Hamas must demilitarize before Gaza can undergo redevelopment, President Donald Trump’s informal advisor Jared Kushner said on Thursday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as he presented the administration’s plan to disarm the terrorist group and rebuild Gaza.

Kushner was building off of earlier remarks by President Donald Trump at the founding ceremony for his Board of Peace. “We are committed to Gaza being fully demilitarized, properly governed and properly rebuilt. … We’re going to be very successful in Gaza; it’s going to be a great thing to watch,” Trump said at the ceremony.

Hamas, Trump said, “has to give up their weapons, and if they don’t do that, it’s gonna be the end of them.”

Kushner said that the disarmament of Hamas would be a prerequisite to the reconstruction of the enclave. “Without that we cannot rebuild,” he said. “If Hamas does not demilitarize that will be what holds back Gaza and the people of Gaza from achieving their aspirations.”

Kushner presented the administration’s “demilitarization principles” meant to be implemented in the next 100 days. These include the destruction of “heavy weapons, tunnels, military infrastructure, weapons production facilities and munitions.” 

According to the plan, Gaza will be governed by a single civilian authority, which will first be the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), the committee of Palestinian technocrats announced last week, followed by the Palestinian Authority, if it undergoes reforms. Any personal weapons in Gaza must be authorized by the NCAG, which will have a monopoly on the use of force, integrating and vetting any internal security and police.

“The end state: only NCAG-sanctioned personnel may carry weapons,” the presentation states.

Reconstruction, according to the plan, will only take place in sectors that are fully disarmed, and those who agree to disarm will be given amnesty and reintegration into or safe passage out of Gaza.

The IDF will gradually withdraw from Gaza based on the successful implementation of the plan, until it fully withdraws to the IDF-controlled security perimeter separating Gaza from Israeli civilians.

The other Board of Peace priorities in Gaza over the next 100 days will be delivering humanitarian aid and rehabilitating essential infrastructure, including water, electricity, sewage, hospitals and bakeries, as well as clearing rubble and building improved temporary housing.

Kushner presented the Trump administration’s vision for a redeveloped Gaza with a map that included a port and a tourism zone along the Mediterranean coast, as well as large residential areas and industrial complexes, while retaining the security perimeter. 

Trump spoke in his concluding remarks about the potential of seaside property in Gaza: “This is a great location. See, I’m a real estate person at heart … I said ‘look at this location on the sea, look at this piece of property what it can be … People that are living so poorly can be living so well.’”

The plan includes the construction of a “New Rafah” in the next two to three years, including over 100,000 housing units, and subsequently, a “New Gaza.” Kushner envisioned 100% employment, with 500,000 jobs created and a $10 billion GDP by 2035.

In addition, Kushner projected over $25 billion in investments into the enclave, and said that donor countries will be announced at a separate ceremony in Washington in the coming weeks.

“We’re studying the best practices in the world,” Kushner said. “We want to encourage all the countries to be able to follow these best practices. … If we find what’s working in other countries, we should be copying them.”

Kushner encouraged all countries to put aside their differences to help the plan succeed.

“This deal only happened because … we all worked together to make this happen,” he said. “I see people criticizing Israel, or Israel criticizing Turkey and Qatar. Just calm down and work together for 30 days. … The goal here is peace between Israel and the Palestinian people. Everyone wants to live peacefully, everyone wants to live with dignity. … Let’s focus on the positive story, let’s calm down, turn a new chapter. If we believe peace can be possible, then peace is possible.”

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir voiced objections to Qatar and Turkey’s continued involvement on the Gaza Executive Board overseeing the NCAG.

“Turkey and Qatar remain pro-Hamas states that bolstered the Nazi terrorist organization leading up to October 7 and supported it throughout the war; this will not change in 30 days. Hamas must be utterly destroyed — countries that support it will not do so,” he said in a statement following Kushner’s remarks.

Ali Sha’ath, the head of the NCAG, said in a video address shown at the Davos ceremony that the Rafah border crossing would be opened next week. The Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov, also said in a post on X that “an agreement has been reached regarding the preparation for re-opening of the Rafah crossing. Concurrently, we are working with Israel and the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza to expedite the search for the remaining Israeli hostage.” 

An Israeli official told Jewish Insider that the matter of the Rafah crossing would be discussed at an Israeli Security Cabinet meeting in the coming days, along with the return of the remains of Ran Gvili, the final Israeli hostage in Gaza.

Former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, a member of the opposition, posted on X that “the Rafah crossing is opening, the government of terrorists in suits” — referring to the NCAG — “is already acting in Gaza, and Israel is acting surprised. There are no surprises here, the Oct. 7 government continues to surrender to the Palestinians.”

President Donald Trump issued a stark warning to Hamas on Wednesday, setting a timeline for the terror group’s disarmament and stating that it must deliver on its agreement to demilitarize or face potential military consequences. 

“Hamas has agreed to give up their weapons,” Trump said, speaking to a packed room at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “If they don’t do it, they’ll be blown away very quickly.” 

The president has made several statements following the initial adoption in October of the Gaza peace plan, insisting that the group disarm or face consequences. During his Davos address, Trump seemed to issue a more concrete timeline for when he expects the administration to determine if Hamas has chosen to comply with the agreement.

“They’ve got to do it, and we’re going to know over the next two or three days, certainly over the next two or three weeks, whether or not they’re going to do it,” said Trump, who noted that disarmament is “not an easy thing” for Hamas, adding that group members are “born with a weapon in their hands.” 

The administration is a week into the launch of Phase 2 of Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan, which moves from “ceasefire to demilitarization, technocratic governance, and reconstruction,” according to White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff. 

“We have 59 countries that are part of that whole peace deal, and some of those countries aren’t even near the Middle East, and they want to come in and take out Hamas,” said Trump. “They want to come in and they want to do whatever they can.”

Critics have remained skeptical over whether Hamas will comply and relinquish its weapons. The terrorist group has previously insisted that it would refuse to disarm until a Palestinian state is established. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who previously said Hamas is unlikely to disarm without Israeli confrontation, lauded Trump’s statement at Davos in a post on X on Wednesday.

“President Trump rightly put Hamas on a time clock for disarmament,” Graham wrote on X. “This is the right decision at the right time.” 

When President Donald Trump first raised the idea of establishing a Board of Peace in October, it was as part of his 20-step ceasefire plan for Gaza. The board was meant to oversee a committee of Palestinian technocrats — whose composition was announced last week — and “set the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza … [and] call on best international standards to create modern and efficient governance that serves the people of Gaza and is conducive to attracting investment.” 

The following month, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution supporting the ceasefire plan and “welcom[ing] the establishment of the Board of Peace,” authorizing it to operate in Gaza until the end of 2027. 

But the board’s charter describes a body concerned with peace worldwide, not with removing Hamas’ terror threat in Gaza, and in fact, it does not mention Hamas, Gaza or Israel at all. Its expansive, stated role is to “promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict.” 

Indeed, it appears to be an attempt to compete with the United Nations. Its preamble says: “Declaring that durable peace requires pragmatic judgment, common-sense solutions, and the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed … Emphasizing the need for a more nimble and effective international peace-building body.” Asked at a press conference on Wednesday if he intends for the body to replace the U.N., Trump said it “might.” “I wish the United Nations could do more. I wish we didn’t need a Board of Peace,” he said. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also acknowledged, in a speech to the Knesset on Monday, that the Board of Peace is meant to serve as a kind of alternative U.N. — something that Israel is unlikely to have a problem with, considering the deep anti-Israel bias in Turtle Bay, Geneva and beyond — and he announced on Wednesday that Israel would be joining.

The problem for Israel is that the Board of Peace’s mission creep could distract from what is, for Israel, the most important part of the ceasefire plan, which is to dismantle Hamas as a governing and fighting force.

As Netanyahu put it in the Knesset this week: “In Gaza, we are before Stage 2 of the Trump plan. Stage 2 says one simple thing: Hamas will disarm and Gaza will be demilitarized. We are sticking to these goals and they will be achieved, either the easy way or the hard way.”

In the lengthy announcement about the various committees and boards involved in Gaza reconstruction and its oversight, the White House did not even mention Hamas, let alone demilitarization.

Hamas returned the remains of Lt. Hadar Goldin on Sunday, over 11 years after he was killed in battle in Gaza.

Israel confirmed the body was Goldin’s through DNA testing, four hours after it was returned. 

Goldin was 23 when he fought in Operation Protective Edge in Gaza and took part in a mission to destroy a Hamas tunnel in Rafah on Aug. 1, 2014, during a 72-hour ceasefire. Hamas terrorists killed two Israeli soldiers, taking Goldin’s body with them.

Goldin’s parents, Leah and Simcha, publicly advocated for his return, but did not support the release of living terrorists in exchange for their son’s remains. They repeatedly suggested that humanitarian aid to Gaza be reduced or stopped as long as the remains of their son and Oron Shaul, another soldier whose body was taken in 2014, were held in Gaza. 

After Goldin’s remains were returned, Leah said her family “took for granted that the State of Israel would not leave soldiers behind. It took us 11 years to bring him home through the IDF and security forces. … We faced many disappointments. We cannot give up on who we are, and we will prevail through our values. …Thank you for walking with us all the way.”

Simcha Goldin credited IDF “soldiers [who] fought to bring warriors back from the battlefield. The IDF brought Hadar back to his homeland — no one else. … What this war has proven is that when we fight for our soldiers, we succeed. Victory means bringing home the hostages and bringing home our soldiers to Israel.”

Goldin’s body is the 24th that Hamas has returned since the ceasefire began on Oct. 13 this year, after which all of the remaining hostages, both living and deceased, were meant to be returned within three days. However, the terrorist group has drawn out the return of the remains, and four more hostages have yet to be handed over to Israel: Meny Godard, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, Dror Or and Sudthisak Rinthalak, a Thai national.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir visited the Goldin family on Saturday night. Hamas and the Red Cross were permitted to search for his body in the areas of Gaza controlled by Israel, Hebrew media reported.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced earlier Sunday that Hamas was expected to return Goldin’s body. 

“Lt. Hadar Goldin fell in a heroic battle in Operation Protective Edge 11 years ago,” Netanyahu said. “His body was taken hostage by Hamas, who refused to return him throughout this entire period. This entire time, Israeli governments made a great effort to return him. Naturally, this has been amid the great agony of his family, which will now be able to give him a Jewish burial.” 

Netanyahu added that Israel has “a tradition from the establishment of the state … to bring back our soldiers who fell in battle, and we are doing it. Sometimes it takes a long time … It is a holy value. It expresses our mutual responsibility with the citizens of Israel and first and foremost the soldiers and fighters of Israel.” 

Goldin’s return was reportedly tied to the fate of 200 Hamas fighters currently hiding in a tunnel in the Israel-controlled half of Gaza. 

According to Israel’s Channel 12, the White House reportedly suggested a plan by which, after Goldin’s remains are returned, the terrorists would lay down their arms and surrender, and Israel would allow them to go into exile or to the Hamas-controlled half of Gaza. The IDF would then destroy the tunnel in which they were hiding.

An Israeli official said last week that Netanyahu “would not allow safe passage for 200 Hamas terrorists.” 

Good Tuesday afternoon!

This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.

I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today ordered the IDF to “immediately carry out forceful strikes in the Gaza Strip” after Hamas terrorists opened fire on Israeli troops in the southern Gaza city of Rafah.

Hamas, in response, said it is postponing the release of a hostage body meant to be turned over to Israel today. Yesterday, Hamas staged the recovery of hostage remains that it reburied before handing to the Red Cross, caught on film by the IDF, which turned out to be partial remains belonging to a hostage who was already recovered by the Israeli army in 2023. Netanyahu said the act “constitute[d] a clear violation of the [ceasefire] agreement.”

Israeli officials told Axios that Netanyahu initially sought approval for action against Hamas from President Donald Trump, who is currently traveling in Asia, before moving forward, but there’s “no indication” the two leaders spoke before Netanyahu’s announcement on today’s strikes…

A senior Israeli official told Israel Hayom that Saudi Arabia has scaled back its participation in ceasefire talks after far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich made a disparaging comment last week on Saudi-Israel normalization, if it were to require the establishment of a Palestinian state. The statement (“No thank you, keep riding camels in the desert”) prompted blowback and he apologized shortly after.

“It’s not only because of Smotrich, but his comments certainly pushed [the Saudis] in that direction,” the official told the outlet. “Israel is now dealing with a bloc that includes Turkey, Qatar and Egypt — countries interested in preserving Hamas’ role in Gaza to varying degrees and refusing to pressure it to disarm”…

The Wall Street Journal traveled to an IDF outpost on the “yellow line” demarcating where Israeli troops have pulled back in Gaza. Israel is working on building water and electricity infrastructure and new aid hubs in the area and believes the entire line, which sits on high ground by design, is defensible from Hamas, Israeli officials told the Journal…

With a week to go until Election Day in the New York City mayoral race, new video has surfaced of Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani invoking antisemitic rhetoric shortly before the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. 

Speaking at a Democratic Socialists of America convention in August 2023, Mamdani said, “For anyone to care about these issues, we have to make them hyper local. We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.” The idea that police brutality in the United States is caused by law enforcement training or coordination with Israel is a modern antisemitic trope.

Mamdani continued, “We are in a country where those connections abound, especially in New York City. You have so many opportunities to make clear the ways in which that struggle over there [Israel], is tied to capitalist interests over here”…

Meanwhile, The New York Times reports on the super PACs backing former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for mayor, which have raised him more than $40 million over the course of the election — compared to $10 million raised by super PACs for Mamdani and $1 million for Curtis Sliwa, the Republican nominee.

“The donors to the pro-Cuomo super PACs have included Michael R. Bloomberg, the former mayor; William Lauder, the chair of the Estée Lauder Companies; Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress; Bill Ackman, the investor; Steve Wynn, the casino investor; Daniel Loeb, the hedge fund manager; Barry Diller, the chairman of IAC; and Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of Airbnb,” the Times reports.

Bloomberg, who spent at least $8 million attempting to defeat Mamdani in the Democratic primary, met with him last month after he clinched the party’s nomination. Bloomberg was careful to note it was not an endorsement meeting, but rather a discussion on policy and staffing if Mamdani is elected mayor…

On the Hill, the nomination of Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., to be U.S. ambassador to Kuwait is facing what appear to be insurmountable odds as opposition to his confirmation grows among Senate Republicans, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

Senators on both sides of the aisle had privately expressed reservations about Ghalib’s nomination prior to his rocky confirmation hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, but his attempts to evade responsibility for his support of antisemitic positions prompted several Republicans on the committee to go public. 

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced at the end of Ghalib’s hearing last Thursday that he would not be able to support moving his nomination out of committee to the Senate floor. Sens. John Curtis (R-UT), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Dave McCormick (R-PA) have since followed suit. Others on the panel, including Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE), have said they plan to raise their concerns about Ghalib with the committee chairman, Sen. Jim Risch (R-ID), and the White House…

Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) will introduce a resolution this week affirming Israel’s sovereignty over the Temple Mount and demanding equal freedom of worship for all, JI’s Emily Jacobs scooped. 

The resolution, if adopted, would put the House of Representatives on record as affirming “the inalienable right of the Jewish people to full access [of] the Temple Mount and the right to pray and worship on the Temple Mount, consistent with the principles of religious freedom.”

The current Israeli position, however, that Netanyahu has consistently affirmed, is to maintain the status quo at the holy site, which restricts Jewish prayer…

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who led the the memorable questioning of university presidents at a House Education Committee hearing in December 2023, is coming out with a new book, titled Poisoned Ivies: The Inside Account of the Academic and Moral Rot at America’s Elite Universities, on April 7, 2026…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reaction in Washington to Israel’s latest strikes in Gaza in response to Hamas’ ceasefire violations.

Tomorrow, the Future Investment Initiative continues its ninth annual conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

In the evening, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington is hosting its 2025 annual gala. Honorees include former Rep. David Trone (D-MD) and his wife, June, who is a JCRC board member; Behnam Dayanim, attorney and JCRC vice president; and Eva Davis, a realtor and co-chair of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington’s Network Council.

Stories You May Have Missed

POSTWAR PLAN

East Gaza v. west Gaza: How partial IDF control could shape the enclave

Experts say the IDF-controlled eastern region of Gaza could become a tool to isolate the terrorist group and reshape the enclave’s future, even as major hurdles remain

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

COPYCAT EFFECT

Fairfax County schools denounce Muslim student groups promoting hostage taking, violence on social media

The DC area’s Jewish community council calls for the offending students to be disciplined

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

After an agreement was reached between Israel and Hamas to initiate the first stage of President Donald Trump’s ceasefire proposal in mid-October, the IDF retreated to an “initial withdrawal line,” leaving Israeli forces in control of 58% of the enclave as Israel and mediators push Hamas to release the remaining deceased hostages and comply with the rest of the agreement, including disarmament and relinquishing power. 

The line divides Gaza in two: an “East,” controlled by the IDF and serving as a buffer zone to Israel, and a “West,” run by Hamas and host to the concentrated Palestinian population.

In interviews with Jewish Insider, experts painted a picture of two Gazas, explaining that the area Israel holds can be used strategically to root out Hamas and maintain leverage if hostilities resume. But challenges lie ahead in rebuilding the enclave and moving Palestinians back into the eastern region.

“There are virtually no Palestinians living in the eastern part of Gaza beyond the yellow line. The eastern part does not see the movement and the maneuvers of Hamas. That’s still confined to the western part,” Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Gaza native and resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told JI. “Actual civilians of Gaza are all entirely under Hamas’ control in the west.”

Alkhatib said Israel has kept Palestinians from returning to the east over security and operational concerns, but also as leverage.

“How do you ensure that you don’t have Hamas members embedding themselves into the civilians, as they have done time and again? How do you ensure that Gazans coming into the east aren’t hindering clearance operations of tunnels or unexploded munitions?” Alkhatib asked. “I also think that the return of Palestinians to beyond the ‘yellow zone’ is leverage that Israel is holding onto until phase one is thoroughly and fully complete.”

Vice President JD Vance, in Israel last week, said during his trip that Palestinians should be able to move into a “Hamas-free zone” in southern Gaza “in the next couple months.” But experts warned that the timeline will be difficult given the conditions on the ground.

David May, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Israel has developed technology to recognize Hamas fighters and could use it to allow non-combatants access to the area under Israeli control. But even if Israel can vet who enters, eastern Gaza has endured destruction comparable to the west, and serious concerns await displaced civilians.

“The ubiquitous tunnel system that Hamas has dug in Gaza, which no doubt traverses the yellow line that serves as the ceasefire line, limits Israel’s ability to provide a safe zone in the eastern portion of Gaza,” May told JI.

Palestinians who move into the Hamas-free zone and those working on rebuilding would also face the issue of land ownership, Alkhatib noted.

“Who owns these lands, and where do people have their homes? Every plot of land in Gaza is accounted for,” he said. “You can’t just rebuild Gaza without taking into consideration that you’re doing so over pieces of land and properties that belonged to people.”

“There could be a process in which that happens, regardless of any claims to the land,” Alkhatib continued. “Basically there could be a fund established that allows for the compensation of rightful owners. But beyond that, eastern Gaza could be developed to create a compelling example that others in Gaza want to be part of.”

Despite these challenges, experts say finding ways to take in Palestinians to east Gaza could isolate Hamas in the west — a strategy Israel could use to undermine the terrorist group’s authority and bring in international support for rebuilding.

“East Gaza under IDF control would become a Hamas-free zone where the world comes together to support the emergence of thriving new political, social and economic institutions where the lives of average Gazans would flourish,” said John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America. 

“Hamas-controlled west Gaza, by contrast, would be condemned to repression, stagnation and sustained misery. Over time, the east would become a huge magnet for the vast majority of Gaza’s population who would vote with their feet to live within a ‘free Gaza,’ fatally isolating and undermining Hamas rule and legitimacy,” Hannah continued.

May said this contrast can show Gazans “an alternative to life under Hamas’ corruption and oppression” and make donors more likely to contribute to rebuilding projects knowing aid won’t be intercepted by Hamas.

“If there is running water, sewer, electricity, internet, fixed roads and infrastructure, if there is something that resembles jobs and economic opportunity, and you create vetted methods for accepting incoming civilians into that area, then absolutely there could be a way in such that slowly drains the population out of west Gaza,” said Alkhatib.

However, Hannah argued that keeping half the enclave as a buffer zone could also serve Israel’s interests if fighting resumes.

“Right now, Israel controls an extensive buffer zone containing very few hostile Gazans standing between its border communities and Hamas-controlled west Gaza,” said Hannah. “How eager should [Israel] be to attract over a million or more Gazans to pick up and move much closer to Israel’s borders?”

May said Israel may have plenty of time to decide on how to proceed should Hamas continue to be uncooperative with the implementation of the rest of the first phase of the agreement. 

“There is still a lot up in the air,” said May. “As ceasefire lines in the Middle East have a tendency to become permanent borders, Israel needs to plan for the possibility of the yellow line becoming a long-term territorial marker.” 

Good Monday afternoon!

This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.

I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said today that Israel’s airstrike in Gaza over the weekend, which the IDF said targeted a Palestinian Islamic Jihad member who was planning a terror attack, did not violate the ongoing ceasefire with Hamas. 

Rubio, who visited Jerusalem last week, told reporters standing next to President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One, “Israel didn’t surrender its right to self-defense. … We don’t view that as a violation of the ceasefire. They have a right — if there’s an imminent threat to Israel — and all the mediators agree to that”…

On the campaign trail, Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) became the first elected Democrat to call for Democratic Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner to drop out of the race to replace Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), saying he finds the candidate’s conduct “personally disqualifying,” Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.

“This is a man who criticized and mocked police, rural Americans, and then put a Nazi tattoo on his body,” Auchincloss said. He expressed dissatisfaction with Platner’s defenses, in which the progressive candidate has claimed his actions aren’t a “liability.”

“I think it’s a liability, and I think we should have high standards for United States senators and one of them is: you don’t have a Nazi tattoo on your body,” Auchincloss continued…

Kevin Brown, the campaign manager for Platner, is stepping down after starting the job just last week, Axios scooped today. Brown told the outlet, “I started this campaign Tuesday but found out Friday we have a baby on the way. Graham deserves someone who is 100% in on his race and we want to lean into this new experience as a family”…

More than 160,000 New Yorkers submitted their ballot for New York City mayor with the start of early voting over the weekend, five times higher than the first weekend of early voting in 2021, according to Gothamist. Voters over 55 made up the majority of ballots cast, in contrast with the Democratic primary when voters ages 25-34 were first to the polls…

New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who also ran in the mayoral Democratic primary and has been backing nominee Zohran Mamdani, is advancing plans to challenge Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) for his congressional seat, City & State New York reports. 

“I’m very focused on helping Zohran win next Tuesday, and I’ll focus on after that, after that,” Lander told the outlet. At a rally for Mamdani over the weekend, Lander said “it’s more important than ever that we have leaders who understand this moment and will be partners to Zohran” in “the halls of Congress,” potentially hinting at his desire to run. Read JI’s reporting last month of the dynamics of a possible Lander-Goldman matchup…

Former Sen. John E. Sununu (R-NH), the former New Hampshire senator and part of an influential Granite State political family, officially launched his bid last week to take over the Senate seat of retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH). 

Sununu’s candidacy ensures a hotly contested GOP primary against former Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), who served as ambassador to New Zealand during the first Trump administration. Brown, who announced his candidacy in June, served a partial term representing Massachusetts in the Senate from 2010-2012, only holding the seat for two years before being bested by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

Brown and Sununu, both of whom had pro-Israel records when they served in the Senate, will battle it out before taking on Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), the expected Democratic nominee with a history of winning in a swing district…

In an interview with The New York Times, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said that he still believes the U.S. could elect a Jewish president in his lifetime, even in the face of frequent antisemitic violence like the Passover arson attack on his residence. 

“Being open about my faith has opened me up to be able to have a deeper relationship with the people of Pennsylvania, allowed them to share their stories … We’re doing that in this ultimate swing state,” Shapiro, seen as a 2028 presidential contender, said…

Semafor reports on a new survey of hundreds of thousands of voters, conducted by a new center-left group called Welcome, that finds that 70% of voters think the Democratic Party over-prioritizes cultural issues. The report urges Democrats “to abandon some of the progressive language about race, abortion, and LGBTQ issues that Democrats began using after the 2012 election — and recommends the nomination of more candidates willing to vote with Republicans on conservative immigration and crime bills”…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on Fairfax County Public Schools’ reaction to glorifications of violence by local Muslim Student Association chapters.

Tomorrow afternoon, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution will hold a hearing on “Politically Violent Attacks: A Threat to Our Constitutional Order.”

Jewish Federations of North America will hold a briefing tomorrow on how the deal that split off ownership of TikTok’s U.S. business may impact the social media platform’s treatment of antisemitic content.

The 39th World Zionist Congress kicks off in Jerusalem tomorrow with the largest U.S. delegation in history, made up of 155 delegates and approximately 100 alternates. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee will address a luncheon hosted by the American Zionist Movement ahead of the Congress’ opening.

Stories You May Have Missed

PEOPLE OF THE BOOK (CLUB)

As Jewish writers face boycotts and bias, new initiative aims to boost their books

The Jewish Book Council launched a new subscription service, Nu Reads, which provides six Jewish books per year, modeled on the success of PJ Library

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

QUAD CONTROL

Harmeet Dhillon says DOJ will fight antisemitism through law, not speech codes

In an interview with JI, the senior DOJ official said that while combating antisemitism is a priority, the Justice Department is focused on the Trump administration’s battle with DEI

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

Good Thursday afternoon!

This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.

I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Amer Ghalib, the mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., and President Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to be U.S. ambassador to Kuwait, was lambasted for his antisemitic and anti-Israel views by both Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at his nomination hearing today, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

Ghalib faced bipartisan scrutiny over a litany of comments, including his recent characterization of Saddam Hussein, the former longtime Iraqi dictator who invaded Kuwait, as a “martyr” — a social media post senators found stunning given that he’s being tapped as ambassador to the country Hussein invaded.

He was also pressed over his record of antisemitic commentary, with senators asking about his liking a comment on Facebook referring to all Jews as “monkeys” and the record of one of his political appointees in Hamtramck who said the Holocaust was “God’s advanced punishment of the chosen people” over Israel’s war in Gaza.

Ghalib was largely unapologetic for his views, and argued that what he believes in his “personal capacity” should be distinguished from how he planned to act in his “official capacity” as a U.S. ambassador.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Ghalib at the end of the hearing, “Your long-standing views are directly contrary to the views and positions of President Trump and to the position of the United States. I, for one, am not going to be able to support your confirmation”…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu distanced himself today from the Knesset’s approval of two bills brought by right-wing members of the opposition to extend Israeli sovereignty to the West Bank, after Trump, Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke out against annexation, JI’s Lahav Harkov reports.

Trump, in a Time magazine interview released today but conducted before the votes, said that West Bank annexation “won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries … Israel would lose all of its support from the United States if that happened.” Vance, who left Israel today, said he “personally take[s] some insult” to the votes, which took place during his visit, and the U.S. “certainly [wasn’t] happy about it. … If it was a political stunt, it was a very stupid political stunt.”

In a statement this morning, Netanyahu called the votes “a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord during” Vance’s visit…

Before the vice president departed Israel, he met today with Defense Minister Israel Katz and Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF chief of staff, who told him that Hamas is able to immediately return at least 10 of the 13 remaining hostage bodies in Gaza, according to Israeli media…

In neighboring Syria, attacks by Islamic State militants have surged as the terror group exploits decreased U.S. troop presence and the fall of the Assad regime, American and Kurdish commanders told The Wall Street Journal. The U.S. has already withdrawn around a quarter of its 2,000 troops that were stationed in the country, potentially increasing that number to half in the coming months. 

Islamic State militants conducted 117 attacks in northeast Syria by the end of August, U.S.-allied Kurdish forces told the Journal, compared to 73 attacks in all of 2024. “Islamic State’s tactics have changed. They now work in small sleeper cells — sometimes with several cells in a town, each unaware of the others. They get orders to stage ambushes and plant improvised explosive devices on roads. It’s an inexpensive arrangement that is hard to stamp out”…

In the final stretch of the New York City mayoral race, Mayor Eric Adams issued a surprise endorsement of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whom Adams called a “snake and a liar” when the mayor dropped out of his reelection race last month.

Announcing his endorsement alongside Cuomo this afternoon, Adams said, “New York can’t be Europe, folks. … You see what’s playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremists — not Muslims, let’s not mix this up — but those Islamic extremists that are burning churches … that are destroying communities in Germany.”

Adams told The New York Times he will campaign with Cuomo in areas where he is receiving support, though it’s unclear how much the unpopular mayor’s backing will buoy Cuomo…

For Our City, a pro-Cuomo PAC, released a TV ad hitting Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani for his recent engagement with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing…

The University of New Hampshire released a poll of Maine Democratic primary voters, with anti-Israel candidate Graham Platner leading Gov. Janet Mills 58% to 24%.

The poll was conducted between Oct. 16-21, largely before recent scandals, including Platner’s tattoo with Nazi roots and incendiary social media posts, came to light. The findings, however, indicate the nature of a Democratic electorate tolerant of Platner’s anti-establishment, left-wing posture…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on Israeli deliberations to enact the death penalty for Oct. 7 perpetrators and on New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mikie Sherrill’s (D-NJ) outreach to the Garden State’s Jewish community in an 11th-hour effort before Election Day.

Early voting begins in the New York City mayoral race on Saturday.

We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat Shalom!

Stories You May Have Missed

Q&A

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch: Opposition to Mamdani is a Jewish ‘imperative’

The Reform leader told JI the Jewish community ‘has an obligation to counter’ the normalization of anti-Zionist views on the left

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

TURKEY TENSION

Vance’s Turkish troop proposal draws GOP skepticism

Republicans, experts warn Ankara’s involvement in Gaza peace plan could endanger Israel ties and embolden Hamas

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

Good Wednesday afternoon!

This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.

I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Vice President JD Vance pushed back today on criticism that the Trump administration, by sending its top advisors to Israel one after the other this week, is engaging in “Bibi-sitting,” the idea that the U.S. is holding Israel’s hand to make sure it doesn’t act militarily against Hamas, which would disrupt the fragile ceasefire agreement the administration is championing.

Speaking to reporters alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after their bilateral meeting, Vance said, “We don’t want a vassal state, and that’s not what Israel is … we want an ally.” He said the high-level visits to Israel — with Secretary of State Marco Rubio expected to touch down tomorrow, following on the heels of Vance, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump advisor Jared Kushner — are “not about monitoring in the sense of, you know, you monitor a toddler. It’s about monitoring, in the sense that there’s a lot of work”…

Upon departing from Jerusalem, Witkoff and Kushner headed to other parts of the region to try to shore up support for the next phases of the ceasefire, stopping in Saudi Arabia yesterday and in the UAE today…

Back in the U.S., the New York City mayoral race continues to heat up with only days until early voting begins this weekend and a final debate between the candidates tonight.

Over 650 rabbis from around the country, representing all the leading Jewish denominations, signed on to an open letter today saying that a win by Democratic nominee Zohran Mamdani would threaten “the safety and dignity of Jews in every city,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

“As rabbis from across the United States committed to the security and prosperity of the Jewish people, we are writing in our personal capacities to declare that we cannot remain silent in the face of rising anti-Zionism and its political normalization throughout our nation,” the rabbis wrote in their letter, titled “A Rabbinic Call to Action: Defending the Jewish Future”…

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), a Jewish, pro-Israel lawmaker from a progressive New York City congressional district, also voiced his continued concerns with Mamdani, declining once again to endorse him while appearing on CNN yesterday, JI’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.

“I am very concerned about some of the rhetoric coming from Zohran Mamdani, and I can tell you as a Jew in New York who was in Israel on Oct. 7, I and many other people are legitimately scared because there has been violence in the name of anti-Israel, anti-Zionism. I’ve asked [Mamdani] to speak out on that and to condemn that and I frankly haven’t really seen him do much on that,” Goldman said…

Mamdani, meanwhile, published a letter in Yiddish in all weekly Yiddish-language newspapers this week, making an appeal for the Hasidic community’s vote…

On the other side of the ballot, Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa continues to rebuff calls for him to drop out of the race in an effort to consolidate voters behind former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in order to defeat Mamdani. Sliwa quit his position at local radio station 77 WABC, where he hosts a show, in an on-air screaming match this morning after the station’s Republican owner and a host called on him to step aside…

After JI first reported yesterday that Graham Platner, a Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine, was aware of the Nazi roots to a skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest, Platner demonstrated in a video statement this afternoon that he had it covered with a different tattoo and insisted once more he did not know the original image’s meaning.

He claimed that “this has come up because the establishment is trying to throw everything it can at me. It is terrified of what we are trying to build here. Every second we spend talking about a tattoo I got in the Marine Corps is a second we don’t spend talking about Medicare for All”…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on a new initiative designed to counter antisemitism in the literary world and an interview with Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, a Reform leader and president of the New York Board of Rabbis, on why he chose to take a public stance against New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani.

This evening, the candidates for New York City mayor will participate in a final debate hosted by local channels NY1 and WNYC before early voting starts this weekend.

Tomorrow morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a vote on the nomination of Joel Rayburn to be assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs after a series of delays. The committee will later hold a confirmation hearing for Amer Ghalib, the controversial mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., who questioned reports of Hamas’ atrocities on Oct. 7 and has supported the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement, to be U.S. ambassador to Kuwait.

In the evening, 92NY in New York City will hold a debate on “Does Zionism Have a Future on the American Left?” with former Rep. Kathy Manning (D-NC), now board chair of the Democratic Majority for Israel, and Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute, arguing in the “yes” camp. Opposed to them will be journalist Jamie Kirchick and commentator Batya Ungar-Sargon.

Nearby at Temple Emanu-El Streicker, Dan Senor will host a live taping of his “Call Me Back” podcast with Israeli journalists Nadav Eyal and Amit Segal. 

Stories You May Have Missed

SELF-SABOTAGE

Paul Ingrassia withdraws own nomination amid outcry over antisemitic texts

Ingrassia pulled himself from consideration to be head of the Office of Special Counsel after three Republican senators vowed to oppose his embattled nomination

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

WEST BANK WORRIES

Almost all Senate Democrats urge Trump to ‘reinforce’ opposition to West Bank annexation

Every member of the caucus except Sen. John Fetterman said they want to ‘preserve the viability of a two-state solution’

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

Good Tuesday afternoon!

This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.

I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

Speaking today at the opening of the new U.S.-run Civilian Military Cooperation Center in southern Israel, Vice President JD Vance hailed the ongoing ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which he said is “going, frankly, better than I expected,” though he cautioned that its complete execution “is going to take a very, very long time.”

Vance referenced a post by President Donald Trump on Truth Social this morning where the president threatened Hamas with “elimination” if it does not quell its violence in Gaza and comply with the terms of the deal. “But I’m not going to do what the president of the United States has thus far refused to do, which is put an explicit deadline on it, because a lot of this stuff is difficult … In order for us to give it a chance to succeed, we’ve got to be a little bit flexible,” the vice president continued.

“We don’t yet have the international security force set up,” Vance said, referencing the body conceptualized to be deployed to Gaza as part of the still-unfinalized second phase of the ceasefire agreement. “That’s something that we’re working towards. We have a number of volunteers who want to participate,” he claimed, though countries have reportedly been hesitant to send their own forces into Gaza due to fears of clashing with Hamas militants…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired his national security advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, effectively immediately, after several months of reported disagreements between the two over Netanyahu’s strategy against Hamas. Hanegbi’s deputy, Gil Reich, will become acting head of the National Security Council and national security advisor…

On the campaign trail, Graham Platner, a far-left Democratic candidate with a lengthy anti-Israel record running for Senate in Maine, sought to preempt rumors circulating in recent weeks that a black skull-and-crossbones tattoo on his chest is a Nazi symbol, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.

Speaking with Tommy Vietor on the “Pod Save America” political podcast, released on Monday night, Platner said, “I am not a secret Nazi. Actually, if you read through my Reddit comments, I think you can pretty much figure out where I stand on Nazism and antisemitism and racism in general.”

But according to a person who socialized with Platner when he was living in Washington more than a decade ago, Platner had specifically acknowledged that the tattoo was a Totenkopf, the “death’s head” symbol adopted by an infamous Nazi SS unit that guarded concentration camps in World War II.

“He said, ‘Oh, this is my Totenkopf,’” the former acquaintance told JI recently, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive issue. “He said it in a cutesy little way”…

The revelations haven’t dented Platner’s support from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who said when pressed by reporters about the tattoo allegations, “I personally think [Platner] is an excellent candidate. We don’t have enough candidates in this country who are prepared to take on the powers that be and fight for the working class”…

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, meanwhile, issued a timely endorsement for Gov. Janet Mills, Platner’s opponent in the Democratic primary, who he said is the “best candidate to retire [Sen.] Susan Collins (R-ME)”…

Another anti-Israel candidate, GOP Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), drew a primary challenger today in former Navy SEAL and fifth-generation Kentucky farmer Ed Gallrein, whom Trump threw his support behind in a Truth Social post on Friday, JI’s Emily Jacobs reports.

Massie has been a thorn in the president’s side as he has opposed some of Trump’s keystone policy agenda items, and frequently opposes U.S. support for Israel and legislation to combat antisemitism…

Mandela Barnes, the former lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, is planning to launch a bid to replace the state’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, who is not seeking reelection, The New York Times reports. Barnes, who would be the most well-known Democrat in the race, drew the ire of his party’s establishment in 2022 when he narrowly lost what was considered a winnable election against Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI).

During the 2022 race, Barnes, a progressive, told a Jewish forum that he supported continued U.S. aid to Israel, after telling JI in an earlier interview that he would “always support funding” for “legitimate security purposes,” though he “want[ed] to ensure that no American taxpayer dollars go toward activity that violates human rights, including the demolition of homes, forced evacuations or promoting new settlements”…

A federal judge denied a request yesterday by plaintiffs suing Northwestern University to issue a temporary restraining order over the university’s anti-bias training, which included a video on antisemitism that the group said violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. With a deadline to complete the training by yesterday, at least 16 students who refused to comply may now face the loss of their student status…

The Department of Education has laid off more than 460 employees this month as the government shutdown carries on, including staff at the department’s Office of Civil Rights, which enforces Title VI anti-discrimination laws. 

Ken Marcus, who headed the office in Trump’s first administration, told the Times that firing civil rights investigators “really only makes sense if one is looking at a broader picture that involves increases in work done by other agencies”…

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, widely viewed as a likely 2028 Democratic presidential contender, is publishing a memoir in January, JI’s Gabby Deutch reports. For politicians with national ambitions, writing a memoir is generally seen as a stepping stone toward greater name recognition and future campaigns.

The book will include Shapiro’s reflections on his family and faith, details on the arson attack at the governor’s residence during Passover in April and the period in 2024 when Vice President Kamala Harris was considering naming him her running mate…

Warner Bros. Discovery announced it’s considering offers from a variety of buyers to purchase the entire company or some of its assets, after the company reportedly rejected a second offer from Paramount to acquire it…

Clubs in the Euroleague and EuroCup, European basketball leagues, have agreed to resume games in Israel starting Dec. 1, the first international sports competitions to return since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for an analysis of the spate of extremist rhetoric from both the political left and right revealed in recent political stories, and a letter from almost all Senate Democrats to President Donald Trump opposing any moves toward West Bank annexation.

Tomorrow, Israeli President Isaac Herzog will award the Israeli Presidential Medal of Honor to nine recipients, including Dr. Miriam Adelson, at his residence in Jerusalem. Herzog announced last week that Trump will also receive the award at a later date for brokering the ceasefire with Hamas. 

Stories You May Have Missed

ACROSS THE POND

Britain’s Jewish community wants actions, not words, after Manchester synagogue attack

While added financial resources for more guards and extra security has been welcomed by the U.K.’s Jewish community, there remains considerable unease and hostility toward the government

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

 ANDES TO AMERICA

A 21-year-old from rural Argentina travels 5,000 miles to learn — and teach — tolerance

Agustina Cruz was the first recipient of an award promoted by the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires and the city’s Holocaust museum that is named after a group of Germans who openly protested Hitler

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

Good Monday afternoon!

This P.M. briefing is reserved for our premium subscribers like you — offering a forward-focused read on what we’re tracking now and what’s coming next.

I’m Danielle Cohen-Kanik, U.S. editor at Jewish Insider and curator, along with assists from my colleagues, of the Daily Overtime briefing. Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and feedback by replying to this email.

📡On Our Radar

Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking

President Donald Trump continued to voice his frustration today with Hamas’ ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip, including a recent ceasefire violation where Hamas terrorists shot an anti-tank missile at IDF machinery and killed two soldiers, though he stopped short of calling for action against the terror group. 

At a bilateral lunch at the White House with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Trump told reporters, “We made a deal with Hamas that they’re going to be very good, they’re going to behave, they’re going to be nice and if they’re not, we’re going to go in — we’re going to eradicate them if we have to, they’ll be eradicated.” 

Trump claimed the violence was committed by rogue members of the terror group: “I don’t believe it was the leadership — they had some rebellion in there among themselves — and they killed some people, a lot of people.” 

Despite his phrasing, Trump emphasized that the U.S. will not send troops into Gaza. “We don’t need to [have U.S. boots on the ground] because we have many countries, as you know, signed on to this deal,” he said. “We had countries calling me when they saw some of the killing with Hamas, saying, ‘We’d love to go in and take care of the situation ourselves.’ In addition, Israel would go in in two minutes if I asked them to go in. … But right now we haven’t said that. We’re going to give it a little chance and hopefully there will be a little less violence”…

Trump advisors Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, in Israel to help shore up the ceasefire, reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their meeting today not to take any action that could risk the first phase of the agreement, Israeli media reports, despite the recent violations by Hamas…

Netanyahu appointed Israeli-American businessman Michael Eisenberg as his representative to the U.S.-led international body monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire, according to Israeli media. Eisenberg previously helped establish the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Vice President JD Vance, set to land in Israel tomorrow, is expected to visit the monitoring body’s command center…

The Trump administration’s nominee for ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, former Rep. Mark Walker (R-NC), is also in Israel this week on a trip focused on “religious freedom, unity and resilience after the release of hostages.” Yesterday, he met with American hostage families and today visited Yad Vashem and the Western Wall…

The military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said today it was handing over the remains of a hostage held in Gaza to IDF troops. The army announced the casket is now in Israel and headed for identification…

Meanwhile in the U.S., Politico reports that Paul Ingrassia, the Trump administration’s nominee to head the Office of Special Counsel, said on a text chain of Republican operatives last year that he has “a Nazi streak” in him “from time to time” and that all holidays commemorating Black communities “need to be eviscerated.”

Ingrassia, who has a history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, including calling the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel a “psyop,” is scheduled receive a confirmation hearing in the Senate on Thursday…

The Council on American-Islamic Relations filed a lawsuit against Northwestern alleging that the university violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by adopting time, place and manner restrictions on student protest and requiring students to watch an antisemitism training video, Jewish Insider‘s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.

Among other allegations, the suit, filed in federal court in Illinois, claims Northwestern violated students’ rights by requiring them to agree to the school’s code of conduct, which now incorporates the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, as well as mandatory bias training that includes a video on antisemitism created in collaboration with the Jewish United Fund, the city’s Jewish federation…

Dartmouth College joined five other universities in rejecting the Trump administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence” over the weekend. With a deadline of today, the University of Arizona, the University of Texas at Austin and Vanderbilt University are the only schools offered early access to the compact that have yet to respond publicly…

John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council under the Biden administration, is set to become director of the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics on Nov. 15, according to Axios…

⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today

An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead

Keep an eye on Jewish Insider tomorrow morning for reporting on the U.K. Jewish community’s reaction to rising antisemitism in the country after the Yom Kippur attack on a Manchester synagogue and reflections from a 21-year-old Argentinian activist who was awarded with a trip to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum for her work in tolerance.

This evening, Aish is hosting former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo in conversation with Elisha Wiesel on “the future of New York City” about the upcoming mayoral elections. 

Tomorrow, the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control will hold a hearing on Hezbollah’s drug trafficking activities in Latin America.

Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman will appear at 92NY in New York City tomorrow evening to discuss “the state of Judaism on campus.”

Stories You May Have Missed

SUOZZI’S STAND

Tom Suozzi finds comfort zone in the political middle, speaking up for Israel

The New York Democrat praised Trump for the hostage deal: ‘We thank God and congratulate President Trump and all those who helped make the return of the hostages a reality’

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

  HERITAGE OF HOPE

In Israel and Gaza, Nelson Mandela’s granddaughters find hope amid devastation

Zamaswazi (Swati) Dlamini-Mandela and Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway traveled to the region earlier this month, ahead of an announced ceasefire between Israel and Hamas

Read more

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Israel on Monday morning to discuss the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire, a day after Hamas killed two IDF soldiers and the Israeli Air Force struck in Rafah in response.

Hamas terrorists shot an anti-tank missile at heavy machinery used by the IDF to destroy the terrorist organization’s tunnels in Rafah, killing two soldiers on Sunday. Hamas claimed that the explosion was due to the machinery driving over an IED, but the IDF suspected the attack was part of an attempt to capture soldiers, Walla! News reported. 

There have been several other recent attacks by Hamas, including two on Friday in which terrorists emerged from tunnels and shot at IDF soldiers.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the heads of Israel’s defense establishment to “take strong action against terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip,” his office stated soon after the Israeli strikes on Sunday. The Israeli army, however, announced on Sunday night, “In accordance with the directive of the political echelon, and following a series of significant strikes in response to Hamas’ violations, the IDF has begun the renewed enforcement of the ceasefire. The IDF will continue to uphold the ceasefire agreement and will respond firmly to any violation of it.”

The Rafah strikes came nearly a week after the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas came into effect. Hamas was supposed to free all 48 hostages that remained in Gaza at the time within 72 hours, according to the summary of the 20-point plan released by the White House. However, it only released the 20 living ones, and has been gradually handing over the bodies of deceased hostages; 16 bodies remain in Gaza.

In addition, Hamas terrorists have repeatedly launched attacks on Israeli soldiers, and Palestinians have crossed into areas in which IDF troops are deployed, in accordance with the ceasefire deal, leading the soldiers to shoot and kill several of them.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, called for “a full renewal of the fighting in the [Gaza] Strip, at full force. False imaginings that Hamas will change its skin or will even fulfill the agreement it signed have turned out, as expected, to be dangerous to our security. The Nazi terrorist organization must be fully destroyed, as soon as possible.” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich simply posted: “War!”

The first phase of President Donald Trump’s deal had Israel withdraw to the “yellow line,” moving out of Gaza City and other areas, but remaining in control of 53% of Gaza, including Rafah. The IDF began posting concrete blocks painted yellow along that line on Sunday morning, as a warning to “Hamas terrorists and Gaza residents that any violation or attempt to cross the line will be met with fire,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said when he announced the erection of the physical boundary on Friday.

Hamas has also been clashing with and executing members of rival gangs and Gaza residents it has accused of collaborating with Israel. The State Department released a statement on Saturday warning that a Hamas “attack against Palestinian civilians would constitute a direct and grave violation of the ceasefire agreement” and, should they continue, “measures will be taken to protect the people of Gaza and preserve the integrity of the ceasefire.” 

Netanyahu’s office announced on Saturday night that the Rafah crossing, the main entrance for goods into Gaza, would remain closed as long as Hamas does not release the hostages’ bodies. However, IDF soldiers posted videos to social media of trucks of fuel entering Gaza on Sunday. 

Witkoff and Kushner, who has a key role in the administration’s Middle East efforts, are expected to start talks with Jerusalem about the second phase of the ceasefire deal, in which Hamas would be disarmed, Gaza would be demilitarized, the IDF would withdraw further and be replaced by an international stabilization force, and a technocratic government would be installed in Gaza, under the supervision of a Peace Board led by Trump and including former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair.

This story was updated on Oct. 20, 2025, at 04:20 a.m. ET.

“What has emerged from all my conversations is that the yearning for peace is very intense,” former South African President Nelson Mandela, visiting Israel in 1999 as part of a broader Middle East trip, said as he reflected on his meetings with leaders across the region. The trip came four months after Mandela, who built his legacy working to dismantle South Africa’s decades-long apartheid system and begin a process of national reconciliation, retired from politics.

More than a quarter century later — despite the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the degradation of Iran and its proxy network and numerous wars between Israel and its neighbors — that peace remains elusive. It was against that backdrop that two of Mandela’s granddaughters, Zamaswazi (Swati) Dlamini-Mandela and Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway, traveled to Israel and the Gaza Strip earlier this month.

Their trip came amid strained relations between Pretoria and Jerusalem, whose leaders and senior officials have been increasingly at odds in recent years. The country’s Jewish community has raised concerns over South Africa’s deepening relations with Iran and aggressive posture toward Israel, which it accused of genocide in a December 2023 International Court of Justice filing.

Dlamini-Manaway and Dlamini-Mandela’s trip to Israel, organized by the National Black Empowerment Council, included meetings with Israeli hostage families and survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, visits to Israel’s holy sites and a day on the ground in Gaza where Mandela’s granddaughters assisted the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in its efforts to distribute aid in the enclave. They left the region days before a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was announced and the remaining 20 living hostages were released.

The Mandela granddaughters “thought that this could be a unique opportunity to bring necessary attention to what’s being done, while at the same time, as mothers, being able to say that they did something that was in the humanitarian tradition of their grandparents,” Darius Jones, the founder and executive director of the NBEC, told JI.

During the women’s trip, a flotilla, led by anti-Israel activists including Greta Thunberg, made its way through the Mediterranean Sea in an effort to reach the Gaza Strip. Aboard one of the ships was their cousin Nkosi Zwelivelile “Mandla” Mandela, another grandchild of Nelson Mandela. The ships attempting to illegally reach Gaza were intercepted by Israel, and participants were deported to their countries of origin.

The approach taken by Dlamini-Manaway and Dlamini-Mandela was, Jones explained, to “really be a part of something that can have meaningful impact, rather than just try to do a performative stunt, which is not about the people, but more about self-aggrandizement.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Jewish Insider: What made you come to Israel now, in this moment? It’s obviously a very interesting point in time, and not necessarily one that would invite a lot of visitors.

Zamaswazi (Swati) Dlamini-Mandela: Coming to Israel has always been a lifelong dream. Both of our grandparents, Nelson and Winnie, visited Israel. And my grandmother, I remember when she came back, she was like, it’s a trip that we have to take whenever we can, in our own time. 

I would have never imagined that I would be going in the middle of a war. When we were telling our families, they were literally shocked. Our kids were horrified, because they have this picture painted in their mind that there’s literally going to be missiles flying over our heads and all kinds of stuff. So it was scary for our family, but I think for us, we were like, what an opportune time to go.

For us, it’s important to actually go and actually experience the story for yourself. Coming from a high-profile family like ours, and also living in the media for years, all our lives have been pretty much lived in public, it’s very interesting what type of bias or viewpoints the news can take. So we always felt like, ‘Let’s go and see for ourselves. Let’s experience for ourselves, and let’s actually go on humanitarian missions to try and understand and really get to know what’s going on.’ For me, there’s no better way than actually physically being in a place to actually experience it. We’ve lived through wars here in South Africa, so that didn’t even scare me. It really wasn’t a thing that deterred me at all.

Zaziwe Dlamini-Manaway: I just knew that if my grandmother was alive, she would have said, ‘You definitely have to go, and make it as balanced as possible, and learn and don’t always take one side, because there’s always different sides to a story.’ So for me, I wanted it to be an experience where I could get both sides — the Israeli side and the Palestinian side. The first thing that I said when this trip came up was, ‘We have to go to Gaza.’ It was instinctive to me. It’s like, I have to go to Gaza, because that’s all we see in South Africa. We only see Gaza. We only see women and children. We only see Gaza flattened. So that was very important for me to see and witness for myself. Our grandmother and our family [have] been ridiculed in the media. So we are very, very cognizant of what we hear and what we take in, because we’ve lived it, and we know that the media can distort things tremendously.

JI: What did you know about Israel and about the region before this trip? 

SDM: There’s the obvious history and the long-term conflict between Israel and Palestinians. I think for the most part, for me, I’ve consumed the history on a very high level. I didn’t have the same experiences that my grandparents had, because we were so much younger then, when my grandfather visited. At the time, you know, [Palestinian Authority President] Yasser Arafat was still alive. We were so much younger then. I know it as much as I think the average person knows it. But certainly this was a  deep dive into a layered, complicated, complex, difficult history between a few nations. 

So I would say before this, I almost didn’t know enough, but I certainly learned a lot, and I’ve come away so much more enriched by my time there. There’s words that you hear, like checkpoints, right? ‘Controlled movements,’ ‘apartheid states,’ those are the things that you always heard and because it’s similar to our history. So in a sense, I was like, ‘Oh, OK, this resonates with our history because of what we went through in apartheid.’ So I think those are the things that you always heard and you always knew about, and you always obviously read about, but when it comes to the actual details of the history, I can’t say I really knew it, but I certainly have come away way more enriched. 

ZDM: It was a war. Our kids were terrified for us to go there. It’s a totally different country when you’re actually on the ground. Completely. It’s not what is perceived to us at home, I would say.

JI: You came at a time when we in Israel were approaching, now it’s past, the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks. 

ZDM: [On Oct. 7, 2023,] I remember all I heard on the news was there was an attack in Israel, and there were hundreds of people killed. But I didn’t actually understand the magnitude and the gravity of what actually happened on Oct. 7. We went to a kibbutz that was literally at arm’s length … to Gaza. It was a complete massacre, a complete massacre of innocent children, parents, people who survived the Holocaust. That was completely horrifying to me, I couldn’t even imagine … the [Nova music] festival. I think Swati cried the whole day at the site. 

I did not understand the magnitude of what actually happened on that day. It wasn’t portrayed to me. I was completely horrified by what happened. It was a massacre, it was deliberate, it was calculated. It was a complete obliteration of innocent women and children on one day. It pains me to think that this happened. 

But the people that I met — the mothers, the survivors — are still so hopeful, are still so resilient. It’s really something to look up to, because even through so much pain and agony and anguish, they are still hopeful that there could be a place where they can both — both nations, both people, Jewish and Palestinians — can live in a place peacefully, even in their differences. But Oct. 7, for me, was horrific. It was horrific, and it wasn’t told to us South Africans, I can safely say.

SDM: Hearing firsthand accounts of people who actually survived that day and what they experienced and their loss of loved ones, families whose loved ones were kidnapped, dead and alive, children who were kidnapped, and how children were used as pawns to negotiate with the government. 

Going into Gaza on that specific day [with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] was also incredible, because you heard so many stories about aid not being delivered, aid not getting to the people and malnutrition. And it’s not perfect, right? In any war, nothing is going to be perfect. Aid delivery is never going to be perfect. What we were a part of, what we experienced, was an organization that certainly is trying to make their impact. There were 10,000 or so women and children that we saw that were able to be fed, that, if [they] needed medical care, there was medical care that was available to them. 

On the flip side of that, you have [Israeli] families that are still grieving the loss of loved ones who have not even returned, the hostages that still have not returned. The sheer devastation on both sides was very apparent that day. I think that was my biggest takeaway, that there’s suffering on both sides. Like Zaziwe said, to talk to and hear the stories of people who survived and who still have so much hope for the country and who still want peace. They’re desperate for peace. 

And I think the fact that we were also there on the day when [President Donald] Trump and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu met to talk about a peace deal and a peace agreement, to us, was a turning point, the fact that there can be peace, and there’s a potential peace that can come to the region. But the healing still needs to come. So we pray for peace. We really pray for peace. We’ve seen what the devastation is firsthand with our own eyes, we’ve seen it, and so we pray that the peace deal will come through, and it will hold.

JI: I saw that you met with Rachel Goldberg-Polin. Swati, before you got on the call, Zaziwe was telling me about her son, and she said he was 25 — he was basically the same age as Rachel’s son, Hersh. What was that meeting like?

ZDM: First of all, this woman is so strong. She is such a strong, strong lady. And what she went through with her only son, I can’t even imagine. She held on for over 300 days knowing that her son was alive, and then literally, right before the IDF was going to rescue him, [Hamas] killed him. Hearing her story was so profound, and really was a moment that I’ll never forget in my life. She literally took me into the day of what happened on Oct. 7. She had a smile on her face the whole time. When she was telling us a story, she was sad, but she had a smile on her face. She was so hopeful, and she was the perfect example of resilience, the perfect example of a person who wants peace, the perfect example of someone who said, ‘I really hope there’s an Israel where Palestinians and Israelis and Jews can live side by side.’ And she even said, ‘I really hope that one day we can have a TRC [Truth and Reconciliation Commission] like you guys.’ She’s like, ‘That’s my wish. I want us to have a TRC in Israel.’ 

I was in awe of this woman. My son is 25 in two weeks, so I completely resonated with her. I completely connected with her, and she was so loving, and just wanted peace for her country that she loves, and I will never forget that experience. She literally described that day to me, from morning to end, from the moment when she found out that her son was actually held captive, and the message that he sent to her was, ‘Mommy. I’m sorry.’ Can you imagine? I mean, can you imagine knowing that your son has been injured, has been taken captive? Living in agony that your son is in captivity and is injured over 300 days? I can’t even imagine. I can’t even imagine. She is resilience to me, she really is. 

SDM: She was so strong, she was so kind, she was so determined to still ensure that the rest of the hostages get home. She gave us so much hope, because she’s like, ‘I want peace.’ It’s not something that you would expect. She’s an advocate for the families who probably don’t have the strength to be able to tell the story or to be able to push and fight. We were just in awe of her. She has hope, and she wants healing for the nations. She really wants healing for the nations. And she spoke about the women and children of Gaza. She spoke about what that means to her and the impact of that. So she spoke about everything. It wasn’t just a one-sided view for her. The human spirit’s ability to be able to live through such trauma and tragedy and still come out and still be so hopeful, for me, she was the epitome of that. 

JI: You went to a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation site. What was that experience like? What did you do? What were your interactions like?

ZDM: It was a very hot day, very, very hot. And I think they said that they had about, I think about 4,000-5,000 people before? So on that day they were expecting the biggest crowd. It was about 10,000 people that they were expecting. So, I mean, TV doesn’t do justice. It really doesn’t. When you’re actually on the ground and you actually see people running, literally running for food, it’s something that you can’t even explain. 

The men arrive first, they get their supplies, which is pretty chaotic for about 15, 20 minutes, because they’re literally fighting for their aid. So it’s very, very chaotic. And then after that, the women are so organized. The women and children are so organized. They stand in a line, unprovoked, very simple. They just know the order of things. So Swati and I and our team literally spent the whole day giving food, potatoes and eggs to the women, and there were lots of children as well. And I must say, everyone was just so grateful. They were so grateful. They were happy that we were there. There was no interruption. There was nothing untoward. All they came to do was to get food, nourishment and go home. And this happens every single day for these people. You saw the repercussions of what a war entails. Women and children are the biggest casualties, literally, because there were more women and children there. 

JI: What was their physical condition?

ZDM: I don’t know what they looked like before. I mean, obviously you could see the desperation. You could definitely see the desperation in them. They definitely do need aid and food, they definitely do. But I’ve seen what the hostages look like when they leave [Gaza], when they’ve been released, and they literally are people who are starving. They’re people who haven’t had anything for months on end. So for me, I compared what I’ve seen to the people, the women and children of Gaza. It’s a totally different image, for me, from what I saw. Obviously they want nourishment. Obviously they would like three meals a day. Obviously. But for me, there’s a difference between what I’ve seen between the hostages who were released and what I saw firsthand in Gaza, I’ll leave it at that.

SDM: It was nice to see that the organization works with Palestinians to facilitate the aid to the community. It’s obviously going to grow over time, which is what was explained to us, because 750,000 people had moved down to that area. GHF is building a bigger facility to actually give more aid, medical care in a way in which it’s safe for the people, as safe as it can be, for the Palestinians who need the aid, as well as the people who are working on the ground. I think from what you heard and what you saw, they’re really doing their best to try and see that they can bring aid to as many people as they can as an organization. I kept saying, ‘Is the food going to run out?’ But they kept bringing trucks. They just kept bringing trucks with potatoes and food packs for the families and nutritional snacks. 

And I think seeing firsthand what, like Zaziwe just said, women and children are always the biggest casualties of war, children that are not in school. It was incredibly insightful for us to be able to at least be there and participate and see it and be able to help GHF on that day, because they do so much. 

JI: So talking about being in Gaza distributing aid, the irony of the both of you being there distributing aid last week, was that at the same time that was happening, a cousin of yours was on a flotilla headed to Gaza. It’s the irony of ironies that there was a grandchild of Nelson Mandela delivering aid — actually, there were two — and it wasn’t the one who was making splashy headlines.

SDM: We’re a big family, first and foremost. Our grandparents have always, always taught us to carve out our own paths and walk our own journeys. My grandfather, he went to Israel and he went to Gaza. My grandmother didn’t have the opportunity to do the same. So for me, at the end of the day, we’re grateful that he’s back home and he’s safe, he’s fine. We were on a humanitarian mission for ourselves. We are a family that has different ways in which we want to contribute to society and to humanity, and we allow each other room to do that in ways which are befitting to the individual. 

So we were on our own mission, and we respect his mission and what he was doing. Ultimately, at the end of the day, the goal is about the people, right? That’s what the goal is, and that’s what the goal should always be. It should be about the people.

ZDM: I think that Swati said it perfectly. We’re a big family, and we all have our own ways of doing things, but the ultimate goal is peace to the region, and we want this war to end. We want all the hostages to come home, and we want the innocent people of Gaza and the Palestinians to also get the aid and food that they need. And we just want this war to end so we all have different ways of doing it, and we’re thankful that he’s home, but for us, we were there as granddaughters of Nelson and Winnie Mandela.

JI: People like to take your grandfather’s words and legacy to shape specific narratives around current events, and this has been going on for many, many years all around the world. When it comes to Israel, the term apartheid gets thrown around a lot. You’ve now been on the ground. You have experienced Israel for yourselves. How do you feel about the politicization of your grandfather’s words when it comes to Israel?

SDM: I’m not a politician. I have been asked many times in my life if I’m going to follow in their footsteps, and I always say, given my personal experience, I don’t really have the desire to. I think that we have a great example to follow in a leader like my grandfather. I’m not here to be a global activist like our grandparents were. I’m just here to make my little, little, little impact in whichever small way that I can, and I think just to be educated. The world has changed so much. Like Zaziwe said, if my grandmother was alive, my grandmother would have come to the region, without a shadow of a doubt, she would have been there because she was — both our grandparents were — those people. But I’m my own person, and I’m here to walk my own path. And people, I think it’s time for us to just walk our own paths. 

ZDM: I would say, I think our grandfather’s legacy quotes, what is lived up to is so powerful and so profound, and people can distort it and make it their own. Educate yourself, really educate yourself and really listen, really listen to the words that he spoke, maybe listen to what he said and just do your homework. I just don’t think that you should take and hear everything that you hear from the media, or take what somebody says on a stage and take it for what it really, really is. 

This trip was so important to us now, because I thought we have to go there ourselves and see it. And I know most people won’t have the opportunity, but it’s really important to invest time into what you actually believe in, what your conviction tells you about yourself. You need to actually invest. I mean, just not take it at face value, because it can be so distorted, and you can be so deceived, completely deceived, about a situation or about a person. 

What I took away was, for me, I literally, if I’m passionate about something, and I can sit there and say, I believe in this, or A, B, C or D, I need to actually put in the time to actually understand what I actually am investing my time and what I’m putting my name behind. Grandad’s name is used and said all over the world, but I find that people don’t really, don’t listen to what he actually really said, both him and my grandmother. You just have to put in time and really invest and educate yourself about what you believe in. 

White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff predicted on Thursday that the Abraham Accords will “seriously expand” in response to the end of fighting in Gaza. Witkoff was addressing attendees at an event commemorating the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks.

“No leader has done more for the Jewish people or the State of Israel than President Trump,” Witkoff, speaking at an event at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, said. “He moved our embassy to Jerusalem, he recognized Israel’s sovereignty over Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and the Golan Heights. He forged the Abraham peace Accords, which will seriously expand now,” Witkoff said. 

The White House envoy, who returned from the region earlier this week after the implementation of the first phase of the ceasefire, posited that Trump winning a second term last November was “the major breakthrough of this conflict.” 

“The moment that result was declared, the world changed, and so did the negotiations. Hamas and every party in the region understood that President Trump, his return to office, meant strength, accountability and action,” Witkoff explained. “Even before taking office, President Trump made it clear he wanted progress by the day he stepped into the Oval Office, and shortly thereof, we struck a ceasefire and hostage release deal that began to turn the tide.”

“The success of that first hostage release was made possible by President Trump’s 20-point plan, a strategy that united the Arab world behind this effort. Nations like Egypt, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan and many others came aboard because peace and civility are in everybody’s interests,” he added.

Witkoff went on to commend the Arab state negotiators and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and former senior advisor, arguing that they collectively pressured Hamas to release the remaining hostages. All 20 living hostages were freed on Monday, while the terror group has slow-walked the repatriation of the bodies of deceased hostages 

“In the final phase, at President Trump’s directive, Jared Kushner, a great American, and I flew to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, for the last round of negotiations, led by Qatari, Egyptian and Turkey’s mediators. They were incredible and without them we would not be where we are today,” Witkoff said. “Jared was tremendous. Together, we convinced Hamas that keeping the remaining 20 hostages was no longer an asset, it was a liability, and they began to believe it.”

Witkoff acknowledged that Israel has yet to receive the remains of the deceased hostages still being held by Hamas in Gaza, but said the administration was working toward their release.

“We didn’t get everybody back. We’ve gotten [nine deceased hostages] back and we will pursue the return of the … deceased until they all go home, and I’m confident that they will,” Witkoff said. 

Witkoff also referenced his several recent visits to Gaza during his remarks, pointing out that Gazans he’s engaged with “want peace too. They want stability, opportunity, a better life for their children. A future for Gazans must include jobs, education, hope, aspirations, not just guns and violence. Israel should never have to live under the threat of rockets flying at its people or the fear of terrorist attacks, but Gaza’s people must be able to live a decent life as well.”

“We have to be clear, Hamas must unequivocally disarm. They have no future in Gaza,” he continued. “Only when extremism ends does prosperity begin.”

Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun, Trump’s nominee to serve as antisemitism envoy; Ben Ladany, a former IDF sergeant in the elite Oketz K-9 Unit who was shot seven times in November 2023 while fighting Hamas in Gaza; and Almog Meir Jan, an Israeli hostage held by a Palestinian journalist after being taken from the Nova music festival, also spoke at the event. 

Nat Shaffir, a Holocaust survivor and USHMM volunteer, and 18 other Holocaust survivors, were among those in attendance, in addition to Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL); Andrew Giuliani, the son of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and the executive director of the White House task force overseeing the 2026 FIFA World Cup whom Trump appointed in his first term to sit on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council; Alex Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff and CEO of the Witkoff Group who also sits on the council; Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad); and Alina Habba, the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey and the president’s former personal attorney.

Good Thursday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the evolving situation in the Gaza Strip, where Hamas forces are violently attacking rival clans following the implementation of the first phase of the Trump administration’s ceasefire plan, and look at how the White House’s moves to address campus antisemitism have morphed into broader efforts to regulate bias in academia. We report on the passing of the Orthodox Union’s Rabbi Moshe Hauer, and cover Gov. Josh Shapiro’s comments this week that antisemitism was a “motivating factor” in the Passover arson attack at the governor’s residence. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Joshua Kushner, Joel Mokyr and Amb. Sammy Revel.

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

What We’re Watching

• White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, former Israeli hostage Almog Meir Jan and Yehuda Kaploun, the Trump administration’s nominee to serve as antisemitism envoy, are slated to speak tonight at an event at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington commemorating the second anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks.
• In New York City, the Consul General of Israel is hosting its own commemoration ceremony this evening.
• Elsewhere in New York City, mayoral candidates Zohran Mamdani, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa will participate in a debate hosted by Politico, NBC 4 New York/WNBC and Telemundo 47/WNJU.
• In Israel, we’re monitoring the implementation of the Trump administration’s 20-point ceasefire plan, amid violations by Hamas over the release of bodies of deceased captives. Last night, Hamas returned the bodies of Inbar Haiman, the last remaining female hostage, and Muhammad el-Atrash, who was killed on Oct. 7 while serving in the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade.
• The Jewish Democratic Council of America is hosting a meet-the-candidate event tonight with New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ).

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S LAHAV HARKOV

Following the joy in Israel over the return of the remaining living hostages on Monday and President Donald Trump’s declaration that “the long and painful nightmare is finally over” came the letdown: Hamas, as of this morning, had returned only nine out of 28 bodies of the deceased hostages and started to execute rivals and reestablish itself in the areas of Gaza from which the IDF withdrew. 

While Trump has repeatedly said the war in Gaza is over, when asked by CBS News if that’s the case, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “agreed to give peace a chance,” and later in the interview said it still needs to “finish the war as speedily as possible.”

The future of Gaza remains unclear, despite Israel agreeing to Trump’s 20-point plan for the region. Hamas only agreed to the immediate steps in the plan: stopping the war, freeing the hostages in exchange for 1,950 prisoners, including those who killed Israelis in terrorist attacks, and Israel withdrawing to a specified line within Gaza. 

Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday that the plan’s second phase, which entails Hamas’ disarmament and demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, “begins right NOW!!!” Yet, an Israeli official confirmed to Jewish Insider a report that, with Hamas withholding most of the remaining hostages’ bodies, negotiations to continue to the next phase of the plan are on hold.

Disarming Hamas and the demilitarization of Gaza are meant to take place “under the supervision of independent monitors,” but those monitors have yet to be selected and sent to the region. The Peace Board announced — and led — by Trump, with the involvement of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair that is meant to oversee Gaza’s administration by Palestinian technocrats has not yet been formed, nor has the temporary International Stabilization Force meant to train Palestinian police and be part of the “long-term internal security solution” for Gaza and Israel. 

Meanwhile, Hamas has entered the vacuum and, in recent days, has tried to consolidate its power by killing members of clans that it accused of collaborating with Israel. 

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

EDUCATION CONSTERNATION

With new higher ed compact, Trump’s antisemitism crusade broadens to fight academic bias

As the Trump administration ratchets up its efforts to influence higher education, the latest White House proposal for colleges and universities is being met with skepticism from academics — even as its authors say its implementation should be a no-brainer. That’s in reference to a White House document called the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” a 10-point plan that the federal government is asking universities to sign in order to get preferential treatment for the federal funds upon which research universities rely. If they don’t agree to the terms in the compact — which include commitments to end race-based hiring and admissions, limits on foreign enrollment and a pledge to foster greater ideological diversity — they risk losing billions of dollars. Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch talked to professors from across the country about the compact, which says next to nothing about antisemitism.

Missing link: The compact reflects an evolution of a familiar Trump administration argument: that America’s preeminent educational institutions have strayed from their mission, letting politics interfere with their raison d’etre as centers of academic excellence. Combating antisemitism on college campuses — a cause the Trump administration has prioritized this year — provided President Donald Trump a foray into greater oversight of higher education. But there appears to be no direct line from that fight against antisemitism to the broad ideological framework in this compact, which makes only a passing reference to antisemitism.

Read the full story here.

Bonus: More than 450 employees of the Department of Education were laid off on Friday as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on the agency; among the offices most affected was the Office for Civil Rights, which has investigated dozens of antisemitic discrimination complaints.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

MASSACHUSETTS MATCHUP

Seth Moulton challenging Markey, one of Israel’s leading Senate critics, in high-stakes Dem primary

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) announced Wednesday that he plans to challenge Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) for his Senate seat, grounding his campaign in an argument for generational change, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Differences: But unlike many of the younger challengers taking on older Democratic incumbents in the current election cycle, Moulton is generally more moderate, including on foreign policy issues, than Markey, an outspoken progressive. While Moulton has been strongly critical of Israeli operations in Gaza, his record as a whole leans more pro-Israel than Markey’s.

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

MTG MOMENTUM

As she emerges as populist GOP critic, Marjorie Taylor Greene amplifies antisemitic rhetoric

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) first became a household name for her embrace of a range of wild conspiracy theories — including antisemitic claims about the Rothschild family like the idea that space-based weapons controlled by the Jewish banking family were the cause of California wildfires. But as the congresswoman has emerged as an unlikely star in liberal circles and mainstream media after breaking with her party on the government shutdown, health-care funding and the Jeffrey Epstein files, her erstwhile critics have all but ignored her increasingly frequent use of antisemitic tropes and embrace of conspiracy theories targeting Jews, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What she’s saying: Earlier this week, the controversial Georgia congresswoman vowed on X, “No bar codes on me. I’ll never take 30 shekels. I’m America only! And Christ is King!” She has also repeatedly boosted claims that Israel and Jewish people were involved in last month’s killing of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and are seeking to co-opt his organization. And she has accused Israel of “meddling in campaigns and elections” and of “meddling in government policy — government of the United States policy — as well as dictating what America does in foreign wars.”

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

GUILTY PLEA

Gov. Josh Shapiro now says antisemitism a ‘motivating factor’ in arson attack at residence

Hours after the man accused of an arson attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in April pled guilty to the attempted murder of Gov. Josh Shapiro, the governor appeared to publicly acknowledge for the first time that the attacker targeted him for his faith, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. Cody Balmer was sentenced to 25-50 years in prison for the attack, which took place hours after Shapiro and his family hosted a Passover Seder at the governor’s residence in Harrisburg. Balmer said after his arrest that he was motivated by the war in Gaza, and that he wanted Shapiro to know that Balmer “will not take part in his plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.” Shapiro has avoided calling the attack a hate crime. 

What he said: In a CNN interview on Tuesday, Shapiro was asked by anchor Jake Tapper if he believed he was “targeted just because you’re Jewish.” Shapiro responded: “Look, obviously, as governor of Pennsylvania I don’t have foreign policy in my job description. But clearly, the district attorney thought that this was a material fact. “Clearly this was a motivating factor.” Balmer did not face hate crime charges in the case. “Whatever is motivating this political violence in this country, it needs to stop. Whether it’s targeting me because of my faith, whether it’s targeting someone else because of their ideology, it is not OK,” Shapiro said on CNN. 

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

IN MEMORIAM

Congressman blames ‘vandalism’ after swastika flag spotted at staffer’s desk

Rep. Dave Taylor (R-OH) blamed “vandalism” and requested a Capitol Police investigation after a flag showing a swastika overlaid onto the American flag was spotted in a staff member’s cubicle during a virtual meeting, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What happened: The flag was pinned up on the wall of the staffer’s cubicle alongside various other memorabilia including a copy of the U.S. Constitution and a congressional calendar. The incident was first reported by a local outlet. “I am aware of an image that appears to depict a vile and deeply inappropriate symbol near an employee in my office,” Taylor said in a statement issued Wednesday. “The content of that image does not reflect the values or standards of this office, my staff, or myself, and I condemn it in the strongest terms. Upon learning of this matter, I immediately directed a thorough investigation alongside Capitol Police, which remains ongoing. No further comment will be provided until it has been completed.”

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

in memoriam

Orthodox Union’s Rabbi Moshe Hauer remembered as ‘master teacher’ and ‘voice of Torah’

Rabbi Moshe Hauer, the executive vice president of the Orthodox Union, died suddenly on Monday evening after suffering a heart attack, his organization said, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. He was 60. Jewish communal leaders remembered Hauer as a friend, a faithful and committed leader and a source of wise counsel.

Remembering: “Rabbi Hauer was a true talmid chacham, a master teacher and communicator, the voice of Torah to the Orthodox community and the voice of Orthodoxy to the world. He personified what it means to be a Torah Jew and took nothing more seriously than his role of sharing the joy of Jewish life with our community and beyond,” OU President Mitchel Aeder and Chief Operating Officer Rabbi Josh Joseph said in a joint statement.

Read the full obituary here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

Worthy Reads

The Other Kushner: Colossus‘ Jeremy Stern profiles Thrive Capital’s Joshua Kushner, doing a deep dive into the Kushner family’s history, stemming from the survival of Kushner’s grandmother during the Holocaust. “Despite his success as an entrepreneur, his proximity to political power, his marriage to an American beauty icon, and his mastery of the nexus between capital and technology, there is in Joshua Kushner an enduring sense of Jewish apartness, and an inability to forget that he is two generations from Novogrudok. It shows itself in his compulsion to succeed, in his need to test himself, in the obvious ambivalence he feels about how he comes off, and perhaps in a determination to re-earn a right to a place in America for himself and his family—qualities also visible in the other first- and second-generation Americans who have built, alongside him, one of the more increasingly influential institutions in the country.” [Colossus]

Media Matters in Gaza: In The Wall Street Journal, Rob Satloff, the executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, raises concerns about the potential for unfettered media access to Gaza, which has been tightly regulated by Israel since the start of the war. “Many will seek out a local fixer to translate, arrange interviews, navigate the war zone and secure food and lodging. The bigger outlets will hire huge teams of local crew, including drivers and technicians, in addition to the support staff needed to care for star correspondents who will want to make a Gaza appearance. Even with the best intentions and oversight from headquarters, this will be a bonanza for Hamas’s well-oiled media operation, which has controlled virtually every word written or broadcast in Gaza since 2007. One can be sure Hamas is preparing for what will be both a huge jobs program and a chance to mold the message of powerful media operations.” [WSJ]

What Genocide?: The Free Press’ Eli Lake posits that accusations that Israel was committing a genocide were disproven by the ceasefire agreement inked earlier this week that resulted in the release of the hostages and an Israeli withdrawal from parts of Gaza. “This movement insisted for the duration of the war that Israel was not, in fact, conducting a war of defense to liberate its hostages, but committing a genocide to wipe out the Palestinian people. Sadly, once-credible institutions (and far less credible ones) latched on to the charge, providing the lie with the appearance of truthfulness. … The nation accused of wanting to wipe out — in whole or in part — the Palestinian population of Gaza was willing to end the war in exchange for 20 people. And when the fighting stopped and the hostages came home, the jubilation in Israel was palpable.” [FreePress]

The ADL’s New Fight: In eJewishPhilanthropy, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt explains the ADL’s approach to a post-Oct. 7 world and how the organization plans to address the antisemitism that exploded in the wake of the attacks. “It is affecting people of every denomination and every segment of our community — from the kippah-wearing grandfather walking to synagogue on a Saturday morning, to parents working in white-collar jobs at public companies, young adults enrolled in college, and teens simply watching videos on social media. … The issue is whether we can continue to live openly and proudly as Jews who support the existence of the Jewish state, or face the same fate of our ancestors in so many previous generations. Confronted by this metastasizing threat, the ADL will strive to remain true to our centennial mission statement: to stop the defamation of the Jewish People and secure justice and fair treatment to all.” [eJP]

Word on the Street

Vice President JD Vance has repeatedly rejected the idea of condemning a Young Republicans group chat where members praised Adolf Hitler and joked about the Holocaust. He described the response as “pearl clutching” and those involved as “kids” who “do stupid things” and were telling “edgy, offensive jokes.” Several of the individuals involved were well-established professionals in their 30s…

In the New York Post, Alex Witkoff reflects on how his father, White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, “found purpose” following the 2011 death of his son Andrew, saying that “[e]very time he comforts a grieving parent or reunites a hostage with loved ones, he carries Andrew’s memory and President Trump’s directive with him”…

A Washington Post poll conducted last month found that nearly half of Jewish Americans perceive there to be “a lot” of antisemitism in the U.S., while 42% said that they had avoided wearing public clothing or items in the last year that would identify them as being Jewish…

U.S. Border Patrol posted and deleted an Instagram reel of agents on patrol set against antisemitic lyrics from Michael Jackson’s “They Don’t Care About Us”…

JPMorgan Chase announced plans to contribute $10 billion over the next decade as part of a broader, $1.5 trillion effort to invest in companies “critical to national economic security and resiliency”…

The Wall Street Journal reports on efforts by Paramount CEO David Ellison to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery ahead of CEO David Zaslav’s implementation of a plan to split the company in two…

Rama Duwaji, the wife of New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, shared social media posts mourning the death of Palestinian influencer Saleh al-Jafarawi, who posted content celebrating the Oct. 7 attacks, who was killed in clashes earlier this week between Hamas and local Palestinian groups…

Cornell University professor Eric Cheyfitz, who was suspended following the filing of a complaint alleging that the English professor asked an Israeli student to leave his course that covered Gaza, will retire amid a probe into the incident…

The New York Sun, which was acquired by Dovid Efune in 2021, will return to publishing a print edition for the first time since 2008…

The New York Times spotlights Vienna’s Café Centropa and its founder, photographer and archivist Edward Serotta, who for decades has worked to preserve the history of European Jews…

The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected the Israel Gymnastics Federation’s appeals to be allowed to compete in the upcoming International Gymnastic Federation championship in Indonesia; Jakarta refused to grant visas to members of the Israeli delegation, effectively banning them from competition…

Eurovision Song Contest organizers postponed an upcoming vote on Israel’s participation in next year’s competition, citing “recent developments in the Middle East”…

Israeli-American economist Joel Mokyr was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics alongside Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt for their work linking innovation to economic growth…

The Washington Post looks at the limited impact that some European governments’ banning or limiting of weapons sales to Israel have had on the country’s military capabilities…

Israeli diplomat Sammy Revel presented his credentials to Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa in Manama following his appointment to serve as Israel’s envoy to the Arab nation, with which Jerusalem normalized relations in 2020…

A 76-year-old Israeli man injured in an Iranian ballistic missile attack during the 12-day June war died of his injuries this week…

A French man and his partner who were arrested in Iran in 2022 on charges of spying on behalf of France and Israel were both given lengthy prison sentences…

Beth Oppenheim was named CEO of the Jewish refugee aid organization HIAS after previously serving as the organization’s chief advancement officer and chief external relations officer…

The International Legal Forum named Michal Cotler-Wunsh, the former Israeli envoy to combat antisemitism, as its new CEO, effective Nov. 1; Cotler-Wunsh succeeds outgoing CEO Arsen Ostrovsky, who is taking up a senior leadership role at the Australia & Israel Jewish Affairs Council in Sydney…

British clothier Derek Rose, whose eponymous luxury pajama company attracted a celebrity following, died at 93…

Pic of the Day

Matan Angrest, who was released from Hamas captivity on Monday, spoke on Wednesday during the funeral of his tank commander, Daniel Peretz, who was killed on Oct. 7, 2023, and whose remains were returned to Israel this week, at Mount Herzl National Cemetery in Jerusalem, Israel. 

Writing in eJewishPhilanthropy earlier this month, Peretz’s father, Rabbi Doron Peretz, the executive chairman of the World Mizrachi movement, reflected on the loss of his son, the anniversary of the attacks on Israel and the country’s display of “courage, clarity and unmatched self-sacrifice and heroism” on that day.

Birthdays

Retired basketball player for the Seattle Storm of the WNBA, she has five Olympic gold medals, Sue Bird turns 45…

Israeli attorney, chairman of Maccabi Tel Aviv Basketball, Shimon Mizrahi turns 86… Retired CFO of Amtrak, Midway Airlines and Airlines Reporting Corporation, Alfred Samuel Altschul turns 86… National president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), Morton A. Klein turns 78… Film director, producer, screenwriter and creator of “The Naked Gun” franchise, David Zucker turns 78… Professor emeritus of economics at Smith College and author of 28 books, Andrew S. Zimbalist turns 78… Director of strategy in the policy and government affairs department at AIPAC, Dr. Marvin C. Feuer… Novelist, short story writer and essayist, Elinor Lipman turns 75… Chairman of Sela Capital Real Estate Ltd., he previously served as the director-general of Israel’s Ministry of Finance, Shmuel Slavin turns 72… Executive director of Clark University Hillel, Jeff Narod… Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives since 1999, David Linsky turns 68… Best-selling French novelist, one of whose books was made into Steven Spielberg’s “Just Like Heaven,” Marc Levy turns 64… President of the American Academy in Berlin, he was the coordinator for counterterrorism during the Obama administration, Daniel Benjamin turns 64… Otolaryngologist who also specializes in facial and reconstructive surgery, Howard David Krein, M.D. turns 59… Senior partner at Battery Ventures Israel’s office, Scott Tobin… Attorney in North Palm Beach, Fla., he served in the Florida House of Representatives, Adam M. Fetterman turns 55… Filmmaker, best known for directing “Monster House” (2006), Gil Kenan turns 49… Actress Kala Lynne Savage turns 47… Founder and chief strategy officer of BrightPower, Jeff Perlman turns 46… Founder and CEO at Social Studies, Inc., he is also the founder of The Gramlist, Brandon Jared Perlman… Three-time U.S. Army light-middleweight boxing champion, he boxed with a Star of David on his trunks, Boyd “Rainmaker” Melson turns 44… Group product manager for data and AI at The Washington Post, Jason Langsner… West Coast regional director at Foundation for Jewish Camp, Margalit C. Rosenthal… SVP for financial planning and analysis at Vibrant Emotional Health, Avi Fink… Senior director of communications at Mark43, Devora Kaye… Business analyst at LWF Group and project manager at Aqualinq, Sam Ginsberg…

Following the joy in Israel over the return of the remaining living hostages on Monday and President Donald Trump’s declaration that “the long and painful nightmare is finally over” came the letdown: Hamas, as of Thursday, had returned only nine out of 28 bodies of the deceased hostages and started to execute rivals and reestablish itself in the areas of Gaza from which the IDF withdrew. 

While Trump has repeatedly said the war in Gaza is over, when asked by CBS News if that’s the case, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel “agreed to give peace a chance,” and later in the interview said it still needs to “finish the war as speedily as possible.”

The future of Gaza remains unclear, despite Israel agreeing to Trump’s 20-point plan for the region. Hamas only agreed to the immediate steps in the plan: stopping the war, freeing the hostages in exchange for 1,950 prisoners, including those who killed Israelis in terrorist attacks, and Israel withdrawing to a specified line within Gaza. 

Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday that the plan’s second phase, which entails Hamas’ disarmament and demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, “begins right NOW!!!” Yet, an Israeli official confirmed to Jewish Insider a report that, with Hamas withholding most of the remaining hostages’ bodies, negotiations to continue to the next phase of the plan are on hold.

Disarming Hamas and the demilitarization of Gaza are meant to take place “under the supervision of independent monitors,” but those monitors have yet to be selected and sent to the region. The Peace Board announced — and led — by Trump, with the involvement of former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair that is meant to oversee Gaza’s administration by Palestinian technocrats has not yet been formed, nor has the temporary International Stabilization Force meant to train Palestinian police and be part of the “long-term internal security solution” for Gaza and Israel. 

Meanwhile, Hamas has entered the vacuum and, in recent days, has tried to consolidate its power by killing members of clans that it accused of collaborating with Israel. 

On Tuesday, Trump called the clans “gangs that were very bad,” adding that Hamas’ attacks “didn’t bother me much” and that the terror group had his “permission” to proceed; Trump compared Gazan opponents of Hamas to gang members from Venezuela who entered the U.S. illegally.

At the same time, Trump said that Hamas must disarm, threatening U.S. involvement if the group does not lay down its weapons. “They will disarm or we will disarm them,” Trump said. “If they don’t disarm, it’ll happen quickly and perhaps violently, but they will disarm.” 

Netanyahu told CBS News that he “hope[s] we can do this peacefully. We’re certainly ready to do so.”

Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, told the Misgav Mideast Horizons podcast co-hosted by Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov this week that although Trump’s plan “has 20 articles, it is not very well-detailed. Actually, it is a framework … [Trump] isn’t very interested in the details. He is very focused on the final outcome, on the vision. He leaves the details for the professionals.”

“If President Trump will lose his focus, determination, decisiveness with regard to the further phases of his own plan — and I mean disarming Hamas, demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, and so on — [Israel] might find [itself] in a stalemate. This, I would say, is the main challenge of the State of Israel — keep President Trump focused,” Michael warned.

Ofer Guterman, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told JI that Hamas reestablishing itself within the “yellow line” to which the IDF withdrew is “unpleasant but expected,” because “up until now, Israel refused to deal with all the systems we wanted to put in place instead of Hamas.”

“The technocratic administration, international forces, Palestinian police, etc. – these are just headlines with nothing behind them. We need to start building them. Some will only be relevant in weeks or maybe months,” Guterman argued.

Guterman also pointed out that, while the second phase of the deal may go into effect in the coming weeks, it will likely last for years.

“We need to remember that we are still in phase one,” he said. “Not all the hostages are back, and that influences the decision-making in Israel. … Our first, central goal is to bring back most, if not all, or the hostages’ bodies that remain there.” 

Former Israeli National Security Advisor Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror said that Hamas is likely to return most of the bodies to the best of its capability.

“Hamas understands that, without [returning the bodies], it will clearly not be fulfilling its obligation to the Americans and Qatar and other countries, and may find itself in a war in which it doesn’t have its main card, the hostages,” Amidror said in a Jerusalem Press Club briefing.

Michael warned that while countries such as Qatar and Turkey that support the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas “were clever enough to understand … what is important for President Trump is to release the live hostages and declare the end of the war, and when it comes to the other phases, President Trump will be much more tolerant and they will be able to convince him that they need more time and Israel has to make further concessions.” 

“Hamas does not intend to dismantle itself … [or] give up its influence and position, not only in the Gaza Strip, but the entire Palestinian arena,” Michael said. “The Qataris and the Turks are interested in keeping Hamas as a relevant player in the Gaza Strip, first of all, as a platform for increasing its influence on the entire Palestinian Authority.”

The priority in Gaza must be removing Hamas’ control over any part of the enclave, including humanitarian or civilian services, Amidror argued.

“The people of Gaza are suffering from the strong hand of Hamas,” he said. “Today, Hamas is killing many Gazans. … We have to find a way to disarm Hamas for them and for Israel.” 

Amidror also said that it is “clear that nothing can be done in Gaza, not to rebuild, not to bring in forces that will implement civilian change, if Hamas is still so strong. Hamas cannot attack Israel anymore, but it is the strongest force in Gaza, and in that situation, no one will rebuild Gaza.”

As long as Hamas does not disarm, Guterman said, “Israel must prevent the rehabilitation of the areas of Gaza controlled by Hamas.”

Michael pointed out that Trump’s plan allows Israel and partner countries to proceed with establishing a technocratic administration and International Stability Force in Gaza before Hamas is disarmed.

“If Israel will agree to do that in the southern part, the area between Khan Younis and Rafah, I think there is a high probability for the success of security personnel and the Palestinian Authority,” Michael said. “They will enter the region empty of Hamas, with the presence of the government of technocrats, and everything will be fully coordinated with the IDF. … Begin the reconstruction process there, and continue the war in the north against Hamas, until Hamas is dismantled.” 

In such a scenario, Michael posited that residents of Gaza will try to move south to the areas being rebuilt to try to make a better life than in the areas controlled by Hamas.

“Then Hamas will lose its strength, which [comes from] the population, and it will be much easier for the IDF to besiege the areas that Hamas is present in, to dismantle Hamas,” he said.

Guterman thought that Israel implementing the plan in only part of Gaza was the likely scenario, but that progress would halt there and there would be “two Gazas.”

“Hamas will be within the yellow line, trying to grow more powerful as we try to fight it, and Gaza will have a security corridor in over 50% of the territory, making it easier to defend the [Israeli] towns near the border and create a better base for actions against Hamas,” he said.

For there to be an alternative administration in the IDF-controlled areas of Gaza that would undermine Hamas’ legitimacy, run by countries in the region, Israel’s “concession will have to be … committing to a viable path to a two-state solution,” Guterman argued.

Hamas said in a statement on Friday night that it was ready to enter final negotiations over the Trump-authored peace plan and that it was willing to release all the hostages remaining in Gaza. 

The Palestinian terror group said it would release the living hostages and the bodies it has held hostage since the Oct. 7 attacks nearly two years ago. Twenty of the 48 hostages are believed to still be alive. 

Hamas added it is willing to hand over administration of the Gaza Strip to a “Palestinian body composed of independents.” But the terror group also insisted — contradicting the terms of the Trump proposal — that Hamas will maintain a role in discussions over the future of Gaza through a “comprehensive Palestinian national framework.”

The deal is not yet final, and in its response to the Trump plan, Hamas said that the group is ready to enter negotiations to discuss the remaining details.

In response, Trump said in a post on Truth Social that he believes Hamas wants to make a deal, and called on Israel to “immediately stop the bombing of Gaza.” 

“Based on the Statement just issued by Hamas, I believe they are ready for a lasting PEACE,” Trump wrote. “Israel must immediately stop the bombing of Gaza, so that we can get the Hostages out safely and quickly! Right now, it’s far too dangerous to do that. We are already in discussions on details to be worked out.”

A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy declined to comment.

This story was updated at 5:32 p.m.

Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) said he left Israel from a weekend visit with a renewed belief in the U.S.-Israel relationship and the necessity of fully eradicating Hamas, as the IDF begins expanded operations in Gaza City.

“It just reinforced my position of the importance that the United States stands with Israel, and in supporting Israel in their mission to eradicate Hamas in Gaza,” Daines said in an interview with Jewish Insider this week, reflecting on a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “There will never be true peace in Gaza and peace with Israel until Hamas is eradicated.”

He said that it’s also crucial for innocent Palestinians that Israel be successful in its mission to defeat Hamas. Daines said that he didn’t discuss the postwar vision for Gaza with Netanyahu, “but clearly the important first step will be eradicating Hamas.”

Daines said he’d also spoken to Netanyahu about the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, and that Netanyahu had offered his condolences.

“He also just shares my concerns about the dangerous ideologies that exist, and how that turns into violent acts,” Daines said. “So there was just some sadness on both of our parts that we shared about the loss of a great leader and somebody who was a strong supporter of Israel.”

The Montana senator reportedly helped broker a historic peace deal earlier this year between the long-warring Armenia and Azerbaijan, and said that he’d discussed that issue with Netanyahu.

“He was very encouraged by that as well, and of course, the close relationship that Azerbaijan has with Israel,” Daines said. “That’s some meaningful progress, now, that I think will deliver longer-term peace dividends and economic dividends for that part of the world.”

Daines said that he and Netanyahu did not discuss the Israeli strikes in Doha, Qatar, last week, beyond speaking broadly about the “importance of eliminating Hamas and eliminating their leadership and their command and control structure.”

“I think what Israel demonstrated is that no matter where these Hamas leaders are, they’re going to track them down,” Daines said, comparing Israel’s efforts to the U.S.’ post 9/11 pursuit of Osama bin Laden.

The Montana senator also visited Israeli communities close to the border with Gaza and attended an inaugural ceremony for the Pilgrimage Road at the City of David in Jerusalem, alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.

Daines described his visit to the Nahal Oz military base as particularly affecting. He and his wife heard firsthand from a young female IDF soldier, who showed them videos of her friends who were “brutalized” by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023.

“We were literally in the safe room that was turned into a room where the terrorists brutalized these young women Israeli soldiers. And then they took us into the control room where the Hamas terrorists locked the young female IDF soldiers and burned them to death,” Daines said. “It was very emotional.”

He said the experience was a reminder that “we’ve got to keep telling the story of what happened on Oct. 7,” and one he planned to share with his staff upon his return to Washington.

On the Gaza border, Daines said he could also hear F-16s flying overhead and the bombings in Gaza City.

Based on his visit to a humanitarian aid staging site at the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, Daines offered strong praise for the work of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and Christian aid groups like Samaritan’s Purse, saying he was “struck [by] the clear contrast” between the way those groups are performing — “the standard of excellence and efficiency and execution” — in comparison to the United Nations-linked aid organizations. The GHF and Samaritans’ Purse “are doing it the right way,” he said.

“The U.N. is not using the same best practices as these other NGOs, and it’s just a mob scene with the men raiding these U.N. trucks — a lot of Hamas members — who are taking the aid and then … selling it,” Daines continued. “So the U.N. is propping up Hamas by giving them aid in a disorderly fashion. The people of Gaza suffer and Hamas profit[s].”

Daines said that the ceremony for the Pilgrimage Road was a “once-in-a-lifetime moment” that he’ll “never forget.”

“I was so proud of Secretary Rubio and Ambassador Huckabee. Their remarks were outstanding, and I think they captured the significance of the moment, the historical perspective around why the City of David excavation is so important, and literally and figuratively, bedrock for the Judeo-Christian faith and values,” Daines said. “I was proud to be an American that night, I was proud to be a friend of Israel.”

Good Tuesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on the ground operation Israel launched in Gaza City this morning and continue to cover Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Israel. We talk to Jewish social workers who are warning of growing antisemitism in the field and interview journalist and author Yaakov Katz about his new book about the Oct. 7  attacks on Israel. We also interview Rep. Zach Nunn about the U.S.-Israel military relationship. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Reps. Tom Suozzi, Laura Gillen and Debbie Wasserman Schultz. 

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by Jewish Insider Israel Editor Tamara Zieve and U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik, with assists from Marc Rod and Gabby Deutch. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• The Israel Defense Forces launched a major ground operation in Gaza City on Tuesday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the military announced, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.
• Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro will be delivering a speech this morning on political violence in America at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit in Pittsburgh. 
• The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing this morning on oversight of the FBI with FBI Director Kash Patel.
• Democratic Majority for Israel is hosting a live briefing with Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro on Gottheimer’s recent trip to Israel, next steps for the Abraham Accords and the latest in the Israel-Hamas war.
• The Center for a New American Security is holding a live fireside chat with Adam Boehler, the U.S. special envoy for hostage response.
• Alan Dershowitz, a former Harvard Law School professor and prominent defense attorney and Israel advocate, is speaking at the JFK Jr. forum at Harvard at the first “Middle East Dialogues” event of the academic year, hosted by professor Tarek Masoud, who invites polarizing speakers to debate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
• In the evening, American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad) will host its Lamplighter Awards at D.C.’s Union Station. This year’s honoree is Palantir CEO Alex Karp, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) will receive a leadership award.
• Magen David Adom will host its 2025 New York City Gala in Manhattan, where political commentator Meghan McCain will receive its Champion of Israel Award. 

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH jI’S MATTHEW KASSEL

As Zohran Mamdani wins support from a growing number of Democratic leaders in his bid for mayor of New York City, he has notably walked back some of his most polarizing views on several key issues — with one major exception: Israel.

In recent days, the Democratic nominee, who has long been an outspoken critic of Israel and its war in Gaza, has doubled down on his campaign vow to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if elected, even as legal experts cautioned such a move could be illegal. 

Mamdani, a vocal supporter of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, also said that he would seek to divest city holdings in Israel bonds and terminate a program established by Mayor Eric Adams, who is running as an independent, to foster business partnerships between companies in Israel and New York City.

Meanwhile, Mamdani has refused invitations to explicitly condemn calls to “globalize the intifada,” even as he has acknowledged concerns from Jewish voters who see the phrase as provoking antisemitic violence. He has said he will instead discourage use of the slogan, which he himself has not used publicly.

The 33-year-old democratic socialist and Queens assemblyman has otherwise declined to denounce Hasan Piker, a far-left streamer who has said that “America deserved 9/11” and has used antisemitic rhetoric in commenting on Israel. Mamdani sat for a lengthy interview with Piker during the primary.

Mamdani’s unyielding approach to opposing Israel underscores just how central the issue is to his self-conception as an activist and an elected official long involved in such causes. “This is something that I will never stray from for the rest of my life,” he explained in a Zoom discussion in 2020 with a pro-Palestinian advocacy group. “This is kind of, in many ways, the founding battle for justice that I’ve had.”

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

FIELD FRACTURES

Jewish social workers warn of growing antisemitism in the field: ‘Counter to everything that we learn in social work school’

Like most social workers, Jennifer Kogan went into the field to help people. A therapist who works in Ontario, Canada, and Washington, she markets her private practice as “compassion-focused counseling.” Everyone is welcome here, a banner on her website states. But Kogan’s understanding of her profession has radically shifted in the two years since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel. Despite its focus on compassion, the field of social work has been engulfed by antisemitism, according to a new report authored by Kogan and Andrea Yudell, a licensed clinical social worker in Washington and Maryland, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Called out: “Since Oct. 7, Jewish social workers have experienced unprecedented silencing, gaslighting, exclusion, isolation and public targeting in professional spaces,” states the report, which was published on Monday by the Jewish Social Work Consortium. The report’s authors claim that antisemitic rhetoric — and, in particular, anti-Israel litmus tests foisted on Jewish practitioners — has become endemic in the field. The report describes Jewish social workers being targeted on industry-wide email listservs, doxed and publicly called out during academic courses and lectures.

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

WTAER UNDER THE BRIDGE

Rubio looking to move past criticism of Israel after Qatar strike

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. is focused on moving forward from Israel’s strike on Qatar last week, refraining from doubling down on criticism during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday, Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov reports.

What he said: “We are just focused on what happens next,” Rubio said, when asked about Tuesday’s strike aiming at Hamas’ leadership in Doha, Qatar’s capital. On Saturday, Rubio had echoed comments by President Donald Trump that the U.S. “is not happy” about the strike. “Some fundamentals still remain that have to be addressed, regardless of what has occurred,” Rubio said at the press conference on Monday. “We still have 48 hostages. Hamas is holding not only 48 hostages but all of Gaza hostage … As long as they still exist, are still around, there will be no peace in this region.”

Read the full story here.

Economic isolation: Netanyahu predicted yesterday that Israel will have to become increasingly self-reliant as countries call for embargoes and sanctions against the Jewish state. Speaking at a Finance Ministry conference in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said, “We will increasingly need to adapt to an economy with autarkic characteristics.”

Diplomatic isolation: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Robert Satloff sounds an alarm on Israel’s growing international isolation, highlighting the U.N. Security Council’s condemnation of Israel’s strike in Qatar and the U.N. General Assembly’s endorsement of a French and Saudi plan for Palestinian statehood.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

defense innovation

Rep. Zach Nunn pushes to expand U.S.-Israel cooperation, technology partnerships

For Rep. Zach Nunn (R-IA), the U.S.-Israel military relationship is crucial to pushing the boundaries of defensive technological development, keeping Americans safe, staying ahead of global adversaries and even providing advancements in sectors far-removed from the battlefield, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Notable quotable: “We know that not only is Israel our best military partner for the region, it is the best stabilizing force,” Nunn, who led a pair of successful amendments in last week’s National Defense Authorization Act markup on the House floor aimed at improving U.S.-Israel military cooperation, told JI in a recent interview. “Not only is Israel a force for good in the region, it’s one of our best innovative partners out here, and national defense begins with a tech and human capability that’s able to execute on it. And that really is funded through democracies that allow this type of innovation to take place.”

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

DRAWING A LINE

Rep. Tom Suozzi says he’s in the ‘Never Mamdani’ camp

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) announced on Monday that he would not endorse Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City. Suozzi, who represents a Long Island-based swing district on the outskirts of New York City that takes in a slice of Queens, said in an interview with ABC7 that, while he believes Mamdani is “very talented” and “very smart,” he feels the Democratic mayoral candidate’s policies would lead to increased costs for New Yorkers, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

What he said: “Let me say very clearly: Mamdani is a very talented guy. He’s very smart, he’s very charismatic. … I have nothing against him personally, and I’m sure he’s a good person, but I completely disagree with his ideas. I disagree that we should raise taxes in New York City because people are leaving New York State and New York City as it is,” Suozzi said. “I’m all for making sure wealthy people pay their fair share at the federal level, so that wherever you go in the country you’re still going to have to pay, but not to encourage people to escape New York and go to Florida and go to Texas.”

Read the full story here.

Standing firm: Rep. Laura Gillen (D-NY) blasted New York Gov. Kathy Hochul for endorsing Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani, citing Mamdani’s record on antisemitism. “I completely disagree with the Governor’s endorsement of Mr. Mamdani,” Gillen told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod. “At a time of skyrocketing antisemitism, his views are far too extreme and would fuel hate and threats against our Jewish community. His antisemitic views deserve to be condemned, not endorsed.” 

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

grant get

NEH announces largest-ever grant for Tikvah Foundation to fight antisemitism

The National Endowment for the Humanities announced Monday that it was awarding its largest-ever grant to the Tikvah Fund, a Jewish and pro-Israel educational nonprofit, for work to fight antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Setting a record: The grant totals $10.4 million over three years and will support Tikvah’s Jewish Civilization Project, to “examine Jewish history, culture, and identity in the broader context of Western history” with the goal of fighting antisemitism “through greater understanding of the enduring moral, religious, and intellectual contributions of the Jewish people to the country and the Western world,” according to an NEH release.

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

book shelf

‘I fear Israel will fall back in love with quiet’: Yaakov Katz warns against complacency after Gaza war

In the two years since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, there have been many books in multiple languages published on the topic — personal accounts, tales of heroism, a hostage memoir — but While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East by Yaakov Katz and Amir Bohbot may be the most comprehensive. In the book, Katz, the founder of the MEAD (Middle East-America Dialogue) and former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, and Bohbot, a veteran Israeli defense reporter, answer the biggest questions about that day, going through the events leading up to the attacks, including the fateful night before. The book also dedicates chapters to stark warnings that an Oct. 7-style attack could happen again if Israel does not make necessary changes. In an interview with Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov and Asher Fredman, the executive director of the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, on the “Misgav Mideast Horizons” podcast last week, Katz said that his “deepest fear is that this could happen again.”

The sound of silence: “Eventually, quiet will set in,” Katz said. “And I fear that Israel will fall back in love with the quiet and will neglect, to some extent, the vigilance that it will require to prevent Hamas from being able to … reconstitute itself.” While Katz said he is skeptical Hamas could again launch attacks at the scale of Oct. 7, “to prevent them from rebuilding and reconstituting … will require a major effort that Israel has never really done.”

Read the full interview here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

Worthy Reads

Charlie Kirk and the Debate on Israel: Semafor Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith writes about what the right-wing debate over Charlie Kirk’s views on Israel say about the future of the MAGA movement. “Future historians will puzzle over why the conflict between Israel and Palestine has been the issue, above all others, to split both US political parties in the 2020s. But one thing the feuding MAGA factions agree on is that there isn’t really another prominent figure like Kirk — a big voice who was focused on smoothing over his movement’s fractures, not hashing them out in public for clout. The only other one, in fact, is Donald Trump, who has proven — in his transactional way — a master of holding together disparate Republican factions. But so far, Trump has firmly chosen Israel’s side in the intraparty dispute. And now it’s not clear who remains to try to smooth over the generational divide, or who would even want to try.” [Semafor]

The Social Media Curse: Jewish Journal Editor-in-Chief David Suissa applauds Gov. Spencer Cox’s statement that “Social media is a cancer on our society right now,” and call for people to “log off, turn off, touch grass,” a message Cox conveyed as he announced the arrest of the suspect in the killing of Charlie Kirk. “We’ll hear plenty of sermons during the upcoming Holy Days, but I can’t help wishing that every rabbi finds a way to squeeze in that message. Why? Because our country has gone off the deep end. The reactions to the murder of Charlie Kirk have brought out our worst. The poor guy can’t die in peace without becoming a lightning rod for our societal dysfunctions. Unlike the old days before social media, today this toxic ugliness is front and center and screeching loud. Indeed the minute Kirk died, armies of social media soldiers put on their uniforms and let fly their predictable bullets. When Cox called social media a ‘cancer on our society,’ he might have added that it’s also an addiction.” [JewishJournal]

The Clock is Tik(Tok)ing: Carrie Filipetti, executive director of the Vandenberg Coalition, calls for the Trump administration to enforce the ban on TikTok in The Washington Post ahead of the Sept. 17 deadline for the company to be acquired by an American company or face a ban, calling it “critical to heading off a military confrontation and, if necessary winning one” against the Chinese Communist Party. “Imagine the following scenario. China decides to attack Taiwan, and, fearing the United States will come to Taiwan’s aid, launches preemptive strikes against American targets overseas. In the United States, Chinese operators launch drone attacks from secret bases located on more than 380,000 acres of farmland China has purchased. As the government considers its options, the 170 million American TikTok users open their feeds to thousands of bots disguised as people, rattling off anti-American propaganda; encouraging young students desperate for meaning to fight their own government; and spreading disinformation at such a rapid rate that it is impossible to discern fact from fiction.” [WashPost]

Word on the Street

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo called Israel’s war in Gaza “horrific” in an interview with The New York Times on Monday and called for an immediate end to its military operations. “There is no doubt that the people of New York and the nation see the continued carnage that is happening and are deeply, deeply disturbed and want it over, and believe it has gone on way too long,” he said…

An independent United Nations inquiry has concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, have incited genocide, in a 72-page report released today. Israel said it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report and calls for the immediate abolition of this Commission of Inquiry.” …

Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah said she was fired from the paper on Monday over her social media posts reacting to the Charlie Kirk assassination. Attiah, a far-left commentator, retweeted social media messages justifying the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel as it was taking place… 

The Fallen Servicemembers Religious Heritage Restoration Act, which aims to ensure that Jewish World War I and II veterans receive the proper grave markers reflecting their religion, passed the House. “This bill is an important step to allow for the research necessary to correct these errors and ensure there are resources for that work,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who is leading the bill with Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), said. “This will make it possible for these brave Jewish servicemembers’ descendants to know that their loved one’s military service, life and religious heritage are properly honored”…

Micah Lasher, a New York state assemblyman and former aide to Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), launched his campaign for his former mentor’s congressional seat on Monday…

Former Sen. Joe Manchin’s (I-WV) new book, Dead Center, comes out today, detailing his departure from the Democratic Party to become an independent, featuring scathing remarks for his former Democratic colleagues…

The New York Times investigates a series of trade and business dealings over the UAE’s access to AI chips that appear to be connected with cryptocurrency windfalls for the Witkoff and Trump families…

U.S. and Chinese negotiators have reached a framework deal for switching ownership of TikTok, in an effort to avert a threatened shutdown of the app…

HBO Max acquired the rights to a new series, “One Day in October,” the first scripted portrayal of the Oct. 7 attacks, filmed on location in Israel and based on real accounts. The show will premiere Oct. 7, 2025, the two-year anniversary of the attacks…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview clip that accusations that he’s prolonging the war in Gaza for his own political purposes are “malicious and false.” The interview with Israel’s Channel 13, a rarity for Netanyahu, will air in full today… 

Tzachi Braverman, Netanyahu’s chief of staff and close confidant, was approved to serve as Israel’s ambassador to the U.K., replacing Tzipi Hotovely at the end of her five-year term, though he likely won’t be posted to London for several months…

The Heritage Foundation released a report yesterday marking the fifth anniversary of the Abraham Accords, “looking back at all the Accords achieved and looking forward to the fulfillment of their tremendous potential.” …

UJA-Federation of New York announced new grants totaling approximately $7.8 million to expand support for Israel’s recovery and long-term rebuilding efforts, including recovery in Israel’s north and south and support for families including those of reservists, wounded soldiers and hostages, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports…

Sotheby’s is launching its new flagship at the Breuer Building in Manhattan in November by staging a major auction featuring the late Leonard Lauder’s $400 million art collection —including Gustav Klimt masterpieces —and an estimated $80 million group of artworks from the estate of Jay and Marian Pritzker… 

The Monuments Men and Women Foundation stopped the auction of two Nazi-looted oil paintings from the collection of more than 300 works seized from Adolphe Schloss during World War II…

The New York Times announced a new weekly newsletter on religion and spirituality, hosted by the Times’ Lauren Jackson…

Lynn Forester de Rothschild is exploring a sale of a minority stake in the parent company of The Economist magazine, according to Bloomberg, which would mark the publication’s first ownership shakeup in over a decade…

Pic of the Day

Secretary of State Marco Rubio attended the inauguration yesterday of the Pilgrimage Road archaeological site in the City of David, Jerusalem, calling the site “an enduring cultural and historical bond between the United States and Israel” and “a powerful reminder of the Judeo-Christian values that inspired America’s Founding Fathers.”

Birthdays

Israeli windsurfer, he won bronze in Atlanta 1996 and gold in Athens 2004, Israel’s first Olympic gold medalist, Gal Fridman turns 50…

Argentinian physician, author of books on gender relations, Esther Katzen Vilar turns 90… Democratic member of the Florida House of Representatives for multiple terms, in 2015 she became the president of Plaza Health Network, Elaine Bloom turns 88… NYC-based real estate investor and the founder of Cammeby’s International Group, Rubin “Rubie” Schron turns 87… Defense policy advisor to Presidents Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 and member of a number of D.C. based think tanks, Richard Perle turns 84… Montebello, Calif., resident, Jon Olesen… Pompano Beach, Fla., resident, Shari Goldberg… Israeli playwright and screenwriter, Motti Lerner turns 76… Sheriff of Nantucket County, Mass., James A. Perelman turns 75… Founder and CEO of OurCrowd, Jonathan Medved turns 70… Media sales consultant, Fern Wallach… Award winning illusionist, who has sold tens of millions of tickets to his shows worldwide, known professionally as David Copperfield, David Seth Kotkin turns 69… Anthropology professor at Cornell, his work centers on Jewish communities and culture, Jonathan Boyarin turns 69… Director of stakeholder engagement at the National Council of Jewish Women, he is a nephew of former U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl, Dan Kohl turns 60… President and rabbinic head of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah Rabbinical School in Riverdale, N.Y., Rabbi Dov Linzer turns 59… Writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine, Jason Zengerle… Mayor of Kiryat Motzkin, a city in the Haifa suburbs, Tzvi (Tziki) Avisar turns 47… VP of public affairs and corporate marketing at Meta / Facebook, Josh Ginsberg… President of basketball operations for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, Koby Altman turns 43… National field director at the Israel on Campus Coalition, Lauren Morgan Suriel… VP of customer success at SimpliFed, Suzy Goldenkranz… Actor, best known for starring in “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” Daren Maxwell Kagasoff turns 38… NYC-based economics and wealth reporter at The Wall Street Journal, Rachel Louise Ensign… Israeli actress who played the lead role in Apple TV’s spy thriller “Tehran,” Niv Sultan turns 33… Winner of an Olympic bronze medal for Israel in Taekwondo at the 2020 Games in Paris, Avishag Semberg turns 24…

Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service, an office within the General Services Administration, Joshua Z. Gruenbaum turned 40 on Monday…

The Israel Defense Forces launched a major ground operation in Gaza City on Tuesday morning, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the military announced.

“We started intensive action in Gaza,” Netanyahu said at the Tel Aviv District Court, where he asked to postpone his testimony in his ongoing corruption trial in light of “important things happening.”

The IDF operation, known as Gideon’s Chariots II, aims to seize Gaza City, one of two remaining areas of the Gaza Strip still under Hamas control and home to the vast majority of the enclave’s population at this point in the war, though the Israeli military said that a significant percentage of the city’s residents had fled the area ahead of the offensive.

The ground campaign in Gaza City follows several days of aerial bombings and fighting on the outskirts of the city. 

The new operation comes as Israel faces growing foreign and domestic pressure to end the war, which is nearing its two-year mark. The families of hostages being held in Gaza also warn that the ground campaign threatens their loved ones who are being held captive in the city. An IDF official said that the offensive in Gaza City was entering a “new phase,” targeting the network of Hamas-built tunnels after weeks of operating in the city’s periphery.

Two divisions entered Gaza City on Tuesday, and more will gradually be added, the military official said.

Gaza City is “Hamas’ main stronghold,” and the IDF expects to encounter 2,000-3,000 Hamas fighters there, the military official said. 

IDF Spokesperson in Arabic Avichay Adraee posted on X warning residents of Gaza City that the IDF “has begun destroying infrastructure in Gaza City.” 

“Gaza City is considered a dangerous combat zone, and staying in the area puts you at risk,” he wrote. “Join the more than 40% of the city’s residents who have left the city to ensure their safety and the safety of their loved ones.” 

In recent weeks, Israel instructed residents to move south along designated routes, but fewer than half have done so, with Hamas threatening those who wished to leave the city and others refusing to move again. 

“Hamas is actively trying to block Gazans from moving out of Gaza City,” the IDF official said. “They are trying to turn Gaza City into one of the largest cases in history of using human shields, using hundreds of thousands of people.”

Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that “Gaza is burning. The IDF is striking terrorist infrastructure with an iron fist and IDF soldiers are fighting courageously to create the conditions to free the hostages and defeat Hamas.”

“We will not give up and will not retreat until we complete the mission,” he added.

The Israeli Air Force bombarded Gaza City on Monday night, with reverberations felt as far as central Israel. 

Meanwhile, Israel has demolished over 50 multistory buildings in Gaza City, which Netanyahu has called “terror towers.” The IDF official called the buildings “key targets … that would be used against us in a ground operation.”

Several hostages’ relatives set up tents outside of the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem overnight Monday, amid Israeli Air Force strikes on Gaza. 

The Hostage Families Forum cited reports that some hostages have been moved above ground, and said that their loved ones are being “used as human shields.”

“The Prime Minister has decided to send IDF soldiers to areas where our loved ones are located, who might be harmed and not return alive,” the forum stated. “He is doing everything to ensure there is no deal and not to bring them back. … We are terrified that this might be their last night, that the living hostages will pay with their lives, that the deceased will disappear there. We are no longer willing to accept this. We came here this evening, and we are not moving from here.”

Hours before the Gaza City offensive began, Secretary of State Marco Rubio departed Israel after a two-day visit and headed to Qatar, who he said should continue mediating between Israel and Hamas to end the war and free the hostages.

“If any country in the world can help mediate it, Qatar is the one. They’re the ones that can do it,” Rubio said.

As Israel calls up tens of thousands of reservists ahead of a planned takeover of Gaza City and rejects ceasefire proposals that fall short of a comprehensive deal to end the war and release all of the hostages, Jerusalem finds itself facing calls both at home and abroad against further entrenchment in Gaza.

At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing pressure from Washington to end the war — with a decisive victory over Hamas.

President Donald Trump signaled his growing weariness with a protracted war in an exchange with The Daily Caller, published earlier this week, in which he said Israel is “gonna have to get that war over with,” noting that Israel “may be winning the war, but they’re not winning the world of public relations.” Netanyahu said at his weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday that Trump had instructed Israel to go into Gaza City with “full force.”

Days earlier, the president held a White House meeting that included Jared Kushner and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss a “day-after” plan for the Gaza Strip. Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer scrapped a planned meeting with World Food Program head Cindy McCain to fly to Washington for consultations.

Taken together, Trump’s comments and last week’s gathering underscore the president’s dwindling patience with the ongoing war — concerns that have been highlighted in Israeli media reports in recent days.

Israel’s Channel 12 reported over the weekend that Trump, frustrated by Hamas’ intransigence, is pushing Netanyahu to move more quickly to decisively defeat Hamas. That could pose a challenge for Israel, which has not been able to declare “total victory” against Hamas in nearly two years but now faces White House pressure to end the war in a short amount of time — “perhaps even within two weeks,” according to Channel 12. 

It remains unclear whether Israel is fully prepared for an incursion into Gaza City — the IDF announced on Wednesday that it will work in the coming weeks “to strengthen operational readiness in the Gaza Strip” — or is threatening the move as a negotiating tactic to push Hamas to accept a comprehensive deal, after the Prime Minister’s Office conveyed that it would not accept a partial agreement that doesn’t result in the release of all of the remaining hostages. 

Following the collapse of talks over the summer, Washington had reportedly been frustrated not only with Hamas but with Qatar, which presented a rosier-than-reality picture of the talks. Those frustrations shifted the White House’s calculus and boosted support for Netanyahu’s approach to Gaza.

“We will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed!!! The sooner this takes place, the better the chances of success will be,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social site last month. 

Fresh off its successful resolution of the decades-long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Trump administration is looking to score another win on the global stage. Following last month’s summit in Alaska aimed, unsuccessfully, at ending the Russia-Ukraine war, a wind-down of the Israel-Hamas war would give the White House a diplomatic victory, as well as say in Gaza reconstruction efforts.

For now, Israel and the U.S. appear to be largely speaking in tandem, with a shared vision for the future of Gaza. But if Israel fails to achieve “total victory” on Trump’s truncated timeline, Jerusalem and Washington could be headed on a collision course. 

Maura Sullivan, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq and later worked as a senior Defense Department official, is aiming to leverage that experience to win the New Hampshire congressional seat currently held by Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH), who is running for the Senate. She’s also leaning on that background as she stakes out her positions on the conflict in the Middle East.

Speaking to Jewish Insider, Sullivan strongly criticized Israel for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying it must take action to ensure more aid to the Palestinian people, but at the same time said that she would not support efforts to cut off U.S. aid to the Jewish state and affirmed her commitment to the U.S.-Israel relationship and the need to eliminate Hamas.

As a Pentagon official, Sullivan said she spent time in the Middle East on “allied reassurance tours,” visiting allies and meeting with top officials, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Moshe Ya’alon, then Israel’s defense minister, to learn about Israel’s challenges and capabilities and “talking about the incredibly important relationship between the United States and Israel and strongly reaffirming the United States commitment to our ally Israel.”

“I’ll bring that perspective to the work I do in Congress and will greatly inform because I have that firsthand perspective, experience and knowledge,” Sullivan said, adding that she’d be seeking a spot on the House Armed Services Committee if elected.

“I’ve been very clear since the devastating, absolutely deplorable Oct. 7 attacks that Hamas perpetrated that Israel has the right to defend itself,” Sullivan continued. “I also want to be clear that the conditions in Gaza are inhumane, they’re deplorable and they must be improved immediately. … Hamas can be destroyed and significant aid can be let in at the same time. It’s a false choice to think that those two objectives cannot occur simultaneously.”

She said she has firsthand experience with humanitarian supply issues in a war zone, having served as a logistics and operations officer in Fallujah, Iraq, to move food and other supplies through what was at times an urban combat zone.

Doing so, she said, is “logistically complex” but also “doable” and “necessary.” She said the U.S. should apply “maximum pressure” on Netanyahu to increase aid, or provide aid directly if that fails.

Unlike growing numbers of Democrats in Congress, though, Sullivan said that she does not support efforts to cut off the U.S. supply of arms to Israel in response to the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“I do not think that the answer in this conflict is to make Israeli civilians less secure due to the actions of their government,” Sullivan said. “In an effort to solve this conflict, the Israeli people need to have the ability to defend themselves against not only Hamas, but also other nefarious actors, [like] Hezbollah and … Iran.”

Sullivan added that she wanted to be clear that Hamas is a terrorist organization, its attack on Oct. 7, 2023, was the “catalyst behind all of this” and that it must return the hostages.

The pathway to a lasting peace, through a two-state solution, requires “eradicating Hamas,” she continued. “The Palestinians need to be able to live in a demilitarized state that they control, not Hamas, and the Israelis need to be able to live beside them in peace.”

Sullivan has visited Israel three times, including visiting extended family of her husband, who is Jewish, in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. She described a visit to Yad Vashem, while she was a Pentagon official, as particularly “powerful and unforgettable.”

Sullivan said she saw during her time in Iraq that “leadership in Washington was totally out of touch” — on both sides of the aisle — with the actual situation on the ground, “and we were sent to a war we never should have been in without a plan to win and without the resources to succeed, in what was arguably the biggest foreign policy debacle this country has seen since the Vietnam War.”

That experience, she said, showed her firsthand the real consequences of decisions made in Washington. She expressed strong support for long-running efforts in Congress to repeal the Authorizations for Use of Military Force for Iraq and Afghanistan.

“Congress has to go on the record if we are going to declare war,” Sullivan said, asked about the U.S. military strikes on Iran. She urged the administration to prioritize the safety of U.S. troops and “resist any effort to drive the U.S. into another costly and deadly war in the Middle East.”

But, Sullivan continued, “Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism, relentlessly driving violence and chaos against the United States, Israel and our allies. A nuclear armed Iran would represent a direct and unacceptable threat to America’s national security, regional stability, as well as Israel’s very existence.”

Given Iran’s recent violations of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, she said that “Israel is absolutely justified in taking action to dismantle Iran’s dangerous nuclear ambitions. No nation should be forced to stand by while its survival is threatened.”

Sullivan also served on the American Battle Monuments Commission, visiting gravesites of fallen soldiers around the world, which “greatly heightened my sense of the role of America in the world” and what the U.S. means to its allies.

The Marine veteran described the antisemitism crisis in the United States as particularly personal for her, given that her husband is Jewish and they are raising their children, ages 3 and 5, in an interfaith home.

“I understand these issues at a deep and personal level. Judaism was a first-date conversation for my husband and I,” Sullivan said. “My children are not yet old enough to talk to them about it, but it is something that we will need to address as a family.”

She said that she would be a “strong voice in Washington” against antisemitism and noted that it had recently hit close to home when a group of neo-Nazis marched on the state Capitol in Concord.

Sullivan leads the primary field in fundraising, having pulled in nearly $800,000 as of the end of the last quarter. Her leading Democratic primary challenge is Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and a former Portsmouth city councilor, who raised $532,000 in the last quarter.

Carleigh Beriont, a Harvard professor and Hampton, N.H., selectwoman, entered the race in June, raising $162,000 that month. Multiple Republicans have filed to run for the seat, but none have reported raising any funds thus far.

Sullivan ran in the 2018 primary against Pappas, who is leaving the seat to run for the Senate. Sullivan won 30% of the vote in 2018 to Pappas’ 42%, before Pappas went on to win his first term in Congress.

The Marine veteran said that she believes that the Democratic Party and the country “needs new and different leadership,” and argued that her military background will make her more effective in holding the administration accountable.

Sullivan drew explicit comparisons between herself, and other female veterans running in swing districts, and the class of female national security leaders — including Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Reps. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) and former Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) — who helped Democrats win back the House in 2018.

She’s part of a group calling itself the Hellcats, which also includes New Jersey congressional candidate and Navy veteran Rebecca Bennett, that is trying to emulate their model.

If elected, Sullivan said she’d be the first female Marine ever elected to Congress.

She said she’s heard from voters in the 1st District, particularly veterans and small business owners who typically vote Republican, that they’re supporting her in part because of her military background.

She said her interest in public office was spurred by a family commitment to service as well — her grandfathers fought in World War II and her grandmothers were both involved in Jesuit education, as well as her own military service.

Coming back from Iraq, Sullivan felt a “very deep-seated obligation to commit my life to public service,” particularly because some of those she served with would not have that chance. “To live your life in a way that matters for something and for people way beyond yourself, something so much bigger than yourself — it was a transformational experience.”

An Israeli strike on a Gaza hospital that reportedly killed 20 people, including four journalists, was a “tragic mishap,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, not long after President Donald Trump criticized the attack. 

“Israel deeply regrets the tragic mishap that occurred today at the Nasser Hospital in Gaza. Israel values the work of journalists, medical staff and all civilians,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. “The military authorities are conducting a thorough investigation. Our war is with Hamas terrorists. Our just goals are defeating Hamas and bringing our hostages home.”

Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he is “not happy” about Israel’s strike on the Nasser Hospital, in the southern Gaza Strip.

“I’m not happy about it. I don’t want to see it,” Trump said, while noting that he did not know the details of the strike.

The president added that he is also committed to getting the remaining hostages out of Gaza, though he expressed doubt that a deal would come through.

“At the same time,” he said, “we have to end that whole nightmare. I’m the one that got the hostages out. I got them out, all of them. [Middle East envoy] Steve Witkoff has been amazing.”

Israel has said that 20 living hostages are still being held in Gaza, but Trump on Monday repeated a claim that the true number is “probably a little bit less than 20, because I think one or two are gone.” Israeli officials have not said that any of the 20 hostages believed to be alive have died recently. 

Hamas, Trump said, is unlikely to release the hostages. 

“I said a long time ago I’m going to get them out, but when we get down to that final 10 or 20, these people aren’t going to release them, because [Hamas is] dead after they release them,” Trump said. “It’s a nasty situation, very nasty. Horrible thing.” 

The Israeli Defense Forces announced that it would conduct an inquiry into the attack. “The IDF regrets any harm to uninvolved individuals and does not target journalists as such. The IDF acts to mitigate harm to uninvolved individuals as much as possible while maintaining the safety of IDF troops,” IDF international spokesperson Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani said.

Israel is finalizing plans this week for a ground offensive into Gaza City, with the goal of having fully evacuated the city by the symbolic date of Oct. 7, 2025. Speaking at his weekly Sunday meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel would “complete the victory” over Hamas. Tens of thousands of IDF reservists will begin receiving call-up notices today in preparation for the offensive.

The plans come amid a renewed push for Palestinian statehood, led by France and Saudi Arabia, that has seen a surge in support from global heads of state, including Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. 

Palestinian statehood efforts also have support in Congress, where Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is leading a group of House Democrats in calling on President Donald Trump to recognize a Palestinian state.

But both objectives — “total victory” over Hamas and Palestinian statehood — are at present incompatible with the realities on the ground.

Netanyahu has not wavered from his stated objective of “total victory” — even as he has yet to articulate, in practical terms, what that looks like — or how the Gaza City offensive will achieve it.

The goal of “total victory” over Hamas also runs into the challenge that the U.S. and Western allies faced amid the spread of ISIS a decade ago — that eliminating a group’s top leadership (as Israel has done in its targeting of Yahya and Mohammed Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Marwan Issa, among others), but not its ideology, will attract new recruits to swell the ranks left empty by those who came before them. 

Outside of Israel, efforts to unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood have ignored core challenges facing both Palestinian society and government, the former of which was plagued by antisemitic and anti-Israel rhetoric long before Oct. 7, 2023, and the latter of which has for decades been mired in corruption and nepotism and lacks the ground support needed for long-term stability.

Further, leading Israeli officials have described the renewed Palestinian statehood push as a reward for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks and view a path to statehood rooted in the deadliest attack in Israeli history as obscene — and one that ignores the long path of deradicalization and reforms necessary before such measures are discussed.

Marcus Sheff, the executive director of IMPACT-se, an NGO that monitors and provides recommendations for curricula and educational materials across the Arab world, noted that many of the European governments that back unilateral Palestinian statehood are the same nations that “directly or indirectly” fund Palestinian curricula that incite violence against Jews and Israelis, damaging efforts to prepare a population for statehood.

“To talk about any Palestinian state without taking on, headfirst, the necessity of deradicalizing Palestinians through the education system, and even worse, being a party to their radicalization by financing it, is actually quite bizarre,” Sheff added.

The limitations of reality are a reminder that wars are fought in clashes and not catchphrases, in policies rather than platitudes. It’s easier to declare a Palestinian state than to do the work of nation-building, just as it is easier to pledge “total victory” over a deeply entrenched ideology than to strategically chart the course of its defeat.

Good Tuesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on House Minority Whip Katherine Clark’s walkback of her previous comment that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and spotlight the Democratic primary in California’s 32nd District, where Rep. Brad Sherman is facing challenges from two millennial political neophytes. We talk to Gaza Humanitarian Foundation head Johnnie Moore about recent threats made against him by anti-Israel activists, and report on a campaign to boycott Israel within the American Association of Geographers. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rabbi Berel Wein, Santa Ono and Pierre Poilievre.

What We’re Watching

• We’re keeping an eye on ceasefire efforts in Cairo, following Hamas’ acceptance of a Qatari- and Egypt-proposed deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday night to move forward with plans to take over Gaza City, saying that “enormous pressure” had pushed Hamas to accept the partial-ceasefire proposal.
• In a post to his Truth Social site on Monday, President Donald Trump said that “we will only see the return of the remaining hostages when Hamas is confronted and destroyed.”
• Today marks the first yahrzeit, or Hebrew anniversary, of the deaths of six hostages in Gaza, including Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose family is holding a memorial this evening in Jerusalem.
• With the House and Senate out for the August recess, a number of legislators are making trips abroad. Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), as well as Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), are among the legislators in Jordan this week. The delegation met with King Abdullah II yesterday in Amman.
• U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is holding a virtual briefing at noon ET today with the American Jewish Congress.
• In Washington, the Hudson Institute is hosting the White House’s Seb Gorka for a conversation about counterterrorism and the U.S.’ approach to addressing global terrorist threats.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR

If there is one word to describe the political mood in dealing with rising antisemitism, it would be apathy. Even the most jaw-dropping displays of anti-Jewish hatred — from abject Holocaust denial on far-right podcasts to support for Hamas’ atrocities on the extreme left — are increasingly responded to with shrugs from mainstream political leaders. 

The most recent example of obvious antisemitism being ignored by a party’s political class came out of Minnesota, where we reported about Minneapolis Democratic mayoral candidate Omar Fateh — running as a democratic socialist against sitting Mayor Jacob Frey — hiring top staff who celebrated Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks. 

In normal times, a candidate would be ashamed to be associated with extremists, and would immediately cut ties with the offending staffers. Not long ago, having ties to that type of extremist rhetoric would be disqualifying for the candidate as well. 

But these are not normal times. Not only has Fateh, a state senator, ignored the controversy entirely, but the local and national media has been uninterested in following up on Jewish Insider’s reporting about the radical operatives on Fateh’s team. 

Even more shocking: Two of Frey’s most prominent backers, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — have remained silent when asked about their thoughts about the antisemitism stemming from an endorsee’s political rival. It’s a sign that many mainstream Democrats fear that speaking out against antisemitism or anti-Israel extremism could lead to a backlash from other grassroots supporters. 

At best, it’s a sign that speaking out against hate carries few political benefits these days.

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

CLARK’S CLARIFICATION

AIPAC stands by Katherine Clark as she walks back ‘genocide’ comment

After a video surfaced last week of Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), the House minority whip, referring to Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, Clark walked back the remark on Monday — and maintained her endorsement from AIPAC amid the controversy, a spokesperson for the group told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch. “Last week, while attending an event in my district, I repeated the word ‘genocide’ in response to a question,” Clark told the Jewish News Syndicate on Monday. “I want to be clear that I am not accusing Israel of genocide. … We all need to work with urgency to bring the remaining hostages home, surge aid to Palestinians and oppose their involuntary relocation, remove Hamas from power and end the war.” 

Sticking by her: AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told JI on Monday that the organization will stick by Clark, the No. 2 Democrat in the House. “We appreciate that the congresswoman clarified her remarks, as Israel is fighting a just and moral war against a barbaric terrorist enemy. Our endorsement is unchanged and based upon her long standing support for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Wittmann said. 

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

CALIFORNIA COMPETITION

Brad Sherman keeps a wary eye on younger primary opposition

When Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) was first elected to Congress in 1996, his two opponents in the current race, Democrats Jake Rakov and Jake Levine, were 8 and 12 years old, respectively. Both candidates are making a generational appeal: They argue that California’s 32nd Congressional District, which encompasses several tony neighborhoods on the west side of Los Angeles, including Malibu and the Pacific Palisades, as well as much of the San Fernando Valley, needs bold new representation to respond to the challenges of the moment. Neither Rakov, 37, nor Levine, 41, has held elected office before, and both have spent the past several years away from Los Angeles. They will each face a tough, drawn-out fight if they hope to have a chance against a battle-tested incumbent in a primary election that’s still more than nine months away, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

Primary pressure: The San Fernando Valley district is solidly blue, but it’s also an affluent constituency that isn’t all that enamored with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. That doesn’t mean Sherman, who is 70, is automatically safe from an upstart candidate who might excite the base in his district. “At this point, he’s pretty much become background noise. There’s no animosity against him. His constituents are perfectly content to continue sending him back to Congress, and most of them believe that he does a perfectly serviceable job,” said Dan Schnur, a political analyst in L.A. who teaches at both the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley. “But that’s exactly the type of incumbent that’s vulnerable to a generational challenge in this landscape.”

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

VIOLENT DISSENT

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation head Johnnie Moore facing death threats, vandalism at Northern Virginia home

Rev. Johnnie Moore, executive chairman of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has spent the past two weeks under “24/7 protection while evil wants to kill me,” he told attendees of the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute’s annual National Jewish Retreat, held last week at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington. Moore was referring to some 50 anti-Israel demonstrators who have protested outside of his Northern Virginia home multiple times in recent weeks — making death threats and painting graffiti. Moore told Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen he has received “two credible death threats,” which are currently under investigation, adding that police have “done an extraordinary job taking it seriously” and made one arrest for destruction of property.

Opposite effect: As well as demonstrating outside Moore’s home, the Palestinian Youth Movement has also protested outside the nearby home of John Acree, the interim executive director of the GHF. “I never thought that it would be so life-threatening to do something so obviously right,” Moore told supporters of JLI, an educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch, at a VIP reception Thursday night, referring to his work with GHF. “If they’re doing this to try and force us to quit, in fact it’s going to have the exact opposite effect because every attack, every threat, every lie is only more proof that what we’re doing is right and it’s essential,” Moore, a member of President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory committee, told JI. 

Read the full interview here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

SCOOP

American Association of Geographers wants to take Israel off the map

The Association of American Geographers became the latest professional association to face pressure to adopt a boycott of Israel after a recent member petition urged the association “to endorse the campaign for an academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

On the agenda: The campaign also calls for “financial disclosure and divestment of any AAG funds invested in corporations or state institutions profiting from the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people.” A special member meeting is scheduled for Oct. 3 to move toward a vote on the resolution after the group behind the petition succeeded in reaching the required 10% of member signatures. An AAG spokesperson told JI that the organization has “no statement or resolution about Israel-Palestine.” AAG did not respond to a follow-up inquiry asking which Israeli institutions the association currently invests in.  

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

NEW GIG

Santa Ono to become inaugural director of Ellison Institute of Technology

Santo Ono, the former president of the University of Michigan, is set to become the inaugural director of the Ellison Institute of Technology, a research and development center, he announced on Monday. “I am humbled to share that I’ve been appointed Global President of the Ellison Institutes of Technology (EIT), reporting directly to its founder and chairman, Larry Ellison,” Ono wrote in a social media post. Ellison is also the founder and chairman of the software company Oracle and a major donor to Jewish and Israeli causes, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports. 

Background: The appointment comes two months after Ono was rejected by the Florida Board of Governors as the University of Florida’s next president. At a board meeting in June, Ono, who resigned from his position at the University of Michigan in May, was questioned by the board, which oversees the state’s 12 public universities, about an anti-Israel encampment last year that remained on the Michigan campus for a month. Board members also scrutinized his response to antisemitism on campus after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks, which some called inadequate.

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

BARUCH DAYAN EMET

Rabbi Berel Wein, lawyer, scholar and lecturer who was ‘constantly doing and thinking and writing and reinventing,’ dies at 91

Rabbi Berel Wein, the influential Orthodox rabbi, historian and “Voice of Jewish History,” died Saturday in Jerusalem at 91, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports. Born in Chicago in 1934, Wein descended from seven generations of Lithuanian rabbis. He was educated in both secular studies and religious studies, receiving a bachelor’s degree from Roosevelt University and a law degree from DePaul University while completing his rabbinic ordination at Hebrew Theological College. After moving to New York City, Wein began his journey of constant reinvention, first serving as executive vice president of the organization now known as the Orthodox Union. Then he became rabbinic administrator of OU Kosher and founded Congregation Bais Torah and Yeshiva Shaarei Torah in Monsey, N.Y. 

Life-shaping moment: As a boy studying at a Chicago yeshiva in 1946, Wein heard Rabbi Isaac Herzog, then the Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandate of Palestine, recount a plea he had made to the pope to help retrieve the thousands of Jewish children who had been hidden in Catholic institutions as a way to protect them from the Nazis. The pope refused saying the children had already been baptized. After telling his story, Herzog, his eyes still wet with tears, looked into the crowd of nearly 250 people. “I cannot do anything more for those 10,000 children,” Wein recalled Herzog saying. “But what are you going to do to build the Jewish people?” In the years that followed, Wein became a lawyer, rabbi, historian, dean, producer and writer whose lectures have been purchased on tape, CD and streaming platforms over 1 million times worldwide. 

Read the full obituary here and sign up for eJewishPhilanthropy’s Your Daily Phil newsletter here.

Paying respects: Israeli President Isaac Herzog, the grandson of Rabbi Herzog, attended the shiva for Wein. 

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

Worthy Reads

How Would Mamdani Govern?: The Atlantic’s Michael Powell considers what strain of socialist governance New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani would, if elected, bring to City Hall. “Mamdani, 33, conveys that he is a man prepared to work with the organs of capitalist democracy to progressive ends and not to demand ideological litmus tests. But the Mamdani who takes great pride in his identity as a member of Democratic Socialists of America and who told ‘Meet the Press’ in late June that ‘I don’t think we should have billionaires’ — to the alarm of Wall Street donors — has hardly disappeared. By his own account, his political journey from state assemblyman to mayoral nominee owes almost entirely to his umbilical connection with DSA. … The political left from which Mamdani emerges is a collection of disorderly tribes, sheltering self-styled revolutionaries alongside those who prize compromise and electoral victory, and those who want to sand the edges off capitalism alongside those who want to replace it altogether.” [TheAtlantic]

Still On Guard: Bloomberg’s Golnar Motevalli looks at how Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has become “more critical” to Tehran’s survival following the 12-day war between Israel and Iran in June. “The Guard comprises a navy, ground troops, aerospace, an elite unit called the Quds Force and the Basij volunteer paramilitaries. It also has its own intelligence organization that’s known to directly compete with — and sometimes work against — the government’s Ministry of Intelligence. … Now, the galvanizing impact of Israel’s attacks on nationalist sentiment in Iran may have already helped improve public support for the IRGC, according to Narges Bajoghli, associate professor of Middle East Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. ‘People are angry at them, but they also realize that there is no other force in the country,’ she said. ‘What they’re committed to today, is about sovereign independence and the idea of resistance to Western and Israeli imperialism.’” [Bloomberg]

Ending Hostage Diplomacy: In The Washington Post, Diane Foley, whose son James Foley was killed in Syria by ISIS after two years in captivity, suggests how the U.S. government can more forcefully address the taking of American hostages by rogue and enemy regimes. “The Trump administration should swiftly exercise this new authority to signal that engaging in hostage diplomacy has consequences. Designated states could face visa restrictions, sanctions, controls on U.S. exports, reductions or elimination of foreign assistance, and asset seizures. … Eleven years after Jim’s murder, the use of Americans as political leverage remains a tragic feature of international relations. A coordinated effort to deter and prevent unjust captivity abroad is the necessary next step to ensure that our government not only never again abandons its citizens, but also places their safety and security at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy.” [WashPost]

Word on the Street

President Donald Trump said on Monday afternoon that he had begun making arrangements for a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, following his meeting with Zelensky and foreign heads of state in Washington earlier in the day…

The State Department pulled the visas of some 6,000 foreign students, the majority of whom had overstayed their visas or committed crimes while in the U.S.; between 200-300 of the visas revoked were due to terror ties, including fundraising for U.S.-designated terrorist groups…

Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) is mulling joining the state’s 2026 gubernatorial race, potentially setting up a high-stakes contest in the state’s purple 1st Congressional District, where five Democrats have already entered the race…

Soho House reached a $2.7 billion deal in which it will be taken private by a group of New York-based investors led by MCR Hotels; as part of the deal, Apollo Global Management, led by partner Reed Rayman, will contribute $800 million in debt and equity financing…

CBS News spotlights the Chicago chapter of “Lox & Loaded,” a group that trains members of the Jewish community and allies on firearm use, amid a rise in antisemitic attacks and concerns about personal safety among community members…

George Washington University suspended its campus chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace through May 2026, following a series of complaints over misconduct, harassment and Title VI violations by the group; a member of the JVP chapter told GWU’s Hatchet that the group planned to disaffiliate from the university over the multiple clashes with the school’s administration in recent years…

Canadian Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre won a byelection to a rural Alberta-based House of Commons seat, four months after losing his seat in an Ottawa-area district; Poilievre won the seat, which was vacated by Conservative MP Damien Kurek so that Poilievre could run, with 80% of the vote…

Norges, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, sold off six Israeli companies in addition to the half dozen it had previously announced divesting last month; Norwegian Finance Minister Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that “there might be more exclusions to come” as Oslo’s central bank makes more referrals to the fund’s external ethics council…

Former U.K. Labour MP Zarah Sultana said that Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader who was ousted over the party’s handling of antisemitism and formed a new party with Sultana last month, had made a “serious mistake” in “capitulating” to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism…

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation unveiled a pilot program that will allow Palestinian families to reserve food parcels in advance, in an effort to increase order at the distribution sites, which have faced crowding, violence and supply issues…

U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who is also serving as Syria envoy, called on Israel to comply with a phased plan to end its military operations in Lebanon in exchange for the disarmament of Hezbollah by the end of the year…

Israel’s Foreign Ministry revoked the visas of Australian diplomats to the Palestinian Authority, who live in Israel, following Canberra’s decision last week to cancel the visa of hard-right MK Simcha Rothman…

South Sudanese officials privately confirmed talks with Israel regarding the potential resettlement of Palestinians in Gaza in the East African nation, despite public denials that talks are taking place…

Qatar Airways plans to open its first exclusive lounge in the U.S. in John F. Kennedy Airport’s new international terminal; the 15,000-square-foot lounge will be built in the airport’s new Terminal 1…

Bloomberg looks at the logistical, financial and construction challenges facing Saudi Arabia’s Trojena ski resort project, located within the country’s broader Neom project, as Riyadh works to have the resort constructed in time to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games…

Graphic designer Joe Caroff, whose most famous works included James Bond’s 007 logo and the posters for “West Side Story” and “Cabaret,” died at 103…

Linguist Robin Lakoff, who focused on gender and language, died at 82…

Pic of the Day

Israeli President Isaac Herzog (second from right) and Israeli First Lady Michal Herzog (center) met this week with IsraAid CEO Yotam Polizer (left); Ruthie Rousso, the head of World Central Kitchen’s Israel operations (second from left); and World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés during Andrés’ trip to Israel and Gaza.

Birthdays

Actress and producer, known for her role as Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson in the 109 episodes of the TNT crime drama “The Closer,” Kyra Sedgwick turns 60…

One of the earliest Silicon Valley venture capital investors with positions in firms like Intel and Apple, Arthur Rock turns 99… Ventura County, Calif., resident, Jerry Epstein… Past member of both houses of the South Dakota Legislature, Stanford “Stan” M. Adelstein turns 94… Retired president of Ono Academic College in Israel, she was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2008 to 2010, Gabriela Shalev turns 84… Photographer and director of television programs and movies, Neal Slavin… Professor emeritus of religion and philosophy at the University of Toronto, he is the author of 16 books, David Novak turns 84… 42nd president of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton turns 79… Retired reading teacher for the NYC Department of Education, she co-founded the kosher pantry at Bethesda Hospital in Boynton Beach, Fla., Miriam Baum Benkoe… Actor and director, Adam Arkin turns 69… Gavriel Benavraham… Managing partner at Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz, Mark C. Rifkin… Co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, he is the board chairman of the UJA-Federation of New York, Marc J. Rowan turns 63… Chairman of the FCC in the Obama administration, he is now a senior advisor at the Carlyle Group, Julius Genachowski turns 63… Executive editor of The New York Times, Joseph Kahn turns 61… Managing partner and talent agent at William Morris Endeavor, he is active in the contemporary art world as a collector, Dan Aloni turns 61… Former member of Knesset, he is the son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Omri Sharon turns 61… Executive administrator of the Ventura, Calif., accounting firm, Morgan, Daggett & Wotman, Carolynn Wotman… District attorney of Queens, N.Y., Melinda R. Katz turns 60… Founder and CEO of The Friedlander Group, Ezra Friedlander… Private equity financier and a founding partner of Searchlight Capital Partners, he recently joined the board of Estee Lauder, Eric Louis Zinterhofer turns 54… Chair of the Orthodox Union and past chair of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore, Yehuda L. Neuberger… Contributing editor for The Daily Beast and the author of three books, Molly Jong-Fast turns 47… Businessman and investor, Brett Icahn turns 46… Managing partner of Handmade Capital, Ross Hinkle… Laser radial sailor, she represented Israel at the 2008 (Beijing) and 2012 (London) Olympics, Nufar Edelman turns 43… Founder and principal at Aron’s Kissena Farms and Cedar Market, Aaron Yechiel Hirtz… President at Kansas City-based Eighteen Capital Group, Isaac Gortenburg… Rapper, singer and songwriter, known by his stage name Hoodie Allen, Steven Adam Markowitz turns 37… Team manager at HubSpot, Cassandra Federbusz…One of the earliest Silicon Valley venture capital investors with positions in firms like Intel and Apple, Arthur Rock turns 99… Ventura County, Calif., resident, Jerry Epstein… Past member of both houses of the South Dakota Legislature, Stanford “Stan” M. Adelstein turns 94… Retired president of Ono Academic College in Israel, she was Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2008 to 2010, Gabriela Shalev turns 84… Photographer and director of television programs and movies, Neal Slavin… Professor emeritus of religion and philosophy at the University of Toronto, he is the author of 16 books, David Novak turns 84… 42nd president of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton turns 79… Retired reading teacher for the NYC Department of Education, she co-founded the kosher pantry at Bethesda Hospital in Boynton Beach, Fla., Miriam Baum Benkoe… Actor and director, Adam Arkin turns 69… Gavriel Benavraham… Managing partner at Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz, Mark C. Rifkin… Co-founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, he is the board chairman of the UJA-Federation of New York, Marc J. Rowan turns 63… Chairman of the FCC in the Obama administration, he is now a senior advisor at the Carlyle Group, Julius Genachowski turns 63… Executive editor of The New York Times, Joseph Kahn turns 61… Managing partner and talent agent at William Morris Endeavor, he is active in the contemporary art world as a collector, Dan Aloni turns 61… Former member of Knesset, he is the son of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Omri Sharon turns 61… Executive administrator of the Ventura, Calif., accounting firm, Morgan, Daggett & Wotman, Carolynn Wotman… District attorney of Queens, N.Y., Melinda R. Katz turns 60… Founder and CEO of The Friedlander Group, Ezra Friedlander… Private equity financier and a founding partner of Searchlight Capital Partners, he recently joined the board of Estee Lauder, Eric Louis Zinterhofer turns 54… Chair of the Orthodox Union and past chair of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore, Yehuda L. Neuberger… Contributing editor for The Daily Beast and the author of three books, Molly Jong-Fast turns 47… Businessman and investor, Brett Icahn turns 46… Managing partner of Handmade Capital, Ross Hinkle… Laser radial sailor, she represented Israel at the 2008 (Beijing) and 2012 (London) Olympics, Nufar Edelman turns 43… Founder and principal at Aron’s Kissena Farms and Cedar Market, Aaron Yechiel Hirtz… President at Kansas City-based Eighteen Capital Group, Isaac Gortenburg… Rapper, singer and songwriter, known by his stage name Hoodie Allen, Steven Adam Markowitz turns 37… Team manager at HubSpot, Cassandra Federbusz…

Tensions between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Eyal Zamir, the chief of staff of the IDF, are as high as the record-setting temperatures that have swept the region.

The IDF’s top officials and the Israeli government have clashed on a series of issues in recent days, including the appointments of more than two dozen military officials and Zamir’s opposition to Netanyahu’s plan to take over Gaza City and expand IDF operations in the Gaza Strip, which was approved by Israel’s Security Cabinet last week.

The IDF chief of staff has warned that the new approach to Gaza risks the lives of the 20 remaining living hostages in the enclave, and would further deplete the military’s resources in Gaza. The army, under strain after nearly two years of war, has — even prior to Zamir’s appointment in March — been at odds with the government over the continued exemption of the majority of the country’s Haredi population from the mandatory conscription required of most Israelis.

Israel Democracy Institute President Yohanan Plesner told Jewish Insider this morning that “historically, the relationship between the political level — prime minister, defense minister — and the top brass of the defense establishment, and mainly the IDF chief of staff, has been based on the premise that when Israel engages or embarks on significant security endeavors, operations and so on, it’s based on mutual consent,” with both parties having “de facto … veto power.”

But now, Plesner said, Netanyahu “is violating this decision-making norm that characterized the way decisions on core security [and] national security issues were made in the past.”

Plesner pointed to IDI polling conducted earlier this summer that showed Zamir being the senior official in whom Israelis had the most trust, at 68.5%. The same poll found Netanyahu with a trust rating of 40%.

The potential removal of a senior official months into his tenure “was not in the cards in the past. A chief of staff would voice their professional opinion and they wouldn’t risk being fired.”

The clash between Netanyahu and Zamir has also drawn in former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who is widely seen as one of the only people who could topple Netanyahu in the next election. Bennett attributed the infighting to Zamir’s opposition to the continuation of Haredi draft exemptions — an issue that has sowed division even within Netanyahu’s coalition and still threatens to topple the government.

“Instead of standing behind the army,” Bennett said, “the government has launched an attack *on* the army.”

Netanyahu has previously clashed with — and dismissed — senior military officials, most notably former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, whom Netanyahu first tried to fire in early 2024 but was met with mass protests, before ousting him in November 2024. Last summer, Israeli media reported tensions between the prime minister and Zamir’s predecessor, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, over Netanyahu’s suggestion that hostage talks had not moved forward because Hamas did not feel enough pressure from the country’s military. Netanyahu also pursued the dismissal of former Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar whom he clashed with on a number of issues — including the hostage negotiations and war strategy — citing “continuing lack of trust.” 

Plesner pointed out that relations between Netanyahu and both Gallant and Halevi “very much soured around the fact that they were committed to implementing the Supreme Court ruling” that removed the Haredi draft exemption, and that Zamir, as chief of staff, similarly backs the conscription of the Haredi community as war fatigue plagues the reservists who have served hundreds of days in uniform since the start of the war.

Nearly all of the IDF’s top leaders from Oct. 7, 2023, have departed their roles, whether by choice or force, in the almost two years since the attacks. Netanyahu — who has long tried to absolve himself of responsibility for the attacks, instead blaming the military and the Shin Bet — remains the only senior government official from that time still in power. Analyst Nadav Pollak suggested that the prime minister has, since Oct. 7, been “trying to divert the blame from him to the military leadership (he didn’t know Hamas plans etc.) and as long as the focus is on the IDF leadership it’s not on Bibi.”

Now, with the Knesset out for the rest of the summer, ceasefire talks stalled and an immediate collapse of his government off the table, Netanyahu is able to buy some time — perhaps up to several weeks — as Israel’s top political and military brass game out and implement the government’s Gaza strategy. Meanwhile, observers will watch to see how Zamir will carry out Netanyahu’s orders.

A group of congressional Democrats visiting Israel this week, including 11 first-term lawmakers, pressed Israeli leaders on the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, emphasizing the need for them to increase aid flows into the enclave, Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) told Jewish Insider on Wednesday.

Schneider said the “focus of the trip, without question, was understanding Israel’s existential war against Hamas — Hamas attacked on Oct. 7 … understanding the implications of that. But also understanding the humanitarian crisis that’s taking place in Gaza.” 

He said the group’s meetings, including with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, focused on the humanitarian crisis, the obstacles to providing aid and how to to increase aid flows.

“We are committed to resolving the war in Gaza. That means bringing back the hostages … and we need to bring them back with great urgency, while at the same time we’re committed to getting aid into Gaza,” the Illinois Democrat said.

Schneider, the co-chair of the Congressional Jewish Caucus, has been a key Democratic supporter of Israel in the House, but has also been increasingly vocal about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and of Israel’s plans to further expand its war operations, finalized last week.

“We need more locations, we need more distribution points, we just need more aid,” Schneider told JI. “We’re committed to trying to do everything we can, and we pressured the Israeli government to continue to do more, and we’ll continue to do that. This was very informative — the ability to be on the ground to see what’s happening, to better understand the challenges.”

He emphasized that Israel is providing aid in Gaza, but recent United Nations statistics confirmed that the vast majority of U.N.-facilitated aid is being diverted from its intended destinations inside the enclave.

“There are great challenges, but that doesn’t change the fact that there is a crisis that needs a response,” Schneider said. “Israel is part of that response. The U.S. has a role, as do other nations, our allies.”

The lawmaker said they also met with opposition leader Yair Lapid, whom Schneider said delivered a similar message to the group: that “as [Israel] fights Hamas, and works to defeat its enemy that is sworn to destroy Israel and kill all Jews, not just in Israel but around the world — the people of Gaza are not the enemy.”

In addition to Israeli political leaders, the group met with leadership from the World Food Program, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and COGAT, the Israeli military division that coordinates aid moving into Gaza.

The group also discussed the aid issue at length with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.

Regarding the future of the war in Gaza, Schneider said that Netanyahu delivered a similar message in their private meeting as in public — that he has a plan to bring the war to an end. He added that Lapid, in their conversation, accused Netanyahu and his administration of acting without a plan.

“My view has not changed about the idea of occupying all of Gaza or even going in and occupying Gaza City,” Schneider said. “I think the best thing for Israel, for the Palestinians, for the region is to bring the war to a conclusion.”

He added that Hamas is the only party that wants to see the war continue, and it “has the power to end the war tomorrow” by surrendering and releasing the hostages. He added that the U.S. and its Arab partners are working “very hard” to put more pressure on Hamas, but said that the post-war plan is also critical.

“It’s not just ending the war, it’s what happens on the day after. And we need to make sure that we have that plan laid out just as much. That’s why, in all my conversations and my colleagues’ conversations, we were asking that question,” Schneider said.

He said that he and the other lawmakers sought to send the message that the U.S.’ commitment to Israel’s security “remains solid and bipartisan.”

Schneider said that the meeting with Netanyahu, which lasted for an hour and a half, touched on a series of other issues, including a 16-year-old Palestinian-American detained for allegedly throwing rocks at Israeli settlers, Israeli settler violence and the need to free the hostages — which Schneider said Netanyahu conveyed he was committed to doing.

The trip also included a visit to Ramallah, where the lawmakers spoke with Mohammad Mustafa, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, and other PA leaders. Schneider, who has met with PA leaders on numerous occasions, said that this was the “most constructive conversation” he’s had with them.

He said Mustafa expressed a commitment to a two-state solution, to finding a path to peace and to implementing necessary reforms, including to the PA’s terror payments policy. Schneider also noted the Palestinian cabinet ministers are largely a new group installed last year. But, he added, the PA lacks credibility with the Palestinian people and is widely seen as corrupt.

“They seem to be taking those steps, but they need to be concrete,” Schneider said. “They need to demonstrate a commitment to good governance, a commitment to addressing their finances and being a partner for peace that really hasn’t been there for a very long time. So it was very positive.”

The trip comes at a time of intense strain in the relationship between the Israeli government and congressional Democrats. Schneider said that, in such a moment, it was important for the Democratic freshmen to learn about the situation on the ground.

“You’re getting a broad perspective and understanding that Israel is America’s best ally in a very important region for us, that we can strengthen that relationship,” he said. “It is fair for people to be critical of actions — Democrats are critical of our own government, Democrats can be critical of Israel’s government, and we should have expectations of our allies.”

But he added that the trip also addressed hopes for a more positive future, focused on the Abraham Accords, and that his colleagues heard about that “commitment to peace” and to finding a path toward expanding normalization.

“The vision and promise within the Abraham Accords is for an entirely different region where Muslims, Jews, Christians, Israelis, Arabs, Emiratis, Jordanians, etc., live together in peace, building a better future for all of their children and their countries,” he said. “That can’t happen until we get through the barrier of the enemies of peace. Hamas is an enemy of peace. Hezbollah. Iran. We can’t let them win.”

The Democrats visited the Gaza envelope together with a Republican delegation that overlapped with the Democrats’ visit for part of last week, going to some of the communities hit hardest in the Hamas attacks and visiting an overlook to Gaza.

Schneider said that, in their meetings, in addition to the situation in Gaza, the Democratic lawmakers had discussed the range of other existential threats that Israel faces from its various regional enemies. 

“Israel can’t afford to stumble, and the U.S. and Israel have to remain vigilant and stand strong together,” Schneider said.

The group visited the Israeli border with Syria and received a briefing on the situation in the country. Schneider said that the path forward in Syria is “uncertain” and that the exact shape and intentions of the new Syrian regime remain unclear.

He said that “everyone we talked to supported the idea of lifting the sanctions on Syria and giving [President Ahmed Al-Sharaa] a chance to succeed” and described Israel as supportive of the U.S. approach of working with the new Syrian government.

Schneider added that the atrocities committed against the Alawites and Druze in Syria by government-aligned forces — in response to which Israel carried out strikes on several key Syrian government facilities in Damascus — were comparable to those of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.

“It can change in an instant,” Schneider said. He said that there’s a “chance for a more constructive and positive future” if the Syrian government is willing to represent and embrace the diverse groups that make up Syrian society.

Regarding the recent Israeli and American strikes on Iran’s nuclear program, Schneider emphasized the “broad support” for those efforts in Israel, including from Lapid.

“One of the reasons that the moment was right to strike Iran is because their defenses were diminished, but their capabilities were on the cusp of becoming exceedingly more threatening and more dangerous,” Schneider said. “We had a good step, and we need to get to a next step, which is not just moving Iran back from the threshold nuclear capabilities, but closing every pathway Iran might pursue towards a nuclear weapon.”

He said that the coming months, particularly ahead of the expiration of the snapback mechanism for the United Nations sanctions on Iran, will be critical.

The day after Israel’s Security Cabinet voted to seize control of Gaza City, the Hostages Families Forum organized a major protest in Tel Aviv against the decision, warning it would put their loved ones’ lives in danger.

But Tzvika Mor, father of hostage Eitan Mor, has been speaking out against the Cabinet decision for a different reason — he thinks the IDF should be pushing even more aggressively to take over the rest of Gaza.

Nearly two years since his son was kidnapped while working as a security guard at the Nova festival on Oct. 7, 2023, Mor, 48, has not wavered from his position that defeating Hamas must be Israel’s top priority in the war in Gaza, above the hostages.

Mor, who lives in Kiryat Arba, a settlement abutting Hebron in the West Bank, normally works as an ADHD coach. But since the Oct. 7 attacks, he has divided his time between advocating for the country’s victory over Hamas and serving as an IDF reservist in the Paratroopers’ Brigade. In the long term Mor wishes to see the entirety of Gaza become part of Israel, telling Jewish Insider in an interview on Sunday, “It is the land of the Tribe of Judah; it is ours.”

As chairman of the Tikvah Forum, a more hawkish minority group of hostage families than the larger and better-known Hostages Families Forum, Mor and several other hostages’ relatives oppose partial deals and the release of large numbers of terrorists, arguing that only sustained military pressure will bring all of the hostages home. Mor spoke out against the Israeli Security Cabinet’s recent decision in his interview with JI.

“The question isn’t what they’re going to do, but what is the goal. If the goal is to lead Hamas to negotiate, it will fail, just like in Gideon’s Chariots, which took five months and didn’t bring back the hostages and didn’t destroy Hamas,” Mor said, referring to the IDF operation that began earlier this year. “The goal cannot be to bring [Hamas] to talks; it must be to destroy them.”

Hamas, he said, is not motivated to return the hostages, because they have the food, fuel and water that they need to survive, but if they feared for their survival, the situation would be different.

Mor compared the situation to the story in Genesis in which Abraham’s nephew Lot is kidnapped by four kings, and Abraham took an army with him to fight the kings.

Abraham “didn’t talk to them. He didn’t pay them. He fought a war until they surrendered. That is the way,” Mor said. 

Mor said fighting to pressure Hamas to return to the table reflects an order of priorities that is both wrong and ineffective.

“The war cannot be about the hostages, and I say that as the father of a hostage. How many soldiers should be killed for the hostages?” he asked. “You don’t go to war to bring back hostages. You go to war for sovereignty, for deterrence. Then, when you win, you get your captives back.” 

Prioritizing the hostages “not only harms national security, but it also hurts the hostages, because Hamas learns that they’re the most important to us and raises the price all the time. It’s indescribable stupidity,” he lamented.

Mor warned that if Israel “concedes in Gaza, Hamas will never give up all of the hostages … And what would the message be to the Arabs in Judea and Samaria” – he asked, using the biblical name for the West Bank – “that kidnapping Israelis is the best thing to do?”

In the past, Mor said, “it was clear that there was no negotiating with terrorists. We would try to save our hostages and take risks, but we could not give in to terrorism.”

Mor cited research by the Yachin Research Center, which he said showed that four times more Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks between the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 2023 than in 1949-1992.

“That means that since Israel gave in to terrorism, more Israelis were murdered. It’s clear … That needs to stop,” he stated.

Asked about the concerns that other hostage families have expressed about expanded military action in Gaza putting their loved ones at risk, Mor responded with a question: “Is our war in Gaza necessary? If there weren’t hostages, would we still need to go to war?”

“The answer is yes, because [Hamas] cannot remain our neighbors after we saw what they can do, or they would do it again. They are religious people; they live for this. They don’t live for a nice house and a car and social status. Not for coffee shops and pilates. They live to kill Jews. They’re like zombies. You have to destroy them. The war would be necessary even if there were no hostages,” he said.

As such, Mor said, Israel must take the necessary steps to win the war in Gaza: “It cannot be that we will endanger 10 million Israelis because of the hostages. We need to solve that problem such that we are not harming national security.”

“We have fears, too,” he added, “but in war, some are hurt. Soldiers are injured in the war too.”

Mor and another one of his sons have been in combat units in the current war. Thirteen soldiers in Mor’s brigade have been killed.

Early in the war, after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with members of the Tikvah Forum, Hebrew news coverage accused the forum members of being Likud plants or, at least, being easier for Netanyahu to talk to than the Hostages Families Forum, whose early leadership included political campaigners involved in protests seeking to bring down his government.

Mor, however, has been and continues to be critical of Netanyahu, who he said he hasn’t spoken to in six months, and of Likud ministers who he has spoken to more recently, including Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel and Agriculture Minister and former Shin Bet director Avi Dichter.

“I tell them these things, but almost all of the ministers in Likud align with the prime minister and say we have to agree to partial [hostage] deals,” Mor lamented.

Mor says that he has faced pressure for raising a different voice from the more prominent hostage relatives, and that “people defame and curse me.” In December 2023, the father of another hostage accused him on live television of giving up on his son, leading Mor to start crying. 

“The Israeli media doesn’t help. They lead the campaign” against him, he said. “But I feel that I am a messenger of the people of Israel. It is clear to me that the people of Israel want to win … They are connected to their roots, to the Land of Israel and to Judaism. They don’t want to be sold dreams and delusions that ‘it will all be OK, we can give in to terror and then deal with it later.’ We can’t deal with it. If we surrender, we will pay a higher price.” 

Mor has not seen pictures or videos of his son Eitan, 25, since Oct. 7, 2023, but he said that the most recent sign of life he received was from Israeli intelligence services in February this year. 

“We don’t know anything except that he’s alive,” Mor said.

In May, Eitan’s mother, Efrat Mor, said she learned from another hostage released in the first deal in November 2023 that Eitan is using his “incredible social skills … both for himself and for the other hostages” to lift everyone’s spirits. 

Eitan is the eldest of eight children.

“He is very strong, physically and mentally. He was very Zionist. He was a fighter and commander in the Golani Brigade” of the IDF, his father said. “He’s not soft; he doesn’t whine. He is strong; he’s a leader. We are sure that if he is with other hostages, he is helping them and strengthening them.”

When Hamas terrorists attacked the Nova rave, Eitan contacted an uncle because his parents do not use phones on Shabbat. He said that he and his friends were hiding, and sent videos of terrorists on pickup trucks. He also sent his location so that his uncle could pass it on to the IDF. The last time he was in contact with his uncle was at 10:04 a.m. His parents did not know that he was at the party, and they did not find out about the Oct. 7 attacks or that their son had been taken hostage until the evening.

Later, Nova survivors said that Eitan left his hiding place and saved their lives, which his father said “tells you the most about him.”

“He could have gone home at 6:29, but he stayed to save people,” Mor said. “He hid people and ran with them until he was kidnapped at 12:30, not by Hamas but by Gazan civilians.”

Israel’s decision to take control of Gaza City is meant to prevent further prolonging the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. 

The prime minister’s comments come as elements of the Israeli right and nearly all of the left have railed against the decision, further destabilizing the prime minister’s hold on Israel’s leadership.

In a video statement on Saturday night, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said he had “lost trust that the prime minister can and wants to lead the IDF to a decisive victory.”

At the same time, tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv to protest against the Cabinet’s decision, calling for an immediate hostage deal.

Speaking Sunday at a press conference for foreign media in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said that “Hamas still has thousands of terrorists in Gaza … Hamas is refusing to lay down its arms, so Israel has no choice but to finish the job.”

”Contrary to false claims,” the prime minister argued, “this is the best way to end the war and to end it speedily.” 

Rather than take control of Gaza City, part of the remaining 25% of Gaza that Israel does not control, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir presented to the Security Cabinet on Thursday night a strategy of surrounding those areas, while expressing concern about the safety of the 20 hostages believed to still be alive if a military takeover is attempted.

As to whether Israel’s new plan puts hostages in further danger, Netanyahu said that “the option of just doing a war of attrition from a defensive position has not proved itself. It won’t bring [the hostages] out … [It will lead to a] protracted conflict that won’t bring the war to an end.”

”I don’t want to prolong the war. I want to end the war, and I think the other option would have prolonged the war,” he added. “Prolonging the war means that many of them could be starved to death.” 

Netanyahu also emphasized Israel’s “five principles for concluding the war,” authorized by the Security Cabinet, which he said were his “day-after plan” for Gaza. They consist of disarming Hamas, returning the hostages, demilitarizing Gaza, Israeli security control of the enclave and establishing a civilian administration for Gaza led by neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority.

Though Netanyahu said in an interview with Fox News last week that Israel plans to take control of all of Gaza, the Security Cabinet decision announced early Friday morning fell short of that. 

The Security Cabinet voted early Friday, after a 10-hour meeting that began the previous day, for the IDF to “prepare for taking control of Gaza City while distributing humanitarian assistance to the civilian population outside the combat zones.” 

Netanyahu continued to speak of the IDF seizing all of Gaza on Sunday, presenting an image of the “remaining Hamas strongholds” of Gaza City and the “central camps and Moassi,” a second enclave. A spokesperson for the prime minister clarified to Jewish Insider after the press conference that “the decision that was authorized is about Gaza City. Later, if needed, the central camps as well.”

Netanyahu said that, as Israel did before maneuvering into Rafah over a year ago, it plans to move the population out of Gaza City, “safeguard the civilian population and let us go, at last, into the most important stronghold of Hamas.” 

Gaza City is only part of the remaining 25% of Gaza not currently controlled by the IDF. Reports indicate that the IDF said  it will take two months to move the civilian population out of the city; Netanyahu said he instructed the military to do it in less time because he wants to finish the war as soon as possible.

That two-month window leaves an opening for another ceasefire deal as Qatar, Egypt and the U.S. are reportedly working on reviving negotiations.  

The plan was supported by “a decisive majority of Security Cabinet ministers,” according to the Prime Minister’s Office. 

Smotrich accused Netanyahu of “making a U-turn” from a plan they devised together “to go all the way,” involving “dramatic moves to bring victory in Gaza, a combination of a quick military victory and an immediate diplomatic move to exact a painful price from Hamas, destroy its military and civilian capabilities, and put unprecedented pressure to free the hostages.” 

Instead, Smotrich argued, the Security Cabinet chose to support “an immoral, unreasonable folly,” that would involve “sending tens of thousands of fighters to maneuver in Gaza City while endangering their lives and paying heavy diplomatic and international prices, only to pressure Hamas to free hostages and then retreat.”

“I cannot back this decision. My conscience doesn’t allow it … No more stopping [the war] in the middle … We must make a clear, sharp move to defeat Hamas and bring the hostages home all at once,” he stated.

Despite saying that he lost trust in Netanyahu, Smotrich did not say he was leaving the coalition. Instead, he called for another Security Cabinet meeting to further discuss Israel’s next steps in Gaza.

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who, like Smotrich, has pushed for more aggressive moves in the war in Gaza, told Army Radio on Sunday that Smotrich turned down his offer to present an ultimatum to Netanyahu to quit the government if it does not accept a plan to “go in, destroy, conquer.” Smotrich and Ben-Gvir have called for Israel to fully occupy Gaza and build Israeli settlements in the enclave.

Smotrich’s outspoken criticism is a signal of the growing leverage he holds within Netanyahu’s volatile government. Netanyahu currently has a minority coalition, holding just 60 out of the Knesset’s 120 seats, making his political situation tenuous. The United Torah Judaism and Noam parties left the coalition last month over disputes relating to sanctions for Haredim who do not serve in the IDF.

Tzvi Sukkot, a lawmaker from Smotrich’s Religious Zionism Party, wrote in a post on X on Sunday morning, “if we are going back to Oct. 6, 2023 and decide to give up on the war aims, it is an existential threat to the State of Israel. If that is the situation, in my humble opinion, we must go to an election.” 

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote Smotrich a letter asking for his support for a bill to disperse the Knesset, which would trigger an election.

“You admitted that the prime minister’s policy is not bringing a decisive victory in Gaza, is not bringing back our hostages and is not winning the war,” Lapid wrote. “You added that you cannot stand behind the prime minister and back him anymore. In light of this, I call you to join me in a letter to the Knesset speaker in which we can say there was a significant change in circumstances that justifies bringing up the bill to disperse the Knesset again.”

At the same time, the political opposition and the Hostages Families Forum spoke out against the more aggressive approach in Gaza approved by the Security Cabinet, pointing to Zamir’s opposition to the move.

Lapid called the decision “a disaster that will lead to many additional disasters.” 

“In total opposition to the opinion of the military and security levels, without consideration for the exhaustion and attrition of the fighting forces, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich dragged Netanyahu to a move that will take many months, will lead to the death of hostages, to many soldiers killed, will cost tens of billions of Israeli taxpayer money and will lead to diplomatic collapse. That’s just what Hamas wants,” Lapid said. 

“As we approach the tragic one-year anniversary of the murder of six hostages who were executed by their captors, the expansion of fighting only further endangers those still held in Gaza’s tunnels,” the forum stated. “Hamas continues to exploit military escalation as justification for its brutal treatment of our loved ones … Our government is leading us toward a colossal catastrophe for both the hostages and our soldiers. The Cabinet chose last night to embark on another march of recklessness, on the backs of the hostages, the soldiers, and Israeli society as a whole.”

Tens of thousands gathered for the weekly demonstrations in central Tel Aviv Saturday night, blocking the city’s central artery, the Ayalon Highway. Some of the hostages’ relatives called for a general strike on Sunday and for soldiers to refuse orders.

Shai Mozes, nephew of released hostage Gadi Mozes, said that following the Security Cabinet decision, “the mission you’ll be given is participation in killing the hostages. In this situation, there is no choice but to refuse.” 

Several hostages’ relatives expressed support for a general strike, as did Lapid. The Hi-Tech Forum, representing dozens of Israeli tech companies and hedge funds, said they would allow their employees to miss work if a strike is held.

The Histadrut, Israel’s national labor union, declined to support a strike, following a court ruling last year that they can only strike for explicitly labor-related reasons.

Netanyahu also discussed the humanitarian situation in Gaza in the press conference Sunday, saying that Israel’s “policy throughout the war has been to prevent a humanitarian crisis while Hamas’ policy is to create it.”

Israel is working to avoid a humanitarian crisis by designating safe corridors for aid distribution, increasing safe distribution points managed by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and continuing airdrops by Israel and other countries, he said.

”The only ones being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” Netanyahu argued, displaying a screenshot from a video Hamas released last week of hostage Evyatar David and contrasting his emaciated arm with the much thicker one of his captor.

Netanyahu also displayed photographs of children from Gaza who appeared in the foreign media alongside claims that they had been starved by Israel, and listed the congenital diseases from which they suffered that were not originally reported. He said his office is looking into whether Israel can sue The New York Times over the matter.

The prime minister compared the claims to blood libels: “We were said to be spreading vermin in Christian society; we were said to be poisoning the wells; we were said to slaughter Christian children for blood. That was followed by massive violence, pogroms, displacement, followed by the worst of all, the Holocaust.”

”The international press is falling for Hamas propaganda, hook line and sinker,” he added, standing next to the text “Open your eyes to Hamas’s lies.” 

Netanyahu also said he had ordered the IDF to allow more foreign journalists into Gaza.

However, he stated, “We will not commit suicide to get a good op-ed.

Additional pro-Israel Democrats joined colleagues on Friday in criticizing Israel’s plans to take over Gaza City, which were approved Friday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel intends to take over Gaza City as part of an expanded military operation.

It’s a further sign that Israel’s ongoing war plans are causing growing gaps between the Jewish state and some of the country’s most critical left-of-center allies in Washington.

Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), a co-chair of the House Jewish caucus and pro-Israel stalwart who is currently visiting Israel, said in a statement that the plan to take over Gaza City “is tactically questionable and strategically self-defeating.”

“If implemented, the decision is more likely to play into Hamas’s original objectives in starting this war and further unite much of the world against Israel than it is to bring home the last surviving hostages and advance the security needs of the nation,” Schneider continued. “In fighting what is unquestionably an existential war against absolute evil, Israel must also uphold its responsibility to do all it can to protect civilians in Gaza and enable humanitarian aid to reach those in need.”

At the same time, he emphasized that Hamas started the war with the intent of eliminating Israel, and that Israel has the “absolute right” to defend itself and free the hostages. He said that if the world wants the war to end, it must commit to working with Israel, the U.S. and European and Arab states to “open new pathways for relief, recovery and renewal.”

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) warned in a statement that Israeli military officials oppose the Gaza occupation effort and that it “could extend [the war] for years, will only result in further loss of life among the hostages, Palestinian civilians, and the members of the IDF required to undertake such a calamitous task. The situation in Gaza is unendurable; this will make it worse. This war must end, not escalate.”

“To be clear: Hamas must be held to account for its mass murder, torture, and rape of Israelis, and for any diversion of food from those who are hungry. No call upon the Israeli government to act to stop this unendurable suffering by civilians in Gaza can ignore the barbaric acts committed by Hamas that brought this war about, the need to ensure they can never threaten Israel again, and the even more urgent need for the release of all of the hostages,” Schiff continued. “The international community must be persistent in its demand for the immediate release of the hostages and not ignore the casus belli of this terrible war.”

He said that the U.S.-Israel relationship should transcend any particular government on either side, and urged U.S. allies not to abandon Israel, “But that does not mean we can or should ignore or fail to call out continued perilous action — and inaction — by both this Prime Minister and this President — and insist on a dramatic change in the policies of both.”

Schiff added, “I find no shared value in the preventable starvation of the people of Gaza. I see no common principle in the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or plans for settler colonies there, only a moral and legal failing of terrible proportion. I am compelled to speak out, because I believe in an Israel that has been, and can be again, a light unto other nations.”

Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) called the Gaza City plan “a dangerous and counterproductive move that will not secure the release of the remaining hostages or bring an end to the fighting that has already taken so many lives.”

“This approach will without question worsen the already terrible humanitarian conditions in Gaza, and Israel’s own military leaders have expressed serious concerns about the feasibility and risks of this strategy,” Warner continued. “The priority must be to end this war immediately through diplomatic efforts and coordinated pressure to ensure the safe return of hostages and protect innocent lives. Pursuing this path will only guarantee prolonged conflict and greater suffering.”

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), one of Israel’s most vocal defenders in the House, took a somewhat different tack, saying in a statement and an interview on CNN that Netanyahu had told him in a meeting this week that Israel does not plan to occupy Gaza in the long term.

“I’m opposed to long-term occupation and annexation — but Hamas must go,” Gottheimer said on X. “I strongly support crushing Hamas terrorists and their last strongholds. I fervently back surging humanitarian aid and preventing Hamas from blocking it. We must urgently free the hostages being starved by Hamas, remove Hamas from power, and transition to an Arab-led peacekeeping force to bring lasting peace and safety for both innocent Palestinians and Israelis.”

He said in the CNN interview that Hamas could end the war by agreeing to surrender.

The Anti-Defamation League also voiced “significant reservations about the Israeli Cabinet’s decision to expand operations in Gaza” in a statement on Friday. The group declined to weigh in on the strategy involved but said that the move could further endanger the hostages and worsen the humanitarian situation for Palestinian civilians.

Democratic Majority for Israel said that “Pro-Israel Democrats have questions and concerns about the reported escalation of the conflict,” while emphasizing Hamas’ responsibility for the war and the need for a deal to free the hostages and increase humanitarian aid.

“We call on the Trump Administration to ensure sufficient humanitarian assistance and exert maximum pressure on Arab states such as Qatar to force Hamas to accept a ceasefire and free the hostages,” the DMFI statement continued.

The American Jewish Committee, one of the leading global Jewish and pro-Israel advocacy organizations, expressed its “deep apprehension” over the Israeli Security Cabinet’s vote to move forward with a military takeover of Gaza City, in a statement released by the organization on Friday.

AJC acknowledged the “extraordinary challenges” Israel faces due to Hamas’ “intransigence” in negotiations and the “failure of the international community to impose sufficient pressure on the terrorist organization.”

“Still,” the statement read, “the profound risks posed by a full military takeover of Gaza City cannot be overlooked.” It highlighted concerns over “endanger[ing] the lives of the remaining hostages” and the possibility of “substantial casualties among both Israeli soldiers and Palestinian civilians,” in particular.

AJC called on the signatories of the New York Declaration — signed last month by dozens of countries including member states of the Arab League and European Union — to “apply maximum pressure on Hamas to agree to a hostage release and ceasefire agreement.” 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement on Thursday that Israel plans to take control of additional parts of the Gaza Strip before handing it over to an unspecified Arab governing authority is being met with hesitation from even some of Israel’s most stalwart defenders. The Security Cabinet voted early this morning to take control of Gaza City, stopping short of the full occupation previously discussed.

Throughout much of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, the Israeli public broadly supported the military effort, even as progressive lawmakers such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) painted the war as “Netanyahu’s war,” and the Israeli prime minister as the bogeyman-in-chief. 

But in recent months, public sentiment in Israel has shifted noticeably. With most of Hamas’ senior military leadership eliminated, growing numbers of Israelis have begun to question the feasibility of Netanyahu’s goal of “total victory” over Hamas, given the terror group’s hold on the Gazan population and a lack of clarity on what’s left to accomplish militarily. Instead, polling shows that a large majority of Israelis prefer prioritizing a diplomatic resolution that secures the release of the remaining hostages, rather than expanding the military occupation of Gaza in hopes of complete surrender.

Netanyahu’s plan this week to occupy more of Gaza has begun to sap Israel’s political capital even among some of its closest allies on Capitol Hill, not to mention the isolation the Jewish state is facing from less-friendly European capitals. Even within the American Jewish community, as the war drags on into its 23rd month and with mounting IDF fatalities and no living hostages having been released since May, splits have emerged over the wisdom of Netanyahu’s double-down strategy.

Indeed, while the official Israeli position on its war against Hamas in Gaza has hardened, the approach in the Diaspora, both from Jewish groups and leaders and elected officials, has also shifted — in the opposite direction.

Meanwhile, the families of hostages, whose desperation has been deepened by recent videos and images of emaciated captives, have escalated their efforts, taking to the sea in a flotilla that sailed toward Gaza on Thursday in an effort to raise awareness about the plight of their loved ones.

Netanyahu, still mired in legal issues, finds himself in a bind of his own making amid mounting global pressure to end the war and let aid flow freely into Gaza — which contrasts sharply with right-wing members of his coalition who loudly call for the opposite, even as top IDF brass opposes a full Gaza takeover. Speaking from the Temple Mount/Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem earlier this week, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called on Israel to “conquer all of Gaza, declare sovereignty over the entire Strip, eliminate every Hamas member, and encourage voluntary emigration.”

On Capitol Hill, Israel’s traditional allies in the Democratic caucus — including some who have given Netanyahu leeway to press forward in Gaza in the past, even when it meant butting heads with the Biden administration — are beginning to shift. 

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod that Israel is ultimately responsible for making its own decisions, but said he’d advise the Israeli government to seek an end to the war once the remaining 50 hostages are freed.

“The war fatigue and post-traumatic stress in Israeli civil society and in the Israeli military — as well as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza — have become unbearable,” Torres said. “Israel has degraded Hamas. And so once Israel has secured the release of the hostages, it should declare victory, end the war and focus on expanding the Abraham Accords to include relations with the likes of Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.” More reactions from Torres and other Democratic lawmakers here.

Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) said in a statement on Thursday that “Netanyahu’s personal and political interests are guiding Israel’s actions” and slammed the prime minister’s “ineffective military operation in Gaza,” which, he added, “has only led to more unnecessary deaths.”

Earlier this week, Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC) – who in 2022 was one of the first major recipients of support from AIPAC’s super PAC— announced she was signing onto legislation to ban offensive arms sales to Israel.

The New York Times’ Bret Stephens warned this week, “If Netanyahu makes the colossal mistake of trying to reoccupy Gaza for the long term, then no thoughtful person can be pro-Israel without also being against him.”

The new shift in tone — exacerbated by mounting concerns about humanitarian aid in Gaza and bolstered by Netanyahu’s recent efforts to prolong the war in Gaza — extends beyond Washington and the media elite to some of the leading Jewish communal organizations, figures and philanthropists, dozens of whom signed onto a letter to Netanyahu this week, condemning his government’s policies and rhetoric for causing “lasting damage” to Israel and Diaspora Jewry and calling for an end to the Israel-Hamas war. Read more in eJewishPhilanthropy here.

Mainstream groups and officials, such as the American Jewish Committee and U.K. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, have in recent days expressed deep concern about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the prosecution of the war.

Israel finds itself, 22 months after Hamas’ attacks, at war at home and abroad. Hamas’ attack didn’t resolve the issues that had caused divisions in Israeli society in the months leading up to Oct. 7, 2023. The national cohesion following the horrific attacks has dissipated, and now segments of Israeli society are again at odds with each other, as Israel finds itself needing to win back invaluable political capital even as its leadership is taking it for granted. 

Pro-Israel Democrats on Thursday criticized the Israeli government’s plans to expand its operations and take control of additional parts of Gaza.

The Israeli Security Cabinet early Friday approved plans to take over Gaza City, though it stopped short of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement earlier Thursday to Fox News that Israel plans to occupy the entire Gaza Strip.

The plan seems to be aggravating the growing friction between the Israeli government and some of the Jewish state’s most vocal liberal backers in the United States over Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said that Israel is ultimately responsible for making its own decisions, but said he’d advise the Israeli government to seek an end to the war once it frees the hostages.

“First: the highest priority is to secure the release of the hostages who are at grave risk of dying from deliberate starvation and torture,” Torres told Jewish Insider. “Second: the war in Gaza is in danger of becoming a quagmire that bogs Israel down for years — indeed decades — to come.”

He again said the war risks becoming a long-term entanglement like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were for the United States, costing both money and lives.

“The war fatigue and post-traumatic stress in Israeli civil society and in the Israeli military — as well as the humanitarian crisis in Gaza — have become unbearable,” Torres continued. “Israel has degraded Hamas. And so once Israel has secured the release of the hostages, it should declare victory, end the war, and focus on expanding the Abraham Accords to include relations with the likes of Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.”

Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) pushed back on suggestions by Netanyahu in his announcement of the new Gaza plan that governance would ultimately be turned over to Arab forces.

“Netanyahu said: ‘We don’t want to keep Gaza. We want a security perimeter. We want to hand Gaza over to Arab forces that will govern Gaza properly,’” Auchincloss said to JI. “My question is: What Arab force has agreed to this? What is the plan for governance? There is no evidence that either exists.” 

Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL) said that Israel should prioritize increasing humanitarian aid and protecting civilians.

“Israel has the right and responsibility to defend itself against Hamas and other terrorist threats. At the same time, I believe it is in the interest of Israel, the United States, and the entire region to prioritize efforts that protect innocent lives and stabilize the situation,” Frankel said. “That means working urgently to get food, water and medicine to civilians in Gaza while continuing to support Israel’s long-term security. I remain committed to a path that ensures the safety of the Israeli people and upholds our shared humanitarian values.”

In a lengthy statement released hours before Netanyahu’s formal announcement, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) blasted both Netanyahu and the situation in Gaza, saying that Netanyahu’s decisions are being motivated by the prime minister’s self-interest, rather than Israel’s best interests. He unequivocally rejected discussion of full occupation of Gaza.

“The current crisis in Gaza shocks the conscience. The international community — especially Israel and the United States — must immediately put an end to this humanitarian catastrophe,” Goldman said. “It is clear that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s personal and political interests are guiding Israel’s actions, rather than what is best for the Israeli people or for the nation of Israel. He is beholden to the extreme right, whose support he needs to remain in power, which, in turn, is helpful to defend against his corruption case.”

Goldman continued, “To the extent a full occupation is indeed his plan, it is not only morally reprehensible, but it is also opposed by Israeli military and national security leaders as well as the Israeli people.”

He said that the international community must come together to free the hostages, end the war and surge aid into Gaza, which requires “unified international pressure on Hamas,” and said that international recognition of a Palestinian state before the hostages are released “only serves to reward” Hamas and disincentivize it from agreeing to a ceasefire and hostage deal.

“Fundamentally, Prime Minister Netanyahu must stop putting his own personal interests ahead of the state of Israel’s,” Goldman concluded. “The sacredness of human life and Israel’s sacrosanct place as a democracy and safe haven for the Jewish people are simply too important to be sacrificed on the altar of political self-interest.” 

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), in a new statement on Thursday, did not directly address the new Israeli plans, but said that all parties must work to “surge humanitarian aid to the people Gaza — not Hamas or criminal gangs” to the point of eliminating scarcity.

“I welcome the steps Israel has taken, including instituting humanitarian pauses and conducting airdrops of aid. However, these steps alone are not sufficient — it is clear that the current aid delivery system needs to be scaled up to adequately meet the needs in Gaza,” Sherman said. “That includes significantly increasing the number of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s distribution sites to prevent crowding, establishing safer distribution processes, and distributing higher quantities of aid each and every day.”

He also urged the United Nations and NGOs to “stop playing politics,” work with the GHF and distribute the food stockpiles sitting inside Gaza. And he said that those who criticize Israel without pressuring Hamas or acknowledging its starvation of hostages only encourage the terrorist group to keep fighting.

“The fastest way to alleviate the suffering of Gazans and the hostages is for Hamas to release the hostages and lay down its arms and depart for Iran or another country willing to accept them. This would pave the way for legitimate Arab-led governance and allowing Gaza to be rebuilt,” Sherman continued.

Pro-Israel Republicans, meanwhile, are supporting Netanyahu’s latest moves.

“The fastest way for this conflict to end is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages. In the absence of that — Hamas has continually refused the terms of a ceasefire — Israel must take the necessary steps to eliminate Hamas,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), who chairs a key House subcommittee focused on the Middle East, told JI. “Simply put, there cannot be peace so long as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority remain in power. I support Israel’s decision to use all military and diplomatic means to achieve their objectives, while continuing to provide humanitarian aid and assistance to the innocent Palestinians long suffering under Hamas’ brutal oppression.” 

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) said in an X post he supports Netanyahu’s “proposal to provide governance to Gaza. This will protect Israeli civilians from Hamas rocket attacks whose covenant is to murder all Jews. It will also allow for safe delivery of food for the people of Gaza. Mutually beneficial to everyone.”

Asked about the Israeli government’s decision, AIPAC placed the blame on Hamas.

“This war is only being extended because Hamas refuses to free all 50 hostages and surrender power in Gaza,” the group said in a statement. “America’s leaders must continue to stand with our ally Israel and take concrete steps that increase the pressure on Hamas to let all the hostages go and give up control of Gaza.”

Vocal critics of the Israel government on Capitol Hill blasted the new plan.

“Netanyahu’s plan to reoccupy Gaza is key to the far-right’s goal of taking over Gaza & the West Bank and forcing Palestinians out,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) said on X. “Meanwhile, Trump is making us a subcontractor in this operation. US taxpayers should not be funding what amounts to ethnic cleansing by another name.”

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) said on X that the move toward full occupation of the Strip is “unacceptable and will not lead to safety and security for Israelis or Palestinians.” He renewed his call for the U.S. to stop providing weapons to Israel.

Just before convening his Security Cabinet to vote on a full IDF takeover of the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israel “intends to” take over the enclave but “doesn’t want to keep” the territory or “be there as a governing body.”

Speaking to Fox News’ Bill Hemmer from his office in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said, “We don’t want to keep [Gaza]. We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it. We don’t want to be there as a governing body. We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life.”

Asked if President Donald Trump had given him a “green light” for the plan, Netanyahu said Trump “understands that it’s Israel who’s going to do the fighting” but that the two “haven’t gone into that kind of discussion.” Netanyahu added that the two leaders had agreed to a “humanitarian surge” to take place before what Netanyahu called “our final military action.”

Netanyahu said he and Trump also agreed on “certain principles” for a day-after plan for Gaza, including the demilitarization of both Hamas and Gaza, the release of the remaining hostages, Israel maintaining responsibility for security in and around the Strip and for Gaza to be “governed by a civilian authority that is not Israel.”

“I don’t want to occupy Gaza forever,” Netanyahu said.

In the Fox interview, Netanyahu also railed against the recent New York Times above-the-fold front page photograph of a Gazan child, presented as an example of suffering from severe malnutrition, when he had a genetic disorder. Netanyahu said he was looking into “whether a country can sue The New York Times.” 

Asked if he would allow more independent reporters to go into Gaza in order to report more accurately, Netanyahu said, “That’s my conclusion. In fact, that’s my instruction as of this morning to the military … Those who are lying are going to continue lying, but give honest journalists the ability to see the truth.”

Twenty years ago this month, Israel dismantled 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip, forcing 8,000 Israelis to evacuate and demolishing their homes, in what was known as the disengagement. That process was met with mass protests on the streets and the splintering of the Likud party, whose leader, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, initiated and oversaw the disengagement.

While Sharon did not promise peace as a result of the disengagement, the plan was presented as a move to make Israel more secure, while fewer soldiers would have to die protecting a small number of residents in the Gaza Strip. The prime minister and his supporters said that if even one rocket was shot from Gaza after the pull-out, Israel would respond militarily. They also promised that the disengagement would ensure that “this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, [would be] removed indefinitely from our agenda … all with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress,” as Sharon’s senior advisor, Dov “Dubi” Weisglass, put it at the time. 

Two decades later, Israel is fighting its longest war in Gaza, after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacres and attacks perpetrated by the Hamas terrorist organization that has controlled Gaza since 2006. In the interim years, Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza shot hundreds and sometimes thousands of rockets at Israeli population centers each year, prompting five major Israeli military operations in Gaza.

As to Weisglass’ 2004 promise that international pressure to reach a two-state solution would be put in “formaldehyde,” Sharon’s political protege and the Israeli prime minister immediately following him, Ehud Olmert, offered the Palestinians a state in 2008. Last week, 11 countries announced their intention to recognize a Palestinian state.

Key figures from that period told Jewish Insider that the Israeli government’s failure to formulate a day-after plan for Gaza — a criticism that has been leveled at Jerusalem in the current war — is in part to blame for the unfulfilled promises of the disengagement.

Gilad Erdan, a former senior Israeli cabinet minister and ambassador to the U.S., was a freshman Likud lawmaker when the disengagement was announced, and became a leading figure in the party’s rebellion against Sharon, which then-Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who voted in favor of the disengagement plan in early key votes — joined at a later stage.

Erdan noted to JI that Sharon not only claimed the disengagement would improve Israel’s security, he said that “if Israel doesn’t take this step, there will be other diplomatic plans [that the world will] try to force on Israel, and this step will free us of pressure from the international community. It’s clear that it didn’t reduce pressure, it increased it.” 

“What happened then, and is still the case now, is that Israel didn’t have an alternative plan on the table, whether for the coming few years or the short term,” Erdan said. “This is something to consider as a lesson of the disengagement.”

“I think a Palestinian state is now off of the agenda for many years … Something we can consider a lesson of the disengagement is that we should say no withdrawals, no unilateralism, no to a Palestinian state. I think those lessons were learned over the years at a great cost in blood,” said Gilad Erdan, who was a freshman Likud lawmaker when the disengagement was announced, and became a leading figure in the party’s rebellion against Sharon.

Israel now has “an opportunity to present a plan … that puts Israel’s security and our right to the land at the forefront, but we are not presenting any diplomatic plan for the world to discuss. Even if the international community doesn’t accept it — so what? What looks crazy today could look different in 20 years. It’s not like we’ll have peace with the Palestinians in five minutes,” the former ambassador stated. 

Erdan said that the aftermath of the disengagement underscored for Israelis the danger of a potential Palestinian state.

“I think a Palestinian state is now off of the agenda for many years … Something we can consider a lesson of the disengagement is that we should say no withdrawals, no unilateralism, no to a Palestinian state. I think those lessons were learned over the years at a great cost in blood,” he said.

Elliott Abrams, who was deputy national security advisor to the George W. Bush administration at the time of the disengagement, told JI that Sharon did have a larger overarching idea behind the move, but subsequent prime ministers did not follow through with it.

“Sharon said at the time that Israel needs to establish its borders, and I think he would have done something … with the West Bank. Whatever the future of Israel is, it doesn’t include Gaza, which has no use economically and no significance religiously,” was the logic, Abrams said. 

“Establish a border, build a wall, and maybe something will change in 100 years, but for now, try to have a border for Israel,” Abrams said. “It was a larger plan and then Sharon had his stroke” in December 2005, followed by another in January 2006 that left him in a vegetative state until his death in 2014.

“Sharon refused for domestic reasons to work with the Palestinian Authority at all on Gaza, because it would make it look like a reward,” following the years-long wave of Palestinian terrorism called the Second Intifada, Abrams recalled.

“Sharon wasn’t going to have anything to do with [the PA]; he was just going to leave Gaza,” Abrams said. “It’s a question whether it would have been possible to avoid a Hamas takeover in June 2006, followed by the complete collapse of the PA [in Gaza]. It’s a question worth asking. It is a fact that there was zero coordination.”

Though Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat died after Sharon announced the disengagement, the Israeli prime minister did not reconsider his plan in light of the election of new leader Mahmoud Abbas — who remains PA president 20 years later.

Abrams argued that international pressure was not a major contributing factor to the disengagement, noting that the plan was entirely Sharon’s and not something Bush sought for him to do.

Still, Abrams said that “international pressure to make concessions to the Palestinians is Israel’s predicament. That is simply a fact … I don’t think this is a problem that has a solution. I think it’s a condition.” 

“Israelis have to decide when they’re going to say ‘drop dead,’ when they’re going to say politely ‘no, we can’t do that,’ when to take half measures and when they’re going to agree,” he added. “Those questions have not changed much. They get worse for a while sometimes, and then better and then worse again, depending on how successful Arab propaganda campaigns are and how unsuccessful Israel’s campaigns are. It also depends on how strong the support is from the U.S. in resisting the other pressure.”

Erdan similarly said that “Sharon sent Dubi Weisglass to convince [Bush], one of the most supportive presidents ever, to support the disengagement. Bush didn’t want to support it at first … there wasn’t such significant international pressure.”

Rather, Erdan, who was Sharon’s political advisor a decade before the disengagement, said the debate was more of a domestic Israeli one, after Sharon “changed 180 degrees from all of the ideas he had presented to us about security and ideology, Judea and Samaria,” the Biblical term for the West Bank.

The disengagement came after “Israel was under pressure from terrorism,” Erdan said.

“The disengagement was a terrible, historic mistake that inspired the Oct. 7 massacre,” Erdan argued. “It not only gave [Hamas] the opportunity to dig tunnels and arm itself, it gave them the motivation, the desire and the belief that they could do it. That the strong Israel, led by the decorated General Ariel Sharon, retreated unilaterally when facing terrorism strengthened the extremists in Palestinian society and led to the loss of deterrence we experienced two years ago.”

Erdan also argued that the disengagement did not reduce Israeli deaths, saying that the number of Israeli soldiers and civilians killed in attacks emanating from Gaza in 1967-2005, when Israel controlled the territory, was smaller than in the ensuing years 18 years before the latest war.

Abrams pointed out that Sharon and Olmert did not fulfill their promise of striking back if any attacks came from Gaza.

“The problem began very quickly,” Abrams recalled, “because Sharon in the first few months, and then after he had a stroke it was Olmert, never enforced their own statements about Gaza.”

Two Qassam rockets were shot from Gaza into Israel while the disengagement was still taking place, and another 33 during the remainder of that year. From 2005 to 2006, the number of rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza on Israel rose 42% to 1,777. Hamas also began building tunnels into Israel at that time.

Abrams recalled that when Sharon initiated the disengagement and presented it to Bush and then the public, Sharon argued that “if Israel got out of Gaza, there would be no excuse for any attack from Gaza on Israel, and if there were attacks, they would be met with the strongest, most forceful military reaction. It never happened.” 

“Don’t let your enemies get into a position where they can do you great harm. That was learned, and that explains the attacks on Hezbollah and Iran. That is the right lesson. That is the lesson Israel did not seem to learn when it got out of Gaza,” said Elliott Abrams, who was deputy national security advisor to the George W. Bush administration at the time of the disengagement. 

Israel at the time, he said, “had an opportunity to respond very strongly to Hamas right away, and it would have had considerable American and international support … It was an opportunity that was missed … by Sharon, Olmert and later [since 2009, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu. It was a continuing problem.”

Abrams said that after the Oct. 7 attacks, Israel learned at least one lesson it had failed to internalize after the disengagement: “Don’t let your enemies get into a position where they can do you great harm. That was learned, and that explains the attacks on Hezbollah and Iran. That is the right lesson. That is the lesson Israel did not seem to learn when it got out of Gaza.” 

“Israel is a democracy and the whole Jewish people debate about everything nonstop,” Erdan said, but “the lessons of the disengagement are growing over the years. It didn’t happen overnight.”

“In the early years after the disengagement, we realized the Palestinians had the ability and desire to launch missiles and rockets, so we can’t live in the delusion that [Gaza would be] the Singapore of the Middle East,” he said. “Only on Oct. 7 did many more people in Israel believe that not only unilateral but any withdrawal is bad. Israelis totally lost trust in the Palestinians and realized that Jewish settlements have a great and significant security value … We cannot only rely on technology and smart cameras; physical presence is essential … I think a lot of us woke up from our delusions on Oct. 7 that withdrawals will lead the Palestinians to reconcile with us.”

Still, Erdan said, “there are people who continue to claim that the price of staying in Gaza would be even higher, so I can’t say all the lessons were learned. With time, more are learned.” 

“Having settlers in Gaza [would be] insane. It was a tremendous strain on the IDF. Do we really want to add that strain? It seems insane to me,” said Abrams.

It appears likely from Israeli leaders’ statements and positions in ceasefire negotiations that, at the end of the war, Israel will retain some of Gaza as a buffer zone between Israelis and Palestinians.

Beyond that, many on the Israeli right have called for Israel to retake part or all of Gaza. Some called for annexation as a military tactic to pressure Hamas, which was discussed in recent Israeli Security Cabinet meetings, and others have been calling from the beginning of the war to reverse the disengagement and for Israelis to be allowed to settle in Gaza again.

Abrams said that “having settlers in Gaza [would be] insane. It was a tremendous strain on the IDF. Do we really want to add that strain? It seems insane to me.”

Despite the lack of follow-through to reap the possible security benefits of the disengagement, Abrams said “Sharon was right.”

“First, we need to win the war,” Erdan said. “We are in a different situation today. Israel, unfortunately, already uprooted the [Israeli] towns and we are in a war with consequences for our future. I don’t think bringing the issue of settlements into it now contributes to our effort to win the campaign … We don’t have to give the international community more tools to make the matter of total victory in the war more complex … Israel should look at its interests and its priorities.”

“I personally do not believe that maintaining 7,000 [Israeli] settlers in the middle of 2 million hostile Arabs in Gaza, and using a substantial part of the IDF to protect them, was a sensible plan for Israel,” he said. 

Abrams also took issue with the idea of annexing parts of Gaza to pressure Hamas: “It strikes me that that’s not going to move the remaining Hamas leadership living in tunnels in Gaza to agree to let the hostages out. They don’t seem to care about anything. It is truly a death cult … It doesn’t seem to me — putting aside the legality or illegality — that it would work.”

Erdan said that, in principle, he believes “Jews have the right to live anywhere in the Land of Israel, and a solution to a conflict must include the moral principle that every population can choose where to live and the other side must accept it.”

However, he said that Israeli resettlement of Gaza is “not the most urgent or central thing.”

“First, we need to win the war,” Erdan said. “We are in a different situation today. Israel, unfortunately, already uprooted the [Israeli] towns and we are in a war with consequences for our future. I don’t think bringing the issue of settlements into it now contributes to our effort to win the campaign … We don’t have to give the international community more tools to make the matter of total victory in the war more complex … Israel should look at its interests and its priorities.”

Abrams called the idea of maintaining a buffer zone “very sensible to protect Israelis in Israel.”

Erdan also favored Israel retaining a buffer zone in Gaza, because “even if Hamas isn’t there anymore, we don’t know who will be.” 

“I don’t think the end lines of the war need to be the Sharon disengagement lines,” he said. “We don’t need to leave the Philadelphi Corridor [along the border with Egypt] and we don’t need the people of Gaza to return to live so close [to Israelis], almost up to my parents’ house in Ashkelon.” 

Amid reports of a mounting hunger crisis in Gaza, some of Israel’s staunchest defenders in the Democratic Party are now calling for Israel to do more to get humanitarian aid to Gazans — a signal that deteriorating conditions in the enclave are shifting public opinion even among those firmly in the pro-Israel camp.  

In a series of Friday statements, two major pro-Israel Democratic groups and a top Jewish Democrat in Congress raised concerns about what Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) described as “undeniably dire” circumstances in Gaza.

“Israel must take immediate action to ensure sufficient food gets into the territory and to the people in desperate need. The world must not turn a blind eye to the fact that children are starving because of this war,” Schneider said in a statement. “It is Israel’s responsibility, and within its capacity, to address and resolve the situation.”

Israel has said the United Nations is to blame for conditions in the Gaza Strip, alleging that the agency is responsible for failing to distribute much of the assistance. The U.N. has blamed Israel for not giving agency officials the necessary approvals to reach the aid piled up on the Gaza side of Israel’s border crossings. 

Israel’s backers in Washington have generally agreed with Israeli leaders that the U.N. and Hamas, which Israel has accused of stealing aid, share the blame for the humanitarian situation in Gaza. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Jewish Insider on Thursday that Hamas is the “biggest reason that people are not getting the food and medicine they need.” 

But that patience appears to be growing thin among some Democratic allies. 

Democratic Majority for Israel CEO Brian Romick said Friday that even though Hamas has no interest in mitigating human suffering in Gaza, Israel still has a responsibility to help starving children.

“Even as Hamas works to prolong this war and prevent food from getting to people in need, Israel — along with the United States, Egypt, Qatar, and the rest of the international community — must continue to work to get food to innocent children in Gaza,” Romick said in a statement. 

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) called out Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) for a post in which Fine called for the release of the hostages, writing “until then, starve away.”

“Telling Palestinians in Gaza to ‘starve away’ is an evil thing to say,” Torres wrote on X on Thursday. 

Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, expressed “deep concern for Israel’s security, international standing and future as a Jewish and democratic state” while calling “for immediate steps to alleviate the dire and growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.”

“The situation in Gaza is unacceptable and antithetical to our Jewish values, and it’s incumbent on the Israeli government, the United States and all parties to ensure that Gazans have access to food,” Soifer said in a statement. 

The rhetorical shift comes as Israeli reporters acknowledge that the humanitarian situation in Gaza has grown worse in recent weeks.

“​​Gaza may well be approaching a real hunger crisis,” Israeli journalist Amit Segal wrote in The Free Press on Thursday. “There have been tremendous lies told about Israel’s war. That doesn’t mean the threat of starvation isn’t real. It is.”  

Times of Israel editor David Horovitz wrote this week that Israel shoulders some blame for the suffering in Gaza, having refused to distribute the aid itself while at the same time putting untrained Israeli soldiers in charge of controlling access to humanitarian aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — which has led to the deaths of Palestinians converging on the crowded aid sites. 

The IDF entered the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah for the first time on Monday, amid stalled hostage and ceasefire negotiations in Doha, Qatar.

The maneuver in Deir el-Balah began a day after an evacuation order from the central Gaza city, built on the Mediterranean coast around an UNRWA refugee camp. Israeli officials believe some of the remaining 50 hostages may be being held in the area. In June 2024, the IDF freed four hostages, Noa Argamani, Shlomi Ziv, Almog Meir Jan and Andrey Kozlov in a raid in adjacent Nuseirat. 

Deir el-Balah has been relatively unscathed during the war that began after the Hamas terrorist attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The April 2024 incident in which the IDF killed World Central Kitchen aid workers whom it had mistakenly identified as terrorists took place near Deir el-Balah.

Before the latest operation in the Gaza war began in May, a senior defense official told Jewish Insider that the plan was to start from Gaza’s perimeter and work its way to the center, which the military now appears to be doing.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said that relatives of the 50 remaining hostages in Gaza — 20 of whom are thought to be alive — were “shocked and alarmed” to learn of the maneuver and demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or other senior officials tell the Israeli public “why the offensive in the Dier al-Balah area does not put the hostages at serious risk.”

“We have received no official, organized updates or satisfactory answers on this matter,” the forum added. “The people of Israel will not forgive anyone who knowingly endangered the hostages, both the living and the deceased. No one will be able to claim they didn’t know what was at stake.”

Despite optimism in Jerusalem and Washington in recent weeks about the prospects for a 60-day ceasefire in which half of the remaining 50 hostages would be released, talks have been on hold for the past week. Hamas representatives in Doha, Qatar, are reportedly unable to contact the terrorist group’s leaders in Gaza. 

The Word Health Organization said Tuesday that the IDF hit the residence compound belonging to local staff members and its main warehouse in Deir al-Balah on Monday. The organization also said that two of its staff and two family members were detained, three of whom were later released. The WHO demanded the immediate release of the staff member who remained in detention.

In a statement released Tuesday, the IDF said troops identified shots being fired toward them in the Deir al-Balah area, and responded toward the area from which the shooting originated. The army highlighted that, “Prior to the start of IDF activities in the area, the IDF warned the civilian population to evacuate from the area for their safety, and was in contact with the international organizations working in the area.” 

It also noted that the troops detained several individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism and after questioning in the field, the majority were released and evacuated from the area in coordination with the international organizations. 

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir said during a multi-arena situational assessment on Monday that “the IDF must be prepared for a continued wide-scale and comprehensive campaign, while managing a complex and challenging reality that requires multi-arena operations.”

“The war in the Gaza Strip is one of the most complex the IDF has ever known,” Zamir said. “We have achieved significant accomplishments – Southern Command continues to lead with regular and reserve brigades operating every day in both offense and defense.”

Also Monday, 25 countries — including most of the European Union, the U.K., Canada and Australia — called for an end to the war in Gaza and for the flow of humanitarian aid.

“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous,” the countries said, apparently referring to the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that was installed as part of an effort to thwart Hamas’ practice of stealing and hoarding humanitarian aid.

The countries called for the hostages to be released immediately and expressed concern about the undermining of a two-state solution.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry rejected the statement, “as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas,” which welcomed the international statement.

“All statements and all claims should be directed at the only party responsible for the lack of a deal for the release of the hostages and a ceasefire: Hamas, which started this war and is prolonging it,” the Foreign Ministry stated.

The statement also argued that “Hamas is busy running a campaign to spread lies about Israel. At the same time, Hamas is deliberately acting to increase friction and harm to civilians who come to receive humanitarian aid.” 

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called the 25 countries’ statement “disgusting” in that it “puts pressure on Israel instead of [the] savages of Hamas. Gaza suffers for one reason: Hamas rejects every proposal. Blaming Israel is irrational.”  

ASPEN, Colo. — Former Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo argued at the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday that post-war reconstruction of Gaza will require new tools, methods and partners.

Adeyemo, who served in the Biden administration, said that a lasting solution will require a political settlement that provides the Palestinians with “some type of self-determination” and ensures Israeli security, but that some level of reconstruction and stability will need to precede both of those things. He said one estimate placed the cost of a reconstruction effort at $50 billion.

“We’re going to need to think about this differently with new tools, in new ways, because the thing that you want to do, not just in Gaza, but as we think about reconstruction differently, is we want it to be reconstruction that’s creating economic opportunity in the places that we are reconstructing,” Adeyemo said.

He said that will require a coalition, including new countries as well as private sector partners, because some of the actors involved in previous reconstruction efforts in Gaza have less of an appetite to spend money on the effort than they have in the past. International donors, led by Qatar, pledged upwards of $5 billion for the reconstruction of Gaza following the 2014 war with Israel.

Adeyemo added that it’s crucial that the reconstruction leads to a stable economy in which civilians aren’t reliant on extremist groups. He offered as an example that in prewar Gaza, obtaining fuel for an air conditioning unit required a relationship with Hamas and paying taxes to the terror group.

“Fundamentally, that was because of underinvestment in infrastructure,” Adeyemo said. “So as we think about infrastructure, I think the thing that you will want to think about in postconflict areas, Gaza or others, is, how do you do it in a way that not only restores basic infrastructure and basic equipment, but actually thinks about long term economic development in these areas?”

Israel is providing weapons to an armed militia opposing Hamas, a defense source confirmed on Thursday.

Following reports in recent weeks that Israel was working with a gang led by Yasser Abu Shabab based in Rafah in southern Gaza, Avigdor Liberman, the former defense minister and current opposition lawmaker, said on Kan radio that “Israel provided assault rifles and light arms to crime families in Gaza, on [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s orders … These are the equivalent of ISIS in Gaza.”

Liberman said Israel’s security cabinet was not involved in or informed of the decision to give the Al Shabab clan guns, but the Shin Bet was aware of it. 

“No one can ensure that these weapons will not be turned against Israel,” he added. “We have no way of supervising or following [where they go].” 

Netanyahu’s office did not deny the allegation and responded that “Israel is acting to defeat Hamas in various ways upon the recommendation of the heads of the security establishment.”

Israel is providing the Al Shabab gang with Kalashnikov rifles, some of which were confiscated from Hamas during fighting in the past 20 months. 

Liberman compared giving the Al Shabab militia guns to Netanyahu allowing Qatar to send aid to Gaza, based on an idea that keeping Palestinians divided is better for Israel. 

“The prime minister of Oct. 7 hasn’t learned anything and is still continuing with the same idea that led us to the greatest massacre in the history of the state,” Liberman posted on X. “For years, Netanyahu nurtured Hamas and refused to listen to me when I said that he is severely damaging Israel’s national security.”

“Now he is making the exact same mistake and sending weapons to clans identified with ISIS in Gaza,” Liberman stated.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s office did not respond to Jewish Insider’s request for comment, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir declined to comment. Ben-Gvir began his career in political activism opposing the Oslo Accords; one of the Israeli right’s leading slogans against the accords was “don’t give [the Palestinians] guns.”

Hamas posted videos online of its members targeting the militia in Rafah, a city which the IDF controls. Hamas called Abu Shabab “the Israeli Robin Hood” in a social media post on Thursday, and other members of his clan distanced themselves from him. 

Michael Milshtein, head of the Palestinian Studies Forum at Tel Aviv University, noted on X that Palestinian media have reported on Israeli cooperation with clan-based militias in recent weeks to secure humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The Abu Shabab militia has a few hundred members who came together since the IDF entered Rafah in mid-2024.

Milshtein told JI that he does not know of any ties between ISIS and Yasser Abu Shabab, whose gang he called “psychopaths.”

Yasser Abu Shabab spent years in Hamas prisons, mostly for smuggling, theft and selling drugs, and was freed after Oct. 7, 2023, Milshtein said. 

The Washington Post issued an apology on Tuesday for an article that, citing the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, claimed that Israeli troops had killed more than 30 people on Sunday at an aid site in Gaza, a story picked up by a variety of U.S. news outlets in spite of denials by Israeli forces and U.S.-backed aid contractors.

Israeli military officials said soldiers had fired warning shots toward “suspects” advancing toward an Israeli position nearby an aid distribution center but denied any connection between that incident and the claims of an attack on civilians collecting aid.

The Post’s acknowledgement came days after the newspaper, which has repeatedly faced scrutiny over its reporting on the war in Gaza and related issues, changed the story quietly, without issuing a public correction.

“The article failed to make clear if attributing the deaths to Israel was the position of the Gaza health ministry or a fact verified by The Post,” the Post said in an editor’s note. “The article and headline were updated on Sunday evening making it clear that there was no consensus about who was responsible for the shootings and that there was a dispute over that question.”

“While statements from Israel that it was unaware of injuries and that an initial inquiry indicated its soldiers didn’t fire at civilians near the site were included in all versions, The Post didn’t give proper weight to Israel’s denial and gave improper certitude about what was known about any Israeli role in the shootings,” the statement continued. “The early versions fell short of Post standards of fairness and should not have been published in that form.”

The newspaper has repeatedly faced accusations of bias and faulty reporting in its coverage of the war and the families of hostages. It has repeatedly been forced to issue corrections to high-profile stories accusing Israel of misconduct.

One of the lead reporters on the latest story, Louisa Loveluck, recently delivered a scathing speech to the Post newsroom criticizing Israel and elevating claims by the Health Ministry, without any mention of Hamas, after being nominated as a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her reporting on the war.

Good Thursday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we consider the efficacy of the first days of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s operations to distribute aid in the enclave, and report on a call by Rep. Ritchie Torres on the American Psychological Association to address antisemitism in its ranks. We have scoops on a call by 33 senators for $500 million in nonprofit security funding on the heels of the Capital Jewish Museum shooting; a bipartisan House letter urging President Donald Trump to reach a deal to release the hostages in Gaza; and a statement by 41 pro-Israel House Democrats praising the resumption of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Marc Steinberg, Sam Feist and Gal Gadot.

What We’re Watching

• The Capital Jewish Museum will reopen today, a week after a deadly attack in which two Israeli Embassy staffers were killed after attending an American Jewish Committee event held at the museum. The museum will hold a program this morning that includes addresses from museum officials, local clergy and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser.
• In Massachusetts, the Holocaust Museum Boston is holding its official groundbreaking ceremony today.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH MELISSA WEISS

In October 2023, then-Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer said that “getting assistance into Gaza is a complicated undertaking.” In a constantly evolving war in which much has changed over the last 19 months, Finer’s comments remain as relevant and prescient as they did when he first made them to CNN. Aid distribution has long plagued Israeli, American, Palestinian and Arab agencies and officials, who have since the start of the war struggled to unite on a comprehensive aid plan.

There are a variety of challenges, among them the resistance of many aid organizations in Gaza to work with Israel, Israeli bureaucracy and logistical hurdles, and the sheer challenge of delivering aid to two million people in an enclave in which terrorists embed themselves with civilians and in aid groups.

After the failed attempt to create a humanitarian pier to deliver aid by sea, skepticism ran high that outside actors could facilitate the mass transfer of aid across Gaza. And in the first 48 hours of its operations, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation faced a slew of online criticism — largely from activists and other aid groups.

But a closer look at the GHF’s operations shows a newly formed organization that is serving as an efficient, if imperfect, mechanism to distribute aid in Gaza after an 11-week-long block.

Despite some isolated incidents, including brief chaos ensuing from a rush on supplies that was quickly calmed, and the looting of some facilities, the transmission of aid has largely proceeded smoothly. There are expected hurdles, including the long distances some have to travel to access the aid being provided by GHF. On the first day of operations, GHF said it distributed 8,000 packages, increasing the next day to 14,000. That number is expected to steadily increase as operations are refined and adjusted as needed.

The aid mechanism’s successes to date are underscored by Hamas’ efforts to thwart its work. The terror group used Facebook to spread rumors that GHF had closed some of its facilities. The rumors were quickly picked up by news outlets, such as Reuters, despite a lack of verification. GHF released a statement saying it “urge[s] journalists and the public to verify sources carefully. In several instances, we are seeing news reports echo Hamas statements or online disinformation campaigns without verification for accuracy.” Such narratives, the group added, “endanger humanitarian efforts and mislead the public.”

Outside aid efforts have for months faced resistance from established groups on the ground, including U.N. organizations. UNRWA in particular, which has been largely sidelined from operations since the implementation of an Israeli law banning the group from operating in the Palestinian territories over its staffers’ ties to Hamas, has been among the most critical of the new effort. 

Critics were quick to write the GHF’s obituary earlier this week, following the resignation of its CEO and COO. But the first days of operations show what a coordinated, multi-party effort could look like, and provide an alternative for those looking for a new way to address an issue that has long plagued decision-makers. The greatest threat to GHF’s existence may not be the logistical problems or online backlash, but the deeply entrenched institutions that have repeatedly failed to deliver for the people of Gaza.

exclusive

Torres warns American Psychological Association to address ‘persistent and pernicious’ antisemitism in its ranks

Concerned with a “persistent and pernicious pattern of antisemitism” at the American Psychological Association, the preeminent professional organization for American psychologists, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is urging the body’s leadership to investigate antisemitism within its ranks and better respond to the concerns of Jewish members, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports. His letter comes as the mental health field grapples with an antisemitism problem that has only grown more acute after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.

Blowing the whistle: “I have spoken directly with whistleblowers — many of them longtime APA members — who accuse the organization of enabling a hostile environment,” Torres wrote in a letter, obtained by JI, that he sent to the APA’s president and president-elect on Wednesday. “These incidents collectively suggest that the APA has not only been dismissive of the legitimate grievances of Jewish psychologists but also permissive of content that traffics in malicious falsehoods against Zionism, Israel, and the Jewish community.”

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

SCOOP

After Capital Jewish Museum killings, 33 senators call for $500 million in nonprofit security funding

A bipartisan group of 33 senators — mostly Democrats — sent a letter last week urging Senate Appropriations Committee leaders to provide $500 million for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in 2026, matching the record-high request from a group of House members earlier this month, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

About the request: The letter was sent the day following the murder of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, an attack that led a coalition of Jewish groups to call for increasing funding for the program, which provides synagogues and nonprofits with grants to improve their security, to $1 billion. Though only two Republicans signed the letter, the bipartisan request marks a change in Senate advocacy on this issue — in the past, bipartisan Senate groups have not specified amounts in their lobbying for the program. Senate Democrats last year called for $400 million for the program.

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

rumor realized

Trump confirms he told Netanyahu not to strike Iran last week

President Donald Trump confirmed reports that he warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a phone call last week not to proceed with plans to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities while the U.S. and Iran continue negotiations, saying that he told the Israeli leader a strike “is not appropriate right now,” Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen reports. 

What he said: Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the president responded to a question about the validity of the report by saying, “I’d like to be honest. Yes, I did.” Pressed about the nature of the conversation, the president clarified, “It’s not a warning, I said I don’t think it’s appropriate. We’re having very good discussions with them [Iran] and I don’t think it’s appropriate right now.”

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

EXCLUSIVE

Pro-Israel Dems say resumption of Gaza aid will refocus attention on hostages

A group of 41 pro-Israel House Democrats released a statement on Wednesday praising the resumption of humanitarian aid to Gaza as helping to refocus international attention on releasing the hostages and calling for a comprehensive plan for postwar Gaza, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What they said: The statement, first shared with JI, argues that the renewed delivery of aid, which began on Monday, was “essential to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, so that the primary focus of the international community can return to releasing the hostages that remain in captivity.” They added, “the United States, Israel, and key Arab partners must agree upon a serious and credible political and security plan to govern Gaza after the war.” The statement was organized by Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), in cooperation with Democratic Majority for Israel.

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

after captivity

Hostages’ long-lasting mental and physical scars of Gaza captivity are treated at ‘Returnees Ward’

When Israelis held hostage by terrorists in Gaza are released, there is a flurry of attention. Members of the media descend on the hospitals to which the newly freed hostages are sent. Soon after, however, the public no longer hears much from most of them. Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, in central Israel, has treated and continues to treat hostages released in the ceasefire that took place earlier this year. Dr. Michael Bahar, director of the Rehabilitation Unit at Beilinson, who has been overseeing their recovery, told Jewish Insider’s Lahav Harkov in the hospital this week that his department “built rehabilitation programs based on each patient’s specific needs. It’s a multidisciplinary process, working with physical therapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, nurses and psychologists. For the rehabilitation of the female soldiers, “we work with the IDF,” he added.

Meaningful connection: The Rehabilitation Unit at Beilinson also treats many wounded soldiers, and Bahar said they and the former hostages have found it meaningful to undergo joint treatment and exercises together, including in the department’s pool. “The soldiers felt that they were fighting to free the hostages, so we connected between them,” Bahar said. “One evening the [female soldier hostages] went to visit the wounded soldiers in the department. It was an indescribable moment. They couldn’t speak, they were so excited … It was very significant, very powerful for the soldiers and the returnees.”

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

exclusive

Bipartisan House letter urges use of ‘all available diplomatic efforts’ to free hostages

In a letter to President Donald Trump, a bipartisan group of House members renewed a call for a deal to release all of the remaining hostages held in Gaza, including the bodies of four Americans believed to be deceased, urging him to capitalize on potential momentum from the release of Israeli American Edan Alexander earlier this month, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Letter writing: “Building on the momentum of Edan’s release, we strongly urge your Administration to press forward with all available diplomatic efforts to secure the return of all hostages — including the four remaining Americans: Omer Neutra, Itay Chen, Gadi Haggai, and Judi Weinstein Haggai,” the House letter reads. “While Edan’s return marks a critical breakthrough, the suffering he endured underscores the urgency of this mission … This moment — coming in the wake of Edan’s homecoming—offers a window of opportunity.”

Read the full story here.

SHARE

Share options

• 
  Facebook
• 
  Telegram
• 
  LinkedIn
• 
  WhatsApp
• 
  Reddit

Add JewishInsider on Google

Worthy Reads

Ditch Gaz-a-Lago: In Foreign Policy, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro suggests that President Donald Trump should abandon his proposed “Gaza Riviera” plan in the interest of ending the war and freeing the remaining hostages. “The plan was utterly unrealistic from the start. The White House quickly clarified that Trump envisioned no U.S. troops taking part and no U.S. funds being used to implement it. No other countries stepped forward either to host the displaced Palestinians or with money to pay for the grand reconstruction. Having never asked Gaza’s residents if they wanted to leave — surely some do, and should be permitted to, but others would choose to stay — Trump’s plan, if it forced the latter category out, would amount to ethnic cleansing. But even a mirage can cause damage. What the Gaza Riviera plan did accomplish was to empower the far-right Israeli leaders, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, to pursue their extremist agenda of ridding Gaza of Palestinians, followed by Israeli reoccupation and resettlement. … But Netanyahu’s embrace of this plan has become a major obstacle to the release of hostages and a better path for Gaza. It is fueling the worst instincts of Israeli politicians whose agenda would upset Trump’s own regional goals.” [ForeignPolicy]

The NSC Purge: In The Atlantic, Thomas Wright, who served in the Biden administration’s National Security Council, considers the role that a fully staffed NSC plays in presidential decision-making, following the White House’s purge last week of dozens of appointed officials. “Those who oppose Trump may welcome these cuts, precisely because they reduce the ability of this president to destroy and remake U.S. foreign policy. Decimating the NSC removes a layer of White House oversight from the departments engaged in foreign affairs, which could mean strengthening them relative to Trump: If Rubio is truly a temporary national security adviser, there for just six months, the gutting of the NSC will weaken his successor and strengthen his influence as secretary of state. The Pentagon, Treasury Department, Department of Homeland Security, Central Intelligence Agency, and other agencies could likewise set up their own mini–foreign policies, each based on the Cabinet secretary’s interpretation of what they heard from the president, whether in a meeting, a side conversation, or a Truth Social post.” [TheAtlantic]

Word on the Street

The transfer of a Qatari plane to the Trump administration has not been finalized amid delays regarding a memorandum of understanding that lays out the terms of the agreement; President Donald Trump has said that the plane is a “free” gift from Doha, while Qatari officials have stated that the Trump administration initiated the transaction…

A federal court blocked the imposition of the Trump administration‘s tariffs, saying the administration overstepped its authority in imposing the tariffs…

The New York Times’ Edward Wong posits that Trump may be envisioning a world order in which China, Russia and the United States operate in separate spheres of influence…

CNN interviews released hostages Omer Shem Tov and Keith Siegel about their time in Gaza and efforts to raise awareness about the plight of those who remain in captivity, including Omri Miran and Matan Angrest, with whom Siegel was kept for long periods of time…

A federal judge in New Jersey issued an order on Wednesday ruling that the Trump administration’s justification for its monthslong effort to deport Columbia University protest leader Mahmoud Khalil was likely unconstitutional — but that his failure to disclose his affiliations with anti-Israel groups raises concerns, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports… 

Elon Musk reportedly threatened to withhold the Trump administration’s support for the creation of an artificial intelligence campus in the United Arab Emirates that is being built in partnership with Sam Altman’s OpenAI and Nvidia if Musk’s xAI was not included in the project…

Elliott Investment Management partner Marc Steinberg was appointed to the board of Honeywell International; Elliott, which has a more than $5 billion stake in the company — one of its largest investments — last year called on Honeywell to break itself apart…

C-SPAN CEO Sam Feist said the network is facing a “crisis of funding” amid a broader shift away from cable news and the decision by distributors, including YouTube and Hulu, not to include the channel in its offerings…

The Wall Street Journal looks at the origins of the Trump administration’s targeting of elite universities, positing that the president’s focus on the issue began following the 2019 assault of a conservative student at the University of California, Berkeley…

Five anti-Israel activists were arrested for protesting at the London set where Israeli actress Gal Gadot is filming “The Runner”…

The U.K. is mulling sanctions on Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Israel killed Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar in an airstrike earlier this month…

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israel planned to establish 22 settlements in the West Bank, a move he said “strengthens our hold” on the territory… 

The Israeli Defense Ministry said it has shot down more than 40 drones using its new laser air-defense system since October 2023; most of the drones shot down by the new system were fired from Lebanon…

Ravid Haim, the baby born following a West Bank terror attack that killed his mother two weeks ago, died on Thursday morning; the baby had been in serious condition since he was delivered by emergency c-section immediately after the shooting…

The Financial Times looks at the domestic and international challenges facing South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as he confronts “a hostile U.S., a stagnant economy and radical populist parties hovering in the wings”…

International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Grossi said that “the jury is still out” on whether the U.S. and Iran will reach a new nuclear agreement, as the parties prepare for a fifth round of talks to start on Friday…

Boston-based philanthropist and business leader Richard Barry Slifka died at 85…

Chicago real estate lawyer Morrie Much, a longtime donor to the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Jewish United Fund of Chicago who also supported the construction of the Holocaust Museum in Skokie, Ill., died at 88…

Educator and fundraising professional Henry Saltzman died on May 11 at 95…

Pic of the Day

Israelis gathered yesterday in front of the U.S. Embassy branch office in Tel Aviv to mark the 600th day of the war, calling on President Donald Trump to put pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war and secure the release of the remaining 58 Israeli hostages from Gaza.

Birthdays

Founder and creative director of the fashion label Shoshanna, style director for Elizabeth Arden, Shoshanna Lonstein Gruss turns 50…

Montreal-based businessman and philanthropist, Marvin Birnbom turns 95… Professor emerita of marine biology at Rutgers University, Judith Shulman Weis turns 84… Former member of the Knesset for the Likud party and then Israel’s ambassador to Japan, Eli Cohen turns 76… Winner of three Emmy Awards and a Grammy, actor, composer, singer, songwriter and record producer, Danny Elfman turns 72… U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS) turns 71… Retired senior diplomat in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, she was previously a brigadier general in the IDF, Ruth Yaron turns 68… Television writer, producer and actor, best known as the creator of the sitcom “Arrested Development” as well as the co-creator of “The Ellen Show,” Mitchell Hurwitz turns 62… Immediate past president of Ahavath Achim Congregation in Wichita, Kan., she is a trustee-at-large on the board of JFNA, Ellen Ginsburg Beren… Professor at the University of Chicago, co-author of the best-selling books in the Freakonomics series, Steven Levitt turns 58… CEO and executive editor of 70 Faces Media, Amiram (Ami) Eden… Policy analyst at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Yaakov Feinstein… Founding partner of Blandford Capital, Nathaniel Jerome Meyohas turns 51… Chief communications officer and global spokesperson at Aish, she is also a cookbook author with over 100,000 cookbooks sold, Jamie Geller turns 47… Film producer and former corporate lawyer at Skadden Arps, Edward Frank “Teddy” Schwarzman turns 46… Senior political reporter at The Forward, Jacob Kornbluh… Swedish-born pro-Israel activist, commentator and reporter, Annika Hernroth-Rothstein turns 44… Managing director at Hudson Bay Capital Management, Alexander Berger… Assistant secretary for constituency affairs for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Jacob “Jake” Adler… Israeli-born assistant pitching coach for the Miami Marlins, he pitched for Team Israel at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Alon Leichman turns 36… English actor, his bar mitzvah was at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Gregg Sulkin turns 33…