DAILY KICKOFF

Florida trims the fringe

Plus, Darline Graham says natsec 'not my thing'

Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) speaks at a press conference on Capitol Hill on Sept. 8, 2025.

By

JI Staff

August 19, 2026

Good Wednesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we break down the results of yesterday’s primaries in Florida, and talk to foreign policy officials wary of the Trump administration’s Gaza diplomacy. We report on Sen. Darline Graham’s admission during last night’s South Carolina Senate debate that national security was “not my thing,” and cover a new report from the Anti-Defamation League and the Academic Engagement Network about anti-Israel activists’ efforts to exert control over higher education unions. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ehren Stenzler, Jeremy Moss and Yossi Cohen.

Curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik.

Today’s Agenda

We’re keeping an eye on the remaining races to be called in yesterday’s primaries in Florida and special election runoff in California’s 14th Congressional District, where state Sen. Aisha Wahab maintains a 1,300-vote lead over Melissa Hernandez with 62% of precincts reporting.

A number of the Florida races were called shortly after polls closed, with Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and Randy Fine (R-FL) fending off challengers from the more extreme wings of their respective parties. More below.

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One Thing To Know

Florida voters reject political extremes

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) campaigns outside of the Kings Point Clubhouse polling station on August 18, 2026, in Tamarac, Florida.

By Josh Kraushaar

Florida Democrats and Republicans fended off extreme challengers against pro-Israel incumbents in Tuesday night’s primaries, indicating that the state’s older, moderate and notably Jewish electorate was uniquely inhospitable towards the anti-Israel left and the antisemitic right.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) handily defeated socialist challenger Oliver Larkin by nearly a 2-to-1 margin (64-36%), while Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) easily prevailed in a newly drawn district against a crowded field of challengers. Elijah Manley — the candidate running against Wasserman Schultz on the Democratic Socialists of America, anti-Israel platform — lagged in third place, with just 13% of the vote.

On the Republican side, Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) dominated over a neo-Nazi podcaster who made hatred of Jews the central message of his campaign. Fine won renomination with 57% of the vote, while the antisemitic Dan Bilzerian tallied 17% of the GOP vote. And in the governor’s race, James Fishback, who used racist and antisemitic messages as part of his campaign, lagged well behind the Trump-endorsed winner, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), finishing in third place with just 10% of the vote.

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The Big Reads

DISARMAMENT DOUBTS

Pro-Israel foreign policy officials wary of Trump administration’s Gaza diplomacy

A diplomatic push by Jared Kushner to revive the stalled Gaza peace plan was met with widespread skepticism from Middle East analysts, who warned that the envoy’s timeline for Hamas disarmament is unrealistic, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. “What Hamas wants is what Hezbollah has had in Lebanon: someone else runs schools and collects garbage, while they remain in charge behind the scenes. In my view, Kushner’s meeting with Hamas was a terrible mistake that helps to legitimize them,” said Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy for Iran during the first Trump administration.

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game changer

Sen. Darline Graham, at debate: ‘National security is not my thing’

Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) said at the final GOP primary debate on Tuesday to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that she is “not that informed on national security,” Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports. Graham made the comments after being asked at Tuesday’s debate if she believed Taiwan and the South China Sea were national security issues for the United States. “My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military. My dad was in the army. I’m not a polished politician up here. National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise,” Graham said.

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GAME CHANGER

Sen. Darline Graham, at debate: ‘National security is not my thing’

Graham’s stumble comes one week before the special election runoff

Sen. Darline Graham, R-S.C., arrives for the Senate Judiciary Committee vote to move the nomination of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche out of committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Tuesday, Aug 4, 2026. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

By

Emily Jacobs

August 18, 2026

Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) said at the final GOP primary debate to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of Congress’ most engaged members on foreign policy, that she is “not that informed on national security.”

Graham made the comments after being asked at Tuesday’s debate, which was hosted by Newsmax and South Carolina ETV and Public Radio, if she believed Taiwan and the South China Sea were national security issues for the United States.

“I’m just going to be honest here. I’m not that informed on national security, but I do support the military,” Graham said. “My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military. My dad was in the army. I’m not a polished politician up here. National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise. But I do support the military.”

Asked if Taiwan and the South China Sea were national security issues for the United States, Sen. Darline Graham responded, “I’m just going to be honest here. I’m not that informed on national security, but I do support the military."

Read more: https://t.co/wXsbj2L93H pic.twitter.com/2oR78mVN2C
— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) August 19, 2026

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), Graham’s opponent in next week’s special election runoff, responded by describing Taiwan as “a definite ally” of the U.S. and praising President Donald Trump for “enabling Taiwan to defend themselves against China.” Norman has served in Congress for nearly a decade, and has touted his legislative experience as a strength on the campaign trail.

Shortly after the debate concluded, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has endorsed Norman in the runoff, criticized Graham for her answer.

“Lindsey Graham was well informed on the United States’ national security. Darline Graham admits she’s not,” Haley wrote on X. “This is not something you inherit. And it’s critical in the U.S. Senate.”

At the start of the debate, Graham said while responding to a question about the cost of living that she trusted Trump “to get the Strait of Hormuz open.”

Asked if she supports continuing the U.S. war in Iran, Graham said, “I fully trust President Trump when it comes to the war in Iran. Forty-seven years this has been going on. Iran is the weakest they have been in 47 years. The one thing that concerns me is we cannot let them get a nuclear weapon. So I trust President Trump and everything he’s doing, I think he’s got this, and I trust him on it.”

Graham later cautioned, however, that she was not committed to supporting U.S. boots on the ground in Iran, a move that Trump has not indicated he’s considering.

“I think we should stand with Israel. They’re one of our strongest allies, so I definitely support standing with Israel,” Graham said. “I am a little concerned about troops on the ground. I don’t know that that’s necessary just yet. I would like to make sure that we try all economic solutions before we put troops on the ground.”

Norman, meanwhile, said that while he has been supportive of the president taking out the Iranian regime and its nuclear program, he believes the administration needs to justify why it is continuing the war and said that the U.S. should end its operations against Tehran.

“They were a severe threat, and he had the courage to do that. Now, I think that we’ve got to end it. I think that he’s going to have to tell the American people what it’s going to take,” Norman said. “If the Straits of Hormuz are still dominated by a country that’s supposed to be decimated, we’ve got to have some understanding on that because I’m not for endless wars. You win them and you get out.”

The South Carolina senator knocked Norman for voting against the National Defense Authorization Act on several occasions, which Norman responded to by pointing to his concerns about the size of the federal defense budget and the national debt.

While discussing U.S. support for Israel, of which Lindsey Graham was one of the most prominent champions in Congress, Norman described himself as a proponent of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship and vowed to continue being an ally to the Jewish state. He also praised Israel for what he characterized as its willingness to put troops on the ground in Iran to complete its military objectives.

“Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. If you go there, that’s God’s country, and we have continued to maintain good relations,” Norman said. “The president, I think, has paid many a trip over there. You go over there, it changes you. It just does. … From what we’re hearing in Congress, they are ready, and willing and able to take out Iran if it means putting troops on the ground. They’re trained soldiers and they are true patriots. Yes, they are a friend, and we have to remain a friend.”

The South Carolina runoff between Graham and Norman is being held next Tuesday, August 25. Trump is headlining a campaign rally for Graham on Friday in Myrtle Beach.

DISARMAMENT DOUBTS

Foreign policy experts wary of Trump administration’s Gaza diplomacy

Former Trump special envoy Elliott Abrams: ‘Kushner’s meeting with Hamas was a terrible mistake that helps to legitimize them’

Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images

Weapons on display as the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, hand over on Saturday two Israeli hostages in Rafah on February 22, 2025.

By

Matthew Shea

August 18, 2026

A diplomatic push by Jared Kushner to revive the stalled Gaza peace plan was met with widespread skepticism from Middle East analysts, who warned that the envoy’s timeline for Hamas disarmament is unrealistic as the group continues to hide behind a smokescreen of diplomacy rather than follow through on its commitments.

Following a series of meetings in Cairo and Jerusalem this week with Hamas and Israeli officials, Kushner expressed optimism that initial progress on Hamas surrendering its weapons could begin “in as little as 30 days,” and filling in Hamas’ terror tunnels within “60 to 90 days.” Additionally, Israel and the Board of Peace established two working groups to address key issues in the plan.

However, regional experts told Jewish Insider that Hamas is unlikely to fully disarm, warning that Kushner’s timeline faces significant operational and political hurdles.

“It may feign disarming and may turn in some guns, but full disarmament means they will lose power in Gaza,” said Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy for Iran during the first Trump administration. “What Hamas wants is what Hezbollah has had in Lebanon: someone else runs schools and collects garbage, while they remain in charge behind the scenes. In my view, Kushner’s meeting with Hamas was a terrible mistake that helps to legitimize them.”

Daniel Shapiro, former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama and deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East under President Joe Biden, similarly questioned whether Hamas would genuinely comply with the roadmap, characterizing the talks as “a lot of misdirection, spinning, time-buying, and politics by all parties involved.”

“[Hamas’] ideology has not dimmed, and they have a long history of seeming to reach agreements, and then asserting caveats to wriggle out of them,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro also argued that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has incentives of his own to present the negotiations as making progress, describing the Israeli prime minister as performing a “familiar two-step” — reassuring the Israeli public on a sensitive issue ahead of an upcoming election while attempting to keep Washington appeased with the progress of the plan.

Beyond the political dynamics, Shapiro pointed to significant operational obstacles. The technocratic Palestinian government has yet to deploy to Gaza, its 5,000-member police force remains untrained and international stabilization forces are not prepared to seize Hamas’ weapons.

“Kushner is trying to bridge these unbridgeable gaps,” Shapiro said. “The result is different, and at times contradictory, statements and understandings by all parties on timing and sequence… In the best case, it will take many months to make even modest progress, and U.S. officials will need to stay engaged daily to keep the road map from collapsing.”

Hamas has an incentive to remain at the negotiating table even without having intent to fully comply, analysts said.

“Observers should evaluate Hamas’ commitments in the context of their total war against Israel,” said Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “They can position themselves as the reasonable party and Israelis as rejectionists if it advances Hamas’ goal to delegitimize Israel. They don’t have to fire a shot. In this case, lying is politically profitable.”

Kushner warned following his meetings in Israel on Monday that if Hamas fails to fulfill its disarmament pledge, Washington would allow Israel to “finish the job” militarily.

Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the threat is “intended to press Hamas to follow through.” But he cautioned that it “must have teeth” to prevent Hamas from using the negotiations to gain international legitimacy without surrendering its weapons.

“At the end of the day, Hamas cannot be allowed to prioritize holding on to its weapons at the expense of Gaza’s reconstruction,” Levitt said. He described the newly established working groups as a “significant” step toward “holding Hamas to full disarmament” and “addressing the very real sanitation crisis in Gaza.”

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said the timeline will have little meaning without a credible force on the ground capable of disarming Hamas if the group refuses to surrender its weapons voluntarily.

“By saying all the right things, Hamas hopes to aggravate existing tensions between Washington and Jerusalem,” Ruhe said, arguing that the group is playing for time as U.S. and Israeli attention is pulled toward upcoming elections in both countries and other regional flashpoints.

“It’s almost impossible to foresee real progress on the Gaza peace plan until there’s a viable and ready option to forcibly disarm Hamas, since Hamas is not going to voluntarily surrender control over its part of the Strip,” Ruhe said. “The agreed timeline doesn’t mean much in the absence of any viable disarmament option.”

Ruhe added that Hamas could “play for time” and “hope Gaza continues to fall down the list of U.S. and Israeli priorities as tensions flare in [the Strait of] Hormuz, the West Bank and Syria, and as Trump and Netanyahu focus on upcoming elections.”

“Israel may have the U.S. blessing to finish the job, and ultimately it is willing to do so, but that doesn’t mean it’s ready or eager to resume intensive and draining ground operations in the near future,” he said.

Jason Greenblatt, former Middle East envoy in the first Trump administration, struck a more supportive tone toward the administration’s effort while expressing continued distrust of Hamas.

“I remain deeply skeptical of anything Hamas says. Hamas’ defining objective remains the destruction of Israel, and I am aware of no evidence that this has changed,” Greenblatt said. “Yet President Trump and his team secured the release of hostages held by Hamas in brutal conditions when almost no one thought it could be done.”

“President Trump, Jared and others on the team also created the Abraham Accords, which most experts believed could never happen, and they are uniquely qualified to take on this extraordinarily difficult task,” he continued. “The administration is right to pursue every possible path while making clear that, if Hamas refuses to comply, Israel will have America’s support to finish the job.”

COMINGS AND GOINGS

Andy Baker, one of Vance’s closest foreign policy advisors, to depart White House

Baker was involved in the administration’s recent diplomacy with Iran

National security adviser Andy Baker (right) appeared alongside Vice President JD Vance in a bilateral meeting with German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the 61st Munich Security Conference on February 14, 2025 in Munich, Germany (Photo by Johannes Simon/Getty Images)

By

Emily Jacobs

August 14, 2026

Andy Baker, a White House deputy national security advisor and one of Vice President JD Vance’s closest foreign policy aides, is leaving the Trump administration in the coming weeks.

Baker, a former foreign service officer at the State Department, served as Vance’s national security advisor in the White House and in Vance’s Senate office before joining the White House National Security Council this spring. He emerged as a low-profile but influential figure within the Trump administration on foreign policy matters and was directly involved in diplomatic talks with Iran in the aftermath of this year’s war.

Baker served concurrently as White House deputy national security adviser and the vice president’s national security adviser, placing him in Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump’s respective orbits.

Baker was characterized in a Politico profile in February as “a self-described ‘realist’ who is skeptical of traditional American alliances and U.S. military intervention abroad” and said he “aligns with the ‘restrainer’ wing” of the GOP.

News of his departure comes after Cliff Sims was tapped in May to succeed Baker as the vice president’s national security advisor. A source close to Baker told JI that he stayed in the role for months longer than planned to allow for “smooth transitions” for Sims and State Department Counselor Michael Needham, a top Rubio aide who also serves as a White House deputy national security advisor alongside Baker.

Baker, who has young children, is planning to enter the private sector in order to spend more time with his family, a source close to him told JI. Baker is joining America Global Strategies, a political consulting firm run by Robert O’Brien, the White House national security advisor in the first Trump administration, according to a source familiar with the situation.

“This has been an amazing journey,” Baker said in a statement on his departure. “I’m proud of everything we’ve achieved and, of course, am incredibly grateful to the president, vice president, and Secretary Rubio. I’ll never be far away.”

Vance described Baker as “an exceptionally gifted, deeply thoughtful advisor who has served the president and me with distinction. He has been an indispensable member of our administration’s national security team.”

“For the over three years that Andy has been by my side, I’ve always valued his counsel and have been grateful for the difficult work he’s done to ensure the United States is the safest, most secure, and most capable nation on Earth,” the vice president said in a statement.

Rubio said, “Andy has been an invaluable asset and key member of the President’s national security team who has greatly advanced the America First agenda. Andy has been a trusted, loyal, and critical advisor through every success and I wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors!”

White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said in a statement that, “From day one, Andy has worked tirelessly to put America first and get deals done for the President around the world. He’s also a great friend.”

“Andy is a brilliant foreign policy mind and close friend,” Needham said of Baker. “I look forward to continuing to benefit from his insights as he advances America’s interests from the outside.”

ANALYSIS

World leaders honor Graham as Washington grapples with loss of top GOP foreign policy voice

With Netanyahu and Zelensky in attendance, tributes underscored how difficult it will be to replace Graham's influence on Iran, Ukraine and Israel policy

Daniel Heuer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The casket of late Sen. Lindsey Graham is carried out during a funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, on July 28, 2026.

By

Marc Rod

July 29, 2026

A who’s who of international leaders, Cabinet members, senators and ambassadors gathered on Tuesday at the National Cathedral and on Capitol Hill for a somber and emotional tribute to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a giant both in Washington and on the world stage.

Graham distinguished himself over his career as one of the most important foreign policy voices in the Republican Party and a global statesman, evident in the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sat just seats away from one another at the afternoon memorial service, representing two of the countries that Graham championed during his time in office.

In one sign of how appreciated Graham’s pro-Israel leadership was to so many in the Jewish community, a number of attendees were seen wearing kippot at the National Cathedral service. Among the notable guests at the service were: philanthropist Miriam Adelson; Israel’s former Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer; Israeli opposition leader and Netanyahu rival Yair Lapid; Axios reporter Barak Ravid; and the parents of slain American Israeli hostage Omer Neutra.

Fox News host Sean Hannity gave special attention to Graham’s dedication to Israel in his eulogy, offering effusive praise to Netanyahu and the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

“Lindsey would have been blown away that you took this long journey with your beautiful bride to be here today. He loved you. He loved the state of Israel, he loved the people of Israel,” Hannity told Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, from the lectern. “Under your leadership, Israel has been one of America’s most consistent and loyal allies. He was never shy to say it, to the day he passed. Just as President Trump has been Israel’s strongest friend in the history of the White House … Lindsey was that friend to Israel in the United States Senate.”

Sean Hannity speaks about Netanyahu and Israel at Sen. Lindsey Graham's funeral.

"He loved you. He loved the state of Israel. He loved the people of Israel." pic.twitter.com/pOdBZdHRNp
— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 28, 2026

Acknowledging Graham’s role as one of the GOP’s most prominent voices on foreign policy, President Donald Trump said in his own eulogy that Graham “was extremely hawkish” and “never saw a war that he didn’t like” but said Graham pursued those policies “for the good of our country.”

Graham had been one of the most influential voices in Trump’s ear in support of confronting Iran’s malign activity in the Middle East — and urging the president to more actively confront Russian aggression against Ukraine.

This week could mark a major turning point for the senator’s legacy: the Senate voted overwhelmingly yesterday evening to open debate on the Russia (and, at the last minute, Iran) sanctions bill that Graham spent his final months negotiating. And Trump’s meeting Tuesday with Netanyahu, where the two were expected to discuss next steps in Iran, could shape the future of the war.

Graham was one of a rare breed of Republicans who managed to remain a fervent advocate for U.S. involvement abroad while also keeping in Trump’s good graces and maintaining his influence with the president.

But there’s no clear successor to replace Graham’s hawkish voice in Trump’s inner circle, an absence that could tangibly impact the direction of U.S. foreign policy in the coming weeks and months, including the direction of the Iran war.

Coalition Calculus

Lapid blames Netanyahu for Israel’s isolation, vows reset if he returns to gov’t

In an address in Washington, the opposition leader sketched a coalition with Bennett and Eisenkot that would mend U.S. and European ties, harden Israel's line on Iran and shift tone on Gaza

Screenshot

Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid speaks at the Atlantic Council in Washington, July 27, 2026

By

Marc Rod

July 28, 2026

Addressing one of the leading foreign policy think tanks in the United States, former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid presented his case on Monday for Israel’s diplomatic future should his opposition bloc form the country’s next government after the upcoming elections.

Speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Lapid argued that Israel is increasingly isolated diplomatically and feuding with its allies — which he blamed primarily on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition — and he recommended that Jerusalem adopt a more measured and bipartisan approach going forward.

Lapid is visiting Washington this week, concurrent with Netanyahu; both of them are set to attend the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Tuesday.

Lapid said that a new government, primarily made up of current opposition members, would remove officials who advocate for nuking Gaza or who mock detained activists. He said the government should also apologize for the accidental deaths of children in war and express greater empathy more generally, as well as deploy police and soldiers to address what he characterized as Jewish terrorism in the West Bank.

He also said that Israel can’t act on the world stage with the same impunity that the United States can, that it needs to listen to its friends around the world instead of writing them off, should never fund digital influence operations against American leaders, should stay out of American partisan politics and must rebuild its relationships with Europe.

“Iran is an enemy. Hezbollah is an enemy. Hamas is an enemy,” Lapid said. “France is not the enemy. Sweden is not the enemy. [Sens.] Elizabeth Warren [D-MA], Jon Ossoff [D-GA] and Tim Kaine [D-VA] are not the enemy. The Democratic Party is not the enemy. [Vice President] JD Vance is not the enemy.”

He said that the next Israeli government should communicate to the U.S. and the world that “this was a crazy period, but it is over” and, going forward, “stay out of American politics,” as well as “firmly encourage” both AIPAC and J Street to move away from partisanship.

“To be pro-Israel is to be bipartisan to build a broad coalition of support. Do not boycott people who dislike us. Insist on meeting them and presenting our case,” Lapid said.

Military capabilities and tactics, he continued, cannot stand apart from Israel’s place in the world, its relationship with the United States and its economic situation. Military strikes must come with “a moral, legal and strategic framework that Israel can defend with confidence,” with the ultimate goal of peace, rather than perpetual conflict, he continued.

Lapid asserted that the U.S.-Israel relationship had been damaged primarily by Netanyahu, describing his government as responsible for nearly all of the issues in the relationship. He suggested that the relationship would turn around with the opening provided by a new government.

He claimed that Israelis will vote accordingly in the upcoming elections, realizing that Netanyahu is damaging Israel’s international relations.

Lapid did not substantively address how the unity party led by himself and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett would approach an increasingly likely situation in which Gadi Eisenkot leads the largest opposition party after the election. Instead, he suggested Eisenkot would be the defense minister in a coalition government with Bennett as prime minister and Lapid as foreign minister.

Bennett and Lapid announced in April that they had decided to merge their parties and run as a joint party called “Together,” led by Bennett.

Though Lapid’s previous governing coalition included the Arab party Ra’am, he predicted that his bloc would not need the support of Arab parties to form a government after the next election and claimed that MK Mansour Abbas, who leads Ra’am, “seems to understand this better than some of my Jewish friends, the fact that maybe it’s time for a coalition that will be made only of Zionist parties.”

But he said that such a government would address the needs of Arab citizens and address “Jewish racism against peaceful Arab citizens of Israel.”

Lapid said Israel should pursue direct negotiations with as many regional states as possible, including Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia and leverage various regional forums to pursue greater ties and to isolate Iran.

He also said that Israel should work with the Palestinian Authority, arguing that doing so doesn’t necessitate recognizing a Palestinian state or ignoring issues inside the PA.

“It was almost ridiculous to me the fact that the current government was … incapable to admit the fact that they’re doing business with the Palestinian Authority — as they do in the West Bank and as they do in Gaza now,” Lapid said.

He said Israel will, over time, need to work to make Gaza livable, and that the Israeli government’s failure to show empathy over the situation in Gaza had “destroyed our international stature in huge groups” as well as stymied necessary and honest conversations in Israel about the costs of the war. But he rejected the idea that the war in Gaza had been a genocide.

Lapid took a hard line toward the Haredim, saying that they should not receive financial support if they do not serve in the military, that their schools should not receive government support if they do not provide a basic education and that they should not receive public assistance if they do not work.

“When you live in a democracy, you don’t only have rights; you also have duties, and these have to do with each other,” Lapid said.

Lapid also sought to position himself in a more hawkish stance on Iran than the current government, arguing that Israel should have, as early as 2024, bombed Iranian energy facilities, including Kharg Island. He said he still supports such a course of action.

He acknowledged that such an approach would carry political and economic pain for the United States ahead of the midterms, but said that it would be the “right thing to do in the long term” and would lead the Iranian regime to collapse.

Though he praised Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and expressed hope for expanding the Abraham Accords, Lapid raised serious concerns over the Trump administration’s recent deal with Saudi Arabia that would allow nuclear enrichment on Saudi soil — an effort that Trump, after signing the deal, conditioned on the Gulf state joining the Abraham Accords.

Lapid said he’d clashed with Graham, who worked for years to secure normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, over the subject, calling it “unacceptable” and “a huge mistake.”

A Saudi enrichment program, Lapid warned, would prompt a nuclear proliferation race throughout the Middle East and beyond. And he said any Saudi-U.S. deal should include Israel as well.

Lapid, once one of the Israeli leaders more amenable to the idea of a two-state solution, said that the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and the support for them in the West Bank had changed his view of the situation. He said that any Palestinian state under the current circumstances would immediately become a launching pad for Hamas.

“Politics or policies are not a zero-sum game. There are so many things we can do in order to improve the lives of everybody, of Palestinians, of Israelis, of the security of everybody,” Lapid continued.

Lapid said that the pilot effort to turn over territory in Lebanon to the Lebanese Armed Forces to disarm Hezbollah is a strong idea in concept, but requires that Hezbollah actually be disarmed. He said Israel should continue to fight Hezbollah as necessary but also pursue diplomatic efforts with the Lebanese government.

He declined to back a full Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, saying that Israel should not withdraw from areas where it knows Hezbollah would immediately return to because the terrorist group had been preparing to carry out an Oct. 7-style attack on northern Israel.

He also said he was disappointed that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa had begun discussing reclaiming the Golan Heights from Israel, explaining that he’d initially seen the new Syrian government as “an opportunity to solve a problem that looked unsolvable for a long time.”

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Lindsey Graham’s sudden death leaves his legislative priorities in limbo

Republican and Democratic senators paid tribute to his legacy, while wondering if anyone will be able to fill the leadership vacuum

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) in the Senate Judiciary Committee on January 30, 2025 in Washington, D.C.

By

Emily Jacobs

July 17, 2026

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) sudden death last weekend is complicating an already difficult dynamic between Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump, as legislators try to muster enough support in the caucus to pass the president’s key legislative priorities.

Graham’s committee chairmanships, vast donor network and his close relationship with Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio made him a critical leader in Washington whose presence helped move forward multiple bipartisan efforts, especially on foreign policy. He became one of the most geopolitically connected members of Congress, with world leaders and captains of industry on speed dial.

“It’s impossible to fill that void, number one, so I’ll just take that off the table,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told Jewish Insider at a press conference at NRSC headquarters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.

Scott, who represented South Carolina alongside Graham for 13 years, said he has spoken with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) about the challenges Graham’s death creates for the party and detailed several areas where Senate GOP leadership is hoping some of their members will attempt to step in on the late senator’s behalf.

The first of those “three layers,” Scott said, is “the foreign policy front.” The second was Graham’s “budgetary responsibilities” as chair of the Senate Budget Committee. The third area, he said, was “bridging the gap between the two sides of the aisle.”

“Those are the three areas that I know that we’ve been consciously considering,” Scott said. “I have spoken to Leader Thune as well. I think those are three big areas that we’d love to see, probably, a couple people step into.”

On the foreign policy front, Scott noted, “There’s no doubt that when you’re looking at leaders around the world who disagree vehemently with each other, the one guy you might be willing to sit at the table with was Lindsey Graham. He just did a really good job.”

“Frankly, you go to the Middle East and without any question, I’m not sure that there was a bigger, more enthusiastic supporter of the president’s actions in Iran — I happen to be one of them as well — than Lindsey Graham,” Scott said. “[Israeli Prime Minister] Bibi [Netanyahu] calling him at lunch was kind of fun to watch. I’m a big fan of Bibi myself, and just knowing the relationship that they had when I spoke with Bibi myself years ago, I would say without question, Lindsey Graham’s name always came up. You know why? Because, frankly, he took the time to make the trip there.”

“Whether it’s the European front, the Middle East, or frankly, his enthusiasm around Venezuela, he was always in the midst when it came to solving problems around the world because he believed in peace through strength,” he continued. “It was not just a tagline. It was not just a philosophy. It was embedded in his DNA.”

Scott said Republicans will need to focus on “finding someone who has that passion” that Graham applied to his foreign policy dealings. Graham spearheaded the passage of the second Trump administration’s two reconciliation packages — the One Big Beautiful Bill last July, which made the tax cuts implemented in the first Trump administration permanent and enacted a wide range of spending cuts, and the Secure America Act in June to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

“We are living in polarizing times politically. Lindsey Graham was not completely aware of that. He thought you could still find common ground to get something done,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) said. “He turned out to be right. Being able to have [Sen. Richard] Blumenthal (D-CT) knocking on the door for Russian sanctions is only possible because Lindsey Graham spends so much time talking to people that vehemently disagree with him on 85% or 90% of topics. Find that one, you march together.”

As to the budget reconciliation process, Scott said, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) would step in as budget chair. “Big shoes to fill,” Scott added.

Scott touted his late colleague’s ability to reach across the aisle and argued that “bridging that gap is going to be really important.”

“We are living in polarizing times politically. Lindsey Graham was not completely aware of that. He thought you could still find common ground to get something done. He turned out to be right. Being able to have [Sen. Richard] Blumenthal (D-CT) knocking on the door for Russian sanctions is only possible because Lindsey Graham spends so much time talking to people that vehemently disagree with him on 85% or 90% of topics. Find that one, you march together.”

As one of the few lawmakers capable of closing the gap between Senate Republicans and the president, Graham became somewhat of a mediator.

“Lindsey left an indelible mark on the Senate, on the nation and on the hearts of his colleagues,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told JI. “At times when senators were at each other’s throats, were angry, Lindsey could cut the tension with a self-deprecating quip that brought everything to a stop and brought people back together again.”

Leading Democrats also paid tribute to Graham’s legislative acumen. “Lindsey was part of every important policy issue and an indispensable player in every Senate ‘gang.’ He was a fierce Republican partisan one day and a key bipartisan ally the next,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) said of Graham after his death was announced.

“I don’t know who can play this role going forward. I just don’t see it,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told JI on Sunday of Graham. “He’s just not replaceable. There’s not going to be anyone like him again.”

Graham was involved in every successful bipartisan piece of legislation that Trump has signed into law thus far in his second term. During the Biden administration, Graham was one of the 19 Republican senators who crossed party lines to support the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and his decision to come out against the bipartisan immigration reform deal organized by Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Chris Murphy (D-CT) and former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ) has been described as the final death knell that sealed the legislation’s fate.

Graham was also the Republican in Trump’s orbit to whom Senate Democrats would go when trying to settle a legislative dispute or join forces on an issue of bipartisan concern.

“I don’t know who can play this role going forward. I just don’t see it,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told JI on Sunday of Graham. “He’s just not replaceable. There’s not going to be anyone like him again.”

Graham’s passing puts the longtime legislative and geopolitical priorities he fought for in jeopardy.

The South Carolina Republican spent the last five years lobbying Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to bring Riyadh into the Abraham Accords. Graham tried to secure an agreement on several occasions under Trump and former President Joe Biden, and said repeatedly that he was on the verge of reaching a deal that would see Saudi Arabia normalize relations with Israel in exchange for Israel recognizing a Palestinian state.

After Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, Graham maintained that Iran ordered the attacks to upend his Saudi-Israeli normalization efforts.

Graham was one of the most outspoken and effective Republican advocates in Congress for increasing military funding. Prior to his death, he had been lobbying the president to get behind the Russia sanctions bill he co-sponsored with Blumenthal, and expressed optimism in his final phone call with Morgan Ortagus, the former deputy presidential envoy for Middle East peace in the second Trump administration, that Trump was coming around to the idea.

Trump said on Tuesday that he was considering supporting the bill, which he has long hesitated to get behind, “in honor of Lindsey.”

“This was his thing, he wanted this more than any other thing. You know how he felt,” Trump said from the White House. “There’s a good chance that it gets done. But they’d like to add Iran. And they’d like to add Hezbollah to it. That’s what I’m hearing.”

Ortagus told JI, “There was not a fight on domestic or foreign affairs that he didn’t want to jump into. If he believed in an issue and believed that a particular policy was the right thing, he really didn’t care about the politics.”

HEDGING

Turkish national security advisor shrugs off Iranian nuclear program

Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum, an advisor to the Turkish president called Iran's nuclear program a 'civil' project and said Ankara is in talks with Washington to resolve a standoff over Russian-made missile defense systems

Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images

A flag-raising ceremony is held at Bowling Green Park in New York, U.S. on May 15, 2026.

By

Marc Rod

July 16, 2026

ASPEN, Colo. — Akif Çağatay Kılıç, a top foreign policy and security advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, downplayed the threat posed to the region by Iran’s nuclear program at the Aspen Security Forum, while also repeatedly sidestepping questions about the status of Turkey’s Russian S-400 missile defense system and efforts to acquire F-35 fighter jets.

“I don’t perceive that we have a nuclear threat to the level that is being talked about, but we are closely monitoring it, and we’re talking to our Iranian colleagues and friends on how they perceive to be working on their nuclear program — civil nuclear program,” Kılıç said.

He continued to defend his country’s decision to acquire the S-400 system.

Kılıç also argued that the alternative energy corridors through the region that have been proposed to avoid the Strait of Hormuz are not a viable option so long as the war continues.

Kılıç said that Turkey is working with the U.S. to resolve the “legal issue” around the F-35s and S-400s, emphasizing that the leaders of both countries have expressed a desire to move the F-35 sale forward.

Asked directly about whether Turkey will offload its S-400s, Kılıç prevaricated and did not offer clear answers.

“It’s not easy always to navigate these things. But we’re trying to work with our American partners and allies to find a way that both countries can live with and go towards the future,” Kılıç said.

REMEMBERING

Tributes pour in after death of Lindsey Graham, Israel’s staunch defender in the Senate

Trump, Cruz, Fetterman, Coons and Jewish organizations remembered the South Carolina Republican, who died suddenly at 71

Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks at the 62nd Munich Security Conference on February 13, 2026 in Munich, Germany.

By

Emily Jacobs

July 13, 2026

As President Donald Trump returned to Washington on the first Sunday of the new year, he was joined by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who had traveled to the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate a day earlier to be with Trump after he ordered the operation that deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Graham, 71, had been encouraging Trump since returning to office last January to take a more aggressive posture toward the Maduro regime, and vigorously defended the president’s decision to launch a series of strikes targeting Venezuelan boats that the Trump administration alleged were carrying drugs meant to reach U.S. soil. By late October, he was calling on Maduro to flee Venezuela and cede power as tensions between Trump and the dictator escalated.

During an impromptu press conference aboard Air Force One, Trump and Graham defended the merits of the operation and predicted that the Cuban regime was likely to fall as a result of the mission. The South Carolina senator, one of the most hawkish Republican lawmakers on foreign policy, grinned as he heralded the mission as a success.

“When I was on Air Force One with the president flying back and we did that news conference, if you thought I was smiling big on the outside, you have no idea how much I was smiling on the inside,” Graham told Jewish Insider in an interview shortly after arriving in Washington with the president. “This is the best time in my political life because I’ve aligned myself with the strongest president in modern times. We’re getting results that are making this world safer and America more prosperous.”

By that time, more than 10 years after rejecting Trump’s candidacy and decrying him as a “race-baiting, xenophobic bigot” whose rhetoric would “kill my party,” Graham had become one of the president’s closest allies in the Senate and a close confidante on foreign policy matters.

“This is what happens when you stay in his orbit, realizing there’s far more good than bad and understanding that this man has magic that nobody on the planet has,” the South Carolina senator told JI. “It’s not so much that I’m on a roll. It’s the fact that talking with President Trump, he is embracing policies that he calls common sense, and the small part I play on the end of this, I’m so proud of.”

Following Graham’s sudden passing this weekend, Trump somberly reflected on the loss of his friend, political confidante and golfing partner, praising the late senator for his political acumen and his patriotism in a pair of media interviews and two social media posts.

“He’s a tough one to lose. He was great. He was unique in every way, actually,” Trump told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday morning of Graham. “He was really a worker. … He was a great politician, actually.”

“He was such an advocate if he wanted to get something. He had a unique ability, he was able to deal with Democrats. If I had a problem, a real problem, I wouldn’t often ask, but if I had a problem with a Democrat, he could work it out,” he continued. “There was nobody like him. He loved being a politician, and he was going to win his election [in November for a fifth Senate term]. … He just had it made.”

Graham passed away on Saturday evening after returning from a congressional delegation that included stops in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Ankara, Turkey, for last week’s NATO summit.

The South Carolina senator arrived to his Capitol Hill townhome late Saturday afternoon and began making phone calls to Republican political allies in the early evening about legislative business, developments in the Middle East and to share details of his recent trip, according to two sources with direct knowledge.

One of those calls was to the president. Another was to Morgan Ortagus, the former deputy presidential envoy for Middle East peace in the second Trump administration and one of Graham’s closest confidantes in Washington. The president said that Graham mentioned being “tired” during their conversation, but noted that “he was fine” and expressed shock at his sudden passing. Ortagus told JI on Sunday afternoon that Graham was upbeat during their final conversation, expressing optimism that Trump was coming around on supporting his Russia sanctions bill and with resuming military operations in Iran.

“Nobody was expecting this. That’s for sure. Not even Lindsey was, or he wouldn’t have been running for another term,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), who has had close relationships with both Graham and Trump, said of the senator’s sudden passing. “When a person cuts as wide a swath as Lindsey cuts, it is shocking. It will take some time to process the reality of it. It should really hit on Monday when we show up for work.”

It came as a shock to Trump, Ortagus and everyone else in Graham’s orbit when his office announced his passing in the early hours of Sunday morning, which the Washington D.C. medical examiner’s office, in a preliminary autopsy report, attributed to aortic dissection caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

“He was extremely jazzed up in our last conversation. He had just gotten off the phone with the president, and he was super excited about the Russia sanctions bill and the president deciding to go back into Iran,” Ortagus told JI. “He could not have been happier when I spoke to him last night. He was in the best mood and in a great place. He spoke about how he felt like he was doing consequential work.”

“Nobody was expecting this. That’s for sure. Not even Lindsey was, or he wouldn’t have been running for another term,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), who has had close relationships with both Graham and Trump, said of the senator’s sudden passing. “When a person cuts as wide a swath as Lindsey cuts, it is shocking. It will take some time to process the reality of it. It should really hit on Monday when we show up for work.”

Asked about his phone call with Graham during his “Meet the Press” appearance — on which Graham had been scheduled to appear — Trump said, “I just can’t believe it. He was like a member of the family to me. It’s very tough, actually. It’s amazing.”

Trump and Graham formed an unlikely relationship over the course of the first Trump administration, finding common ground with the establishment of the Abraham Accords and the confirmation of the president’s Supreme Court nominees.

Graham briefly broke with Trump in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, condemning the attack and recognizing Biden’s 2020 victory. But within months, Graham was regularly visiting Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., and publicly urging his party to rally around the president’s bid for a second term in 2024.

“He genuinely had a fantastic relationship with President Trump. They really actually liked each other a lot. I think Trump was his best friend in many ways,” Ortagus said. “He loved the president. It was genuine. They were incredibly good friends.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Graham got to know each other as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and on the presidential campaign trail in 2016. The two developed a close working relationship in the last decade, finding common ground on economic and foreign policy issues that pitted them against the expanding populist wing of the GOP.

Speaking to JI on Sunday, Cruz said that Graham and Trump “became close friends. Lindsey would call the president early in the morning, late at night and at every hour in between. And the president listened to him. He didn’t always agree, but he trusted him and he knew that Lindsey was speaking from the heart.”

“[Senate Majority Leader] John Thune (R-SD) is going to miss him terribly. Donald Trump is going to miss him terribly,” Cramer told JI. “It confounds them, MAGA world. They love Donald Trump and can’t stand Lindsey Graham, so they’re befuddled by the relationship.”

Cramer noted that Trump has developed political alliances with several former critics, the most notable example being Vice President JD Vance, who was similarly disapproving of the president during the 2016 election. Like Graham, the vice president became an avid defender of Trump during the president’s first term.

While both men found their way into the president’s orbit, they remained on opposing sides of the conservative movement, with Vance becoming one of the leading GOP voices wary of U.S. military engagement abroad and Graham emerging as a leading force behind the effort to maintain an engaged foreign policy.

“With Lindsey, he was talented,” Cramer said. “He was bright and he knew things that a lot of people don’t know. He had a historical perspective a lot of people don’t have. He had a Rolodex that’s probably in several languages, and he called you from all kinds of time zones. You never knew where he was when he called.”

Despite having those conservative detractors, following his death, Graham was lauded for his humor, his friendship and his public and private support for Trump by those in the president’s orbit — including Vance and other prominent Trump administration officials who were not often ideologically aligned with the late senator.

“Early in my Senate tenure, I remember getting into a shouting match with Lindsey about a Ukraine funding bill at lunch and then learning the very next day that he was pushing rail legislation I really cared about behind the scenes,” Vance wrote on X. “That was Lindsey Graham. He fought like hell for the things he believed in, and he was just as willing to go to bat for you when it counted.”

“Lindsey had the best sense of humor in the Senate. He loved the game of politics. He was constantly asking which races were up and down, and how he could help,” the vice president continued. “As he liked to say, ‘I don’t care if you’re an isolationist or a religious fanatic, so long as you have an R next to your name, I want you to win.’ We certainly had our disagreements. But I couldn’t help but like him. A one of a kind figure in our politics.”

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and a longtime Trump advisor, described Graham as a cherished ally to the president in implementing the administration’s policy goals and spoke of telling the late senator “what his friendship meant to me and to us all.”

“I cannot describe to you how much joy President Trump’s leadership and friendship brought to Lindsey,” Miller wrote on X. “Meetings with Graham at the White House were filled with camaraderie, kinship and uproarious laughter.”

“The fact that Lindsey started out as a political opponent only to become one the President’s most steadfast and faithful supporters underscores that Lindsey believed emphatically in the voice of the people,” he explained.

Miller described Graham as “a senator’s senator” and praised his ability to “move a room,” calling it “a glorious thing to witness.”

Sander Gerber, the CEO of Hudson Bay Capital and the architect of the Taylor Force Act, the passage of which Graham championed, told JI, “Lindsey was a maverick. He didn’t care about convention. He cared about doing what was right. When Lindsey set his mind to something, he was going to deliver on it, and he had a keen sense of the politics to be successful at that. He should be remembered as one of the greatest champions for Israel among members of Congress.”

“As heartbreaking as his sudden passing is, I hope it will bring some measure of comfort to those who cherished him to know just how much he was living his dream every day,” Miller said. “Very rarely in life do you get to be exactly where you want to be, when you want to be there, with who you want to be with, doing precisely what you want to do — that was every moment for Lindsey.”

Many of those who spoke about Graham after his passing described the South Carolina Republican, who spent more than two decades in the Senate, as a professional at navigating choppy political waters

“He wasn’t just a good talker, he had depth,” Cramer said. “He knew what the hell he was talking about. He had interesting insights.”

Sander Gerber, the CEO of Hudson Bay Capital and the architect of the Taylor Force Act, the passage of which Graham championed, told JI, “Lindsey was a maverick. He didn’t care about convention. He cared about doing what was right. When Lindsey set his mind to something, he was going to deliver on it, and he had a keen sense of the politics to be successful at that. He should be remembered as one of the greatest champions for Israel among members of Congress.”

“In order to get things done in Congress, to actually make a difference, you need to have the relationships,” Gerber said. “Lindsey was able to cultivate those relationships, and that’s what enabled him to get things done. There are 100 senators, but he was able to get his voice to stand out and to drive policy forward.”

Republicans and Democrats alike predicted Graham would be remembered as a legendary American political figure known for his ability to take political risks and find common ground in unexpected places.

“There was not a fight on domestic or foreign affairs that he didn’t want to jump into,” Ortagus said of Graham. “If he believed in an issue and believed that a particular policy was the right thing, he really didn’t care about the politics. Ultimately, he wouldn’t change what he believed was right based on politics, and that’s in very short supply politically right now.”

Ret. Gen. David Petraeus, the former director of the CIA and head of U.S. Central Command, told JI that Graham’s legacy would be “that of someone who was fiercely committed to the enduring principles, values and freedoms that we cherish, and who had the political skills and determination to see what he supported promoted by legislation, policies and strategies.”

“Sen. Graham’s dedication to the state of Israel and to the Jewish people was deeply sincere. We talked about it all the time. I went to Israel with him many times,” said Morgan Ortagus, the former deputy presidential envoy for Middle East peace in the second Trump administration and one of Graham’s closest confidantes in Washington. “He was a Southern Baptist and believed in the importance of the Jewish state to his core, and was willing to defend it.”

“I think he would be pleased to hear me say that he was not just adept, but was diabolically creative when necessary to achieve the outcomes to which he was committed,” Petraeus said.

Many of Graham’s allies said they expect his longstanding support for Israel and his commitment to aiding Ukraine in Russia’s war against it to be signature pieces of his foreign policy legacy.

“Sen. Graham’s dedication to the state of Israel and to the Jewish people was deeply sincere. We talked about it all the time. I went to Israel with him many times,” Ortagus said. “He was a Southern Baptist and believed in the importance of the Jewish state to his core, and was willing to defend it.”

“We talked a lot in the past year about the rise of antisemitism and anti-Zionism in both parties. He was very close to my daughter and she called him ‘Uncle Lindsey,’” she continued. “I would always remind him that I have a Jewish daughter and that throughout our history, the Jewish people have always thought we were safe until we weren’t.”

Ortagus said she and Graham “agreed that we have to fight antisemitism back in our party, that it can’t be allowed to fester. He would always talk about how important it was. He had deeply held personal beliefs on what America’s relationship with Israel should be. There was nothing cynical or craven about it.”

Cruz described Graham as “a passionate and formidable defender of Israel” and noted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “trusted Lindsey and listened to him.”

“Lindsey loved the nation of Israel. He loved the people of Israel, and he believed ferociously in defending and strengthening America’s friendship and alliance with Israel,” the Texas senator said of his late colleague. “Now, Lindsey would sometimes tell his friends messages they didn’t want to hear. Lindsey was not one to just blow smoke. He would tell people exactly what he thought, but that made him an incredibly effective advocate for Israel.”

“Lindsey understood that standing with Israel is overwhelmingly in America’s national security interests,” he continued. “He and I collaborated very closely on articulating why standing with Israel makes America safer, that the enemies of Israel, whether Hamas or Hezbollah or Iran, are the enemies of America as well.”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) credited Graham with doing “a masterful job of pulling” senators from across the ideological spectrum “in the same direction” in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, swiftly organizing a bipartisan congressional delegation alongside former Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as he sought to salvage his longstanding efforts to achieve Saudi-Israeli normalization.

“It was an incredible trip, and all of us said it was just one of the most consequential, constructive trips we’d ever been on,” Coons told JI. “[Sen.] Katie Britt (R-AL) came on the trip. It was one of her first trips as a senator, I think. Think about the range of members who we had. We had [Sens.] Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK) in the same meeting.”

“Even though it was two weeks after Oct. 7 and it was in the middle of that shock, he knew what he was doing,” Coons continued. “He was building a coalition of supporters for the deal that he was hoping he could pull off.”

Coons was one of several people to point to Graham’s well-documented friendships with the late Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT), known as the Senate’s “three amigos,” as an important part of his legacy.

“I think he continued McCain’s legacy of fighting for freedom, and he never gave up on the possibility of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Coons said. “That was his prize.”

“He was not afraid to be critical and he was never uncritical of friends. He believed that friends owe it to each other to try to enable them to do better,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said. “He had a vision, which was in effect the normalization of relationships throughout the Middle East, an extension of the Abraham Accords. He pursued it relentlessly.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who maintains a similarly bipartisan reputation in Congress, worked with Graham frequently on foreign policy matters. Blumenthal began traveling abroad with Graham in 2012, two years after being elected to the Senate. Their first trip together was a congressional delegation to the Middle East organized by McCain. The two traveled repeatedly to Ukraine and its European neighbors since Russia’s invasion, and to the Middle East since Oct. 7.

“He loved the Jewish people and he loved the Jewish state, which was so striking to me when I first traveled with him and John McCain to Israel,” Blumenthal told JI. “He and McCain loved the faith of the Jewish people, which of course is so much a part of life in Israel, but Sen. Graham also loved Israel’s ingenuity and inventiveness and the prowess and scrappiness of its military.”

“He was not afraid to be critical and he was never uncritical of friends. He believed that friends owe it to each other to try to enable them to do better,” he continued. “He had a vision, which was in effect the normalization of relationships throughout the Middle East, an extension of the Abraham Accords. He pursued it relentlessly.”

On the Taylor Force Act, Gerber noted that he convinced Graham to push for the Palestinian Authority to end its controversial payment program to Palestinian terrorists and their families, also known as “pay-for-slay,” after showing the senator video footage of the Palestinian Authority celebrating the terrorist who murdered Taylor Force, a U.S. army veteran killed by a Palestinian while visiting Israel in 2016.

“I’d shown this to many other senators, but no one was as upset as Lindsey. I remember him shaking when he saw the footage,” Gerber said. “Originally, I just wanted to educate Congress about what was going on, so I was trying to meet with as many members as I could to let them know the Palestinian Authority had this institutional infrastructure in place.”

Leading Jewish and pro-Israel organizations praised Graham in statements on his passing as a champion for the Jewish state and in the fight to combat rising antisemitism.

“For more than two decades in the United States Senate, his voice was a constant reminder that a strong Israel is firmly in America’s national security interest, and his commitment to these principles never wavered,” AIPAC said. “His many visits to Israel and his love for the Israeli people reflected not just a policy position, but a deep personal connection to the Jewish state and its citizens.”

The American Jewish Committee described the late senator as “a powerful advocate for many of the issues AJC champions, including American global leadership, Israel’s security, a robust North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and Ukraine’s defensive fight against Russian aggression.”

AIPAC called Graham “a great friend and true champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

“For more than two decades in the United States Senate, his voice was a constant reminder that a strong Israel is firmly in America’s national security interest, and his commitment to these principles never wavered,” the organization said. “His many visits to Israel and his love for the Israeli people reflected not just a policy position, but a deep personal connection to the Jewish state and its citizens.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition released a statement from Matt Brooks, the organization’s CEO, and former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), the organization’s national chairman, describing the late senator as “a dear friend” to both men personally and the organization as a whole.

“On a personal level, Lindsey was a man of deep loyalty, humor, and heart. He treated everyone, ally or adversary, with warmth and respect, and he built friendships across the aisle that many said were impossible in today’s Washington,” the statement read.

The GOP senator’s slow embrace of Trump earned him criticism from constituents and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. As a former conservative House lawmaker who had fought the rise of the Tea Party movement in the early 2010s, Graham had built a reputation as a defense hawk with a penchant for bipartisanship when Trump was first elected in 2016.

Some Democrats were angered by his political pivot, especially during and after the first Trump administration, but Graham maintained strong relationships with his Democratic colleagues and continued working with them frequently on efforts to support Ukraine and other areas of agreement.

“He deeply, genuinely loved the Senate. He tried really hard to do positive things for the institution at the same time that he was a fierce partisan,” Coons said of Graham. “Our fight over Kavanaugh was one of the worst I’ve ever had.”

Another of those Democrats is Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who became close with Graham in the two-and-a-half years since the Oct. 7 attacks. Graham and Fetterman, whose decision to vocally support Israel amid declining support in the Democratic Party prompted his relationship with the progressive left to collapse, frequently engaged on foreign policy matters, especially related to developments in the Middle East.

Fetterman described Graham to JI as “warm, friendly and thoughtful” and called his passing “a tragedy.”

“Israel lost a huge champion with Lindsey Graham,” the Pennsylvania senator said.

Libertarian and isolationist Republicans, meanwhile, grew frustrated that such a hawkish voice was being consulted so closely on foreign policy matters in an America First administration.

“There should be a law that Lindsey Graham can only enter the White House every other week, and that he’s only to meet with under mid-level people, not the president. No more golf outings,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a foe of Graham’s in the Senate Republican Conference who opposed the president’s actions in Venezuela, told reporters in January.

Across the political spectrum, those who knew Graham described him as an irreplaceable fixture in the Senate and predicted that his loss would cause many voids in the upper chamber, where the late senator was supposed to take over as the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee next year.

“He links so many things and so many people that without him, there’s a missing link in a lot of relationships between Middle Eastern countries between members of the Senate, between Budget Committee members and leadership, between the Republicans and Democrats,” Cramer said of Graham’s expansive presence in the Senate. “We’ll find out the consequences of losing him in time like this soon, but it’ll be hard to navigate to be sure.”

“I don’t know who can play this role going forward. I just don’t see it,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said. “He’s just not replaceable. There’s not going to be anyone like him again.”

Cruz told JI that, “nobody will fill that void” left by Graham’s absence, citing the respective impacts of McCain and the late Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to the upper chamber.

“When John McCain passed away, that was a void that was never filled. When Orrin Hatch, another longtime legend of the Senate, passed away, that was a void that was never filled,” Cruz said. “Nobody will fill Lindsey’s shoes. Others will step up and lead in different ways, but Lindsey left an indelible mark on the Senate, on the nation and on the hearts of his colleagues.”

“I don’t know who can play this role going forward. I just don’t see it,” Coons said. “He’s just not replaceable. There’s not going to be anyone like him again.”

TESTING THE WATERS

Van Hollen says he’s considering presidential bid, wants Israel to be 2028 litmus test

The Maryland senator also praised Graham Platner’s Senate candidacy, even as other leading Democrats have kept their distance

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) speaks at a campaign event for Maryland Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate and Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

By

Marc Rod

June 20, 2026

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), a leading critic of Israel in the Senate, publicly confirmed for the first time this week, after visits to key primary states, that he is considering a 2028 presidential bid — and argued that criticism of Israel should be a key litmus test for the emerging field.

Van Hollen has become an increasingly outspoken and virulent voice against Israel in the Senate and taken trips to states that will play a pivotal role in the 2028 presidential primary, fueling speculation that he is scoping out a presidential run.

“I went to New Hampshire because I was invited, but I would say kind of kicking the tires a little bit,” Van Hollen said on the “On NOTUS” podcast this week.

Asked whether he thinks any Democratic presidential candidate will be viable without criticizing Israel and supporting conditioning aid to the Jewish state, Van Hollen responded, “I think a Democratic presidential candidate should believe in the United States’ foreign policy based on advancing our values and our interests. And if you want to advance our values, you cannot apply one set of standards just to our adversaries and another to our friends and be taken seriously in the world about it.”

“I think any credible Democratic presidential candidate has to be willing to hold the government of Israel accountable when it’s violating human rights and violating international law and violating US interests because the Israeli-Palestinian issue, conflict goes to the heart of so much of the instability that we’ve encountered and paid for in the United States over decades,” Van Hollen continued.

He also argued that any Biden-era officials who don’t “plainly acknowledge how wrong they were and make it clear that lessons have been learned and that they would follow a very different approach” toward Israel should not be able to serve in any future Democratic administration.

Van Hollen also defended Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, the Democratic nominee who has drawn controversy for his Nazi tattoo, far-left views and numerous scandals and controversies, as “the candidate in that race who is fighting for working people” and “somebody who’s going to shape things up and actually respond to the pocketbook issues of the people of Maine.”

ANALYSIS

The politics behind the Trump-Netanyahu divide

Now that shifting American politics is pushing the president to distance himself from Israel’s preferred policies, Netanyahu is stuck without his trump card

SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 7, 2025.

By

Josh Kraushaar

June 9, 2026

Domestic politics isn’t always the best lens through which to evaluate foreign policy decisions.

But in assessing why President Donald Trump has gone to significant lengths to prevent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from striking back against Iran’s attacks, and why Netanyahu went ahead with the first wave of military strikes before standing down, it’s instructive to understand how the domestic politics in the U.S. and Israel are diverging.

The joint U.S.-Israel military operation against Iran, which began on Feb. 28 and has evolved into a very tenuous ceasefire since April 8, has not achieved many of the military goals outlined by both sides. Iran’s extremist leadership is still in place, it still maintains its nuclear ambitions and retains its nuclear material, and its ballistic missile stockpiles, while damaged, still remain.

On the Lebanese front, Hezbollah continues to threaten Israel’s north and not abide by any of the diplomatic agreements recently negotiated between Israel and the Lebanese government.

As a result of the limited achievements so far, public support for renewing military action against Iran has been low among the American public, and the overall operation is receiving lukewarm backing from Republicans.

Over two-thirds of voters in a recent Economist/YouGov poll said the U.S. “should make a deal to end the war in Iran as quickly as possible,” with just 11% disagreeing. Over half of Republicans shared the same sentiment of ending the war, with just 21% opposing.

Support for the war itself was much higher among Republicans than Democrats or independents, but still less than typical partisan support for Trump’s actions, with 67% of GOP voters backing the war in Iran and 20% opposing. (Among all voters, just 28% said they supported the war against Iran, with 60% opposing.)

These polling numbers explain why Trump, ever cognizant of public opinion especially in the run-up to a consequential midterm election, is trying to avoid reengaging with Iran militarily — even as he desperately seeks for some diplomatic off-ramp that Iran isn’t giving him.

In fact, it’s Trump’s very transparent desperation for a deal with Iran — and apparent unwillingness to go back to war —that’s emboldening Iran to continue its rejectionism to the point where it launched ballistic missiles at Israel over the weekend, feeling confident Trump would constrain Israel from any sustained response (which he did).

Only in Trump’s mind is a ceasefire with active fighting still a ceasefire. But he’s hoping he can maintain that illusion long enough to prevent him from losing more ground politically. Gas prices and reopening the Strait of Hormuz are bigger priorities at the moment to him than Israel’s national security.

Meanwhile, in Israel, the public is pushing Netanyahu to continue taking the fight to Hezbollah, whose drones and rockets have made the northern part of the country virtually uninhabitable. And Israelis are increasingly frustrated, despite Trump’s popularity in the country, over how Netanyahu is being restrained from responding against Iran because of American political pressure.

A clear majority of Israelis (59%) in a May poll from the Institute of National Security Studies believed Israel should intensify its fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The pollster also found, a month earlier, that 61% of Israelis opposed the initial American-led ceasefire.

Netanyahu, in an election year, is in a no-win situation where he’s tasked with maintaining solid support from Trump, given their perceived strong relationship has been at the center of his reelection messaging. But now that shifting American politics is pushing the president to distance himself from Israel’s preferred policies, Netanyahu is stuck without his trump card.

This is where Netanyahu’s bet on Trump — and trust in the personal relationship he’s built with him — is looking a bit shaky right now. Support for Israel runs widely in Republican circles (and deeply among Jewish Republicans and evangelicals), but some of the backing is a partisan reflection of the president’s own stalwart support of the Jewish state.

If Trump, for his own political self-interest, decided to change course in his Middle East policy, it’s likely many of his voters would follow to the beat of his drum. And that would leave Israel without much backing within the Democratic Party, and support within the GOP subject to Trump’s own personal whims.

That’s a pretty precarious place for Netanyahu to be in — just several months before his own big election.

SIMS SELECTION

Pro-Israel voices offer reassurance about Vance’s new national security advisor

Cliff Sims is known inside the White House as a China hawk, but his record on the Middle East is less established

RW/Mediapunch /IPX

Cliff Sims at Good Morning America promotes his new book T'eam of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House' in New York City on January 28, 2019.

By

Emily Jacobs

June 8, 2026

Vice President JD Vance tapped Cliff Sims last month as his national security advisor last month, picking a longtime GOP operative with close relationships across the party’s ideological spectrum on foreign policy.

The hire bolsters Vance’s foreign policy operation at a time when intraparty fissures are widening over the lack of diplomatic or military progress in the war with Iran and the broader question of American engagement abroad.

Sims will be leading Vance’s foreign policy team alongside Andy Baker, one of the vice president’s closest aides and a deputy national security advisor.

Sims is a longtime political ally of President Donald Trump, a friend of several members of the Trump family — including Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr. — and has longstanding personal and professional relationships throughout the president’s orbit and in Republican politics.

In addition to being a Vance confidante, Sims, 42, has advised or worked with Trump, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, most recently serving as chairman of the CIA’s external advisory board.

Sims is known in Republican foreign policy circles as a China hawk. He led several China-related efforts during his tenure as director of message strategy for the White House and deputy director of national intelligence for strategy and communications at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Sims and Ratcliffe co-authored numerous op-eds from late 2021 to early 2022 where the two claimed the Chinese Communist Party poses the greatest threat to U.S. national security.

After serving as deputy director of national intelligence under Ratcliffe in the first Trump administration, Sims was appointed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) as a commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission in 2024, serving a two-year term. Later that year, he took over as executive director of the Trump 2024 presidential transition, also leading the CIA’s transition process from the Biden administration to the current one.

“Cliff served as one of my deputies when I was DNI and I saw firsthand his exceptional judgment and command of the most sensitive national security matters,” Ratcliffe told JI. “He has been a fearless advocate for President Trump’s foreign policy, and one of my most trusted advisors. Vice President Vance made an outstanding choice in selecting Cliff as a national security advisor.”

Unlike with China, Sims’ views on Middle East policy are not as clear.

Two sources with direct knowledge of his ideology in the region, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Jewish Insider that Sims believes that some issues can be solved through U.S. military action without engaging in extended military intervention, which he opposes.

Both sources said that Sims and Vance are closely aligned on foreign policy, especially regarding China.

One source argued that Sims’ experience in political communications and speechwriting will be an asset for Vance with messaging on the war in Iran amid the ongoing negotiations to pursue a diplomatic resolution to the conflict.

Vance’s decision to tap Sims has been a source of reassurance to some in the pro-Israel community who have been concerned about Vance’s foreign policy worldview and relationships with antisemitic podcasters like Tucker Carlson.

Sims’ hiring won praise from two of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s board members who worked with Sims at the conservative public affairs firm, Watchtower Strategy, that they cofounded last year.

Jeff Miller, a leading Republican lobbyist and the board chair of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, told JI that Sims “knows the president’s and vice president’s foreign policy inside and out.”

“I’ve seen firsthand his talent and competence and he’s going to be a great asset to the White House, and not just on U.S.-Israel issues, but across the whole national security landscape,” Miller said of Sims.

Dan Conston, former president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the House GOP super PAC, similarly celebrated Sims joining Vance’s team.

“Cliff has talked often about his support for Israel’s unconditional right to destroy Hamas, particularly after the Oct. 7 attacks, and his belief that Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon,” Conston told JI. “Like the president, Cliff’s always going to put America’s interests first, and where Israel’s interests and U.S. interests align, Israel couldn’t ask for a better friend.”

Before joining the second Trump administration, Sims also ran a strategic advisory firm and served on the board of POLARIS National Security, a nonprofit that supports political candidates who prioritize defense concerns. The group was founded by Morgan Ortagus, who briefly served on White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff’s team last year before joining U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz’s staff in New York. Ortagus is a close ally of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and other hawkish Republicans.

An Alabama native, Sims is also a lifelong Baptist who participated in Christian missionary work in Europe, Africa, Asia and North and South America. He wrote a book, released in May 2024, using stories about his time in the West Wing and his personal upbringing to offer reflections on how Christian Americans should use their faith as a compass to navigate the current hyper-partisan nature of U.S. politics.

He also is the author of a 2019 tell-all that led to a temporary falling out with the president, in which he detailed how several of Trump’s foreign policy decisions framed parts of his worldview. The book initially sparked the president’s ire despite its positive portrayal of him for exposing the chaotic nature of the first Trump administration, one source told JI.

Sims wrote in the memoir, Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House, that Trump’s unemotional reaction to Palestinian protests in response to his decision to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem was a significant life lesson, while praising the president’s move.

“The president had done nothing wrong. He had taken a stand and made good on a promise that [former presidents] Clinton, Bush, and Obama had all bailed on. I was proud of what he had done — we all were,” Sims wrote. “But I could not help but feel uncomfortable as he calmly watched a mob carry a stuffed Trump through the streets hanging on a cross.”

“I find it difficult to explain what it feels like to watch that level of hatred being displayed on TV screens all over the world while standing right next to the person at whom the hatred is being directed. And yet the president was the calm in the eye of the storm,” he continued. “I learned something important from the president that day — something that I have tried to make a core operating principle in my life: you have to make peace with being misunderstood.”

Sims came back into the fold and mended his relationship with the president in early 2020, just prior to joining Ratcliffe’s team at ODNI, a source with direct knowledge told JI. Trump agreed to the rapprochement after Kushner and Trump Jr. urged him to consider resolving their dispute and defended Sims’ 2019 tell-all for portraying the president positively.

Q&A

State Dept official Sarah Rogers urges protecting free speech while fighting antisemitism

‘The Nazis may have the right to post, but also the Nazis are bad and sick and stupid,’ Rogers told JI

Screenshot

Sarah Rogers, under secretary of state for public diplomacy, speaks at the Hudson Institute on May 20, 2026.

By

Emily Jacobs

May 27, 2026

Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, maintained that the Trump administration’s commitment to free speech, including for extreme views, does not take away from its opposition to antisemitism, telling Jewish Insider in a wide-ranging interview that “the Nazis may have the right to post, but also the Nazis are bad and sick and stupid.”

The senior U.S. diplomat acknowledged the tension between allowing hateful views on social platforms and concerns about rising rates of antisemitism globally, though she maintained that the path to successfully responding to Jew hatred requires support for free speech protections, and said that she looks forward to visiting Israel in the future.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Jewish Insider: You have been unequivocal in your public statements about the rise of antisemitism globally being a serious problem, while also maintaining your position on free speech protections. How do you draw that line between promoting free speech culture while ensuring you have the tools to fight antisemitism?

Sarah Rogers: I don’t see this as a line-drawing exercise between opposed priorities. There’s really no conflict between opposing antisemitism on the one hand and opposing censorship on the other. America has a proud history of opposing both. Censorship has not kept antisemites out of power, it has been deployed by antisemites who gain power.

[Supreme Court Justice] Oliver Wendell Holmes was the first to say that freedom of speech really means freedom for the thought that we hate. You can guard that principle while still saying, “Okay, there are some thoughts that we hate, and we’re going to speak against them, and we’re going to explain why these people are wrong, and we’re going to fight that battle in the marketplace of ideas.” I think every free speech advocate makes normative judgments about the speech that’s on offer, and a normative judgment I’ve always made is that the Nazis may have the right to post, but also the Nazis are bad and sick and stupid.

JI: How do you, or the State Department more broadly, view efforts to counter foreign operations and propaganda campaigns, especially with regard to media where the location of origin is often hidden?

SR: Countering what is called in the [State Department] statute “foreign malign influence” is part of my statutory mandate, and we take it seriously. There are a whole bunch of tools in what you might call the counter-propaganda toolbox.

This is an information environment where legitimacy and trust are more important than ever. Right now, we’re in this liminal zone. I think technology will refine this landscape a bit, but we’re in a zone where any image or any video can be fake, and so it is more important than ever if we were trying to persuade the global public that they can trust us.

What I’m looking for ways to do now, and what the State Department wants to do now, is to counter these kinds of influence operations chiefly through exposure and through counter speech. We can expose the foreign providence of a lot of information and the inauthentic nature of some of the behavior. That doesn’t mean we have to reach out behind closed doors to Twitter or Facebook and urge them to censor anyone concurring with a particular narrative. We don’t have to do that. It is not my job to dictate what Americans can say or see online, but I can tell Americans what we and our partners are seeing online and let them make up their own minds.

One thing that my office has done in the past also is try to promote technologies that improve the information environment and make that environment one in which we can more easily communicate about American priorities.

I don’t want to fund tools that put a centralized thumb on the scale of permissible opinion, or that try to choke off permissible opinion before it gets to the public sphere. What I’d rather do is prospect and promote tools that respect and empower the audience to discern true and authentic information and have the kinds of conversations they want to have.

Both X, formerly Twitter, and Meta have started rolling out the “Grok, is this true?” feature. It’s kind of interesting. Everyone knows the LLMs are trained on a consensus model of available opinion. A lot of them have gobbled up like most books ever written. They’ve scoured social media. When these models first debuted, they were pretty clunky. There was a whole genre of AI discourse that just consisted of people making their LLM say insane, woke, Kafkaesque things, but the models have gotten better. They’ve gotten better to the point where most people, even people with unpopular opinions, trust them to kind of collate facts.

There are now some early scientific studies showing that, as a result, interacting with AI chatbots depolarizes people politically. It is conducive to lessened political extremism, and I think making that kind of tool available is an example of something we can do that doesn’t make people feel coerced or condescended to, it doesn’t spark that kind of oppositional, anti-institutional reflex, because you’re just letting them have access to something that they want and they enjoy. We’ve also seen those exact tools used to push back on antisemitic propaganda online.

JI: Can you speak to how private industry and social media companies have responded to your engagement on these issues?

SR: I’ve had a lot of congenial interactions with the tech sector. I’ve been accused by critics, including in Europe, of essentially being too staunch an advocate for the tech sector, which is ironic because I started my free speech activism career as a thorn on the side of Big Tech. When we’re advocating for the freedom of our companies not to censor, then of course they’re grateful. I also think, though, that within Silicon Valley, within the investor class and the executive class, and then the user bases of these companies, there is a real organic demand for ways to harness the powers of invention to make the information environment better.

I have intentionally avoided having any interactions with tech companies that could reasonably be expected to result in the removal of content. If I ever had reason to do that, like if there was a tweet with the nuclear codes in it or something like that, I would try to make sure that I disclosed that to the public, but I avoid it as a matter of practice. Still, I have conversations all the time with people in the tech industry who are interested in how we discern content provenance, how we can help people integrate AI in ways that are less conducive to kind of AI psychosis type outcomes, how we can promote truthful information.

The only reason the information environment feels so new and different is because Americans are so good at innovating things that spread like wildfire and change the world. That’s fundamentally good. Now we’re in this new information environment, and you’ve probably heard me say this before, that this is on par with the invention of the telegraph or the film strip, and so there’s going to be some shudders and spasms as we adjust, but we can use the power of innovation and invention to make our environment better, not worse. I think tech is very receptive to that, especially because there’s all this kind of almost superstitious anti-tech discourse right now, and so there’s a natural appetite to prove that chorus wrong.

JI: With that in mind, how would you describe your role in terms of responding to this growing threat of foreign disinformation and the outgrowth of antisemitism that such propaganda efforts cause? Do you see your role as more of a behind the scenes dealmaker or something else?

SR: I would not say my role principally consists of brokering informal understandings with tech companies. I think because my role has a tech component of its portfolio, it’s just natural that I have some conversations and relationships with tech companies, but zooming out, my role is public diplomacy. That includes civil society grant making, it includes a lot of public advocacy, it oversees educational and cultural affairs, so I have a really broad umbrella of stuff I can do to interact with the information environment generally.

On antisemitism, we have funded interfaith cultural restoration projects and educational projects to promote cross-cultural understanding and diffuse hatred. We are trying to promote tools like AI to rationalize and depolarize the information environment. We’re doing all that stuff, but the information environment part is only part of it.

We are looking for more opportunities to publicly and candidly communicate on trends we’re seeing in the information environment, and we want to do it in a way where it doesn’t sound like we’re scolding the audience and telling them what not to believe. We just want to credibly share aggregated statistics and facts about what we’ve observed, and I want to make sure that we get that right.

That means number one, I’ve actually instructed my staff, like whenever we operate on this issue, we need to literally or figuratively make a commitment to not censor American speech or censor anybody. We want to do the counter speech and exposure, and I think you’re going to see more of that.

I’ve collaborated a lot on the antisemitism issue with Rabbi [Yehuda] Kaploun, who’s our special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism. We have participated in the Shabbat dinners with him. We had Rabbi Kaploun organize a Shabbat with officials from Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, and with a bunch of members of the administration. It was a really powerful coming together around this issue, and I think you’re gonna see more of those kinds of activities that my office is proud to be involved with, too.

JI: Do you coordinate with other agencies and other departments to ensure that these efforts don’t overlap or contradict each other, be it about antisemitism or free speech or anything else that you’re doing?

SR: So one thing that I’ve done is I’ve encouraged my public diplomacy staff, who do kind of overt messaging for the State Department, to make sure that they are coordinated with other parts of the government, including, for example, the Department of War, who are engaged in messaging activities of overlapping topics in the same region. That’s just common sense, so we want to make sure that all of our messaging activities are aligned, or at least not at odds with each other.

I think a great thing about this administration compared to the first one is that when President Trump staffed his first administration, he was kind of newly triumphant and his coalition was still consolidating, so there wasn’t this existing infrastructure and existing talent pool of people who were aligned with the administration’s foreign policy vision, and now there are. Because of that, I have great relationships with counterparts at other agencies, and it’s very easy for us to have these conversations, though all conversations you have in the government take longer and are more kind of bureaucratically ritualized than they should be.

JI: Have you made any efforts in your role promoting public diplomacy to highlight the U.S.-Israel relationship?

SR: The answer is yes. I was actually just in close touch with the Israeli Embassy about some America 250 commemorative activities that we were going to undertake, including “America Day” celebrations at three university campuses in Israel. We’ve done a lot of interfaith and church restoration activities in the Middle East that Israel is very supportive of.

I also hope to visit Israel when scheduling considerations permit.

JI: Looking toward Europe, you and Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) both spoke at the Hudson Institute last week about the free speech conversations we’re seeing across the Atlantic. What we’re also seeing are sharp rises in antisemitism across the continent. Do you connect the two? And if so, what do you see as the prescription for solving both issues?

SR: I absolutely connect the two. It’s interesting, another thing I always say when people ask me about this sort of tension between antisemitism and free speech is that I had my staff run numbers on this. When it comes to actual antisemitic hate crimes, not speech crimes, but crimes where someone gets hit or synagogues vandalized, the per capita rate of those in continental Europe and elsewhere in the Anglosphere is much higher by orders of magnitude than it is the United States, even though we have open season free speech, and they all reportedly have laws against antisemitism.

There was this incident in London a few years ago where a caravan of pro-Palestine protesters drove through a reputedly Jewish neighborhood in London, screaming through a megaphone, “F*** Jews. Rape their daughters. Free Palestine.” There were no hate crime charges. I think London police claimed there wasn’t enough evidence that they’d done it, even though it’s on video. So who does get prosecuted under these hate crime laws?

There is this famous Nazi hunter in France, Serge Klarsfeld. He’s one of the most famous Nazi hunters. He has a son, Arno Klarsfeld, who’s a well-regarded French jurist who actually helped prosecute some of the Nazi collaborators. Arno Klarsfeld was pursued by French authorities under French hate speech laws for basically saying that France should do mass deportations of people who’d already had their asylum hearings and were adjudicated as deportable. He was basically advocating for the same kind of policy that President Trump has tried to use to mitigate antisemitism in the United States.

You have this decorated French Jewish antisemitism jurist being threatened with legal punishment just for advocating a deportation policy, so that’s an obvious nexus, and I’m not saying it’s the only one, but it’s an obvious nexus between censorship law and antisemitism.

After the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia, you had a proposed hate speech law in response that would have had an exemption for any speech that’s religious. Well, if you were an ISIS jihadist, your speech was religious, so you’re basically carving out the exact ideology that appeared to have motivated that attack. So that’s how I see these issues in relation to one another.

JI: Is there anything else about Europe’s broader handling of antisemitism that concerns you?

SR: I think often there’s a sense that if you ban antisemitism legally then you have done the work required to oppose it, and I don’t think that is the story that the crime statistics tell. I don’t think it is the story that the political landscape tells. I’ve had many conversations with earnest European interlocutors who genuinely oppose antisemitism and want the best for the Jewish people in their countries, and so I don’t think bad faith is to blame. I just think that these laws are not the answer.

JI: One last question. I want to ask about Germany, specifically the far-right Alternative for Germany party. You’ve met with some of their officials and praised them specifically on free speech issues. AfD is a far-right ultra-nationalist party whose leaders have espoused antisemitic and pro-Nazi sentiments. Do you see these parties as antisemitic, and do you think the same free speech principles should apply to them despite their historical legacy?

SR: I had one meeting with one AfD official and immediately was lambasted for purportedly being pro-Russia. The point I made at the time was that if this guy were really a Russian asset, he’s a pretty bad Russian asset, because he condemned censorship in that meeting and Russia’s a big fan of censorship. I also stand by what I also said at the Hudson Institute, which is that European policymakers don’t need to give right-wing parties a monopoly on common sense when it comes to mass migration or things like internet regulation. In fact, it would be healthy to have a democracy where multiple parties are against destructive mass migration, for example.

In terms of Germany and its specific legacy on Holocaust denial laws, what I would say is this: I come from an American First Amendment tradition, so I would not want to see laws in the United States like that, but if the only thing these European countries were prohibiting was actual Holocaust denial or actual rank incitement of genocide against Jews, then I don’t think you’d be seeing as many arguments between, for example, European authorities and American internet platforms.

We didn’t sanction [Former European Commissioner] Thierry Breton for asking that X take down a Holocaust denial post — that post would be protected under the First Amendment, but that didn’t lead to the sanctions. What we sanctioned Thierry Breton for doing was threatening an American company with European regulatory penalties for allowing an American politician, President Trump, to speak on an American platform, so our laws do differ there, but if that were the only difference, I don’t think you’d be seeing these flare-ups. The differences are far greater than that.

FAMILIAR FACE

Direction of Dem policy group raises red flags after hiring of new leader with history of anti-Israel activism

National Security Action named Maher Bitar, a former Biden official and Students for Justice in Palestine student activist, as its new leader

Screenshot/C-SPAN

Maher Bitar

By

Matthew Kassel

May 5, 2026

Several top Jewish Democrats are expressing concerns about the ideological direction of a newly revived foreign policy group now aiming to shape the party’s approach to Israel in the 2028 presidential election as well as a future Democratic administration.

National Security Action, an influential Democratic foreign policy organization that launched in 2018 and helped staff the Biden administration, is returning to the political arena with a new leader, Maher Bitar, who has served in high-level defense and intelligence roles on Capitol Hill and in the White House, the group confirmed on Sunday.

Bitar, a deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and coordinator for intelligence and defense policy at the National Security Council who most recently served as chief counsel and national security advisor to Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), has faced scrutiny over his past record of anti-Israel activism.

During his time in the Biden administration, Bitar, who is Palestinian American, drew criticism from Republican lawmakers who alleged that he had demonstrated bias against Israel, citing, among other things, his past board membership with Students for Justice in Palestine while attending Georgetown University. As a student, he had also helped organize a pro-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions conference and was shown in a university yearbook performing a dance in front of a banner that called to “divest from Israeli apartheid.”

Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security advisor in the Obama administration who is now a leading left-wing critic of Israel, co-founded NSA with Jake Sullivan, most recently Biden’s national security advisor. Sullivan drew headlines last year when he came out in support of withholding arms to Israel, an argument he reiterated last month on “Real Time With Bill Maher” while defending the majority of Senate Democrats who had recently voted to block some weapons sales to the Jewish state.

Both sit on NSA’s board and will be involved in the group, Rhodes told Axios, saying he is invested in building a “pipeline” to help “populate a Democratic administration” as well as crafting “ideas that can form a progressive or Democratic foreign policy going forward.”

“The center of gravity has shifted on the relationship with Israel, and there will be a debate about the nature of the relationship going forward,” Sullivan told the outlet.

“We urge National Security Action to continue to be an honest convener about these important issues,” Brian Romick, the president of Democratic Majority for Israel, told Jewish Insider. “There is a strong majority of Americans, including Democratic primary voters, who support the U.S.-Israel relationship because they understand that doing so is in the best interest of the United States.

“DMFI is proud to advocate for those voices and we recognize they have a major role to play in choosing our 2028 nominee,” Romick said.

Bitar told Axios, which first reported his role, that NSA would be a “big-tent” organization seeking to unite the party. “We are not excluding anyone,” he said, noting that the group will serve as a “hub” to discuss Democratic foreign policy “to be ready for 2028 and beyond.”

A former senior foreign policy official in the Biden administration, who was granted anonymity to address a sensitive issue, told JI that Bitar “was part of a small cohort of senior White House advisors who worked to actively undermine President Biden’s policy preferences by inserting their own anti-Israel ideology, especially” following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

“National Security Action exists to help empower our leaders and broad community of stakeholders to communicate effectively about foreign policy and bring together a wide range of perspectives,” David McGonigal, a spokesperson for the group, said in a statement to JI.

“Maher’s deep relationships across the national security community and the outpouring of support for his appointment — including from members of Congress and organizations such as J Street, the Jewish Democratic Council of America and the Nexus Project — underscore how National Security Action is uniquely positioned to carry out this important mission.”

Ethan Wolf, a Democratic strategist who previously worked as a communications director for Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), told JI he was “concerned National Security Action is rewriting everything they’ve ever stood for and putting their pen in the hand of a ‘Pod Save America’ bro,” referring to Rhodes’ association with the left-wing political podcast hosted by former Obama officials who have grown increasingly hostile to Israel.

DMFI, for its part, also alluded to Rhodes and the podcast in a heated social media post on Monday. “Democrats and Americans do not want Pod Save America hosts dictating our future national security platform,” the group wrote.

Despite other reservations over Bitar’s new role, some Jewish Democrats voiced positive views about his extensive resume.

“Maher has held multiple high-level national security positions in government — in the House, in the Senate and in the Biden and Obama administrations — where he was deeply respected for his pragmatism, depth and expertise,” said Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “I enjoyed working with Maher in the Obama administration and think National Security Action is lucky to have him at the helm.”

Daniel Shapiro, a U.S. ambassador to Israel in the Obama administration who served as a top defense official in the Biden administration, said he had worked with Bitar “in various capacities for over a decade, and know him to be a thoughtful and talented national security professional.”

“When we agree and when we disagree — and we do both — Maher has always been dedicated to pursuing smart, strategic, productive policy in the national interest,” Shapiro told JI. “I am confident we will continue to have a productive dialogue. And I completely reject the prejudiced attacks against him based on his Palestinian-American identity.”

In an unsolicited statement shared by a spokesperson for Schiff, the senator said Bitar “has been devoted to addressing the country’s most complex foreign policy challenges while upholding our values and protecting America’s national security interests.”

“In this new role with National Security Action, I know Maher will continue to provide the great insights and leadership we need to get through these turbulent times,” Schiff told JI.

Joel Rubin, a progressive strategist involved in Jewish and pro-Israel causes, acknowledged what he called a “freak-out” among some Jewish leaders over Bitar, but expressed optimism that the new NSA head would be open to constructive dialogue on a divisive issue.

“As long as multiple voices are included at the table, and I have no reason to believe they won’t be, this is the reality of the Democratic Party,” said Rubin, who is releasing a new book on Democratic foreign policy this week.

Michael Makovsky, the president and CEO of the hawkish Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said, “Given the recent anti-Israel statements and actions of possible Democratic presidential candidates, even historically pro-Israel ones such as Rahm” Emanuel “and centrist former officials like Jake Sullivan, it will be interesting to see if the big tent the organization says it’s seeking will include real pro-Israel voices.”

NSA is also hiring an associate director for polling and outreach to “support its work advancing a smart, principled vision of U.S. foreign policy, while pushing back on the Trump administration’s reckless national security policies,” according to a job listing posted to its website.

The group’s previous executive director, Caroline Tess, a former National Security Council official in the Obama administration, stepped down in 2025.

ANALYSIS

Trump’s political capital goes to the polls

You couldn’t draw up a better test on the degree of Trump’s impact on the Republican Party than examining the results from four states holding highly consequential primaries next month that will be a benchmark of the president’s power

Win McNamee/Getty Images

President Donald Trump walks toward reporters before answering questions prior to boarding Air Force One on April 10, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.

By

Josh Kraushaar

April 16, 2026

There’s been a lot of debate lately over whether President Donald Trump is losing some of his grip on the Republican Party, amid growing economic concerns and the ongoing military operations in Iran.

While the media coverage has been amplifying any sign of intraparty discontent — to the point that former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is getting strange new respect from some Democrats and mainstream press alike — polls continue to show Trump with widespread backing from within his own party, and especially within the MAGA faction of the GOP.

Ultimately, election results are the best reality check. And you couldn’t draw up a better test on the degree of Trump’s impact on the Republican Party than examining the results from four states holding highly consequential primaries next month that will be a benchmark of the president’s power.

Key races in Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana and Texas will speak volumes about the president’s ability to shape the GOP agenda for the remainder of his second term — and most consequentially, whether he will be able to maintain a unified front with his party on continuing to pursue military action against Iran.

The biggest intraparty showdown, especially when it comes to foreign policy, is the May 19 primary between Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and military veteran Ed Gallrein. Massie, one of the few anti-Israel Republicans in Congress, is being opposed by Trump but also has a solid base of grassroots support in the northern Kentucky district, which has thus far supported his anti-establishment brand of politics. But Gallrein has proven to be a credible challenger, raising millions and giving Massie the biggest political test of his career.

Trump has spent some valuable political capital to boost Gallrein, including appearing at a recent rally in Massie’s district to promote his challenger. He’s been joined by the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has poured $3.5 million into the race, airing five ads underscoring Massie’s record of breaking with Trump. (Further drawing Trump’s ire: Massie also joined with Democrats in championing the release of the Epstein files.)

It’s never easy to beat a sitting incumbent, but Trump also has an imposing record of winning primaries in which he chooses to engage. If Massie pulls out a victory despite breaking so flagrantly with Trump on a number of key issues, it will be a sign of the president’s diminished political clout.

Another high-profile race where Trump’s engagement in a primary hasn’t yet been definitive: Sen. Bill Cassidy’s (R-LA) uphill fight to win renomination against Trump-endorsed Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA) and state Treasurer John Fleming. The primary will be held on May 16, with the top two finishers heading to a runoff if no one wins a majority of the vote.

Cassidy, largely because of his vote to impeach Trump in 2021, has long faced challenges with the GOP base. Trump, looking to secure Cassidy’s defeat, backed Letlow earlier this year in hopes she’d consolidate the MAGA vote. But Trump’s endorsement hasn’t translated into a groundswell for Letlow, and the presence of Fleming, a former right-wing congressman, has complicated the political math in the primary.

Cassidy looks like a long shot even if he heads to a runoff, and Letlow holds a narrow lead in the limited public polling of the race. But there’s a chance that Fleming could sneak past Letlow on the primary ballot and face Cassidy in a runoff, blocking Trump’s candidate from the race. If that happened, it would be another sign that Trump’s endorsement doesn’t carry the same weight as it once did.

The first Trump test of the month (May 5) will be in Indiana, where the president is trying to punish certain Republican state legislators for not backing a redistricting plan, championed by the White House, which would have allowed the GOP to gain an additional seat.

Finally, it’s the spring race where Trump has remained on the sidelines that may be a signal of his limited political powers. After Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) finished ahead of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the state’s primary last month, reports indicated the president was close to endorsing Cornyn for reelection, in an effort to prevent an expensive and competitive general election against Democrat James Talarico.

But amid furious pushback from right-wing activists and polls suggesting that a Trump endorsement wouldn’t have moved the needle that much, the president has not gotten involved in the race. That alone speaks volumes about the limited level of the president’s political capital.

Trump boasts a near-perfect record in GOP primaries throughout his decade-long political career, with the most prominent setbacks being in Georgia (working against Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in 2022). So if the president’s chosen candidates end up falling short in these key contests, it will be a sign that Republicans may already be preparing for the post-Trump era.

MAYORAL ADDRESS

Zohran Mamdani accuses Israel of genocide on St. Patrick’s Day stage

The mayor lauded visiting former Irish President Mary Robinson and her controversial tenure as U.N. high commissioner for human rights

TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP via Getty Images

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (2L), New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch (2R) and Cardinal Timothy Dolan (R) participate in annual St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York on March 17, 2026.

By

Will Bredderman

March 17, 2026

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani took the occasion of St. Patrick’s Day and the presence of former Irish President Mary Robinson in New York to talk Middle East politics and praise Robinson’s controversial tenure as the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights.

Speaking at a breakfast at Gracie Mansion, Mamdani acknowledged Robinson from the lectern and lauded her record of advocacy, particularly singling out her stance on Israel. The Irish presidency is a largely ceremonial role.

“I think also of how she stood steadfast alongside the people of Palestine,” the mayor said in listing Robinson’s accomplishments. “I say this as over the past few years as we’ve witnessed a genocide unfold before our eyes, there has been deafening silence from so many. For those who have long cared about universal human rights and the extension of them to Palestinians, silence, however, is nothing new. For Palestinians are so often left to weep alone. Yet former President Robinson has never been silent.”

During her tenure at the U.N., Robinson chaired a preparatory meeting for the 2001 World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia gathering in Tehran that blocked the participation of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and representatives from the persecuted Baha’i faith. Robinson blamed the obstruction on “procedural and technical” issues, though she voiced support for the general right of such groups to take part.

The eventual conference, held in Durban, South Africa, was a notoriously disorganized fiasco that led to the end of Robinson’s commissionership. The conference saw the withdrawal of American and Israeli delegations over draft document language from Arab governments attempting to reinstate a repealed U.N. resolution that declared Zionism to be a form of racism and to compare Israeli policy to the Holocaust.

She was a founding member of The Elders, a group of veteran global leaders promoting “peace, justice, human rights and a sustainable planet,” and became the group’s chair in 2018. In 2014, she co-authored a Foreign Policy opinion piece with former President Jimmy Carter amid the 2014 Israel-Gaza war that called for “recognizing Hamas as a legitimate political actor.”

FRIENDLY FIRE

Ben Rhodes calls for primaries against Democrats who support Iran war

‘If you can't stand against that, you don't stand for a f***ing thing,’ the former Obama admin official said

Cheriss May/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Ben Rhodes, then-deputy national security advisor to President Barack Obama, participates in an interview with press at the White House in on Wednesday, December 14, 2016.

By

Gabby Deutch

March 11, 2026

A former top Obama administration foreign policy official said on Wednesday that any Democratic lawmakers who vote to support U.S. strikes on Iran should be primaried.

“If you vote for the funding of this war, you should be primaried. I don’t want you in the Democratic Party,” said Ben Rhodes, co-host of the “Pod Save the World” podcast and former deputy national security advisor under President Barack Obama.

He was referring to Reps. Greg Landsman (D-OH), Henry Cuellar (D-TX), Jared Golden (D-ME) and Juan Vargas (D-CA), the only four Democrats to vote against a war powers resolution last week that sought an immediate end to the U.S. military campaign in Iran.

Rhodes, who was one of the biggest boosters of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and a leading Israel critic on the left, said the Democratic Party should have a big tent — but that support for President Donald Trump’s actions in Iran falls outside of that tent.

“I would like to have a big tent in this party. I think there should be people with different ideas of how to get health care, different ideas of taxation,” Rhodes said to co-host Tommy Vietor. “To me, this is not a left-center issue. This is a right and wrong issue. Morally, what do we stand for as Democrats?”

Rhodes suggested that Democrats who cast a vote in support of the war are doing so because of donor pressure.

“How is anybody going to trust you to fight for their health care if you’re too afraid to cast a vote, that someone might call you weak or some donor might call you and complain?” Rhodes asked. “If you as a Democrat can’t say that I am against a war and I’m not going to fund a war that is being launched by an authoritarian president, illegally, with no rational basis that is explained to the American people, that has already unleashed these consequences, if you can’t stand against that, you don’t stand for a f***ing thing.”

Democratic Divide

John Fetterman again offers scathing criticism of his own party’s foreign policy views

The Pennsylvania senator told JI about the U.S. military operation’s successes: ‘Why can’t a single Democrat agree that this is a good thing for the world and the region?’

Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images

Senator John Fetterman speaks during the grand opening of The Altneu synagogue.

By

Emily Jacobs

Marc Rod

March 11, 2026

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is criticizing his fellow Democrats over their opposition to President Donald Trump’s decision to launch the U.S. war in Iran, arguing that his party should celebrate efforts to bring down the Iranian regime and its military and nuclear capabilities as a “positive development.”

Fetterman, the most vocal pro-Israel Democrat in the Senate, has been one of the leading advocates for striking Iran directly since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. He backed Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities amid the 12-day war with Israel last year, criticizing Democrats at the time for speaking out against the operation, and has since emerged as one of the staunchest Iran hawks in the Democratic Party.

The Pennsylvania senator said, since leading Democrats have long argued that Iran should never have the ability to get a nuclear weapon, criticism from the party of the joint U.S.-Israel efforts to degrade their military capabilities is hypocritical.

“First, let’s get to history. Every single Democratic presidential candidate or Democratic president all agreed, we can never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear bomb. Everyone has run the gamut: sanctions, treaties, proxies, other kinds of negotiations. It never worked,” Fetterman told Jewish Insider in an interview on Tuesday. “But you know what it actually produced? Nine hundred pounds of just pure, weapons-grade uranium.”

“When the country that wants death to America and wants to destroy Israel could have been months away from developing a nuclear weapon, and every single Democratic candidate for president all agreed we can never allow them [to do so], why can’t we just acknowledge what’s happened?” he asked. “It’s a profound development. I don’t get it. I know what the [Democratic] base demands right now: condemn and criticize.”

He said that Democrats should be able and willing to praise the operation for degrading Iran’s regime and its capabilities.

“Why can’t a Democrat call this a positive development given everything that Iran is responsible for and what their ambitions are?” Fetterman said. “This is effectively us destroying the Nazi regime and Hitler before they could’ve even begun. So, to your readers, whether in Israel or here, I ask: Why is that a problem?”

Fetterman also said that the media and fellow Democrats are ignoring what he characterized as the apparent successes and effectiveness of the U.S.-Israel strikes.

“Iran’s capabilities have been effectively ended. Right now, the missile strikes are down by 90 percent. Their Navy is gone. They can’t even project any force at this point,” Fetterman said. “Why do The New York Times and other left-wing media keep making it seem that the region is on fire when this is the breaking free of Iran? Why can’t a single Democrat agree that this is a good thing for the world and the region?”

Fetterman also blasted recent comments from former Vice President Kamala Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, potential 2028 Democratic presidential contenders, criticizing Trump’s decision to launch the U.S. war in Iran and questioning the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship. The Pennsylvania senator said he was not surprised by the mainstreaming of opposition to Israel within the Democratic Party, predicting that the shift away from supporting Israel would continue.

“I expect at the end that our party is going to continue to back away from the moral clarity of Israel. If you are describing Israel as an apartheid state, or you have people in leadership [doing so], that’s profoundly disappointing but unsurprising,” Fetterman said.

Tactical error

Iran ‘catastrophically’ miscalculated in striking Arab countries, experts say

JINSA’s Hussein Mansour: ‘During the 12-day war, Qatar called Iran the sisterly Islamic Republic. Nine months later, Qatar is shooting down Iranian jets’

Fadel SENNA / AFP via Getty Images

A yacht sails past a plume of smoke rising from the port of Jebel Ali following a reported Iranian strike in Dubai on March 1, 2026.

By

Matthew Shea

March 5, 2026

Leading Middle East foreign policy experts warned that Iran’s decision to expand its response to the U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign by striking neighboring Arab states could prove to be a major strategic miscalculation — one that risks isolating Tehran further and potentially drawing Gulf countries to take action.

In the days following the launch of the campaign, Iran carried out widespread drone and missile strikes at multiple Arab nations, striking all members of the Gulf Cooperation Council — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — as well as Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Oman.

Some Iranian strikes hit U.S. military installations in those countries, as well as the U.S. consulate in Dubai and the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia, in what analysts said was an apparent attempt to raise the costs for Washington and lead allies to pressure it to halt the campaign.

But Iran also indiscriminately struck civilian targets — including airports, hotels and major oil and gas infrastructure — causing damage that is sending oil prices soaring and could have lasting economic consequences for the region. Prior to the attacks, several of the affected Arab governments had publicly stated they would not allow their territory to be used to launch strikes on Iran.

On Sunday, the U.S. issued a joint statement along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait, strongly condemning Iran’s “indiscriminate and reckless missile and drone attacks against sovereign territories across the region.”

The attacks have only continued and expanded since then: On Wednesday, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said that Iran had launched a ballistic missile towards its airspace that was intercepted by NATO defense systems. NATO spokeswoman Allison Hart condemned the incident, adding that NATO “stands firmly with all allies.”

While Arab officials have sought to distance their countries from the conflict and have largely remained silent as they weigh their options, experts said Iranian attacks are a significant error from Tehran that risks pushing Arab states toward direct involvement.

Alexander Gray, a former National Security Council chief of staff under President Donald Trump and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Jewish Insider that Iran’s decision to attack Arab countries was an “extraordinary strategic miscalculation.”

“Not only has Iran forced the region’s Arab states to openly support the U.S. and Israeli operation, but it has encircled itself far more effectively than any American diplomacy could have accomplished,” Gray said. “Over the long term, this unifying force may offer the U.S. a unique opportunity to return to the economic and diplomatic track of the Abraham Accords on a broader, regional basis after the conclusion of the military operation.”

Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at Israel Policy Forum, echoed those sentiments, calling the action a “risky move at best.”

“Iran’s decision to attack neighboring Arab states was intended to impose escalating costs that would theoretically put pressure on the U.S. to bring the war to a halt,” Koplow said. “So far it has backfired as the U.S. and Israel show no signs of backing down, while there are reports that the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are contemplating taking their own action against Iranian missiles and launchers.”

He added that the latest missile fired toward Turkey is “a sign of Iranian regime desperation,” and follows a similar pattern. Koplow also noted that Gulf states are likely to have a “much lower tolerance threshold for Iranian attacks and provocations” going forward, warning that the result could be “an even more isolated Iran facing a regional coalition that takes a more aggressive posture toward its own defense.”

Hussein Mansour, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, also said that Iran “catastrophically” miscalculated. “Iran created the conditions for the Gulf states to join the operation,” said Mansour. He added that Tehran’s decision to strike Arab neighbors destroyed “every diplomatic off-ramp it [Iranian leadership] had spent years cultivating.”

Dana Stroul, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said “there is no question that Iran’s strategy of punishing U.S. allies and partners backfired.”

“Gulf leaders are also making clear they maintain the right to defend themselves and are likely considering the proposition that, given Iran’s willingness to unleash its missile and drone arsenal, the best defense is a strong offense,” Stroul said. “It should not be a surprise if in the coming hours or days we see an expanded role for Gulf countries under attack.”

Amb. Dan Shapiro, a former official in both the Obama and Biden administrations, also told JI that the recent Iranian attacks increases the potential for Arab partners to get involved, noting that the situation underscores the value for Arab countries in “being part of a regional air defense network that includes the United States, but also includes Israel.”

“The Gulf states mostly wanted to stay out of this conflict,” Shapiro said. Now, ”there’s at least some possibility you see the UAE and possibly other Gulf states participate in some measure in operations against Iran.”

Mansour said the strikes have pushed the Gulf states further away from Iran and towards the West.

“Last June, during the 12-day war, Qatar called Iran ‘the sisterly Islamic Republic,’ Kuwait accused the U.S. of violating international law, and Saudi Arabia called for ‘restraint,’” said Mansour. “Nine months later, Qatar is shooting down Iranian jets. Saudi Arabia has authorized retaliation and offered to place ‘all its capabilities’ at the region’s disposal. The UAE has shuttered its embassy in Tehran.”

Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Trump administration official, told JI that he views Iran’s decision to attack Arab neighbors as more of a “reality of who the regime is” rather than a miscalculation.

“The regime is fighting for its survival, it sees all of these countries hosting U.S. bases or otherwise aligning with the U.S. in strategic ways. It knows one of their only cards to play is both to drain air defense assets and spike energy prices, so it wildly attacks civilian and critical infrastructure across the region,” said Goldberg. “The regime sees most of these countries as complicit in the attack simply by enabling the U.S. to operate in the Middle East, and it knows that if it can hit enough energy targets hard enough it can increase the pain point for the West.”

Kristin Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, said that while Arab Gulf states are “furious with Iran,” there are reasons for them to refrain from entering direct conflict.

“I suspect that [Arab states] not becoming a party to the war will be essential to negotiating workarounds with the Iranians,” said Diwan. “These will be necessary to get the breathing space in shipping and transport necessary to endure a long war.”

“This same logic will apply if Iran emerges from the war depleted but still dangerous,” Diwan added. “While America may depart the region, Iran will remain, and its Arab neighbors must find a way to live with it.”

Goldberg said that while there is “political benefit” for the U.S. in having Arab governments “endorse offensive military action against the regime,” he noted that “absent a major offensive military contribution to the war [from Arab states], the regime inflicts more costs on the region than it endures for doing so.”

“The GCC states are now on an escalation ladder they did not choose and cannot easily descend,” said Mansour. “If Iran continues to target energy infrastructure, I imagine the Gulf will retaliate severely. The bigger question is what happens after the war stops, and this will largely depend on how the war stops.”

Congressional reax

Partisan divide emerges on Iran strike, centering on congressional authorization

Most Democrats are pushing for a war powers resolution next week, amid ongoing military operations

Win McNamee/Getty Images

The American flag flies in front of the U.S. Capitol on February 28, 2026 in Washington, DC. U.S.

By

Marc Rod

February 28, 2026

A number of Republican lawmakers rallied behind President Donald Trump’s military strikes against Iran on Saturday, while leading Democrats expressed quick and strident opposition to the administration’s decision to attack Iran.

Democrats are also demanding Congress reconvene promptly next week to vote on war powers resolutions to block further military operations in Iran without congressional approval. The resolutions were already expected to come up for votes in the coming week.

A few Democratic lawmakers sounded more open-minded about the attack against Tehran. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), one of the few foreign policy hawks in his party, said the president “was absolutely” correct to attack Iran in an appearance on Fox News. “God bless the United States, our great military, and Israel,” Fetterman said.

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), who told Jewish Insider earlier this week that limited strikes on Iran could be necessary and productive, echoed that stance on Saturday. He said that he would oppose the war powers resolution.

“I hope these targeted strikes on the Iranian regime’s military assets end the regime’s mayhem and bloodshed and makes way for this lasting peace in the region,” Landsman said. “Thank you to our brave service members who are leading this effort, and I pray their work will finally free the people of Iran and those in the region from more violence or war. May peace emerge from all of this.”

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), who had been planning to oppose the war powers resolution, praised the attack while highlighting the administration’s obligations under the War Powers Act, which limits the duration for which the president can unilaterally commit forces to armed conflict without congressional approval.

“Today, the United States, with our key democratic ally Israel, took decisive action to defend our national security, fight terror, protect our allies and stand with the Iranian people who have been massacred in the streets for demanding freedom from the murderous Iranian regime,” Gottheimer said. “I applaud the extraordinary bravery and professionalism of our servicemembers and pray for their safety as Iran and its terrorist proxies retaliate against American bases and our partners in the region.”

“Confronting the Iranian threat is essential to America’s national security and to global stability. The world is safer because of the courage and skill of our service members. I am praying for their safety and the safety of all of our allies who have been targeted by Iranian retaliation,” he continued.

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) offered more muted support for the operation, praising U.S. servicemembers while saying she “stand[s] with the Iranian people in their hope for a better future and will continue to work in a bipartisan way in Congress to provide them the support they need.” She called for an immediate and detailed briefing on the administration’s plans, and highlighted Iran’s long record of malign activity and attacks on its own citizens.

But Rosen also warned against a protracted conflict and criticized the lack of congressional authorization.

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY), among the most moderate Democrats in the House and a potential swing vote on the war powers resolution, said Trump needs to seek congressional authorization for the operation, while offering support for the administration’s goals.

“I agree with the President’s objectives that Iran can never be allowed to obtain nuclear capabilities. The President must now clearly define the national security objective and articulate his plan to avoid another costly, prolonged war in the Middle East,” Suozzi said. “Iran remains the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the region and must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. Preventing that outcome is vital to our national security, the safety of our allies, and the stability of the Middle East.”

Most of the leading voices in the Democratic Party, however, are rallying against the Iran attack.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who is leading a war powers resolution in the Senate that he planned to call up for a vote next week, said in a statement, “Every single Senator needs to go on the record about this dangerous, unnecessary, and idiotic action,” calling the strikes a “colossal mistake,” accusing the president of having “learned nothing from decades of U.S. meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East” and of being “mentally incapacitated.”

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who is leading similar legislation in the House, said that “the American people are tired of regime change wars that cost us billions of dollars and risk our lives. We don’t want to be at war with a country of 90 million people in the Middle East.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), one of the few GOP isolationists in Congress and Khanna’s cosponsor on that resolution, also said he opposes the operation.

“This is not ‘America First,’” Massie said. “When Congress reconvenes, I will work with @RepRoKhanna to force a Congressional vote on war with Iran. The Constitution requires a vote, and your Representative needs to be on record as opposing or supporting this war.”

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH), another isolationist-minded Republican who indicated this week that he was leaning toward voting for the war powers resolution, sent similar signals on Saturday.

“We need a government small enough to fit within the Constitution. We need a government effective enough to solve problems and serve its own people. Or, we need a new Constitution,” Davidson said.

The House is not scheduled to reconvene until Wednesday.

Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who was one of the handful of congressional leaders briefed on the administration’s plans earlier this week, said that “everything I have heard from the administration before and after these strikes on Iran confirms this is a war of choice with no strategic endgame.”

He said he expressed his concerns to Secretary of State Marco Rubio during the briefing this week.

Republicans are largely lining up behind the administration, with the exception of Massie.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who had urged Trump to take action, praised the administration, saying Trump had “met the moment.”

“My mind is racing with the thought that the murderous ayatollah’s regime in Iran will soon be no more. The biggest change in the Middle East in a thousand years is upon us,” Graham said. “The likelihood of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel getting back on track is exceedingly high – a subject I brought up last week to the key players in the region who concurred if the ayatollah goes down, historic peace advances.”

Graham met with leaders in Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates this month and said on Fox News on Saturday morning that he plans to return soon. Following retaliatory strikes by Iran on U.S. military facilities in several Arab states, Saudi Arabia issued a statement condemning Iran and offering its support for measures the Arab states may take in response.

“This operation has been well-planned,” Graham continued. “It will be violent, extensive and I believe, at the end of the day, successful. Again the demise of the ayatollah’s regime with American blood on its hands is necessary and more than justified.”

He later urged Arab and other allies to “get behind President Trump and go all in to ensure the ayatollah’s Iran, which has become the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world is no more.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who was also briefed, said, “The butcher’s bill has finally come due for the ayatollahs. May God bless and protect our troops on this vital mission of vengeance, and justice, and safety,” highlighting the regime’s long record of attacks against Americans.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Iran is “facing the severe consequences of its evil actions,” and said Trump had “made every effort” at diplomacy. “For decades, Iran has defiantly maintained its nuclear program while arming and funding Hamas, Hezbollah, and other internationally recognized terrorist organizations. Iran and its proxies have menaced America and American lives, undermined our core national interests, systematically destabilized the Middle East, and threatened the security of the entire West.”

“The Gang of 8 was briefed in detail earlier this week that military action may become necessary to protect American troops and American citizens in Iran. I received updates from Secretary Rubio thereafter, and I will remain in close contact with the President and the Department of War as this operation proceeds,” Johnson continued.

Other rank-and-file Democrats, including some moderates, drew parallels with the Bush administration’s war against Iraq in their criticism.

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that the strikes raise “serious legal and constitutional concerns.”

“The American people have seen this playbook before — claims of urgency, misrepresented intelligence, and military action that pulls the United States into regime change and prolonged, costly nation-building,” Warner continued. “We owe it to our service members, and to every American family, to ensure that we are not repeating the mistakes of the past. The president owes the country clear answers: What is the objective? What is the strategy to prevent escalation? And how does this make Americans safer?”

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), an Iraq war veteran representing a GOP-leaning state, expressed concern for U.S. forces, who Trump acknowledged could be lost in the ensuing war.

“I lost friends in Iraq to an illegal war. Young working-class kids should not pay the ultimate price for regime change and a war that hasn’t been explained or justified to the American people,” Gallego said. “We can support the democracy movement and the Iranian people without sending our troops to die.”

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), a co-chair of the House Jewish caucus and a key pro-Israel leader, criticized the administration’s move and said he would support the war powers resolution. “The President of the United States is not allowed to take our nation to war without authorization from Congress.”

“This is a moment of peril and opportunity,” Schneider said. “Congress must step up to meet the moment, fulfill its constitutional duties, and ensure American action — with our allies in the region and around the world — leads to a more stable and peaceful Middle East, not another generational entanglement ending in failure.”

Former Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA), among the House’s most vocal Democratic Iran hawks while she was in office and who is now running to reclaim her former seat, also said Congress should “immediately return to Washington” to vote on Kaine’s war powers resolution.

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) said that Trump has “no credibility on either the strategy or law guiding foreign policy” — pointing to the president’s delayed promise to Iranian protesters earlier this year that help would be coming — and said he plans to support the war powers resolution.

“I am ready to work across the aisle to craft congressionally directed strategy on Iran, especially for securing American air supremacy in the region and supporting the Iranian people’s right to self determination,” Auchincloss said. “But first congressional Republicans must call the question on this fundamental issue of war powers by voting against a reckless commander-in-chief and for the Constitution.”

DELHI DIPLOMACY

Modi’s upcoming visit expected to take Israel-India relations ‘to a new, strategic level,’ Israeli ambassador says

In an interview with JI, Amb. Reuven Azar says joint manufacturing ‘means that, during times of need, we can supply things to each other, unlike what happened [with other countries] during the war’

PRAKASH SINGH/AFP via Getty Images

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (R) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pose for photographers after Netanyahu arrived at the Air Force Station in New Delhi on January 14, 2018.

By

Lahav Harkov

February 24, 2026

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to arrive in Israel on Wednesday to address the Knesset and head an innovation event in Jerusalem, as part of what Israeli Ambassador to India Reuven Azar told Jewish Insider is an “upgrade” in relations between the countries “to a new, strategic level.”

The visit of the head of the world’s most populous nation, whose relations with Israel have grown stronger since Modi became prime minister in 2014, has important implications for the Jewish state’s security, geopolitics and trade, Azar said.

Modi last visited Israel eight years ago. At the time, a photo of the Indian leader and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wading barefoot in the Mediterranean Sea during a visit to a desalination plant went viral.

His trip this week, during which he will address Israel’s Knesset, comes amid rising tensions across the Middle East — and as Israelis prepare for a potential attack from Iran.

India has been the Israeli defense industry’s largest customer in recent years, with arms sales totaling $20.5 billion during 2020-2024. The countries have reportedly closed deals worth $8.6 billion since the beginning of 2026.

During his visit, Modi plans to sign an “updated security agreement to allow the private sector to work on more sensitive products when it comes to joining production,” Azar, who has been Israel’s envoy to India since September 2024, said. “The updated protocols will allow us to work on more sensitive technology. It will create a lot of action.”

Netanyahu and leading Israeli defense figures have spoken about moving toward greater self-sufficiency in arms manufacturing. Delhi has long had a “Make in India” campaign to increase local production, requiring Israeli arms companies to open production lines in India in order to sell to the country, and the agreement means that joint production “will get a significant upgrade, because we are expanding both the scope and range of technologies we can apply,” Azar said.

“Both Israel and India want to be more independent and self-reliant when it comes to production and less reliant on foreign supply. Producing things together means that, during times of need, we can supply things to each other, unlike what happened during the war [in Gaza] … in which we had interruptions in supply from different countries,” Azar said.

Economically, Israel and India are working on a free-trade agreement, and hope to expand their cooperation on emerging technologies, as well as large infrastructure projects. Azar said that he worked to bring Indian companies to bid on tenders relating to the ongoing Tel Aviv Metro subway project, and that 15 have already applied.

The U.S. has long expressed concern about security risks related to Chinese companies working on major infrastructure projects in Israel. Companies from India, which views China as an adversary, have been considered as a potential competitive alternative.

Though Azar, a former deputy national security advisor for foreign policy, served as head of the Israel-U.S.-China Internal Task Force Israel’s Foreign Ministry at the beginning of the decade, he declined to comment on that aspect, preferring to focus on Israel-India bilateral relations.

With regard to the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), a trade route meant to pass through Israel, among other countries in the region, and compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Azar said that “we need to wait for the right geopolitical moment to make it happen. … It needs to happen, but evidently, it won’t now.”

“Currently, there is some movement of merchandise, but to see it become massive, we need some change in Saudi Arabia,” Azar said.

Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E., both points on the IMEC route, are facing increased tensions between them. Riyadh has pointed some of its ire at Jerusalem, and has been growing closer to India’s historic foe, Pakistan.

Azar was enthusiastic about an Israeli Cabinet decision approved on Sunday in which Israel plans to allocate over $48 million to cooperation with India in a variety of spheres. Half of the funds come from individual government ministries seeking the cooperation, and the other half was specially allocated by the Finance Ministry.

“The most important is upgrading research and development with funds from the Israel Innovation Authority, and academic cooperation. Israeli universities are all over India now, getting into agreements to exchange students and transfer technology and innovation offices. They feel very welcome in India,” he said.

Asked if that means India has become an alternative to much of the West, where Israeli academics have faced hostility in recent years, Azar said that India and Israel “don’t have challenges in this realm and continue working together to discover the joint resilience so needed in times of war.”

At the same time, he added, “it’s important for any country to diversify. We feel we have so much in common with India, which is a rising force in the world. It’s natural, and it’s not only Israel. Last week, 20 heads of state and 50 foreign ministers went to an AI summit in India. … Everybody is chasing India now.”

Though India-Israel relations were worse before Modi’s rise, Azar said they have the potential for longevity.

“We are now building the pillars of relations that are going to last,” he said. “We are trying to get bipartisan support. There is a lot of support for Israel, not just in [Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party]. The general public feels it, and we have a high appreciation of that. There are some parties, like the communists, that are more critical, but I think this relationship is going to last.”

DELAWARE DISPOSITION

Chris Coons warns White House over striking Iran without support from European allies

The Delaware senator holds a unique place in the Democratic Party, rising to leadership roles while continuing to champion Biden-era foreign policy

Alex Kraus/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, at the Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany, on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026.

By

Emily Jacobs

February 23, 2026

Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), one of the leading foreign policy voices in the Democratic Party’s moderate wing, expressed concern over the weekend that any White House decision to move ahead with military action against Iran would deeply alienate leading European allies of the United States.

“There are pretty stark early warning signs of some challenges where core allies do not share our priorities,” Coons told Jewish Insider following a weeklong trip to Europe, which included stops at the Munich Security Conference, along with meetings in Ukraine and Moldova with top European diplomats.

“It leaves me genuinely concerned that if Trump goes ahead with a strike against Iran, it is not going to enjoy support from any of our core allies,” he continued. “That will make it harder, and it may deepen this growing challenge for us.”

Asked how he would like to see the Trump administration address the Iranian regime’s violent crackdown on protesters and its nuclear program, Coons urged the president to work with close allies to “ramp up pressure” on Tehran and explain his approach to the public. The Delaware senator also encouraged Trump to include Congress in his deliberations.

“A) Consult Congress. B) Make a case to the American people about why this is in our national security interest,” Coons said. “C) Clarify what on earth he’s planning with this Board of Peace, which just launched with a massive pledge from the United States that none of us had heard of before he announced it,” he said, ostensibly referring to the $10 billion financial commitment Trump made to Gaza’s reconstruction. “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.”

“He shouldn’t just fire off a bunch of missiles and assume that that’s going to be enough to achieve the result he wants,” he added.

Coons also highlighted growing transatlantic tensions over potential U.S. military action against Iran during discussions with European officials, who expressed worries about a brewing U.S.-U.K. dispute tied to the Chagos Islands.

The remote British Indian Ocean Territory is at the center of a 2025 agreement in which the U.K. agreed to transfer sovereignty of the island chain to Mauritius while securing a 99- or 100-year lease for the strategic Diego Garcia military base, a joint U.S.-U.K. facility long used by American forces.

The Trump administration initially signaled support for the deal, with the State Department affirming it last Tuesday. But one day later, President Donald Trump publicly urged Prime Minister Keir Starmer to scrap the arrangement and retain full control of the “strategically located” base, warning it could be needed if diplomacy with Iran fails.

The Times of London reported Thursday that the British government had informed Washington that week it would not permit U.S. strikes on Iran from Diego Garcia or the Royal Air Force’s Fairford station, which houses U.S. Air Force troops, in England.

Coons called the U.K.’s stance “striking.”

Coons plays a unique role in today’s Democratic Party. He sits in the Senate seat held by former President Joe Biden for 36 years, and the two Delaware Democrats have a relationship that dates back four decades.

In addition to being the ranking member on Defense Appropriations, the panel responsible for Pentagon funding, Coons is next in line to succeed retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a role Biden held in the early 2000s. The Delaware senator remains Biden’s most ardent defender in politics following his exit from public life, and continues to advocate in his role as a senior Democrat in Congress for the traditional foreign policy views the two men have long shared.

He does so against the backdrop of the ongoing debate among Democrats about the future direction of the party, on foreign policy and otherwise, in the post-Biden era.

Alongside Coons in Munich were a handful of prominent Democrats believed to be considering presidential runs in 2028, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI). Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gavin Newsom of California and former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

Among the possible presidential hopefuls, Ocasio-Cortez and Whitmer were criticized for being unprepared for the conference after struggling to answer questions on U.S. policy toward China and Ukraine. Meanwhile, Murphy and Ocasio-Cortez separately accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza — appealing to a left-wing base that has made criticism of the Jewish state central to its foreign policy.

Ocasio-Cortez later griped to The New York Times that her gaffes and perceived presidential ambitions overshadowed the message she was attempting to deliver on a major foreign policy stage.

Asked about the large presence of potential Democratic presidential candidates in Munich, Coons joked that he was “announcing my 2028 candidacy” before crediting his fellow Democrats for engaging closely on foreign policy issues.

“The reality is that over the last several cycles, I’ve been very encouraged to see governors, senators, former cabinet officials who are likely future presidential candidates invest the time in coming to Munich, coming to Davos, going to Halifax, going to Australia, because the threat environment for all of our countries has become more serious and more real,” Coons said.

Coons also expressed concern about the hefty $850 billion budget for the Pentagon in the upcoming fiscal year, noting the significantly increased funding is “a breathtaking amount of money, and there is a lot of skepticism on the part of Americans that it’s being well spent.”

“The average American needs to see good jobs and innovation coming out of this massive defense investment. If we focus only on buying American and only on American jobs, we will lose tactically, we will lose strategically, we will lose politically. To the extent we align together, there is a strong future for all of our countries as democracies to meet this moment and to deliver the innovation that this threat environment absolutely demands,” Coons said.

DIPLOMATIC SPAT

South Africa banishes Israeli diplomat days before vote in Congress on trade benefits

Pretoria angered after Israel offers parched region water management aid; Jerusalem declares South African diplomat serving Palestinians persona non grata

Amb. David Saranga/X

King Buyelekhaya Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo, the monarch of the AbaThembu people, and Amb. David Saranga.

By

Lahav Harkov

February 2, 2026

South Africa and Israel banished each other’s highest-ranking diplomat serving in each country, after a video of Israel offering water technology and medical aid to minority tribes angered Pretoria last week.

The diplomatic row took place days before Congress is expected to vote on renewing the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which would allow many products from the continent to enter the U.S. duty-free. The Trump administration has considered removing South Africa from the program because it is a “unique problem,” as U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer described it in December. Removal from AGOA would adversely affect about half of South Africa’s exports to the U.S., its second-largest trading partner, Bloomberg reported.

Pretoria declared Israel’s chargé d’affaires, Ariel Seidman, persona non grata on Friday, and hours later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar expelled South African envoy Shaun Edward Byneveldt, whom they called “the senior diplomatic representative of South Africa.” Byneveldt is South Africa’s “ambassador to Palestine,” but he was based in Tel Aviv, and diplomats serving the Palestinians are accredited by Israel.

Israel and South Africa have not exchanged ambassadors in recent years. South Africa announced in 2019 that it had downgraded its embassy in Tel Aviv to a liaison office. Israel maintained an ambassador in Pretoria until South Africa petitioned the International Criminal Court to arrest Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in 2023.

However, with an active Jewish community of over 50,000, Israel has dispatched Amb. David Saranga, the Foreign Ministry’s director of digital diplomacy and a former ambassador to Romania, to be a kind of ambassador-at-large, visiting South Africa for specific meetings and projects.

Saranga visited South Africa’s Eastern Cape last Sunday, as a guest of King Buyelekhaya Zwelibanzi Dalindyebo, the monarch of the AbaThembu people. The group is part of the Xhosa nation, the second-largest tribe in the country. Dalindyebo had visited Israel weeks earlier. The largest tribe, the Zulu, dominates South African politics through the African National Congress, the largest party in the country’s parliament.

In a post on X, Saranga characterized the Eastern Cape as “a region rich in heritage, poor in infrastructure,” noting that in some areas, “access to clean drinking water remains a luxury rather than a given” and “healthcare challenges are equally severe.” Saranga helped arrange partnerships between Innovation:Africa, Israel’s Sheba Hospital, Dalindyebo and other traditional leaders in the region.

Saranga and Dalindyebo held a joint press conference with other traditional leaders outside the tribal leader’s home during the Israeli diplomat’s visit last week, videos of which were posted to social media by the Israeli embassy. In one of them, Dalindyebo said of the South African government’s opposition to cooperation with Israel: “They can go to hell if they wish.” Saranga can be seen chuckling next to him.

“As a king, I am a bona fide head and owner of the land. If any government, if any constitution disputes that, someone must educate me afresh,” Dalindyebo said, asserting his authority to accept aid from Israel if he so chooses.

Days later, the Eastern Cape province’s premier, Lubabalo Oscar Mabuyane, expressed “shock and concern” that Israel acted without consulting his office, calling it “a clear breach of diplomatic protocol.” Israel argued to the South African Jewish Report that it was acting within diplomatic norms.

On Friday, South Africa’s Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) gave Seidman a 72-hour deadline to leave the country following what it called “unacceptable violations of diplomatic norms and practice which pose a direct challenge to South Africa’s sovereignty.” According to DIRCO, the violations included a failure to inform the department of visits by “senior Israeli officials” and insults to South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on official Israeli social media accounts.

South African political news site The Common Sense reported that the ANC, of which Mabuyane is a member, was “panicked by an Israeli effort to expand a service delivery programme in the Eastern Cape and the positive reception to that programme by communities,” and “feared that positive imagery of ordinary South Africans cooperating with Israelis would be very damaging to the government’s hostile foreign policy towards Israel.”

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies contrasted DIRCO’s actions against Israel with its “willful blindness toward ongoing international atrocities [in Sudan and Iran] … This glaring inconsistency exposes the hypocrisy at the heart of DIRCO’s actions.”

“Given the dire lack of basic services for countless South Africans, it is striking that just days after Israel offered water solutions to a desperate community in the Eastern Cape, DIRCO expelled the Israeli charge d’affairs, diverting attention from real domestic issues,” the SAJBD added.

The South African Zionist Federation said that the expulsion of Seidman “is an act of staggering moral bankruptcy — a choice that exposes a ruling party more committed to ideological hostility than to the welfare of the people it has so profoundly failed.”

SAZF argued that DIRCO’s actions were “never truly about process, protocol, or sovereignty.”

“A diplomat was declared persona non grata not for espionage, not for misconduct, not for breaching protocol — but for the unforgivable crime of helping South Africans get water. Clean water,” the organization stated. “In a country where taps run dry, where children walk kilometers with buckets, where elderly women queue for hours at communal pumps, and where the state has normalised collapse, neglect, and decay, the ANC chose to punish the one party actually delivering solutions. … When water flowed where excuses had ruled, the ANC did not respond with humility or gratitude. It responded with expulsion.”

SAZF also accused the government of corruption: “What the ANC cannot tolerate is … aid that bypasses the patronage machine. Help that cannot be claimed, captured, or corrupted. … The message sent by this government is as obscene as it is clear: if assistance cannot be politically owned, it must be destroyed, even if people suffer.”

cash crunch

Saudi Arabia’s economic challenges raise doubts about commitments to U.S.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had pledged to increase Saudi investments in the U.S. to $1 trillion during his last visit, a figure experts put in doubt

Win McNamee/Getty Images

President Donald Trump (R) meets with Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia during a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on November 18, 2025.

By

Matthew Shea

January 29, 2026

Saudi Arabia’s growing economic struggles have raised doubts among foreign policy experts about whether Riyadh can fulfill its sweeping monetary commitments to the United States.

During Saudi leader Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the White House last November, the crown prince pledged to increase his country’s investments in the U.S. to nearly $1 trillion, committing funds to projects spanning artificial intelligence, energy, defense and infrastructure.

But the kingdom is now facing significant financial strain, driven by persistently low oil prices and the immense funding demands of its domestic development agenda, including Saudi Vision 2030, a major government initiative taken on a decade ago to diversify Saudi’s economy, society and culture, which has since been downsized.

“It’s an economic challenge, and frankly, crisis is a word which works for it,” said Simon Henderson, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The Saudi economy requires $100 barrels of oil, and although the price of oil has gone up a bit in recent days, it’s still low and way short of $100.”

Henderson emphasized that while Saudi Arabia remains a wealthy country due to its hydrocarbon reserves, declining revenue has forced the government to scale back or cancel marquee projects.

Among the most visible examples Henderson cited were the indefinite postponement of the 2029 Asian Winter Games, which the kingdom was set to host at a futuristic mountain resort as part of its Neom mega‑project, as well as the postponement of a major construction project in Riyadh.

“They have had some very ambitious projects which are very expensive, and there isn’t the money to fund the projects,” Henderson said. “If you’ve got plans for the economy and you can’t fulfill them and you have to cancel them, then that makes it a crisis.”

Due to the increasing financial strain and decision to scale back major financial ventures, experts remain skeptical that Riyadh will have the capacity to live up to its major investment commitments in the U.S.

Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said the pledge is “in doubt,” and called the initial promise “as much performance as substance.”

“A lot of the money Riyadh would devote to U.S. investments is instead being plowed into its ambitious Vision 2030 development projects at home,” said Ruhe. “We already see this reflected in the recent announcements that Neom and other high-prestige gigaprojects are being scaled back. Combined with persistently low oil prices, this means the kingdom is running deficits. In this crunch, borrowing to fund overseas investments becomes less likely.”

Henderson echoed those sentiments, calling Saudi’s investment pledge a “headline figure with a very strong Trump dimension to it.”

“Clearly they [Saudi Arabia] can’t do it at the moment,” said Henderson. “Everybody knew it was far-fetched and probably an exaggeration. It’s clearly not going to happen anytime soon.”

Ruhe noted that several countries in the Middle East practice what he called “checkbook diplomacy” in order to “grab headlines during major summits” and “gratify Trump’s desire to be a deal-maker.” He noted that a similar strategy has been employed by Qatar and Turkey.

In May 2025, President Donald Trump signed an agreement with Qatar for an economic exchange worth at least $1.2 trillion during his visit to the country. Four months later, Turkish Airlines completed a deal to buy 225 Boeing planes following a White House meeting between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“The actual execution is always in doubt, even if some of the investments do come through,” said Ruhe. “During Trump’s first term, Saudi Arabia announced nearly a half trillion dollars of deals and investments in the United States, but only a fraction of that ever came to fruition.

The kingdom’s economic situation, and its ability to invest nearly $1 trillion, is now less favorable than it was in Trump’s first term.”

Experts noted that should the proposed investment fall through, it is highly unlikely to change the diplomatic relationship between Washington and Riyadh, nor would it have any consequential impact on the U.S.

“Actual Saudi investment in things like AI and critical minerals supply chains would certainly be great for the United States, but it’s just as important for both countries to focus on advancing other aspects of the strategic partnership,” said Ruhe. “Especially regional collective defense against Iran and keeping Riyadh from becoming too close to Beijing and Moscow.”

IN MEMORIAM

Eitan Na’eh, first Israeli envoy to Bahrain, UAE, remembered as dedicated diplomat

Na’eh, who died on Monday, was ‘the Abraham Accords ambassador, ushering in a new era of regional diplomacy,’ Fleur Hassan-Nahoum said

Emre Senoglu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Then-Israeli Ambassador to Ankara Eitan Naeh gives a speech during his first reception in Ankara, Turkey on December 5, 2016.

By

Lahav Harkov

January 19, 2026

Veteran Israeli diplomat Eitan Na’eh, who had a long career in key posts representing Israel in the Arab world, died of a heart attack on Monday. He was 62.

Na’eh’s most recent role was as the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s representative to the U.S.-led Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) in southern Israel, established in October to coordinate humanitarian relief efforts and the stabilization of Gaza.

Na’eh played a key role in growing and preserving Israel’s relations with Abraham Accords signatories. He was Israel’s first envoy to the United Arab Emirates in 2021, setting up Jerusalem’s diplomatic representation in Abu Dhabi. His last posting abroad was in Bahrain, where he served as Israel’s first ambassador to the country from December 2021 until August 2025.

In 2022, Na’eh told Jewish Insider: “I sit here in Manama and look outside to a beautiful view of the Gulf, and I am still pinching myself. I feel lucky to work in these countries.” The ambassador said at the time that he was optimistic about expanding the Abraham Accords and the potential in Israel-Bahrain ties.

A Foreign Ministry official characterized Na’eh to JI as “contributing the first steps in establishing relations in the framework of the Abraham Accords. … He built the content of the Abraham Accords at a critical time in which you don’t want to drop the ball.”

The official said Na’eh was skilled at bringing concrete results from diplomatic relations and had a talent for making connections. At the CMCC, “everyone knew him after five minutes,” the official recalled.

A Bahraini diplomat remembered Na’eh as someone who “represented his nation with grace and wisdom, but also fostered genuine goodwill and friendship wherever he went.”

Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, co-founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council and former deputy mayor of Jerusalem, called Na’eh “the Abraham Accords ambassador, ushering in a new era of regional diplomacy in the most professional way.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that Na’eh was “a gifted diplomat who stood out in his ability to make connections wherever he served. Above all, in all of his missions and many positions he filled, Eitan was known for his big heart and endless caring.”

Na’eh was also Israel’s ambassador to Turkey from 2016 to 2018, the first after the diplomatic crisis between Jerusalem and Ankara following the 2010 Gaza flotilla incident. However, his term ended abruptly when Turkey expelled him in response to Palestinians killed by the IDF during protests and riots on the Gaza border.

He was previously Israeli ambassador to Azerbaijan and the head of the foreign policy department of Israel’s National Security Council, giving him a broad view of Israel’s international relations that the Foreign Ministry official said was very valuable.

Na’eh was also interim ambassador in London in 2013-2015, and Israel’s political consul at the Israeli consulate in Chicago in 1997-1999.

Hassan-Nahoum recalled Na’eh’s warmth and sense of humor, and said that he and his wife, Cheryl, had a marriage “to emulate in every way.”

Ahdeya Ahmed, former president of the Bahrain Journalists Association, called Na’eh “a friend who was like a brother.”

“I could talk about his professionalism as a diplomat, but what I really want to share is Eitan the friend — Eitan the warm soul who lit up every room, who always had a laugh, and who dreamed of a kinder world,” Ahmed said. “I’ll always remember his smile, his jokes, the way he made life’s burdens lighter for all of us, and all the celebrations we shared.”

Na’eh is survived by his wife, two children, Maya and Itai, and a granddaughter.

TO STRIKE OR NOT TO STRIKE

The red line that wasn’t: Will Trump back down from attacking Iran?

Analysts still think it’s possible that Trump will take action against Iran, but worry his backtracking on providing help to Iranian protesters could hurt American deterrence

Daniel Torok/The White House via Getty Images

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (R) sit in the Situation Room as they monitor the mission that took out three Iranian nuclear enrichment sites, at the White House on June 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.

By

Matthew Shea

January 15, 2026

Even as President Donald Trump backed away from taking immediate military action against Iran, several leading foreign policy analysts believe a U.S. strike against the Islamic Republic remains a possibility, arguing that the administration may be deliberately keeping Tehran off balance and preserving its military options.

Trump appeared to ease off on striking Iran after being advised by administration officials that a large-scale attack is unlikely to bring about regime change and could instead trigger a broader regional conflict, and hearing concerns from allies — including Israel, Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia — who have urged him not to carry out military action. U.S. officials said Washington is now monitoring to see whether Tehran is backing down from its violent crackdowns against protesters before determining whether to act.

“Even though Trump did not direct strikes on Wednesday, he is keeping options open,” said Dana Stroul, the research director at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, pointing to the administration’s decision to reposition the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier from the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East. “The buildup of military posture in the region over the coming weeks keeps plenty of military options on the table and maintains pressure on the Iranian regime.”

Stroul said the president appears to be taking additional time to ensure the U.S. is prepared not only to act against Iran, but also to defend regional partners in the event Iran attacks U.S. allies or military bases in the region, in retaliation.

Analysts cautioned that the delay should not be interpreted as a decision against military action altogether. Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Jewish Insider that he believes a strike is still on the table, putting the odds at “60–40 [percent]” in favor of a strike.

“There’s still a very real possibility of a strike,” Miller said. “I don’t see how the president gets out of the box he put himself in,” referring to Trump’s public calls for Iranians to continue protesting and his promise of U.S. assistance. “When an American president emboldens demonstrators and then says ‘We will help you’ without the capacity to really protect them, you have to wonder whether that’s morally conscious.”

Andrea Stricker, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, also noted that Trump’s rhetoric has made the administration’s hesitation striking.

“It’s puzzling and upsetting that President Trump would call on the Iranian people to continue protesting in the midst of gunfire and then wait so long to act,” Stricker said. She suggested the delay could reflect a deliberate effort to gain military or intelligence advantages before a strike.

“I lean more toward a possible deception campaign designed to expose IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] movements and preparations before an actual U.S. attack,” Stricker said, adding that the administration may prefer to wait until additional U.S. naval assets arrive in the region, which she said would “happen in the coming days.”

Other analysts were more skeptical that Trump’s hesitance is a cover for an impending operation. Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Iran envoy in the first Trump administration, said it’s possible the president won’t act at all.

“As of noon today, it seems Trump will not do anything, which is extraordinary after he urged Iranians to protest and seize institutions at the risk of their lives,” Abrams said on Thursday. “It is unconscionable to say ‘Help is on the way’ and then do nothing. I hope the president will change his mind.”

While the Iranian regime has faced unprecedented pressure at home and abroad, Stroul warned that Iranian retaliation could be significant in the event of a strike — potentially another factor in Trump’s hesitation.

“The regime still has substantial missile and cyber capabilities,” she said. In the event of a strike, “the U.S. and Israel would need to prepare for the possibility of a sustained, destructive conflict that could be extremely costly in human life, military platforms and infrastructure.”

Concerns over retaliation have fueled lobbying by Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, urging Trump to avoid military action, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly conveyed a similar message to the president on Wednesday

“Arab governments recognize that the regime in Tehran is destabilized but still dangerous,” Stroul said. “Desperate leaders often take unpredictable, aggressive actions. For a region trying to turn the page after years of conflict, leaders are wary of another escalation that could jeopardize economic and security priorities.”

Even among experts who believe military action remains possible, there is broad agreement that it’s not clear what the consequences of a strike would be or that sustained military engagement would lead to the collapse of the regime.

“Any military strike has to answer the question of how it actually changes the balance between a repressive regime and protesters who have very limited means to push back,” Miller said. “There’s no guarantee that even massive strikes would lead to regime change.”

Miller and Stricker both noted that the administration has also not articulated a clear plan for alternative political leadership in Iran should the regime fall — an issue that complicates any decision to intervene.

“Penalizing the regime enough to support the Iranian people could produce unclear outcomes in terms of who provides order and security afterward,” Stricker said. “At the same time, if Trump ultimately does not act, it will be seen by many Iranians as a historic betrayal — and by U.S. adversaries as weakness.”

Daily Kickoff

Will the U.S. recognize Somaliland?

Plus, Maduro's successor holds the party line

Amos Ben-Gershom (GPO)

Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullah speaks to Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Dec. 26, 2025

By

JI Staff

January 7, 2026

👋 Good Wednesday morning!

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we do a deep dive into Israel’s strategic interests in and diplomatic overtures to Somaliland following Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar‘s trip the country, and look at early signals from interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez that she will maintain Caracas’ critical approach to Israel and relations with American adversaries. We talk to Rep. Josh Gottheimer about his recent trip to the Middle East and challenges in building Gaza’s International Stabilization Force, and report on an article in the Spanish daily El Pais that disparaged the Jewish background of the judge overseeing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro’s case. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Dan Goldman, George Conway and Joyce Karam.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is holding House and Senate briefings this morning before meeting this afternoon with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud.
The New York City Council will elect its next speaker today. Councilmember Julie Menin, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, announced last month she’d garnered support from a supermajority of councilmembers. Read our report on Menin — and the counterweight she is expected to be to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s agenda — here.
Mamdani’s first major test with the Jewish community could come as soon as this evening, when PAL-Awda, the group behind the November protest outside a synagogue that was hosting a Nefesh B’Nefesh event about immigrating to Israel, is slated to protest another event hosted by NBN tonight in Manhattan.
Elsewhere in Manhattan, the annual Colel Chabad International Awards Gala is taking place tonight. Russian-Israeli entrepreneur Yitzchak Mirilashvili, Heather and Joe Sarachek, Sara and Harry Krakowski and Lauren and Martin Tabaksblat are set to be honored at the event. Also slated to be honored is Ahmed al-Ahmed, the Syrian immigrant to Australia who helped disarm one of the Bondi Beach terrorists during last month’s terror attack in Sydney.
The Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center is holding a panel discussion this morning at its Washington headquarters on the future of humanitarian assistance. Speakers include IsraAID CEO Yotam Polizer, Zipline Africa’s Caitlin Burton, DAI’s Tine Knott and UNICEF USA’s Patrick Quirk

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S Tamara ziEVE AND MATTHEW SHEA

At the conclusion of the 12-day war in June of last year, both Israel and Iran suspected that the ceasefire brokered by the U.S. would be a pause, not a final cessation of hostilities. That truce has lasted for more than six months, with both sides wary of entering another military conflict — one likely to be more deadly and destructive than the first.

But now, amid destabilizing world events from Venezuela to the Middle East — compounded by growing domestic pressure on the Islamic Republic amid nationwide protests — that ceasefire is even more tenuous, with officials in Tehran and Jerusalem closely watching the other’s every move, careful not to make a potentially disastrous miscalculation — even as both sides make overtures at de-escalation.

Speaking at the Knesset on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “President [Donald] Trump and I have expressed a firm stance — we won’t allow Iran to rebuild its ballistic missile industry or to renew the nuclear program, which we damaged severely in Operation Rising Lion.”

In response, Iran’s newly formed Defense Council warned on Tuesday that the country could act preemptively if it detects clear signs of a threat. “The long-standing enemies of this land … are pursuing a targeted approach by repeating and intensifying threatening language and interventionist statements in clear conflict with the accepted principles of international law, which is aimed at dismembering our beloved Iran and harming the country’s identity,” the council said.

Recent reports suggest that Israel, in an attempt to de-escalate tensions, has used Moscow as an intermediary, communicating through Russian President Vladimir Putin that it has no intention of launching a preemptive strike on Iranian soil. Iranian leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are unconvinced.

In a post on X, Khamenei accused Israel of deception: “What makes the enemy first request a ceasefire during [12-day] war with the Iranian nation, then send messages saying he doesn’t want to fight us?”

“Now if he doesn’t believe the messaging and thinks that Israel is about to attack then you can understand why Israel is worried Iran is about to miscalculate and attack. Very tense days/weeks ahead of us,” Nadav Pollak, a lecturer on the Middle East at Reichman University, commented on Khamenei’s post.

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

REASONING AND RAMIFICATIONS

Why Israel recognized Somaliland — and what the rest of the world might do next

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar meets with Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi in Hargeisa, Somaliland, Jan 6, 2026. (Shlomi Amsalem, GPO)

When Israel announced the day after Christmas that it would formally recognize Somaliland, making it the first country in the world to announce formal diplomatic relations with the secessionist region in the Horn of Africa, even some of Washington’s foremost foreign policy experts were sheepishly asking the same question: What, exactly, is Somaliland? There was no single event that led to Israel’s choice to recognize the sovereignty of Somaliland, which announced its independence from Somalia in 1991. The territory has functioned independently for 35 years; nothing in its governance changed last year. What changed was Israel — and its geopolitical calculus regarding regional security threats, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Security strategy: “The Houthis didn’t used to fire missiles at Israel. That’s new, and Israel’s now trying to respond to a new situation,” said David Makovsky, the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I have no doubt that this was driven by how to try to neutralize a threat from the Houthis that Israel takes very seriously.” Somaliland sits just across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, from which the Iran-backed Houthis have fired drones and ballistic missiles at Israel following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in 2023.

Read the full story here.

Sa’ar in Somaliland: Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar made a historic diplomatic visit to Somaliland on Tuesday, marking the first official trip by an Israeli Cabinet minister to the territory and the latest move to strengthen bilateral ties following Israel’s recognition of Somaliland’s independence last month, JI’s Matthew Shea reports.

REASONING AND RAMIFICATIONS

Why Israel recognized Somaliland — and what the rest of the world might do next

After Israel announced it would recognize the secessionist region, the big question remains whether the United States will follow suit

Shlomi Amsalem, GPO

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar meets with Somaliland President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi in Hargeisa, Somaliland, Jan 6, 2026

By

Gabby Deutch

January 7, 2026

When Israel announced the day after Christmas that it would formally recognize Somaliland, making it the first country in the world to announce formal diplomatic relations with the secessionist region in the Horn of Africa, even some of Washington’s foremost foreign policy experts were sheepishly asking the same question: What, exactly, is Somaliland?

There was no single event that led to Israel’s choice to recognize the sovereignty of Somaliland, which announced its independence from Somalia in 1991. The territory has functioned independently for 35 years; nothing in its governance changed last year.

What changed was Israel — and its geopolitical calculus regarding regional security threats.

“The Houthis didn’t used to fire missiles at Israel. That’s new, and Israel’s now trying to respond to a new situation,” said David Makovsky, the Ziegler Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I have no doubt that this was driven by how to try to neutralize a threat from the Houthis that Israel takes very seriously.”

Somaliland sits just across the Gulf of Aden from Yemen, from which the Iran-backed Houthis have fired drones and ballistic missiles at Israel following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in 2023. Allying with Somaliland could allow Israel to target the Yemeni militia from much closer range. Israel has also reportedly approached Somaliland about resettling Palestinians from Gaza there, although officials in the country have denied that such conversations took place.

Somaliland also sits in a strategic location south of Djibouti and to the east of Ethiopia, and its coastland is close to where the Indian Ocean and Red Sea meet, making it a prime shipping location.

“No one can ignore the strategic location of Somaliland,” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, told The Wall Street Journal. “The straits are a strategic point.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar visited Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital, on Tuesday to meet with President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi. It was the first visit by a foreign minister to Somaliland in its more than three decades of existence as a self-governing entity.

The key question is whether Jerusalem’s recognition of Somaliland will prompt similar moves by other nations. Somalia, with which Israel does not have diplomatic nations, has slammed the move. The African Union on Tuesday called for Israel to walk back its recognition, saying the move “represents an unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign Member State of the United Nations.”

But even as Israel faces diplomatic pushback even from allied African nations, it has created an opening for Somaliland to press its case internationally.

The region was a separate entity from Somalia beginning in the 19th century, when it was controlled by the British — in contrast to present-day Somalia, which was previously ruled by Italy. Today Somaliland is home to 6 million people, and it has held democratic elections throughout the past two decades.

Washington has not recognized Somaliland, and a State Department spokesperson told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that no such announcement is forthcoming.

“The United States continues to recognize the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia, which includes the territory of Somaliland,” the spokesperson said.

But at an emergency United Nations Security Council hearing last week, Tammy Bruce, the U.S. deputy representative to the U.N., defended Israel’s right to conduct diplomacy, and she called out the body’s “persistent double standards” in treating the recognition of Somaliland as different from states that have unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state.

“The Americans are engaging with the country. How quickly they move to recognize Somaliland, I don’t know,” said Max Webb, a Horn of Africa expert who works at Israel Policy Forum. “Somaliland has been a fixture of Republican politics.”

“Israel has the same right to conduct diplomatic relations as any other sovereign state,” said Bruce. “Earlier this year, several countries including members of this council made the unilateral decision to recognize a non-existent Palestinian state, and yet no emergency meeting was called to express this council’s outrage.”

Even though Washington does not recognize Somaliland, the region has a small diplomatic mission in the United States. In December, the top U.S. military official overseeing the Africa Command visited Somaliland and met with Abdullahi, its president.

“The Americans are engaging with the country. How quickly they move to recognize Somaliland, I don’t know,” said Max Webb, a Horn of Africa expert who works at Israel Policy Forum. “Somaliland has been a fixture of Republican politics.”

The conservative Heritage Foundation first called for U.S. recognition of Somaliland in 2021. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) threw his support behind recognition last August, and he said in a post on X on Monday that Somaliland recognition “aligns with America’s security interests.” President Donald Trump told The New York Post in December that he wasn’t yet ready to recognize Somaliland but that he will “study” the issue. “Does anyone know what Somaliland is, really?” Trump said.

Taiwan, which is not a United Nations member state, has a representative office in Somaliland, but it has not formally recognized Somaliland as an independent state. A handful of regional powerhouses, including Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates, also have strong economic relationships with Somaliland. They have yet to establish full diplomatic ties, although Somaliland and Ethiopia — the second most populous nation in Africa — signed a major memorandum of understanding in 2024. There are larger geopolitical factors at play: Egypt is closely aligned with Somalia, while Egypt and Ethiopia have long been at odds over an Ethiopian hydroelectric project on the Nile River. Turkey and Qatar, both of which are close to Mogadishu, condemned Israel’s actions.

Somalia is a key counterterrorism partner for the U.S., particularly as the Islamist group al-Shabab has grown and become more deadly alongside a Somali affiliate of ISIS. Some worry that U.S. recognition of Somaliland could hamper that coordination.

“Somaliland is on the map,” said Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “People who had never heard of Somaliland a week ago are suddenly reading up on its history and understanding its arguments.”

“I’m sure there are other countries as well beyond the U.S. that worry if they recognize Somaliland, then Somalia will have a full meltdown and will cut off counterterrorism cooperation, for instance, and then al-Shabab will make even further gains,” said Joshua Meservey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who has called for U.S. recognition of Somaliland. “Somalia’s dysfunction almost protects it, in a way, from Somaliland gaining wider recognition.”

Over the past 10 days, no other states have followed Israel’s lead. But a diplomatic crisis has not emerged, at least not yet — and now, Somaliland is part of the global conversation in a serious way for the first time since it declared independence.

“Somaliland is on the map,” said Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “People who had never heard of Somaliland a week ago are suddenly reading up on its history and understanding its arguments.”

IN MEMORIAM

Norman Podhoretz remembered as visionary of neoconservative thought

The longtime Commentary editor’s passionate defense of Israel helped shape the Republican Party of the time

(Photo by David Howells/Corbis via Getty Images)

American neoconservative theorist and writer Norman Podhoretz at home in New York City.

By

Matthew Kassel

December 18, 2025

Norman Podhoretz, the pugnacious editor and neoconservative pioneer who died on Tuesday at the age of 95, charted a protean trajectory through American politics and intellectual discourse, rising to prominence as a leading champion of a muscular foreign policy vision conjoined with a fierce support for Israel that influenced such presidents as Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush.

Despite his early political conversion from staunch liberal to conservative trailblazer, Podhoretz — the always-ambitious son of a Yiddish-speaking milkman from Eastern Europe who was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn — remained consistent in his commitment to defending Israel as well as promoting the Jewish ideals that guided his social and professional ascent.

During his 35-year tenure helming Commentary— from 1960 to 1995 — he established the periodical as a lightning rod of disputatious ideas that helped drive the conservative movement, while at the same time building his reputation as an estimable thinker in Jewish American debate of the mid-20th century.

Under his editorial stewardship, Podhoretz transformed the magazine — then published by the American Jewish Committee — into a pro-Israel force that significantly shaped American foreign policy in the Middle East while helping steer the GOP to a more instinctive embrace of the Jewish state as a key ally.

“The neoconservatives played a pivotal role in providing the intellectual firepower for the case for Israel,” Jacob Heilbrunn, the author of a book about the movement Podhoretz founded, They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, told Jewish Insider in an interview on Wednesday. “They did that not only by arguing that Israel was a vital outpost in opposing the spread of communism in the Middle East, but also in forging and defending the rise of the evangelicals who supported Israel.”

Absent Podhoretz and his ideological comrades including Irving Kristol, another neoconservative leader, “I don’t think that you would have had the intellectual justification for defending Israel inside the GOP,” Heilbrunn said, noting that the party had previously been “hostile to Israel.”

Podhoretz, who wrote a dozen books including his score-settling debut memoir, Making It, published in 1967, was an erstwhile liberal who abandoned the left-wing New York intellectual milieu that nurtured his rise and turned to neoconservatism in the 1960s, after growing disillusioned with a counterculture he viewed as increasingly hostile to Israel following the Six Day War.

“Podhoretz was the founder of neoconservatism,” Joshua Muravchik, an author and like-minded foreign policy expert, told JI, noting that the “role is sometimes ascribed to Irving Kristol. In truth, there were two strands.”

Kristol, he argued, “led a group of thinkers who reckoned with the limits of social engineering and the welfare state” — while Podhoretz “led a deeper project, the rediscovery or reassertion of the moral greatness of America, of democracy and of Western civilization.”

“This made him not only a great American patriot but a great Jewish patriot,” he said, “because Israel is a precious, against-all-odds outpost of Western civilization and because the roots of American civic culture and Western civilization are found in the Hebrew bible.”

In publishing major articles by the likes of Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick as well as Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, Podhoretz “set a high standard for Jewish intellectual periodicals” while also playing “a role in opening up the Jewish community to more conservative views that had not previously been admitted,” said Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University.

“Even those who didn’t agree with him I think respected his standard,” Sarna, who published his first article in Commentary in his mid-20s, told JI in an interview. “I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels indebted to Norman.”

Mark Gerson, an author and businessman who interviewed Podhoretz while working on his 1997 book, The Neoconservative Vision, called the late editor “a towering intellectual” and a “great man of ideas who made Commentary, when he took it over, one of the best magazines or publications ever.”

“It was always interesting, always intellectually serious, always rigorous, always challenging,” he said. Podhoretz, who was otherwise recognized as an astute if often acid-penned literary critic, “had a unique ability to come up with the most interesting ideas, to tell the most visceral truths and to recruit some people who became defining the writers of his generation,” Gerson told JI.

The magazine is now edited by Podhoretz’s son, John, who wrote in a tribute on Tuesday that his father’s “knowledge extended beyond literature to Jewish history, Jewish thinking, Jewish faith, and the Hebrew Bible.”

“Norman believed that words matter, and arguments matter, and his leadership of Commentary was a 30-year effort at putting forward the best arguments in defense of America, Israel, the West and the Jews,” said Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and Podhoretz’s stepson-in-law. “He looked for the best writers and champions of this cause, from Moynihan and Kirkpatrick to dozens of young voices, and he engaged them in this noble cause.”

“There was no magic formula beyond logic, language and unwavering moral commitment,” Abrams told JI.

Podhoretz, of course, had many critics on the left and right — including among some former writers. Robert Alter, the renowned biblical translator who frequently contributed to Commentary, said he had “mixed thoughts about Norman.”

“Early in his career, he was admirable in attracting promising young writers,” he told JI on Wednesday. “His staunch defense of Israel, as the American left moved toward anti-Israel positions after 1967, was politically valuable.”

But while Podhoretz had “made Commentary the central journal in American intellectual life” during the 1960s, his politics had, by the end of the decade, “hardened into a rather rigid neoconservatism,” he added. “The eventual result was that Commentary became a kind of sectarian publication with a much smaller readership.”

In recent years, the movement Podhoretz led has also faced backlash from isolationist and America First conservatives who have pejoratively invoked the term “neoconservative” as representative of the sort of hawkish interventionism that helped lead the U.S. into war in Iraq and other quagmires across the Middle East.

Though his movement was usurped by President Donald Trump, Podhoretz — unlike other fellow neoconservatives — backed his campaign in 2016, citing concerns about Hillary Clinton’s support for the Iran nuclear agreement which he viewed as disastrous. In a characteristically cutting explanation, Podhoretz said at the time that he skeptically viewed Trump as “Pat Buchanan without the antisemitism,” underscoring the extent to which his attachment to Israel fueled his political thinking.

But even as the ideals that Podhoretz had long championed have largely “been steamrollered now by Trump,” said Heilbrunn, the scrappy editor and public intellectual “will be there in the conservative pantheon” and “played a key role in reshaping the Republican Party.”

“And who knows, neoconservatism is a protean movement,” Heilbrunn speculated. “It can always make a comeback.”

ON THE TRAIL

Malinowski stresses he’s pro-Israel in N.J. comeback bid, while not ruling out conditions on aid

The former congressman, now running in the special election to succeed Mikie Sherrill, says the U.S. should support Israel’s security while also serving as a ‘counterweight’ to its far right and exercising case-by-case oversight on military assistance

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Democratic incumbent Representative Tom Malinowski participates in a get out the vote event ahead of next month’s midterm elections on October 29, 2022 in Rahway, New Jersey.

By

Marc Rod

November 26, 2025

Former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who established himself as a prominent voice on Capitol Hill on foreign policy and national security issues in Congress between 2019 and 2023, told Jewish Insider last week, as he mounts a congressional comeback bid, that he’s “as pro-Israel as I have ever been.”

But he also expressed more openness to policies conditioning or restricting aid, and called for the U.S. to serve as a “counterweight” to the Israeli far right. And he said that U.S. aid shouldn’t be used in furtherance of Israeli actions that the U.S. itself doesn’t support. At the same time, he expressed support for the Trump administration’s Gaza peace plan and strikes on Iran’s nuclear program.

Malinowski is one of the many Democrats who have declared their candidacies in the special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, recently vacated by Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill. The 11th District, an affluent suburb with a sizable Jewish population, borders and incorporates portions of the district Malinowski represented for two terms.

Malinowski said that he’s “as pro-Israel as I have ever been, in the sense that I believe that Israel should be safe and secure as a Jewish and democratic state, and that the United States has a moral and strategic interest in defending Israel as that kind of state at the same.”

Malinowski said that “to be pro-Israel for me also requires listening to what the hostage families have been saying for the last couple of years, to what hundreds of Israeli security officials have been saying to their government and directly to the United States about the need to bring the war in Gaza to an end and to have some plan that addresses the legitimate desire of Palestinians to have their rights respected and to have a future that they can strive towards.”

“I would not seek to enable [any] ally to do something that I thought should not be done. It’s just a basic foreign policy principle that I think most people would agree is straightforward,” Malinowski told JI, when asked about the possibility of conditioning or suspending aid to Israel. “I would make case-by-case judgments given what’s happening on the ground.”

He said he would not support U.S. policies that would hurt Israel’s ability to protect itself, but added that the U.S. should “serve as a counterweight” to the pressure that an Israel government may feel from Israel’s far right and “use our influence and leverage and our honest voice to steer our ally away from policies that are self-destructive.”

He expressed a similar view in public interviews last year when he offered support for President Joe Biden’s moves to suspend some U.S. arms sales to Israel to pressure Israel against mounting a military incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

“I would not seek to enable [any] ally to do something that I thought should not be done. It’s just a basic foreign policy principle that I think most people would agree is straightforward,” Malinowski told JI, when asked about the possibility of conditioning or suspending aid to Israel. “I would make case-by-case judgments given what’s happening on the ground.”

He said he was not committing to supporting conditions on aid but also did not rule them out depending on the situation. “There’s no U.S. ally in the world that I would guarantee a rubber stamp on every request for military assistance, that’s not the way U.S. foreign policy functions,” Malinowski said.

He said on X in April of last year that the U.S. has, in practice, failed to apply the globally applicable U.S. laws conditioning all arms sales on human rights compliance to Israel. He said that a decision to enforce that law last year to suspend arms sales to certain Israeli units was a “step towards treating Israel as we would any other partner.”

He added that the purpose of the law is to seek remediation of the issues to prevent the need to cut off arms, as was the case for most of the Israeli units to which it was applied.

At the same time, Malinowski indicated to JI a level of skepticism of efforts to halt all offensive aid to Israel, which have been pushed by some former colleagues, arguing that the “distinction between defensive and offensive is hard to make and a bit artificial.”

He expressed support for the Trump administration’s 20-point ceasefire plan for Gaza, saying it “offers the best possible hope for a way forward” and said the U.S. should focus on pushing all parties involved to implement it to its fullest extent, to deploy the international security force to neutralize Hamas and to surge humanitarian aid.

He said any decision on Israel in Congress, including with regard to aid, would be geared toward pursuing that goal.

“I think we’re very far from being able to address the issues of sovereignty and what the ultimate answer to those questions should be,” Malinowski said. “Even many of my Palestinian and Arab American friends, I think, would say that they’re not interested in lip service to a two-state solution right now.”

He said that “serious oversight” is needed from Congress on the deal because he is concerned that Trump will be “tempted to just declare victory and claim his Nobel Peace Prize without doing the hard work of securing implementation of the rest of the plan,” when it will require “steady pressure” — on Hamas and its interlocutors as well as on Israel — to ensure that the situation does not return to the pre-Oct. 7, 2023, status quo.

Malinowski was not supportive of an effort led by some progressive lawmakers to recognize Palestinian statehood, arguing that the U.S. focus should be — and that his focus would be — on more immediate humanitarian and security issues, including ensuring the Trump plan proceeds.

“I think we’re very far from being able to address the issues of sovereignty and what the ultimate answer to those questions should be,” Malinowski explained. “Even many of my Palestinian and Arab American friends, I think, would say that they’re not interested in lip service to a two-state solution right now.”

Malinowski said he did not oppose the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities earlier this year, adding that U.S. intervention likely helped bring the war to a quicker close than it would otherwise have, by bringing the U.S.’ superior capabilities to bear on Iran’s nuclear facilities. He also said he’s “very happy” the Assad regime fell, Hezbollah was “significantly weakened” and the “paper tiger of Iran’s defenses has been exposed.”

At the same time, he argued that any “lasting solution” to Iran’s nuclear program will require a diplomatic agreement with “highly intrusive inspections,” and said President Donald Trump had “exaggerate[d] the impact” of the U.S. strikes.

“My hope is that we will continue to pursue that, rather than imagining that this problem can be addressed just by going to war every few years,” Malinowski said.

At home, Malinowski has spoken publicly at various occasions since the Oct. 7 attacks about anti-Israel and pro-Hamas activism in the U.S. and on college campuses. He argued in May 2024 that students who care about protecting innocent Palestinians were being overshadowed by more extreme voices advocating for the end of Israel, which he called counterproductive.

“The loudest voices are using Gaza’s plight to push a sweeping & more radical agenda of defeating Zionism and “colonialism.” This is not about ending the war but about ending Israel,” Malinowski said on X. “But the actual political effect of these protests has been to shift attention away from Gaza at the very moment (after the World Central Kitchen strike) when opinion was shifting against the war. All our attention should be on getting aid to Gazans, freeing hostages, avoiding more deaths, and what happens post-war. Instead, we have to talk about dumb 19 year olds glorifying Hamas & ‘intifada,’ drowning out the voices of others who sincerely care about saving lives.”

He said those voices also gave right-wing “bad faith partisans” fodder to “cast all legitimate criticism of self-defeating Israeli government policies” as support for Hamas and demand police crackdowns.

“Even though there is a significant problem on the far left that involves anti-Israel protests morphing into calls for an end to Israel as a Jewish state, we don’t quite have a Nazi problem in the Democratic Party in a way that leading Republicans are now acknowledging they do on their side,” Malinowski said.

Malinowski told JI that leaders need to speak up and police antisemitism on their own sides, adding that he “probably underestimated the extent of the problem on the far left” during his time on office but argued that the “problem on the right has gotten much worse and is too often dismissed by critics of the Democratic Party.”

He argued that the problem in the GOP is much more severe than in the Democratic Party. “You have leaders of the party rightly worried, as some on the Republican side are, that a significant share of the young people going into administration positions … have something akin to a Nazi ideology,” he said.

“Even though there is a significant problem on the far left that involves anti-Israel protests morphing into calls for an end to Israel as a Jewish state, we don’t quite have a Nazi problem in the Democratic Party in a way that leading Republicans are now acknowledging they do on their side,” he continued.

He also said that holding social media platforms accountable — a longtime priority for Malinowski — for their amplification of content designed to fuel hatred, will be critical. He said that social media platforms “bear the largest share of responsibility” for increased extremism on both the far left and far right.

Asked about New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s record on Israel and antisemitism issues, Malinowski told JI the Jewish community is “rightly feeling a tremendous amount of anxiety” about rising antisemitic rhetoric and violence.

He said Mamdani has “made a lot of decent promises about the need to reject antisemitism and hatred of all stripes, and about his interest, his determination to listen to people and to bring communities together. And he needs to be held to those promises.”

Malinowski said that if Mamdani follows through, he could prove to be a “potentially very powerful ally against antisemitism” and help to rebuild Jewish-Muslim dialogue that has broken down since Oct. 7.

“But I also understand that he has said things in the past and failed to say some things in the present that cause people understandable anxiety, and therefore everyone has to be vigilant and hold him accountable to the better angels of his nature,” the former congressman continued.

Malinowski said he decided to run for Congress again because “it would be nice to have a Congress again, one that can fulfill its basic constitutional function of checking presidential policies that go too far. … I’d like to contribute to making Congress a coequal branch again.”

And he argued that his experience in foreign policy generally is one of the key factors that makes him stand out from the rest of the field, explaining that there is a “big shortage” in the House of “people who can conduct oversight of the administration’s foreign policy.”

Asked about emerging attacks on him as a carpetbagger — he previously represented a neighboring district that included only part of the district in which he is now running — Malinowski argued he’s the only lawmaker who has represented any part of the district before and he works in the district as a professor at Seton Hall University.

And he argued that voters are looking for a candidate who can effectively pick up Sherrill’s work where she left off from his first day in office, given his previous service. His previous service, he said “is one of the key distinctions” between him and the rest of the field.

ANALYSIS

The GOP’s foreign policy spine

According to a new poll, Republicans remain the strongest advocates of a muscular American role in world affairs, with 52% supporting America taking a leading role and 47% opposed

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

US Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) (L) and US Senator John Thune (R-SD) (R) listen as US President Donald Trump speaks during a dinner for Republican US Senators in the State Dining Room of the White House July 18, 2025, in Washington, DC.

By

Josh Kraushaar

July 21, 2025

A newly released CNN poll, conducted this month, illustrates the resilience of a hawkish DNA within the Republican Party and among its voters even amid the rise of an isolationist strain that has sought to gain influence in the GOP during President Donald Trump’s second term.

The poll asked respondents: “Do you think the United States should or should not take the leading role among all other countries in the world in trying to solve international problems?” Overall, 43% took the more active approach, while 56% took a more isolationist view.

Republicans, however, remained the strongest advocates of a muscular American role in world affairs, with 52% supporting America taking a leading role and 47% opposed. By contrast, just 42% of Democrats and 39% of independents shared the more hawkish worldview.

Notably, the shift in more isolationist sentiment was almost entirely driven by Democrats and independents since the last CNN survey in March, which found majority support for significant American global engagement. In the March survey, a 57% majority of Democrats preferred more American involvement in the world, a number that dropped 15 points in the last four months. The Republican share of those preferring American engagement remained steady at 52%.

The results from the CNN polls suggest there’s a more committed core of Republican-voting hawks that is more resilient than the shifting political winds, whereas the Democratic foreign policy worldview appears more dependent on partisanship and what’s happening in the news at the time.

In March, at the time of the first CNN poll, Democrats showed a surge of support for foreign engagement — in large part, because they were responding to the hostile reception Trump delivered at the time to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was seeking American military aid to his country. Back then, Trump wrongly blamed Zelensky for causing the war, and attacked him as a dictator in the run-up to the ugly confrontation at the White House. It was the high point of isolationism in Trump’s second term — and prompted an uptick of hawkishness among Democrats.

But since then, Trump has sharpened his rhetoric against Russian President Vladimir Putin and agreed to send Ukraine offensive weapons, in a reversal of his previous reluctance. He also decided to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities despite alarmism from an isolationist faction within his party, which turned out to be a major military (and political) success.

A recent Echelon Insights survey underscored that Trump’s hawkish turn has broadened and deepened support for strongly supporting American allies within the party. A clear 49-36% of Trump voters, asked if they supported continuing to give weapons to Ukraine, said yes. When informed that it was Trump’s decision to aid Ukraine further, nearly two-thirds of Trump supporters embraced the decision.

The actions on Capitol Hill are consistent with the polling. When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) proposed a series of amendments cutting off aid to foreign allies, the vast majority of Republicans voted against them. Even on her proposal to cut military aid for Ukraine, 141 of the 217 House Republicans took the pro-Ukraine side.

And when Greene proposed to block missile defense funding that the U.S. gives to Israel, only one other Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), joined her. Indeed, there were more Democrats who joined with MTG (four) than Republicans — in a sign of the “horseshoe theory” of the far left and far right uniting in their extremism.

Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear program appears to have created a momentum shift within the party, pushing back the faction of isolationists seeking to gain influence in the administration but also building support for a familiar brand of muscular engagement that has defined the party for generations.

Defense dynamics

Pentagon needs to follow Trump’s lead, GOP senators say after Ukraine aid fracas

The GOP lawmakers’ comments come after the president, taking a tougher line against Putin, overruled top Defense Department officials

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby (R) and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth look on during a meeting with Foreign Affairs Minister of Peru Elmer Schialer and Defense Minister of Peru Walter Astudillo at the Pentagon in Washington, DC on May 5, 2025.

By

Marc Rod

July 9, 2025

Senate Republicans on Tuesday emphasized that Trump administration officials need to follow the president’s lead on foreign policy, after President Donald Trump publicly overrode a Defense Department-instituted halt on weapons for Ukraine.

The public back-and-forth indicated discord between the president and the Pentagon. Trump on Tuesday appeared to suggest he was out of the loop about the Ukraine military freeze; when a reporter asked him who had ordered the halt, Trump responded, “I don’t know, you tell me.”

Top Pentagon policy official Elbridge Colby reportedly led the move, citing a review allegedly showing U.S. missile defense interceptor shortages. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth approved the decision without informing the White House, CNN reported, and Trump did not specifically direct him to halt the weapons transfers. Politico reported that a series of other unilateral moves by Colby have surprised and frustrated Trump administration officials and U.S. allies.

Trump’s own policy on Ukraine as it defends itself against Russian aggression has been inconsistent since taking office, but in recent months he has grown publicly frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s approach to the war. Trump is now also backing a bipartisan Senate sanctions bill targeting Russia, according to the bill’s lead sponsor, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

Republican hawks on Capitol Hill praised Trump’s decision to reinstate U.S. aid to the country, with several warning Pentagon officials against working at cross purposes with the president, though they declined to directly address the behind-the scenes machinations.

“Policy on defense and otherwise, it’s clear, is set by the president, it’s not set by his underlings,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Jewish Insider, adding that he thinks that Trump’s own position on the issue has hardened because “President Trump is rapidly becoming fed up with President Putin and starting to see him for what he is, which is a pirate and a liar” who only responds to pressure.

Kennedy denied that the Pentagon had been at odds with Trump, however, adding, “Whether you like it or dislike it, the people who generally get crosswise with the president that work for him only do it one time.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) told JI, “Generally speaking, I don’t think [Trump] likes people getting out ahead of him. So they need to coordinate that. I assume they did, it could have just been one situation, but you need to coordinate with the president.”

Tillis added that “anything that cuts short or challenges Ukraine’s resupply and support is a bad idea, and it’ll be a disastrous mistake.”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) told JI, “I’m in favor of additional aid for Ukraine. Whether it is simply a matter of having the Department of Defense get very clear orders from the president, or if it’s a matter of clarifying for the rest of the world to hear that we’re not walking away from Ukraine, I think it’s a very important message to send.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the former Republican Senate leader, offered the most pointed criticism of those in the administration who have advocated for cutting off aid to Ukraine.

“This time, the President will need to reject calls from isolationists and restrainers within his Administration to limit these deliveries to defensive weapons,” McConnell said in a statement. “And he should disregard those at DoD who invoke munitions shortages to block aid while refusing to invest seriously in expanding munitions production. The self-indulgent policymaking of restrainers — from Ukraine to AUKUS — has so often required the President to clean up his staff’s messes.”

According to Politico, Colby independently ordered a review of the AUKUS submarine pact with the U.K. and Australia, which also surprised other elements of the Trump administration.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, declined to comment on “palace intrigue” and said he was “just glad to see Washington, D.C., on a bipartisan basis moving in the right direction in favor of the good guys.”

“Facts become clearer, and more and more people, including the president and members of the administration, are coming to the realization that Putin wants nothing but conquest, and if he gets it in Ukraine, he won’t stop there,” Wicker told JI. “So it’s just a matter of the truth coming to light.”

Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) suggested that the change had come about as a result of new information, rather than discord within the administration.

“Well, I think all of us have the right to change your mind when you have new information, so he’s not happy with the situation,” Budd said. “Again, I think all of our hearts are supportive of Ukraine. We want to make sure they have the right leadership, and transparency that they’re doing the right thing. So I think he’s making the right decision with the information that he’s given in real time.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said he wasn’t familiar with the exchange between Trump and the Pentagon, but noted concerns about U.S. stockpiles.

“I don’t know what the back-and-forth is,” Mullin said. “I know what we’re trying to do right now is build up our stockpiles, because we let things get pretty low with some of our missile systems, but I haven’t heard the back and forth between Trump and the Pentagon.”

Among Democrats, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called out Colby and Hegseth by name.

“I am pleased that President Trump appears to have reversed course on the dangerous and shortsighted decision made by Secretary Hegseth and Under Secretary Colby to continue critical assistance to Ukraine,” Shaheen said in a statement. “Unfortunately, last week’s decision sent exactly the wrong message. And it came with a tragic human cost.”

Analysts outside the administration emphasized that Trump’s policy is his own and hard-liners inside the Pentagon should be mindful that their views are not necessarily the same as Trump’s.

“I think over the last few years, it has been very, very clear that the only person who speaks for President Trump is President Trump,” Carrie Filipetti, the executive director of the Vandenberg Coalition and an official in the first Trump administration, told JI. “There are a lot of people, specifically within the Pentagon, that are much more ideological, who have assumed that President Trump shares their ideology, when really President Trump has always been much more flexible and responsive.”

Filipetti added that, from her experience in the first Trump administration, the president could get frustrated when officials “tried to speak for him” or “got over their skis and assumed that they knew the direction he was going in.”

She said that the administration’s recent moves, as well as some of Trump’s hawkish policies dating back to his first administration, show that the calculated use of force and economic power are key to Trump’s foreign policy.

“This is really a vindication of what Trump has always said was America First, which includes the willingness to use force if he can see how it will prevent a longer-term conflict,” Fillipetti explained. “Right now, I think the people who have pushed for a more hawkish policy are gaining more influence, partially because they’re proving that the goal was never to start wars. The goal was to end wars by using force and strength as a deterrent.”

Heather Conley, a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the former president of the German Marshall Fund, said it seemed clear that the Pentagon had not coordinated its moves with other parts of the administration or Congress, catching the White House off-guard.

“I think this was probably a very important lesson that the senior leadership in the Pentagon learned: that there’s no independent review, that these things are all connected and are all highly political and need to be coordinated with the White House, and Congress, most certainly, as well,” Conley said. “I think this will be a reinforcing lesson for the Pentagon to not get ahead of the president.”

Referencing Colby specifically, Conley said, “He may have very strong views about what is needed, but the president is shaping this policy, he’s shaping it every hour and every day, and that means it’s moving very quickly. … [Administration officials] have to be in alignment for there to be success. And they also may not be able to pursue their own independent view of where things should go.”

Conley said that the capability review that prompted the cutoff was necessary — given proper coordination — for any administration, in light of the multiple draws on American weapons reserves.

She said that the situation highlights the need for the U.S. to significantly accelerate its missile-defense production capacity and find ways to prompt Ukraine to expand its domestic production capacity, explaining that the U.S. lacks the ability to produce sufficient interceptors to cover Ukraine, the Middle East and potentially Taiwan.

Conley also noted that this isn’t the first time the Pentagon has appeared to be acting out of step with the White House, pointing to moves by Hegseth on Ukraine policy dating back to February.

Administration spokespeople have denied any discord or lack of coordination within the administration.

Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon’s press secretary, told CNN in a statement that said in part, “Secretary Hegseth provided a framework for the President to evaluate military aid shipments and assess existing stockpiles. This effort was coordinated across government.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump “has full confidence in the secretary of defense.”

The Department of Defense and National Security Council did not respond to requests for comment.

Jewish Insider’s congressional correspondent Emily Jacobs contributed reporting.

ANALYSIS

Far left and far right converge in opposition to U.S. involvement in Israel-Iran war

The two factions find themselves openly and publicly aligned in opposition to any form of U.S. intervention in Israel’s campaign and against Israel’s operations in general

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) leaves the House Chamber following the last vote of the week at the U.S. Capitol on September 12, 2024 in Washington, DC.

By

Marc Rod

June 17, 2025

We’ve written a lot about the so-called horseshoe theory of U.S. politics and foreign policy — the point at which the far left and the far right coalesce into agreement — but the Israeli campaign against Iranian military and nuclear targets is providing a particularly stark example of that convergence. The two factions find themselves openly and publicly aligned in opposition to any form of U.S. intervention in Israel’s campaign and against Israel’s operations in general.

An X post by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Sunday provided a distillation of that dynamic. Greene claimed that a regional war or global war, which would likely overwhelm the Middle East, BRICS and NATO, is inevitable and that countries would be “required to take a side.” She continued, “I don’t want to see Israel bombed or Iran bombed or Gaza bombed. … And we do NOT want to be involved or required to pay for ANY OF IT!!!”

Among those who supported Greene’s post were CodePink activist Medea Benjamin, who praised Greene’s “incredibly strong anti-war position!” and Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim, who called the Georgia Republican “presently the most sensible member of Congress.” Doug Stafford, the chief strategist for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), shared Benjamin’s post — and has repeatedly shared and praised both her and Code Pink in the wake of the Israeli operation. Read more here.

It’s not just Greene and Stafford. A host of prominent figures on the right, such as Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and former Pentagon senior advisor Dan Caldwell are touting narratives about the conflict that would not be out of place at a far-left anti-Israel rally.

Recent reporting from Semafor indicates that some inside the administration, particularly Under Secretary of Defense Elbridge Colby, are also reportedly trying to limit U.S. support for Israel. A source familiar with the situation told Jewish Insider they’ve heard similar chatter coming from the administration. Conservative radio show host Mark Levin said he’d been “informed” that the report was incorrect.

On both ends of the horseshoe, many are downplaying or outright rejecting the notion that Iran was close to or even pursuing a nuclear weapon, comparing the idea to the disproven claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that prompted the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and in some cases denying claims Iran attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump.

Voices on both political extremes are also framing Israel as the villain in the conflict, and a perpetrator of unprovoked aggression and atrocities.

And they’re warning that a continued Israeli campaign will inevitably transform into a regional and ultimately global war that will suck the U.S. into an endless quagmire in the Middle East.

Though they haven’t all gone as far as Greene, prominent progressive Democrats in Congress are also warning of significant potential consequences from the conflict. Likely coming soon: a congressional vote aiming to prevent U.S. military action against Iran without specific congressional authorization.

Daily Kickoff

Trump to Tucker, Iran doves: I define ‘America First’

Plus, Persian Jews on what’s happening in Iran

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing in ceremony for interim U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Jeanine Pirro in the Oval Office of the White House on May 28, 2025 in Washington, DC.

By

JI Staff

June 16, 2025

Good Monday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the latest developments in Israel’s war with Iran and cover reactions on the Hill to Israel’s preemptive strikes on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities. We talk to foreign policy experts about how the military action might impact diplomacy efforts, and interview Persian Jews in the U.S. about their response to the war. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Anne Wojcicki, Leonard Lauder and Tracy-Ann Oberman

What We’re Watching

We’re continuing to follow and report on the ongoing military conflict between Israel and Iran. Sign up for email alerts and WhatsApp updates to stay up to date with the latest news.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) is in the Middle East this week for an Abraham Accords-focused trip that is slated to include stops in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Israel. Read more here.
President Donald Trump is in Alberta, Canada, today, where he will meet with world leaders at a G7 summit. We expect the president to address questions about potential U.S. involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict.
A France-led conference on Palestinian statehood and the two-state solution, slated to take place this week, was postponed following Israel’s strikes on Iran late last week. Read more here.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH ji’s MELISSA WEISS

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has staked everything — his legacy, his global standing, his relationships with world powers — on defending Israel against the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

The topic has dominated nearly every major address the prime minister has given, from U.N. General Assembly speeches to addresses to Congress, for the last 15 years. And over the last four days, Israel has been forced to put into action a plan that was years in the making — one that could profoundly reshape the Middle East in the days and months to come.

The writer Douglas Murray forecasted exactly this situation 13 years ago, speaking at the Cambridge Union: “When Israel is pushed to the situation it will be pushed to of having to believe [Iran] mean[s] it, and when every bit of jiggery pokery behind the scenes runs out, and when the U.N. and distinguished figures have run out of time, and Iran is about to produce its first bomb,” Murray said at the time, “Israel will strike.”

Israel’s Friday morning strikes came as the Trump administration’s announced 60-day deadline for negotiations expired, and following intelligence reports indicating that Iran was weeks away from nuclear capabilities — as Murray predicted.

What has ensued is the deadliest and most destructive direct conflict between Israel and Iran in history.

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

war with iran

Eight Israelis killed overnight in five Iranian missile strikes

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men inspect the damage at the site of an Iranian missile strike in Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv, on June 16, 2025. (JOHN WESSELS/AFP via Getty Images)

Eight Israelis were killed by Iranian missile strikes in five locations that occurred Sunday night and early Monday morning. In the central Israeli city of Petach Tikva, five people were killed in a residential building, and in adjacent Bnei Brak, an 80-year-old man was found dead at the site of a missile strike. Two of the people killed in Petach Tikva were inside their safe room, which was directly hit by a missile. Petach Tikva Mayor Rami Grinberg said that the residence was struck by a ballistic missile carrying hundreds of kilograms of explosives, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.

Additional hits: Tel Aviv sustained two direct missile strikes, one of which lightly damaged the U.S. Embassy Branch Office. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee clarified that “the minor damage to the property were from the shock waves … from the nearby blast … No injuries, thank God!” Among the residents evacuated from buildings in Tel Aviv was a 6-day-old baby, whose mother was found alive minutes later. In Haifa, three people were found dead under the rubble of a burning building where a missile hit, and about 300 people were evacuated. The Israel Electric Corporation said that the strike damaged its power grid, and that “teams are working on the ground to neutralize safety hazards, in particular the risk of electrocution ” Maritime risk assessment company Ambrey reported a fire at the Haifa Port.

Read the full story here.

TUCKER’S TIRADE

Tucker Carlson splits from Trump, advocates ‘dropping Israel’

Tucker Carlson speaks at his Live Tour at the Desert Diamond Arena on October 31, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. With less than a week until Election Day, Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Carlson in the battleground state of Arizona. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Talk show host Tucker Carlson broke with President Donald Trump on Iran on Friday, writing in a scathing commentary in his daily newsletter that the United States should “drop Israel” and “let them fight their own wars.” Carlson wrote of Israel’s preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, “If Israel wants to wage this war, it has every right to do so. It is a sovereign country, and it can do as it pleases. But not with America’s backing.” Trump, for his part, has endorsed Israel’s attacks, which he called “very successful,” and underscored in an interview with Fox News on Thursday night that the U.S. would defend Israel if Iran retaliates. He also warned that the situation “will only get worse” if Iran does not agree to a nuclear deal “before there is nothing left,” Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

Tucker talk: In recent days, Carlson has argued that fears of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon in the near future are unfounded and said that a war with the Islamic Republic would not only result in “thousands” of American casualties in the Middle East but “amount to a profound betrayal of” Trump’s base and effectively “end his presidency.” Carlson reiterated that claim in his newsletter, accusing Trump of “being complicit in the act of war” through “years of funding and sending weapons to Israel.”

Read the full story here.

Trump hits back: Trump defended his “America First” worldview as in line with his support for Israel’s strikes, telling The Atlantic in regards to his critics: “Well, considering that I’m the one that developed ‘America First,’ and considering that the term wasn’t used until I came along, I think I’m the one that decides that. For those people who say they want peace — you can’t have peace if Iran has a nuclear weapon.”

Envoy response: U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee noted on X that “700,000 AMERICANS live in Israel. That is equivalent to a full House District. More Americans here than in any other country except Mexico! Iran isn’t just attacking Israel but your fellow Americans who live here.”

hope prevails

Persian Jews in the U.S. watch Israeli strikes on Iran and dare to hope

Iranian people gather in the heights of north of Tehran, Iran, to watch a view of the exchanges of strikes between Israel and Iran on June 14, 2025. (SASAN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

As grainy videos of Israel’s strikes on Iran spread in WhatsApp groups and Telegram channels used by the Iranian diaspora, Persian Jews in the U.S. are viewing this moment with a mix of trepidation and excitement — the first time in decades, some say, that the Iranian regime truly appears vulnerable. That has prompted cautious optimism about a future in which Iranians might live free from the oppression of the Ayatollah, several activists in the Persian Jewish community told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch on Friday, and where they might be able to bring their children to visit their native land. But the escalation has also brought fear about what comes next, and that even an Israeli military success might not effect change on the ground for Iranians.

Mixed emotions: Sharon Nazarian, a philanthropist and Jewish communal leader in Los Angeles who left Tehran with her family in 1978, said she has felt “two striking, opposing feelings” since Israel’s attacks began. “One of utter hope and the possibility that maybe one day we can go back to our country of birth to bring our children,” Nazarian said. “We are [also] very fearful that this regime, although it’s at its weakest point it’s been since 1979, it will survive, and it will, yet again, find a mechanism both to manipulate and to force its way into maintaining the stranglehold it has on the Iranian people and the country of Iran.”

Read the full story here.

ON THE HILL

Successful Israeli strikes on Iran elicit divided response from Senate Democrats

(L-R) Senate Democratic leadership, Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin (D-IL), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Mark Warner (D-VA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), and Chris Murphy (D-CT), pose for a group photo in the U.S. Capitol on December 3, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Israel’s strikes on Iranian military and nuclear targets are prompting fractured responses from Senate Democrats, with a few offering full support for Israel and others forcefully condemning the strikes, while some have sought to carve out a path somewhere in the middle, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What they’re saying: “The Iranian regime and its proxies have been very public about their commitment to the destruction of Israel and Jewish communities around the world. We should take them at their word,” Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) said. “Israel acted in self-defense against an attack from Iran, and the U.S. must continue to stand with Israel, as it has for decades, at this dangerous moment.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the strikes are “an escalation that is deeply concerning and will inevitably invite counterattacks.” She added that they endanger nuclear talks and U.S. servicemembers. Read the full story here with additional comments from Chris Murphy (D-CT), Mark Warner (D-VA) and Chris Coons (D-DE).

Schumer’s support: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stood strongly behind Israel in his first public comments on its strikes on Iran and its nuclear program on Friday afternoon — a response that was notably more forceful in its support for Israel than those of many prominent members of the Senate Democratic Caucus, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

Straight talk: Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) criticized his Democratic colleagues in Congress who have spoken out against Israel’s attack on Iran, telling JI’s Emily Jacobs it was “astonishing” to see members of his party treat Israel’s actions as escalatory.

Republican voice: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told JI’s Emily Jacobs that he’s urging U.S. support for Israel’s campaign to destroy Iran’s nuclear program as a means of “substantially undoing the damage caused by the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal” during the Biden administration.

Pressure push: A bipartisan group of nine House members wrote to the Trump administration on Friday emphasizing — as the administration continues to push for a nuclear deal — that U.S. negotiators must not allow Iran to maintain any nuclear enrichment capacity if a deal is reached, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

OUT IN LEFT FIELD

Tim Walz: Maybe China can negotiate a Middle East peace deal

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, speaks during a debate at the CBS Broadcast Center on October 1, 2024 in New York City. This is expected to be the only vice presidential debate of the 2024 general election. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, criticizing Israel’s strikes on Iran and the Trump administration’s global posture, suggested on Friday that China might be better positioned than the United States to broker peace in the Middle East, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

China First: “Who is the voice in the world that can negotiate some type of agreement in this, who holds the moral authority? Who holds the ability to do that? Because we are not seen as a neutral actor, and maybe we never were, I don’t want to tell anybody that … but I think there was at least an attempt to be somewhat of an arbitrator in this,” Walz said at a Center for American Progress event. “Consistently, over and over again, we’re going to have to face the reality, it might be the Chinese and that goes against everything [the Trump administration] say they’re trying to do in terms of the balance of power.”

Read the full story here.

BARUCH DAYAN EMET

Leonard Lauder, who supercharged his family’s cosmetics firm and became an arts patron, dies at 92

Leonard Lauder, Chairman Emeritus, The Estée Lauder Companies, is honored with the 2023 Retail Excellence Award from the Wharton School’s Baker Retailing Center and Retail Leaders Circle at The Rainbow Room on October 16, 2023 in New York City. (Cindy Ord/Getty Images for Wharton School’s Baker Retailing Center and Retail Leaders Circle)

Leonard Lauder, arts patron and billionaire heir of Estée Lauder Companies, died on Saturday at 92. Remembered as an innovative thinker and a connoisseur of the arts, Lauder was born in 1933 to Joseph Lauter and Josephine Esther Mentzer, the founders of the Estée Lauder Companies cosmetic firm, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Nira Dayanim reports.

A giant in philanthropy: The descendant of Jewish immigrants to New York, the first-born Lauder grew up alongside the budding business. He earned his bachelor’s degree from University of Pennsylvania and served in the U.S. Navy before eventually joining Estée Lauder Companies in 1958. Alongside his parents, he helped scale the company from making under $1 million in sales annually to a multibillion-dollar prestige brand. Lauder went on to become a giant in American philanthropy — gifting over $2 billion throughout his lifetime — particularly focused on science, education and the arts. As an influential art collector and patron, in 2013, Lauder famously gifted over $1 billion in Cubist paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art — one of the most significant gifts in the museum’s history, according to The New York Times. In 2008, Lauder, a longtime chairman and chairman emeritus of the Whitney Museum of American Art, donated $131 million to support the museum’s endowment.

Read the full story here and sign up for eJewshPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.

Worthy Reads

What’s at Stake In Iran: In Politico, Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner pens an op-ed titled “Iran’s Target Isn’t Just Israel. It’s Us,” in which he warns that Iran, alongside China and Russia, has global ambitions that extend beyond its war with Israel. “It is therefore surprising that Israel is not being celebrated worldwide for its historic, extremely precise and necessary strike against Iranian nuclear weapons facilities and for the targeted killing of leading terrorists, but that the public response is dominated by anti-Israel propaganda. The intelligence and precision of Israel’s actions are not admired but are instead used here and there to perpetuate blatantly antisemitic stereotypes. This attitude is characterized not only by racist undertones, but also by a strange self-forgetfulness.” [Politico]

Oldest Hate, Renewed: The New York Times editorial board warns against the country’s “worst surge of anti-Jewish hate in many decades,” citing agitators on both the left and right that have stoked tensions. “Americans should be able to recognize the nuanced nature of many political debates while also recognizing that antisemitism has become an urgent problem. It is a different problem — and in many ways, a narrower one — than racism. Antisemitism has not produced shocking gaps in income, wealth and life expectancy in today’s America. Yet the new antisemitism has left Jewish Americans at a greater risk of being victimized by a hate crime than any other group. Many Jews live with fears that they never expected to experience in this country.” [NYTimes]

Iran on the Ropes: In The Wall Street Journal, former National Security Advisor John Bolton considers how Israel, the U.S. and Arab allies could potentially deal a death knell to the Iranian regime. “Despite outward appearances of solid authoritarianism, the regime in Tehran faces widening discontent. The opposition extends across Iran, in the smaller cities and countryside, far beyond Tehran, where the few Western journalists congregate. Iran’s economy has been parlous for decades, and Israeli strikes on oil refineries may weaken it further. Citizen protests in 2018-19 provoked heightened nationwide repression. International antiproliferation and antiterrorism sanctions caused part of the distress, but the fundamental lesson is plain: Never trust your economy to medieval religious fanatics.” [WSJ]

The Rising Lion Inside Iran: In The Free Press, Masih Alinejad reacts to Israel’s military campaign against Iran, which has conducted numerous attempts in recent years to kill or kidnap the Iranian dissident and writer. “Now, the world faces a choice. It can focus solely on missiles and maps, treating this as another geopolitical chess move. Or it can recognize the human story unfolding beneath the surface, the story of a nation rising from the shadow of its captors. The story of a rising lion. Israel’s strike may have taken out top military figures. But the real victory is still ahead: the day the Islamic Republic falls under the weight of its own crimes and the strength of the people it has tried so hard to suffocate and silence.” [FreePress]

What else we’re reading: “Israel Had the Courage to Do What Needed to Be Done” by The New York Times’ Bret Stephens… “Israel’s Nuclear Good Deed Against Iran” by The Wall Street Journal editorial board… “Bombs Rain Down — and a Divided Israel Unites Behind the War” by The Free Press’ Matti Friedman… “We’re witnessing a historic test of two assumptions about Israel” by Natan Sharansky in The Washington Post… “Zionism Has Been Vindicated” by Commentary’s John Podhoretz…

Word on the Street

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave his first interview since Israel began its operation in Iran on Fox News’ “Special Report” with Bret Baier on Sunday. He confirmed Iran had actively tried to assassinate President Donald Trump, calling Trump Iran’s “enemy No. 1,” and said Israel had shared intelligence with the U.S. that Iran was working to weaponize its enriched uranium: “They would achieve a test device and possibly an initial device within months, and certainly less than a year. That was the intel we shared with the United States”…

U.S. officials told Reutersthat Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi denied the reports outright, calling it “fake news of the highest order”…

Israel’s leadership is concerned that international pressure may force the IDF to stop striking Iran before its mission is complete, an Israeli security source told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov on Sunday…

Jewish Insider spoke to Jason Brodsky, the policy director for United Against Nuclear Iran; Daniel Shapiro, a deputy assistant secretary of defense in the Biden administration, U.S. ambassador to Israel in the Obama administration and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council; and former Kamala Harris Middle East advisors Phil Gordon and Ilan Goldenberg about their views on Israel’s military strikes against Iran…

International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said on Monday that no additional damage had been done to the Natanz or Fordow nuclear enrichment sites in Iran since Israel’s initial strikes on Friday…

Police in Minnesota arrested the man alleged to have shot two state lawmakers last week, killing one of them as well as her husband…

The Christian Science Monitor interviews Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, formerly the chair of the board of trustees of the Illinois Holocaust Museum, about rising antisemitism and his personal connection to Judaism as he emerges as one of the most vocal public figures opposing the Trump administration…

The U.S. Agency for Global Media instructed employees of Voice of America’s Persian-language service, who had been placed on administrative leave amid the Trump administration’s degradation of the agency, to return to their positions to provide programming to counter Iranian state-run media…

Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta was reelected as a Democratic National Committee vice chair after the DNC revoked the results of an earlier election in which Kenyatta and activist David Hogg had been elected; Hogg, who opted not to run again, had riled DNC officials with his super PAC’s plans to back challengers to sitting Democrats, prompting calls for a new election based on concerns over the demographics of the newly elected leadership…

New York City Mayor Eric Adams c0-hosted a livestream with Sneako, a far-right internet personality who has a history of making offensive and antisemitic comments; last spring, the livestreamer said “Down with the yahud [Jews]” and had previously appeared on livestreams with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and Ye…

Police in Brookline, Mass., are investigating after a brick painted with “Free Palestine” was thrown through the window of a kosher grocery store in the city…

Anne Wojcicki’s nonprofit TTAM Research Institute won a bid to purchase 23andMe, which Wojcicki had co-founded and led until earlier this year, when the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and Wojcicki tendered her resignation…

The Wall Street Journal spotlights Simon Property Group CEO David Simon, the country’s largest mall operator, who is continuing to work as he battles pancreatic cancer…

Former Hillary Clinton political aide Huma Abedin and Alex Soros were married at Soros’ Water Mill, N.Y., estate on Saturday…

Two French teenagers convicted of raping a Jewish girl in 2024 were sentenced to seven and nine years in prison; a third teenager, who was 12 at the time of the assault, was sentenced to five years in foster care due to his age…

Israeli officials confirmed that the IDF had recovered the body of hostage Aviv Atzili from Khan Younis, Gaza, last week; Atzili, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz, was killed battling terrorists who had overrun the kibbutz and his body taken to Gaza…

The Wall Street Journal looks at how the Mossad smuggled drone parts into Iran for use in its preemptive attack on Iranian military and nuclear sites last week…

Elon Musk said he activated his Starlink internet service in Iran after the government cut off civilian internet access across the country…

A former senior Syrian general told U.S. investigators in Beirut that American journalist Austin Tice, who disappeared in Syria in 2012, was dead, and provided a possible location of Tice’s body…

Saudi Arabia executed a journalist who had been convicted of treason for his alleged running of a social media account that accused members of the Saudi royal family of corruption…

“Eastenders” actress Tracy-Ann Oberman was awarded an MBE for her services to Holocaust education and combating antisemitism in the U.K….

Stage and film actor Harris Yulin, who was often cast in villain roles, died at 87… Marthe Cohn, a Jewish nurse who worked with the French resistance as a spy in Germany, died at 105… Video artist Dara Birnbaum died at 78… Sculptor Joel Shapiro, best known for his life-size stick figures, died at 83… Civil rights litigator Alex Polikoff, who won a landmark Supreme Court housing desegregation case and spent decades advocating to have the ruling enforced, died at 98…

Pic of the Day

Israeli President Isaac Herzog and his wife Michal Herzog visit the site of an Iranian missile attack in Bat Yam on June 15, 2025.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog and First Lady Michal Herzog visited the site of an Iranian missile attack in Petach Tikvah earlier today.

Addressing the media, Herzog said, “What I’ve seen upstairs in the destroyed apartment is evil, pure evil in and of itself. It’s evil aimed at innocent civilians all over Israel. But I have news to for the Iranian regime. You think you’re going to tire us or fatigue us, you’re absolutely wrong. We’re a very strong, resilient nation with very strong capabilities in all fields. I think you’re feeling it out there in Iran, and I think the Iranian people are fed up, and they want change. And so, of course, do the entire region, we deserve change.”

Birthdays

Zack Weiss #56 of the Boston Red Sox delivers during the fifth inning of a game against the New York Yankees on September 14, 2023 at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. (Billie Weiss/Boston Red Sox/Getty Images)

Pitcher for Team Israel in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, he is now in the St. Louis Cardinals organization, Zachary D. “Zack” Weiss turns 33…

Professor of theoretical physics at Stanford University, Leonard Susskind turns 85… Brigadier-general (ret.) in the IDF, then a member of Knesset, then chairman of Ha’aguda Lema’an Hachayal, a nonprofit IDF veterans group, Avigdor Kahalani turns 81… Former dean of Yeshiva College, U.S. ambassador to Egypt for President Bill Clinton, and U.S. ambassador to Israel for President George W. Bush, Daniel C. Kurtzer turns 76… Professor at Nanjing University and China’s leading professor of Jewish studies, Xu Xin turns 76… Rickey Wolosky Palkovitz turns 76… Investigative reporter who worked for Newsweek, NBC News and then Yahoo News, Michael Isikoff turns 73… UC Berkeley professor and WSJ columnist, Alison Gopnik turns 70… Professor of Jewish studies at the University of Freiburg (Germany), Gabrielle Oberhänsli-Widmer turns 68… Distinguished fellow in Jewish studies at Dartmouth College, in three weeks he will start as a tenured professor at Harvard Divinity School, Shaul Magid turns 67… Southern California resident, Roberta Trachten-Zeve… Senior project executive at Kansas-based Stuart & Associates Commercial Flooring, Matthew Rafael Elyachar… Pulitzer Prize-winning business reporter and bestselling author, he is a past president of Washington Hebrew Congregation, David A. Vise turns 65… Former chair of the Broward County, Fla., JCRC, he is the co-founder of The Alliance of Blacks & Jews, Keith Wasserstrom… Actor, screenwriter, producer and director, Daniel Zelman turns 58… Senior correspondent for military and intelligence affairs for Yedioth Ahronoth and contributor to the NYTimes, Ronen Bergman turns 53… Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit, Julie Rikelman turns 53… CEO and founder of NYC-based Marathon Strategies, Philip Keith (“Phil”) Singer… Israeli photographer, digital artist and artificial intelligence researcher, Dina Bova turns 48… Geographer and writer, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro turns 46… Singer and songwriter, Benjamin Lev Kweller turns 44… Comedian, actor and YouTuber with almost 100 million views, Adam Ray turns 43… Portfolio manager on the Jewish life and Israel grantmaking team at One8 Foundation, Alyssa Bogdanow Arens… Head video producer at Ocean One Media, Perry Chencin… Catcher on Israel’s National Baseball Team at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, now a business transformation consultant for EY, Tal Erel turns 29… Israeli artistic gymnast who won a gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and a silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Artem Dolgopyat turns 28…

The path not taken

Kamala Harris’ Mideast advisors question Israel’s military strikes against Iran

Harris national security adviser Phil Gordon: ‘I would have found it too risky to initiate military force with all that that could unleash’

JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks with Phil Gordon during a meeting with Caribbean leaders in Los Angeles, California, June 9, 2022.

By

Gabby Deutch

June 14, 2025

Among the more surprising cheerleaders for President Donald Trump’s diplomacy with Iran were several progressive foreign policy analysts who had advised former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Now, many of those same voices — including Phil Gordon, Harris’ national security advisor who would likely have stayed in the role if she had been elected president last year — are expressing skepticism about Israel’s preemptive strikes on Iranian military and nuclear sites, and urging Trump to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cool it.

“I would have found it too risky to initiate military force with all that that could unleash,” Gordon told Jewish Insider on Friday. His approach would have been “to try to get an enduring, diplomatically-negotiated nuclear arrangement that prevented Iran from being able to get a nuclear weapon.”

If he were advising Harris, or another Democratic president, Gordon would’ve wanted “to try to get that accomplished without having used this military action,” he said.

Gordon also argued that Trump was manipulated into supporting Israel’s strikes by Netanyahu, even as Trump celebrated Israel’s killing of Iranian hardliners, noting that several of Trump’s senior advisors have urged restraint rather than intervention.

“His supporters did not put him in place to get involved in the conflict in the Middle East,” Gordon said. “A lot of his advisors … served in Iraq or are against U.S. military interventions in the Middle East. We know where Vance is in terms of intervention. The Tucker Carlson view, Don Jr. I think Trump really wanted to avoid military conflict and negotiate a deal and be the guy who got a better deal than Obama.”

Ilan Goldenberg, who served as an Iran advisor at the Pentagon in the Obama administration and who advised Harris on Middle East issues during her 2024 campaign, told JI that Trump should try to encourage parties in the region to tone it down.

“I think the appropriate position for the United States to be in now is the role of de-escalator,” said Goldenberg, now the senior vice president and chief policy officer at J Street. “The better option, the less risky option that had more good outcomes, was the diplomatic option. Unfortunately, it’s not the way it went. So now we have to see.”

J Street released a statement on Friday calling for an end to the “cycle of retaliation and escalation,” and for a return to diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran.

Both Gordon and Goldenberg questioned Israel’s end game in the strikes, which killed several senior Iranian military leaders and destroyed an above-ground uranium enrichment site at Natanz.

“It definitely has set back the timetable for Iran’s nuclear capacity, but it hasn’t eliminated it, and we also don’t know what happens in terms of retaliation. We’d like to think and hope that Iran has been deterred and won’t respond in a way that we can’t handle,” Gordon said. “So far, so good, but we’re only on the first day, so there were real risks of doing it this way. And that’s why I would have sought, if at all possible, to do it a different way.”

Goldenberg, who said the most important next step in stopping the violence is for the U.S. to help Israel defend against Iran’s retaliation, said he is unsure whether the Israeli success will turn into a long-term victory.

“The Israelis are incredibly good operationally, but they have challenges sometimes translating that into a strategic kind of sustainable victory, as opposed to just continuing to fight,” said Goldenberg. “What’s the end state here? What are you trying to do? Or is the objective to just be in constant conflict?”

Still, even as they said a return to diplomacy is the best way to move forward, both Gordon and Goldenberg acknowledged that Israel’s Friday attack on Iran had so far gone well for Israel.

“It is a remarkable display of Israeli military and intelligence capabilities,” said Gordon.

“I think in the immediate [term], it had a lot of success. Very impressive operationally,” Goldenberg noted.

Trump said in Truth Social posts on Friday that Iran could have a “second chance” at a deal, and that they should return to the negotiating table “before there is nothing left.”

Goldenberg agrees — and he thinks Israel needs to hear from Trump that they can’t attack Iran forever.

“Make clear to the Iranians that there’s still a deal on the table. We’re willing to negotiate,” Goldenberg said. “And at the same time, make clear to the Israelis, there are limits to this. We can’t see this get out of control.”

ANALYSIS

Reading the national security tea leaves

At the National Security Council, top officials focused on Israel and the Middle East were pushed out last month as President Donald Trump seeks to centralize foreign policy decision-making in the Oval Office

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a swearing in ceremony for interim U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Jeanine Pirro in the Oval Office of the White House on May 28, 2025 in Washington, DC.

By

Gabby Deutch

Josh Kraushaar

June 6, 2025

Another week, another round of evidence showing that a growing faction of isolationist-minded foreign policy advisors — or, in the parlance of some on the MAGA right, the “restrainers” — are slowly but surely gaining influence in the Trump administration’s second term.

If personnel is policy, it suggests the second Trump term will feature a markedly different approach to the Middle East than his record from 2017-2021, which included the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel and four Arab countries, the elimination of Iranian Revolutionary Guard leader Qassem Soleimani and the withdrawal from former President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

We reported this week that the Senate will soon consider the nomination of Justin Overbaugh to be deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence and security. Overbaugh is just the latest of several senior Pentagon nominees who come from Defense Priorities, a Koch-backed think tank that has generally argued the U.S. should scale back its involvement in global conflicts, including in the Middle East.

It’s not just at the Defense Department. A senior State Department official told Jewish Insider that at Foggy Bottom, too, the “restrainers” are ascendant. Morgan Ortagus, an Iran hawk who has been serving as deputy Middle East special envoy under Steve Witkoff, plans to depart the office. At the National Security Council, top officials focused on Israel and the Middle East were pushed out last month as President Donald Trump seeks to centralize foreign policy decision-making in the Oval Office.

This story is more than just a gossipy tale of White House palace intrigue. This factional foreign policy battle is set to have major global consequences. The impact is already clear: Trump is pursuing nuclear negotiations with Iran, led by Witkoff, that may result in a deal — one that reportedly could allow Iran to at least temporarily continue enriching uranium, a position that would have been unimaginable in Trump’s first term.

The ongoing, ever-extending negotiations and apparent concessions to Iran — along with occasional leaks from unnamed American officials telegraphing Israel’s military plans — have reduced the leverage to pressure Iran to make significant concessions. While Trump has threatened military action if the talks break down, the actions from the U.S. side suggest they’re eager to make a deal at any cost.

It’s not a coincidence that malign actors are taking advantage of American goodwill. Last month, Trump abruptly abandoned a bombing campaign against Yemen’s Houthi militia, announcing a truce with the Iranian proxy even as the group continues to threaten Israel with missiles. While Trump claimed to have reached a ceasefire with the Houthis to make the trade lanes safer, commercial shipping companies are continuing to avoid the Red Sea and Suez Canal shipping lanes, according to The New York Times.

Trump’s reassignment of hawkish former National Security Advisor Mike Waltz to serve as ambassador to the United Nations last month was the first of a series of moves that have since diminished the influence of those advocating a more traditional conservative foreign policy worldview of peace through strength, and projecting military power to deter American enemies.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also serving as U.S. national security advisor, would’ve been considered firmly in that camp until this year. But since joining the Trump administration, Rubio has managed to maintain his influence by accommodating the ascendant faction of isolationists in the administration.

Daily Kickoff

Is the pro-Israel playbook on the Hill outdated?

Plus, new UCLA chancellor calls out campus antisemitism

GETTY IMAGES

A general view of the U.S. Capitol Building from the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 29, 2025.

By

JI Staff

May 30, 2025

Good Friday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how Congress has increasingly ceded its authority over foreign policy to the White House, and interview UCLA Chancellor Julio Frenk about his efforts to address antisemitism at the school. We also talk to Rep. Mike Lawler about his recent trip to the Middle East, and report on President Donald Trump’s plan to nominate far-right commentator Paul Ingrassia to a senior administration post. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Greg Landsman, Mia Schem and Michael Bloomberg.

Ed. note: In observance of Shavuot, the next Daily Kickoff will arrive on Wednesday, June 4. Chag sameach!

For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: Hostages’ long-lasting mental and physical scars of Gaza captivity are treated at ‘Returnees Ward’; Israel can’t compete in checkbook diplomacy. These tech leaders have other ideas; and Sen. Dave McCormick, in Israel, talks about Trump’s Iran diplomacy, Gaza aid. Print the latest edition here.

What We’re Watching

We’re keeping an eye on ceasefire and hostage-release negotiations, amid reports yesterday that Israel and Hamas were close to reaching an agreement that would have included the release of 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 deceased hostages. A senior Hamas official last night rejected the U.S.-proposed ceasefire deal that had already been agreed to by Israel.
Fox News Channel will air a wide-ranging interview tomorrow night with Sara Netanyahu, in which she’ll discuss with Lara Trump how life in Israel has changed since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JOSH KRAUSHAAR

Pore over the latest round of polling in the New York City mayoral primary, and it is something of a political analyst’s Rorschach test. The question is what will be a bigger turnoff for Gotham voters: extremism or personal scandal?

Will Zohran Mamdani’s radicalism make it difficult for the DSA-affiliated assemblyman — polling in second place — to win an outright majority of the Democratic vote? Candidates from the far-left wing of the party typically have a hard ceiling of support, but the latest polls suggest he’s not yet facing the elevated negative ratings that candidates in his ideological lane typically encounter. There hasn’t yet been a barrage of attack ads reminding voters about his record, as he slowly inches closer to former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Will Cuomo’s personal baggage ultimately be a bigger factor for Democratic voters? Cuomo has been leading the race since jumping in, but holds elevated unfavorability ratings, predominantly stemming from the scandal over sexual misconduct allegations, which he continues to deny, that forced him to resign as governor.

The city’s ranked-choice voting system requires the winner to receive an outright majority of the vote, and build a broader coalition than would be necessary if one only needed a plurality to prevail. In theory, that would advantage Cuomo, given his high name identification, moderate message and ample fundraising resources. In nearly every contest held under a ranked-choice system across the country, moderates have gotten a significant boost, including in the 2021 NYC mayoral primary, when Eric Adams prevailed.

But if there’s a broad antipathy to Cuomo that goes beyond ideological lines, it’s plausible that any alternative to Cuomo could benefit, simply because they’re running as a candidate of change. It’s hard to overlook Cuomo’s underwater favorability rating among primary voters; a new Emerson poll found a near-majority (47%) of NYC Democrats viewing Cuomo unfavorably, with 40% viewing him favorably.

Cuomo’s lead over Mamdani in the final round of ranked-choice voting, according to the poll, stood at eight points (54-46%). It’s a lead that is outside the margin of error, but a little too close for comfort considering Cuomo’s other advantages. The poll found Mamdani winning more of the votes from the third-place finisher (Comptroller Brad Lander) in the final round, suggesting that Cuomo could be vulnerable to opponents framing their campaigns as part of an anti-Cuomo coalition.

Cuomo’s strongest support comes from the Black community (74% support over Mamdani), voters over 50 (66%) and women (58%). Mamdani’s base is among younger white progressives, leading big over Cuomo with voters under 50 (61%).

Cuomo’s margin for success could end up coming from the city’s sizable Jewish community — many of whose members view Mamdani’s virulently anti-Israel record and pro-BDS advocacy as a threat — even though he’s currently winning a fairly small plurality of Jewish votes, according to a recent Homan Strategy Group survey.

Cuomo only tallied 31% of the Jewish vote, according to the poll, but has a lot of room for growth, especially since he still has potential to make inroads with Orthodox Jewish voters, many of whom became disenchanted with him as governor due to his aggressive COVID restrictions. (For instance: A significant 37% share of Orthodox Jewish voters said they were undecided in the Homan survey; 0% supported Mamdani.)

If those Cuomo-skeptical Orthodox voters swing towards the former governor in the final stretch, especially as the threat of Mamdani becomes more real, that may be enough for Cuomo to prevail. But it’s a sign of the times — and the state of the Democratic Party — that this race is as competitive as it is, given the anti-Israel record of the insurgent.

IN THE BACK SEAT

How Congress became impotent on foreign policy

A general view of the U.S. Capitol Building from the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 29, 2025. (GRAEME SLOAN/SIPA USA VIA AP IMAGES)

For decades, Jewish and pro-Israel groups invested significant resources in building bipartisan relationships with key members of Congress to steer legislation, while helping secure foreign aid and blocking unfavorable initiatives concerning the Middle East, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. But that long-standing playbook has appeared less effective and relevant in recent years as Congress has increasingly ceded its authority on foreign policy to the executive branch, a trend that has accelerated with President Donald Trump’s return to office. The dynamic is frustrating pro-Israel advocates who had long prioritized Congress as a vehicle of influence, prompting many to reassess the most effective ways to advocate for preferred policies.

‘Increasingly irrelevant’: There are any number of reasons why Congress has taken a back seat in shaping foreign affairs, experts say, including Trump’s efforts to consolidate power in the executive branch, most recently by gutting the National Security Council. And Trump’s own power in reshaping the ideological direction of his party, preferring diplomacy over military engagement, has made more-hawkish voices within the party more reluctant to speak out against administration policy. “Congress is increasingly irrelevant except on nominations and taxes,” Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as a special envoy for Iran in the first Trump administration, told Jewish Insider. “It has abandoned its once-central role on tariffs, and plays little role in other foreign affairs issues. That’s a long-term trend and we saw it in previous administrations, but it is worsened by the deadlocks on Capitol Hill, the need to get 60 votes to do almost anything, and by Trump’s centralization of power in the White House.”

Read the full story here.

UNIVERSITY RECKONING

‘The challenge attracted me’: Julio Frenk brings the fight against campus antisemitism to UCLA

Julio Frenk speaks during the Humanitarian Summit and 2025 Human Rights and Humanitarian Forum at the UCLA Luskin Conference Center on May 7, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Victor Boyko/Getty Images for Aurora Humanitarian Initiative)

After Oct, 7, 2023, Julio Frenk, then-president of the University of Miami, was swift and clear in his unequivocal condemnation of the Hamas terror attacks on Israel, and in his guidance about the university’s rules around protesting, harassment and violence, and continued disavowals of antisemitism. Now, in his new role as chancellor of the University of California, Los Angeles, Frenk is attempting to bring some Florida to deep-blue California as he wraps up his first semester. “When we engage with each other, we do that respectfully and without — obviously no hatred, no harassment, no incitement to violence, but also no expressions that are deeply offensive to the other side,” Frenk told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch in an interview this week.

Protest problems: During UCLA’s large anti-Israel encampment last spring, Jewish students were barred from accessing parts of campus by the protest organizers. The tents popped up just days after Frenk had accepted the offer from Michael Drake, president of the University of California system. “I had already said yes, and he said, ‘Are you going to change your mind?’ And I said, ‘No, I’m not going to change my mind. I think this is a very important challenge to face and fix if I can, and I’m going to give it my all,’” Frenk recalled. “What drew me here is just the reputation, the standing, and I know that that spring, the images of UCLA going to the world were not very enticing. But to be honest, facing that challenge was something that attracted me.”

Read the full interview here.

STANDING TOGETHER

‘Keep showing up’: Capital Jewish Museum reopens after deadly shooting

(L-R) Episcopal Diocese of Washington Bishop Mariann Budde, Adas Israel Congregation Senior Rabbi Lauren Holtzblatt, Masjid Muhammad President and Imam Talib Shareff and Shiloh Baptist Church of Washington Rev. Thomas Bowen address a remembrance and reopening ceremony at the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum on May 29, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

As visitors entered the Capital Jewish Museum on Thursday morning, open for the first time after an antisemitic attack killed two Israeli Embassy staffers steps from its doors last week, they walked past a makeshift memorial to Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky before security guards wanded them down and checked their bags. The museum might be reopening, but its staff — and the broader Washington Jewish community — now feel a heaviness that did not exist last week, when the museum was on the cusp of unveiling a major new exhibit about LGBTQ Jews ahead of the World Pride Festival next month. The presence of police officers and heightened security precautions in the newly reopened space were stark reminders of the violence perpetrated by a radicalized gunman who said he killed the two young people “for Gaza,” Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Stop by: A brief ceremony marking the museum’s reopening began with a cantor leading the crowd in singing songs for peace. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged to continue to support the Jewish community and called on all Washingtonians to do the same. “It is not up to the Jewish community to say, ‘Support us.’ It is up to all of us to denounce antisemitism in all forms,” Bowser told the several dozen people at the event. Bowser, who was instrumental in the creation of the museum, which opened in 2023, urged people in the local community to visit.

Read the full story here.

SEEING THE SIGNS

Rep. Landsman: Murder of Israeli Embassy staffers was the culmination of a ‘trajectory’ toward antisemitic violence

Congressman Greg Landsman attends a press conference during the congressional delegation’s visit to Denmark, in Copenhagen on Friday, April 25, 2025. (EMIL NICOLAI HELMS/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images)

For Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), the murder of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum last week brought to life fears he has harbored for months, amid rising extremism in anti-Israel demonstrations, Landsman told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod in an interview on Wednesday.

Worst fears: The Jewish Ohio congressman said that days before the shooting, while attending a public event in downtown Cincinnati, he had a “really vivid image of being shot in the back of the head. What I saw was myself laying on the ground in the way in which you would be if you had been shot in the head … I wasn’t alive, I was dead.” Landsman continued, “And then, literally two or three days later, that’s what happened outside the Jewish museum. That’s what happened to these two innocent people.” He said he feels the country has been on a “trajectory” toward such violence by anti-Israel agitators, and that it will continue without a change in course.

Read the full interview here.

CONTOVERSIAL COMMENTATOR

Latest Trump nominee called Israel-Palestinian conflict a ‘psyop’, promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories

Paul Ingrassia, White House liaison to the Justice Department, left, announces the release of brothers Andrew and Matthew Valentin outside of the DC Central Detention Facility on January 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

President Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate far-right commentator Paul Ingrassia to head the agency tasked with rooting out corruption and protecting whistleblowers in the federal government, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen reports. Ingrassia, 29, currently serves as the White House liaison for the Department of Homeland Security. He briefly served as the White House liaison to the Department of Justice early in Trump’s second term, but was reassigned after clashing with the DOJ’s chief of staff after urging the president to hire only individuals who exhibited what Ingrassia called “exceptional loyalty,” according to ABC News.

Part of a pattern: Ingrassia has trafficked in a number of conspiracy theories, as have several other controversial administration appointees, including Department of Defense Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson and Acting Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy Darren Beattie. On Oct. 7, 2023, as the Hamas attacks were still underway, Ingrassia posted on X calling illegal immigration to the U.S. “comparable to the attack on Israel,” writing, “The amount of energy everyone has put into condemning Hamas (and prior to that, the Ukraine conflict) over the past 24 hours should be the same amount of energy we put into condemning our wide open border, which is a war comparable to the attack on Israel in terms of bloodshed — but made worse by the fact that it’s occurring in our very own backyard. We shouldn’t be beating the war drum, however tragic the events may be overseas, until we resolve our domestic problems first.”

Read the full story here.

TEHRAN TALK

Lawler: Regional leaders ‘cautiously optimistic’ about nuclear talks, but ‘realistic’ about Iranian bad faith

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), returning from a trip to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, characterized leaders in the region as being open to the Trump administration’s efforts to reach a new nuclear deal with Iran, but also suggested that they are skeptical that Iran will actually agree to a deal that dismantles its nuclear program, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What he said: “I think folks are realistic about the prospects of Iran coming to an agreement, but still want to give the process a chance and try to avoid a conflict if possible,” Lawler told JI on Thursday. “But ultimately, you know, I think everybody is very clear about the fact that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.” Asked about the potential contours of a deal, Lawler said, “my general view is that the nuclear program, obviously, is a major threat, but so too is their continued funding of terrorism, and all of these issues are going to have to be addressed, one way or the other.”

Read the full interview here.

Worthy Reads

Gaming Out the Jewish Future: eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross spotlights an initiative launched by philanthropist Phil Siegel using “war games” that simulate potential future scenarios facing the American Jewish community to get leaders to think more about long-term planning. “The Jewish community may not have direct control over nuclear war, global demographic trends or international trade wars, for instance, even though these have a profound influence on the Jewish community. (Most of the scenarios include a geopolitical element as well, such as peace in the Middle East in the first one or an acute housing crisis in Israel that prevents American Jews from emigrating despite harsh conditions in the U.S. in the third scenario.) However, the Jewish community does have control over creating new organizations and initiatives or coordinating existing ones. ‘The game itself and the scenario itself were less important. It was more about how people think — What types of things influence us? Do we have more or less agency over them?’ [Israeli educator Barak] Sella said. ‘Is there an optimal scenario and does the Jewish community have a 2050 outcome that we are working toward?’” [eJP]

Delay of (End) Game: The Washington Post’s David Ignatius calls for an end to the Israel-Hamas war, positing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has for a year rejected subordinates’ suggested strategies for winding down the conflict. “What’s agonizing is that Israeli military and intelligence leaders were ready to settle this conflict nearly a year ago. Working with U.S. and Emirati officials, they developed a plan for security ‘bubbles’ that would contain the violence, starting in northern Gaza and moving south, backed by an international peacekeeping force that would include troops from European and moderate Arab countries. … The Israeli-Palestinian dispute might seem intractable, but ending this conflict would be relatively easy. I’m told that Israeli military officials keep working on ‘day after’ plans, honing details as recently as this week. But they have had no political support from Netanyahu. ‘The “exit ramp” has been staring us in the face for a long time,’ argues Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. It’s a mix of Arab states and Gaza Palestinians, operating under a Palestinian Authority umbrella, he explains. “It is messy, with overlapping responsibilities and lots of dotted lines. But it checks all the boxes to enable the process of reconstruction and rehabilitation to get off the ground.’” [WashPost]

Mumbai Makeover: In The Wall Street Journal, Howard Husock interviews Rabbi Yisroel Kozlovsky of the Chabad House of Mumbai, India, about the city’s Jewish revival since the terror attack in 2008 in which Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife and unborn child were killed. “Now in his 12th year in Mumbai, the rabbi recalls his unease upon receiving the assignment from Chabad’s headquarters in New York. He arrived in 2013 to find the building untouched since the terror attacks, its walls still bloodstained. His successor had been forced to live and hold services in rented apartments for the Jewish visitors and expats. (There are reportedly no more than 5,000 ethnic Indian ‘Bene Israel’ Jews in the country.) ‘Imagine our feelings when we walk in and see the destruction firsthand. It was still one big mess,’ Rabbi Kozlovsky says. ‘We knew immediately, though, we wanted to bring life back to the building.’ … Rabbi Kozlovsky has nevertheless decided not to shy away from the events of 26/11, as the locals refer to the attack, but to make it the basis of a mission. He has set out to build an artistic multimedia memorial to educate the hundreds of visitors, almost all non-Jewish Indians, who come here each week, mainly through class trips. ‘Restoration and resilience are not good enough responses to terror,’ he says of the project. ‘We are building a memorial and museum to teach history, to be a beacon of light.’” [WSJ]

Word on the Street

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Thomas Barrack, who is also serving as Syria envoy, said in Damascus on Thursday that relations between Syria and Israel are a “solvable problem” that “starts with a dialogue”; Barrack also raised the U.S. flag over the ambassador’s residence in Damascus for the first time since the embassy’s closure 13 years ago…

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that any nuclear agreement with the U.S. must include the full lifting of sanctions and preservation of Tehran’s enrichment capabilities…

Saudi, Qatari and Emirati leaders reportedly told President Donald Trump during his trip to the region last week that they opposed military strikes on Iran’s nuclear program…

The Wall Street Journal reports on Israeli concerns over Washington’s ongoing nuclear talks with Iran, positing that a deal could put Israel “in a bind with its most important ally on its most pressing national security question”…

Columbia University reached a settlement with a Jewish social work student who had filed a lawsuit against the school alleging antisemitic discrimination…

California’s state Assembly unanimously advanced antisemitism legislation backed by Jewish groups in the state; AB715 would improve the process for making discrimination complaints, as well as create an antisemitism coordinator position for the state’s K-12 schools…

A Yonkers, N.Y., man was sentenced to six years in prison after pleading guilty to attacking a Jewish barber last year…

A Michigan man who in 2022 threatened parents and students at a synagogue preschool pleaded guilty to a federal gun charge…

The Wall Street Journal reports on the efforts of small wine importer and distributor Victor Owen Schwartz to challenge the Trump administration’s tariffs in court…

The board of Ben & Jerry’s issued a statement labeling Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, setting up another battle with parent company Unilever, which has for years clashed with the ice cream company’s independent board over its approach to social issues, including Israel…

CBS News profiles Karin Prien, the first Jewish federal cabinet member to serve in post-WWII Germany; the daughter of Holocaust survivors who was born in the Netherlands, Prien moved to Germany with her family when she was 4 and now serves as the country’s minister for education, family affairs, senior citizens, women and youth…

Former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg met with United Arab Emirates National Security Advisor Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan for a conversation largely focused on the opportunities presented by AI technology…

The Associated Press reports on efforts to free Israeli-Russian Princeton researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov, who was kidnapped by an Iranian-backed militia group in Iraq in 2023…

Iran’s embassy in India said it is investigating the disappearance of three Punjabi men who went missing earlier this month in Tehran while transiting through Iran en route to Australia, where a local travel agent had promised them jobs…

An increasing number of oil tankers are turning off their transponders as they near Malaysia, an area used to transfer Iranian oil bound for China, as Tehran continues to work to evade U.S. sanctions…

Missouri philanthropist Bud Levin died at 88…

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who headed the NYPD during the 9/11 terror attacks, died at 69…

Dr. Robert Jarvik, who oversaw the design of the first artificial heart, died at 79…

Pic of the Day

Mia Schem speaks at inaugural Tribe of Nova Foundation benefit held at Sony Hall, Times Square, May 30th 2025 (Haley Cohen)

Following her return to Israel, Mia Schem — who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and spent 55 days in Hamas captivity — famously had the phrase “We will dance again” tattooed on her arm. On Thursday night, approximately 800 New Yorkers joined Schem in dancing again at the sold-out inaugural Tribe of Nova Foundation benefit held at Sony Hall, a concert venue in Times Square.

The event was held with the goal of raising at least $1 million to aid families of victims and survivors of Nova, where 411 festivalgoers, mostly young people, were killed and 44 were taken hostage, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Birthdays

At the kickoff event for “A Dinner of Unconditional Love” which will honor the work of Doctor Rick Hodes (left) who gathered with 12-year-old Ethiopian Akewak Behailu who came to the US for heart and spine surgeries. The two were at Strings restaurant on Wednesday, October 6, 2010. Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post (Photo By Cyrus McCrimmon/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

Medical director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Ethiopia spine and heart project, Dr. Richard Michael Hodes turns 72…

FRIDAY: Santa Monica, Calif.-based historian of Sephardic and Crypto-Jewish studies, Dolores Sloan turns 95… Real estate developer, landlord of the World Trade Center until 9/11, former chair of UJA-Federation of New York, Larry A. Silverstein turns 94… Partner in the NYC law firm of Mintz & Gold, he is also a leading supporter of Hebrew University, Ira Lee “Ike” Sorkin turns 82… Board member of the Collier County chapter of the Florida ACLU and the Naples Florida Council on World Affairs, Maureen McCully “Mo” Winograd… Cape Town, South Africa, native, she is the owner and chef at Los Angeles-based Catering by Brenda, Brenda Walt turns 74… Former professional tennis player, he competed in nine Wimbledons and 13 U.S. Opens, now the varsity tennis coach at Gilman School in Baltimore, Steve “Lightning” Krulevitz turns 74… Former chief rabbi of France, Gilles Uriel Bernheim turns 73… Encino, Calif.-based business attorney, Andrew W. Hyman… Literary critic, essayist and novelist, Daphne Miriam Merkin turns 71… Israeli physicist and philosopher, Avshalom Cyrus Elitzur turns 68… Former member of Congress for 16 years, since leaving Congress he has opened a bookstore and written two novels, Steve Israel turns 67… Former science editor for BBC News and author of six books, David Shukman turns 67… Founder of Krav Maga Global with 1,500 instructors in 60 countries, Eyal Yanilov turns 66… Editorial writer at The New York Times, Michelle Cottle… Film, stage and television actress; singer and songwriter, she sang the national anthem at Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, Idina Menzel turns 54… Writer, filmmaker, playwright and DJ, known by his pen name Ithamar Ben-Canaan, Itamar Handelman Smith turns 49… Member of Knesset who served as Israel’s minister of agriculture in the prior government, Oded Forer turns 48… Director of engagement and program at NYC’s Congregation Rodeph Sholom, Scott Hertz… Chief of staff for Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), Reema Dodin turns 45… Tsippy Friend… Israeli author, her debut novel has been published in more than 20 languages around the world, Shani Boianjiu turns 38… Rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer, known professionally as Hebro, Raphael Ohr Chaim Fulcher turns 38… Senior counsel at Gilead Sciences, Ashley Bender Spirn… Ice hockey defenseman, he has played for four NHL teams and is now in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga, David Matthew Warsofsky turns 35… Deputy chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Miryam Esther Lipper… Senior reporter for CNN, Eric Levenson… Challah baker, social entrepreneur and manager at Howard Properties, Jason Friend…

SATURDAY: Investment advisor at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles, Alfred Phillip Stern turns 92… Businessman and philanthropist, Ira Leon Rennert turns 91… Professor at Yale University and the 2018 winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, William Dawbney Nordhaus turns 84… Food critic at Vogue magazine since 1989 and judge on “Iron Chef America,” he is the author of the 1996 award-winning book The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten turns 83… Founder and retired CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council, Alvin “Al” From turns 82… Author, political pundit and a retired correspondent for HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” he has won 14 Emmy Awards during his career, Bernie Goldberg turns 80… Comedian, actress and TV producer, Susie Essman turns 70… Founder and chairman of the Katz Group of Companies with operations in the pharmacy, sports (including the Edmonton Oilers), entertainment and real estate sectors, Daryl Katz turns 64… Reality television personality, best known for starring in and producing her own matchmaking reality series, “The Millionaire Matchmaker” on Bravo TV, Patti Stanger turns 64… Jerusalem-born inventor, serial entrepreneur and novelist; founder, chairman and CEO of CyberArk Software, one of Israel’s leading software companies, Alon Nisim Cohen turns 57… Entrepreneur, best known as the co-founder of CryptoLogic, an online casino software firm, Andrew Rivkin turns 56… Former Democratic mayor of Annapolis, Md., now head of policy at SWTCH, Joshua Jackson “Josh” Cohen turns 52… Program director of synagogue and rabbinic initiatives at the Board of Rabbis of Southern California, Melissa York… Israeli actress, singer and dancer, she played a Mossad agent in the espionage TV series “Tehran,” Liraz Charhi turns 47… Author of the “Money Stuff” column at Bloomberg Opinion, Matthew Stone Levine turns 47… Freelance writer in Brooklyn, Sara Trappler Spielman… Attorney and NYT best-selling author of the Mara Dyer and Shaw Confessions series, Michelle Hodkin turns 43… Senior advisor at the U.S. Department of Commerce until earlier this year, Bert Eli Kaufman… Senior product manager at Tel Aviv-based Forter, Zoe Goldfarb… Stephanie Oreck Weiss… Chief revenue officer at NOTUS, Brad E. Bosserman… Senior rabbi and executive director of Jewish life at D.C.’s Sixth & I, Aaron Potek… Managing editor at Allbritton Journalism Institute, Matt Berman… Medical student in the class of 2027 at the University of Nicosia Medical School, Amital Isaac… Brad Goldstein… Basketball player in Israel’s Premier League until recent years, while at Princeton he won the Ivy League Player of the Year award, Spencer Weisz turns 30… Professional golfer on the PGA Tour, Max Alexander Greyserman turns 30… Rapper, singer, songwriter and producer, known by his stage name, King Sol, Benjamin Solomon turns 27…

SUNDAY: Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, pianist and conductor, he has taught at Yale, SUNY Purchase, Cornell, Brandeis and Harvard, Yehudi Wyner turns 96… Holocaust survivor as a child, he served as the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel for 10 years and twice as Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv for 16 years, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau turns 88… NYC-based attorney, author of two books regarding the history and operations of El Al, owner of 40,000 plus pieces of memorabilia related to El Al, Marvin G. Goldman turns 86… Grammy Award-winning classical pianist, Richard Goode turns 82… Former member of the Knesset for the Yisrael Beiteinu party, Shimon Ohayon turns 80… Retired attorney in Berkeley, Calif., Thomas Andrew Seaton… Pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay area, Elliot Charles Lepler, MD… Former member of the Knesset for the Shinui and the Hilonit Tzionit parties, Eti Livni turns 77… Founding editor of The American Interest, Adam M. Garfinkle turns 74… Former editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News and co-author with Michael Bloomberg of Bloomberg by Bloomberg, Matthew Winkler turns 70… Contributing editor at The Free Press, Uri Paul Berliner… Founding rabbi of Congregation Aish Kodesh in Woodmere, N.Y., Rabbi Moshe Weinberger turns 68… Former IDF officer and now a London-based political scientist and journalist, Ahron “Ronnie” Bregman turns 67… Member of the Knesset for the Shas party for 16 years ending in 2015, Amnon Cohen turns 65… Owner of MLB’s Athletics (temporarily playing in Sacramento), he is the chair of Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP) Foundation, John J. Fisher turns 64… Poet, performance artist and essayist, Adeena Karasick turns 60… Founding editor and publisher of the Dayton Jewish Observer, Marshall J. Weiss… Television personality and matchmaker, Sigalit “Siggy” Flicker turns 58… Actress, voice actress and film director, Danielle Harris turns 48… Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and writer, Spencer J. Ackerman turns 45… Comedian, writer, actress, director and producer, Amy Schumer turns 44… Partner in Oliver Wyman, a global management consulting firm, Daniel Tannebaum… President and CEO of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Yael Eckstein turns 41… Musician, songwriter, author, actor and blogger, Ari Seth Herstand turns 40… CEO of The Good Food Institute, Ilya Sheyman turns 39… Political reporter for NBC News and MSNBC until earlier this year, now a newspaper editor in Maine, Alex Seitz-Wald… Senior writer at Barron’s covering the Federal Reserve, Nicole Goodkind… Former engineering lead at Palantir Technologies, now in a MPP program at Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs, Naomi S. Kadish… Executive business partner at Lyft, Isabel Keller… NYC-born Israeli pair skater, she competed for Israel at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Hailey Esther Kops turns 23…

IN THE BACK SEAT

How Congress became impotent on foreign policy

As the Oval Office dominates foreign policy, pro-Israel advocates rethink their Congress-focused playbook

GETTY IMAGES

A general view of the U.S. Capitol Building from the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 29, 2025.

By

Matthew Kassel

May 30, 2025

For decades, Jewish and pro-Israel groups invested significant resources in building bipartisan relationships with key members of Congress to steer legislation, while helping secure foreign aid and blocking unfavorable initiatives concerning the Middle East.

But that long-standing playbook has appeared less effective and relevant in recent years as Congress has increasingly ceded its authority on foreign policy to the executive branch, a trend that has accelerated with President Donald Trump’s return to office. The dynamic is frustrating pro-Israel advocates who had long prioritized Congress as a vehicle of influence, prompting many to reassess the most effective ways to advocate for preferred policies.

That Congress had no formal role in Trump’s recent decisions to unilaterally reach a ceasefire with the Houthis in Yemen and to lift sanctions on Syria, for example, has stoked speculation that legislators could also be sidelined from ratifying a potential nuclear deal with Iran.

There are any number of reasons why Congress has taken a back seat in shaping foreign affairs, experts say, including Trump’s efforts to consolidate power in the executive branch, most recently by gutting the National Security Council. And Trump’s own power in reshaping the ideological direction of his party, preferring diplomacy over military engagement, has made more-hawkish voices within the party more reluctant to speak out against administration policy.

“Congress is increasingly irrelevant except on nominations and taxes,” Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as a special envoy for Iran in the first Trump administration, told Jewish Insider. “It has abandoned its once-central role on tariffs, and plays little role in other foreign affairs issues. That’s a long-term trend and we saw it in previous administrations, but it is worsened by the deadlocks on Capitol Hill, the need to get 60 votes to do almost anything, and by Trump’s centralization of power in the White House.”

Previously, “when there was real power in the departments, congressional oversight meant a lot more,” Abrams added. “If you’re a foreign ambassador in Washington, there’s no one to talk to at the NSC, lots of vacancies at State, and while there are plenty of people to meet with on the Hill, what are they going to do for you? You need to see Trump” Abrams said, or Steve Witkoff, the special envoy to the Middle East leading the negotiations with Iran.

The executive branch, to be sure, has long held significant control over foreign policy but it has expanded considerably in the decades following the 9/11 attacks. Since then, a law passed by Congress to authorize the invasion in Iraq in 2003 has been used — and, critics allege, abused — by successive administrations to initiate military action abroad without first seeking approval from lawmakers who are constitutionally empowered to decide when the country goes to war and oversee defense spending.

Still, Congress has also long shown “disinterest” in exercising its power over foreign policy, said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. “This was a preexisting condition,” he explained to JI. “By and large, Congress abdicated its oversight role before Trump even came to office,” especially as national security matters have been overshadowed by competing domestic issues such as inflation and immigration, which “resonate more saliently” with voters.

“Trump’s dominance over the Republican Party accounts for much of the acquiescence on the part of his Congress,” observed Stephen Schlesinger, a historian who specializes in international affairs. “But let us not forget that recent Democratic presidents have practically had a free hand, too, in pursuing their own global policies — with little reaction or opposition from their party members.”

Among other examples, Schlesinger cited former President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran — brokered without consent from Congress — as well as former President Joe Biden’s “total support” for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Republican deference to Trump, however, has set a new standard for such acquiescence, Schlesinger argued, particularly on talks with Iran. “Given the past obsessive Republican fury against a deal with Iran during Democratic administrations, still none in Trump’s party have objected to a nuclear deal with Tehran under Trump, or, for that matter, his solo decision to lift sanctions on Syria, a country led by a former radical Islamic leader,” Schlesinger noted.

“Certainly the reality of governance in Washington today is that Congress may not be totally irrelevant, but they’re an appendage to the whims and desires of the Trump presidency,” said Norman Ornstein, a senior scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “There is little if any pushback or oversight of what Trump” and his advisors “involved in foreign policy and diplomacy are doing — and that’s a change.”

The new dynamic has forced pro-Israel groups to adapt to a new political landscape in which their traditional advocacy has been weakened by Congress’ diminished clout and lack of interest in asserting meaningful supervision over Trump’s recent Middle East policy decisions.

“There are very few remedies for this kind of a standoff where the executive branch has arrogated to itself so much power that Congress is essentially marginalized,” said Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who previously worked on the Hill. “When you look at the question of Israel, you have to see it in the context of much broader trends.”

Marshall Wittmann, a spokesperson for AIPAC, argued that both “the administration and Congress play a critical role in strengthening and expanding the U.S.-Israel relationship, and AIPAC works with key leaders in power, on both sides of the aisle and both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, to build support for the mutually beneficial alliance between America and Israel.”

The absence of congressional influence has come as disagreements have emerged between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government over ending the war in Gaza and nuclear diplomacy with Iran. Trump’s recent trip to the Middle East — where he met with a range of Arab leaders but did not stop in Israel — was one of the latest indications of deprioritization of America’s closest ally in the region.

Tensions have also surfaced amid ongoing negotiations with Iran. Pro-Israel advocates have voiced concerns that Trump’s negotiating team is nearing an agreement that could simply reinstate the deal brokered by the Obama administration a decade ago — which detractors had criticized as a pathway to a nuclear weapon since it allowed Iran to continue enriching uranium.

The Trump administration has indicated it will not permit Iran to retain domestic nuclear enrichment — even as some officials have sent mixed signals on the matter, contributing to a sense of confusion over the ultimate terms of an agreement. Trump pulled out of the original deal — which was widely opposed by Republicans — during his first administration.

For pro-Israel groups, the risks of clashing with Trump on key issues likely outweigh the benefits, observers contend. “Any organization has to very carefully weigh its equities before publicly taking on the administration,” Daniel Silverberg, a former top foreign policy advisor to Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), told JI.

The pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC has recognized that it is now operating in a unique landscape, according to Manny Houle, a Democratic pro-Israel strategist who previously served as the group’s progressive outreach director in the Midwest. Before Trump was elected, Howard Kohr, AIPAC’s former president, frequently said the group “was all about Congress,” Houle recalled in a recent interview with JI. “Then, Trump was in office and he said we’re going to be dealing with the White House.”

Marshall Wittmann, a spokesperson for AIPAC, argued that both “the administration and Congress play a critical role in strengthening and expanding the U.S.-Israel relationship, and AIPAC works with key leaders in power, on both sides of the aisle and both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, to build support for the mutually beneficial alliance between America and Israel.”

“President Trump has a strong pro-Israel and anti-Iran record, but his administration evinced early on a lack of expertise and consistency in its policy toward Iran’s nuclear program,” said Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “But recently that position has evolved and strengthened due in no small part to feedback it has gotten.”

“We applaud the administration’s strong statements and actions in support of our ally, commend Congress for passing pro-Israel legislation such as the annual appropriation for lifesaving security assistance to Israel, and appreciate President Trump and congressional leaders both making clear last week that Iran must completely dismantle its nuclear program,” Wittmann said in a statement to JI last week.

Even as Congress has failed to take formal action over points of disagreement with Trump’s recent Middle East directives, some pro-Israel activists suggested their outreach to lawmakers on the Iran talks in particular has yielded substantive results in recent weeks.

“President Trump has a strong pro-Israel and anti-Iran record, but his administration evinced early on a lack of expertise and consistency in its policy toward Iran’s nuclear program,” said Michael Makovsky, president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. “But recently that position has evolved and strengthened due in no small part to feedback it has gotten.”

In public and private settings, JINSA and other pro-Israel groups, as well as Israeli officials and congressional Republicans, “have made the case that Trump needs to stick to his initial policy of dismantlement of Iran’s enrichment facilities,” Makovsky said.

“This has contributed to Trump officials pivoting in the past couple weeks to a tougher ‘no enrichment’ stand,” Makovsky told JI last week.

Eric Levine, a top GOP fundraiser and a board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition who recently launched a federal lobbying practice, said “the most important voice Congress will have is if the president makes a deal with Iran. I think that it’s really important that the Senate remains steadfast and safeguards its powers and insists, if there is a deal, it should be counted as a treaty. If he thinks it’s an amazing deal, he should have no trouble passing it.”

Still, it remains to be seen if the toughest voices against Iran in the Senate who have expressed reservations with enrichment limits and other perceived weaknesses of a potential deal will push back against Trump if he lands on an agreement that does not meet their standards. While some Republican lawmakers have spoken out in recent weeks to set expectations for a deal, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), observers say they are skeptical that Congress will ultimately seek to flex its authority if an agreement comes forward.

“The ultimate test will be if there’s a vote on Iran,” said former Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY), a pro-Israel Democrat who opposed Obama’s deal in 2015. “As Congress has grown more performative, it has become less deliberative on foreign policy,” he added. “The speaker’s gavel has become a rubber stamp. The result is an abdication by Congress of its delineated responsibilities.”

Eric Levine, a top GOP fundraiser and a board member of the Republican Jewish Coalition who recently launched a federal lobbying practice, said “the most important voice Congress will have is if the president makes a deal with Iran.”

“I think that it’s really important that the Senate remains steadfast and safeguards its powers and insists, if there is a deal, it should be counted as a treaty,” said Levine. “If he thinks it’s an amazing deal, he should have no trouble passing it,” Levine said of Trump’s efforts to reach what he has suggested is an imminent accord.

It is unclear if the White House will seek approval from Congress for a deal, even as lawmakers have recently stressed that an agreement would have no guarantee of surviving in future administrations if not ratified by the legislative branch.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio affirmed during hearings on Capitol Hill last week that U.S. law requires that any deal with Iran be submitted to Congress for review and approval, noting that he had been in Congress when that law, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, was passed. A White House spokesperson declined to confirm if Trump plans to present a potential deal to Congress when reached by JI on Wednesday, deferring to the president and Witkoff’s remarks from the Oval Office — which did not address the matter.

With Congress increasingly on the sidelines, some pro-Israel groups have turned to alternative forms of advocacy to buttress their lobbying efforts in recent years.

“Advocacy tactics are always changing,” James Thurber, a distinguished professor of government at American University and a leading expert on federal lobbying, told JI. “It is like war where opponents must be flexible, try new tools, assess and adjust. It is essential to be persistently focused on the best strategy, theme and message and to not rely on outdated lobbying tactics.”

“Our world has changed,” said Ann Lewis, a veteran Democratic advisor and a former co-chair of Democratic Majority for Israel, whose formidable political arm has actively engaged in congressional primaries featuring sharp divisions over Israel. “Any definition of advocacy that begins post-election is less effective than it deserves to be.”

Indeed, AIPAC’s foray into campaign politics four years ago, marking a major tactical shift for the organization, was a sign of the changing power dynamics in Washington. The group has since helped to elect a range of congressional allies, while working to unseat some of the fiercest critics of Israel in the House and blocking potential antagonists from getting elected.

“Advocacy tactics are always changing,” James Thurber, a distinguished professor of government at American University and a leading expert on federal lobbying, told JI. “It is like war where opponents must be flexible, try new tools, assess and adjust. It is essential to be persistently focused on the best strategy, theme and message and to not rely on outdated lobbying tactics.”

But as most foreign policy decisions now emanate from the White House, some pro-Israel activists say they remain frustrated by the lack of will from Congress to assert its authority, even as they vow their efforts will continue.

“It is tragic that Congress has so blatantly shirked its responsibility to act as a check and balance on the executive branch,” a senior political operative involved in pro-Israel advocacy recently lamented. “But under no circumstances does that mean we stop fighting for the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

presidential address

Trump blasts ‘interventionalists’ and ‘neo-cons’ in Riyadh speech

A conservative foreign policy analyst dubbed Trump’s Saudi address similar to Obama’s 2009 ‘apology tour’ in Cairo

Scott Olson/Getty Images

President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Macomb Community College on April 29, 2025 at Warren, Michigan.

By

Marc Rod

May 13, 2025

President Donald Trump lambasted “interventionalists” and “neo-cons” who previously led foreign policy discourse in the Republican Party in a speech on Tuesday at a U.S.-Saudi Arabia investment forum event in Riyadh.

“The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neo-cons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions failing to develop [Kabul], Baghdad, so many other cities,” Trump said. “In the end, the so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.”

“They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves,” Trump continued. “Peace, prosperity and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly.”

Trump also condemned American presidents who “have been afflicted with the focus that it’s our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use U.S. policy to dispense justice for their sins” — an apparent condemnation of former President George W. Bush.

He said that it’s “God’s job to sit in judgement, my job to defend America and to promote the fundamental interests of stability, prosperity and peace,” but that he would “never hesitate” to defend the U.S. or its allies.

The remarks were cheered by several notable members of the isolationist wing of the GOP, including Dan Caldwell, a former Pentagon adviser fired for allegedly leaking sensitive information.

A conservative foreign policy analyst compared the speech to President Barack Obama’s “A New Beginning” speech in Cairo in 2009. “It’s his apology tour,” the analyst told Jewish Insider.

“It’s crazy to air your dirty laundry in a place that bore the Al-Qaida hijackers. This is Jeanne Kirkpatrick’s ‘Blame America’ on the right,” the analyst continued, warning that an “Arabist view” appeared to be making its way into the administration “at the expense of Israel,” a trend they said was previously mainly seen among Democrats.

Trump also announced the “cessation” of sanctions against Syria “in order to give them a chance at greatness” and the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Syria. He said that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be meeting with the Syrian foreign minister this week.

Trump characterized these moves as a favor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill had argued for a targeted, cautious approach to sanctions relief for Syria, in a reversible fashion, in return for measurable progress and results on U.S. priorities. Trump said that “we’re taking them all off.” It was not clear from his remarks if the U.S. would be attaching conditions to that sanctions relief.

The Israeli government has advocated against sanctions relief for the regime out of concerns about the new government’s ties to Islamist extremists.

Addressing the leaders of Iran, Trump said he was willing “to offer them a new path and much better path towards a far better and more hopeful future,” adding that he’s shown he is “willing to end past conflicts and forge new partnerships for a better and more stable world.”

He warned that “if Iran’s leadership rejects this olive branch and continues to attack their neighbors, then we’ll have no choice but to inflict massive maximum pressure, drive Iranian oil exports to zero like I did before … and take all action required to stop the regime from ever having a nuclear weapon.”

Trump also said that the clock is ticking for Iran to accept that offer.

The U.S. president lavished praise on Saudi Arabia and its crown prince for the development the country has seen in recent years. He said it’s his “fervent hope, wish and even my dream that Saudi Arabia … will soon be joining the Abraham Accords.”

“You’ll be greatly honoring me and you’ll be greatly honoring all of those people that have fought so hard for the Middle East, and I really think it’s going to be something special,” Trump said. “But you’ll do it in your own time. That’s what I want, that’s what you want, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

Trump repeatedly insisted that the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel would not have happened had he been president at the time and said that the “people of Gaza deserve a much better future” but that cannot happen as long as the leaders of Gaza continue to pursue violence. He said he wants to see the Gaza war “ended as quickly as possible” and the hostages all returned, a seeming contradiction to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s plans to expand Israeli operations in Gaza.

He also said that the U.S. “stands ready to help Lebanon create a future of economic development and peace with its neighbors,” adding that its new government provides “the first real chance in decades for a more productive partnership with the United States.”

Regarding the U.S. strikes on the Houthis, Trump said that the U.S. “got what we came for and then we got out,” referring to the U.S. ceasefire with the group. He said that the U.S. “[doesn’t] want them shooting at Saudi Arabia,” but the deal, as publicly outlined, did not contain provisions to protect Israel, Saudi Arabia or any other U.S. partners.

Houthi attacks on Israel have continued since the deal was struck.
He additionally claimed that he had requested a $1 trillion military budget from Congress to ensure “peace through strength,” adding “hopefully, we’ll never have to use any of those weapons.” But top conservative foreign policy leaders on Capitol Hill have said that the administration’s budget request does not actually meet that $1 trillion benchmark and have called the request insufficient.

Daily Kickoff

Gulf cash outpaces congressional, communal clout

Trump in Riyadh as checkbook diplomacy reshapes foreign policy

Win McNamee/Getty Images

President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman interact with officials during a “coffee ceremony” at the Saudi Royal Court on May 13, 2025, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

By

JI Staff

May 13, 2025

Good Tuesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at how economic and business opportunities are overtaking traditional foreign policy on President Donald Trump’s trip to the Middle East, and report on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for Israel to “wean” itself off of U.S. military aid. We also talk to Leo Terrell about the Department of Justice’s efforts to address campus antisemitism, and spotlight an Israeli boarding school that works to promote a shared society in a post-Oct. 7 landscape. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Edan Alexander, Oskar Schindler and Sen. Jacky Rosen.

What We’re Watching

President Donald Trump is in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, today for meetings with senior officials. He met earlier today with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Also in Riyadh, the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum kicked off earlier today. Speakers at the daylong summit include Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the White House’s David Sacks, White House advisor Elon Musk, Palantir’s Alex Karp, Blackstone’s Stephen Schwarzman, Amazon’s Andy Jassy, FIFA President Gianni Infantino, LionTree’s Aryeh Bourkoff, BlackRock’s Larry Fink, Alphabet’s Ruth Porat, BDT & MSD Partners’ Dina Powell McCormick and the Saudi ministers of energy, sports, investment, finance, economy, tourism and housing.
An Israeli delegation is in Doha, Qatar, today for renewed ceasefire and hostage-release talks.
In Washington, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is holding a hearing on East Africa. This afternoon, the Senate Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on the U.S.’ missile defense budget request.
At 10:45 a.m. ET, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will deliver remarks during the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Global Security Forum in Washington.
Sens. Brian Schatz (D-HI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Chris Coons (D-DE) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) are planning to force a floor vote as soon as today on condemning the potential gift of a Qatari luxury jet to President Donald Trump.
Dan Senor will deliver 92NY’s annual State of World Jewry address tonight in New York.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH Gabby deutch

President Donald Trump arrived in the Middle East today for the first major international trip of his second term, where he’ll visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. He traveled to the region just as his administration secured a major diplomatic breakthrough: the release of Edan Alexander, the final living American hostage, from Hamas captivity in Gaza.

But Trump will not be visiting Israel to herald Alexander’s release. There will be no victorious photo shoot with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, because all reports indicate that the U.S. secured Alexander’s release without even informing the Israelis about the negotiations. Trump will not be visiting Israel at all, dealing another blow to America’s closest ally in the region at a time when ties appear to be straining between Jerusalem and Washington.

Instead, the president will be meeting with the leader of a country that serves as a chief sponsor of Alexander’s captors — just days after Trump accepted the gift of a $400 million luxury jet from the Qatari royal family to use as Air Force One, which quickly sparked concern from ethics experts, congressional Democrats and critics of the Gulf state, which has close ties to Hamas leaders.

The gift of the Qatari plane may be a harbinger of an administration that prioritizes business deals over national security. No further diplomatic victories are expected. After Trump said last week that he would make a “very, very big announcement” before his trip to the Middle East, many observers thought that news would be related to the region. But a White House spokesperson told Jewish Insider that it was instead referring to a drug-pricing executive order he signed on Monday.

The trip is generating a quiet panic of sorts among members of the pro-Israel and Jewish communal establishment over how the administration’s primary focus on mega dealmaking is eclipsing traditional foreign policy objectives — rendering moot much of the congressional lobbying and advocacy work promoting a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, as well as Israel’s own approach to its relationship with Washington.

A message circulating among insiders this week captures the mood: “All the investment in communal organizations and institutions like Congress are meaningless in this moment and pale in comparison to having a sovereign wealth fund that can get Trump to change his tune on Houthis, Iran, Gaza etc.” (Saudi officials reportedly backed a U.S.-Houthi ceasefire last week, and have been encouraging of U.S. nuclear talks with Iran in an effort to bring more economic stability to the region.)

Indeed, White House officials have said that national security is not expected to be a major part of Trump’s conversations this week. Rather, trade and investment deals are the focus of the visits, along with announcements of defense spending agreements.

In the recent past, a trip like this might have been likely to feature talk of normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, said last week that he expects to be able to announce progress on additional countries joining the Abraham Accords in the next year. But at least publicly, progress on normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia has stalled.

“It looks like it fell off a cliff,” David Makovsky, a distinguished fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told JI.

A report from Reuters indicates the U.S. might give Saudi Arabia what has been one of its primary asks of Washington — support for a civil nuclear program in the Gulf monarchy — without tying it to the demand that Saudi Arabia establish diplomatic ties with Israel, as was previously expected in a deal. The U.S. also recently approved a major arms sale to Riyadh.

“What you’re seeing is that President Trump has an idea of what is in our interest, and that comes first,” Dennis Ross, a former State Department official who worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations, told The Washington Post. “He defines the nature of our interests abroad not through a geopolitical or security context, but an economic, financial and trade frame. I think President Trump might have the view that ‘We give [Israel] $4 billion a year in military assistance. I do plenty to support the Israelis.’”

Leading up to the trip, reports emerged suggesting that Trump is unhappy with Netanyahu’s decision to launch another major offensive in Gaza. This isn’t just a policy disagreement; it’s about Trump’s personal interest in developing the region, according to NBC News, which reported that he thinks further destruction in Gaza will make it harder to rebuild.

Ultimately, it appears that this trip could be a harbinger for the second Trump administration’s approach to the region. With Trump-branded projects being announced in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, a Houthi-U.S. ceasefire secured and a potential Iran nuclear agreement on the horizon, the “art of the deal” is looking like it will leave Israel largely out of the equation.

legal crackdown

Leo Terrell: DOJ plans to use litigation to ‘eliminate antisemitism’

Civil rights attorney Leo Terrell leaves the stage after speaking alongside U.S. President Donald Trump and golf legend Tiger Woods during a reception honoring Black History Month in the East Room of the White House on February 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (WIN MCNAMEE/GETTY IMAGES)

Leo Terrell, senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, says he’s undeterred by critics of the Trump administration’s approach to combating antisemitism, arguing that those dissatisfied with its deportation strategy are “trying to justify, in my opinion, the antisemitic behavior” of those individuals. Terrell, who has a career spanning three decades as a civil rights attorney and a conservative media personality, sat down on Monday for his first interview with Jewish Insider since joining the Justice Department earlier this year — at a time when some mainstream Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, have expressed concern that the administration’s approach has violated the due process rights of the individuals being targeted. The Trump administration has argued that non-citizens do not have the same constitutional protections as U.S. citizens, though the Fourteenth Amendment grants due process rights to all people regardless of status.

Due process: “That question is being asked quite often, and I think those people who are raising that issue are trying to justify, in my opinion, the antisemitic behavior,” Terrell said. “If you’re an American citizen, I have due process on a lot of different criminal issues if I’m arrested. I have due process. That term due process needs to be evaluated depending on the status of the individuals who assert it. I will submit to you that individuals who are here on, let’s say, for example, a student visa, who are not American citizens, who are here as a privilege by this country, do not have the same due process rights, do not have the same access to the court system as I do as an American citizen,” he continued, adding, “Your rights depend on your status in this country. You won’t hear that because it’s the truth, it’s not a talking point.”

Read the full interview with JI’s Emily Jacobs here.

DOHA DEALINGS

Most Republicans fall in line behind Trump’s defense of accepting Qatari plane

President Donald Trump walks off Air Force One to speak to Air National Guard troops on April 29, 2025 at Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Michigan. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Though President Donald Trump’s plans to accept a lavish jumbo jet from Qatar are raising outrage among Democrats, the move isn’t prompting any notable political shifts in the U.S. views toward the Qatari regime, with some Democrats downplaying the relevance of Qatar’s specific role in the bargain and many Senate Republicans avoiding criticizing Trump or the offered gift, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Mixed reactions: Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), long an outspoken critic of Qatar, was one of the few Senate Republicans to strongly argue that accepting the plane would be risky, pointing to Qatar’s support for Hamas. But Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC), one of the most vocal critics of Qatar’s relationship with Hamas on the Hill, told JI he’s “sure [the administration has] good legal advice and will follow the law.” On the Democratic side of the aisle, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) plans to force a vote on a resolution objecting to the transfer of the plane. But Schatz told JI that the U.S.-Qatari relationship is not the crux of the issue.

Read the full story here.

Trump’s defense: The president called the move by Qatar to offer the plane a “very nice gesture” made out of gratitude for U.S. security assistance, in remarks to reporters in the Oval Office during an executive order signing yesterday, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen reports.

RELATIONSHIP RESET

Netanyahu calls to ‘wean’ Israel off U.S. aid amid growing tensions

President Donald J. Trump holds a joint news conference at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 4, 2025. This is Trump’s first joint news conference with a foreign leader in his second term. (Photo by Joshua Sukoff/Medill News Service)

Israel needs to begin the move towards ending its reliance on U.S. military aid, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a meeting of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Sunday, amid disputes with the Trump administration over a wide range of national security issues. “We receive close to $4 billion for arms. I think we will have to wean ourselves off of American security aid, just as we weaned ourselves off of American economic aid,” Netanyahu said. He added that, just as stopping economic aid helped spur economic growth in Israel, stopping military aid could help the defense sector. The remark was made in the context of talks with the U.S. about the next 10-year aid package for Israel and was unprompted, his spokesman told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov.

Context: Netanyahu previously spoke of phasing out U.S. military aid after his disputes with former President Joe Biden and his administration about delivering arms to Israel last year. The Trump administration removed some of the restrictions, but there are new tensions between Jerusalem and Washington about a long list of diplomatic and security matters. Israel’s defense establishment reportedly prepared plans to attack Iranian nuclear facilities in the coming months, while the Trump administration is now engaged in extensive diplomacy with Iran in hopes of reaching a deal over its nuclear program. The Trump administration is open to working with Saudi Arabia on a civilian nuclear program, something that Israel has had misgivings about and was previously meant to be part of a normalization deal between Jerusalem and Riyadh.

Read the full story here.

HOPE IN A TIME OF TURMOIL

After Oct. 7, a hub of Jewish-Arab shared society faces its toughest test

The entrance to the Younited offices in Givat Haviva (Courtesy)

“Be the change you want to see in the world.” The famous words, often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, are scattered among various flags, including Israeli and Palestinian, at the entrance to the offices of the Younited school, nestled within the campus of Givat Haviva, Israel’s oldest and largest institution for Jewish-Arab shared society. Beneath the slogan, a yellow flag flutters in the wind — a quiet but searing reminder of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza. It’s a juxtaposition that captures the tension of the moment: the dream of a peaceful and equitable future, tested by the darkest day in recent Israeli history and the ensuing war in Gaza. On Oct. 7, 2023, as Israel reeled from the horrifying Hamas attacks, Givat Haviva found itself taking on roles that went far beyond its mandate — it became a refuge, a mirror for itself and wider society and a case study in whether hope can endure under siege. Interviews with eight students and five administrators at Givat Haviva’s Younited boarding school paint a portrait of an institution struggling to bridge a divide in Israeli society that often seems unbridgeable, Jewish Insider’s Tamara Zieve reports.

A place of refuge: The day after the onset of the attacks, dozens of people who had fled their homes near the Gaza border turned up at the gates of Givat Haviva. “People just showed up with no clothes — and nothing — and shaking kids,” Michal Sella, the CEO of Givat Haviva, told JI during an interview in her office last month. Givat Haviva opened its doors to the evacuees. Soon after, around 100 Jewish and Arab teenagers returned to their boarding school — followed by 300 Arab students from a seventh–12th grade school located on the campus. At a time of unprecedented communal tension, the school’s leadership faced enormous challenges. “It was seen as a very explosive environment. It was very hard to manage all this, and our goal was for all of them to get along, to be able to share this campus … We worked very hard to keep everything calm, and we were very, very cautious, even doing things that usually we will not do.” Sella recalled.

Read the full story here.

SCOOP

Judge orders American Muslims for Palestine to disclose financial documents

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares joins Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump onstage during a rally at Greenbrier Farms on June 28, 2024 in Chesapeake, Virginia. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

A Richmond, Va., judge has issued a new court order ruling that a pro-Palestinian advocacy group with alleged ties to Hamas must finally turn over closely guarded financial documents sought in an ongoing investigation brought by Virginia’s attorney general, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

Legal setback: The decision, issued on Friday, is a major blow for American Muslims for Palestine, a Virginia-based nonprofit group that has drawn a growing number of legal challenges in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks and Israel’s ensuing war in Gaza.

Read the full story here.

SCOOP

House Dems express ‘grave concern’ about de-linking Saudi nuclear deal, normalization

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) returns to a hearing with the House Committee on Homeland Security on Capitol Hill on January 30, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

A group of nine Jewish House Democrats wrote to President Donald Trump on Tuesday expressing “grave concerns” about reports that the Trump administration plans to seal a deal on nuclear energy cooperation with Saudi Arabia without Saudi-Israeli normalization, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Nonstarter: “This development would be a dramatic and unacceptable policy change that would drastically hamstring the Middle East peace process and undermine the successful Abraham Accords implemented during the first Trump Administration,” the Democrats’ letter reads. “We firmly believe that any discussion of nuclear talks or defensive treaties must explicitly be tied to the Kingdom’s recognition of Israel and normalization of relations between the two countries.”

Read the full story here.

Worthy Reads

Sana’a Showdown: The New York Times’ Helene Cooper, Greg Jaffe, Jonathan Swan, Eric Schmitt and Maggie Haberman do a deep dive into the Trump administration’s decision to reach a ceasefire with the Houthis in Yemen. “The sudden declaration of victory over the Houthis demonstrates how some members of the president’s national security team underestimated a group known for its resilience. Gen. Michael E. Kurilla, the head of Central Command, had pressed for a forceful campaign, which the defense secretary and the national security adviser initially supported, according to several officials with knowledge of the discussions. But the Houthis reinforced many of their bunkers and weapons depots throughout the intense bombing. … What’s more, Mr. Trump’s new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, was concerned that an extended campaign against the Houthis would drain military resources away from the Asia-Pacific region. His predecessor, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., shared that view before he was fired in February.” [NYTimes]

Turning on Their Former Boss: In The Wall Street Journal, Jamie Kirchick reacts to a recent smear campaign by former staffers for Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) targeting the Pennsylvania Democrat. “Conflating Mr. Fetterman’s political evolution with his allegedly declining mental health (dressed up as concern for his well-being) is extremely cynical in light of the debate that ensued after he suffered a stroke during the 2022 Senate campaign. … At the time, progressives castigated anyone who questioned Mr. Fetterman’s fitness for office as an ‘ableist.’ Now, when he’s clearly improved, they claim he’s unfit to serve. Attributing Mr. Fetterman’s political maturation to mental illness is shameful considering the courage it has taken him to speak publicly about his depression. For elected officials especially, it can be difficult to broach such a personal subject. Mr. Fetterman should be commended for discussing it openly. He’s doing for mental health what former First Lady Betty Ford did for addiction, raising awareness about a problem suffered by millions in shame and silence. He is encouraging people to seek professional help. How quickly progressives, usually so careful not to stigmatize people for their mental health, do an about-face when the target of such accusations espouses political views opposing theirs.” [WSJ]

The Trump-Bibi Divide: The Atlantic’s Yair Rosenberg looks at the divergence of opinion between the Israeli public and the Israeli government on how Israel should pursue the release of the remaining 58 hostages. “The release was the result of a back-channel dialogue between the United States and the terrorist group ahead of Donald Trump’s arrival in the region this week. Announcing the news on social media, the president heralded the event not as a one-off, but as a step ‘to put an end to this very brutal war and return ALL living hostages and remains to their loved ones.’ Israel was not involved in the process and, according to Axios, found out about the negotiations only through its intelligence services. Some reports have cast this disconnect as indicative of a chasm between Trump and Israel. But this is a misreading. The divide is not between the president and Israel so much as between the president and Israel’s leader. Most Israelis support what Trump is doing — and oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach to the war in Gaza.” [TheAtlantic]

Word on the Street

The Pentagon is downgrading its bomber fleet in the Indo-Pacific, replacing the B-2 bombers with B-52s, following the implementation of a ceasefire between the U.S. and the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen…

The Trump administration levied sanctions on three Iranians and an Iranian company tied to Iran’s nuclear weapons program…

The State Department announced a roughly $1.4 billion arms sale to the United Arab Emirates on Monday, days before President Donald Trump is set to arrive in the Gulf nation…

The Wall Street Journal suggests that Trump “surprised and sidelined Israel” in the run-up to his Middle East trip, which does not include a stop in the Jewish state…

The negotiations to free American-Israeli hostage Edan Alexander reportedly originated with Hamas‘ outreach to former Arab Americans for Trump leader Bishara Bahbah…

A sweeping federal tax bill unveiled on Monday as part of Republicans’ budget reconciliation plan includes legislation that would expand the executive branch’s ability to revoke tax exemptions from nonprofits accused of supporting terrorism, a push that was once broadly bipartisan but ran into strong Democratic opposition at the end of the previous Congress, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

A group of Senate Democrats led by Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) wrote to President Donald Trump last week criticizing his decision to dismiss multiple members of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council appointed by President Joe Biden, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…

The Democratic National Committee is moving forward with an effort to void the election of DNC Vice Chairs David Hogg and Malcolm Kenyatta, the latter of whom is a Pennsylvania state representative, following allegations that the original February election was conducted in a flawed manner; Hogg accused the DNC of attacking him for his PAC’s strategy to back primary challengers to older elected Democrats…

Rob Sands, who as Iowa’s state auditor is the only Democrat to hold statewide office, announced his bid for governor following Gov. Kim Reynolds’ announcement that she will not seek a third term; Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-IA) also filed paperwork on Monday to enter the race…

The University of San Francisco has become the latest school to divest from Israel-related companies. The school’s endowment fund will sell off its direct investments in Palantir, L3Harris, GE Aerospace and RTX Corporation by June 1, the university confirmed, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…

The former Czech textile factory where Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews reopened as a museum honoring the efforts of Schindler, his wife Emilie and the family that owned the building…

An Iranian government spokesperson said that preparations for Russian President Vladimir Putin to visit Tehran at a still-undetermined date “are underway”…

The Kurdish PKK agreed to end its decades-long conflict against Turkey and dissolve itself, shortly after a call from its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence in Turkey, to do so…

Writer and illustrator Jack Katz, who pioneered the graphic novel, died at 97…

Corporate executive and attorney Robert Shapiro, who popularized the use of aspartame through branding the sugar substitute as NutraSweet, died at 86…

Pic of the Day

Former Israeli American hostage Edan Alexander was reunited with his extended family on Monday night at Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv, hours after being released from captivity in Gaza.

Birthdays

Retired NFL offensive lineman for seven NFL teams, now a regional manager at Rocksolid, Brian de la Puente turns 40…

South African-born attorney, now based in London, Sir Sydney Lipworth QC turns 94… Professor emerita of Yiddish literature at Harvard University, she is presently a distinguished senior fellow at The Tikvah Fund, Ruth Wisse turns 89… Emmy Award-winning film, television and stage actress, Zohra Lampert turns 88… Academy Award-winning actor and producer, Harvey Keitel turns 86… Ophthalmologist in South Florida, Dr. Joel Sandberg turns 82… Former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at American Jewish University, Samuel Edelman turns 77… Professor of mathematics at Princeton since 1987, he was a winner of a 1991 MacArthur genius fellowship, Sergiu Klainerman turns 75… Former FDA commissioner during the 1990s, then chief scientific officer for COVID-19 response during the Biden administration, David A. Kessler turns 74… Retired editor and columnist for the New York Post, he was also managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, Eric Fettmann turns 72… Chief rabbi of the city of Shoham in central Israel, chairman of the Tzohar organization and rabbi for the Ezra youth movement, Rabbi David Stav turns 65… Founder and former CEO of LRN, a legal research, ethics and compliance management firm, Dov Seidman turns 61… Immediate past chair of JFNA’s National Women’s Philanthropy Board and past chair of the Hartford (Conn.) Federation, Carolyn Gitlin… Retired NFL defensive lineman, he has played for the Raiders and Panthers, Josh Heinrich Taves, aka Josh Heinrich, turns 53… Ice hockey player, she won a gold medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics and a silver medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics, Sara Ann DeCosta turns 48… U.S. senator (R-AR), Tom Cotton turns 48… Chief community and Jewish life officer at The Jewish Federations of North America, Sarah Eisenman… Former Israel director for J Street, then the chief of staff for Israel’s Ministry for Regional Cooperation, Yael Patir… Member of the U.K.’s House of Lords since February, she was previously a member of the House of Commons, Baroness Luciana Berger turns 44… Software entrepreneur, Google project manager, then Facebook engineering lead, and co-founder in 2008 of Asana, Justin Rosenstein turns 42… Israeli rapper, singer, songwriter and actor, known by his stage name Tuna, Itay Zvulun turns 41… Actress, writer, producer and director, best known as the creator, writer and star of the HBO series “Girls,” Lena Dunham turns 39… Hannah Sirdofsky… Co-founder in 2018 of Manna Tree Partners, Gabrielle “Ellie” Rubenstein… Chief of staff and senior program manager at Jigsaw, a unit within Google, Raquel Saxe Gelb… A clinical social work intern in Philadelphia, Bela Galit Krifcher… Graduating from Columbia Law School next Sunday, Dore Lev Feith turns 29… Director of external affairs at the Manhattan Institute, Jesse Martin Arm… Gold medalist for Israel in rhythmic gymnastics at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Linoy Ashram turns 26…

Donning their foreign policy hats, candidates in New York City’s hotly contested mayoral race were quick to weigh in as violence erupted between Israel and Hamas this week. “I stand proudly with Israel,” former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire pronounced Monday evening in a statement later echoed by Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president. Andrew Yang, the apparent frontrunner who has earned key endorsements from several Orthodox Jewish leaders, also made sure to signal his unwavering support for the Jewish state. “I’m standing with the people of Israel,” he said, condemning “the Hamas terrorists.”

The lone dissenting voice was Dianne Morales, the outspoken former nonprofit executive who, by varying degrees, has positioned herself to the left of every leading candidate in the crowded Democratic primary field. “Our world needs leaders who recognize humanity and the dignity of all lives,” Morales wrote on Twitter early Tuesday morning. “Whether in NYC, Colombia, Brazil or Israel-Palestine, state violence is wrong. Targeting civilians is wrong. Killing children is wrong. Full stop.”

With her statement, rhetorically limp by pro-Israel standards, Morales demonstrated that she is willing to stray from the pack on an issue where most mainstream Democratic candidates in New York, home to the largest Jewish population in the United States, are usually aligned. While the majority of her opponents identify as solidly pro-Israel, Morales has veered in the opposite direction.

During a private virtual event with Jewish high school students last December, for instance, Morales accused Israel of “apartheid” while describing a 2015 mission sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York as “propaganda,” according to leaked audio obtained by The Forward.

“I’ve been to Israel, and I participated in what would be considered a propaganda trip,” Morales said bluntly in the recording. “The country is beautiful, so I understand why everybody wants a piece of it. That being said, I believe that Israel is an apartheid state. I think that is highly problematic. I cannot advocate for equity and justice in New York City and turn a blind eye to the challenges around those issues in Israel and with the folks living in Gaza and in Palestine.”

Dianne Morales at a march for transgender rights. (Courtesy)

In a recent interview with Jewish Insider, however, Morales seemed hesitant to invoke the same feisty rhetoric. “The first thing that’s really important to say is that I really appreciate the opportunity to have taken that trip,” Morales said of her week-long excursion with the JCRC, which has been leading missions to Israel for more than two decades. “JCRC does really incredibly important work for the community of New Yorkers around leadership development and advocacy for the Jewish community, and I certainly look forward to continuing to support that work as mayor.”

But Morales admitted to harboring “really complicated feelings” about her visit. “I see myself as a champion for equal rights and protections under the law,” she said, without making mention of “apartheid.” “I don’t think any child should be denied the right to a home or to their full potential and that everyone deserves to be free of state violence.”

Even having softened her views somewhat, Morales’s public and private comments would almost certainly have come at a cost in previous mayoral races. Instead, it is Yang who has drawn intense feedback for his pro-Israel views. After his Monday night tweet, Yang found himself uninvited from a Ramadan event as pro-Palestinian activists disrupted a campaign stop in Queens. “Utterly shameful,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said of Yang’s comments.

By Wednesday morning, Yang had clarified his initial statement, sending out a white flag of contrition to his 1.9 million Twitter followers. “I mourn for every Palestinian life taken before its time as I do for every Israeli,” he said in a lengthy statement.

“I’ve been to Israel, and I participated in what would be considered a propaganda trip,” Morales was recorded saying. “The country is beautiful, so I understand why everybody wants a piece of it. That being said, I believe that Israel is an apartheid state. I think that is highly problematic. I cannot advocate for equity and justice in New York City and turn a blind eye to the challenges around those issues in Israel and with the folks living in Gaza and in Palestine.”

Adams, too, has faced some criticism for defending Israel in the conflict with Gaza. Earlier this week, the Muslim Action Network announced that it was pulling its endorsement of Adams, claiming he had “failed to take a principled stance.”

For her part, Morales appears to be gaining a modicum of momentum as she slipstreams behind New York’s ascendant far-left, which has carved out prominent footholds at the state and federal levels in recent years. “We’ve been defying all kinds of expectations and also bucking the traditions as to what criteria you need to have in order to be considered viable or a contender,” she told JI. “This campaign is, in fact, resonating with New Yorkers.”

That boast comes with some supporting evidence. Having lagged behind her opponents in most polls, Morales suddenly found herself in third place with 12% of the vote, just four points behind Adams, who topped the list, according to a survey commissioned by the Hotel Trade Council’s political arm and released earlier this week. Those numbers suggest that the June 22 Democratic primary remains in flux as underdog candidates like Morales and Kathryn Garcia, the city’s former sanitation chief who received a surprise endorsement from the The New York Times on Monday, show signs of life.

Further scrambling the dynamics, Scott Stringer, the city comptroller and until recently the leading progressive candidate in the race, was rocked by allegations of sexual assault that have hobbled his once formidable campaign. Morales, who has called for Stringer to withdraw his name from the ballot, believes his embattled position has likely pushed some voters to her side as she notches new endorsements that would otherwise have gone his way.

“I think it’s freed people up who might have felt indebted to him to feel like they can back me or support me or be louder about supporting me,” Morales said, while making sure to add that her grassroots campaign would be cresting with or without the scandal. “We’re just starting to surge,” she said. “The groundwork for that has been laid over the course of the last year.”

***

Morales, a resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant, announced her campaign last November with the hope of becoming New York’s first Afro-Latina mayor. A former employee in the city’s Department of Education, she served for a decade as the executive director and CEO of Phipps Neighborhoods, an affordable housing nonprofit in the Bronx, before seeking office as a first-time candidate. “I spent my entire career actually working on the ground,” said Morales, casting herself as a candidate of the people, “helping communities that have just been historically disenfranchised, underserved, marginalized.”

“She was the most believable, transparent candidate that I met,” said Harvey Epstein, a state assemblyman in Manhattan who endorsed Morales in March. “She had a plan that was achievable and she had a track record that proved she could get things done.”

The platform Morales puts forth is unapologetically progressive, including a municipal Green New Deal, a public bank for underserved New Yorkers and a plan to provide free college education through the city’s public university system.

“She is predictably consistent on the left side of the spectrum,” said David Bloomfield, a professor of education at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center, “opposing screens in school admissions, looking toward a highly collaborative form of school governance that gives greater weight to community education councils and parents than most other candidates have indicated.”

Perhaps most notably, Morales is the only candidate in the race who wholeheartedly supports defunding the police. “I understand that the language of defunding is scary to some,” she acknowledged. “But what it really means is that we need to be investing in alternative services and supports for our community members.”

After a shooting in Times Square last weekend, most candidates struck a balance in their messaging on public safety, calling for robust policing while emphasizing a need for reform. But Morales rejects such rhetoric, notwithstanding a violent crime surge that has put many New Yorkers on edge as the city emerges from a destabilizing pandemic. “We’ve seen the escalation in violence despite the fact that there actually has been no real decrease in policing, despite the fact that Times Square is one of the most heavily surveilled communities in the city,” she argued. “I think that we have to debunk the idea that the police are actually creating safer communities.”

Morales advocates for a “multi-pronged” response amid an uptick in hate crimes against Jews and Asian-Americans. “I think antisemitism, anti-Asian violence, anti-Black violence, all of these things are rooted in white supremacy,” she said, while advocating for a humanistic approach to public education that embraces differences. “From a social perspective, I think we need to meet the needs of communities,” Morales continued. “I think the systems right now pit communities against each other and fosters this sort of us-them dynamic, and we need to actually counter that and really sort of lift up this perspective of solidarity and combating these things together.”

“I truly believe that all communities that have been historically marginalized or oppressed or harmed deserve to be centered and prioritized moving forward, and to me, that includes the Jewish community,” Morales said, adding: “I understand the history of oppression and discrimination and exclusion and the fear that so often can instill in people. I’m committed to actually creating a safe city for all of us to coexist peacefully and with dignity.”

Morales’s message appears to be falling on receptive ears. Her coalition, she says, represents a diverse patchwork of New York City’s voting populace, including teachers, LGBTQ voters and Hispanic women. Unemployed workers, according to Morales, make up 30% of her donor base. Morales has also been buoyed by a passionate young fan base of volunteers as well as digitally savvy supporters who are enthusiastically promoting her campaign on social media.

Last month, Morales notched an endorsement from the Jewish Vote, the political arm of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, whose 6,000 members live mostly in New York. “We want to make sure that the next New York City mayor is fighting to really transform New York City and fighting for people who are working-class and fighting for racial justice,” Sasha Kesler, who sits on the Jewish Vote’s steering committee, told JI in an interview. “Dianne fit the bill.”

“We want a mayor who takes a firm, principled stance against forms of state violence, militarism and abuse,” Kesler added, expressing her appreciation for Morales’s recent comment on the conflict between Israel and Gaza. “That’s what she said in her message.”

JFREJ says it remains neutral on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, only opposing efforts to criminalize BDS on free speech grounds — and Morales echoed that view in conversation with JI. “We should not create an environment that penalizes people’s right to organize and protest,” she said, adding: “That being said, that doesn’t mean I support hate or fear mongering or antisemitism. I don’t think that those two things are one and the same.”

“I truly believe that all communities that have been historically marginalized or oppressed or harmed deserve to be centered and prioritized moving forward, and to me, that includes the Jewish community.”

Asked for her personal stance on the BDS movement — which is rejected by almost every mayoral candidate in the race as well as by a number of the most progressive candidates now running for public office across the country — Morales was noncommittal. “As a candidate and the mayor of New York City, it’s less important what I believe than what I’m going to uphold for New Yorkers,” she said. “I am going to uphold that it not be criminalized.”

Morales was equally hesitant to weigh in on a controversial questionnaire, distributed last summer by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, asking that City Council candidates pledge not to visit Israel. “I never actually saw the questionnaire,” she said. “But what I understood was that it was just poorly worded.”

Morales said she was open to visiting Israel again if she is elected — something of a rite of passage for New York City mayors. Bill de Blasio, the outgoing two-term mayor, toured the Jewish state on a 48-hour trip in his second year in office. But Morales made clear that any future visit would likely be on her own terms. “I’m not opposed to visiting Israel,” she said. “I would want to do that independently rather than through any kind of sponsored trip because I think it’s important to being able to maintain my own sort of independence, judgment and decision-making.”

Ultimately, Morales was reluctant to discuss such issues in much depth, despite her apparent readiness to speak out on social media and in at least one private forum. “I don’t want to distract from the race that I am in,” she said. “If I had wanted to get mired in the international stuff, I’d probably run for a different thing.”

But while New York City mayors wield no direct influence over foreign policy, Morales may discover that the scope of the job is broader than she expects.

“There was a time in New York City politics, years back, that if you ran for mayor you had to go immediately and visit the three ‘I’s: Italy, Ireland and Israel,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic consultant in New York. “Now the ethnic population has shifted, so what’s left? Just one ‘I,’ and that’s Israel.”

Upon Review

Biden’s first 100 days according to the Saban Forum crowd

With the buzzy conference on American and Israeli foreign policy on hiatus since 2017, experts weigh in on the White House’s policy on Iran, relations with Jerusalem, and more

Melina Mara/The Washington Post via AP Pool

President Joe Biden addresses a joint session of Congress, Wednesday, April 28, 2021, in the House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, as Vice President Kamala Harris, left, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., look on.

By

Gabby Deutch

April 30, 2021

One hundred days into Joe Biden’s presidency, the White House is focused on addressing major issues at home: the pandemic, climate change and gun violence, to name a few. But these first few months also offer some insight into how the administration will approach key issues in the Middle East: nuclear talks with Tehran, Israeli-Palestinian relations and cooperation with Jerusalem.

Up until 2018, Beltway insiders might expect high-level conversations on these topics to take place at the Saban Forum, a long-running invite-only conference bringing together policy experts, high-ranking officials and lawmakers from the U.S. and Israel.

“It was set up in the early 2000s to fill a void for dialogue between Israelis and Americans. It was very specifically Israel and America,” said Natan Sachs, director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, which organized the forum with backing from media mogul and Democratic megadonor Haim Saban.

The off-the-record Saban Forum was hosted annually at the ritzy Willard InterContinental, a hotel across the street from the White House. Speculation abounded that the conference was canceled due to the election of former President Donald Trump.

“This is a common misperception. It really is not the case,” Sachs told Jewish Insider. “We had two Saban Forums since the Trump election. The first was immediately after the Trump election, we had a successful one. The second one was in 2017, it was almost a year into the administration. We hosted Jared Kushner. It was the first time he spoke publicly on these issues.”

Sachs explained that Brookings, in conjunction with Saban, made the decision to pause the conference “while on a high note” because, he argued, “institutions never know when to quit.” He noted that the decision was not to cancel the conference altogether, but rather to put it on pause — and while there are no current plans to resume the annual event, it could come back in the future.

More recently, Brookings’ Middle East center hosted a virtual international conference that was much broader in scope, with leaders from countries including Jordan, Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Israel and Italy. “It was excellent,” Sachs said, noting that the new conference is one of Brookings’s many public events and “is not a replacement for the Saban Forum.”

Since the Saban Forum won’t gather its distinct selection of Middle East experts this year, Jewish Insider polled the Saban Forum crowd with a simple question: When it comes to foreign policy and the Middle East, how is Biden doing?

“I think it’s very impressive how the early days are marked by a sense of restraint and patience,” said Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “For example, we just had an Israeli election, a remarkably visceral, hard-fought election, in which the new administration played no role because it was smart enough to keep quiet, and not to get drawn into the gutter of Israeli politics one way or the other.”

“I think it’s very impressive how the early days are marked by a sense of restraint and patience.”

Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Biden came into this role with decades of public service under his belt, including a stint as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He is, to a certain extent, a known entity in Israel.

“Biden has known [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu for decades, so at the top, there’s a familiarity between the two leaders, which can be called upon when serious issues in the relationship erupt,” noted Andrew Shapiro, who served as assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs from 2009 to 2013.

The Biden administration has approached the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with less zeal than its two most recent predecessors, which were both quick to stake their ground on the issue and attempt to reach a solution.

Ghaith Al-Omari, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute who served as an advisor for the Palestinian negotiating team from 1991 to 2001, noted that Biden and his team “seem to have internalized the lesson — and rightly so — from previous administrations that right now, Israeli politics and Palestinian politics do not allow for a major breakthrough, so they’re not pushing that.”

“You do not see the soap opera-like quality of the centrality of Israel as we saw in the Obama administration and the Trump administration,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “One, great tension in the Obama administration; and the other, great exaltation, where Trump basically created what I describe as a sugar high for both Israel and Saudi Arabia; you’re not seeing that here… They’re very busy. And they really don’t have time or interest, as Obama and Trump did, in focusing on this issue.”

Then-Vice President Biden meets with then-Israeli President Shimon Peres in Jerusalem on January 13, 2014. (U.S. Embassy)

After two administrations marked by intense personal relationships between the leaders of the countries, the Biden White House is “just trying to restore a little bit more of a sense of balance in the way the United States relates to both sides of the conflict,” said Susie Gelman, board chair of Israel Policy Forum.

Allies of Biden say that his history of support for international institutions and foreign policy norms is a welcome change from the Trump years.

“President Biden’s responsible leadership, strategic policymaking and fundamental civility have been on full display these past 100 days, in stark contrast to the turbulent and chaotic Trump years,” Haim Saban told JI. “In terms of the U.S.-Israel relationship, I remain pleased that President Biden and his administration have emphasized time and again their unyielding support for Israel’s safety and security, directly engaged with the Israelis on core issues of national importance, and rebuffed fringe calls to condition U.S. aid to Israel.”

The individuals who spoke with JI acknowledged that the Biden administration is taking care to not politicize the U.S.-Israel relationship and repair damage that may have occurred under the prior two administrations — but some worry that may not be enough if the U.S. takes steps on Iran that may endanger Israel’s security.

“Although the White House has underscored America’s commitment to Israel’s security repeatedly, and pledged to continue consultations with Israel on regional affairs, the subtext of a potential collision between U.S. and Israeli positions toward engagement with Iran hovers over their relationship,” said Shalom Lipner, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who previously served in the Israeli prime minister’s office.

“President Biden’s responsible leadership, strategic policymaking and fundamental civility have been on full display these past 100 days, in stark contrast to the turbulent and chaotic Trump years.”

Haim Saban

Dani Dayan, Israel’s former consul-general in New York, told JI that he worries Biden is looking to get back into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) too quickly. Still, Dayan does not expect Israel to mount as much of a public opposition as Netanyahu did in 2015, when he angered Democrats by speaking to Congress at the invitation of then-House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), who had not informed then-President Obama of the invitation.

“Unfortunately it seems that President Biden has decided to return to the JCPOA ‘as is.’ If he believes he will be able to extend, later, the scope of the agreement — I doubt this is a strategy [that] will succeed,” Dayan argued. “However, I assume this time Israel will be less confrontational in its attitude towards the administration. I don’t foresee Netanyahu speaking in Congress… Also, the political chaos in Israel itself makes it more difficult for Israel to launch a strong diplomatic initiative.”

The White House has made clear that it views returning to the JCPOA, which was a campaign talking point for Biden, as a priority.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, told JI that Biden “gets good marks from J Street for articulating good intentions regarding their policy direction during the first hundred days.” The real test, Ben Ami said, “is likely to come in the second hundred days. Will those good intentions be translated into an actual agreement that enables both the U.S. and Iran to return to full compliance with the JCPOA, and which paves the way for subsequent diplomacy?”

Indirect nuclear negotiations between Washington and Tehran continued in Vienna this week, following comments from the White House last week that it may lift sanctions on Iran as a step toward rejoining the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Many of Biden’s top foreign policy officials are veterans of the Obama administration, including Malley and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who was the lead negotiator for the 2015 deal. “The Biden administration, on the Middle East, represents the third term of Barack Obama,” said Michael Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute who served on George W. Bush’s National Security Council. “There is a view which holds that there is a division inside the administration between the progressives and the centrists, but the apparent division is smoke and mirrors. On the big issues, they are all on the same page.”

One point of frustration for opponents of the deal is that Iran has been elevated as a top foreign policy priority. “The unseemly eagerness of the new administration to get back into the JCPOA, at any cost, has been much more precipitous and obvious than I had expected,” said Victoria Coates, who served as deputy national security advisor under Trump.

“Once [Secretary of State] Tony Blinken selected Rob Malley [as special envoy for Iran] to negotiate the return, that was a clear signal that everybody should have received that they were going to run the same playbook they ran in 2015, with respect to the negotiations, and that there was very little the Israelis or anyone else could do about it,” said Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

Language used by the Biden administration suggests an outward desire to improve on some of the more widely criticized aspects of the 2015 deal. In February, Blinken offered some examples of “issues that were not part of the original negotiation that are deeply problematic for us and for other countries around the world: Iran’s ballistic missile program, its destabilizing actions in country after country.” Blinken has also said the U.S. wants a “longer and stronger” deal.

The secretary of state has also promised to consult with Congress on the deal: “I am committed to working with Congress — on the takeoff, and not just the landing,” he said at a March hearing on Capitol Hill. Obama faced widespread criticism in the leadup to the 2015 agreement for failing to engage Congress — as well as U.S. allies in the Middle East, including Israel and the Gulf Arab states — as the deal was negotiated.

“Biden’s team is seasoned,” said Laura Blumenfeld, senior fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. “While they reject the Trump administration‘s maximalist approach, in sober moments they will acknowledge the shortcomings of the Obama efforts. This time around, there’s a renewed commitment to bring along Israel and the Gulf states.”

“I don’t think Joe Biden is looking for a fight with the Israelis at all, which is why I think you see his desire to consult,” said Carnegie’s Miller. “There’s been more consultation on Iran in three months [of Biden] than there was between the Obama administration and Israel in three years.”

Still, the question remains as to what extent critics’ views are taken into consideration as the White House proceeds with negotiations. “My understanding is there has been some informing of Congress and of our partners and allies in the region, but certainly no discussion with them,” said Coates. “Their views are not solicited. They sometimes are informed of developments. And one of the key flaws of the JCPOA was the fact that regional partners and allies were not involved in those negotiations.”

“Did Bibi make the bed that he’s lying in? Oh, absolutely, by throwing his lot in so obviously with Donald Trump, you shouldn’t have been surprised at what was coming.”
Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute

Earlier this month, the Iranian nuclear facility Natanz was attacked while U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was visiting Israel. Reports indicated that Israel had orchestrated the attack, although Israel has not publicly claimed responsibility. Austin and Netanyahu appeared at a press conference together soon after news of the attack became public. “I will never allow Iran to obtain the nuclear capability to carry out its genocidal goal of eliminating Israel, and Israel will continue to defend itself against Iran’s aggression and terrorism,” Netanyahu said. Austin did not mention Iran, but noted, “I wanted to reaffirm the administration’s strong commitment to Israel and to the Israeli people.”

“Not only did Secretary of Defense Austin project no embarrassment or consternation or anger that this occurred during his visit to Israel, but then this was followed almost immediately by a particularly warm public statement by National Security Advisor [Jake] Sullivan toward his Israeli counterpart, warmly inviting him to Washington,” said Satloff.

Sullivan and his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat, speak regularly, and the pair met for the first time this week in Washington. “The United States updated Israel on the talks in Vienna and emphasized strong U.S. interest in consulting closely with Israel on the nuclear issue going forward,” said a White House readout of the meeting. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Gilad Erdan, who was also present, called the meeting “excellent” and tweeted that he, Sullivan and Ben-Shabbat “discussed our shared goal of preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons [and] agreed to work together to strengthen our security ties.”

“I think [Sullivan’s] discussions with Meir Ben-Shabbat are genuine and well-intentioned and mostly positive in terms of tone and spirit, but the reality is Meir Ben-Shabbat has no ability — he nor anyone else in the Israeli government — to change the direction and trajectory of the Biden administration’s Iran policy,” said Dubowitz.

Biden surprised observers by not calling Netanyahu until mid-February, nearly a month after taking office. Although he has known Netanyahu for a long time, Biden came to office following a uniquely close personal relationship between Trump and the Israeli prime minister.

“Did Bibi make the bed that he’s lying in? Oh, absolutely, by throwing his lot in so obviously with Donald Trump, you shouldn’t have been surprised at what was coming,” said Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “And yet we were constantly told that this is an administration that’s much, much more mature now, and they’re not going to retaliate. And yet, how petty was the decision by the White House not to call the prime minister of Israel for over a month? What was that about?”

“The truth is that, at least so far, I don’t think we’re seeing the same kind of clashes that we saw in the Obama-Netanyahu relationship,” said Gelman. “It’s unquestionable, his commitment to the relationship between the United States and Israel. He’s made it very clear that that is something he intends to maintain, and hopefully strengthen.”

On the hill

Iran avoiding direct conflict with U.S., top general says

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said Iran will continue to act through proxies

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP

Army Gen. Stephen Townsend, left, commander, U.S. Africa Command, and Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr., commander, U.S. Central Command, talk before the House Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, April 20, 2021.

By

Marc Rod

April 23, 2021

Iran is attempting to avoid direct state-on-state conflict with the U.S. pending the outcome of the nuclear negotiations, General Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a hearing on Thursday.

McKenzie said that Iran is avoiding direct confrontation with the U.S. while continuing deniable activities through proxies with the goal of forcing the U.S. out of nations like Iraq.

“They are prepared to [conduct attacks], which they believe they can disavow by their actors, their proxies acting on the ground, to conduct low-level attacks against us,” McKenzie asserted. “Over the last year in 2020, the Iranians believed they had a political solution to eject us from Iraq. That no longer appears to be a viable way ahead for them. So we’re seeing a return to a more kinetic approach.”

McKenzie also affirmed the Israeli military’s assessment that a Syrian missile attack on Israel on Wednesday was likely unintentional, and is not a sign of a broader Syrian campaign of direct attacks on Israel.

The incident, he said, appeared to have been an attempt by Syrian air defense forces to shoot down Israeli aircraft striking locations in Syria, but the missile missed its target and continued into Israel. It exploded in southern Israel near the site of Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona.

“I think it reflects incompetence in Syrian air defense,” McKenzie explained. “I do not believe it was an intentional attack, but just rather a lack of capability on the part of the Syrian air defenders.”

McKenzie added that he expects Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region to remain secure, downplaying concerns about U.S. arms sales to other Middle Eastern nations.

“I am confident that we will be able to preserve Israel’s QME going forward, even considering arms sales to the various countries across the region,” he said. “And we should also reflect that the arms sales across the region at least partially reflects the increasing normalization of ties between Israel and those nations.”

McKenzie spoke on the issue at a House Armed Services Committee hearing earlier this week, noting that arms sales to countries such as the United Arab Emirates are a key part of the U.S. strategy for deterring Iran.

At that hearing, McKenzie also emphasized the threat of Iranian drones to U.S. forces and allies, which he said the U.S. is not yet fully equipped to counter.

power down

Congressional efforts to repeal Iraq war authorization raise questions about Iranian proxies

There is substantial bipartisan support for repealing the 2002 Iraq AUMF, but some disagree about its implications

Spc. Hubert Delany III/U.S. Army

Paratroopers assigned to 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division walk as they prepare equipment and load aircraft bound for the U.S. Central Command area of operations from Fort Bragg, N.C., Saturday, Jan. 4, 2020.

By

Marc Rod

April 20, 2021

A House push to repeal the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) has picked up support across the political spectrum as President Joe Biden begins taking significant steps to extract the U.S. from Middle East conflicts that date back to his time in the Senate, leaving some legislators concerned that a full repeal could open the U.S. and its assets to future attacks.

Last month, the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to advance a bill that would fully repeal the 2002 AUMF, originally passed to allow the U.S. to wage war on Saddam Hussein’s regime. The legislation was introduced by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), the only lawmaker at the time to vote against the post-9/11 2001 AUMF targeting terror groups and the 2002 AUMF. The current bill is cosponsored by 114 members reflecting a rainbow of ideological viewpoints, from House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) to progressive “Squad” members such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Democratic moderate Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA).

Such repeal efforts passed the House on multiple occasions during the 116th Congress, but faced opposition in the Senate — largely from Republicans — and from the Trump administration. This term, Sens. Todd Young (R-IN) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) are pushing similar legislation to repeal the AUMFs from both 2002 and 1991, the latter of which authorized the Gulf War.

Repealing the 2002 AUMF, Lee told Jewish Insider, “is a no-brainer. It does nothing to support troops in the field; it is only a temptation for abuse. [The] 2002 repeal passed the House twice in the 116^th Congress. It is past time to get it off the books,” she said, adding: “The 2002 AUMF was intended to enforce UNSC [United Nations Security Council] resolutions regarding Saddam Hussein’s WMD programs. Those programs have been dismantled; the UNSC resolutions have expired; and Saddam himself has been dead for 15 years.”

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), who introduced a separate bill to repeal the 2002, 1991 and 1957 AUMFs, described the repeal efforts as “a matter of basic constitutional hygiene.” The Cold War-era 1957 AUMF authorized activity against communists in the Middle East, but was never directly invoked.

“These authorizations are no longer relevant, and their repeal would not impact ongoing operations,” Gallagher told JI. “War powers are Congress’s most important constitutional responsibility, and it’s critical we take this small but significant step forward to reassert our authority.”

Both inside and outside of Congress there remains considerable debate over the continued necessity of the 2002 AUMF. During a House Foreign Affairs Committee meeting last month, Republicans argued that repealing the 2002 AUMF without a broader reform of presidential war powers, including the 2001 AUMF — a much more difficult prospect — could prevent the president from responding to threats to the United States.

The 2002 AUMF was most notably cited in recent years as part of former President Donald Trump’s legal justification for the 2020 strike on Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq.

“It signals unilateral disarmament. The fact that it has been used, the fact that it has been referenced, the fact that it remains there is a deterrent in and of itself to those would-be actors that think they can potentially operate with impunity without it,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and a vocal opponent of repealing the 2002 AUMF alone, said in an interview with JI.

Some outside analysts, like John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, agree with Perry that repealing the 2002 AUMF would tie Washington’s hands, particularly in fighting Iranian proxies that have established a foothold in Iraq.

“I do think that the most energetic opponents of an aggressive U.S. policy to combat Iranian regional aggression are the same people who want to either do away with those AUMFs entirely, or to drastically reform them or amend them in such a way that they really limit the ability of any president to take action against the Iranian threat,” Hannah said. “Once you begin getting rid of the AUMFs, the real purpose behind [that] is to tie the president’s hands to address the ongoing threat from Iran and its proxies throughout the region.”

Others say that repealing the 2002 AUMF would have little to no practical effect on U.S. engagement with Iranian proxies in Iraq, given that presidents can continue to cite Article II self-defense powers.

“If you look at the legal justifications associated with military strikes in the Middle East, the primary justification is almost always either the 2001 AUMF or Article II authority,” Gallagher said. “Where the 2002 AUMF is cited, it’s a secondary source of legal authority that is ultimately unnecessary.”

Richard Fontaine, the CEO of the Center for a New American Century, echoed Gallagher.

“You have to ask yourself, would they not have targeted Soleimani if the 2002 AUMF had been repealed prior to it? And my guess is that they would have done exactly the same thing,” Fontaine said. “I don’t think at the end of the day it will make that much difference.”

Of the Trump administration’s argument that the 2002 AUMF allowed the Soleimani strike, Fontaine added, “I don’t know how many people found that terribly persuasive.”

Still others, like Lee, say that the Iranian threat is irrelevant to the debate over the 2002 AUMF.

“The argument that the 2002 AUMF is somehow a tool to be used against Iranian militias that did not exist when it was passed 19 years ago is a complete red herring,” the California Democrat said. “If some members feel that we should authorize force for a proxy war with Iran, they should have the courage to introduce a new authorization to enable that. Otherwise, they are just contributing to the dereliction of responsibility we’ve seen from Congress for 20 years.”

Despite bipartisan agreement among a number of legislators that the 2002 AUMF should be repealed, it is not clear if they will be successful in these efforts.

“There’s nothing that’s not going to be difficult [regarding AUMF reform],” said former Ambassador Dennis Ross, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, adding that efforts to move the issue forward may require the Biden administration to expend political capital in Congress — something it may not be willing to do on this contentious issue so early in the president’s tenure. The Biden administration has expressed support for AUMF repeal efforts.

Fontaine said 2002 AUMF repeal is “possible” but added “there’s a certain ‘Groundhog Day’ quality to some of these debates, because every few years the drive for a new AUMF sort of gathers steam. It’s never actually been successful.”

Even if the 2002 AUMF repeal efforts do succeed, lawmakers are likely to face a nearly insurmountable challenge in reforming the 2001 AUMF, on which there is much less agreement, including among legislators backing 2002 AUMF repeal.

“I think it’s inconceivable that they’ll repeal the 2001 AUMF without replacing it with something,” said Fontaine, “and I think the difficulty of replacing it is so profound that it’s unlikely that it will be repealed,.”

Deal Debate

More than two dozen Senate Democrats sign letter backing Iran deal reentry along 2015 terms

Amid ongoing negotiations, the senators sent a letter to Biden calling for a return to the 2015 agreement

AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., left, joined at right by Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington.

By

Marc Rod

April 13, 2021

Twenty-six Senate Democrats, led by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Tim Kaine (D-VA), signed onto a letter sent Tuesday to President Joe Biden urging him to quickly reenter the Iran nuclear deal as it stood in 2015.

The letter supports lifting U.S. sanctions on Iran in line with the 2015 agreement if both sides come back into compliance. Senior administration officials are reportedly split on how to approach Iran, with Secretary of State Tony Blinken suggesting a more gradual approach to rapprochement, while Special Envoy for Iran Rob Malley has called for a return to the deal without addressing issues including Iran’s influence in the region, raising concerns among Israeli security officials over the future of negotiations.

Signatories on the letter include Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D-VA), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), John Hickenlooper (D-CO) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM). Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) also signed on.

Last month, a bipartisan group of 43 senators, including 14 Democrats, sent a letter urging the administration to reach a more comprehensive agreement that also addressed Iran’s destabilizing role in the region, rather than rejoin the 2015 deal.

Only one Democrat, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA), signed both letters. Nine Democrats have not signed onto either one.

The letter’s release comes amid ongoing indirect nuclear talks between the U.S. and Iran. Over the weekend, the Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz sustained significant damage following an attack that Iranian leaders have blamed on Israel.

Murphy told Jewish Insider on Monday that “Any time there’s activity of that nature, it’s not likely going to be constructive in the midst of diplomatic efforts,” adding in a Tuesday tweet that “now, the diplomatic road is more difficult.”

I am requesting a classified briefing on the Natanz incident. It should go without saying that there is no viable military path to divorcing Iran from a nuclear weapon. Only a diplomatic path. And now, the diplomatic road is more difficult. https://t.co/MLlY9pqfzE
— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) April 13, 2021

On Tuesday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran will begin to enrich uranium at higher levels than it ever has before.

On the hill

A year later, Senate letter against ICC drops to 57 signatures

This year’s letter had a smaller number of signatories than a similar one last year

U.S. House of Representatives

Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD)

By

Marc Rod

March 18, 2021

Fifty-seven senators have signed onto a letter written by Sens. Rob Portman (R-OH) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) criticizing the International Criminal Court’s decision to launch a formal investigation of Israel. A larger group of 69 senators signed onto a similar letter in May 2020 — a supermajority of the Senate, Portman boasted at the time.

The final version of the letter, which was sent to Secretary of State Tony Blinken on March 11 after the ICC announced it would officially investigate Israel for war crimes, praised the secretary for denouncing the decision and expressed concern over the ICC’s actions.

“We believe that the United States should stand in full force against the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision,” the letter reads. “We also urge you to work with like-minded international partners to steer the ICC away from further actions that could damage the Court’s credibility by giving the appearance of political bias. We ask that you give this matter your full attention and that you continue to defend Israel against discriminatory attacks in all international fora.”

The initial draft of the letter obtained by Jewish Insider on March 1, before the ICC’s pre-trial chamber decided to proceed with an investigation of Israel, urged Blinken to “issue a more forceful condemnation of the Court’s actions,” a call that is missing from the final version.

Fourteen current senators — 11 Republicans and three Democrats — who signed the 2020 letter did not sign the letter sent earlier this month: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Sens. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Richard Burr (R-NC), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Steve Daines (R-MT), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV).

Five Republicans who did not sign last year’s letter joined this one, as did four new senators — two Democrats and two Republicans.

A source familiar with the situation told JI that every senator on both sides of the aisle was contacted about the letter — Republicans by Portman’s office and Democrats by Cardin. But spokespeople for Graham and Tillis said they were never contacted.

“[Sen. Tillis] was happy to sign it last year, and would have been happy to sign it again as he staunchly opposes the ICC’s unfair and unwarranted treatment of Israel,” Tillis spokesperson Daniel Keylin said.

In a statement to JI, Jessica Skaggs, a spokesperson for Cruz, described the senator as “a leader in countering the ICC’s overreach and politicized attacks on Israel.” Skaggs added that Cruz is “considering how to respond to the ICC’s newest campaign.”

The Daily Beast reported in early March that Cruz is working on a resolution calling on the United Nations Security Council to block the ICC from bringing charges against individuals from non-ICC member states. The resolution would also condemn the ICC for investigating Americans and Israelis.

Cardin and Portman’s offices did not provide comment for this story.

Election Inspection

Iran attempted to undermine Trump’s reelection, declassified intelligence report finds

Regime ‘carried out a multi-pronged covert influence campaign intended to undercut’ Trump

Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead

President Donald J. Trump signs an EO on Iran Sanctions in the Green Room at Trump National Golf Club Sunday, August 5, 2018, in Bedminster Township, New Jersey.

By

Marc Rod

March 16, 2021

Iran’s military and intelligence services attempted to undermine former President Donald Trump’s reelection prospects, a declassified report from the U.S. intelligence community found.

The report, declassified Monday by Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, concluded that “Iran carried out a multi-pronged covert influence campaign intended to undercut former President Trump’s reelection prospects — though without directly promoting his rivals — undermine public confidence in the electoral process and U.S. institutions, and sow division and exacerbate societal tensions in the U.S.”

It further assessed that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei authorized the “whole of government” campaign, which was carried out using “overt and covert messaging and cyber operations.” The report also found that Hezbollah, an Iranian-funded terror group, also engaged in smaller-scale attempts to undermine Trump’s re-election.

Iran’s efforts were “driven in part by a perception that the regime faced acute threats from the U.S.” under Trump, the report details.

The Iranian efforts were aimed largely at “sowing discord in the United States and exacerbating societal tensions” and influencing U.S. Iran policy through methods such as promoting anti-Trump social media content, spreading pro-regime messages and attacking pressure points such as the COVID-19 pandemic response, the pandemic’s economic impacts and domestic civil unrest.

The Iranian campaign was further-reaching in 2020 than in previous election cycles, according to the report, which specifically mentions a previously disclosed campaign by Iranian actors who sent threatening messages to swing-state Democratic voters impersonating members of the right-wing pro-Trump Proud Boys group.

It also discusses several other influence attempts, including disseminating a video demonstrating alleged voter fraud, publishing over 1,000 pieces of online content in the U.S., utilizing “several thousand” inauthentic social media accounts and attempting to gather passwords from U.S. government and campaign officials in order to “gain derogatory information or accesses for follow-on operations.”

Iran’s efforts have not stopped after the election, the report adds, alleging that “Iranian cyber actors were almost certainly responsible” for a website containing death threats against election officials and that Iran is “seeking to exploit the post-election environment to collect intelligence.”

The assessment concluded that the regime’s influence efforts were likely blunted, compared to previous election cycles, due to greater awareness of the issue, information sharing between the government and social media companies — which led the companies to take down Iranian-operated accounts, public information-sharing and sanctions against some of the individuals responsible for the efforts.

According to the report, Iran did not attempt to directly manipulate any election infrastructure, although it did “[exploit] a known vulnerability to compromise U.S. entities associated with election infrastructure.”

The report also alleges that Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah backed efforts to undermine Trump in the election.

“Nasrallah probably saw this as a low-cost means to mitigate the risk of a regional conflict while Lebanon faces political, financial and public health crises,” the report reads.

The report also details extensive efforts by Russia to influence the election in favor of Trump and exacerbate domestic divides, and contradicts claims from former DNI John Ratcliffe that China conducted election interference or influence operations.

On the Hill

Moderate Democrats stay mum on Malley pick as Iran envoy

Despite vocal support from parts of the Democratic Party, some senators appear skeptical

Laurent Gillieron/AP

Robert Malley stands next to the EU's Federica Mogherini and then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry amid the Iran nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2015.

By

Marc Rod

January 29, 2021

Robert Malley has reportedly been chosen as the Biden administration’s envoy to Iran, confirming a report from Jewish Insider last week that the former Obama administration official was under consideration for the role. Malley, a veteran foreign policy analyst who is currently the president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, was one of the key negotiators of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

“Secretary Blinken is building a dedicated team, drawing from clear-eyed experts with a diversity of views. Leading that team as our special envoy for Iran will be Rob Malley, who brings to the position a track record of success negotiating constraints on Iran’s nuclear program,” a senior State Department official told Reuters. “The secretary is confident he and his team will be able to do that once again.”

The New York Times cited a senior State Department official who said that Malley and other diplomats’ first step, before approaching Iran, will be to consult with leaders in the Middle East, Europe and Congress to hear their concerns.

Over the past week, a number of prominent progressive Democrats coalesced behind Malley, while Republicans and some moderate Democrats criticized him for his close relationships with Iranian leaders and for meeting with members of Hamas — which cost him his role as an advisor to President Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign.

“You can’t do better than Rob Malley,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) told Jewish Insider on Wednesday. “He knows the region. He’s willing to think outside of the foreign policy consensus. He has a lot of friends on the Hill. Whatever Rob Malley is being considered for, I’d be supportive. I’ve relied on him a lot during my time in the Senate.”

Other Senate Democrats are more skeptical about the pick, two Democratic congressional staffers told JI.

“Malley would be an odd choice. I say so since our ability to navigate the Iran issue from Congress will be largely dependent on the administration’s willingness to consult about their approach/decisions,” one aide said. “While some Republicans are already struggling to outflank each other from the right on anything Biden does, having an envoy that is viewed as moderate and restrained would be to everyone’s advantage.”

One Democratic senate staffer said that moderates are hesitant to speak out the pick publicly, despite some reservations.

“The consensus is that the criticism isn’t totally off-base but is a little overblown, so folks aren’t going to pile on,” the staffer said. “At the same time, he’s disliked enough in pro-Israel circles that it isn’t worth it to make a nuanced case about the criticism. It’s not like anyone truly loves this guy, either. And at the end of the day, [President Joe] Biden and [Secretary of State Tony] Blinken are in charge and we trust them.”

Moderate Senate Democrats were, at least publicly, remaining quiet about Malley ahead of Thursday’s news. A spokesperson for incoming Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Robert Menendez (D-NJ) — who expressed skepticism about the Biden administration’s plans to rejoin the Iran deal — declined to comment to JI on Wednesday.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) — who opposed the Iran deal in 2015 — declined to comment Thursday and told JI that he needed to refresh his recollection of Malley’s background. Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) told JI on Wednesday that he felt it was premature to comment on reports that Malley had been offered the position, adding that he planned to review reporting about Malley that afternoon. A spokesperson for Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) also declined to comment.

Outside Congress, progressive leaders and groups rallied around Malley following backlash over reports that he was likely to become the administration’s point person on Iran. Nearly 200 academics, foreign policy professionals, organizations and others released a letter supporting Malley, describing him as “among the most respected foreign policy experts in the United States” and “an astute analyst and accomplished diplomat.”

“Those who accuse Malley of sympathy for the Islamic Republic have no grasp of — or no interest in — true diplomacy, which requires a level-headed understanding of the other side’s motivations and knowledge that can only be acquired through dialogue,” the letter continues. “As veterans of diplomacy and human rights work, and organizations that support the same, we hope that someone as capable and knowledgeable as Rob Malley is put in charge of fixing our broken policy towards Iran.”

This post was updated at 4:55 p.m. on 1/31/2021.

Confirmation Watch

Biden’s U.N. ambassador nominee pledges to support Israel at the U.N

Linda Thomas-Greenfield said she’d stand ‘against the unfair targeting of Israel’ and oppose BDS

Greg Nash/Associated Press

United States Ambassador to the United Nations nominee Linda Thomas-Greenfield listens during for her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Capitol Hill

By

Marc Rod

January 27, 2021

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, President Joe Biden’s pick for ambassador to the United Nations, pledged to stand behind Israel in her role at the U.N. during her Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing Wednesday.

In response to a question from Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD), Greenfield addressed attacks on the Jewish state at the U.N.

“I look forward to standing with Israel, standing against the unfair targeting of Israel, the relentless resolutions that are proposed against Israel unfairly and… look forward to working closely with the Israeli embassy, with the Israeli ambassador to work to bolster Israel’s security and to expand economic opportunities for Israelis and Americans alike and widen the circle of peace,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “It goes without saying that Israel has no closer friend than the United States and I will reflect that in my actions at the United Nations.”

The former assistant secretary of state for African affairs also praised the recent normalization agreements between Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, describing them as opportunities for further progress both within the U.N. and around the globe.

“I see the Abraham Accords as offering us an opportunity to work in a different way with the countries who have recognized Israel… We need to push those countries to change their approach at the United Nations. If they’re going to recognize Israel in the Abraham Accords, they need to recognize Israel’s rights at the United Nations,” she said. “I intend to work closely with the Israeli ambassador, with my colleagues across the globe, because this is not just an issue in New York — but also pushing our colleagues to address these issues with their countries bilaterally so that we can get a better recognition of Israel in New York.”

She also condemned the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

“I find the actions and the approach that BDS has taken toward Israel unacceptable. It verges on antisemitism,” she said. “It is important that they not be allowed to have a voice at the United Nations.”

Thomas-Greenfield also said she plans to implement a robust approach to thwarting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, with the goal of engaging both U.S. allies and adversaries in countering the Iranian regime.

“We will be working with our allies, our friends, but we also have to work with other members of the Security Council to ensure that we hold Iran accountable,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “As the ambassador to the United Nations, if I’m confirmed, I will work across all of those areas to ensure that we get the support but [also] see where we can find common ground with the Russians and the Chinese to put more pressure on the Iranians to push them back into strict compliance.”

Senators on the Foreign Relations Committee did not raise the issue of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2334, a 2016 measure that declared that Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories have “no legal validity” and constitute “a flagrant violation under international law.” In a rare step, the U.S. broke with Israel at the time and abstained in the Security Council vote on the resolution. In 2017, 78 senators cosponsored a resolution condemning the resolution.

View from Israel

Israelis expect a different approach from the Biden administration

Former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon and former Defense Minister Naftali Bennett have disparate expectations from the next U.S. president

Debbie Hill, Pool via AP

Then-Vice President Joe Biden gives a statement in Jerusalem on March 9, 2016.

By

Jacob Kornbluh

December 3, 2020

Former Israeli defense officials offered differing views of the incoming Biden administration’s top Middle East priorities this week. Former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon celebrated the former vice president’s victory, while former Defense Minister Naftali Bennett praised President Donald Trump for his work in the region and expressed hope that President-elect Joe Biden’s administration will chart a different course from previous Democratic administrations.

Bennett said the outgoing Trump administration “was simply outstanding in so many dimensions of support of Israel,” highlighting the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem; the killing earlier this year of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force; and the maximum pressure campaign on Iran.

For Ayalon, Biden’s election and the selection of his national security team are a welcome moment for the security and future of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

In a recent interview with Jewish Insider, Ayalon emphasized that the Biden administration’s emphasis on diplomacy will prioritize both resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as part of a broad initiative to move forward with advancing peace and countering Iran’s efforts to destabilize the region.

“Israel will not be safe, it will not be a Jewish democracy, unless we come to an agreement with the Palestinians,” posited Ayalon, who co-founded the Israeli NGO Blue White Future in 2009 to push for a negotiated peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians. “I believe that in order to create this Sunni coalition as a future basis to confront Iran and create more stability in the region, we have to come to an agreement with the Palestinians.”

Ayalon suggested that while Israelis appreciated Trump’s support of Israel, the foreign policy team Biden has assembled will gauge Israeli concerns about a return to the Obama administration’s approach to the conflict, which was perceived by Israeli leadership at the time as aggressive and somewhat hostile. “Even if they are the same people [who served in the Obama administration], they are older and they are much more experienced,” he stressed.

Israeli leaders may also be more willing to consider peace process concessions depending on the next administration’s approach to Iran, Ayalon said. “If Israelis will feel that [a two-state solution] is the price that Israel will have to pay in order to remove the Iranian threat, a majority will support it,” he suggested.

Bennett expressed different expectations from the Biden administration. In a Zoom call hosted by the Zionist Organization of America on Wednesday, Bennett — whose party, Yamina, is polling in second place behind its right-wing rival Likud — projected that the Biden administration will learn from the mistakes of the past and take a different approach that will be more acceptable to the nationalist camp.

“The other path has been taken so many times and failed so many times, and brought immense damage and suffering on the region,” Bennett asserted. “There is a price to pay for failed so-called peace attempts — usually it ends up with another round of violence and people die. And I think the incoming administration is very experienced. They’ve been there, seen that, done that. I’m not ignoring the well-known opinions, but I do think that we need to sit down and think thoroughly about how to manage the disagreements that we might have.”

It is unlikely that U.S.-Israel ties will be as strained as they were during the Obama administration, Bennett said, explaining that the peace process is likely to be “far down the list” of Biden’s priorities. Bennett also expressed hope that “stopping Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon does not become a partisan issue” in the U.S.

The former defense minister predicted that as more Arab countries express willingness to normalize relations with Israel, the paradigm of first resolving the Palestinian issue will become irrelevant. “I’ve always said that I’m okay with ‘land for peace’ — we are willing to accept land for peace from anyone who wants to provide us [with land],” Bennett quipped, adding, that “more seriously, the notion of ‘land for peace’ is crazy, and certainly, this will be one of the issues that we’re going to have to address.”

Friendship Goals

Rep. Tom Malinowski dishes on former JCC teammate Tony Blinken

Following a tough reelection, the Democratic congressman spoke to JI about his victory and close friendship with the incoming secretary of state

April Brady

Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ)

By

Jacob Kornbluh

December 1, 2020

It took just over two weeks for Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) to be formally declared the winner in New Jersey’s 7th district election. The Associated Press called the race for Malinowski hours after polls closed, but his sizable lead over State Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean, Jr., shrank from 28,000 votes to just 5,314 — a 1% margin — by November 24. The first-term incumbent, who beat longtime incumbent Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) by more than 16,000 votes in 2018 is, nonetheless, satisfied with the win.

In an interview with Jewish Insider on the eve of Thanksgiving, Malinowski sounded relieved. “I had a tougher challenge than many people,” said Malinowski, one of roughly a dozen Democrats reelected in districts that went for President Donald Trump. “[The Republicans] really put up a strong opponent, spent a lot of money. So I feel like we overcame a lot.”

Malinowski is also grateful that during his second term, he will serve both in the House majority and alongside a White House he feels he can work with, opening the door to collaborate on issues important to the New Jersey congressman.

President-elect Joe Biden’s recently announced pick for secretary of state, Tony Blinken, added to the New Jersey congressman’s excitement. Malinowski and Blinken are longtime colleagues, having both served together under former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. The pair were also teammates on the Edlavitch Jewish Community Center of Washington, D.C.’s indoor soccer team.

Last week, when reports emerged that Blinken had been nominated to be the country’s top diplomat, Malinowski tweeted a picture of the team after their only championship win, from the the winter of 2005, with the caption, “[Blinken] will be joining the best foreign policy team since this one… which was undefeated!”

“You don’t realize. This is a great honor for you,” Malinowski gleefully bragged in his JI interview. “You are talking to the goalie of the D.C. Jewish community center championship indoor soccer team.”

“We were just awesome. We were just so good,” Malinowski said of his team, which also included former Obama administration officials Robert Malley and Philip Gordon.

Malinowski first met Blinken at the State Department in the Clinton administration during the tenure of former Secretary of State Warren Christopher. Malinowski was Christopher’s speechwriter, while Blinken worked in the European Bureau. In 1994, Blinken left Foggy Bottom to become Clinton’s chief foreign policy speechwriter and director for speechwriting at the National Security Council, a role Malinowski took over four years later.

Malinowski shared with JI that while serving in the Clinton White House, he and Blinken “teamed up” to write “parody versions of famous songs, where we changed the lyrics to make fun of our foreign policy” and “directed a couple of self-parody movies together.” When pressed, Malinowski declined to leak the revised lyrics or share footage of the films — at least not before Blinken’s Senate confirmation.

The two friends later “revived the band” when they served together in the State Department under Obama.

“Tony and I share a sense of humor about the world, a belief that the more serious your job, the more important it is to find some humor in it,” Malinowski explained.

Blinken is “a great diplomat,” Malinowski said of his close friend. “He has the right personality for the job. He will be a good leader for the people at the State Department who have been disparaged and dismissed by the current [Trump] administration.”

“I think this is the first president in my lifetime who is appointing, from my point of view, the perfect person for every job,” Malinowski added, speaking more broadly about Biden’s key administration appointments.

Malinowki said that both Blinken and Jake Sullivan, who was tapped as Biden’s national security advisor, “are strong believers in the idea that American power comes from American principles, and that there has to be a moral component to our foreign policy if we are to advance our interests effectively. They both have a tendency to challenge conventional wisdom. They are comfortable with being challenged by others, and I think they’ll always tell the president what he needs to hear, not just what he wants to hear.”

Even if Republicans maintain control of the Senate following two Georgia runoffs in early January, Malinowski predicted a smooth confirmation process for Biden’s foreign policy team. “I’m sure the Republicans will suddenly rediscover their obligation to conduct oversight now that there’s a Democratic president,” he quipped. “But so far the people Biden has nominated are people who enjoy broad bipartisan respect in Washington.”

The Democratic congressman — who was endorsed for his reelection bid by J Street, the Jewish Democratic Council of America, and Democratic Majority for Israel — sought to reassure supporters of Israel that as the chief diplomat representing the Biden administration, Blinken “is always going to listen” on issues affecting Israel. Malinowski also noted that there are “few leaders in the Democratic Party, or any party, who will be more grounded in a traditional American approach in support for Israel security, who understand more clearly the moral and historical basis for America’s relationship with Israel.”

“And if you come to him with a thoughtful and principled argument, he’s going to hear you out,” Malinowski emphasized, “Tony’s not an ideologue. He’s not insecure in the way I think [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo was.”

Still, Malinowski cautioned that the Israeli government “has to understand that there are going to be significant changes” in the Biden administration’s approach in the Middle East, particularly toward Saudi Arabia. “I think it would be a very serious mistake for the Israeli government to think that they can somehow shield a guy like [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] from that change, solely because he has — for pragmatic and self-interest reasons — moved closer to the Israeli perspective on some issues,” Malinowski warned. “This is an administration that is going to care about human rights, for example. It is going to care about the plight of civilians in Yemen. It’s not going to tolerate governments in the Middle East that kidnapped and chopped to pieces journalists,” referencing journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

According to Malinowski, the recent secret meeting between bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is not an alignment that is in Israel’s medium- to long-term interests.”

“This is the administration that will be very pro-Israel,” he continued, “but that alignment has to be disentangled from our relationship with Gulf states that have been behaving in many ways that are directly contrary to U.S. interests.”

Looking Ahead

Danon warns Iran deal could test U.S.-Israel ties under Biden

Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon suggests Israel ‘will have to recalculate’ its approach if Biden returns to the JCPOA

Israel's Mission at the UN

Amb. Danny Danon

By

Jacob Kornbluh

November 11, 2020

As the Biden-Harris transition team begins to build out its incoming administration and speak with foreign leaders, Israeli political observers caution that an immediate return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran — while renegotiating the agreement’s terms — could put the Biden administration and the Israeli government on a collision course.

“I believe that on most issues, we will be able to work with the new administration. But I think the key question is the Iranian issue,” former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon said in an interview with Jewish Insider. “This is a crucial issue for Israel. We heard Joe Biden speak about re-entering the JCPOA with some amendments. And the question is how it will look at the end. If the U.S. returns to an agreement that will be similar to the [previous] agreement, it means that Israel will have to recalculate its approach regarding Iran.”

Danon suggested that if a new Iran deal were to have the same outcome, just “with different titles,” Israel would be obligated to oppose the deal and “take the necessary steps to ensure Iran will never obtain nuclear capabilities.”

The former Israeli diplomat, who is a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party, said that Israel will have to “carefully” examine the Biden administration’s approach to the Middle East and engagement with international organizations as it shifts away from President Donald Trump’s policies. Danon, who represented Israel at the U.N. during the last year of former President Barack Obama’s second term and for most of Trump’s time in office, said that while he expects some changes to Israel’s standing at the U.N. — especially if the new administration rejoins the Human Rights Council and reinstates currently frozen U.S. funds to the U.N. body that supports Palestinian refugees — “I think we will still have the support of the U.S., but it will require more effort from our side.”

Danon added that if Biden is “supportive of Israel, he will gain the trust and support of Israelis very fast.”

Israeli author Yossi Klein Halevi suggested that the two sides will “inevitably come into conflict” over the Iranian issue, predicting a “tough fight” for Israel to keep the U.S. from returning to the terms of the 2015 deal.

“The Palestinian issue is not going to cause a major rupture between Israel and America,” explained Klein Halevi, a senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. “Biden isn’t Obama. He’s not going to go to war for a two-state solution. He is a seasoned enough politician to understand what Obama did not understand, which is that you don’t go for broke on an issue that you don’t have sufficient leverage on for both sides.”

But on the Iranian threat, he argued, Israel has more leverage than it had in 2015. In the wake of the recently signed normalization agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, Klein Halevi suggested, Israel now has “a shared strategic structure to confront the international community.”

On Tuesday, Netanyahu pushed back against the notion that strained ties between Israel and the Democratic Party in recent years would undercut a good working relationship with the Biden administration. “What I see before my eyes is not Democrats and not Republicans. It is just the State of Israel,” Netanyahu said during a speech at the Knesset. “I am committed to stand behind the interests that are crucial to our future and our existence and this is how I will continue even with the next American administration.”

In his remarks, Netanyahu pointed to his decades-long relationship with Biden and the personal moments they shared “that are beyond politics and beyond diplomacy.”

The Israeli premier said that over the last four years, he has met with 134 Democratic members of Congress — of the 292 who have visited Israel since 2017 — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), as well as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. Netanyahu said the meetings occurred “because I believe that strengthening the bipartisan support for Israel is a basic foundation of our foreign policy.”

Netanyahu noted that even amid tension with the Obama administration, Israel and the U.S. signed a record $38 billion memorandum of understanding of security assistance. “That’s how a prime minister in Israel must act,” he said. “Not by submitting or groveling and also not arrogantly but with the wisdom, courage, dignity of a person who fights for his people, for his land and for his country.”

Shimrit Meir, an Israeli analyst and commentator, told JI that Netanyahu’s defense “was mainly about domestic politics at the moment.” According to Meir, Netanyahu needs to position himself as “a strong experienced prime minister” who is able to handle relations with the U.S. regardless of which party controls the White House.

Meir noted that while Netanyahu speaks perfect English, “I don’t think he speaks their language.”

Klein Halevi concurred: “Bibi has burned most bridges with the Democrats.”

on the hill

Brad Schneider: Resolution will ‘remind’ lawmakers of QME guarantee to Israel

The Illinois congressman called on the lawmakers to thoroughly examine the UAE’s needs as well as U.S. obligations before following through with the sale

Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call/AP

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) walks up the House steps on April 4, 2019.

By

Marc Rod

October 15, 2020

Amid discussion on Capitol Hill over the potential sale of F-35 fighter jets to the United Arab Emirates, Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) is working to remind lawmakers of Washington’s commitment to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge.

In a webinar with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America on Wednesday, Schneider elaborated on the reasoning behind the resolution he introduced earlier this month that reinforces the legal guarantees for Israel’s qualitative military edge. He said the bill is designed to remind both the Trump administration and Congress of the U.S.’s responsibility to guarantee the QME.

“A lot of my colleagues in Congress are relatively new… 100 new members came in in the last Congress, and 80 in the one before that. There’s been quite a bit of turnover,” he said. “I thought it was important to remind not just the administration, but my colleagues as well that Congress has an important role to play here.”

Schneider said that, in considering an F-35 sale, the U.S. should carefully examine the UAE’s needs, as well as the U.S.’s own principles and obligations. The Democratic lawmaker seemed skeptical of the Trump administration’s negotiations over the sale.

“I fear that that conversation was had in a very different way and that promises were made,” he said. “The news about it seems to be reinforcing that there was a promise to the UAE, concurrent if not dependent on the Abraham [Accords] that they would get F-35 jets.”

Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), an original cosponsor of Schneider’s bill, also recently emphasized to JI that Congress will need to thoroughly vet the sale.

“I’ve been clear throughout that we will not allow Israel’s qualitative military edge to be threatened,” Deutch told JI in late September. “We don’t know the background story here. We don’t know what was promised, what the deal was, what is exactly that we ought to be focused on… There’s a lot of information that Congress needs to receive from the administration and we will carefully review [it] when we receive it.”

On Wednesday, Schneider pushed back on arguments from UAE officials that the F-35 is the “logical” upgrade to its existing fleet of F-16s, which the Gulf nation acquired in 2004. He expressed concern over the potential for an arms race in the Middle East, with other countries also seeking access to the jets.

“I always have concerns about inserting advanced military weapons into a complex and sometimes chaotic environment,” he said. “The last thing we should be promoting is an arms race.”

But he also emphasized that, should Congress find that Israel’s interests would remain protected, “I can’t imagine Congress would get in the way” of the sale.

Schneider acknowledged that his bill may struggle to gain traction during the lame duck session after Election Day — Congress is in recess until the election — but he said he is engaging in behind-the-scenes conversations, and hopes his bill will receive a committee hearing.

Schneider also suggested that, under the right circumstances, lawmakers could generate support in Congress for increasing military aid to Israel beyond what was laid out in the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding.

“It depends on how it’s framed. Language dictates so much of what happens in Congress,” he said. “The 435 members of the House and Senate, all of them come with the biases they start with. And our job is to try to shift them to a place where we can find common ground.”

Peace Talk

UAE chief rabbi: 10,000 Jews could soon live in gulf nation

Rabbi Yehuda Sarna said hundreds of thousands of Israeli and Jewish tourists could soon be visiting Dubai and Abu Dhabi

Screenshot

Rabbi Yehuda Sarna

By

Sam Zieve Cohen

September 30, 2020

United Arab Emirates Chief Rabbi Yehuda Sarna predicted during a Jewish Insider webcast yesterday that the small Jewish community in Dubai and Abu Dhabi could soon number in the thousands.

“It would not surprise me if in a number of years, if we’re not looking at 1,000 Jews in the UAE, but we’re looking at something closer to 10,000 — and we’re looking at hundreds of thousands of Israeli and Jewish tourists a year,” Sarna said.

When Sarna was named the inaugural chief rabbi of the UAE in March 2019, the announcement made waves around the world. But, said UAE Ambassador to the United Nations Lana Nusseibeh during the JI virtual event, the appointment marked an important moment in relations between Israel and the UAE, and more broadly, between Jews and Muslims across the globe.

“I think what it demonstrated to colleagues at the U.N. is that this is what is at stake in our work every day in multilateral diplomacy and these agreements that we sign, that ultimately they are about the people-to-people connection,” Nusseibeh said.

Sarna first visited the UAE after New York University — where he has served as a university chaplain since 2002 — opened a campus in Abu Dhabi in 2008.

“When I received the invitation from [then NYU] President John Sexton to come to Abu Dhabi, truth is I’d never heard of it before, I could not have pointed to it on a map and knew nothing of its history or heritage,” Sarna admitted.

“From that first moment when I landed in the airport in Abu Dhabi and was just treated like everyone else, was treated with such a sense of welcoming and hospitality. But [what] it almost immediately did is it began pulling apart my own stereotypes. Even though I had been the one working to combat Islamophobia, nevertheless, there were still remnants, which I had to come to terms with on my own.”

And the recent UAE-Israel peace accord, Sarna said, will have a major global impact.

“I think what we’re looking at is really a tipping point in Muslim-Jewish relations worldwide,” Sarna added. “There is a tremendous, tremendous enthusiasm, curiosity, energy, excitement, about building out not just the political dimensions of the accord, but building out everything else that it’s giving a platform to.”

Nusseibeh agreed, telling the webcast: “I don’t find it surprising that I spent Yom Kippur yesterday speaking to a synagogue in Rye, [New York].”

Both panelists agreed that the normalization process could serve as a model for future relationships in the region.

“Our foreign minister announced today that we would be seeking election to the U.N. Security Council, the highest body for peace and security,” Nusseibeh shared. “The vote will happen in June next year. And I think it’s an opportunity for us to demonstrate everything that we have been discussing here today about our model, our perspective for the region, a perspective of openness, tolerance, integration, working to find regional solutions.”

Beyond the political and cultural impacts of the normalization agreement, both Nusseibeh and Sarna expressed optimism for the economic opportunities afforded by the normalization of two growing economies.

“Jews who are living in the UAE came, for the most part, because they feel safe there. And for economic opportunity, whether they’re coming from Europe or South Africa, or the United States, or Canada, or Syria, or Lebanon or Tunisia,” Sarna explained. “With rising antisemitism in several countries, and with economies in certain countries not being as strong, they felt like there was opportunity.”

Nusseibeh echoed that sentiment. “I think, on the people-to-people level, everyone is looking for the opportunities for growth,” she said. “We understand we have a massive youth demographic, we need to provide opportunities for that youth demographic around our region. And we’re looking at ways to innovate startups, AI, and all these other industries.”

“What struck me is that while we’re witnessing a moment and an opportunity,” she continued, “we’re also taking on a responsibility, all of us who witnessed that, who supported that, who thought it was the right step for the region. And I think that responsibility is to make this work, to realize this vision for peace in our region.”

Sarna shared with the webcast that he spent Rosh Hashanah in Abu Dhabi this year. He said he met Israelis who had already moved to the UAE in the weeks since the Abraham Accords were announced. And he believes the free movement between the countries will have a long-lasting effect.

“I think one unforeseen consequence of this is that a deeper engagement between Israelis and Emiratis will actually challenge, for many Israelis, their notion of what does it mean to be Arab,” Sarna concluded. “And I think that will very much have a bit of a moderating effect on the Israeli political spectrum.”

Insider Access

UAE’s Al Otaiba goes behind the scenes of the Abraham Accords

The UAE ambassador to the U.S. discussed the deal on a Jewish Insider webcast with Haim Saban and Dina Powell McCormick

Screenshot

Dina Powell McCormick (left), Haim Saban (top), and Yousef Al Otaiba (bottom).

By

Sam Zieve Cohen

September 30, 2020

United Arab Emirates Ambassador to the United States Yousef Al Otaiba on Tuesday hailed the Trump administration for working to finalize a normalization agreement between the UAE and Israel, which he said came as a result of Emirati efforts to halt Israel’s planned annexation of parts of the West Bank.

During a Jewish Insider webcast alongside Israeli-American businessman Haim Saban — moderated by former White House deputy national security advisor Dina Powell McCormick — Al Otaiba described the behind-the-scenes efforts that culminated in the groundbreaking Abraham Accords.

One of the first steps in the process, Al Otaiba said, came when he asked Saban to help him publish an op-ed aimed at the Israeli public during the time that annexation was being considered. “Haim told me where it should be placed, when it should be placed and, the most important piece of advice on this was, you have to do it in Hebrew,” the ambassador said. “If you really want to speak to the Israelis, it has to be translated in Hebrew.”

“I remember a subsequent conversation with [Saban], asking, ‘Hey, do you think this article made an impact?’” Al Otaiba recalled. “He started laughing at me, like laughing loudly. He’s like, ‘You have no idea how much impact this article had.’ And it was shortly after the article we then started thinking of actual concrete ideas to avoid annexation.”

Al Otaiba said he remembered “having a really serious conversation with [White House Mideast peace envoy] Avi Berkowitz on July 2, right after he returned from Israel, and figuring out what we can do to prevent [annexation], how do we trade this? How do we give something better?”

The deal, which was formally signed earlier this month during a ceremony on the White House South Lawn, jump-started the normalization of relations between the two countries in exchange for Israel’s commitment to shelve a planned annexation of West Bank territory.

The panelists noted that while the threat of annexation may have brought the sides to the negotiating table, there was little doubt that the larger threat posed by Iran was also a driving force. “There is no question that when you have a common enemy that is, basically, a cancer in the region, you unite forces against that enemy,” remarked Saban, who explained that “people have realized that there is much more upside, aligning with Israel, and forming a front against Iran.”

Both Saban and Al Otaiba credited U.S. leadership for helping to manage the negotiation process and deliver on the agreements. “I think the United States government came through every single time,” Al Otaiba said. “And that’s the reason we had the signing ceremony two weeks ago at the White House.”

The Emirati ambassador lauded Berkowitz, Jared Kushner and Brig. Gen. Miguel Correa for their efforts. “I spoke and talked to them and met with them, probably more in that four weeks than I did with anybody else, including my own family. If it wasn’t for them, I’m not sure this deal would be done,” Al Otaiba said, adding: “for anything like this to happen, it takes an incredible amount of trust.”

Saban, a longtime donor to Democratic candidates and causes, including the presidential campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden, also praised Kushner, Al Otaiba, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed, Emirati Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Zayed and Mossad director Yossi Cohen for paving the way for the deal. The Israeli-American businessman called the agreement “game-changing,” explaining: “There was no precedent for public commitment to normalization… Israelis would give their right arm to have peace with all its Arab neighbors.”

Al Otaiba echoed a similar interest in bilateral peace on the Emirati side, telling the webcast: “People always think we do not pay attention to public opinion inside the Emirates because we’re not a democracy. And it’s actually quite the opposite. Because we’re not a democracy, we have to be very in tune with what our people want, and what the streets feel. And people really wanted this. This is not something that we are forcing against the popular will of the parties that live in the country. There is a genuine energy, that people are excited about this.”

The three participants also sought to emphasize the economic benefits of the recent agreement.

Powell McCormick, who serves on Goldman Sachs’s management committee, noted that “we’re already having clients call us and ask about investment opportunities.”

Al Otaiba said he thinks “people forget about the immediate benefits that we’re going to have once you have direct commercial flights and tourism, about trade, investment, research, development, COVID research.” The ambassador added: “It is not a coincidence that when Jared Kushner came from Tel Aviv to Abu Dhabi on that historic flight, the first set of MOUs that we submitted to the United States to get done were on consular affairs, civil aviation, trade, prevention of double taxation, protection of investments — what we feel is the foundation, the infrastructure for any healthy relationship, so we can have mutual wins, so you can have trade investment R&D.”

Saban said at least five Israeli entrepreneurs have reached out to him with ideas to invest in the UAE. “Even my chief investment officer and the head of my VC division, they came to me and they said, ‘We have an idea that we can do with the Emiratis.’”

Al Otaiba noted how much has already occurred in just the few weeks since the accord was announced.

“We’ve already seen MOUs on AI, on COVID research, on health care and just today, a very prominent soccer club in Dubai bought an Israeli soccer player,” he noted. “Once an Emirati investor feels that he can invest in Israel safely, and an Israeli investor feels that he can invest in the UAE safely and not get taxed twice… I think the stars are the limit.”

Follow the money

Gottheimer introduces bill condemning Palestinian Authority payments to terrorists

Resolution honors Teaneck, N.J., resident Sara Duker — killed in a Jerusalem bus bombing in 1996

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) holds a news conference in the Capitol on Wednesday, December 4, 2019.

By

Marc Rod

September 23, 2020

A resolution introduced on Tuesday by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) criticizes the Palestinian Authority for payments to terrorists and honors a woman from his district killed in a suicide bombing.

“I think you need to keep a spotlight on this until the Palestinian Authority comes out and renounces martyr payments to terrorists,” Gottheimer told Jewish Insider. “And I just don’t understand why that hasn’t happened. And we need to keep the pressure on to get them to do that.”

Sara Duker, 22, of Teaneck, N.J., was killed in a bus bombing in Jerusalem on February 25, 1996, which also took the lives of 25 other people. Two other Americans were also killed in the attack, and are referenced in the bill, which is cosponsored by Reps. Tom Reed (R-NY) and Max Rose (D-NY).

Gottheimer linked the bill to this week’s divestment referendum at Columbia University. Duker graduated from Barnard College the year before her death.

“The BDS movement, which many, like me, believe is antisemitic, are trying to praise and trying to make it as if the Palestinian Authority is being attacked,” he said. “But actually the Palestinian Authority is the one that continues, as we see in this case, to reward terrorists with payments.”

Gottheimer said he sees a “double standard” at play in this incident and other scenarios involving the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which he said turns “a complete blind eye on rewarding terrorists.”

“The reality is there’s still so much that we must stand up to when it comes to the [Palestinian Authority],” he continued, “and this is just an example of that.”

The resolution calls on the international community to condemn Palestinian Authority payments to terrorists and reaffirms the penalties for such activity as laid out in the Taylor Force Act.

“I think you’ve got to continue to shine a spotlight on the behavior,” Gottheimer said. “And the fact that this individual, this terrorist who killed Sarah Duker — the family’s still getting money every single month while in jail because of the pay schedule. I don’t think people realize that.”

book launch

In new book, H.R. McMaster describes White House debate over Iran deal

The former national security advisor reflects on his time in the military and working on Middle East policy across several presidential administrations

Sgt. Mike Pryor/U.S. Army

Former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster

By

Jacob Kornbluh

September 23, 2020

In a new book looking back at his time in the military and in several presidential administrations, former national security advisor H.R. McMaster expounds on what he thought were “fundamental flaws” in the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and why he tried to persuade President Donald Trump not to withdraw from the deal.

In Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World, released on Tuesday, McMaster called the original JCPOA negotiated by former President Barack Obama “an extreme case of strategic narcissism based on wishful thinking” that led to “self-delusion and, ultimately the deception of the American people.”

Yet, when Trump wanted to make good on his campaign promise to leave the deal, McMaster made clear his opposition to withdrawing from the accord. In the book, McMaster explains that he wanted the U.S. to maintain leverage to punish Iran for its behavior on matters unrelated to the Iranian nuclear program and to get the parties in the agreement to fix the deal’s flaws. McMaster said he also wanted to avoid giving Tehran the opportunity to portray itself as a victim. But as he attempted to work on a comprehensive Iran strategy, McMaster wrote, Trump grew “impatient.”

McMaster details how he intervened in former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s efforts to certify the deal in April 2017, and how he successfully lobbied the president to recertify the agreement over the next two 90-day deadlines as required under the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. “We had created a window of opportunity for our allies to demonstrate the viability of staying in the deal while imposing costs on Iran,” McMaster writes. “That window closed soon after I departed the White House.” A month after McMaster left the administration, Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the deal.

The former national security official accuses the Obama administration of ignoring Iran’s behavior in the region and avoiding confrontation in an effort to preserve the accord. According to McMaster, Obama officials “focused on selling the deal rather than subjecting it to scrutiny” by using a “red herring” talking point — the Iraq War — to pose “the false dilemma” of either supporting the deal or going to war with Iran.

McMaster also offers his view on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Trump peace plan announced in early 2020. Trump’s moves on Israel, he writes, “communicated support for Israel, but also removed incentives that might have been crucial in a future agreement.” While he described the rollout of the peace plan as “dead on arrival” due to lack of participation from Palestinian leaders, McMaster posits that the plan itself may at some point “help resurrect the possibility of a two-state solution.”

The book itself is not a tell-all on the Trump administration. McMaster does not write about being excluded from Trump’s meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the president’s trip to Israel, or his disputes with Trump and Jared Kushner. “This is not the book that most people wanted me to write… a tell-all about my experience in the White House to confirm their opinions of Donald Trump,” McMaster writes in his preface. “Although writing such a book might be lucrative, I did not believe that it would be useful or satisfactory for most readers.”

McMaster accuses the Russians and the alt-right movement of leading a campaign against him, under the hashtag #FireMcMaster, because they viewed him as a threat to their agenda of undermining America’s national security. McMaster writes that the attacks against him were “often inconsistent” in nature. “For example, one caricature on social media portrayed me as a puppet of billionaire George Soros and the Rothschild family (both of whom were frequent targets of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories), while articles in the pseudo-media charged me and others on the NSC staff as being ‘anti-Israel’ and soft on Iran,” McMaster recalls.

Book shelf

Former Trump NSC official Michael Anton speaks out on foreign policy

In a new book, Anton warns the U.S. remains on the brink of disaster — if it doesn't reelect Trump

AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

Michael Anton, National Security Adviser, waits in the East Room of the White House in Washington of the start of President Donald Trump's news conference, Thursday, Feb. 16, 2017.

By

Marc Rod

September 8, 2020

Michael Anton, a former senior National Security Council official in the Trump administration, is “amazed” by what the administration has achieved in the president’s first term — but warns in a new book that the U.S. could careen into disaster if Donald Trump loses his reelection bid in November.

In his new book, The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return, which hit bookshelves last week, Anton argues that this situation has not fundamentally changed — America remains on the brink, and a Trump reelection is the only way to preserve the American way of life.

Although Anton served as the spokesman for Trump’s National Security Council, and left the administration just before former National Security Advisor John Bolton took office, foreign policy is not Anton’s top focus in the book.

However, he writes that the current international world order, with America at its helm, is “a voluntary alliance of neoliberal elites across nations to work together in their own interests.”

According to Anton, Trump’s foreign policy doctrine seeks to fight back against the current structure by rolling back decades of steadily expanding American foreign policy, which dictated that America needed to maintain a presence in every corner of the world.

Trump’s foreign policy has a more narrow focus, centered on defending national security, maintaining America’s economic and trading competitiveness, and maintaining America’s alliance structure, Anton continued.

“It’s a more focused doctrine than what Trumpism replaced. It’s seeing American interest through a more narrow lens,” he told Jewish Insider. “Once you define everything as a priority, nothing is a priority. Once you define everything as an interest, it means nothing is an interest.”

Anton explained that the Trump administration’s approach to the U.S.-Israel relationship fits within such a mold in part because of Israel’s critical position in the U.S.’s security strategy.

“But so many foreign relationships can’t be reduced to dollars and cents,” he added. “America has allies out of shared conviction and shared interests… Some of these alliances that you have are simply because of a natural affinity to democracies that share common values, and so on and so forth, and relationships built up over decades. And you don’t necessarily ask the question, ‘Hey, what am I getting out of this today?’ It’s not a calculation at every step of the way in foreign policy.”

Anton characterized the recent normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates as one of a litany of major Trump administration foreign policy accomplishments.

He declined to say whether this move was in the works during his tenure in the White House, but indicated that it fits within the Trump administration’s broader Middle East strategy.

“We knew going in that a big part of Middle East diplomacy would have to be as much normalization as possible between Israel and other states,” Anton said. “We knew also that some of that normalization would take place below the radar. It wouldn’t be formal or it would take a while for it to become formal. But we certainly were seeking to achieve as much formal normalization as possible.”

Anton also boasted that the Trump administration had helped improve the Israeli-Saudi relationship.

“The fact that relations get better and a lot of quiet and not particularly visible cooperation takes place is also an accomplishment, even if you don’t see it and even if there’s no moment where people sit down and shake hands and sign something,” he said, adding that the Trump administration sees improving relationships between Israel and Arab states as a critical step in facilitating an Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Anton acknowledged that the Trump administration’s peace proposal is not, and cannot be, a final peace deal, but laid blame on the Palestinians for the lack of progress — criticizing Palestinian leaders for walking away from the negotiating table after the U.S. moved its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

“What I had hoped for at the time was that it was a demonstration of displeasure… that would last a finite amount of time… and then the Palestinians would come back knowing that that recognition really didn’t change anything,” he said. “I don’t think that they’re helping themselves by staying away and not talking. I don’t see what that gains them.”

Anton said he does not believe there is anything specific the U.S. can do to incentivize the Palestinians to return to the table, but it can push Arab states to encourage the Palestinians to reengage in negotiations.

In a second term, Anton predicted that Trump would continue to work toward a Middle East peace deal — although he acknowledged that is contingent on the Palestinians returning to the negotiating table. Anton also suggested that the administration would continue to pursue talks with North Korea and focus on the U.S.-China relationship.

Anton’s broader argument in The Stakes — that America is on the brink — echoes his 2016 essay, “The Flight 93 Election,” which made waves in political and media spheres. In it, he argued that a Hillary Clinton victory would, essentially, mark the end of America as it has existed, and that a Trump victory was the only possibility to stave off a calamity.

Anton said that, despite four years of a Trump presidency, the U.S. remains in a precipitous situation because of the influence of the federal bureaucracy and other institutional powers like the media, academia and the corporate world. “Every other power center in the country is held by people who oppose the president’s agenda,” he said

And America will find itself on the brink of disaster every four years, Anton continued, “until and unless we can get back to something like a real politics of give and take in this country.”

heard yesterday

Former Obama official: Netanyahu ‘playing with fire’ by ignoring congressional opposition to annexation

Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy told the Israel Policy Forum webcast she is worried about the potential reaction

United States Institute of Peace

Michele Flournoy

By

Jacob Kornbluh

June 24, 2020

Former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy warned Israeli leaders not to ignore the objections to West Bank annexation plans raised by nearly 150 Democratic senators and members of Congress.

Flournoy, speaking during a panel discussion on the topic hosted by Israel Policy Forum, suggested that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “playing with fire, not only in terms of fracturing the region and their relationships with Israel, but also fracturing American political support, which would be terrible and disastrous.”

Flournoy — who served in the Obama administration from 2009-2012 —said she worries that if Israel moves ahead with annexation in the coming weeks, some Democratic lawmakers may try to hold up the implementation of the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. and Israel and “decide to hold hostage our security assistance to Israel as a way of protesting Israel’s policies” in the West Bank.

“That may not be the most likely outcome, but it’s not unlikely either,” she suggested. Such attempts, Flournoy cautioned, would undermine long-standing bipartisan support “for critical pillars” of the security relationship with Israel. “That’s what really worries me,” she added.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro said on the webcast that “while there are voices in both parties that are sounding different notes, I still think there’s a large number of Republicans, as well as Democrats, who adhere to [the] principles that can help reestablish broad bipartisan consensus” on Israel and peace in the Middle East. “I am hopeful that is the case,” Shapiro added, “which gives us a lot to work with if there’s a new administration.”

Matt Duss, a foreign policy advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders, discussed the 2020 frontrunner’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and relations with Israel during the Quincy Institute leadership forum, held in conjunction with Foreign Policy, in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

Vocal and critical: “Senator Sanders has been clear about the principles that he supports and the goal and it’s a goal that is shared by — I think — a clear majority of Americans,” Duss said. “I think he’s been willing to be more critical of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu in particular, as he has been more vocal and critical about right-wing nationalists around the world, recognizing that is a global trend that is very problematic for those of us who support human rights and democracy. At the end of the day, the Israeli government is full of professionals who understand Israel’s security needs. There are longstanding relationships at various levels between the U.S. and Israel. And we don’t think we’ll have a problem moving forward in trying — trying at least — and probably finding very quickly some common ground.”

Jerusalem reaction: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted on Wednesday to Sanders’s constant attacks against him, most recently calling him a “reactionary racist” during Tuesday night’s debate in South Carolina. “What I think about this matter is that he is definitely wrong,” Netanyahu said during an interview with Army Radio. “No question about it.” Netanyahu pointed out that the reason he withstood pressure from the Obama administration for eight years was because he was able to influence U.S. public opinion, “and if we will be pressured into doing dangerous things, I will know how to oppose that — and I am not afraid of a showdown.”

Bonus: Jeremy Burton, head of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, tells Washington Post reporter Michelle Boorstein that the common theme he’s hearing is anxiety among American Jews about having a Jewish nominee or president, whether the person is Bernie Sanders or Michael Bloomberg. “At the end of the day, Jews know antisemitism is part of the DNA of Western civilization,” he explained.

panel watch

Quincy Institute forum hosting Petraeus, Beinart and three members of Congress

Petraeus says it is 'likely that my thoughts and contributions may contrast with those of some of the other participants gathered'

New America

General (ret.) David Petraeus (left), takes part in a panel discussion in 2016.

By

Jacob Kornbluh

February 26, 2020

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, in conjunction with Foreign Policy, is holding a leadership forum on the future of U.S. foreign policy and national security at the U.S. Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C. this afternoon.

Speakers include Reps. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA); former CENTCOM commander and CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus, journalist Peter Beinart, and Matt Duss, a foreign policy advisor to Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Background: The Quincy Institute — founded in 2019 and funded by the unlikely pairing of George Soros and Charles Koch — calls for an end to American military intervention and a refocus on diplomatic strategy. Neorealist scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who in 2007 jointly published the controversial book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, are both non-resident scholars at the institute. In a Senate floor speech last month, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) accused the think tank of fomenting antisemitism.

Petraeus defended his participation, telling JI he was invited to speak by the editors of Foreign Policy, with whom he has a close relationship. “It is likely that my thoughts and contributions may contrast with those of some of the other participants gathered when it comes to the U.S. role in the world, the need for a sustained sustainable commitment in the fight against Islamist extremists, the importance of alliances, allies, and partners — including Israel,” Petraeus said. “And that is the principle reason that I decided to participate — similar to when I offer thoughts and assessments to political figures or policy makers of either party, even when I may disagree with them on a variety of issues.”

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