation
SAN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
Smoke rises from a location allegedly targeted in Israel's wave of strikes on Tehran, Iran, on early morning of June 13, 2025.
A new bipartisan resolution introduced by Reps. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) and Brad Sherman (D-CA) and 14 co-sponsors on Tuesday praises Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities and condemns Iran’s retaliatory missile attacks on Israeli civilian targets.
The resolution marks a bipartisan show of support for the Israeli operation even as elements of the far left and far right are warning that the Israeli strikes risk dragging the U.S. into a regional or global war and run counter to American interests.
The resolution states that the House “stands with Israel as it takes targeted military actions to dismantle Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities and defend itself against the existential threat of a nuclear-armed Iran,” “recognizes that Israel’s preemptive and proportional strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites advance the United States’ vital national security interest in a nuclear free Iran” and “reaffirms Israel’s right to self-defense.”
The legislation further states that the House “stands ready to assist Israel with emergency resupply and other security, diplomatic, and intelligence support.”
It asserts that the war came “after exhausting all diplomatic avenues,” and describes the Israeli operation as “intelligence-driven preemptive strikes to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and such capability explicitly designed to achieve the destruction of Israel and the United States,” which, the resolution states, has “achieved national security objectives without risking American lives.”
The resolution also condemns Iran’s “indiscriminate attacks against civilians in Israel” and its repression of its own citizens, and calls on Tehran to give up its pursuit of nuclear weapons and dismantle its nuclear program and urges other countries to support that goal.
The legislation accuses Iran of having “repeatedly rejected good-faith diplomatic efforts by the United and others to address its nuclear program” and of not negotiating “in good faith.”
The resolution is co-sponsored by Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE), Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Shri Thanedar (D-MI),Roger Aderholt (R-AL), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Juan Ciscomani (R-AZ), Chris Smith (R-NJ), Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI), Randy Feenstra (R-IA) and Tom Barrett (R-MI), and supported by FDD Action, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America and the American Jewish Committee.
The resolution highlights that Iran had been increasing its enrichment activity, stockpiling enough highly enriched uranium for six nuclear weapons and blocking international inspections, among other steps that have brought it closer to a nuclear bomb.
It notes that the International Atomic Energy Agency recently censured Iran for violating its nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty commitments, and that Iran responded by further increasing its enrichment activities.
“This bipartisan resolution reaffirms the United States’ unwavering support for Israel’s right to self-defense and for its bold, courageous efforts to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program once and for all,” Tenney said in a statement. “The U.S.-Israel partnership remains unshakable, and this resolution sends a clear and unified message: we will work together to ensure the Iranian regime is never able to obtain a nuclear weapon.”
Sherman, in a statement, argued that Iran’s activities had made Israel’s strikes necessary.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has made clear time and time again its intent to ‘annihilate’ Israel and attack the United States and has funded direct military attacks on Israel and the United States for decades It’s regrettable that Iran’s decades of violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which it signed has led us to a point where this is necessary,” Sherman said. “The only thing more dangerous than this war is an Ayatollah with access to nuclear weapons. Israel could not wait until Iran had a stockpile of nuclear weapons ready to be launched.”
Plus, the surprise hotspot in NYC's West Village
LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images
French President Emmanuel Macron (R) shakes hands with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas during a meeting on the sidelines of the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on September 25, 2024.
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the House Appropriations Committee’s suggested 2026 funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, amid a warning from federal agencies of an “elevated threat” facing the Jewish community. We look at the state of relations between Israel and France as Paris moves toward unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state, and report on UCSF’s firing of a medical school professor accused of antisemitism. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Vice President JD Vance, Sen. John Hickenlooper and Rep. Brad Sherman.
What We’re Watching
- The House of Representatives is set to vote this evening on two resolutions condemning antisemitism and the terrorist attack on a hostage march in Boulder, Colo. One resolution from Republicans, focused on Boulder, highlights immigration issues and denounces the slogan “Free Palestine,” while the other, which is bipartisan, links Sunday’s Colorado attack to a series of other recent violent antisemitic attacks. The first of the two is already attracting criticism from Democrats.
- The House Appropriations Committee’s Homeland Security subcommittee will hold a vote on its 2026 funding bill today. More below.
- New York City Mayor Eric Adams is holding a roundtable for Jewish media this morning.
- The Jewish Federations of North America is leading an LGBTQ+ Pride mission to Israel this week.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH MELISSA WEISS
The image of Greta Thunberg eyeing a turkey sandwich as she is taken into Israeli custody has been picked up across pro-Israel social media. And on the other side of the ideological spectrum, supporters of Thunberg, who is vegan, decried the “hostage-taking” of the Swedish climate activist and other participants on the boat that had been headed to Gaza before its interception overnight by Israel’s navy.
But the stunt — after all, the small vessel carrying Thunberg and the other activists could carry only a minimal amount of aid — has briefly taken global attention away from the legitimate efforts to distribute aid in Gaza, amid mounting distribution challenges following the launch of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation last month.
Distribution through the GHF was briefly paused last week following a series of incidents in and around distribution sites, including the shooting of some Gazans as they neared sites as instructed, and the rush on other facilities by crowds of Gazans. Additionally, the GHF said it was forced to close its distribution sites on Saturday due to threats from Hamas.
ON ALERT
FBI, Jewish security experts warn of uptick in antisemitic threats
The American Jewish community is facing an “elevated threat” following a surge of violent antisemitic attacks across the country in recent weeks, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned last week. In a joint statement, the FBI and DHS called for increased vigilance among Jewish communities, noting the possibility of copycat attacks after a shooting in Washington in which two Israeli Embassy employees were killed and an attack in Boulder, Colo., in which 15 people were injured in a firebombing targeting advocates calling for the release of hostages in Gaza, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Words of warning: “The ongoing Israel-HAMAS conflict may motivate other violent extremists and hate crime perpetrators with similar grievances to conduct violence against Jewish and Israeli communities and their supporters. Foreign terrorist organizations also may try to exploit narratives related to the conflict to inspire attacks in the United States,” the agencies warned. Jewish organizations that track threats to the community are similarly concerned about online rhetoric following the attacks. The Anti-Defamation League highlighted that, one day after the incident in Boulder, videos allegedly recorded by the assailant shortly before the assault began circulated on a Telegram channel called Taufan al-Ummah, which translates to “Flood of the Ummah,” a reference to the Al-Aqsa Flood, Hamas’ name for its October 7 terror attack on Israel. The circulated posts celebrated the actions of the terror suspect, Mohamed Sabry Soliman.
MONEY MATTERS
House Appropriations Committee proposes $305 million for nonprofit security grants
The House Appropriations Committee’s draft 2026 Homeland Security funding bill includes $305 million for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, a marginal increase that would restore the program to its 2023 funding levels,Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Yes, but: Lawmakers and Jewish advocacy groups called that funding level insufficient at the time, well before antisemitism skyrocketed following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and the recent series of terrorist attacks targeting Jews in the United States. At the time, the funding fell well short of meeting demand, which has increased significantly since then.
PARIS POSITION
Macron’s Palestinian state push comes as report recommends step to appease Muslims
Israel and France have been on a diplomatic collision course in recent weeks, with French President Emmanuel Macron set to lay out steps toward the recognition of a Palestinian state at a French- and Saudi- sponsored conference promoting a two-state solution being held at the United Nations headquarters in New York next week. The move comes as the French government released a report calling on Paris to recognize a Palestinian state and recalibrate its policies towards Israel to “appease” France’s growing Muslim population, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Gov’t report: Amid the sparring between Israel and France, the French Interior Ministry released a report titled “Muslim Brothers and Political Islam in France,” calling the Muslim Brotherhood an “imminent threat” to French national security. The Islamist group is funded by foreign powers, has over 100,000 members in France and runs or influences countless mosques, schools and other organizations. The report also describes the Muslim Brotherhood’s dissemination of antisemitic texts and propaganda. Among the report’s recommendations is “the recognition by France of a Palestinian State alongside Israel” to “appease the frustrations” of French Muslims who perceive Paris as “supporting Jewish Israelis against Muslim Palestinians.”
Condemnation: Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), in a blistering statement, accused the U.N.’s special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, of antisemitism and said that her activity has undermined the United Nations and eroded U.S. support for the U.N. and foreign aid in general and will contribute to deaths around the world. The statement came in response to a letter from Albanese to Israel Bonds, accusing it of involvement in crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
PODCAST PLAYBACK
Vance parries anti-Israel attacks from podcaster Theo Von, rejects genocide charge
Vice President JD Vance defended Israel against an accusation of genocide from podcaster Theo Von on Saturday, but said “this whole debate” around the Israel-Hamas war “has caused us to lose our humanity,” Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen reports.
What he said: Speaking on the comedian’s podcast, Vance called the images coming out of Gaza “very heartbreaking” and said the administration is trying to “solve two problems here.” The first, he said, is that “you’ve got innocent people, innocent Palestinians and innocent Israeli hostages, by the way, who are like caught up in this terrible violence that’s happening as we speak. OK? And we’re trying to get as much aid and as much support into people as humanly possible.” The second, Vance said, is that “Israel’s attacked by this terrible terrorist organization … So I think what we’re trying to do in the Trump administration with that situation is to get to a peaceful resolution.”
Bipartisan push: A new bipartisan letter sent Friday by 16 House lawmakers to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff argues that any nuclear deal with Iran must permanently dismantle its capacity to enrich uranium, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. The letter highlights that an insistence on full dismantlement of Iran’s enrichment capabilities is not only a Republican position, and that President Donald Trump will not be able to count on unified Democratic support for a deal that falls short of that benchmark.
DOCTOR DISMISSED
UCSF fires medical school professor accused of antisemitism
A University of California, San Francisco medical school professor whom Jewish colleagues allege has routinely posted antisemitic content on social media during the Gaza war has been fired by the university, more than a year after concerns about her behavior first surfaced, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
Background: Dr. Rupa Marya worked at UCSF for 23 years, beginning as a resident before becoming a professor of internal medicine and a regular lecturer on social justice topics. With an active social media presence, Marya began posting about Israel’s war against Hamas soon after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. Her posts included attacks targeting Jewish and Israeli colleagues and students. In a federal lawsuit filed against UCSF this week, Marya alleged that the university violated her constitutional free speech protections by firing her in a retaliatory fashion over posts published on her personal account, which Marya claimed the university willfully misconstrued. She asserted that “neither her views nor her posts are antisemitic.”
URBAN SPIRITUALITY
Shabbat, style and soul at Chabad in the West Village
It’s Friday evening in Manhattan’s fashionable West Village. A couple dozen of New York’s elite — business executives, a television producer, a fashion designer, a journalist and a few politicos — pack a charming brownstone, a spot that’s been frequented by a range of influential people, from former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides to reality TV personality Andy Cohen. This isn’t dinner in one of the neighborhood’s Michelin-starred restaurants — although some weeks the waitlist here can be just as long. It’s Shabbat at Chabad West Village. There are more than 3,000 Chabad Houses around the world aimed at Jewish outreach. But in the West Village — one of Manhattan’s most unlikely neighborhoods for the spread of Torah — synagogue-goers, a diverse group of mostly secular Jews, say something unique is happening at this Chabad in particular, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Building a community: “When we moved here, we did not know one person,” Rabbi Berel Gurevitch, who launched Chabad West Village six years ago with his wife, Chana, told JI. “Now our list consists of around 5,000 Jewish people,” said Gurevitch, who is in his early 30s. The Gurevitches decamped from the comfort of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, where they both grew up, for the West Village. The synagogue initially ran out of a small apartment on Grove Street — with New Yorker staff writer Calvin Trillin, who still attends frequently — as its landlord. Now in a townhouse on Charles Street, where such real estate can run into the tens of millions of dollars, the center, which is also the personal home of the Gurevitches and their three children, has become synonymous with several innovative programs: letting attendees be “Rabbi for a Day”; a “TGIF” program where participants learn how to host Friday night dinners with their friends; explanatory “Shabbat Matinée” services for people who would otherwise be at brunch and are giving prayer a chance; and a speaker series called “Hineni: Here I Am,” which has featured Trillin, Nides, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and comedian Alex Edelman.
Worthy Reads
The Case for Israel: The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg posits that recent antisemitic attacks targeting Jews over their support for Israel underscores the country’s founding purpose as a safe haven for Jews. “Although these assailants all attacked American Jews, they clearly perceived themselves as Zionism’s avengers. In reality, however, they have joined a long line of Zionism’s inadvertent advocates. As in Herzl’s time, the perpetrators of anti-Jewish acts do more than nearly anyone else to turn Jews who were once indifferent or even hostile to Israel’s fate into reluctant appreciators of its necessity. … Simply put, Israel exists as it does today because of the repeated choices made by societies to reject their Jews. Had these societies made different choices, Jews would still live in them, and Israel likely would not exist — certainly not in its present form.” [TheAtlantic]
Foreign Exchange Fee: In The New York Times, Princeton professor David Bell considers the benefits and pitfalls of maintaining current levels of foreign-student enrollment in American universities. “If we think of universities principally as generators of knowledge, expanding international enrollments clearly makes sense. By increasing the pool of applicants, it raises the quality of student bodies, thereby improving the level of intellectual exchange and facilitating better research and more significant discoveries. … A graduate of an elite private school in Greece or India may well have more in common with a graduate of Exeter or Horace Mann than with a working-class American from rural Alabama. Do we need to turn university economics departments into mini-Davoses in which future officials of the International Monetary Fund from different countries reinforce one another’s opinions about global trade?” [NYTimes]
Word on the Street
he State Department informed Congress that it no longer plans to eliminate the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator, a Jerusalem-based office that works with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority; the office will now be consolidated into the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem…
Sens. Michael Bennet (D-CO) and John Hickenlooper (D-CO) introduced a resolution condemning the antisemitic terrorist attack in Boulder, Colo., and calling for “continued vigilance and Federal resources to counter rising antisemitism, investigate hate crimes, and support targeted communities”…
Hickenlooper was among the hundreds of marchers who attended Sunday’s hostage walk in Boulder, the first to be held following the attack…
Sens. Roger Marshall (R-KS) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) introduced a resolution honoring Sarah Milgrim, an Israeli Embassy employee and Kansan killed in the Capital Jewish Museum shooting…
A bipartisan resolution calling for the release of the remaining hostages held in Gaza advanced through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday…
In audio leaked from a Democratic National Committee officers meeting that took place in mid-May, DNC Chair Ken Martin said he was not sure he wanted to continue in his position, amid a push to oust DNC Vice Chairs David Hogg and Malcolm Kenyatta; the move by Hogg’s super PAC to back primary challengers to incumbents spurred internal concerns over Hogg’s continued leadership role at the DNC…
New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed an executive order adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism…
The Bobov sect, a major Hasidic voting bloc in the Borough Park section of Brooklyn, is endorsing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for mayor of New York City, a representative for the community confirmed to Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel on Friday…
The mayor of San Diego and a number of the city’s Jewish organizations pulled out of the upcoming San Diego Pride over the selection of Kehlani, who has faced backlash for recent comments about Israel, as the celebration’s headline act; one of the singer’s recent music videos opens with the text, “long live the intifada”…
A Pride music festival in San Francisco announced that Kehlani, who was slated to headline the event, had departed the lineup…
The New York Times spotlights the firing of a tenured Muhlenberg College professor over anti-Zionist social media posts, amid a broader crackdown on universities alleged to have mishandled campus antisemitism after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attack…
Two U.S. Army veterans were found with a cache of stolen weapons and Nazi and white supremacist paraphernalia after they were arrested in connection with the assault of another soldier while attempting to steal additional combat equipment from a Washington state base…
Three Serbian nationals were charged with vandalizing Jewish sites in Paris, including the city’s Holocaust memorial, last weekend…
Iran claimed to have seized an “important treasury” of documents regarding an Israeli nuclear program, but did not provide evidence of the discovery…
Israel recovered the body of Thai hostage Nattapong Pinta in Gaza; Pinta was believed to have been killed in the early months of the war, after he was taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz, where he was working…
The IDF found the body of Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar, weeks after he was believed to have been killed in an airstrike while hiding in a tunnel under the European Hospital…
The Australian government canceled the visa of Israeli American activist Hillel Fuld, citing the Department of Home Affairs’ concerns over the risk officials suggest Fuld, who had been slated to speak at Magen David Adom fundraising events in Sydney and Melbourne, poses to “the health, safety or good order” of Australians…
Israeli journalist Barak Ravid is departing Walla News and will join Israel’s Channel 12 as the network’s Washington correspondent; Ravid will continue to report for Axios and appear on CNN as an analyst…
The Jewish Telegraph Agency’s Ben Sales is joining The Times of Israel as news editor…
Pic of the Day
United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed hosted fellow UAE rulers and faith leaders last Friday on the occasion of Eid Al Adha, the Islamic festival that concludes its four-day celebration today. Among the faith leaders that greeted the UAE president was Rabbi Levi Duchman, the head of Chabad of the United Arab Emirates.
Birthdays
Former executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Dallas, Walter Julius Levy turns 103…
Journalist for 30 years at CBS who then became the founding director of Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, then a fellow at GWU, Marvin Kalb turns 95… Retired Israeli diplomat who served as ambassador to Italy and France and world chairman of Keren Hayesod – United Israel Appeal, Aviezer “Avi” Pazner turns 88… Author of 12 books, activist, and founding editor of Ms. Magazine, Letty Cottin Pogrebin turns 86… British businessman, co-founder with his brother Maurice of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, Charles Saatchi turns 82… Diplomat and Shakespeare historian, Kenneth Adelman turns 79… Founder and chairman of Commonwealth Financial Network and chairman of Southworth Development, Joseph Deitch turns 75… Professional mediator and advice columnist, Wendy J. Belzberg… Israel’s former minister of defense and deputy prime minister, Benny Gantz turns 66… Canadian journalist, author, documentary film producer and television personality, Steven Hillel Paikin turns 65… Producer, director, playwright and screenwriter, Aaron Benjamin Sorkin turns 64… Former lead singer of the Israeli pop rock band Mashina, Yuval Banay turns 63… CEO of Jewish Women’s International, Meredith Jacobs… Managing director at Major, Lindsey & Africa, Craig Appelbaum… EVP of Jewish Funders Network, Rabbi Rebecca Sirbu… Screenwriter, director and producer, Hayden Schlossberg turns 47… Founder and CEO of Delve LLC, previously a Bush 43 White House Jewish liaison, Jeff Berkowitz… Co-founder of Swish Beverages, David Oliver Cohen turns 45… Jerusalem born Academy Award-winning actress, producer and director, Natalie Portman turns 44… Online producer, writer and director, Rafi Fine turns 42… Multimedia artist, Anna Marie Tendler turns 40… Composer and lyricist, in 2024 he became the 20th person to complete the EGOT, an acronym for the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Awards, Benj Pasek turns 40… Israeli tech entrepreneur, he is the founder and chairman of Israel Tech Challenge, Raphael Ouzan turns 38… Director of the Yale Journalism Initiative, her book, A Flower Traveled In My Blood, is being published next month, Haley Cohen Gilliland… Deputy assistant secretary for strategic communications at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during the Biden administration, Jeff Solnet… Ice hockey player for the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers and best-selling author of children’s books, Zachary Martin Hyman turns 33… Founder and CEO of The Fine Companies, Daniel Fine… Emilia Levy…
Sherman’s statement comes in response to a letter from Albanese to Israel Bonds, accusing the group of involvement in genocide and war crimes
Brian Lawless/PA Images via Getty Images
Francesca Albanese, United Nations special rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, during a press conference at Buswells Hotel in Dublin on March 20, 2025.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), in a blistering statement, accused the U.N.’s special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, of antisemitism and said that her activity has undermined the United Nations and eroded U.S. support for the U.N. and foreign aid in general and will contribute to deaths around the world.
The statement comes in response to a letter from Albanese, who has faced ongoing accusations of antisemitism from U.S. officials and lawmakers who have described her as unfit for her role, to Israel Bonds, accusing the group of involvement in crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.
“Only for a demonstrated antisemite like Ms. Albanese could stabilizing Israel’s economy after the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust be something negative,” Sherman said. “This is just the latest instance in Ms. Albanese’s long history of antisemitism – she has regularly used antisemitic terms like the ‘Jewish lobby’ and claims that Israel doesn’t have the right to defend itself or even to exist.”
He said that, “Albanese and her ilk have turned once-legitimate entities like the United Nations into kangaroo courts and clown shows, significantly undermining U.S. support for the funding of international institutions and foreign aid.”
Sherman argued that actions by officials like Albanese make it harder for U.S. supporters of foreign aid to fight the Trump administration’s cuts to U.S. foreign development assistance and to support funding to international organizations. He drew a connection between Albanese and the antisemitism at the U.N. and what he said were 3.3 million anticipated deaths as a result of cuts to U.S. foreign aid.
“There’s a substantial amount of blood on her hands – but her victims live in countries that she doesn’t care about,” Sherman continued. “In fact, it seems the only thing she cares about is justifying attacks on Israel and Jews worldwide.”
Sherman also argued that the goal of Albanese and others in the anti-Israel movement is to weaken Israel economically and militarily so that future terrorist attacks can successfully eliminate the Jewish state.
“Believe that the anti-Israel movement means it when they say they want to eradicate Israel and will use any means to do it,” Sherman said. “Ms. Albanese condemns, and seeks to prevent, every effort of the Israeli government to feed and house its poorest citizens and care for the disabled. Due to her blinding rage of antisemitism, she seeks to hurt the most vulnerable.”
Albanese, in her letter to Israel Bonds, formally known as the Development Corporation for Israel, alleged that the group is responsible for a host of crimes against humanity and human rights violations, and suggested it faces international criminal liability.
“The applicable legal framework and the gravity of the situation on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territory, particularly in Gaza, indicate that there are reasonable grounds to believe that DCI is contributing to gross human rights violations that require the immediate cessation of the concerned business activity, and the remedy of the harm done to Palestinians,” Albanese wrote in the letter, which was obtained by JI.
“The continued failure to act responsibly in line with international law risks implicating DCI in an economy of much more serious violations, and increasing the associated liability. Indeed, given the international crimes being considered by the [International Court of Justice] and the [International Criminal Court], DCI is now on notice of a serious risk of being implicated in international crimes, the disregard of which may give rise to criminal liability, both for DCI and its executives,” she continued.
Dani Naveh, the CEO of Israel Bonds, said in a statement, “We will not be deterred by our enemies driven by antisemitism. Hamas, which carried out the atrocities of October 7, and its supporters, will not prevail. Their efforts have failed time and time again, as evidenced by the billions of dollars Israel Bonds has raised globally since the horrific attacks of October 7, 2023,” and called on supporters of Israel to respond by buying more bonds.
Israeli Embassy staffers killed outside Jewish Museum
Embassy of Israel to the USA
Yarón Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we detail the latest on last night’s deadly attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. and report on the response from Jewish communities and Israeli officials. We highlight Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch’s podcast interview with former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the lead-up to New York’s mayoral primary, report on remarks by Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the urgency of humanitarian aid for Gaza as well as his predictions for the expansion of the Abraham Accords, and cover Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s press conference last night. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. Ted Cruz, Bruce Pearl and Richard Priem.
What We’re Watching
- The UJA-Federation of New York and JCRC-NY will be hosting a town hall this evening with the leading Democratic New York City mayoral candidates. Jewish Insider Editor-in-Chief Josh Kraushaar and New York Jewish Week managing editor Lisa Keys will be co-moderating the forum.
- The Brandeis Center will host a briefing on Capitol Hill featuring current college students and recent graduates sharing their personal experiences with antisemitism on campus. Kenneth Marcus, chairman and CEO of the Brandeis Center, Alyza Lewin, president of the Brandeis Center, and Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) will also deliver remarks.
- The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Africa subcommittee will hold a hearing on the ongoing civil war in Sudan.
- The Qatar Economic Forum wraps up today in Doha.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH ji’s TAMARA ZIEVE
It was an evening dedicated to humanitarian service — young Jewish professionals gathering under the theme “Turning Pain Into Purpose,” discussing interfaith collaboration and working to counter the rising tide of “us versus them” narratives. The event spotlighted efforts to respond to humanitarian crises in the Middle East and North Africa — including in Gaza.
But what was supposed to be a night rooted in shared humanity was rocked by deadly violence. Outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where the American Jewish Committee was hosting the event, an assailant opened fire on a group of four people, killing a young couple, both Israeli Embassy employees.
Eyewitness Paige Siegel, who was a guest at the event, told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod that she heard two sets of multiple shots ring out, and then an individual, who police have since identified as suspected shooter Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, entered the building appearing disoriented and panicked, seconds after the shooting ended. She said security allowed the man in, as well as two other women separately. (Police say the suspect had discarded his weapon.)
Siegel said she spoke to the man, asking him if he had been shot. He appeared panicked and was mumbling and repeatedly told bystanders to call the police. Siegel said that she felt the man was suspicious.
JoJo Drake Kalin, a member of AJC’s DC Young Professional Board and an organizer of the event, told JI’s Danielle Cohen the man appeared disheveled and out of breath when he entered the building. Kalin assumed he had been a bystander to the shooting who needed assistance and she handed him a glass of water. Siegel said that the man was sitting in the building in a state of distress for approximately 10 to 15 minutes, and she and a friend engaged him in conversation, informing him that he was in the Jewish museum.
Siegel then said that the man started screaming, “I did it, I did it. Free Palestine. I did it for Gaza,” and opened a backpack, withdrawing a red keffiyeh.
“The deep irony I felt after the guy pulled out the keffiyeh was, ‘if only you knew,’” Drake Kalin reflected. “It was Jewish professionals gathering not for a political agenda but for our collective humanity,” Kalin added. “Which I won’t let this event take from me.”
The two victims of last night’s attack, Yarón Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were due to be engaged soon — Israeli Ambassador Michael Leiter said that the man had purchased a ring earlier this week and was planning to propose next week in Jerusalem.
Milgrim’s last job before joining the embassy’s public diplomacy department was at Tech2Peace, where she researched peace-building theory and, according to her LinkedIn profile, designed and implemented a 12-person study on the role of friendships in the Israeli-Palestinian peacebuilding process.
Lischinsky emigrated from Germany to Israel at age 16, where he studied government, diplomacy and strategy and served in the IDF, according to his LinkedIn profile. The last post shared on X by Lischinsky, an employee of the embassy’s political department, called out a United Nations official for “blood libel,” for spreading a false claim that 14,000 babies in Gaza would die within 48 hours without aid.
Reactions to the killings have been swift. President Donald Trump said of the shooting, “These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA.”
Leiter said Trump vowed to him that the administration would do everything it can to fight antisemitism and demonization and delegitimization of Israel. “We’ll stand together tall and firm and confront this moral depravity without fear,” Leiter said.
Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, updated him on the details of the incident and asked to convey her condolences to the families of the couple, according to a statement from Netanyahu’s office.
“We are witness to the terrible cost of the antisemitism and wild incitement against the State of Israel,” Netanyhau said. “Blood libels against Israel have a cost in blood and must be fought to the utmost. My heart grieves for the families of the young beloveds, whose lives were cut short in a moment by an abhorrent antisemitic murderer. I have directed that security be increased at Israeli missions around the world and for the state’s representatives.”
In a press conference in Jerusalem this morning, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said the attack was “the direct result of toxic antisemitic incitement against Israel and Jews around the world that has been going on since the Oct. 7 massacre.” He pointed a finger at incitement by “leaders and officials of many countries and international organizations, especially from Europe.”
Sa’ar noted that “there is not one week without terror attacks or attempted terror attacks around the world — usually more than one.”
The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem and Israeli missions around the world will lower their flags to half-mast today to honor the memory of Milgrim and Lischinsky.
security concerns
After deadly shooting, Jewish communities go on high alert
Jewish communities are going on high alert following the deadly shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington on Wednesday night, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports. Richard Priem, CEO of the Community Security Service, which trains security teams at synagogues and other institutions, told eJP this morning that his organization and other security groups would be stepping up their “posture” in the wake of the shooting in case additional attacks had been planned or others are “inspired” to act by this one.
Increased measures: “We’re definitely going to be present, we’re definitely going to do something that increases our posture because anytime there’s an attack, certain people get activated and think, ’Now’s the time,’” Priem said. “But we don’t know yet if there might be a direct, correlated threat.” Such security measures may include additional guards posted outside buildings, tighter involvement of local law enforcement and increased coordination between different Jewish security groups, such as national ones like the Anti-Defamation League and Secure Communities Network, as well as local ones like New York’s Community Security Initiative or various neighborhood watchdog groups.
Read the full story here and sign up for eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.
Security funding: The Capital Jewish Museum is one of the recipients of a $500,000 security grant for local nonprofits recently announced by the D.C. government.
new york, new york
Cuomo predicts Jewish vote could decide mayoral race
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the leading Democratic candidate in New York City’s upcoming mayoral primary, predicted that Jewish voters could ultimately swing the outcome of the June election in a new podcast interview released today, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
‘Use your vote’: “You have 600,000 registered Jewish Democrats. The whole turnout in the primary is 800,000,” he said in a conversation with Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi of Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York. “They could decide the election. Use your voice, use your vote, get aggressive. Passivity does not work.”
shifting sentiment
Rubio: Israel’s Gaza aid blockade hurt Israel’s security, standing
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a shift, said in a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday that Israel’s 11-week blockade of aid into Gaza was damaging Israel’s national security and international standing and that U.S. pressure had contributed to Israel’s decision to release the hold. He also said that current levels of aid entering Gaza are not sufficient. The remarks are strikingly similar to comments made since the beginning of the war in Gaza by Democrats, particularly progressives, who have criticized Israel’s policy toward aid to Gaza, and stand in contrast with Rubio’s and other Republicans’ previous comments arguing against allowing aid to flow back into Gaza, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What he said: “In the interim period, the one thing we’ve made abundantly clear is that the humanitarian situation — and I think this was acknowledged by the prime minister in his statement — the humanitarian situation, the direction that it was headed was undermining Israel’s standing and national security,” Rubio said.
More from Rubio: In his second consecutive day of hearings on Capitol Hill, Rubio said that he expects that additional Arab countries will join the Abraham Accords by the end of the year, if not earlier. “We do have an Abraham Accords office that is actively working to identify a number of countries who have lined up and already I think we may have good news, certainly before the end of this year, of a number of more countries that are willing to join that alliance,” Rubio said a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday.
WAR ROOM
Netanyahu lays out newest phase of Gaza war, view on Iran negotiations in press conference
Striking a defiant tone on Wednesday amid intensifying international pressure to end the war in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid down his conditions for the end of hostilities, Jewish Insider’s Tamara Zieve and Lahav Harkov report. “The world is telling us to end the war,” Netanyahu said, in the first press conference he has held in Israel since December. “I am prepared to end the war according to clear conditions: Hamas lays down its weapons, steps down from power, returns all the hostages, Gaza is demilitarized and we implement the Trump plan” to relocate residents of Gaza.
Talk of tension: Addressing reports of strained ties between the U.S. and Israel, Netanyahu said that he spoke to President Donald Trump about 10 days ago and Trump told him, “Bibi, I want you to know I have a total commitment to you and to the State of Israel.” Referring to Trump’s recent Middle East tour, which excluded Israel, Netanyahu said, “I have no opposition to the U.S. deepening its ties to the Arab world … I think this can help broaden the Abraham Accords that I’m very interested in.”
On Iran: “Iran remains a serious threat to Israel. We are in full coordination with the U.S. — we talk to them all the time. We hope that it’s possible to reach an agreement that will prevent a nuclear weapon from Iran and will prevent Iran from having the ability to enrich uranium. If it is reached, of course, we will welcome it,” he said, before adding, “In any case, Israel reserves the right to defend itself against a regime that threatens to destroy us.” Netanyahu previously called for total dismantlement of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, which would go farther than stopping Iran from enriching uranium. An official in Netanyahu’s office denied that his remark reflects a change in policy.
TEHRAN TALK
Some Senate Republicans skeptical of excluding terrorism, missiles from Iran talks
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) argued on Wednesday that sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program can’t be separated from other sanctions on the regime as part of a nuclear deal, contrasting the approach apparently being taken by the Trump administration to that of the Obama administration. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said in congressional testimony this week that talks with Tehran have revolved solely around Iran’s nuclear program and have not addressed its sponsorship of terrorism or its ballistic missile program, but said that sanctions related to terrorism and missiles would remain in place if those issues are not addressed in a potential deal. “The Obama administration invented the category of ‘nuclear sanctions’ as an excuse to give the Ayatollah whatever he wanted for a nuclear deal,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said to Jewish Insider, JI’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod report.
Tillis’ take: Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) expressed confidence that the Trump administration understood that any deal must be multifaceted, though he noted that congressional Republicans haven’t been briefed on the talks. “I have to believe at the end of the day, they realize that it’s not just about enrichment, but it’s all the other enabling capabilities, because the reality is the world’s a dangerous place and if they had that underlying capability, maybe then they’ll build their own bomb,” Tillis told JI.
Read the full story here with additional comments from Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL), James Lankford (R-OK), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and John Kennedy (R-LA).
ON THE HILL
House lawmakers call on Appropriations Committee to address antisemitism in health care
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is urging colleagues to take steps to address antisemitism in the health care field in the 2026 appropriations process for the Department of Health and Human Services and related agencies. In a letter sent Wednesday, the lawmakers called on the leaders of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies to demand reports from HHS on the rise of antisemitism in health care, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
What they said: “Failure to confront this pernicious ideology harms not only Jewish medical professionals, students, and patients but threatens to destroy the very foundations of our healthcare system,” the letter reads. “Dangerous rhetoric from individuals in positions of influence raises fears among Jewish and Israeli students, families, and patients about whether they will receive equitable and compassionate care. Antisemitic hate and bigotry put Jewish patients at risk and undermine the ethical foundations of medicine, where commitment to the patient should be paramount.”
Signed on: The letter was signed by Reps. Buddy Carter (R-GA), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Troy Balderson (R-OH), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Tim Kennedy (D-NY), Haley Stevens (D-MI), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Don Bacon (R-NE), Shelia Cherfilus-McCormick (D-FL), Sarah Elfreth (D-MD), Mike Carey (R-OH), Laura Friedman (D-CA) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL).
Education confrontation: House Democrats urged Education Secretary Linda McMahon not to make cuts to the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights as employees work through the backlog of cases, which includes scores of civil rights complaints from Jewish students alleging discrimination at their universities since the Oct.7, 2023, attacks on Israel, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Worthy Reads
Terror Comes to Washington: Commentary Editor John Podhoretz reflects on the nature of last night’s deadly attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington. “This is a different kind of event from the attacks on synagogues in Pennsylvania and California in 2018, which were the work of white supremacists. It happened at a secular Jewish site, and targeted an event sponsored by the American Jewish Committee for young diplomats. And it was self-evidently an act of anti-Semitic terror in the nation’s capital — which raises similarities to the 2015 attack on the Hyper Casher supermarket in France’s capital, Paris. The only analogue here I can think of was the invasion of the headquarters of the B’nai Brith in D.C. in 1977 by Hanafi Muslims, during which 104 staffers at the Jewish organization — including my wife’s cousin, William Korey, an expert on Soviet Jewry — were held hostage for three days and repeatedly threatened with execution and torture. Two other buildings in DC were invaded as well, and a security guard at one of them was shot in the head and killed.” [Commentary]
Private Sector Diplomacy: The Atlantic’s Andrew Exum writes approvingly about Trump’s transactional approach to Middle East foreign policy in The Atlantic. “Trump unabashedly uses the American private sector as an instrument of national power. In fact, he does this better than any previous president has in my lifetime…Trump may well understand that with the Democratic Party likely divided on Israel for the next generation, his Jewish and evangelical-Christian supporters have nowhere else to go. This puts him in a position of power relative to the Israeli prime minister — one that must surely make Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders very uncomfortable. Making them still more uncomfortable will be the fact that everyone who mattered seemed to be in those meetings in the Gulf. Everyone, that is, except them” [TheAtlantic]
Red Lines on Iran: The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board endorses Trump’s Iran diplomacy. “Iran’s rulers are unhappy with the direction of nuclear talks, which is a sign President Trump is pushing in the right places. No one is ever pleased to make far-reaching concessions, but those are what the U.S. and the world need to get a deal worth making… Iran long insisted it would never negotiate with Mr. Trump. It spent the Biden years talking about killing him. But after Mr. Trump resumed sanctions enforcement and built up a military threat that Iran had to take seriously, Iran came to the table. Its other options are worse. Tehran may decide it can’t abandon enrichment or allow its centrifuges to be dismantled. And it may call the U.S. and Israeli bluff on the use of force, but that could be a mistake its leaders come to regret” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
President Donald Trump is reportedly set to appoint Thomas Barrack, the current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, as a special envoy for Syria…
The Department of Defense formally accepted a luxury Boeing 747 jumbo jet from Qatar for President Donald Trump’s use as Air Force One, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Wednesday, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen reports.
The State Department announced that anyone involved in the sale or transfer to or from Iran of 10 materials found to be used in Iran’s nuclear, military and ballistic missile programs will now be subject to mandatory sanctions…
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said at a conference in Tehran on Wednesday about nuclear negotiations with the U.S. that Iran “not give up this right to use peaceful nuclear technology in any way. No matter what they say, do, how they threaten us or impose sanctions, it makes no difference.” Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said that the fifth round of nuclear talks will be held in Rome on Friday…
Xiyue Wang, who was wrongly imprisoned in Iran for more than three years until Trump arranged for his release during his first administration, was named as a senior advisor for Iran at the State Department…
In a tense meeting at the Oval Office yesterday, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa refuted unsubstantiated claims made by Trump about genocide against white South Africans…
Speaking at one of the university’s commencement ceremonies on Wednesday, Columbia University’s acting president, Claire Shipman, said, “I know many in our community today are mourning the absence of our graduate, Mahmoud Khalil,” referring to the anti-Israel protest leader who is currently facing deportation proceedings, and said, “We firmly believe that our international students have the same rights to freedom of speech as everyone else, and they should not be targeted by the government for exercising that right.”
Some 100 pro-Palestinian protesters outside the campus attempted to disrupt the ceremony…
Charl Kleinhaus, an Afrikaner who was granted refugee status in the United States and said Jews are “untrustworthy and a dangerous group” on social media, confirmed that he is being resettled by HIAS and its affiliate, the Jewish Family Services of Western New York. Kleinhaus said his posts were “completely misinterpreted” and he “probably should have worded it better”…
The Vaad of Lakewood, N.J., endorsed Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) for the Democratic nomination in the New Jersey gubernatorial election, specifically calling on unaffiliated voters to cast their ballots for him in the June 10 primary…
New York state Democratic lawmakers moved to block a bill in the state Assembly to include the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism in state education law…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights shifting sentiment in the Israeli public toward the war in Gaza…
Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the United Arab Emirates’ national security advisor, met with Stephen Schwarzman, chairman and CEO of Blackstone, to discuss investment trends…
Arc magazine chronicled the role of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in supporting President Jimmy Carter’s creation of the Department of Education…
Amy Schumer, Israeli actor Yadin Gellman and Israeli director Eliran Peled are co-producing a romantic comedy called “Now More Than Ever” about the divides between Israeli and American Jewry post-Oct. 7…
Eliana Goldin, a recent Columbia University graduate and pro-Israel activist, shared her experience being fired from the Columbia Daily Spectator student newspaper…
Philanthropist and Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay, whose father was Jewish, died at 65…
Pic of the Day
Auburn University men’s basketball coach Bruce Pearl addressed a Jewish American History Month breakfast on Capitol Hill yesterday. Guests included more than 25 House members and senators, antisemitism envoy nominee Yehuda Kaploun and former deputy envoy Aaron Keyak. The event was hosted by the Combat Antisemitism Movement, Jewish Federations of North America, Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, AEPi and Operation Benjamin.
Birthdays
Author, activist, actress and producer, she served until 2023 as a special envoy against antisemitism at Israel’s Foreign Ministry, Noa Tishby…
Senior fellow emeritus at the Hudson Institute, Irwin M. Stelzer turns 93… Retired U.S. district court judge from Massachusetts, now a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School, Nancy Gertner turns 79… Award-winning staff writer at The New Yorker since 1989, Connie Bruck turns 79… Former Skadden partner and then vice-chair at Citibank, J. Michael Schell turns 78… Cognitive scientist and CEO emeritus of Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Philip E. Rubin turns 76… Director emeritus of policy and government affairs at AIPAC, Ambassador Bradley Gordon turns 76… Gloria Woodlock… Charles Scott… Former member of Knesset from the Zionist Union party, he was previously a major general in the IDF, Eyal Ben-Reuven turns 71… Immediate past chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Dianne F. Lob… Former member of Congress (D-AZ-1), now a business and transactional attorney in Phoenix, Sam Coppersmith turns 70… Senior consultant as to philanthropy and impact at private equity firm Cresset Capital, Sanford Ronald “Sandy” Cardin… U.S. Sen. (R-AK) Lisa Murkowski turns 68… General partner of Google Ventures where he co-leads the life science investment team, David Schenkein turns 68… Former head coach of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, he was the winning coach of the EuroLeague Championship in 2014 with Maccabi Tel Aviv, David Blatt turns 66… Actor, he appeared in all five seasons of the HBO program “The Wire” as defense attorney Maurice Levy, Michael Kostroff turns 64… British writer, philanthropist and documentary filmmaker, Dame Hannah Mary Rothschild turns 63… Partner at Sidley & Austin, he clerked for Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist in the 1996 term, David H. Hoffman turns 58… Former relief pitcher for seven MLB teams, Alan Brian “Al” Levine turns 57… Harvard Law School professor since 2007, he clerked for Supreme Court Justice David Souter in the 1998 term, Noah Feldman turns 55… Israeli cookbook author and TV cookery show host, Shaily Lipa turns 51… Israel’s minister of communications in the prior government, Yoaz Hendel turns 50… Executive director of American Compass, Oren Cass… Co-founder of Facebook in 2004, Dustin Aaron Moskovitz turns 41… Retired slot receiver and kick returner for the NFL’s New England Patriots, member of three Super Bowl-winning teams, Julian Edelman turns 39… Co-founder and former CEO of Tinder, Sean Rad turns 39… Film, television and theater actress, Molly Ephraim turns 39… Washington bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, Michael Wilner turns 36… J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School in the class of 2026, he is a summer associate at Weil Gotshal, Alex Friedman turns 25… Law clerk for a federal judge in the Eastern District of New York until earlier this year, Peter Walker Kaplan… Emma Kaplan… Aryeh Jacobson… Rebecca Weiss… Benjamin Weiss…
Rakov, 37, told JI that the Democratic Party needs ‘a new generation to step up if we want to get anything done in Washington’
Jake for Congress campaign
Jake Rakov
Jake Rakov, a former congressional staffer for Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) who is now challenging Sherman for his Los Angeles-area congressional seat, has plenty of criticism aimed at his old boss. But one issue on which they appear largely in step is support for the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Rakov, 37, told Jewish Insider that the Democratic Party needs “a new generation to step up if we want to get anything done in Washington.” He’s one of a series of young insurgent candidates delivering a similar message as they challenge longtime Democratic incumbents whom they characterize as complacent and disconnected.
The former Sherman staffer worked for the California congressman for a year in 2017 as his deputy communications director. He said that he feels Sherman, who has served in the House since 1997, has failed to adapt his talking points and approach to the second Trump term, adding that he doesn’t feel Sherman is bringing the “energy” needed to challenge President Donald Trump and is not responsive, accessible or accountable to constituents.
Rakov’s campaign pitch is light on policy specifics, centered around a pledge to push for 10-year term limits for members of Congress, to not take corporate PAC funding and to hold monthly in-person town halls. But he told JI his focus areas would include science and technology policy, cybersecurity, transportation and infrastructure issues.
Sherman’s campaign is indicating he’s not particularly worried about the challenge.
“Congressman Brad Sherman typically has half a dozen challengers every two years. Democrats, Republicans and others,” a Sherman campaign spokesperson said. “Mr. Rakov may be the first who apparently has never voted in Sherman’s district prior to announcing his candidacy. We welcome his entry into the race. Rakov has not identified any single one of Congressman Sherman’s thousands of votes that he disagrees with. So, at least there is an important aspect of the job that he believes Sherman has performed flawlessly.”
Sherman, who is Jewish, represents one of the most Jewish districts in the country and is a vocal and relatively hawkish supporter of Israel. Rakov, whose husband is Jewish, did not indicate any significant breaks with his former boss on that issue.
“I’m a strong supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship. I understand the need to maintain that relationship and I would also be a proactive advocate in Congress for continuing to strengthen the vital allyship between our two countries,” Rakov said. “I see the need of that, especially in the state of the Middle East right now, for having such a close ally in the region.”
He said that he supports continued U.S. aid to Israel, explaining Israel “has the right to defend itself against terrorists and those who want to attack it.”
Rakov traveled to Israel with his husband shortly before the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks to visit his husband’s family. Rakov described it as an “absolutely amazing experience” seeing how “diverse” and “engaged” the Israeli people are.
“It was just amazing to see the culture and the Old City [of Jerusalem], all the history there, and everything was very awe-inspiring,” Rakov said.
Rakov said he was also struck by the conversations Israelis were having among themselves about the Israeli government and the country.
Rakov said he wants to see a path forward to reach peace and a negotiated two-state solution, and said the U.S. should play a central role in driving toward that goal.
Rakov’s support for Israel separates him from some of the other prominent challengers going after longtime Democratic incumbents, several of whom have carved out positions to the incumbents’ left on Israel policy.
Rakov also said that it’s in the U.S.’ interest to ensure Iran cannot develop nuclear weapons. He said he doesn’t have the expertise to discuss the possibility of military intervention, but said that he supports diplomatic overtures and providing support for the Iranian people to achieve democracy and a “functioning government that supports their rights.”
The district also has a significant Iranian-American diaspora population.
At home in the U.S., Rakov said that he wants to see better education and dialogue to combat antisemitism, especially on college campuses, instead of the punitive measures that the Trump administration has pursued, such as cutting off funding to schools. He said the administration should instead be focusing on “adding resources to educate students about antisemitism and discrimination in all forms.”
“If there are bad actors and if they violate the law, that’s very obviously not a peaceful protest or a First Amendment protected thing,” Rakov said. “I disagree with the idea of defunding universities or cutting back funding. I think this doesn’t solve the problem at hand.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s resolution has been cosponsored by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Betty McCollum, Marie Newman, Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) questions Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as she testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill on May 12, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and a handful of progressive Democrats introduced a resolution on Monday referring to Palestinian Arabs as the “indigenous inhabitants” of Israel and endorsing Palestinian right of return, one of the most sensitive issues in Israeli-Palestinian relations.
The resolution seeks to set as U.S. policy recognition of the “Nakba” — the term, translating to “catastrophe,” that Palestinians use to refer to the mass Palestinian exodus that accompanied the foundation of Israel — and accept as a settled issue Palestinian refugees’ right of return to inside Israel’s borders. It also refers to Palestinians as the “indigenous population” of the region, but does not acknowledge Jewish history in the region.
The legislation accuses Israel of having “depopulated more than 400 Palestinian villages and cities” during its 1948 War of Independence and characterizes ongoing Israeli “expropriation of Palestinian land and… dispossession of the Palestinian people,” including Israeli settlements, as part of an ongoing Nakba. In a statement announcing the legislation, Tlaib accused Israel of “ongoing ethnic cleansing.”
Tlaib’s resolution has been cosponsored by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Marie Newman (D-IL), Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY).
Neither Tlaib nor any of the cosponsors responded to a question from Jewish Insider about whether they viewed Jews as also being “indigenous” to the region.
Newman is currently facing a primary challenger, Rep. Sean Casten (D-IL), who is backed by various pro-Israel groups, including J Street, which had endorsed Newman in 2020. Bowman has faced criticism from the Democratic Socialists of America over his positions on Israel, including voting for supplemental Iron Dome funding and traveling to the Jewish state last year. He has since removed himself as a cosponsor of legislation supporting the Abraham Accords.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) blasted Tlaib’s resolution as “predicated on a demonstrably false historical narrative… predictably failing to mention the hundreds of attacks on Jewish communities in the British mandate of Palestine by Palestinian militias.”
Sherman noted that the resolution “omits” that Israel was attacked by eight Arab states in 1948, that the 1948 war began with attacks by Arab forces seeking “a war of annihilation” against Jewish militants and civilians, that “not a single Jew was left alive in the portion of the British mandate controlled by Arab armies, that no Jews lived in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem for two decades and that 800,000 Jews were expelled from neighboring Arab countries.”
“Thankfully, the vast majority of my colleagues in Congress and in the House Foreign Affairs Committee understand that the historical narrative in Congresswoman Tlaib’s resolution is an outrageous falsehood and thus this bill isn’t likely to be passed or even considered,” Sherman added.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) agreed that the resolution has no “hope of moving forward,” claiming the resolution seeks to “rewrite history and question Israel’s right to exist.”
“It’s unfortunate that this histrionic and invidious resolution was introduced now, particularly, as we see continued progress in efforts to normalize relations between Israel and its neighbors in the region,” Gottheimer added. “Divisive efforts like this only set back our fight against terror and the advancement of democracy in the region.”
Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who advised multiple secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations, said that the legislation asks Congress to “wade into the intricacies and volatility of some of the most combustible issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and essentially recognize a narrative.”
“This legislation is packed with landmines and traps,” Miller continued. “The whole issue of right of return is an issue that for years in negotiations we realized was the most combustible, most complicated, and the one which we had the least chance of resolving…. That’s the third rail of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.”
Miller emphasized that the legislation has no prospect of seeing widespread support in “any Congress that I can imagine.”
He described the legislation as “designed basically to support what the framers regard as an unrecognized, underreported and unacknowledged narrative in the American political scene of the Palestinians.” He added that the “Palestinian narrative has never been adequately explored or acknowledged” in U.S. politics and argued that “there was a way perhaps to go about this which would have recognized both Israeli independence and the Nakba being intertwined.”
Some Republicans seized on the legislation.
Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) called it “the latest in a long line of antisemitic, anti-Israel statements, policies and actions by the most radical voiced in the Democratic Party.” Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) called it “disgusting anti-Semitism.” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said “the continued anti-Semitism from radical socialists in the House is horrific.” The three Republicans also sought to tie House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to the initiative, demanding that she condemn the move.
By Jacob Kornbluh & JI Staff
FIRST LOOK: Ken Vogel’s New Book – ‘Big Money; 2.5 Billion Dollars, One Suspicious Vehicle, and a Pimp—on the trail of Ultra-Rich Hijacking American Politics’: “The main quote in Politico reporter Ken Vogel‘s new book is from Mark Hanna, an early political fundraiser who was famously quoted as saying: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second one is.” Vogel’s theme throughout the book is “Forget the 1 Percent. Only a tiny elite really matter in big money politics.” It just so happens that the “tiny elite” includes a significant amount of Jewish donors on both sides of the aisle. Jeffrey Katzenberg, George Soros, and Haim Saban on the left. Sheldon Adelson, Paul Singer, and Steve Wynn on the right. (more…)