Plus, Dems seek to block Saudi nuclear deal
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Former President Barack Obama speaks to attendees at the Obama Foundation Democracy Forum on November 03, 2023 in Chicago, Illinois.
Add JewishInsider on GoogleGood 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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee met quietly in recent days with Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot amid the final stretch of Israel’s high-stakes election campaign, Gili Cohen reports for Jewish Insider — the first known time U.S. officials have met with the former IDF chief of staff, who is considered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief rival in the contentious race…
Eisenkot vowed in a speech today that he would end Hamas rule in the Gaza Strip within 18 months of becoming prime minister, either through fully enacting the U.S.-led Gaza peace plan or through military action if necessary…
In a combative interview on NBC yesterday, Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed dismissed his half-sister’s past comments about his family’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood as “hearsay,” JI’s Marc Rod reports.
El-Sayed has denied that his family has any connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, but newly resurfaced tweets by his half-sister threw those denials into question, as she repeatedly said that family members of theirs, including their mother, had long been Muslim Brotherhood members. “You want to ask me about what was happening in Egypt in 1970. Are you serious?” El-Sayed told host Tom Llamas. “I have no ties. We have no ties. … I have never had these conversations with my mother. I wasn’t raised by my mother”…
Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Ed Markey (D-MA) introduced a joint resolution of disapproval today that aims to block the U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal, allowing the Democrats to force a vote on the deal as soon as Nov. 29, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
It appears unlikely at this point that the GOP-controlled Congress will vote to block the deal, with most Republicans expressing support for it, though some GOP holdouts have voiced their concerns…
The 10-year-old son of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar wrote to his father that he wanted to “hold the Kalashnikov and shoot the Jews” when he grows up, accompanied by drawings of tanks, rifles and rockets, according to letters recovered by the IDF in Gaza and provided by the military to The Telegraph…
James Talarico, the Democratic Senate nominee in Texas, reiterated his sharp criticism of Israel at a CNN town hall yesterday, accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of targeting Palestinian civilians and restricting humanitarian aid, JI’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Speaking onstage with the rabbi of a Reform congregation in Dallas, Talarico acknowledged the scale of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks and Israel’s right to defend itself, adding, “I don’t believe that Benjamin Netanyahu has a right to wage war against civilians or use collective punishment or restrict aid to civilians”…
Talarico’s campaign reported today that he brought in $64 million in the third quarter of the year, which the campaign said is the most any candidate for U.S. Senate has raised during that period. Talarico’s GOP opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, reported raising $18 million during the third quarter, though most of the spending on his behalf in the race has come from outside Republican groups…
Former President Barack Obama criticized Israel’s security policy as having “ceded moral ground” and said that Israel’s founding had unjustly taken land from Palestinians in remarks in Belfast, Northern Ireland, this week, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
“The fact is that the Jewish people for millennia were oppressed, discriminated against, killed. … They understandably sought a refuge in a place where they had historic ties. That is undeniable,” Obama said. “What is also undeniable is that they took the land of people and they were expelled. And those people, understandably, said, ‘This is an injustice, and I want my land back,’” he continued…
Voting in Israel’s Oct. 27 election began overnight as polls opened at Israeli diplomatic missions worldwide, allowing roughly 4,800 eligible voters — diplomats, emissaries and their families — to cast ballots at 101 stations across 99 missions over a roughly 30-hour window. The largest overseas polling station is the Israeli consulate in New York City, where more than 700 people are eligible to vote…
⏩ 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 for a look at how the New York Jewish community is responding to City Comptroller Mark Levine’s decision not to reinvest city pension funds in Israel Bonds.
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) launched a bus tour across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula today, continuing with several rallies in the Detroit area tomorrow.
President Donald Trump will host a $1-million-per-plate fundraiser for his super PAC, MAGA Inc., at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday, as the group sits on a more than $400 million war chest just weeks before the midterm elections.
The Jewish Democratic Council of America and the Westchester Jewish Democrats will hold a door-knocking and canvassing event on Sunday for Cait Conley, the Democratic nominee for New York’s 17th Congressional District, as she seeks to unseat Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY).
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will campaign with Democratic Florida Senate nominee Angie Nixon across the Sunshine State this weekend, as the democratic socialist attempts to unseat Sen. Ashley Moody (R-FL) in the largely conservative state.
We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!
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EDIT WARS
Wikipedia has failed to systematically review or correct edits to pages on Hamas, Zionism, the Oct. 7 terror attacks and Israel’s war in Gaza, even after banning editors involved in the alleged campaign, according to the report
Plus, Italian mayor backtracks on Israel litmus test
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The Herbert Park Hotel in Ballsbridge, Dublin, Ireland.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Former Vice President Kamala Harris said today at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul, South Korea, that the Biden administration should have acted “sooner and more forcefully” to restrain Israel during the war in Gaza, Jewish Insider’s AJ Rodriguez reports, as Harris has become more critical of the Biden administration’s policy towards Israel since leaving office…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani today sharply criticized Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman — the GOP nominee for New York governor — calling the Republican’s assertions that he would not protect Jewish communities from arson and sexual violence “directly racist,” JI’s Will Bredderman reports.
Referring to Blakeman’s comments in a private meeting with Hasidic leaders in Williamsburg that Mamdani would likely do little “if there is rioting here, if they’re burning down the yeshivas and your shuls, and burning down your house and raping your women,” the mayor said, “It’s not even a dog whistle. It’s just directly racist to say that I would not respond to Jewish New Yorkers being killed and raped”…
Mamdani also said today that he “welcome[s]” the decision by New York City Comptroller Mark Levine not to reinvest portions of the city’s pension system in Israel Bonds, which Levine said was solely a financial consideration and not an ideological one.
“It is something that I’ve said in the past that I don’t believe that our city should purchase Israel Bonds. We don’t purchase the bonds of any other sovereign nation. I don’t think that we should make an exception when it comes to Israel,” Mamdani said…
Addressing the House of Commons today, U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham denounced as “wrong” and “antisemitic” a recent motion passed by the Green Party defining Zionism as racism, JI’s AJ Rodriguez reports. Burnham stated that the Labour party would “have nothing to do with” the motion and would not sit in a coalition with the Green Party while it maintains such a policy…
The mayor of Reggio Emilia, Italy, defended the city’s handling of a controversy where Israeli and American Jewish preschool teachers were asked to condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza before being permitted to join a trip to his town, denying that the pledge was a requirement to attend, JI’s Haley Cohen reports.
After outreach from the State Department, Mayor Marco Massari said the city’s Charter for Democratic and Participatory Education, a document associated with Reggio Emilia’s early childhood education approach, was intended to be an “open document” and not a requirement that visitors sign on to a particular position…
The Herbert Park Hotel in Dublin canceled 70 rooms booked for participants of an international conference of envoys for combating antisemitism, JI’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Maurice Cohen, the head of the Irish Jewish Representative Council, said at the opening of the summit that the hotel canceled the group’s reservation made in May after finding out the nature of the event and after inquiring if the IDF would be involved, despite having no relevance to the topic of the gathering…
The Israeli Defense Ministry and the Pentagon signed an agreement today for Israel to acquire 12 Boeing-made Apache “Echo” attack helicopters for the IDF, wtih delivery scheduled to begin early next decade…
Colombia opened its embassy in Jerusalem today, fulfilling a campaign pledge by President Abelardo de la Espriella and marking a further restoration of ties with Israel under his right-wing party…
Israeli President Isaac Herzog met today with Bahraini Foreign Affairs Minister Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani while attending the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia being held in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Herzog said the two “discussed the friendship and ties between Israel and Bahrain, as well as the importance of the U.S.-led Abraham Accords in strengthening security, stability, and prosperity in the Middle East”…
New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin announced that the council will allocate $1.25 million to the Blue Card program — which provides financial assistance to families of Holocaust survivors — to develop a virtual Holocaust education experience and expand educational opportunities for students across the city…
⏩ 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 for coverage of today’s memorial event at the State Department for the American victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
National security veteran Brett McGurk will sit in conversation with Washington Post columnist David Ignatius at the Atlantic Council to discuss McGurk’s new book, Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages.
The annual Hillary Rodham Clinton Awards Ceremony for advancing women in peace and security will be held at Georgetown University.
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CONTROVERSIAL COCKTAIL
Michelle Smith agreed with a commenter’s remark that ‘shekels would prolly fly out’ of a Republican consultant
Plus, GOP retreats from Landsman’s seat
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attend an unveiling ceremony for a new 9/11 Memorial Wall at One Police Plaza on Sept. 9, 2026 in New York City.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump declined today to answer whether he had decided to order U.S. strikes on the Iran-backed Houthis, telling reporters only that the group is “behaving very badly,” and later wrote on Truth Social that he “thought they learned their lesson a year ago when we bombed the HELL out of them … but now they’ve emerged again, probably at the behest of Iran.” Trump separately said the administration expects to determine its next steps on Iran “very soon”…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken with Trump several times about the possibility of striking Iran before the U.S. midterms and Israeli elections, Axios reports, with the Israeli leader pushing to address Iran’s apparent efforts to reconstitute its nuclear program — though Trump has recently said he has no intention to resume operations against Iran before November…
The Houthis reportedly attacked today the headquarters of Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, after Riyadh targeted a Yemen Petroleum Company fuel depot; the extent of the damage to Saudi Aramco was unknown, though one source told the Financial Times that the site caught on fire…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told reporters today that he has no plans to fire NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, as parts of his socialist base have called for him to do, and commended her success in combating violent crime and corruption…
The Congressional Leadership Fund, the independent expenditure arm of the House GOP aligned with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), is reportedly withdrawing plans for independent spending against Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH), alongside several other swing districts the PAC is seen as essentially surrendering to Democrats, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Landsman has been one of the most outspoken pro-Israel Democrats and is running comfortably ahead in a Cincinnati-area district Trump won in 2024…
MI5, Britain’s domestic intelligence agency, is now devoting more resources to countering state threats than during the Cold War, Director General Ken McCallum said today, as the country works to fend off attacks from Iran and Russia. The U.K. has “entered a new era of national security,” McCallum continued, with terrorist and state-threat operations now “pretty much of equal scale”…
Representatives of the J7 Task Force Against Antisemitism, a body representing the seven largest Jewish diaspora communities, gathered at Herzog Park in Dublin — named for Chaim Herzog, the Dublin-raised sixth president of Israel, which activists have sought to rename — in order “to stand in solidarity with Ireland’s Jewish community and raise concerns about antisemitic rhetoric and actions in Ireland.” The group also conveyed those concerns directly to Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Foreign Affairs Secretary-General Joe Hackett…
Canada, Australia, France and the U.K. said in a joint statement today that they “deeply regret” the Palestinian Authority’s decision to postpone its elections until September 2027 and urged it to hold a vote “without further delay.” The countries also called on Israel to refrain from actions that could impede the vote and reiterated that Hamas should have no role in the future governance of the Palestinian territories…
A Delta Air Lines flight arriving in Tel Aviv from New York was cleared today at Ben Gurion Airport after an anonymous report indicated that a “suspicious” device was on board…
Asked if he’s considering running for president in 2028, Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), a co-chair of the House Antisemitism Task Force, said during a recent podcast appearance, “I won’t lie — yes, I would love to, but I would also just be happy to be the right-hand or the left-hand man to someone else that has the same values”…
⏩ 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 for a look at how the Washington-area restaurant Busboys and Poets is alienating Jewish customers by promoting its new “free Palestine” drink.
The State Department, along with the American Jewish Committee, will host an event honoring the 46 Americans killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel, JI’s Marc Rod reports, after postponing the event from its original date in late September.
Leo Terrell, chair of the Justice Department’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, will speak at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Southfield, Mich., for the first stop of the task force’s “American Tour Against Hate.”
The 2026 American Foreign Service Association awards ceremony will be held at Georgetown University, where former CIA Director Bill Burns will be honored for his “lifetime contributions to American diplomacy.”
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PROBLEMATIC POST
Michelle Smith agreed with a commenter’s remark that ‘shekels would prolly fly out’ of a Republican consultant
Plus, Lankford says Lebanon eyeing Michigan race
Wiktor Szymanowicz/Future Publishing via Getty Images
U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband arrives in Downing Street to attend weekly Cabinet meeting in London, U.K. on Sept. 8, 2026.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham told the House of Commons today that the suspected plot targeting the U.S.-run RAF Fairford air base was “highly likely to have been coordinated in Iran” and “almost certainly directed by” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
In a joint statement, the U.S. and 27 other countries backed Britain’s assessment, condemned Iran’s use of proxies for attacks on Western soil and vowed to identify, disrupt and prosecute those responsible…
British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband agreed today to host a meeting of officials from seven countries to coordinate efforts against antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s AJ Rodriguez reports, following talks in London with representatives of the J7 Task Force Against Antisemitism — a body of organizations representing the seven largest Jewish diaspora communities.
William Daroff and Betsy Berns Korn, respectively CEO and chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told JI that their discussion with Miliband was “frank and direct. We called him to task for the U.K. government’s sanctions against Israel and its rhetoric, which exacerbate antisemitism and increase the risks Jewish communities face. We made clear that these consequences cannot be brushed aside,” they said.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told JI that, “while there are areas of strong disagreement [with Miliband], we identified some common concerns including our shared view on the bigoted antizionism of the Green Party … But this was just the first conversation. We intend to keep pushing for action and demanding accountability”…
Former President Barack Obama officially endorsed Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in a video where he praised El-Sayed for refusing corporate money and for supporting “invest[ing] money here, instead of wasting money on endless wars.” Asked about his past criticisms of Obama following his 2012 reelection, El-Sayed said on “Meet the Press” this weekend that he was “younger” and “angry about circumstances” back then…
El-Sayed’s opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), released an ad pushing back on El-Sayed’s claim that neither he nor his family have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, highlighting a social media post from his sister that said, “My family has long been MB [Muslim Brotherhood],” among other similar reports…
Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) told reporters today that Lebanese and Israeli leaders both expressed to him strong interest in the Michigan Senate race while he was on a trip to the Middle East last week, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
Among his conversations, Lankford said Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri told him there was an “extension of [his] party in Michigan that he just initiated.” Berri leads the Amal Movement, a Shia political faction allied with Hezbollah….
A teenager was killed and 24 others were injured today when an unexploded Hezbollah cluster munition detonated during a school hike in northern Israel near the Lebanon border. The IDF said the explosive had remained in the area from an earlier Hezbollah attack and that the incident remains under investigation…
American citizens have been detained in Saudi Arabia for photographing recent missile or drone incidents, the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh confirmed today, as it warned Americans not to film or share images of intercepted projectiles or impact sites so as not to violate Saudi law…
Speaking at the TRENDS conference in Abu Dhabi, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo predicted that “the large Islamic nations,” including Malaysia and Indonesia, will “come to see that something akin to the Abraham Accords makes sense for their countries as well,” given Iran’s destabilizing actions in the Middle East…
A federal court in California denied a motion by The Pokémon Company International attempting to dismiss a discrimination lawsuit brought by an Israeli American professional Pokémon player, who claims he was banned from all Pokémon competitions over his efforts to lobby the gaming company to host official tournaments in Israel. The court found that the allegations represent a “plausible claim of discrimination and retaliation,” allowing the case to proceed…
⏩ 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 for a look at the small Israeli political parties that could end up playing kingmaker in the upcoming elections.
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington will hold a forum this evening focused on issues of concern to the Jewish community for candidates running in contested races for the Montgomery County Board of Education.
The USC Shoah Foundation will mark the grand opening tomorrow of its first office in Washington with a Q&A with Wolf Blitzer on his family’s experience in the Holocaust.
The Israeli Embassy in Washington will present a screening tomorrow of “NAZA: The Real Story,” a documentary meant to counter the controversial film “NAZA” that alleges the IDF intentionally targeted Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Former Rep. Max Rose (D-NY), a staunchly pro-Israel Jewish Democrat, will host a fundraiser in New York tomorrow for Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) and singer Bobby Pulido, who is running as a Democrat in Texas’ 15th Congressional Distrct.
The Heritage Foundation will host a conversation tomorrow with Ben Black, CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation, on American investment abroad.
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Deadly strikes on Riyadh’s airport show the cost of years spent containing rather than confronting an Iranian proxy — and Washington may not ride to the rescue
NATHAN HOWARD/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman looks on during his meeting with the US Secretary of State in Riyadh on October 23, 2024.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has spent years — and billions of dollars — seeking to transform his country into a global economic powerhouse. But the recent escalation in tensions with the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen — including the deadly weekend strikes on Riyadh’s main airport — is putting into question whether such a strategy is compatible with the changing geopolitical reality and continued threats posed by Iran and its terror proxies.
Thirteen people were killed and hundreds injured in a strike on a passenger terminal at the airport on Saturday. Another individual was killed in a separate attack when a projectile struck the airport again on Sunday. One American was among those killed in Saturday’s attack, prompting questions over whether Washington will enter the fight.
The weekend attacks mark the most severe escalation since the fragile, four-year ceasefire between Riyadh and the Houthis collapsed over the summer following the July bombing of a runway at the Sana’a International Airport in Houthi-held territory in an effort to prevent Houthi officials from landing after attending the funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yemen’s officially recognized government claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Houthis attributed the strike to Saudi Arabia and declared the Gulf state’s aviation hubs to be fair game.
Struggling to defend itself from the missile barrages, Riyadh has few options to protect its vulnerable assets. A defense treaty signed with Pakistan and Turkey has borne little fruit. Experts with whom JI spoke last month said that Saudi Arabia’s predicament is partly of its own making, citing Riyadh’s failure to use the years of quiet to prepare for potential future confrontations with the Houthis, as well as the Gulf state’s rift with the United Arab Emirates, which destabilized efforts within Yemen to combat the terror group.
The Saudi playbook for years has been to lean on diplomacy and deescalation in an effort to prioritize its own economic ambitions. It’s a strategy that did little to address the threats posed by the Houthis, leaving Riyadh vulnerable to the kind of situation it had hoped to avoid.
The Saudi policy has long been something akin to Israel’s “mowing the lawn” approach to Hamas, as Israeli journalist Amit Segal points out. For the Israelis, much like the Saudis, containing the challenges posed by a well-funded Iranian terror proxy was easier than addressing the problem head-on. “The lesson of appeasing terror,” Segal suggests, “is the same.”
Compounding Riyadh’s predicament is the uncertainty over the U.S.’ potential involvement. Washington has so far stayed out of the active fighting between Riyadh and the Iran-backed terror group in Yemen, even as it has provided intelligence and targeting support to Saudi Arabia.
But even U.S. support is not endless, owing to its own military constraints as well as domestic political realities. The U.S.’ own interceptor stockpile is low — so low that it is expected to take years to fully replenish, leaving Washington unable to provide the kind of defensive technology that Riyadh lacks. And while President Donald Trump has said the U.S. could join the active fighting, he is facing political headwinds at home, with the midterms just weeks away and Republicans poised to potentially lose a number of House and Senate seats in traditionally red districts and states.
On Saturday, Trump said the U.S. “may” join Riyadh’s military operations, despite its own ceasefire with the Houthis, which has held since May. “We’re going to look at it,” the president told reporters hours after the deadly attack. “We just found out about the recent attack. So we’ll make a decision. We move very quickly.” A statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, expressed solidarity with Riyadh, but stopped short of offering military support or vowing retaliation for the death of the American citizen.
Now Saudi Arabia finds itself in an increasingly precarious situation. Its airports are under attack. Its East-West pipeline is intermittently shut down amid drone attacks. The Gulf state’s marquee fall conferences — the World Petroleum Council Energy Congress and the Future Investment Initiative, known as “Davos in the Desert” — are in doubt amid suspended flights and foreign travel advisories.
MBS spent years trying to build a society focused on economic progress, using diplomacy as a key tool in achieving it. The Houthis don’t need an all-out military win against Saudi Arabia — they have already established themselves as a disruptor: armed, ready and willing to engage in sporadic battles that paralyze the region.
The Connecticut senator also said he warned Saudi leaders that the proposed U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal would not survive into a Democratic presidency
(Finn Gomez/Getty Images)
U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) enters the U.S. Capitol Building on August 07, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) accused the Trump administration of an “active cover-up” of the costs of the war in Iran and vowed that Democrats would use funding and investigative authorities in the next Congress to force an end to the war.
He also said that he’d warned Saudi officials during his visit this week that the U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal, as currently constructed, would not survive under a Democratic president and urged them to renegotiate it.
The Connecticut senator told reporters on Thursday that Democrats next year should not appropriate funding for the Department of Defense or pass a National Defense Authorization Act without specific requirements to end the war.
He said Democrats will also conduct investigations of the administration and suggested that Democrats might break norms in the Senate requiring bipartisan agreement to schedule hearings and meetings in order to pursue investigations of “this mind-blowing corruption in our foreign policy.”
Murphy has said he was blocked from visiting military installations or receiving briefings from military leaders while in the region, which he described as unprecedented; he said that had not even occurred in Iraq and Afghanistan during the height of those conflicts while U.S. bases were under attack.
Murphy said he plans to draft legislation, and would be interested in using the appropriations and authorization process next year, to include language specifically requiring the Department of Defense to allow members of Congress to access military bases overseas.
Murphy said he saw “extensive damage” to the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh caused by Iranian drone strikes, and argued that the war should lead the U.S. to reassess and reduce its presence in the Middle East going forward.
“This is a moment for the United States to reconsider its footprint in the region,” Murphy said, calling U.S. bases “sitting ducks for the Iranians” that are “not protecting us” because the U.S. had to draw back from them as soon as the war with Iran began.
He said the U.S. may need to maintain some presence at its current bases, also noting Qatar’s strong desire to maintain al-Udeid, the largest U.S. air base in the region, but said it’s unclear whether the U.S. should rebuild its bases to the extent that they existed prior to the war.
In Riyadh, Murphy said he’d warned Saudi leaders that the recent nuclear deal, which would open the door to enrichment inside Saudi Arabia, may not last beyond the end of the Trump administration without the so-called “Gold Standard” provisions preventing enrichment and reprocessing of uranium and allowing at-will inspections of any site by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Murphy himself has been seen as a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2028.
“There is a risk that this could lead to the full nuclearization of the Middle East,” Murphy said. “The Emiratis will clearly come back and want the additional protocols dropped [from their agreement with the U.S.]. The Qataris and others are likely going to try to rush to the precipice of nuclear weapons power, and of course it is likely to be escalative, causing the Iranians to be less willing to do a nuclear deal with us.”
He said he told Saudi officials he might not even support the nuclear deal with those enhanced provisions, but that it would be more likely that the next Democratic president would uphold the deal if it meets those standards. He said Saudi Arabia’s objections to the enhanced inspection protocols “made no sense to me.”
He said that the visit to the region had shown him “how this war [in Iran] is spiraling downward very quickly” and that Saudi Arabia has the posture of a “country at war” as it resumes operations against the Houthis in Yemen alongside the Yemeni government.
He said that renewed conflict in Yemen will lead to the deaths and starvation of thousands and argued that Saudi Arabia should not be involved in the “Yemeni civil war” — despite repeated Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia — and that the U.S. should stay out of the conflict as well.
Murphy acknowledged that the current phase of the war is “different” than the way the conflict was fought in the late 2010s, to significant criticism from Murphy and other U.S. lawmakers at the time. He argued that Saudi Arabia’s operations against the Houthis would not have restarted without the Iran war.
“It is true that this is now just one theater, and the Saudis, of course, have a right to try to protect themselves,” Murphy said. “In their mind, the only way to protect themselves is to run a ground operation inside Yemen.”
But he said he does not think that Saudi Arabia has a “clear set of objectives” in the conflict and instead plans to “push as far as they can,” and accused the Trump administration of entering the U.S. into the war by providing military advisors and aerial refueling to Saudi Arabia.
He warned that the war might provide an opportunity for al-Qaida to reform in the Arabian peninsula and that he believes congressional action will be necessary to prevent U.S. involvement in the war.
Murphy said he’d spoken to both Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani about “Trump’s foreign policy corruption.”
“I told the Qataris that no matter how much pressure they got from Donald Trump to gift that plane, they should have said no,” Murphy said. Public reporting has not indicated that Qatar was pressured to gift the jumbo jet now serving as Air Force One. “Knowing that this was a corrupt deal, the Qataris should have said no.”
He said that he also told MBS that his and Saudi Arabia’s investments in Jared Kushner’s private equity fund and his invitations to Trump and business affiliates to partner on projects in Saudi Arabia “was an enormous problem for the U.S.-Saudi relationship in the long run.”
“Both leaders told me that they believed this to be good business, and they claimed, of course, that they were doing nothing illegal on their end of the deal,” Murphy continued.
He said he saw a “legitimate social and cultural transformation happening in Saudi Arabia” but also said he spent a significant portion of his meeting with MBS pressing him over issues of free expression in the kingdom, which Murphy characterized as having backslid dramatically in the last decade.
“There is no room to dissent from the kingdom’s policies, and that’s unacceptable,” Murphy said. “MBS told me when I pressed him on this that he needed to eliminate the ability for political speech in order to get his social reforms done. … It seems to me just an excuse, a cover for what is a political campaign of repression designed to keep himself in power.”
He said that he had serious concerns about meeting with MBS at all, “given my criticism and given the legitimacy that sometimes comes with meetings with leaders in the United States,” but said that he’s concerned that Saudi leadership is “hearing only one view from the United States” and needs to hear more from Democrats about corruption concerns and political dissent.
Murphy also said, from his conversation with a Qatari official involved in negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, that negotiations over ending the war are far from complete, but would likely require the U.S. to give billions in sanctions relief and frozen funding in return for “relatively small commitments” from Iran on its nuclear program.
Murphy called Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), the administration’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, “a joke” who will cause more trouble in the U.S.-Saudi relationship.
Plus, Israel debuts at Morocco airshow
Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images
US President Donald Trump speaks about the conflict in Iran in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on April 6, 2026, in Washington, DC.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post today that the U.S. is having “productive discussions” with Iran and that he “want[s] to make it clear” that Washington will not attack Iran before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, after reports indicated the president was considering such a move…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani today shrugged off the protest — which featured jeers of “traitor” and chants of “long live Hamas” — that sought to drown out an event he attended last night memorializing the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports.
“I was proud to attend last night’s vigil, as I did last year, to listen to testimonies from family members of those who were killed on Oct. 7, and those who’ve been killed in the three years since, and all of whom united in a vision for peace and an end to the genocide in Gaza,” Mamdani told reporters. “As for those protesting me, I am the mayor of New York City, and this is what I signed up for”…
A planned trip to Reggio Emilia, Italy, for some 100 Jewish early childhood educators from the U.S. and Israel was canceled after participants were required to sign a statement condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The educators were meant to study the Reggio Emilia Approach to early childhood education, a method long embraced by Jewish preschools. But ahead of the trip, participants were asked to sign a statement declaring, “I distance myself from the occupation of Gaza and the violation of children’s and human beings’ rights in the occupied territories as well as in every places [sic] in the world,” according to a screenshot obtained by JI’s Haley Cohen…
An ad set to air during the Michigan Senate debate tonight, paid for by a pro-Mike Rogers super PAC, features a mother of a student at Temple Israel who said she identified as a lifelong Democrat but will be voting for Rogers due to remarks by Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed seeming to justify the attack on the synagogue earlier this year…
British counterterrorism police arrested two Latvian men today after they were found inside RAF Molesworth, an air base used by the U.S. military and NATO for intelligence operations. The men were detained on suspicion of entering a prohibited place for a purpose prejudicial to the U.K.; police said there is no evidence at this stage linking the incident to the suspected Iran-related plot at RAF Fairford…
The Israeli Defense Ministry opened a national pavilion and led a delegation of defense firms — including Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael — at the Marrakech Airshow in Morocco this week, marking Israel’s first official participation in a Moroccan defense exhibition since signing the Abraham Accords…
The first Iron Dome Tamir interceptor fully produced and assembled in the United States was delivered to the Israeli Defense Ministry at a ceremony yesterday in East Camden, Ark., attended by Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The Raytheon-Rafael facility is the first site outside of Israel to manufacture complete Tamir interceptors, part of the U.S.-Israel missile-defense cooperation program…
Several speakers at the right-wing National Conservatism Conference in Jerusalem this week berated Jews for speaking out against antisemitism, accused Israel of drawing the U.S. into wars and mocked evangelical Christian beliefs about Israel, JI’s Lahav Harkov reports.
Amanda Milius, a conservative documentarian, portrayed those accusing others of antisemitism as being “in a fit of hysteria” and said that doing so is “at risk of becoming [Black Lives Matter] to the younger American right. They are correctly sick of being called racists”…
Trump clarified that his recent comments about Iran bombing Los Angeles and San Diego were not invitations for Tehran to do so, writing on Truth Social that he only meant to make a comparison between the “small price to pay” of increased gasoline prices amid the Iran war and the regime potentially bombing major U.S. cities…
⏩ 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 for an interview with Nechumi Yaffe, the first woman to run for Knesset on a Haredi party ticket, who spoke with JI’s Lahav Harkov about her new party’s push to transform ultra-Orthodox society — from conscription and the workforce to secular education — all while refusing to call it “change.”
Saturday will mark one year since President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan took effect. While the truce halted full-scale fighting and secured the release of the remaining hostages, the plan’s broader goals remain stalled: reconstruction of the enclave has made little progress, the International Stabilization Force has yet to deploy and Hamas is not yet disarmed.
Vice President JD Vance will make a campaign stop in Ohio tomorrow to boost Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) in his bid to keep his seat against former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH). Trump may make a stop in Alabama, pending a possible hurricane.
We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that U.S. policy in the Middle East ‘must change dramatically’ to ensure long-term peace
Plus, Mamdani misses the mark on Oct. 7
Screenshot
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed appear on the "“For the Sake of the Argument with Lori Goldman” podcast.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump said he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today to wish him and the Israeli people well on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks. Trump called the attacks “a horrible tragedy” and said “the other side is paying a very big price for what they did on Oct. 7”…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani observed the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks with a statement that opened with a denunciation of Hamas and the “horrific war crimes” it committed that day, but spent most of its length excoriating the Israeli response — drawing fierce criticism from mainstream Jewish organizations, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports.
“Many New Yorkers are reckoning with this unbearable grief, and we mourn alongside them — all while knowing that our tax dollars fund these war crimes,” Mamdani’s statement said. “Three years later, we must refuse to accept a world in which occupation and apartheid continue, where war crimes are met with impunity, and our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment.”
UJA-Federation of New York accused Mamdani of choosing “to respond to the grief of Jewish New Yorkers by advancing false and inflammatory attacks against Israel — not only inappropriately shifting the focus away from Hamas’s cruelty, but also placing Jewish New Yorkers at risk”…
Metropolitan Police in the U.K. arrested 11 individuals today at anti-Israel marches, including five at a “spontaneous protest” outside the Camden headquarters of the Board of Deputies — the representative body of British Jews — for “inciting racial hatred, involving allegedly shouting or chanting slogans calling for intifada,” according to a police statement…
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot visited Hostages Square in Tel Aviv and Kibbutz Be’eri today, saying in a statement that France “will never forget” the victims of the Oct. 7 attacks — “Nothing will erase their faces or their names,” he added. A French official told The Times of Israel that Barrot has no plans to meet with Israeli officials during his visit, as Jerusalem and Paris continue to be at odds over issues including settlements in the West Bank and the war in Gaza…
The White House has asked the Pentagon to prepare potential options for strikes in Iran to be executed before the midterm elections, The Atlantic reports, as the president considers avenues to signal strength before voters head to the polls…
Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed recently called far-left influencer Hasan Piker to warn him that his extreme rhetoric was costing the candidate votes and asking him to stop, CNN reports…
In a lengthy profile on El-Sayed, CNN revealed that Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel avoided attending religious services for the High Holy Days after she endorsed El-Sayed, knowing her position was controversial among the Jewish community. Speaking to the outlet, she credited El-Sayed with largely having stopped attacking AIPAC in his public statements, which she said she asked him to do.
Lansing, Mich., Mayor Andy Schor, a Jewish Democrat, also told CNN that he won’t endorse El-Sayed without having spoken to him, and his campaign has not yet made contact. El-Sayed also seems aware of his shortcomings: “I’m not the Democrat the Democrats want, but I am the Democrat that Democrats have,” he told the outlet…
As of this afternoon, El-Sayed still had not issued a public statement about the Oct. 7 anniversary, unlike many other candidates and elected officials across the country…
Meanwhile, the Republican Jewish Coalition announced today a $2 million ad campaign targeting Jewish voters in Michigan, highlighting Jewish Democrats who refuse to support El-Sayed, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
Ads from the group call out El-Sayed’s response to the terrorist attack earlier this year on Temple Israel, featuring several self-described lifelong Democrats saying they will not vote for El-Sayed, including a woman who says in the ad that her grandson attended preschool at the synagogue…
New YouGov polls of key midterm Senate elections found Democrats ahead in Kansas, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio as well as Texas, where state Rep. James Talarico is leading his GOP opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, by six points (50%-44%)…
In an address today at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed Western civilization, drawing a contrast between the Iranian regime, which he cast as a “cult of death” that glorifies martyrdom, and the West’s tradition of loyalty and sacrifice.
Rubio warned that the West has lost its will to fight and its drive to excel, saying that “the ideal of many ideologies in our time has, frankly, become a world of perfect safety, a world devoid of risk or failure” — one in which “we hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre”…
Former Boca Raton, Fla., Mayor Scott Singer, the Republican candidate running against Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) in South Florida, traveled to Qatar in 2024 where he met and was photographed with Qatar’s minister of municipality, Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, during a visit to the Qatar Economic Forum with other mayors from around the U.S., JI’s Marc Rod reports.
Singer and Moskowitz have been battling over which one of them is the stronger and more reliable supporter of Israel, in a district with a substantial Jewish population that could be up for grabs in the midterm election…
The authors of a play about the Oct. 7 attacks are calling for a police investigation after a fire alarm disrupted a showing of the play at Northwestern University yesterday. Alleging that someone intentionally pulled the alarm, playwright Phelim McAleer told Jerusalem News Syndicate, “These people are demonic.” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) similarly called for an investigation into the incident, calling it “unacceptable”…
⏩ 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 for a look at GOP concerns with a provision regarding cooperation with Israel in the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.
El-Sayed and his GOP opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), will participate in a debate tomorrow evening airing on a local Detroit TV station.
Israel is expected to close the British consulate in east Jerusalem tomorrow in retaliation for London placing sanctions on Israeli settlements; reports indicate the U.K. intends to expel dozens of Israeli diplomats if the closure is enacted.
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On the third anniversary of the attacks, and weeks before the first election since, a foiled midair hijacking has revived the question of whether Israel's institutions can protect its citizens
(Jamal Awad/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)
07 October 2026, Israel, Re'im: Mourners place flowers beneath portraits of victims during a memorial at the site of the Nova music festival in Re'im.
This year, three years since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror attacks, Israelis are marking the first anniversary in which no hostages remain in Gaza. Daily life has shifted to a new phase: one in which fewer reservists are being called up, Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square sits quiet on Saturday nights and Israelis tuning into the evening news normally see something other than war — usually election coverage.
The threats, too, have shifted. Just over a month after the return of the body of the last remaining hostage in Gaza in January, Israelis faced six weeks of war with Iran, which shuttered schools and businesses and sent many Israelis scrambling — again — to find a way out of the country, some for the duration of the war and some more permanently.
In that year since, many of the pre-Oct. 7 debates in Israeli society have reemerged: judicial reform, Haredi enlistment, cost of living, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption case and the ongoing strife between religious and secular that plays out in myriad ways.
On the heels of last week’s FlyDubai attempted hijacking and ahead of the first election since Israel’s south was invaded by thousands of terrorists — Israelis face a reckoning. The questions that loomed in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks regarding the security of Israelis and the key role the government plays in that security are again front and center.
The terror attack on a FlyDubai flight bound for Israel, foiled by a miraculous set of events and the bravery of the Indian captain and Israelis on board, serves as a reminder of the threats that Israelis still face — and of the ways in which the institutions designed to protect them failed their societal covenant to do so.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Israelis across the south found themselves vulnerable and defenseless — a particularly jarring feeling for a country that believes itself to be a military superpower in the region. Warnings about potential border threats from both within, and as recently reported, from Arab states in the region, had gone unheeded — in some cases, summarily dismissed by senior military intelligence officers as impossible, only to be proven painfully accurate. Some of the soldiers previously stationed in the Gaza border region had been reassigned to the West Bank to protect settlers during the holiday season.
And in the days and weeks after, it was not the government, but ordinary people, who stepped up. The communications professionals who gathered hostage families into a more coordinated voice. The restaurants that turned into assembly lines, packing meals for displaced Israelis. The therapists who provided grief counseling to survivors. The Jewish federations that provided emergency grants to displaced communities. The Diaspora Jews who paid for plane tickets so Israeli reservists could fly home and join their units. The Zaka volunteers, forensic teams and medical professionals, who took on the grimmest tasks: collecting, identifying, cataloguing and burying the remains of the nearly 1,200 people killed that day.
Not all of these civilian efforts were necessarily effective — amateurs can be expected to make amateurish mistakes — but at a time when survivors and victims were not receiving the governmental help they desperately needed, ordinary people stepped in to fill that void.
Today, a week after the FlyDubai attack, details are emerging about the security lapses — Emirati, Omani and Israeli — that led a co-pilot who had been banned from flying by a previous employer over his extremist, Islamist beliefs to be assigned to a flight to Israel.
As more information is revealed about last week’s midair melee, a similar feeling is emerging: that the government institutions meant to protect citizens fell short, forcing ordinary folks — an Indian captain, a dentist, a plumber with a penchant for watching air-disaster reality TV — to act in extraordinary ways to avert disaster.
Oman Air officials failed to elevate their concerns about Hamam al-Hammami, who was assigned to a desk job and forced to take a reeducation program. FlyDubai appeared not to have contacted Oman, though it did conduct a background check. He was hired by the low-budget airline earlier this year.
Last week, as is standard practice, Emirati officials gave the flight’s manifest to Israeli authorities, whose job is, ostensibly, to make sure that those flying to the Jewish state do not intend to cause harm to the people there, or on board. But Israel’s Tax Authority, which has since 2023 received the lists and put them in a database, did not share the information with the Ministry of Transportation, under whose purview FlyDubai and other foreign carriers rest. The Ministry of Transportation, for its part, says that it did not think it had the ability or authority to vet foreign flight crews.
Netanyahu tasked the National Security Council with appointing an investigator to probe the incident, a move that garnered criticism from former National Security Advisor Eyal Hulata, who said blame for the incident lay in part with the NSC itself, which had in 2024 and 2025 issued warnings that the government had not been adequately vetting the manifests of foreign airlines.
Hulata said that Netanyahu has “the same outlook” on the FlyDubai incident as he did on the Oct. 7 attacks, for which no state commission of inquiry has been established. Netanyahu’s refusal to authorize an official inquest into the Oct. 7 attacks has been a frequent criticism made by, among others, survivors of the attacks, relatives of those killed and Netanyahu’s political opponents.
The most recent annual Democracy Index from the Israel Democracy Institute, released in December 2025, found that the Israeli government, the Knesset and the country’s political parties had the lowest levels of trust among Israeli respondents, falling below the Israeli president, Israel Police and even the media.
Can the Israeli institutions entrusted with protecting the Israeli people actually do so? The FlyDubai attack has resurfaced that question as Israelis prepare to choose their first new government since Oct. 7.
When Israelis head to the polls in 20 days, many will ask themselves not just, “Am I better off now than I was four years ago?” but, “Am I safer now than I was four years ago?” It’s a question that is less about Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, the Houthis and the many other threats facing Israelis and Jews around the world, and more about the government’s ability to act as a protector. Oct. 7 and the FlyDubai attack prompted ordinary Israelis to fill the voids left by government failure. When voters head to the polls later this month, one question they will have to answer is whether they believe they should still have to.
Analysts say Israel's enemies are weakened, but warn of unresolved wars, strained ties with Arab neighbors, growing international isolation and a failure to learn the lessons of Oct. 7
MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images
Israeli soldiers clean the gun of a tank at a position near Israel's border with the Gaza Srip on May 4, 2025.
On the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror attacks on Israel, the Jewish state’s borders are more secure, but there are still dangers looming and lessons to be learned, according to military and national security analysts.
Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs, told Jewish Insider on Tuesday that Israel “is in a better place in terms of its security.”
“Kinetically, militarily, in counterterrorism and on the battlefield, we are in a much better place,” he said. “We have defensible borders. That’s an important point. It’s not only in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], but we have them 10 kilometers deep into Lebanon, security zones in [Syria] up to 20 kilometers, and some strategic depth in Gaza. We have multi-border strategic depth that we need to survive, and a consensus that we’re not going anywhere.”
“We are safer and more secure than we were three years ago,” said Yaakov Katz, author of While Israel Slept: How Hamas Surprised the Most Powerful Military in the Middle East. “Iran is significantly weaker, and its nuclear program is significantly weaker. Hezbollah is a fraction of what it was and Hamas is a fraction of what it was.”
The wars of the last three years “created amazing opportunities on all fronts,” Katz said. “We can create new alignments, agreements and security arrangements like never before. But that requires political will and courage. … It could be that this will go to waste.”
Katz expressed concern that there has been “no resolution” to any of the conflicts that emerged since Oct. 7.
Israel’s enemies “are weaker today, but they will rebuild, like they always do,” he said, “and the threat will return and emerge stronger and bigger if there isn’t some kind of end strategy.”
Diker argued that “the shock and awe of the intelligence collapse on Oct. 7 has shaken Israel’s political, military, intelligence and security echelons to their core. It intuitively created a greater sense of modesty and self-criticism about the ‘conceptzia,’” the Hebrew term for groupthink in the defense establishment ahead of the attacks.
One of the misconceptions that allowed the Oct. 7 attacks to take place, Diker said, was an overreliance on technology, for which Israel’s current, multi-front military presence is correcting.
“We can withdraw to international lines once [Iranian] terror proxies are disarmed, but … we are the only ones who can disarm them. They will never do it on their own and no one else will do it. The thought that we didn’t need to have a division or many brigades of soldiers in Gaza was false,” he added.
Diker said that Israel’s concept of national security relied in recent decades on deterrence, early warning, decisive victory and defense, but that since Oct. 7, it has added a new pillar: prevention.
“We are crouched and ready to pounce and destroy any sign of enemy movement, as opposed to waiting to respond to enemy fire or malign action. I think that prevention pillar is evident in Israel’s massive use of force against Tehran, its courage in initiating very daring counterterrorism strategies, like the beeper strategy [against Hezbollah], which was very high-risk and high-value,” he said.
Katz, however, said that the government has not learned some of the important lessons of Oct. 7.
“The refusal to properly investigate and study what went wrong puts us in a bad position, because we can repeat these mistakes,” he said. “Example in point, the FlyDubai [near-hijacking] had similar contours to how [the Oct. 7 attacks] happened. There was a belief that everything will be OK, and some other guy is in charge. In the end, no one was in charge and something that could have been prevented was not.”
Ksenia Svetlova, a former Knesset member and executive director of the Regional Organization for Peace, Economics and Security, said that “tactically, [Israel is] in a better situation, because we mostly took care of Hamas and Hezbollah. They’re not at the gates anymore.”
However, she warned that Israel’s strategic position has declined because of regional weaknesses.
“Oct. 7 and the Iran war showed [Arab allies’] weaknesses,” she said. “The Gulf states couldn’t defend themselves [against Iran] and America is not rushing to defend them. The only one defending itself and them is Israel, and there are some things the Emiratis are doing. Overall, we see the Arab Middle East’s weakness, and two non-Arab countries are setting the tone, Iran and Turkey. And our alliances are with the Arab states, not Iran and Turkey.”
Those countries saw how Gulf states behaved in the last year, and are factoring that in. Svetlova said, “We’re in a worse situation because they were exposed.”
At the same time, she noted that no Arab state with which Israel has diplomatic relations cut off those relations or closed its embassy in Israel, which some did in past conflicts.
“There are deep interests that these relationships are based on, and they are the best and only way to build the relations,” Svetlova said. “Hamas and Islamic fundamentalist extremists are a shared enemy. … We have a lot to offer and [Arab allies] have a lot to offer.”
However, she warned against taking those relationships for granted.
“We have the strongest, broadest and most significant relations with the UAE,” Svetlova said, but pointed out that Abu Dhabi did not celebrate the anniversary of the Abraham Accords this year. “It’s not because they don’t value the accords … but everything this government does in the West Bank creates tensions.”
Svetlova noted that Israel’s consistently peaceful borders in the past three years were the ones with Egypt and Jordan, countries with which Israel has peace agreements.
But those countries were destabilized by the war, she said, pointing to weekly demonstrations in Jordan for nearly two years. She said that Jerusalem’s handling of the war in Gaza, such as its calls for residents of Gaza to be able to emigrate via Egypt, harmed the relationship.
“It will take years to rehabilitate relations with our neighbors,” Svetlova said. “We could have taken advantage of the opportunity to bring those around us closer. Instead, we are eating away at the security of our friends, countries like Jordan that shot down Iranian missiles and cooperate with the U.S., and weakening our own security.”
Israel’s international standing has shifted dramatically in the West, as well.
“There’s no question that three years after Oct. 7, Israel finds itself more isolated than before,” Katz said. “Any of the sympathy or solidarity that it benefited from and enjoyed in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack has long disappeared.”
Katz said Israel may face unprecedented challenges as a result, in terms of economic sanctions, isolation, resolutions in international institutions and charges in international courts.
“This is a whole new front that Israel today is currently completely unprepared for. If, for example, European countries as well as the United States start to sanction banks, financial institutions and construction companies, this could start to impact every person who lives in Israel,” he added.
Diker warned that Israel must do more to counter nonmilitary attacks, lest they further damage Israel’s national security.
“The major challenge now is fighting the weaponization of genocide against our people. That hasn’t been solved [and] that is really hurting us,” he said. “The notion that Israel is an apartheid genocidal state means something far-reaching and very dangerous … [that] anybody who is amenable to Israel or supports Israel is all of a sudden a supporter of genocide, which means the enemies of Israel go after [them].”
Diker said that while there is a widespread public consensus that there is a major nonmilitary element to the war — “economic, political, social, academic and in the media, not just public diplomacy or PR problems” — the government has not taken that aspect seriously enough.
“We are in a better situation because we understand, and I think we are trying to convince our allies, that this is part and parcel of an Islamic war on the West,” he said. “This is such an important part of our national security.”
However, he added, “Israel has yet to publicly declare that the non-military multidimensional Iranian, Russian, Chinese, Turkish, Qatari ideological warfare and political warfare is officially a national security threat. Until that happens, the budget and prioritization that Israel must assign to this war won’t be there. That’s why we keep getting it wrong.”
Diker suggested that Israel adopt hybrid warfare, a phrase often used to refer to Russian influence campaigns.
“All versions of nonmilitary warfare have to be embraced, collected and mobilized against our enemies,” Diker said.
With an acrimonious election set for the end of the month, politicians have been placing blame on each other, the security establishment and beyond for the failures of Oct. 7, but no state commission of inquiry has been formed to investigate.
“The same leaders responsible for the greatest failure are still in their position,” Katz lamented. “There’s no culture of accountability in Israel. You can say it doesn’t make a difference, but I think it does.”
Katz noted that the societal and political issues that divided Israel before Oct. 7 have not been resolved, and that poses an additional danger to Israel.
“Oct. 7 was the clearest example that when you have no social cohesion, you are going to pay a real price on a national security level,” he said. “Oct. 7 happened after five elections in 3.5 years, and a year of judicial reform that ripped the country apart. … All those fissures in society, all those issues remain and have gotten even bigger: Haredi [conscription in the IDF], judicial reform, ‘yes Bibi,’ ‘no Bibi,’ left, right, the Palestinian question. Everything is still there.”
Plus, Smotrich urges Israeli self-reliance
Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images
Anti-Israel demonstrators protest against 'Great Israel Real Estate' event at the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan on Tuesday, May 05, 2026, in New York City.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Speaking at the National Conservatism Conference in Jerusalem today, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that Israel “can and must bear a growing responsibility for its own security, develop military and economic independence and stand up for its own interests,” and that Jerusalem “respect[s] the right and the duty of the United States to put the American people at the top of its policy priorities”…
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said similarly at the conference that, “if Americans put America first, like Israelis put Israel first … we can stand up to this new threat and, bound firmly together, toss red-green leftism into the ash heap of history”…
Roberts told The New Yorker in an exposé on the right-wing think tank released yesterday that he now believes far-right commentator Tucker Carlson is “exacerbating antisemitism in America,” after having previously released a video defending Carlson amid backlash over his friendly interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes — a move that fractured the organization…
The Telegraph reports that the Green Party member who proposed the “Zionism is racism” motion recently adopted at the party’s conference is a self-described close friend of an al-Qaida terrorist jailed for a foiled 2011 plot to bomb travelers arriving at Heathrow from Israel.
Lubna Speitan had offered to testify in defense of Minh Quang Pham — now serving a 44-year sentence for the plot — and confirmed to the outlet that the two remain friends, suggesting he had been wrongly “targeted” by “the system”…
Meanwhile, the European Green Party said the British Green Party’s “Zionism is racism” policy runs counter to its support for a two-state solution and that it would immediately seek clarification from the British party’s leadership. German Greens co-leader Felix Banaszak separately called the policy “intolerable and unacceptable”…
British counterterrorism police arrested a seventh suspect today in connection with the alleged plot targeting the U.S.-run RAF Fairford air base, detaining a 22-year-old British man in London on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. The other six suspects have been released on bail as the investigation continues…
The Cook Political Report changed its ratings of three key Senate races further in favor of Democrats: Kansas switched from “Lean Republican” to “Toss Up,” New Hampshire changed from “Toss Up” to “Lean Democratic” and North Carolina shifted from “Lean Democratic” to “Likely Democratic.” The three races will be critical to deciding which party takes control of the upper chamber…
Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore would not commit to serving out a full second term if reelected in November, amid speculation that he plans to run for president in 2028: Asked at a gubernatorial debate today if he would serve the entirety of his next term, Moore said, “I would not be running for reelection if I was not committed to the people of Maryland,” and declined to comment further when pressed for a yes or no answer…
Member of Knesset Zeev Elkin met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky today as part of an Israeli delegation to Ukraine marking the 85th anniversary of the widespread extermination of Jews by the Nazis at Babyn Yar. Zelensky said the two discussed Iran’s cooperation with Russia as well as regional issues, and stated, “Strong relations between Ukraine and Israel could certainly contribute to our shared security”…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye on Jewish Insider for a special edition of the Daily Kickoffhighlighting stories from former hostages, college students and the security sector marking the third anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.
Others around the world will be marking the anniversary by protesting against the Jewish state, including on several college campuses and at New York City Hall, where anti-Israel groups including PAL-Awda, Within Our Lifetime and the youth chapter of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America are promoting a rally with a flyer that features the phrase, “Glory to the martyrs, victory to the resistance.”
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch vowed today at a press conference alongside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani that “Jewish institutions will not be left to protect themselves without a strong partner in the NYPD” amid the demonstrations.
Elsewhere in New York, Jaser AbuMousa, a father from Gaza who lost several family members to Israeli airstrikes during the Israel-Hamas war, and Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of former Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, will sit in conversation at the 92nd Street Y.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and her Democratic challenger Troy Jackson will face off tonight in their first debate, one of four to be held in the next two weeks, after Jackson was selected to replace Graham Platner as the state’s Democratic Senate nominee in July.
The National Conservatism Conference continues tomorrow in Jerusalem with speakers including former Polish President Andrzej Duda; Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli; former Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben-Shabbat; and Sebastian Gorka, senior director for counterterrorism at the U.S. National Security Council.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore will speak at an event tomorrow hosted by the Jewish Federation of Annapolis & the Chesapeake about the third anniversary of Oct. 7 and his commitment to combating antisemitism. The event will also feature a screening of the documentary “Torn: The Israel-Palestine Poster War on NYC Streets,” about the clashes in New York City as pro- and anti-Israel activists put up and tore down the “kidnapped” posters raising awareness about those taken hostage by Hamas.
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GAZA GRIFT?
The ringleader of the alleged conspiracy is Gaza-based Hamas official Saleem Alzaq, a member of Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades and one of its propaganda offices
IN THE CROSSHAIRS
The Jewish Federation of Greater Portland urged the University of Oregon to take action after antisemitic flyers called for ‘Hillel off campus’
Plus, Turkey and Pakistan send troops to Saudi Arabia
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on March 18, 2026 in Washington.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) argued during her first joint campaign appearance with Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed that the Jewish vote is not a monolith and that some Jewish voters are prioritizing issues other than Israel and antisemitism in the state’s upcoming competitive Senate race, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
“There’s no such thing as the Jewish voters, just like there’s no such thing as the Muslim voters or the Black voters. People have their own views and the things that they prioritize are going to drive their vote,” she said during a joint appearance on MS NOW, after participating in a town hall with El-Sayed over the weekend. “But I think frankly … people want to see a Jewish woman and a Muslim man being able to get along, debate, push and pull each other, and move the state forward”…
Appearing on Fox News this afternoon, El-Sayed declined to answer directly when asked if he supports U.S. terror designations for Muslim Brotherhood chapters in Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan. “I will support a terrorist designation for any organization that is engaged in or committed to political violence,” he said.
He also praised the Israelis who thwarted the attack on the FlyDubai flight last week, calling terrorism “awful and terrible”…
Also lending a hand to El-Sayed on the campaign trail is former President Barack Obama, who is set to campaign with the Senate candidate, as well as Michigan Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson, in Detroit on Oct. 24…
Turkey and Pakistan will deploy troops to Saudi Arabia, the three countries said in a joint statement today, as the Kingdom continues to battle the Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen. The activation of the countries’ trilateral mutual defense pact “demonstrates the credibility of the commitment to collective defense” and “strengthens the effectiveness of deterrence,” the statement said…
Speaking today at a memorial in Jerusalem for those killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “settle accounts” with the remaining “human beasts” who planned and carried out the attacks; Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement that 4,000 of the terrorists who entered Israel on Oct. 7 have already been killed, while 2,000 remain at large…
Asked if he thinks Iran was responsible for the attack on FlyDubai FZ1073, President Donald Trump told reporters today, “I personally do,” even as investigators have not officially determined Iranian involvement…
Trump also said that the U.S. moved its B-1 bombers out of the RAF Fairford air base in the U.K. due to “some threats, and rather than tempting the enemy, we’ll capture the enemy and beat the enemy.” Vice President JD Vance said similarly today that the planes were moved “out of an abundance of caution, trying to protect our guys” from an unspecified threat from Iran…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke with Netanyahu while en route to Iceland today, according to a State Department spokesperson…
British National Security Advisor Jonathan Powell reportedly visited Israel last week in an effort to prevent the closure of the British consulate in east Jerusalem; Israel ordered the consulate closed in response to British sanctions on West Bank settlements, and an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesperson said it will shut Thursday as planned…
A Kuwaiti national who attempted to attack the Israeli Embassy in London last year was sentenced today to life in prison with a minimum term of 20 years after being convicted of preparing a terrorist act. Abdullah Sabah Albadri, 34, was arrested outside the embassy armed with two knives and carrying a note indicating he was prepared to die as a “martyr”…
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) is continuing his travels in the Middle East in Saudi Arabia, where he met today with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, of whom he’s been a vocal critic. In a video update, Murphy said he pressed MBS about Gulf investments with the Trump family and freedom of political speech and discussed the Iran war and Palestinian statehood.
Murphy also visited the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, which was struck by Iranian drones early in the Iran war. He claimed, based on the damage, that the strikes would have caused a “mass casualty event” if they had occurred while the building was occupied…
Ambassador Yehuda Kaploun, the State Department’s antisemitism envoy, said at a press conference today that countries including the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Guatemala, Paraguay, Costa Rica and Chile are considering adopting or have already decided to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism, as several Latin American countries have recently shifted more favorably towards Israel and prioritized combating antisemitism…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
Keep an eye on Jewish Insider for a dispatch from the Israeli Embassy in Washington’s Oct. 7 memorial event taking place this evening.
The National Conservatism conference kicks off tomorrow in Jerusalem with speakers including Israeli scholar Yoram Hazony; Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts; writer Rod Dreher; Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich; and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.
National security veteran Brett McGurk’s new book, Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages, about his experience negotiating for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas during the Biden administration, will hit bookshelves tomorrow.
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PASTOR’S POSITION
Adam Hamilton called Israel’s war in Gaza ‘irresponsible and unjust’ but said he does not believe Israel’s intent ‘is to wipe out a group of people’
HATE MAIL
Far-right Maryland Republican Dan Cox’s son and ‘bodyguard’ sent an antisemitic rant to a consultant
Murphy, Qatar’s ‘reliable ally’ in the Senate, huddles with emir and chief Qatari negotiator in Doha
The Connecticut Democrat, who has called Qatar the ‘best partner’ in the Gulf, was lauded by a top Qatari diplomat for ‘consistently supporting closer U.S.-Qatar ties’
Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Fair Share America
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) speaks at the U.S. Capitol on April 10, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), one of the most vocal opponents of the war with Iran, met with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and other senior officials in Doha over the weekend, days after Doha-brokered talks between the U.S. and Iran again hit an impasse.
After arriving in Doha on Saturday, Murphy said he was in the region “to view war damage, talk to our partners about the impact of the war, and meet with those who are working to end the conflict,” and claimed he was the “first Democrat to be in the region since the war began.” (Rep. Josh Gottheimer [D-NJ], who traveled in June to the United Arab Emirates, where he met with top officials, and then to Lebanon last week with Rep. Darin LaHood [R-IL], was the first.)
A readout from Al Thani’s office said that during his meeting with Murphy on Sunday, the two “exchanged views on a number of issues of mutual interest, particularly the developments in the region.”
Hamad Al Muftah, Qatar’s deputy chief of mission in Washington, on Sunday praised Murphy as “an honest and a reliable ally of Qatar, consistently supporting closer U.S.–Qatar ties and greater cooperation on shared strategic interests.”
Murphy also met with Ali Al Thawadi, a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office for Strategic Affairs who has served as a negotiator during talks with Hamas and Iran and holds a position as Doha’s representative to the Gaza Executive Board. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly met with Al Thawadi at the White House last year, shortly after an Israeli attack targeting Hamas officials in Doha, where The Telegraph reported he played a key role in securing an apology from Netanyahu to Qatar’s leadership.
Al Thawadi, who also served as chief of staff to the brother of the Qatari emir, also factored into the U.S. government’s corruption case against former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), facilitating the transfer of Formula 1 tickets to the son of Menendez’s wife.
Israeli media reported last month that Al Thawadi met with Michael Eisenberg, an advisor to Netanyahu and a member of the Gaza Executive Board, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
Al Thawadi also played a key role in Doha’s successful bid to host the 2022 World Cup. Murphy attended the World Cup in 2022 as part of the U.S.’ official delegation, later defending his participation in the trip — which faced criticism due to Qatar’s human rights abuses — by calling Doha an “imperfect partner.”
Of the meeting with Al Thawadi, Murphy said that the Qatari official pushed for continued diplomacy with Iran. Last week, talks between the U.S. and Iran on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly broke down, reportedly prompting the State Department to force the Iranian delegation to the conference to leave the country.
Murphy also met with Qatar Foundation CEO Sheikha Hind Al Thani, saying that the “presence of American universities in Qatar is an important way for the United States to promote U.S. values in the Middle East and create more lasting people-to-people connections.”
The Connecticut Democrat has praised Qatar as the U.S.’ “best partner” in the Gulf, but more recently opposed Doha’s gifting of a luxury jet to President Donald Trump and attempted to block arms sales to the Gulf state. In June, Murphy led an unsuccessful effort to force a vote on a joint resolution of disapproval to block weapons sales to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
In a Facebook post last week, Murphy shared a letter he received from the secretary of the Air Force in response to a July request for details regarding the cost of the Qatari jet to American taxpayers. “Today I got a reply. 100 words. Telling Congress to screw off,” Murphy said. “Can’t wait for a Democratic Senate!”
'Iran’s fundamental choice remains the same: negotiate from a weakening position or continue escalating against a president who has already shown that he is prepared to continue applying pressure,' former Trump administration Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt told JI
ATTA KENARE / AFP via Getty Images
Vessels transit the Hormuz Strait off the coast of Iran's southern port city of Bandar Abbas on September 7, 2026.
U.S. efforts to protect commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have helped revive Persian Gulf oil exports and weaken Iran’s grip on the waterway, experts now acknowledge, but a debate is brewing over how durable those gains are, and whether Washington is willing to sustain the costly naval commitment that underpins them.
Persian Gulf crude exports rebounded to nearly 13 million barrels a day in September, approaching 72% to 80% of pre-war volumes as regional flows head back toward normal levels. According to maritime tracker Kpler, crude oil moving specifically through the Strait of Hormuz climbed to a wartime high average of 7.4 million barrels a day — supplemented by alternative pipeline and ship-to-ship routes — with an average of 17 to 19 tankers securely transiting the waterway daily under U.S. military protection.
U.S. military protection and the absence of confirmed Iranian attacks for nearly a week have helped commercial traffic increase, while Gulf exporters have also relied on ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman and the United Arab Emirates’ Fujairah pipeline, which bypasses the Strait. In addition, Saudi Arabia resumed oil shipments from its Red Sea port of Yanbu after restarting the East-West pipeline, restoring a critical export route that allows the kingdom to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
Analysts said that pressure could potentially increase Tehran’s incentive to ratchet up military tensions. In a video address on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had received “indications” that adversaries would try to attack the country ahead of its upcoming elections, slated for Oct. 27.
Ari Cicurel, associate director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said the recent developments have challenged assumptions about how effectively Iran could use the strait to constrain international commerce.
“I think some in the foreign policy community underestimated the U.S. ability to break Iran’s effective hold over the strait, particularly the logistical capacity to sustain an alternative shipping route and protect commercial traffic,” Cicurel said. “Iran can impose costs on shipping, but the U.S. response has shown that the regime cannot translate those costs into a sustained blockade that preserves the same level of economic leverage as U.S. operations.”
The shift has reshaped Tehran’s relationship with the companies that depend on the waterway, Cicurel said, making it harder for Iran to dictate who can use the strait and on what terms. “The Navy’s blockade and protection of commercial shipping have shifted the cost of disrupting the strait onto Iran, which has lost most of its exports while its Gulf neighbors have increased their oil shipments,” he said. “Shippers now have a route through the strait that does not depend on Tehran’s permission” — eroding Iran’s leverage in negotiations.
But Cicurel said Iran can still attempt to influence decisions by creating enough uncertainty around the safety of the strait to deter companies from using it.
“Even with its leverage diminished, the Iranian regime has repeatedly withstood economic pressure by diverting money from the Iranian people to its military, and it will likely continue to do so to keep funding attacks as its revenue shrinks. Iran will likely keep launching calibrated attacks to extract as much of its remaining leverage as possible and to convince insurers and shipping companies the strait remains unsafe,” Cicurel said.
Jason Greenblatt, former White House Middle East envoy in the first Trump administration, similarly argued that U.S. efforts to reopen the strait were underestimated.
“As is often the case, much of the media, diplomatic community and foreign-policy establishment wrung their hands, predicted disaster, blamed President [Donald] Trump for the war and underestimated him and the enormous military and economic power of the United States,” Greenblatt said. “The conventional wisdom was that Iran’s leverage in the Strait of Hormuz could not be broken. President Trump demonstrated how that leverage can be eroded when Tehran is confronted with American military strength, relentless economic pressure and a president willing to use both.”
Greenblatt cautioned that the conflict is “far from over,” and warned that “complex and dangerous situations like this take time to resolve.”
“I expect Tehran will test the United States again,” he said. “But Iran’s fundamental choice remains the same: negotiate from a weakening position or continue escalating against a president who has already shown that he is prepared to continue applying pressure, regardless of the critics or the political calendar.”
Elliott Abrams, who served as Iran envoy during the first Trump administration and is now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the U.S. Navy’s performance has exceeded some experts’ expectations.
Still, he said, “I do not expect a deal soon, before the U.S. elections, because that would be a gift to Trump — unless Trump is willing to accept terms that greatly advantage Iran, which I also don’t expect right now.”
Garrett Nada, a policy analyst at the Israel Policy Forum, however, asserted there was “little doubt” that the U.S. could effectively regain control of the strait. The harder question, he said, is whether the current approach can be maintained as the financial and operational costs accumulate.
Nada cited a Bloomberg report estimating that the U.S. naval blockade of Iran has costed $32.5 million per day, which he said captures only part of the resources Washington is committing to keeping commercial traffic moving.
“That estimate does not even include the additional operation costs of aerial and maritime drones, ships, manned aircraft, satellites, U.S. personnel and other U.S. assets used to guide and protect commercial traffic,” Nada said. “In the process, U.S. forces have come under Iranian attack, including from small boats, missiles, and drones. Two weeks ago, eight U.S. Marines were injured in a cruise missile attack, for example.”
That same report also outlined how Washington’s naval blockade has drained its global military power, decreasing available resources for deployment elsewhere in the world. Nada said the operation is also imposing costs on the private companies that have resumed using the waterway, creating another question about how long the current system can function.
“Aside from increased wait times for transit and more complicated travel arrangements, shippers have to pay higher crew compensation, charter rates, insurance and reinsurance premiums, and other operating expenses,” he added.
Even with those costs, Nada said the renewed traffic represents a meaningful strategic setback for Tehran because each vessel that successfully passes through the strait reduces Iran’s ability to use the waterway as leverage.
“The combination of sanctions and the blockade may be pushing Iran to try diplomacy with the U.S. again to secure its interests,” he said. “If diplomacy fails, however, Iran will be more likely to resort to military escalation as a way to restore some of its leverage.”
Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, similarly identified the durability of the U.S. commitment as the central unanswered question.
“The question is how long the United States will be willing to maintain the type of commitment necessary to enable oil flows at this level,” Levitt said. “This, even as customers have yet to feel economic relief at home and the price of diesel and other commodities like fertilizer remain sky high.”
Daniel Shapiro, the U.S. ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said the increased oil flows are “significant” but cautioned against viewing them as evidence that the broader economic consequences of the conflict have been resolved.
“The increased flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz is significant. Combined with the blockade of Iranian ports and expanded sanctions, it is putting pressure on the Iranian economy and relieving some of the international economic fallout. But only some. Oil remains over $100 per barrel. Gas averages $4.50 per gallon. Diesel is at $6.50,” Shapiro said.
The recovery in oil traffic also masks continued disruptions elsewhere in the region, Shapiro said, with other commodities still struggling to reach global markets and attacks on alternative supply routes offsetting some of the gains through the strait.
“Few other commodities — natural gas, fertilizer, helium — are getting through the strait. And the Houthis offset some of the Hormuz gain by bombing the Saudi pipeline that was bringing 5 million barrels per day to the market via the Red Sea. Iran also has escalation options it has not activated yet,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro said the restored flows are a “limited tactical” achievement that do not resolve the underlying strategic problem. If the U.S. eventually reduces its presence, he said, Iran could again seek to assert control over the waterway.
“The limited tactical success of restoring some of the pre-war oil flow through the strait has come at enormous, and unsustainable, cost, and masks the lack of a strategy to keep Iran from ultimately reasserting its control over the strait when, inevitably, the U.S. scales down its operations,” Shapiro said. “The larger point is that the struggle for control of the Strait of Hormuz is a massive, costly undertaking made necessary by an ill-advised war. Will the U.S. Navy be called upon to maintain a blockade of Iranian ports and escort oil tankers … forever?”
“It has already put enormous strain on the Navy, pulled assets from elsewhere, and will leave us with delayed maintenance and disrupted deployment rotations for years to come,” he added.
Kristin Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, said alternative routes have been a key part of increased oil flows, but have not restored a fully reliable passageway through the region.
“U.S. and Gulf coordination on alternative routes and shuttle ships have increased the flow of oil and weakened Iran’s leverage in the Strait. But this is a daily battle that comes at some cost,” Diwan said. “The Iranians continue to strike ships involved in the transfer, preventing a consistent and reliable passage. And some products, most importantly diesel fuel and LNG, are more constrained and have few, if any, alternative routes.”
The pressure on Iran’s economy could nevertheless be creating an opening for diplomacy, Diwan said, as Tehran weighs whether to make concessions in exchange for an end to restrictions on its oil exports.
“The Iranians are contemplating compromise to end the ban on their oil exports which indicates that the economic blockade is beginning to bite. Still a ‘mini-deal,’ based on – but less than – the previous MOU agreement, appears to be a long-shot. Internal disagreement within the Iranian establishment and conflicting impulses from President Trump will be hard for Qatari mediators to overcome,” she said.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at JINSA, said the “real underestimation” was on the part of the Trump administration. He noted that while the oil is “flowing again,” Washington should have heeded presumptions that Tehran could potentially close the strait during the conflict.
“The real underestimation was the Trump administration’s failure to anticipate and preempt Iran’s initial efforts to threaten the strait. Extensive U.S. war plans built this exact scenario into their assumptions, but it was discounted,” Ruhe said. “The U.S. military, particularly the Navy, always had the ability to counter Iran’s unconventional maritime threats, but doing so became a lot harder once Iran dropped its first mines in the water and scared off commercial shipping with its opening drone strikes. Only recently have those mines, radars and other Iranian military assets been degraded, enabling the tough work of naval escorting to begin belatedly.”
Ruhe explained that while the flow of oil presents several diplomatic and economic benefits for the U.S. in its confrontation with Iran, he warned that Tehran’s leverage in talks may not shift.
“There are many diplomatic, economic, and operational benefits to getting oil flowing again. Yet it’s hard to imagine how any of this meaningfully changes Tehran’s negotiating posture,” Ruhe said. “Tellingly, Iran’s recent seven-day plan offered no concessions compared to the June MOU, when traffic through Hormuz was much lower. For all the military and economic pounding it has taken, the regime has been predictably stubborn in resisting Trump’s demands.”
“If the recent upsurge in Hormuz traffic proves sustainable, and if the U.S naval blockade on Iran remains effective, the regime could see diminishing downside in restarting attacks upstream from Hormuz, targeting the Arabian Gulf, commercial vessels, and energy sites with mines, drones, and missiles,” Ruhe continued. “Those strikes proved incredibly successful early in the war, and Iran currently has no reason to believe that’s no longer the case.”
Plus, Bibi b’Abu Dhabi
Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images
Newly appointed U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband departs Downing Street on July 20, 2026 in London, England.
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the race to succeed António Guterres as secretary-general of the United Nations, report on ties between a senior Mamdani administration official and an influence network tied to China-allied tech mogul Neville “Roy” Singham, and cover Sunkist’s decision to bring back its discontinued candy gems that for decades have been a staple at Jewish celebrations. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Gov. Gavin Newsom, Noa Argamani and Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod.
Today’s Agenda
The U.S. and Iran are expected to engage in talks this week, President Donald Trump said on Sunday after rejecting a proposal from Tehran for a seven-day plan to end the war. “They want to make a deal, but it is not the deal that I want to make. It is what we would have maybe agreed to a year ago. They overplayed their hand,” Trump told Axios.
Earlier in the day, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who traveled to the U.S. for the U.N. General Assembly and is expected to stay in the U.S. through the middle of the week, said Tehran is both “ready for diplomacy” and prepared to “stand firm in the face of any aggression.”
The comments from both Trump and Araghchi come as Tehran faces increasing pressure from mediators to make nuclear concessions to restart talks.
Trump is slated to give an address today at 2 p.m., with the subject not yet public.
In Washington, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) are expected to force a vote this week on legislation that would require the State Department present a report to Congress on West Bank violence by settlers and Israeli forces, including any deaths or detentions of Americans. Read more about the effort here.
One Thing To Know
analysis
By Melissa Weiss
Two security incidents that transpired in the U.K. over the weekend are presenting Prime Minister Andy Burnham with some of his new government’s first major tests since taking power over the summer: how to address domestic counterterror threats and mounting issues related to asylum seekers, while also responding to concerns by British Jews over their safety and security amid growing tensions between London and Jerusalem.
On Sunday, U.K. officials arrested several individuals near a military base in Gloucestershire used by the U.S. for attacks against Iran. A police statement released about the incident said that an ordnance disposal team had been dispatched to the area and that properties in the vicinity had been evacuated.
The incident occurred hours after a report in the U.K.’s Times that a former bodyguard for Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader who was killed by Israel in 2024, was granted asylum — and later citizenship — in the U.K., from which he plotted attacks across Europe. The man, identified as “Mr. X” due to a British court order protecting his anonymity, was arrested last year in connection with a plot to attack Jewish targets in Germany and Austria on the second anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
The Big Reads
talk of turtle bay
The race to succeed U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is still wide open, with seven candidates vying to lead an organization whose approach toward Israel has become a central concern for the United States and pro-Israel advocates, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Costa Rican economist Rebeca Grynspan and Guyana’s U.N. ambassador, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, have emerged as the leading contenders. Ben Cohen, a senior analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, described Grynspan, the daughter of Holocaust survivors with family members residing in Israel, as a U.N. insider candidate who knows the U.N. system well and would likely “be in the mold of Guterres.” Rodrigues-Birkett, meanwhile, has previously described the Jewish state’s actions against Palestinians as “brutality that would make some of history’s most cruel oppressors blush,” and praised former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro as a “visionary” in a 2013 speech.
city hall hire
A few months before New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani met with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva during the U.N. General Assembly on Monday, his administration hired an expatriate supporter of the left-wing South American leader — an academic and activist involved in a group tied to the sprawling global influence network of China-allied tech mogul Neville “Roy” Singham, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports. Hired in June as a deputy commissioner for international affairs, Gianpaolo Baiocchi in July brought the organization Defend Democracy in Brazil into his city office for a formal meeting to “strengthen ties of the Brazilian community in New York.”
the sunkist also rises
Sunkist Fruit Gems announced that it plans to bring back its beloved kosher candy, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross reports, days after eJP first reported on the discontinuation of the synagogue staple. The discontinuation of the Fruit Gems had prompted a good-hearted national backlash, particularly on social media, where people jokingly called the move “antisemitic” or wrote “baruch dayan emet,” the traditional phrase that is used when hearing that a person has died.
The Rundown
in the courts
On Our Radar
● The Live Briefing. Word on the street, clips, podcasts and quick updates — the items we’re tracking all day in our Live Briefing on the app (on Apple and Android) and website.
The U.S. Navy awarded two military contracts for missile canisters and survival radios, collectively worth $127 million, to subsidiaries of Israel Aerospace Industries and Elbit Systems…
The Department of Education again delayed the release of data on foreign funding to U.S. schools, the sixth such delay since July; the data is now expected to be released on Oct. 2…
Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) filed an amicus brief in a Holocaust restitution lawsuit, Reif v. Republic of Austria, citing their legislation that aims to aid the heirs of Holocaust survivors in recovering Nazi-looted art…
Reps. Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Mike Quigley (D-IL), as well as 41 House members, wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio urging him to work to ensure the release of Palestinian physicians and healthcare workers held in Israeli detention…
The New York Times looks at VoteVets’ involvement in the midterms as the group spends more than $60 million on more than 300 candidates, the vast majority of whom are running in down-ballot races, and leans into voter antipathy toward the Iran war…
A new poll from the Democratic polling firm GBAO found Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed up four points, 48-44%, over former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI)…
Singer Ed Sheeran’s weekend concerts at Boston’s Gillette Stadium were canceled due to weather, weeks after a firestorm over the anti-Israel activism and antisemitic rhetoric of Macklemore; the rapper was removed from the tour by organizers after stadium owners, including Gillette owner Robert Kraft, raised concerns about Macklemore’s recent performances and past activities…
In an event at Los Angeles’ Wilshire Boulevard Temple, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law the Safe Worship Zone Act and the expansion of the California State Nonprofit Security Grant Program…
An Illinois man who previously served jail time for antisemitic vandalism was sentenced to seven years in prison for graffitiing a swastika and other antisemitic imagery across the Northwestern University campus earlier this year…
A Canadian man in Kitchener, Ontario, was arrested in connection with a livestream in which he allegedly made threats targeting the Jewish community…
The council of the eastern German town of Heidenau, in a move led by the far-right Alternative for Germany party and ruling Christian Democratic Union, banned future plaques commemorating residents of the city who were killed during the Holocaust…
Maastricht University in the Netherlands suspended a Palestinian student who claimed he took part in the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks…
The IDF said it killed one of the terrorists involved in the abduction of former Israeli hostage Noa Argamani from the Nova music festival during the Oct. 7 attacks…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly traveled to the United Arab Emirates on Sunday to meet with Emirati President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan…
The Wall Street Journal reports that Egypt’s former intelligence chief, Abbas Kamel, personally called Netanyahu with a third warning of an impending attack from Gaza in the days before Oct. 7, 2023, after two earlier Egyptian alerts went unheeded, according to Arab officials…
Israel gave Dutch diplomats in Ramallah seven days to return their Israeli-issued credentials, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced on X on Sunday, after a Dutch ban on goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights went into effect…
Worthy Reads
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Pressure Points: In The Wall Street Journal, former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus argues that the U.S.’ continued economic pressure on Iran coupled with its support for Gulf states will strengthen Washington’s negotiating position. “Iran’s leverage comes from imposing costs on everyone else by disrupting Hormuz, threatening bypass routes and widening pressure through aligned groups such as the Houthis in Yemen. Washington’s leverage runs in the opposite direction: helping everyone else’s oil get out while making it harder for Iran’s oil and maritime commerce to do the same.” [WSJ]
The Blair Pitch Project: The Free Press’ Audrey Fahlberg profiles former White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair as he works to mitigate Democratic gains in the midterms. “I asked [Blair] about the notion that the president has betrayed his own base by dragging the country into war with Iran after campaigning as a peacemaker — a claim repeated often by popular podcasters like Tucker Carlson and others on the right who prefer a restrained foreign policy. ‘The Tucker Carlsons of the world aren’t being honest about what the president has always said,’ he said. ‘The president has said endless times’ going back to the 1980s ‘that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon.’ By denying this, Blair said, the restrainer wing of the GOP is ‘projecting something that he never said onto him in the Iran case.’” [FreePress]
Groyper Groupie: The Washington Post’s Drew Harwell spotlights former “groypette” Amy Dangerfield in the wake of her falling out with neo-Nazi influencer Nick Fuentes. “Amy had developed tough skin over years of derogatory jokes being made at her expense; for conservative women, she said, it just came with the lifestyle. … But this felt different. The kinds of conspiracy theories she’d once amplified about elites were now being rewritten about her: that she was a spy for Israeli surveillance, or a federal infiltrator, or a rebel attempting revolt.” [WashPost]
Picture of the Day
Israeli soccer fans cheered on the Israeli national team on Sunday during the team’s UEFA Nations League match against Ireland in Debrecen, Hungary.
Members of the Irish team wore black armbands and skipped the customary pre-match handshakes before beating Israel 3-0. In addition, the Irish players bowed their heads during Israel’s anthem, and captain Dara O’Shea kept his hands clasped behind his back rather than greet Israel’s Manor Solomon. Sebastian Frej/Getty Images
Birthdays
Daniel Braverman, former NFL, XFL and CFL wide receiver and kick returner, turns 33
Sir Jeremy Israel Isaacs, Emmy Award-winning Scottish television producer, turns 94
Madeleine Kunin, former governor of Vermont (the first Jewish woman elected to govern any state), she was also the U.S. ambassador to Switzerland, turns 93
Stuart Kauffman, physician and theoretical biologist, he was a 1987 MacArthur genius fellow, turns 87
Warren Lieberfarb, former president of Warner Home Video, turns 83
Alain Wertheimer, French businessman who, with his brother, own the controlling interest in the House of Chanel and several famous vineyards, turns 78
Jerry Weiss, real estate agent in New York’s Hudson Valley
Gary Miller, Teaneck, N.J.-based real estate attorney
Bill Cassidy, physician and outgoing U.S. senator (R-LA), turns 69
Michael Harris, pediatrician and author of the book Winning A Debate with An Israel Hater about the fight against BDS
Ben Greenman, best-selling author of more than 25 books, he is also a magazine journalist, turns 57
Elliott Nahmias, area director for San Diego and Orange counties for AIPAC
Lenny Krayzelburg, winner of four Olympic gold medals in swimming for the USA (2000 and 2004), turns 51
Michael Lipin, news editor and White House correspondent at Voice of America
Nina Pekerman, Israeli Ironman triathlete, turns 49
Lauren France, SVP at the Katz Watson Group
Samantha Collidge, director of leadership engagement for the Anti-Defamation League
Hadassa Levenson, regional director for the Orthodox Union’s Teach Coalition
Ayelet Cohen, VP of operations at Tel Aviv-based iAngels, a women-led venture capital firm
David Hopen, 2023 graduate of Yale Law School and author of a coming-of-age novel set in the Modern Orthodox community, turns 33
Counterterrorism officials arrested several men in connection with suspected explosives found near a military base on the same day as a report that a former Hamas bodyguard plotted terror attacks after gaining U.K. asylum
Leon Neal/Getty Images
Prime Minister Andy Burnham departs 10 Downing Street to address the House of Commons on Sept. 1, 2026 in London, England.
Two security incidents that were reported in the U.K. over the weekend are presenting Prime Minister Andy Burnham with some of his new government’s first major tests since taking power over the summer: how to address domestic counterterror threats and mounting issues related to asylum seekers, while also responding to concerns by British Jews over their safety and security amid growing tensions between London and Jerusalem.
On Sunday, U.K. officials arrested several individuals near a military base in Gloucestershire used by the U.S. for operations against Iran. A police statement released about the incident said that an ordnance disposal team had been dispatched to the area and that properties in the vicinity had been evacuated.
The incident occurred hours after a report in the U.K.’s Times that a former bodyguard for Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader who was killed by Israel in 2024, was granted asylum — and later citizenship — in the U.K., from which he plotted attacks across Europe. The man, identified as “Mr. X” due to a British court order protecting his anonymity, was arrested last year in connection with a plot to attack Jewish targets in Germany and Austria on the second anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.
Ben Judah, who served as an advisor to former U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy, said that the Times story “confirms a deep fear of mine. That out of a mixture of carelessness, incompetence, indifference and denial the Home Office is rubber stamping terrorists, that would like to kill people like me and my family, access to the country.”
Judah’s comments underscore the degree to which decisions regarding U.K. government policy on visa vetting and counterterrorism efforts intersect with Jewish communal concerns over safety. In the British Jewish community, concerns about rising antisemitism — deepened by a series of recent arson attacks against Jewish institutions — have intensified in the last year, since two men were killed in a terror attack at a Manchester synagogue during Yom Kippur, marking the first deadly attack on a Jewish community in the country since World War II.
Adding to those concerns, a British national from Somalia pleaded not guilty on Friday to an April attack in which two identifiably Jewish men were injured in a knife attack in North London — one in a spate of antisemitic attacks that roiled the U.K. earlier this year. Read a first-person perspective on antisemitism in the U.K. from JI’s Tamara Zieve.
“If anyone doubted the specific terror threat facing the Jewish community, the last two weeks alone should have put paid to that,” Justin Cohen, the news editor and co-publisher of the London-based Jewish News, told JI on Monday. “A year after the first antisemitic murders of Jews in Britain in memory on Yom Kippur, another plot targeting the country’s Jewish community was disrupted. And now we discover that a bodyguard of the former Hamas leader was plotting to attack Jews in Europe after being given asylum in the U.K. It’s little wonder that the community is feeling increasingly vulnerable and fear it’s a question of when, not if, another attack gets through.”
Earlier this month, U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband rejected a claim by the U.K.’s chief rabbi, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, that London’s policies against West Bank settlements could endanger British Jews. The exchange highlighted the differing views between Jewish leaders and government officials over the effect that London’s decisions vis-a-vis Israel have on the local Jewish community.
Across the Atlantic on Friday, Miliband met with his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, and told him that London would “not tolerate intimidation, threats or hostile activity on U.K. soil” — days after the U.K.’s cyber directorate accused Iran-linked actors of attempting phishing campaigns on Telegram and WhatsApp. The meeting was the first between the two since the U.K. in July designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a national security threat.
Alongside the designation of the IRGC, the U.K. also designated as a national security threat the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right, believed to be an Iran-linked group that has claimed responsibility for more than half a dozen attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets across the U.K.
This is the backdrop against which London will have to make determinations in the coming months regarding counterterrorism efforts, vetting of asylum seekers and the ongoing concerns from the Jewish community over its safety and security — and their overlap.
The antiwar measure failed again, this time by a 50-49 vote
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) speaks to reporters as he walks into the Senate Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Building on April 15, 2026 in Washington, D.C.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) joined Democrats and a handful of Republicans in voting on Thursday for a war powers resolution demanding an end to the war in Iran. But, despite growing calls from vulnerable Republicans ahead of the midterm elections, most of the GOP continued to vote against the war powers effort, and the measure failed by a 50-49 vote.
“We’re reaching a point to where we just need answers. We got to know what success looks like,” Tillis, who is not running for a third Senate term, said earlier this week. “There’s never been any way to measure what success looks like. … For every step we take forward, we take a step back.”
He also highlighted the economic costs of the war, opposition from voters and concerns that the war could drag on indefinitely.
Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Rand Paul (R-KY) also voted for the resolution, while Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voted against it.
Asked by a student to ‘stand unequivocally against the IRGC,’ El-Sayed criticized the U.S. for trying to be the ‘world’s policeman’
Emily Elconin/Getty Images
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate Abdul El-Sayed answers questions from attendees during a town hall event on September 3, 2026 at the Oakland Expo Center in Waterford, Michigan.
Pressed during an event on Wednesday to condemn the Iranian regime’s massacre of tens of thousands of protesters earlier this year, Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed sidestepped the question, focusing his answer on criticizing the U.S. war in Iran.
A Persian American student — who said that his cousin had been “hunted in the streets” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for wearing her hijab improperly and that his uncle was “sentenced to die [and] received 50 lashings” — pressed El-Sayed to “renounce” those who supported assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The student, speaking at a town hall held at the University of Michigan, additionally called on El-Sayed to “stand unequivocally against the IRGC, against the Islamic Republic of Iran” and make some statement in support of the protesters.
El-Sayed responded by criticizing the U.S. for taking the role of the “world’s policeman.”
Asked by a Persian American student at a town hall held at the University of Michigan to "stand unequivocally against the IRGC," Abdul El-Sayed sidestepped the question and criticized the U.S. for trying to be the "world’s policeman."
— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) September 24, 2026
Read more: https://t.co/N2r8xS6tyt pic.twitter.com/pPTL86EtDc
“Here’s my point: one can disagree with the governance of a foreign country. One can stand in solidarity with freedom and democracy movements, but my worry is when one decides that we are going to go in and take out the leadership of a foreign government,” El-Sayed said. “Because here’s what happens: a lot of times that frustration gets used to justify corporate interests that have a real stake in the natural resources in a particular country.”
El-Sayed went on to say that he “will always stand for and with democratic movements, always” but added, “I also don’t believe that we were in the right to go to war to topple the government of Iran,” and said that it is the “responsibility of the people of Iran to decide what their leadership should look like.”
Pressed again by the student to express solidarity with the protesters who were murdered, El-Sayed repeated that he will “always stand with movements for freedom and democracy.”
The Michigan Senate candidate previously faced criticism over leaked comments in which he said he did not want to speak out publicly on Khamenei’s killing by the U.S. and Israel at the start of the Iran war because he did not want to alienate voters in Dearborn, Mich., who were upset about the ayatollah’s death.
“Abdul El-Sayed is looking a young man in the eyes and can’t even condemn a terrorist dictator murdering thousands of his own people. Pathetic,” former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, said on X in response to the exchange.
The Iranian president cast Tehran as the victim of U.S. and Israeli aggression
Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian holds up a poster of assassinated Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei while addressing the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 23, 2026 in New York City.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian cast Tehran as a peaceful victim of American and Israeli aggression during an address to the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday, expressing a readiness for further negotiations while downplaying Iran’s state sponsorship of terror, nuclear escalation and regional strikes.
Addressing the assembly a day after President Donald Trump threatened to “annihilate” the Islamic Republic if a deal is not reached, Pezeshkian claimed Tehran has never sought nuclear weapons and painted its atomic program as strictly intended for energy and medical research.
“Iran does not accept for nuclear technology to be at the exclusive disposal of some of a handful. We say it clearly: no nuclear weapons and no limitations to peaceful nuclear technology,” he said.
Pezeshkian’s portrayal of a purely civilian nuclear program contradicts assessments from the International Atomic Energy Agency and U.S. intelligence, which have repeatedly warned that Iran has enriched uranium to near-weapons-grade purity — a threshold with no credible non-military application. Satellite intelligence has also found ongoing construction and activity at fortified Iranian nuclear facilities, despite Tehran’s public denials.
The Iranian leader also sought to frame his country as a “victim of terrorism” at the hands of Washington and Jerusalem, deflecting from Tehran’s decades-long role as the premier state sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East. Pezeshkian falsely accused the U.S. and Israel of intentionally targeting civilians while insisting Iran acts only in self-defense.
Pezeshkian also rebuffed Trump’s claims that Iran is a “source of instability” and claimed that Tehran rather seeks to “cooperate and collaborate for security.”
“We responded, but we did not hit civilian populations. They came into surrounding territories and targeted our universities, our healthcare centers, our schools, our hospitals, our infrastructures — all of it against international law,” he said. Iran has repeatedly targeted civilian infrastructure during the war with the U.S., including hotels, airports and economic centers across the Gulf and Israel.
Pezeshkian also attempted to pivot toward diplomacy, claiming Iran has always maintained a “commitment to the negotiating table,” but insisted Tehran would “not accept the language of force.”
The Iranian president also accused the international community of enforcing a “double standard” by penalizing Tehran with sanctions while allowing Israel to operate outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) framework.
“The nuclear weapon is in Israel, but the inspectors are in Iran. Israel kills, but Iran is subject to sanctions,” he said. Israel has never publicly acknowledged operating a nuclear weapons program.
Riyadh squandered a yearslong lull and fractured the anti-Houthi coalition with its UAE split, experts tell JI — and its new defense partners are hanging back
(Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP via Getty Images)
Fighters loyal to the Houthi authorities, shouts slogans during a rally to recruit more fighters, in Sanaa on September 10, 2026.
Saudi Arabia is facing an escalating Houthi offensive along the Red Sea coast and direct attacks on its own territory, in what regional analysts describe as a turning point in Riyadh’s conflict with the Iran-backed terror group — and a crisis they say was created in part by Riyadh’s own miscalculations.
The Houthis recently gained major ground along the Red Sea, including the port city of Mokha and around the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, and escalated their attacks over the weekend by directly striking Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport.
Regional analysts told Jewish Insider that Saudi Arabia’s current position stems in part from its failure to strategically prepare during a yearslong pause in fighting. Experts say that Riyadh’s rift with the United Arab Emirates has also weakened the anti-Houthi coalition in Yemen, making the challenge more daunting.
Current hostilities follow years of relative calm between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis that Riyadh worked deliberately to maintain. A U.N.-negotiated truce took effect in April 2022 and was extended twice in 60-day increments before formally expiring that October.
After its expiration, “instead of a formal U.N. truce, we had a backchannel between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia that kind of settled the conflict into a de facto truce,” said Allison Minor, director of the Atlantic Council’s Project for Middle East Integration. “Those conversations between the Saudis and the Houthis — there were discussions about what the future of Yemen would look like, the future of Saudi Arabia’s relationship with Yemen, and something certainly kept the Houthis from restarting the fight up until just recently.”
Underpinning that quiet was a broader diplomatic framework aimed at ending the Yemeni civil war, a conflict Saudi Arabia had been involved in for nearly 12 years.
“There was an international consensus around the need to wind down Yemen’s war through an agreement that included the Houthis,” April Longley Alley, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said. That roadmap, she said, “would have included significant financial advantages for the Houthis in return for a ceasefire and for them being part of a political process.”
Riyadh kept that offer available even after the U.S. first designated the Houthis a foreign terrorist organization in 2021 — a designation revoked by the Biden administration and reinstated last year — and after the group began attacking Red Sea shipping in late 2023.
“The Saudis worked hard to keep the Yemen front quiet,” Alley said. “They kept communicating with the Houthis. They kept this potential for a deal very much on the table, but what we saw was just the limits of that approach.”
Riyadh’s tactic carried a risk that analysts say was well understood at the time: The Houthis have historically treated pauses in fighting as opportunities to strengthen themselves, including during the 2022 truce, Alley said.
Minor said Saudi officials were not naive about the group and had understood that another confrontation was likely, a conclusion she said they reached after the Houthis launched a campaign against Red Sea shipping that the group cast as solidarity with the Palestinians following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attacks. The problem, she said, was what Riyadh did with the intervening time.
“I think that the criticism here is that the Saudis did not do as much as they could have to be prepared for that confrontation with the Houthis once it came,” she said.
Jonathan Schanzer, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, similarly argued that Riyadh missed an opportunity in the pause in fighting. He noted that an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, brokered by China in the spring of 2023, also provided Riyadh with time it didn’t take advantage of.
“The Saudis agreed to stop delegitimizing the Iranians in their media, including [the outlet] Iran International, and the Iranians agreed to restrain the Houthis. That was the arrangement that held, until it didn’t hold,” Schanzer said. “There is a legitimate question to ask about whether the Saudis exploited that time appropriately — whether they took advantage of that hiatus in fighting. I think the answer is no. I think they did not manage this time properly, and for that reason the Saudis have themselves to blame in part.”
The clearest evidence of that gap is the current state of the Yemeni forces. After a rift with the United Arab Emirates – which began developing in 2019 over differing visions for Yemen’s political future – recently ruptured, Saudi Arabia moved to consolidate its influence over the Yemeni government and merge its fragmented armed factions under a single command — an effort that was never completed, Minor said.
Attempting to finish that work now, she said, “while an active war is going on, when they’ve already lost significant territory on the west coast, is not going to be easy.”
Alley said Riyadh’s efforts to build deterrence on the ground, conducted in parallel with its diplomatic outreach, failed their first serious test. The Saudis, she said, were “building up the government of Yemen and trying to regroup and coordinate this very factious anti-Houthi coalition after they had in some ways pushed the UAE out.”
“They were trying to kind of have some deterrence on the ground,” Alley said. “But what we saw was that it wasn’t effective in defending Mokha and the Red Sea coast. The Houthis just were more militarily dominant on the ground.”
“I don’t see how you can have Yemeni forces on the ground really effectively confronting the Houthis and holding off further Houthi territorial gains if you don’t at least have Emirati acquiescence,” Allison Minor, director of the Atlantic Council’s Project for Middle East Integration, said. “Obviously, Saudi-Emirati tensions remain quite high, but as the Saudis are going to Egypt, to Turkey, to Pakistan, to the U.S., U.K., I really just feel like Abu Dhabi has to be part of that.”
The split with Abu Dhabi weakened the anti-Houthi coalition at a moment when Saudi Arabia needed it most, Alley said. “The Houthis are one command, one mission, and this other side has a tendency to fight each other.”
Minor said the damage from that rift is still visible in the current fighting. Expectations among Yemenis that government forces would perform better without Emirati involvement “does not seem to have been the case,” she said. The units hit hardest in the Houthi advance on the west coast were those of Tareq Saleh, long backed by the UAE, while forces tied to the Southern Transitional Council have stayed out of the fight.
“I don’t see how you can have Yemeni forces on the ground really effectively confronting the Houthis and holding off further Houthi territorial gains if you don’t at least have Emirati acquiescence,” Minor said. “Obviously, Saudi-Emirati tensions remain quite high, but as the Saudis are going to Egypt, to Turkey, to Pakistan, to the U.S., U.K., I really just feel like Abu Dhabi has to be part of that.”
Meanwhile, Riyadh has been unable to rely on its own partners for help. Despite having signed a mutual defense agreement with Turkey and Pakistan last month, neither has thus far come to Saudi Arabia’s aid. Pakistani officials have said publicly that Saudi Arabia has not activated the pact or specifically requested help inside Yemen.
Analysts said they were skeptical that the pact would hold significant weight even before the current fighting began.
“I was always pretty skeptical that the Mecca agreement would look like NATO Article V in the way that we tend to think about it,” Minor said. “It’s simply not the same. It’s not rooted in superpowers with the capabilities to actually provide a nuclear umbrella.”
Minor said the absence of a superpower guarantor is the defining limitation. Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons, she noted, but its officials “have been hesitant about the idea of extending that nuclear umbrella.”
“The Mecca Pact is, in my view, at least right now, a pact that was born of desperation in the face of Houthi and Iranian attacks on the kingdom,” Jonathan Schanzer, executive director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said. “The notion of Turkey and/or Pakistan intervening on the Saudis’ behalf does not sound likely to me.”
“Simply the lack of a superpower also means that these are essentially middle powers who have much more nuance in their foreign relations and tend to be much more wary of getting involved in armed conflicts, especially outside of their own immediate environs,” she said. “It’s not surprising to me that they haven’t come to Saudi Arabia’s defense.”
The agreement’s real function, Minor said, is likely to be “much more in terms of security cooperation, sharing of technology, arms sales, etcetera, perhaps training and that sort of thing, than it is actively coming to their defense in the way that the U.S. has done for allies and partners in the past.”
Schanzer also noted that the Mecca agreement appeared to be “born out of desperation,” and predicted that Ankara and Islamabad are unlikely to intervene.
“The Mecca Pact is, in my view, at least right now, a pact that was born of desperation in the face of Houthi and Iranian attacks on the kingdom,” he said. “The notion of Turkey and/or Pakistan intervening on the Saudis’ behalf does not sound likely to me.”
“It may end up being a disappointment — there’s not much that they’re going to get out of this that they could take to the bank, so to speak,” Schanzer continued. “I think [Saudi Arabia is] going to find that they are still on their own.”
Alley said the pact appears to function primarily as posturing rather than a true defense mechanism. Still, she said she believes it is “too early” to make a final call on how the alliance will shake out, noting that the region is still at an “inflection point” with its aftermath still to be determined.
Analysts also drew a distinction between defending Saudi territory, which Riyadh’s partners are assisting with, and fighting inside Yemen, which they are not.
“From what I’ve seen, the Pakistanis and the Turks, just like other Saudi allies, are helping with the defense of Saudi territory,” Alley said. “But asking for these countries to help with a war inside of Yemen is just a very different type of ask that would come with pretty significant consequences for a country like Pakistan, who has a significant Shia population in particular.”
Minor said Riyadh’s broader search for backing has produced little. Saudi Arabia “feels that they need a strong international coalition to counter the Houthis,” she said, both for material support and to avoid the international criticism it drew earlier in the war. “But they haven’t been getting a ton of traction there, at least not yet.”
“It seems to me that the bar for U.S. intervention is still really high,” April Longley Alley, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said. “President Trump in particular, from what we’ve seen from the reporting, is still trying very much to keep this bilateral truce with the Houthis and not to explicitly expand the war, particularly the regional war right now.”
The Trump administration, which declared a ceasefire with the Houthis in May 2025, has so far confined its role to intelligence, logistical support and helping defend Saudi territory, while maintaining direct communication with the Houthis. According to The New York Times, President Donald Trump had considered carrying out military strikes against the terror group over the weekend, however he abruptly called them off.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when asked about the Houthi attacks, told Fox News on Tuesday that the United States has a defense agreement with Saudi Arabia and intends to live up to its commitments. But experts said Trump appears “very hesitant” about becoming involved and they do not expect American forces to enter the Yemen war.
“It seems to me that the bar for U.S. intervention is still really high,” Alley said. “President Trump in particular, from what we’ve seen from the reporting, is still trying very much to keep this bilateral truce with the Houthis and not to explicitly expand the war, particularly the regional war right now.”
“Stepping up support — logistical support, intelligence sharing, help with the defense of Saudi territory — is something that I would expect to see,” she continued. “Doing more in Yemen, I think, is a really high bar right now. But you never know with this administration.”
Even defense assistance from Israel is “not off the table” for Riyadh, according to Schanzer, who argued that enlisting help from Jerusalem has “got to be in the back of the minds of Saudi decisionmakers right now.” However, he said the issue is whether Turkey and Pakistan would “put up with such an arrangement.”
Furthermore, Schanzer argued that Saudi Arabia’s problem does not stem from a lack of partners, but rather from a lack of genuine commitments.
“When you look right now at the number of partners that the Saudis have enlisted, at least on paper, to be partners or defenders of the kingdom, it’s actually rather lengthy,” he said. “The question really right now is whether the Saudis, with this help, are going to be able to do much to defend against Houthi attacks and to prevent debilitating strikes on key assets inside the kingdom. And on that, I have to say that I have doubts, because I don’t think that any one of these partners are fully committed to the mission at hand.”
Still, he said many countries are afraid to intervene out of a desire not to join the fight, something that has further hindered Riyadh.
“The fear actually comes from these Western countries that if they begin to help, they also may find themselves under attack — and that is a debilitating factor for the Saudis,” Schanzer said. “There’s not a lot of wiggle room here for them. They need more help than they’re getting, and I don’t see anyone stepping up to give it.”
Addressing the UNGA, Trump said, ‘Will a deal be made … or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic?’
Brendan Smialowski-Pool/Getty Images
President Donald Trump speaks during the 81st United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters on September 22, 2026 in New York City.
President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he faces a “big decision” between making a deal with Iran and escalating military conflict, as he predicted the sides would reach an agreement following the midterm elections.
“I have a big decision to make,” Trump told the U.N. General Assembly in New York, on the first day of the high-level week. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? … Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations?”
The president has recently made similar statements suggesting he must choose between negotiations and further confrontation, though there appear to be no serious negotiations underway and U.S. strikes have been sporadic.
"I have a big decision to make,” Trump said at the UN. “Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? … Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic? … I believe we’ll make a deal right after the [midterm] election.” pic.twitter.com/LYB5f2i0Fd
— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) September 22, 2026
Trump said he believes an agreement with Iran will ultimately be reached after the U.S. midterm elections in November, arguing that Tehran is waiting to see how Republicans perform.
“I believe we’ll make a deal right after the [midterm] election because it doesn’t make sense for them not to,” Trump said. “They’re waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don’t realize is that I’m not running.”
Even absent a deal, Trump argued that U.S. efforts in Iran have yielded success, including stopping Iran from being the “bully” of the Middle East.
“For 51 years, the fanatical Iranian regime has ruled by bloodshed and mass murder, spreading death and carnage and chaos across the entire Middle East and beyond,” Trump said. “They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no more.”
While no bilateral sit-downs between Trump and Iranian leadership were scheduled, Trump said during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had a “very good meeting” with Iranian officials on Tuesday.
“It was a meeting that lasted for three hours … They had a very good meeting, very productive meeting, and they have another one scheduled in the near future,” Trump said. “We’ll see how it turns out, but, certainly, it’s to their advantage to make a deal, and if we can do that, it’s preferable.”
Prior to the meeting a U.S. official had told CNN that Trump said he would be open to arranging a meeting with Iranian officials in New York “if the conditions are right,” or delegating senior advisors traveling with him to meet with them. Axios further reported that mediating Arab countries had been trying to arrange a meeting as well.
Trump called on “all nations” to “join us in enforcing the complete economic isolation of Iran until they stop their attacks on commercial shipping, relinquish their nuclear ambitions and cease their support of terror.”
Praising international support for Washington’s stance, Trump thanked the U.N. Security Council for passing a resolution in March condemning Iranian attacks on maritime trade.
“That resolution, I’m pleased to say, received more co-sponsors from U.N. member nations than any Security Council resolution in history,” Trump said. “That’s something. Now we must be equally united in maintaining pressure.”
He added that the U.S. Navy has recently escorted more than 1 billion barrels of oil out of the Strait of Hormuz, maintaining that “more oil is flowing than at any point since the start of the war.”
He also dismissed reports suggesting the U.S. military is running dangerously low on munitions as a result of the conflict.
“We have more munitions than we could ever possibly even think of using, and we’re building them at levels that we have never done before. We are adding to our stockpiles faster than we have ever been able to do before,” he said.
Trump noted that 18 new munitions facilities are currently under construction by defense contractors, promising that the expansion will lead to the “very rapid deployment of missiles of every type and ammunition of every type,” as well as faster resupply for allies.
Turning to the Middle East more broadly, Trump touched on the situation in Gaza, where implementation of his administration’s 20-point peace plan remains stalled as Hamas refuses to disarm. The president thanked countries that joined the Board of Peace, as well as those that committed personnel to secure Gaza.
“We ended the war in Gaza, saving untold thousands of lives. We also brought home all the remaining hostages, both living and dead, every single one of them,” Trump said. “Nearly 30 countries have joined the board, which I am honored to chair, and we’re thankful to many of those member nations for contributing billions and billions of dollars to relief. I also want to thank those who have committed troops, police, and training to help stabilize Gaza, including Indonesia, Morocco, Albania, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Jordan and more.”
The bill, named after the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, includes a five-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996, which was set to expire in 2026
GETTY IMAGES
A general view of the U.S. Capitol Building from the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 29, 2025.
Despite objections from leading Democrats, the House on Wednesday passed a bipartisan bill to sanction Russia and extend existing sanctions on Iran, named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who spent his final months negotiating the legislation.
The bill now heads to the White House to be signed into law. It includes a five-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996, which was set to expire in 2026, a late-stage addition to the bill in the Senate after President Donald Trump demanded that the bill include provisions related to Iran.
The legislation received a significantly different reception from Democrats in the House than it did in the Senate, where the bill passed with strong bipartisan support. Fifty-eight House Democrats voted for the bill, while 152 voted against it. Seven Republicans opposed the legislation. The final tally was 262-159.
Democrats who opposed the bill generally raised concerns about the waiver authorities that the administration could use to avoid placing sanctions on Russia — arguing that Trump can’t be trusted to crack down on President Vladimir Putin — and about the tariff provisions included in the bill to target importers of Russian oil.
Democrats have warned that Trump could misuse those tariff authorities to target U.S. partners in trade disputes, unrelated to the war in Ukraine.
“The manner in which this bill has been written doesn’t require the president of the United States to impose sanctions on Russia,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on the House floor. “In fact, there are so many loopholes written into the bill, I believe, that it’s very unlikely that the sanctions … contemplated in the legislation will ever see the light of day. That’s particularly the case because President Trump has shown great reluctance over the [past] 10 years … to actually side with the Ukrainian people.”
“Worse yet, what this legislation will do is give Donald Trump perhaps unfettered authority to unleash tariffs on the American people in ways that have already cost everyday Americans thousands of dollars in additional expense per year,” Jeffries continued, questioning why Congress would give Trump “unfettered authority to visit more tariffs on the world.”
Other top Democratic leaders, including Reps. Katherine Clark (D-MA), Pete Aguilar (D-CA) and Greg Meeks (D-NY), also opposed the bill.
But several prominent Democrats, including former Democratic leaders Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Jim Clyburn (D-SC), supported the bill.
“Nobody in this House believes that I am a defender of Donald Trump’s failure to address this issue head on and effectively. No one has opposed his tariff policies any more than I have,” Hoyer said earlier this week.
But he emphasized that “nothing we do to pass this bill or defeat this bill” will encourage or discourage Trump from going “far beyond his legal strictures.”
He said the bill will be “a statement by the Congress of the United States” — “‘This is what ought to happen. Sanctions ought to be imposed, tariffs or penalize countries who are funding Russia’s ability to make war,’” declaring clearly that Congress supports Ukraine even if Trump’s support is unreliable.
“If we do not pass this bill, there will be great joy in the Kremlin and great devastation in Kyiv, who will see something that they thought they had in hand — a strong statement by the United States of America’s Congress — disappear because of a fight over tariffs,” Hoyer said. “Their morale will tank and we will be still, since April 2024, having not taken the action.”
House Republicans celebrated the bill’s passage.
“House and Senate Republicans are placing maximum pressure on Vladimir Putin and the Russian war machine,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in a statement. “This legislation strengthens economic sanctions against the Russian government, its financial institutions, and the foreign governments that aid Russian aggression against Ukraine by purchasing cheap Russian oil and gas and helping the Kremlin evade other sanctions.”
AIPAC also praised the bill’s passage, noting, “The Iran Sanctions Act underpins most sanctions on the Iranian regime and was set to expire this year.” The pro-Israel group also urged Congress to quickly pass the Enhanced Iran Sanctions Act, which passed the House earlier this year.
The American Jewish Committee, which has advocated strongly for Ukraine in addition to Israel, applauded the bill’s passage as well.
“We welcome the House’s passage of the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, advancing legislation that would significantly increase economic pressure on Russia over its ongoing illegal war against Ukraine while extending sanctions against Iran,” the AJC said in a statement. “Russia and Iran continue to pose threats that extend far beyond their borders, including through their military cooperation and support for destabilizing actors.”
“This bipartisan action by Congress sends a clear message that the Russian and Iranian regimes must be held accountable for activities that threaten international security and stability,” the statement continued.
Analysts said that while Israel could help Riyadh in combating the attacks, any cooperation is likely to be limited and politically fraught
(Mohammed HUWAIS / AFP via Getty Images)
Fighters loyal to the Houthi authorities, shouts slogans during a rally to recruit more fighters, in Sanaa on September 10, 2026.
Saudi Arabia’s escalating conflict with the Houthis has revealed just how challenging it has become for the U.S. to deter the Iran‑backed terrorist group, former officials and regional experts say, as Houthi gains along the Red Sea raise alarms about global shipping and give Tehran fresh leverage.
Analysts said that while Israel could help Riyadh in combating the attacks, any cooperation is likely to be limited and politically fraught.
Saudi Arabia on Tuesday issued an alert for a possible attack on the holy city of Mecca amid escalating strikes by the Houthis, a U.S.-designated terrorist group. A day earlier, Vice President JD Vance said the administration was “on top” of the issue and confirmed the U.S. is in direct talks with the group, following recent clashes between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government in which the Houthis seized the port of Mocha, Perim Island inside the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and the Hanish archipelago to the north, giving them control of an alternative shipping route to the Strait of Hormuz.
Experts told Jewish Insider the Houthis’ latest advances are the product of years of preparation, Iranian support and a willingness to absorb losses that would force other militias to the table.
“The Houthis have exploited the lack of a cohesive opposition inside Yemen to prepare for this situation, Iran has resumed aiding them with weapons and advisors, and they benefit from only having to fight one foreign enemy at a time,” Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told JI.
“The Houthis are also very risk-acceptant and willing to tolerate losses that have compelled Iran and other proxies into ceasefires. U.S.-Israeli operations could likely exploit the Houthis’ latest advances, but Saudi air and naval power have never shown any serious capacity to degrade the Houthis militarily.”
Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the Houthis have “acquired a lot of weapons and weapons technology from Iran. Yemen’s government-backed forces are not that good. Saudi Arabia and others don’t want to go in on the ground. The U.S. doesn’t want to commit ground forces. Air power can only do so much.”
Edmund Fitton‑Brown, a former British diplomat now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Houthis “have been building and pre-positioning” while the internationally recognized Yemeni government’s forces “are weakened by loss of cohesion, following the dispute over southern secession and the departure of Emirati forces.”
Experts said Houthi advances to capture Mokha and territory near the Bab el‑Mandeb Strait are particularly concerning for Washington and American partners who have counted on the waterway as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz amid roiled energy markets. Analysts also noted that the disruptions provide Iran leverage in the broader conflict with the U.S.
“It is a concerning development,” Cook said. “Somewhere between 15-20% of global trade passes through the Red Sea … And the Houthis sitting on the Mandeb Strait certainly gives Iran leverage. One of its allies can throttle the global economy.”
“It is important to underline that even if there is an agreement on the Strait of Hormuz, it doesn’t mean that the situation in the Mandeb Strait will be resolved,” Cook added. “The Houthis have their own beef with Saudi Arabia and the current round of fighting is connected to, but not directly related to, the situation in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Ruhe agreed that the advances near Bab el‑Mandeb “give Iran indirect leverage by rattling global markets and threatening the best energy export alternative to Hormuz.” But he emphasized that the Houthis are “far more independent of Tehran than Hezbollah or other proxies,” adding that “they are focused on expanding control inside Yemen and fighting the Saudis, so they prefer not to risk direct U.S. and Israel involvement for the time being, even if Iran might press them.”
In response, Saudi Arabia has reportedly sought U.S. assistance, however, reports indicate President Donald Trump is uninterested in getting involved. Reporting from Israeli media in recent days has also suggested that Saudi Arabia may be quietly exploring potential Israeli assistance as the two countries have established contact through CENTCOM. Analysts said that such cooperation between Jerusalem and Riyadh is possible and would be helpful, but argued it is unlikely to come to fruition.
“[There are] rumors abound about the Saudis asking Israel for help,” Cook said. “It is possible. If the rumors are true and it is now public, I expect vigorous Saudi denials, but the Israelis have capabilities that the Saudis could use. If it happens, I expect that the Israelis will want something in return, which will likely be related to the Palestinians or public acknowledgement of Israeli help.”
Ruhe similarly noted that while Israeli assistance could help Riyadh, he argued that Saudi Arabia is focused on U.S. assistance, stressing that the U.S. and Israel remain “stretched thin” militarily.
“Logically, Israel could assist with military intelligence, which is a particular Saudi weakness,” Ruhe noted, “but Riyadh seems to be looking squarely to Washington for assistance. For now, at least, the U.S. and Israel are stretched thin, and don’t want to divert resources and attention from Iran and other fronts. For the United States, this includes precious air-to-ground munitions and interceptors. Ideally, CENTCOM-led multilateral maritime task forces could assist with freedom of navigation, but this has proven difficult even in less trying times.”
Alexander Gray, who served as chief of staff on the National Security Council during Trump’s first administration, said that he believes the U.S. will ultimately get involved and “provide various types of support” to Saudi Arabia, noting that Washington has “long been a primary security partner of the Kingdom.”
“The Houthi threat is real and serious, primarily to Saudi Arabia, its energy security, and the global commercial traffic going through the Red Sea,” said Gray. “The U.S. has long been the primary security partner of the Kingdom, and President Trump and the Crown Prince have developed a strong relationship that serves the interests of both countries. Ultimately, I anticipate the U.S. will provide various types of support to KSA to ensure that additional strain will not be placed on the global energy supply chain.”
However, some experts warn that Washington’s current approach risks reinforcing the sense that the Yemen front is Riyadh’s problem to manage, rather than a key piece of the wider confrontation with Tehran.
“My biggest concern is that the Trump administration does not seem to understand the extent to which the Houthi problem is part of the larger challenge posed by Iran,” said Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “The administration no longer has a senior special envoy for Yemen, and officials describe the Houthi escalation as a primarily Saudi problem rather than a regional challenge. The Houthis have their own interests, but they are also important members of Iran’s proxy alliance, as evidenced by Houthi cooperation with Iraqi Shia militias in their July drone attack on Saudi Arabia.”
The flare‑up is also the first major test of the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, a NATO-style mutual defense pact signed in August under which Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey guaranteed each other’s defense. However, Islamabad and Ankara have so far stayed on the sidelines.
“The Mecca agreement was never primarily about collective defense against Iran and its proxies, but rather about signaling to Washington, New Delhi, and others,” Ruhe argued. “Over the past year, Riyadh’s growing isolation drove it into the arms of two partners who have their own reasons for joining the Mecca accord, none of which include getting dragged into Yemen’s forever war.”
Fitton-Brown argued that the failure of Pakistan and Turkey to mobilize underscores what several analysts describe as the gap between Saudi Arabia’s ambitions for the pact and its real‑world value when put to the test.
“It reveals it as the loose alliance that it is,” he said. “Pakistan and Turkey have no intention of sacrificing troops in Yemen. The Saudis look desperate: weak in the face of Iran; weak in the face of the Houthis; desperate for help from the Americans, alienated from the UAE, desperate for new allies but those allies are at best fair weather friends. A US-Saudi-Emirati-Israeli reset may be their best bet — the U.S. also badly needs them not to weaken or fail — but it won’t be an easy sell with [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman].”
Al Harbi, the Gulf affairs director for a Middle East group building bonds between young Israelis and Gulf leaders, is spreading her message alongside Tishby on several college campuses
Courtesy
Fatema Al Harbi, Jonathan Elkhoury and Noa Tishby
Growing up in Bahrain, Fatema Al Harbi absorbed years of anti-Israel propaganda, but she says the mood in her home country has since shifted markedly, with ordinary citizens no longer seeing Israel as the Middle East’s foremost threat — a distinction they now assign to Iran.
Now serving as Gulf affairs director for Sharaka, an Israel-based organization that aims to develop bonds between young Israeli and Gulf leaders, Al Harbi’s journey from Israel critic to advocate is central to her pitch as she joins a four-day cross-country campus speaking tour that kicked off on Monday.
The tour, which also features Jonathan Elkhoury — a Lebanese-born Christian and LGBTQ+ activist whose family fled Hezbollah rule for Israel — and Israeli-American activist Noa Tishby, is being produced by Tishby’s nonprofit, Eighteen. The interfaith trio is scheduled to address students at University of Colorado Boulder, Emory University, the University of Texas and Florida International University.
Al Harbi spoke with Jewish Insider on Tuesday, the sixth anniversary of the signing of the Abraham Accords, about her experience as a Bahraini Muslim woman publicly supporting Israel, and how the regional landscape has shifted since the historic signing.
Jewish Insider: Why did you decide to do this tour, and did you have any reservations? What do you see as your specific role in the tour’s lineup — what can you speak to that Jonathan and Noa can’t? What do you think is most important that American students understand?
Fatema Al Harbi: I didn’t have any [doubts] about joining. It’s the opposite, I was really excited to be part of this. In the end, we are [all] fighting against loud, extremist voices so we have to come together. I have to speak for my region. So many voices are taking over our region — impacting our country in a bad way. It’s important to have a platform to speak up and show the reality myself, as a Muslim, as an Arab, about what’s going on in the region. This is important to share, especially across campuses.
I’m going to speak about my story: growing up and how I was impacted by propaganda against Israel and Jews. Most Arab countries 20 years ago were affected by Islamism and propaganda from Al Jazeera. Today, nobody trusts [Al Jazeera] in Bahrain, and also it’s banned.
I had so much curiosity about Israel. Seeing the country changed my mind [about the views I grew up learning].
[Today] so many people are aligning with political Islamism and it’s affecting America but also affecting us back home.
JI: The tour stop at Emory lands on the Accords anniversary — how do things look different now than the signing day in 2020?
FAH: Things are so different. Six years ago, the Abraham Accords weren’t very popular at home. Now [support] grew. I’m not saying there’s 100% approval, but it grew. Everyone wants our country to choose peace over anything else.
JI: How would you characterize the dynamics within the Gulf Cooperation Council right now on the question of normalization with Israel — is there a shared view among the Gulf states, or are you seeing divergence?
FAH: Of course there are different opinions. There are a lot of opinions towards normalization but in the end, the GCC always comes together. There is always a meeting point.
JI: Saudi Arabia remains the biggest question mark in the region. Do you think it is moving toward eventual normalization, or has it been pushed to a more hard-line stance post-Oct. 7?
FAH: It’s a tricky question. I think it’s a matter of when, not if. Saudi Arabia was coming closer to normalization but unfortunately after Oct. 7, it was pushed back and you could feel it. Things are changing now, for example, the war we are experiencing. Saudi Arabia is getting attacked from Iran and also from the Houthis. The attacks could change a lot in the region, not just for Saudi Arabia but for all GCC countries. I think one of those things will be normalization with Israel.
I think we’ll have to wait and see what will happen in the next few months, or even years.
JI: Bahrain was hit by Iranian missiles amid the recent escalation. Has that changed how ordinary Bahrainis view the relationship with Israel?
FAH: [In the past] many people came to me after speaking about the Abraham Accords and normalization with Israel and [voiced] a lot of opposition. They said the enemy of the Middle East was Israel. Now after seeing the war — the moment Iran had the chance to attack us in Bahrain, they did — so many people are coming to me saying they realize the enemy of the Middle East is actually not Israel, it’s Iran. Our country, our economy, everything has been affected [by Iran].
JI: What does day-to-day life look like for you as a Bahraini woman who’s publicly aligned with Israel? Has your outspokenness changed how you’re received in your community? What about across the Gulf more broadly?
FAH: Thankfully, I live in a very safe country with strong laws that do not tolerate hate. [Even for] online attacks, I could take them to court or to the police. So the good thing is that not a lot has changed for me in Bahrain. I’ve lived a normal life since the Abraham Accords and until now. The only thing that changed is how people perceive the Abraham Accords, which is a recent change because of the war.
JI: Do you think your neighbors truly share your views on Israel, or are they afraid to speak up because of legal implications?
FAH: I think it is mostly because of the laws. But most Bahrainis are very kind-hearted. They don’t have loud violence or hatred. If someone wants to show their hatred, they will find a well-mannered way to do it. We’re an island; people are more chill than in other countries.
Reps. Nancy Mace, Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Zach Nunn voted for the first time for a war powers resolution
Kevin Carter/Getty Images
U.S. Capitol building on July 12, 2026 in Washington, DC.
The House approved a third war powers resolution aiming to force an end to the conflict with Iran late Tuesday, with a record seven Republicans voting in favor of the effort.
Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) and Zach Nunn (R-IA) joined Reps. Tom Barrett (R-MI), Warren Davidson (R-OH), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY), who had previously supported war powers efforts, in voting for the resolution.
Miller-Meeks and Nunn are both facing competitive midterm races in toss-up districts. Nunn in particular has generally been a hawk on Iran. Mace, who is retiring from Congress after losing the South Carolina gubernatorial primary, has previously expressed some criticisms of the war and has proven to be an unpredictable vote on a range of issues.
“Iran must be held accountable for killing Americans, supporting terrorism, threatening the Strait of Hormuz, and pursuing nuclear weapons. Iowa has already paid a devastating price, including two service members killed by an Iranian drone in Kuwait,” Nunn said in a statement. “Congress owes them, their families, and every American in uniform clear objectives and constitutional oversight. With the negotiating window closed, sustained combat operations now require congressional authorization.”
Emphasizing his own service record, Nunn said he “will not support another open-ended war. We can defend Americans, pressure Iran, and pursue peace while ensuring Congress fulfills its constitutional responsibility.”
Miller-Meeks and Nunn’s shifting votes in particular underscore the pressure that some swing-district Republicans are feeling over the war, which polls poorly and has contributed to rising gas prices in the United States.
Miller-Meeks, also a veteran, emphasized that the mission in Iran should “stay focused and limited, because Americans do not want another forever war. I will not vote to keep our soldiers in an open-ended war, with Iowans paying too much at the pump.”
“The Iranian regime and its nuclear ambitions have been defanged. The President needs to present a plan to Congress and the American people for how this ends so we can focus on bringing our soldiers home and lowering prices,” she continued.
Mace said in a statement that the war has dragged on significantly longer than initially planned, with no end in sight, hundreds of Americans wounded and more than a dozen killed, while gas prices and inflation have increased.
“The President needs to make his case for continuing this conflict to Congress and the American people,” Mace said. “We cannot allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, but we also cannot continue to put American troops in harm’s way without a clear objective and exit strategy or send another generation into an endless regime change war in the Middle East. Congress needs to step in and do its job.”
Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement following the vote, “The president must end this failed war and appoint real diplomats, not real estate developers, to work multilaterally on a diplomatic solution that opens the Strait and reduces tensions. The American people have made it clear that they do not support this war, and the Constitution does not grant Trump the authority to wage it without the consent of the people and their representatives.”
The threat intelligence report detailed how Anthropic disrupted several actors running influence operations, building weapons guidance software and surveilling U.S. naval forces
(Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The Claude logo is displayed on a smartphone screen with the webpage of the company's report on malicious use in the background in Creteil, France, on September 11, 2026.
Anthropic disclosed in a new report released on Thursday that it had over the past eight months disrupted efforts by Iran and other state-aligned groups and actors to use the AI giant’s artificial intelligence tools for “malicious activity” such as tracking U.S. forces, developing weapons guidance software and waging “cognitive warfare” to spread propaganda.
The 154-page report also said it had identified an “Iran-nexus threat actor” using Claude, Anthropic’s chatbot, to target “hundreds of individuals in Israel and the Jewish diaspora.” The report did not specify the purpose of the activity or confirm whether it had been disabled.
Such revelations come amid growing concerns over potential national security threats posed by burgeoning artificial intelligence tools. A researcher at Anthropic said on Tuesday that he was resigning, warning that the company and its top rival, OpenAI, were not “acting responsibly” and “gambling with our lives.”
The new risks detailed “aren’t typical misuse, but rather examples of the most notable and novel threat activity we’ve identified to date,” Anthropic clarified in its latest analysis.
The new threat report documented multiple instances in which Iran-aligned entities bypassed Anthropic’s security filters, including what the company called a “cell of threat actors” in northern Yemen — which is home to the Iran-backed Houthi terror group — that had used Claude to build guidance software for weapons including ballistic missiles.
The company said its “safeguards blocked many of their requests, but not all of them,” noting that “the actors used a variety of tactics to evade” detection.
The report revealed another so-called “Iran-nexus threat actor” that had likewise turned to Claude to target U.S. naval forces in the region using ship and aircraft transponders while compiling “vulnerability research on shipboard systems,” among other intelligence.
Anthropic confirmed it “banned the actor’s account” and “developed detections to reduce” other risks and shared its intelligence “with government authorities.”
Meanwhile, the report directly named several Iranian entities it said were running “state-aligned influence operations” using Anthropic’s tools, citing the Islamic Culture and Communications Organization, the Islamic Propaganda Organization and the Islamic Propaganda Office, the latter of which was amplifying narratives tied to the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, according to Anthropic.
“The people behind them were planning and prepping content to support what they called a ‘soft war’ or ‘cognitive warfare’ program,” Anthropic said. “In their own words, this was a non-military plan to shape public opinion at home and abroad.”
The company said it “banned the accounts associated with all three operations” and had shared its findings “with industry and research partners.”
In addition to the Iranian-linked threats, the report also referenced malicious accounts tied to China and Russia as well as several efforts to develop biological weapons that Anthropic said it had blocked.
The company withheld “the names of research institutions, the countries wherein the activity took place and the specific biological agents or research techniques involved,” it stated in its report, noting it was unclear if the scientists involved in the research “intended harm.”
Anthropic said that it was publishing its report “because we believe we have a responsibility to disclose malicious misuse of our services.”
“As models become increasingly capable,” the company added, “their risks will increase, unless AI developers and society’s defenders act to make them safer.”
Democrats say the administration has no clear endgame in its standoff with Tehran, while Republicans maintain the pressure campaign is working
Aaron Schwartz / AFP via Getty Images
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David in Maryland, on July 31, 2026.
More than six months into the conflict between the United States and Iran, House lawmakers remain split largely along partisan lines on whether the Trump administration’s strategy of targeted economic pressure and naval blockades is helping Washington gain a strategic edge in the conflict.
While the administration recently has said its focus remains on carrying out a new economic campaign against the regime, recent military flare-ups between the two sides threaten to drag the conflict back into broader hostilities. On Tuesday, the U.S. resumed strikes on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets in Iran, CETNCOM announced, following Iran’s weekend attacks on American forces in the region and two Iranian strikes on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday.
President Donald Trump vowed that any response would be met with further confrontation, shortly before Iran launched retaliatory strikes on U.S. bases across the region.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL) warned that lawmakers “can expect intensification” of U.S. strikes. Rogers was briefed Tuesday by CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper alongside Democrats on the committee.
When asked by Jewish Insider whether the administration’s strategy is working and whether the U.S. or Iran holds more leverage at this moment in the conflict, lawmakers were divided.
Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) said it is “very difficult to know” which side holds the advantage, arguing that the White House has failed to outline a clear end goal. He added that as long as Tehran threatens shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, “there is leverage there” in Iran’s favor.
“I have made the case that taking out the weapons shield was one thing — getting in the middle of a standoff in the strait is something else and could have been avoided,” Landsman said. “Pursuing an all-out regime change undertaking, as opposed to simply going in and getting out, to me is a huge gamble and one I wouldn’t have taken. I would have stayed focused on the incremental things you can do to further weaken the regime until change materializes, as opposed to forcing it like they’re trying to do with the blockade.”
Landsman added that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle remain largely in the dark regarding the administration’s strategy.
“One, there’s no briefings, there are no hearings, there’s no engagement — and I think that’s true for Republicans as well as Democrats, which is a huge problem,” Landsman said. “Two, based on everything I’ve read, there’s no clear strategy. I don’t know what the end goal is. Is it to topple the regime? If it’s not to topple the regime, what is it? Is it to regain the strait?”
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told JI that the recent escalation between the two sides shows the administration’s strategy is not working.
“We still don’t have a plan. Everything that [President Donald Trump] ever said in regards to this war has all gone wrong,” Meeks said.
Meeks argued that preventing a nuclear-armed Iran requires diplomatic engagement rather than isolated military or economic actions.
“If you want to stop Iran from having a nuclear weapon and move forward, then you have to do it diplomatically. You need to be able to bring — as we did with the [2015 Iran nuclear deal] — China to the table, Russia to the table, our European allies to the table,” Meeks said. “All of the experts that know how to deal with diplomacy, none of them are doing it. Not even [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio is part of those negotiations. You have two real-estate developers [White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner] doing that kind of negotiations, and none of it is successful because none of it makes any sense.”
Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) similarly expressed that he felt the administration lacked a clear strategy and criticized the economic pressure campaign as not fully thought through.
“I think most of the world saw the goals as ending their nuclear program, thwarting their development of missiles, rockets, drones, addressing their support for terrorism in the region and around the world and supporting its citizens, the people of Iran, against human rights violations of this terrorist regime,” Schneider said. “None of those seem to have been fully addressed.”
Schneider said that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has given Tehran “leverage over the global economy” and claimed that the administration’s economic pressure campaign is not being applied to “countries that are doing economic trading with Iran.”
“Last week [Treasury Secretary Scott] Bessent said we’re going back to maximum economic pressure without mentioning China that provides Iran 90% of their revenues from their oil production,” Schneider said. “That’s not pressure if you’re not putting your finger on the pressure point.”
“Iran holds cards that the administration either doesn’t recognize or doesn’t know how to address, and we need to figure out how to apply the pressure on Iran and return all the leverage back to the United States,” he continued.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) said that the administration has appeared to regain “very little” leverage through its economic pressure strategy and questioned the long-term efficacy of the plan.
“We’ve been imposing sanctions on [Iran] for decades. Presumably these tougher sanctions could work in less than a decade, but I think Trump’s time horizon is remarkably short, so I can’t imagine that they would work anywhere near the timeframe he’s thinking about,” Sherman said. “I suspect that the Iranians have a higher tolerance for pain because the extremists running the country don’t care about whether their people are doing well as long as they can shoot those who are upset.”
Republicans, however, contended that the administration’s strategy is working.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) argued that the U.S. holds more leverage in the conflict, noting that gaining a strategic edge is Trump’s “strong point.” The Tennessee lawmaker said the current posture is “accomplishing its goals” by neutralizing regional security threats.
“We’re keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of Islamic radicals. I think that’s a great thing,” Burchett said. “I think ultimately that’s the overall goal. I think [Iran] were rapidly approaching the ability to use those.”
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) expressed an even more optimistic note. “I think we’ve always had leverage,” Fine said. “I think we’ve been winning all along.”
Fine pointed to Iran’s worsening economic situation as evidence that the administration’s approach is delivering results.
“Breaking them economically is a winner and that’s what’s happening. I think their economy is in free fall and hopefully that brings them to their knees, which is where we all want this thing to end up,” Fine said. “First we destroyed their military — they don’t have a military anymore — and now we’re destroying their economy.”
Former Iran envoy Elliott Abrams: ‘His policy is working right now, but the enemy gets a vote’
Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu via Getty Images
Currency exchange offices begin applying the new exchange rate to their buying and selling transactions as US dollars selling rate on the free market reaches an all-time high, hitting the 200,000 toman mark in Tehran, Iran on August 24, 2026.
As the conflict between the United States and Iran passes the six month mark, former White House officials and regional analysts remain divided over whether Washington’s economic campaign and naval blockade are meaningfully changing the strategic landscape.
Hostilities briefly renewed for the first time in weeks over the weekend, as the U.S. struck Iranian rocket launchers to prevent them from deploying mines in the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran in turn fired on U.S. forces in Jordan. President Donald Trump vowed on Monday that the U.S. would retaliate for the attack.
Alexander Gray, former chief of staff on the National Security Council during Trump’s first term, expressed confidence in the administration’s trajectory, arguing U.S. leverage is “only growing.”
“As President Trump has accurately noted, the military metrics of American operational success — destruction of the regime’s navy, air force, and leadership — are clear. But it is the economic impact, and particularly the sustained pressure on the Iranian currency that is so damaging,” Gray told Jewish Insider.
Richard Goldberg, a former Trump administration official, also expressed support for continued economic pressure and indicated that the current strategy will “put the United States on a course to total victory.”
“Unless and until we have military solutions to deeply buried and hardened underground missile and command facilities, a return to widespread major military operations risks blowing up the global oil market without any assurance of bringing down the regime,” Goldberg said. “On the other hand, if you can capitalize on all the strategic gains already achieved, put the regime on a pressure cooker clock toward financial collapse, relieve the pressure on the global oil market by moving more and more product out of Hormuz via the U.S. military, and surge covert support to the Iranian people, you can put the United States on a course to total victory.”
Brett McGurk, a former senior national security official who served under Presidents George Bush, Barack Obama, Trump and Joe Biden and now is a global affairs analyst at CNN, wrote this week that Iran is “not winning” the war, but is actually “losing its leverage” in the Strait of Hormuz.
However, other former White House officials warned that Iran could turn the tide.
“Right now the U.S. has the upper hand because Arab states are able to export some oil — through pipelines or the Strait of Hormuz — while Iran is not,” Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. special representative for Iran during the first Trump administration, told JI. “Iran’s economy is being battered badly.”
Abrams described the current balance as a “very good situation” for Washington, but cautioned that it “may not last” given Tehran’s unpredictability.
“Iran might lash out at Gulf Arab oil facilities again, or at power and desalination plants,” Abrams said. “That would present President Trump with a situation he’s been trying to avoid: the need to go back to war. His policy is working right now, but the enemy gets a vote.”
Jason Greenblatt, a former White House Middle East envoy in the first Trump administration, agreed that Washington currently holds the edge, but cautioned that it is “not yet” decisive.
“At the six-month mark, the balance of leverage remains with Washington, although not yet decisively,” Greenblatt said. “The Trump administration’s economic campaign is raising the cost for Tehran and those helping the regime. President Trump’s strategy is working because it attacks the regime’s ability to finance the conflict while preserving overwhelming American military power.”
Greenblatt acknowledged that Tehran retains the ability to “create instability,” pointing to the flare up in tensions between the two sides over the weekend. However, he asserted that Trump has shown “zero tolerance” for maritime disruptions.
“The latest strikes show that Iran remains willing to create instability, but also that the United States is willing and able to enforce that warning,” Greenblatt said. “The question now is whether anyone in Tehran has the authority to turn mounting economic pain into an agreement and enforce it. At the moment, I do not believe there is. But as President Trump’s Operation Economic Outcast grinds on, that may change. That is the point of the campaign.”
Meanwhile, other experts offered a more cautious assessment, questioning whether Washington’s leverage can endure given Tehran’s ability to outmaneuver economic pressure.
Dan Shapiro, former deputy assistant secretary of defense under the Biden administration and former U.S. ambassador to Israel, acknowledged that there has been a “modest increase in U.S. leverage” due to the economic and maritime pressures imposed by the Trump administration.
However, he expressed concern over the military and strategic costs required to sustain it.
“A range of measures have resulted in a decent resumption of oil flowing through the strait, although still well below pre-war levels and with far less shipping generally,” Shapiro said. “But one really has to ask, how sustainable is this leverage? It requires a major U.S. naval presence to impose the blockade, conduct escorts, and support an aerial defense against Iranian attacks.”
Shapiro cautioned that the administration’s economic pressure may not be as effective as expected, arguing that secondary sanctions may lack impact given the Iranian regime “cares nothing about passing that [economic] pain” onto the Iranian public.
“The exchange over the weekend suggests that at some point, Iran will resume threats against ships to regain leverage,” Shapiro said. “The only way we could prevent that is with a permanent U.S. naval presence that would significantly strain the Navy beyond what it has already endured over the last six months, with long-range implications for U.S. readiness and deterrence in other regions.”
Jonathan Ruhe, director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, argued it is still unclear whether either side has the edge six months into the conflict, but suggested that Iran “more likely” retains an advantage.
“At best, the verdict is still out on whether the U.S. has regained meaningful leverage over Iran,” Ruhe said. “More likely though, Iran retains the initiative and escalation dominance over the U.S. and its partners.”
Ruhe suggested Tehran views Washington’s shift toward sanctions as a sign that the U.S. has expended its military options.
“Economic pain is a small price to pay, especially because Iran’s regime thinks the latest sanctions regime is shot full of holes, and because it clearly doesn’t care if its own people suffer in the process,” Ruhe said. “If anything, the sanctions-first approach will merely embolden Tehran to step up its military threats to shipping, U.S. bases, and our Gulf partners.”
Rachel Brandenburg, a senior policy analyst at Israel Policy Forum, similarly pointed out that while Iran’s economic crisis is worsening, the regime is willing to absorb economic costs in order to survive.
“The Iranian regime has a very high tolerance for pain, particularly pain that is inflicted most harshly upon the Iranian people,” Brandenburg said. “It is unlikely that even a deteriorating economic situation changes the regime’s calculus with respect to Iran’s nuclear or ballistic missile program.”
Brandenburg added that Washington’s unilateral approach limits its options.
“The United States is operating mostly alone in this fight,” Brandenburg said. “It is clear that Trump prefers not to go back to war, and he has not displayed an ability to stick to one approach for very long.”
Missile strikes on Ras Laffan and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have pushed Qatar toward an 8.6% contraction this year, the steepest downturn in the GCC
Mahmud HAMS / AFP via Getty Images
Motorists drive past a plume of smoke rising from a reported Iranian strike in the industrial district of Doha on March 1, 2026.
Six months into the military conflict between the U.S. and Iran, Qatar’s liquefied natural gas exports have plunged 96%, resulting in approximately $24 billion in lost revenue, Reuters reported on Wednesday.
Doha has been forced to halt much of its LNG production — its primary driver of export earnings — due to attacks on energy infrastructure and inability to physically move it to customers, wiping out the equivalent of roughly five months of Qatari government revenue and establishing the state as one of the chief economic casualties of the war.
Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that Qatar’s economy is projected to contract by 8.6% this year — the steepest downturn among the Gulf Cooperation Council nations — as the Iran war and effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz continue to cripple the nation’s energy sector.
In March, Iran launched ballistic missile attacks targeting Qatar’s Ras Laffan Industrial City — Qatar’s main energy hub and the world’s largest LNG production site — causing extensive damage.
Prior to the war, Qatar served as a cornerstone of the global energy grid and supplied nearly one-fifth of the world’s daily LNG demand. However, unlike neighboring oil exporters, which have managed to navigate limited shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, Qatar’s geography offers few alternative export pipelines or bypass routes for its gas fleet.
Doha has since responded with severe fiscal austerity measures to protect its reserves. The Qatari government has slashed department budgets by up to 30% and cut funding for overseas aid by about 85%.
Plus, Moskowitz named to powerful Mideast post
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro speaks before Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 6, 2024.
Good Tuesday afternoon.
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Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social today that the Navy informed him that “all mines have been removed and/or detonated” in the Strait of Hormuz, and that the U.S. has notified Iran “that any ship or boat placing new mines will be immediately and systematically destroyed.” The U.S. Space Force is monitoring the strait as well as Iran’s nuclear sites, including Pickaxe Mountain, for any suspicious activity, he added…
Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi said following a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Tehran today that he is hopeful the two countries “will soon announce a temporary corridor for the Strait of Hormuz and practical arrangements to restore safe navigation,” while continuing to work towards a permanent agreement on administering the waterway. The Omani Foreign Ministry further specified that the parties aim to establish a joint effort to clear the strait of mines — despite Trump’s announcement that all have been cleared…
The State Department is preparing to send some foreign service officers and other diplomats back to work at embassies in Israel, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, Iraq and Kuwait that were evacuated or had staffing reductions during the Iran war, according to a State Department document obtained by The New York Times, potentially indicating the Trump administration does not expect hostilities to resume…
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced that Israel has expelled officials from the Netherlands from the military and humanitarian coordination hub for Gaza located in Kiryat Gat due to “a series of anti-Israel moves by the Dutch government,” including a new law prohibiting trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank…
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed doubled down on his anti-Israel rhetoric during an event at a Dearborn church today, Jewish Insider‘s Matthew Kassel reports, a day after the nominee drew renewed scrutiny over his ongoing association with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker.
El-Sayed declined to confirm if he hopes to win an endorsement from state Sen. Jeremy Moss — a Jewish Democratic nominee for a congressional seat in the Detroit area who is a key holdout in offering his backing — and said that his support for ending aid to Israel is “about making sure that in our foreign policy, we substantiate equal rights to peace, dignity and self-determination for Palestinian folk”…
Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) was named ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, where he said he will “work to strengthen America’s relationships with Israel and our Gulf allies.”
A source familiar with the situation told JI’s Marc Rod that, since outgoing ranking member Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) would have been unable to remain in the post next year, he decided to give up the position early to help support Moskowitz in his reelection race — in a South Florida district with a substantial pro-Israel constituency where the leadership position will further bolster Moskowitz’s profile — and to pass off committee leadership to a preferred successor….
A new New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena University poll released today found that nearly half of voters in Pennsylvania view Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Jewish Democrat mulling a presidential bid in 2028, as “about right on support of Israel,” even as he has faced skepticism from the far left over his pro-Israel views, JI’s Matthew Kassel reports. Sixty percent of Democrats said they were satisfied with his support for the Jewish state; 39% of Republicans said the same, while another 40% said he is not supportive enough…
The Department of Justice announced today that a 26-year-old Ohio man had been arrested and charged for sending an email threatening to kill Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) and his family, saying he would behead the Jewish congressman and calling him a Nazi, JI’s Marc Rod reports…
The IDF said it views with “utmost severity” an incident involving far-right MK Zvi Sukkot and his aides who, during a requested tour of the Palestinian town of Madama, attacked a memorial — dubbed the “Martyrs’ Monument” — with a sledgehammer, an incident which was captured on video. The IDF said the tour participants “acted deceptively and manipulatively” while accompanied by IDF soldiers “who had been diverted from their operational activities for this purpose … while the IDF is operating under significant operational strain”…
The Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish group that was backed by the U.S. in the fight against ISIS, has officially dissolved, SDF head Mazloum Abdi announced at the presidential palace in Damascus today. The group has completed its merger into the Syrian army under President Ahmad al-Sharaa, Abdi said — the culmination of a fraught integration process that followed months of deadly clashes between government and Kurdish forces…
Assouline, the luxury publisher known for turning global cities into vibrant $100 coffee-table books, has focused its lens on several Middle Eastern capitals over the years — most recently Beirut. But out of hundreds of titles spanning the globe, not a single Israeli city has made the cut, despite co-founder Prosper Assouline‘s Moroccan Jewish roots, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…
⏩ 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 for a look at how Jewish leaders are viewing Rep. Jamie Raskin‘s (D-MD) investigation into the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on campus antisemitism.
Israeli singer Omer Adam will marry his partner Sacha Israelovich at a converted 14th-century Christian monastery in the Italian seaside village of Portofino tomorrow, after having held a civil ceremony today. Hassidic singer Motty Steinmetz is expected to perform at the celebration, reportedly prompting gender-segregated seating for the guests.
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Plus, Bessent's plan to make Iran an 'economic outcast'
Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks during his weekly press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC on March 19, 2026.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced this afternoon that the Trump administration is launching “Operation Economic Outcast” against Iran, an effort aimed at severing Tehran’s global economic ties in order to “collapse every last option” for the regime, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
The Treasury Department designated over 60 entities, individuals and vessels “that enable the Iranian regime to procure illicit nuclear and missile technology, conduct cyber operations and generate oil revenue,” Bessent said, while President Donald Trump “is making phone calls to world leaders with specific requests to cease their interactions with the regime”…
The Treasury Department also redesignated Hezbollah, already a Foreign Terrorist Organization, for acting as a proxy of the Iranian regime under the direction of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and sanctioned 10 individuals who were part of a network transferring funds to Hezbollah through couriers on commercial flights between Lebanon, Turkey, the UAE and Iran…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed today that Iran tried to assassinate one of his sons: “Iran tried to kill, to murder one of my sons,” he said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 14, without specifying which of his two sons was the target…
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) today denounced comments by antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker claiming that Jews are inviting antisemitic attacks against themselves by supporting Israel, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
Jeffries wrote on X that the “malicious claim that American Jews are inviting violence against themselves is dangerous and antisemitic,” without naming Piker directly. “We will fight the cancer of antisemitism with the fierce urgency of now,” he said…
Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, meanwhile, distanced himself from Piker but did not name him nor address the substance of his comments.
El-Sayed insisted that “nobody speaks for this campaign besides me and my campaign spokespeople,” despite having campaigned prominently with Piker, and went on to downplay Piker as “a Twitch streamer” who will not define the race or his campaign. He did not say whether his or his campaign’s relationship with Piker will change going forward…
Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) condemned Piker outright, calling him “a hack who thrives on hate, shock and awe because he lacks substance.” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), who has previously appeared on Piker’s show, also rejected the streamer’s comments, telling JI’s Marc Rod that “Jews are not the cause of [antisemitism]. Neither are people who support Israel. Antisemites are to blame. That’s it”…
Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) attended three AIPAC-hosted fundraisers in Los Angeles yesterday with another planned for today, according to The New York Times, as reporting emerges about a growing rift between Rogers and the pro-Israel group as he runs for U.S. Senate.
Rogers reportedly told Michael Tuchin, AIPAC’s board chair, that the group should consider whether it is the best messenger against El-Sayed, though he did not explicitly say he did not want its support and its United Democracy Project super PAC is still considering running ads backing Rogers…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned comments by Brooklyn Democratic leader Carmella Charrington attacking Jewish investors with whom she is engaged in a property dispute as “Zionists” and suggesting some link between her situation and Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank.
“Suggesting that an alleged deed theft in Brooklyn is part of a global conspiracy involving Jewish people is blatant, reprehensible antisemitism. Trafficking in these dangerous antisemitic tropes is vile and inexcusable,” the mayor’s office told JI’s Will Bredderman, after initially avoiding his questions on the issue at a press conference earlier today. However, the administration did not answer a follow-up question about whether the mayor believes Charrington should step aside from her district leader role…
Several leading Jewish and pro-Israel organizations condemned actor Mark Ruffalo for using what they deemed antisemitic rhetoric in his recent social media commentary targeting the Ellison family amid the pending merger of Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery, JI’s Haley Cohen reports.
Rabbi Noah Farkas, president and CEO of Jewish Federation Los Angeles, said Ruffalo’s “unhinged rant, which combined Jewish wealth, media control, secret technology and sinister global power, is not legitimate criticism. It draws on recognizable antisemitic tropes with a long and dangerous history”…
As New York magazine continues to come under fire for a recent cover issue depicting the rise of Southwest Asian and North African culture in New York City while taking a hostile view of Israel, the magazine said its editors decided “genocide” is an “accurate description” of Israel’s actions in Gaza and therefore “its use would be allowed in our pages,” claiming that “accusations of antisemitic intent” in usage of the word “were in fact obfuscating an overwhelming scholarly consensus”…
The Trump administration formally revoked Syria’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism today at the end of the 45-day congressional notification period, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced, in order to “eliminate the final major barriers for private sector investment in Syria and promote Syria’s economic recovery and reintegration into the global economy.”
Rubio also revoked the designation of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) — a group that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa led until he assumed the presidency in January 2025 — as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, after having removed HTS from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list last year…
⏩ 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 for a preview of tomorrow’s Senate special election runoff in South Carolina, where Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) still has the backing of much of the GOP establishment, including President Donald Trump, in her race against Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC).
Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi is expected to visit Iran tomorrow, as the two countries continue negotiations over administering the Strait of Hormuz amid the announcement of the new U.S. economic campaign against Tehran.
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The suspension ends a key commercial lifeline, though analysts said Iran’s sanctions-evasion networks and enforcement uncertainty limit how decisive a blow it will be
The Treasury Department designated over 60 entities, individuals and vessels that enable Iran ‘to procure illicit nuclear and missile technology, conduct cyber operations and generate oil revenue,’ Bessent said
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announces a new set of sanctions against Iran, describing them as "an economic D-Day", in the Cash Room at the Treasury Department on Aug. 24, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on Monday that the Trump administration is launching “Operation Economic Outcast” against Iran, outlining a targeted effort aimed at severing Tehran’s global economic ties in order to “collapse every last option” for Tehran.
“Today, we are launching Operation Economic Outcast … Treasury has mapped every node, every facilitator, and every network that Iran has used to smuggle oil and evade sanctions,” Bessent said at a press conference at the Treasury Department. “Beginning today, the actions of Treasury and other agencies will tighten the noose and block every potential source of revenue that funds the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and the evil Iranian regime. We are enforcing a zero leakage approach.”
The directive targets five economic sectors: digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping. At Bessent’s direction, the department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Monday designated over 60 entities, individuals and vessels worldwide “that enable the Iranian regime to procure illicit nuclear and missile technology, conduct cyber operations and generate oil revenue.”
“America is no longer managing the Iranian threat, we are ending it,” Bessent asserted. “Iran now faces a very clear choice, with only two paths before them: complete global isolation and a subsistence economy, or a path back to normalcy with an opportunity to rejoin the global economy.”
Bessent explained that Washington is pushing allied countries to comply with the isolation regime and said the U.S. would no longer tolerate diplomatic or commercial neutrality in other countries’ relationships with Tehran.
“The president is making phone calls to world leaders with specific requests to cease their interactions with the regime. We are already seeing results,” Bessent said. “Teams from Treasury, State [Department] and the U.S. military are now meeting with their global counterparts to tell them that the United States expects action. Every country has a defined timeline to shut down activities we have identified. If they do not take action, we will do so unilaterally through Treasury authorities.”
“Those who stand with the United States will reap the rewards of our partnership,” he continued. “Those who tether themselves to the Iranian regime should expect to share in the isolation of a withering regime.”
While Bessent declined to provide a timeline for countries to comply, he emphasized that U.S. patience is not infinite, stating that Washington would aggressively pursue secondary sanctions against any country or entity that continues trade with Tehran.
“No nation should expect to enjoy the rewards of our system while helping those who seek to destroy it,” Bessent said. “The campaign we begin today will gather force with every day that follows, and it will not end until this regime stands alone.”
The sanctions could further pressure Iran’s economy, which is already in distress. Strained by existing U.S. sanctions and a monthslong naval blockade, Iran is wrestling with a collapsing currency, as well as hyperinflation.
The suspension ends a key commercial lifeline, though analysts said Iran's sanctions-evasion networks and enforcement uncertainty limit how decisive a blow it will be
Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images
A view from the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) on March 03, 2026 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The United Arab Emirates’ decision to sever trade and financial ties with Iran could deliver a major blow to Tehran’s economy, regional analysts said, disrupting a commercial lifeline that Iran has relied on for years. But experts cautioned that Tehran is likely to turn to existing workarounds to keep money flowing and that the UAE’s full implementation of the move is not completed.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Afra Al-Hameli, a spokesperson for the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, announced that Abu Dhabi had suspended all trade activity, commercial exchanges and financial transactions with Iran “until further notice.” The UAE — which serves as Tehran’s second-largest commercial partner — issued the declaration after its Defense Ministry reported detecting two Iranian ballistic missiles that were “targeting maritime navigation” before falling into the sea. Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied launching the missiles.
Since the Iran war began in late February, the UAE has been the country most heavily targeted by Tehran’s missile and drone attacks, with strikes damaging airports, ports, energy facilities, financial centers and other critical infrastructure.
Regional experts told Jewish Insider that given the UAE’s history as a vital commercial conduit and financial hub for Iran, cutting those links would deal a heavy blow to Tehran’s already fragile economy.
“Dubai in particular has been a key hub for Iranian finance, and if that role ends, Iran’s economy will be hurt,” Elliott Abrams, who served as special envoy for Iran during the first Trump administration, told JI. “And while Iran will scramble to find alternatives, that will be difficult and take time — and meanwhile their weak economy will suffer even more.”
Abrams added that ensuring the UAE acts as “a full ally” rather than a neutral observer is essential to President Donald Trump’s strategy of exerting maximum economic pressure against Tehran.
Anne Dreazen, vice president of the American Jewish Committee’s Center for a New Middle East, similarly described the UAE’s declaration as “significant,” emphasizing that sustained enforcement would restrict Iran’s commercial access and financial liquidity.
“This move by the UAE sends an important message to Iran that it can’t continue to attack Gulf commerce with impunity while continuing to rely on the Gulf as one of its principal economic lifelines,” Dreazen said. “If this suspension is sustained and enforced, it will make it more difficult for Iran to conduct commerce and move money.”
However, Dreazen pointed out that Tehran’s economic resilience and pre-existing sanctions evasion networks mean the move will not act as a “silver bullet.”
“Iran is resilient, and a lot of Iran-UAE trade has already been disrupted due to the war. I therefore don’t expect this move to be a silver bullet — Iran will devise workarounds and can probably withstand this move,” Dreazen continued. “However, it will cause significant additional economic pain for Iran at a time when Iran cannot really afford more economic pressure.”
Jason Greenblatt, who served as White House Middle East envoy during the first Trump administration, voiced strong support for the decision, framing it as a necessary measure against Iranian aggression.
“It also strengthens President Trump’s effort to choke the Iranian regime economically and stop its threats to the region and the United States,” Greenblatt told JI. “The more nations that join, the greater the pressure on Tehran and the better the chance of changing its behavior.”
Conversely, Kristin Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, expressed skepticism over whether Abu Dhabi will follow through with full execution or that neighboring Gulf nations will replicate the move.
“Dubai is the safety valve for the Iranian economy. Losing that outlet would unquestionably be punishing, but it will hurt Dubai as well,” Diwan said. “I’m skeptical that this will be fully executed or that other Gulf states will follow the UAE on this path. While the U.S. is now focusing on punishing Iran economically, many Gulf partners are looking for ways to deescalate, and those tools may also be economic.”
Plus, Baltimore's Orthodox Jews get a day at the races
Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York, left, and Kathy Hochul, governor of New York, during a news conference on 2026 FIFA World Cup transportation at the MTA Rail Control Center in New York, US, on Thursday, June 4, 2026.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Stefany Shaheen, the daughter of Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and a candidate for New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District, launched a TV ad this week hitting her primary opponent, military veteran Maura Sullivan, for receiving $300,000 in donations “bundled from AIPAC donors,” Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
The donations referenced in the ad appear to be from individual donors who have previously contributed to AIPAC, but the pro-Israel group itself has made no endorsement and has not been directly involved in the race…
Michigan Democratic congressional nominee Jeremy Moss declined to endorse his party’s Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, in an interview with Slate: “Abdul’s going to have to demonstrate some serious outreach to Oakland County’s Jewish community,” Moss said. The two candidates have “had an ongoing dialogue,” Moss added, as he said Democrats must ensure that “the liberal Jewish community is not politically homeless”…
Rabbi Asher Lopatin, director of community relations at the Ann Arbor Jewish federation who has been outspoken about the threat he believes El-Sayed poses to the Jewish community, appeared at a “Democrats for Rogers” press conference in Detroit today where he said, “I usually vote Democrat, but I’m gonna be voting for Mike Rogers … I’m sad to say this, that Abdul El-Sayed has made one thing very clear: We cannot let him anywhere near the U.S. Senate”…
A new poll commissioned by AARP found El-Sayed leading Rogers by one percentage point, 48-47%, but voters ages 50 and up were 16 points more likely than younger voters to say they were motivated to participate in the general election — a population that swings heavily towards Rogers. Voters ages 50-64 favored Rogers over El-Sayed 51-46%, and voters above 65 favored the Republican by 13 points (54-41%)…
Asked in a New York Times interview about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s call for the federal government to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he arrives in the city for the U.N. General Assembly next month, Gov. Kathy Hochul advised the mayor, “Let’s focus on the blocking and tackling of city government. That is where I believe the main focus should be”…
The Trump administration, meanwhile, is weighing in on another official’s appearance at the UNGA: The White House intends to prevent Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas from attending for the second year in a row, a U.S. official told The Times of Israel…
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent explained on CNBC today that in order to implement the new U.S. economic campaign against Iran, the Trump administration will approach “all of our allies” and tell them, “You are either with us or against us.”
“If you insist on doing business with [Iran] — either transferring money, buying their oil, doing seaborne ship transfers — then the U.S. Treasury and the U.S. government will put its full might and force toward enforcing against you,” he added…
The NYT looks at which countries do the most business with Iran and could therefore be hardest hit by the new measures, including China, India and several Middle East nations…
Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch, the only Jewish member of the state’s Legislature, denounced the Georgia branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations for featuring extremist anti-Israel voices including Zahra Billoo, Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur as keynote speakers at its gala next month.
CAIR-GA has “dropped the mask at this point,” Panitch told the Jerusalem News Syndicate. “This is actual straight-out, Nazi-level Protocols of the Elders of Zion kind of antisemitism. They’re doing it, and they can’t say they didn’t know”…
For more than 150 years, Baltimore’s Orthodox Jews have walked to synagogue on Preakness Saturday and listened to the roar of the crowd from Pimlico Race Course less than a mile away, never able to join it. That changes in 2027, when the second jewel in horse racing’s Triple Crown — following the Kentucky Derby and preceding the Belmont Stakes — moves from Saturday to Sunday, finally opening the gates at Pimlico to the local Shabbat-observant community for the first time since the race started in 1873, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…
⏩ 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 for a look at the growing divide between the United States and Israel over how to approach post-Assad Syria.
Despite her recent debate stage snafu, which has led GOP operatives to question her chances in next week’s special runoff election, Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) is still enjoying the support of the party: Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the Senate majority whip, is in South Carolina today to support her race, and President Donald Trump will join her in Myrtle Beach for a rally tomorrow.
We’ll be back with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!
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The president warned of broad ‘economic consequences’ for those assisting Tehran’s economy but did not specify what the new measures may entail
Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images
US President Donald Trump speaks about the conflict in Iran in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on April 6, 2026, in Washington, DC.
President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that the U.S. was launching “economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale” against Iran, threatening to take aggressive action against foreign entities and businesses engaging economically with Tehran.
“No one has given the Islamic Republic of Iran a greater opportunity to make a Deal than me,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, but Tehran has “failed to take it.”
“Therefore, today, I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY,” he wrote.
Trump warned of broad “economic consequences” for those assisting Tehran’s economy, adding, “You know who you are.” While he did not explicitly name the measures the U.S. would take, his announcement came following his threat of U.S. military action against Oman earlier this week over potential interference in U.S. negotiations with Iran.
Calling the initiative an “economic D-Day,” Trump urged global allies to join Washington in isolating Tehran.
“These maniacs are on the ropes, and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide,” Trump wrote, vowing once again that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.
While senior White House officials indicated earlier this week that talks between the U.S. and Iran were ongoing, Trump later said no discussions were taking place or scheduled for the future.
The announcement also comes as the United Arab Emirates announced this week that it would suspend all financial and commercial ties with Tehran.
Plus, ICE detains Jewish bridal shop owner
Sarah Rice/Getty Images
Senate candidate Mike Rogers greets supporters at his election watch party with the MIGOP on November 5, 2024 in Novi, Michigan.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Jewish leaders in Michigan are circulating an open letter, obtained by Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel, urging Jewish Democrats and independents in the battleground state to sign their names in support of former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) as he faces Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed in the race for U.S. Senate.
If El-Sayed were to claim victory in the general election, the authors say, “we fear the far-left and anti-Jewish elements in the Democratic party would become dominant … We cannot allow him to become the Democratic standard-bearer or Michigan’s senator”…
California state Sen. Aisha Wahab still holds a narrow lead as of this afternoon over former Dublin, Calif., Mayor Melissa Hernandez in the special election runoff for an East Bay House seat that drew a late surge of outside spending from AIPAC.
With 62% of the vote counted in yesterday’s election, Wahab had 51%, leading Hernandez by two percentage points or 1,356 votes, according to the unofficial initial returns. “We made a race that wasn’t close when we started into a nail-biter,” Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for AIPAC’s United Democracy Project super PAC, told JI’s Matthew Kassel…
ICE detained a Jewish bridal shop owner and his mother living in Englewood, N.J., a local elected official confirmed today to JI’s Haley Cohen: Ari Ladino and his mother, Chava, who are originally from Bogotá, Colombia, run Luana Rose Modestly in Teaneck — a dress shop specializing in modest special occasion gowns popular among local Orthodox Jewish women. The reason for their arrest remains unclear…
In an interview with The Jerusalem Post today, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack doubled down on his criticism of Israeli strikes on a Syrian air base earlier in the week, which Israel said had been prompted by Turkish involvement at the base. “Turkish forces were not aware that the Israeli aircraft were en route to that specific Syrian base … [and] could potentially have been inclined to scramble their own jets in the belief that they themselves were under attack,” Barrack said.
He announced that the U.S. is looking to relaunch a deconfliction cell between Israel and Syria, with potential Turkish participation, and downplayed reported Israeli concerns over a specific Turkish radar system said to be deployed at the base. “We remain convinced that this technical requirement need not pose a security concern, and that further conversations can help clarify the matter to everyone’s satisfaction,” Barrack said…
Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF’s chief of staff, visited Israeli troops in southern Syria today, where he said Israel is “monitoring the changes on the Syrian front” and “know[s] how to use our power precisely where it is needed and when it is needed”…
The IDF announced it is opening an investigation into the killing of 5-year-old Hind Rajab in Gaza in January 2024 after finding that troops had indeed fired at her family’s vehicle as it was traveling opposite the direction of an evacuation route. The military had previously denied responsibility for the incident, which drew global attention and inspired an Oscar-nominated film titled “The Voice of Hind Rajab.”
The IDF will also investigate the killing of 15 rescue workers traveling in emergency vehicles in March 2025, and closed investigations into a strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy and into the deaths of several Doctors Without Borders members, finding that troops’ actions in those incidents did not rise to the level of criminal offenses…
The New York Times examines CENTCOM’s efforts to keep oil traffic flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, including utilizing air- and water-based assets to intercept Iranian drones and missiles targeting commercial traffic.
Beyond protecting tankers loaded with oil, the U.S. military has also reportedly established its own corridor to help empty ships enter the strait, load up and exit largely undetected…
The New York State Department of Financial Services issued a notice warning Holocaust survivors and their families about potential fraud by an organization calling itself the “Jewish Holocaust Claims Center” that is contacting such individuals about their eligibility for compensation…
⏩ 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 for a look at how Sen. Darline Graham‘s (R-SC) debate stage flub on national security may impact her chances in next week’s South Carolina special runoff election for Senate.
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and his primary opponent, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), will face off in their final debate before the election. Moulton, 47, is mounting a generational challenge to the 80-year-old Markey and has taken an increasingly critical stance against Israel and AIPAC on the campaign trail, while Markey has long staked out staunchly anti-Israel positions.
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Plus, Central Synagogue attacker faces federal charges
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) speaks during the House Administration Committee hearing on June 10, 2026.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social this morning that “There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” directly contradicting a statement from Jared Kushner yesterday that dialogue between the White House and “different areas of the Iranian government” is “probably more robust than it’s maybe ever been”…
U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, who also serves as special envoy for Syria and Iraq, said on X this morning that he’s “deeply concerned” over what he called “confirmed Israeli airstrikes” on Syria’s Abu al-Duhur Airbase overnight, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strikes.
“The United States has in the past, and will continue in the future, to host discussions to encourage diplomatic cadence over kinetic frustration for both nations,” Barrack said, calling the incident an “unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability.” Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), who has been a pro-Israel stalwart, also condemned what he called “one-sided aggression”…
U.N. inspectors visited some nuclear sites tied to the deposed Assad regime in Syria this week, the first time that International Atomic Energy Agency officials have been given full access to the sites. Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani said at a press conference with IAEA head Rafael Grossi that nuclear material found at the locations, including several tons of uranium, will be placed “under IAEA safeguards”…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced sanctions today against Tomoko Akane, president of the International Criminal Court, and Abdoulaye Seye, a senior trial lawyer, as part of the Trump administration’s recently announced campaign to target the body.
Rubio said the two individuals “have directly engaged in efforts by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction,” likely in reference to Israeli leaders…
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, claimed today that the Trump administration’s probes into campus antisemitism were “fake” and that schools found to have violated federal civil rights law were effectively framed, pointing to whistleblower reports that claimed the administration had manipulated evidence to show violations of law despite lacking sufficient evidence.
Raskin announced that he is launching an investigation of the alleged “misconduct” of the Department of Justice and intends to assess potential changes to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act “in light of this Administration’s shockingly reckless and unethical actions,” JI’s Marc Rod reports…
The DOJ charged a New York man, Larry Montes, with two federal hate crimes charges and one count of destruction of religious property for disrupting Shabbat services at Central Synagogue in Manhattan over the weekend, where he struck a congregant, damaged synagogue property and spat on and headbutted a security guard. Montes has already been charged with hate crimes by local prosecutors…
The DOJ also charged 17 members of the Mabna Institute — an Iran-based company that federal prosecutors say ran a state-sponsored cyber campaign on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps since at least 2013 — with hacking 144 U.S. and 178 foreign universities, dozens of private companies and several U.S. government agencies to steal research, academic data and intellectual property…
The Department of Defense instructed 30 U.S. academic institutions to conduct reviews of their ties with “foreign entities of concern,” threatening future Pentagon funding for research projects if they fail to do so and terminate “problematic partnerships”…
Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss, the Democratic nominee in Michigan’s 11th Congressional District, pushed back today against what he alleged was a doctored audio clip circulating online designed to portray him as more loyal to Israel than the United States, JI’s Marc Rod reports.
“There is a manipulated and unsourced audio, with things I never did and never would say, that is nothing more than political disinformation intended to portray me as anti-American,” Moss, who is Jewish, said on X…
Rebecca Weininger, senior regional director of Anti-Defamation League Midwest, called out the Chicago branch of the Democratic Socialists of America’s “fixation on Israel” after the group’s 2027 city council endorsement questionnaire asked local candidates to explain whether they consider themselves anti-Zionists and if they support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
The group’s outsized focus on the Jewish state, Weininger said, is “not only far removed from the responsibilities and priorities of an alderman, but also risks fueling anti-Jewish sentiment, harassment, and ultimately, violence against Chicago’s Jewish community”…
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) suggested in an interview with The Washington Post that he believes Democrats can still win the Senate even if far-left Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, whom Schumer has endorsed, loses in November, JI’s Marc Rod reports. “A path to winning back the Senate clearly goes through Michigan, but we have a whole bunch of different paths,” Schumer said.
The Senate Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC, is spending $3 million on a new ad campaign to defeat Republican nominee Mike Rogers, portraying him as a career politician who enriched himself while in Washington…
⏩ 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 for results from today’s key races in Florida and California. Polls close in the Sunshine State at 7 p.m. ET, and in the Golden State at 11 p.m. ET.
Hannan Lis, Brian Hermelin and Rob Orley, three prominent Jewish Democratic bundlers in Michigan, are hosting a fundraiser tonight for the state’s Republican Senate nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), as some Jewish Democrats in the Wolverine State consider flipping their votes against Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed. Read Lis’ comments to JI here.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) and Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) will face off in a debate tonight hosted by the South Carolina GOP, a week ahead of their runoff election.
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Plus, Trump puts Oman in the crosshairs
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Israeli President Isaac Herzog meets with Jared Kushner at the President's Residence in Jerusalem on Aug. 17, 2026.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump confirmed to Fox News this morning that the White House is communicating directly with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and said that Tehran should “raise the white flag of surrender,” as the 60-day memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran — which was intended to lead to the creation of a permanent peace agreement but was quickly deemed moot by both parties — officially expired today without a deal in sight.
Jared Kushner separately told Fox News about the status of talks with Iran that Trump is “focused on economic pressure” but is still open to reaching an agreement, adding that dialogue between the White House and “different areas of the Iranian government” is “probably more robust than it’s maybe ever been” and that the conversations are “positive”…
Trump also threatened in his interview to “bomb the sh*t out of” Oman if the country “gets in the way,” amid Muscat’s negotiations with Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz.
Speaking later to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said he doesn’t think Oman “behave[s] very well” and that the U.S. would “handle them very easily.” He also reaffirmed his recent claim that he intends to declare the strait a U.S. territory, saying he “think[s] it’s a great idea”…
Responding to Trump’s threat, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) announced he intends to introduce a war powers resolution when the Senate returns from recess to prohibit U.S. military action against Oman…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he had “deep and constructive discussions” with Board of Peace head Nickolay Mladenov and Kushner in Jerusalem today, where the parties agreed to establish two working groups: one on the “disarmament and demilitarization of Gaza,” which they agreed should happen before “any reconstruction,” and a second on sanitation and public health concerns in the enclave.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog also met with the group and said he was “impressed that Israel’s security interests are an important and central element of their plan”…
After the meetings, Kushner told Fox News that he predicts there will be progress in starting to demilitarize Gaza “in as little as 30 days” and beginning to fill in Hamas’ terror tunnels “in the next 60 to 90 days.”
Despite Trump stating in his interview that Israel should not be conducting any more strikes in Gaza, Kushner said the Board of Peace would “not restrict Israel’s right to defend itself” and that if Hamas doesn’t follow through on its commitments, Israel will “have a lot more support from the U.S.” to “finish the job.” He called his Sunday meeting with Hamas leaders “cordial” and said they “said all the right things” but that they are “hard to trust”…
Trump said today it’s “most appropriate” that he “stay out of” Israel’s upcoming elections but added that he “may endorse somebody” anyway….
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi disputed claims by Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the region of Kurdistan, that his office was attacked by Iranian drones: “Kurdish friends should be vigilant against false-flag ploys to sow discord between neighbors,” Araghchi said on X, claiming that Iran has historically “protected” the Kurds. It was a striking characterization given that Iran has repeatedly struck Kurdish opposition bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, including during the current war, and has a decades-long history of suppressing its own Kurdish population…
New York City leaders are condemning a series of inflammatory posters opposing a new housing development in Chelsea that use antisemitic, racist and homophobic language, including a call to “stop Zionist occupation of Manhattan,” tying the project to “foreign wealth dirty zionist money” and claiming that “Talmudists are trained to cheat.”
City Hall called the posters “vile” and claimed the rhetoric “has absolutely no place in our city’s political discourse,” while Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said, “Disagreement over housing policy is legitimate. Dehumanizing your neighbors is not”…
Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Dan Goldman (D-NY) continued to spar this week over the University of Washington’s decision to cancel a planned speech by antisemitic influencer Hasan Piker, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
After Goldman argued initially against Jayapal’s denunciation of the school, the congresswoman said she “completely disagree[s] with [Goldman’s] analysis of free speech”; Goldman responded that students have ample access to “Piker’s racist and anti-American views,” but the university has a responsibility to prevent discriminatory conduct or a hostile environment for Jewish students that could interfere in their ability to participate on campus…
⏩ 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 for a look at AIPAC’s involvement in tomorrow’s special election in California’s 14th Congressional District, where state Sen. Aisha Wahab is facing off against former Dublin, Calif., Mayor Melissa Hernandez, who is backed by the pro-Israel group.
Florida will also hold its primary elections tomorrow, where several pro-Israel and Jewish candidates are facing off against far-right and far-left extremists. Read more on the races and their implications here.
The Sephardic Rabbinical Conference will conclude in New York with speakers including Israeli Consul General Ofir Akunis; Daniel Rosenthal, vice president for government relations at UJA-Federation of New York; Rabbi Elie Buechler, director of programs at the Orthodox Union Advocacy Center; and rabbis from around the world.
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FDD’s Behnam Ben Taleblu said that successful U.S. economic pressure may lead Iran to retaliate in the fall in an attempt to impact the elections
Screenshot
Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Ludovic Hood moderates a panel with Behnam Ben Taleblu, the senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran program (center), and Hudson Institute fellows Michael Doran and Zineb Riboua, August 13th, 2026
Behnam Ben Taleblu, the senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran program, warned on Thursday of potential Iranian escalation — military or otherwise — in the run-up to the midterms, with the goal of disrupting the elections.
Taleblu said on a panel at the Hudson Institute that, ahead of November, “my fear for the president prior to the midterms … is not failure. My fear for the president now is success.” He said that U.S. economic pressure alongside the blockade has been highly effective and will have success in squeezing Iran’s economy and oil exports, potentially bringing retaliation from Iran, even in the event of another diplomatic agreement.
“What you might actually have now is the Islamic Republic, once we reverse the economic pressure, they might lean in on asymmetric military pressure, and they might do so at a time that might deliver some sort of an October surprise or constrain his options, or create one surrender option or one major military engagement option, come October, prior to November,” Taleblu said.
A senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps advisor, Mohammed Reza Naqdi, told PBS earlier this week that Iran intends to prolong the war until the next administration and that it maintains significant capacity to attack at a time of its choosing.
Taleblu said that the U.S. needs to “prepare for success” and anticipate what Iran will do next, and to prepare contingencies for those situations.
“If you do turn it off, if you do try to pursue diplomacy, if you do try to pursue a deal, if you do try to handhold and arm-twist the media and markets just to make sure that … this global financial crisis doesn’t emerge — if you do all of that, I hope you use the time well here in this town to prepare for how Iran is preparing,” Taleblu said.
All three experts on the panel — Taleblu and Hudson Institute fellows Michael Doran and Zineb Riboua — predicted that the U.S. will be reengaged in negotiations with Iran by Thanksgiving and that there will be further U.S. or Israeli strikes before the holiday. Doran predicted that strikes are more likely after the midterms and the Israeli elections, which are scheduled for Oct. 27.
The three diverged on whether the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened by Thanksgiving.
Doran praised the administration’s strategy overall but said that the U.S. hasn’t achieved all of its stated goals and there are no easy solutions to Iran’s remaining drone and missile stockpiles, with which it can continue to hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage.
“The Iranians don’t have to hit every tanker in order to close the strait. … We have to eradicate the drone program; that is nearly an impossible mission short of carrying out a regime change policy, or short of destroying all of the export capacity of the Iranians, wiping out Kharg Island — and this is a step that Donald Trump doesn’t want to take,” Doran said, given concerns about attacks on the Gulf and a potential refugee crisis from Iran.
Ultimately, he said, the path forward will be determined by political decisionmakers in the U.S., adding that there is at this point no easy military solution and that the conflict may continue for months or years to come.
Taleblu downplayed the oft-repeated notion that the new Iranian leadership is measurably younger or more hardline than the previous leadership, arguing that the war had just accelerated existing trends that had already been in place, and that the current leadership is still of the same generation and background as the previous group.
He added that Iran’s decision-making apparatus is now more diffuse and is concentrated in the Iranian institutional cabal, which will not bow easily to pressure.
Plus, Josh Kushner and Bob Iger ball out
Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Breakthrough T1D)
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) questions witnesses during a hearing held to examine a future without Type 1 Diabetes with a focus on accelerating breakthroughs and creating hope at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on July 09, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
A State Department official pushed back on Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz’s comments in southern Lebanon today, where he said the IDF would remain deployed in a security zone, contrary to the agreement signed between Washington, Jerusalem and Beirut.
“The United States expects all parties to act in a manner consistent with the Framework they agreed to, and Israel clearly stated that it has no territorial ambitions in Lebanon. A permanent military presence in South Lebanon is not consistent with the commitments made in the Framework, or the long-term peace and security of both states,” the official told Axios…
Sources told Reuters that Israel and Lebanon have agreed that countries including Britain, Italy, Switzerland and Indonesia could contribute troops to an international force meant to oversee Hezbollah’s disarmament; an Israeli official denied any decisions had been made on the issue…
President Donald Trump continued to boast about the success of the U.S. campaign against Iran, stating again in a post on Truth Social today that the U.S. “has total control over the Strait of Hormuz” and that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is “decimated and fleeing.”
Meanwhile, out of the 166 ships that have transited the strait so far this month — a significant decrease from the average before the war — only two are known to have used the U.S.- and Oman-backed route, according to The Wall Street Journal…
In a rare interview with Western media, top IRGC advisor Mohammad Reza Naqdi told “PBS News Hour” that Iran is prepared to continue hostilities through the end of Trump’s term and accused the U.S. of waging a “war without strategy”…
The New York Times documents the efforts being made by Gulf countries to construct routes to move oil out of the region that do not rely on the Strait of Hormuz…
Board of Peace head Nickolay Mladenov denied in a post in Hebrew today that there is any financial agreement between the board and Hamas, refuting a report by Israeli public broadcaster Kan that the board would cover Hamas’ debts up to $400 million.
The disarmament roadmap states that the new Palestinian technocratic government will “assess the legitimate commitments to suppliers, contractors and other parties — up to a total amount of no more than $400M — and address them”; Mladenov said in his post that such processes “are not channeled through Hamas” and that “all accounts are open to full scrutiny by the donor governments”…
The publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, Michael Morris, penned an open letter to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) today pressing the senator over his repeated votes to block U.S. military sales to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
“I apologize for being blunt, but please, stop lying to me and your constituents. I hear you claim, over and over again, that you support Israel — that your support is ‘ironclad.’ It is not,” Morris wrote…
Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) denied today that the more than $30 million of support she received from AIPAC’s super PAC in her failed run for U.S. Senate backfired, saying on CNN that those who criticize AIPAC “maybe don’t understand what the group is” and that she’s “proud of the friendships and the relationships I have there [and] the really good Americans” who make up its membership…
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is stepping away from her role at the end of the month, Trump announced today, in order to spend more time with her family. The president said Leavitt will now serve as “one of my top outside advisors”…
Josh Kushner, managing partner of the venture capital firm Thrive Capital, and former Disney CEO Bob Iger have agreed to purchase a controlling interest in the Los Angeles Lakers for a record-breaking price of $12.5 billion, JI’s Matthew Shea reports…
⏩ 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 for a look at local Jewish political organizing efforts in major cities across the country.
The Hudson Institute will hold an event examining the state of the ongoing conflicts in the Gulf with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Behnam Ben Taleblu and Hudson’s Michael Doran, Ludo Hood and Zineb Riboua.
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Plus, City Hall and NYPD clash over Rama Duwaji's travel plans
Javier Campos/NurPhoto via Getty Images
A woman waves a Venezuelan flag during a march in amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in Caracas, Venezuela on May 25, 2021. (Photo by )
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, insisted today that any agreement reached between Iran and Oman on administering the Strait of Hormuz is separate from Tehran’s broader closure of the waterway, which will only be lifted once the U.S. accedes to Iran’s demands.
Meanwhile, Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, a key mediator between the U.S. and Iran, met today with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Tehran. Islamabad’s defense minister, Khawaja Asif, told Bloomberg that developments are “shaping up again in favor of a peace arrangement”…
CENTCOM said it disabled a Panama-flagged cargo ship sailing toward Iranian ports today by firing two Hellfire missiles into the vessel’s engine room, the third such incident since the U.S. blockade began…
Ed Miliband, who last month was appointed by new U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham to be foreign secretary, said he had a “frank and constructive first call” with Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar today, during which the British diplomat raised the issues of settler violence, settlement expansion and the humanitarian situation in Gaza, among others.
The discussion came a day after Miliband met with British Jewish community leaders, who said they were “impressed” by the foreign secretary’s “longer-term commitment to maintaining the conversation”…
Sa’ar announced that Israel and Venezuela have agreed to renew consular relations — establishing a coordination mechanism to provide consular services to each country’s citizens — in the first official channel between the two since Caracas severed diplomatic ties in 2009. The move builds on the Israeli aid delegation dispatched to Venezuela after the June 24 earthquakes…
The Palestinian technocratic committee meant to govern Gaza convened a joint coordination meeting with several U.N. agencies — including the World Food Program, UNICEF and the World Health Organization — as well as representatives from the Board of Peace and former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Institute for Global Change to coordinate on humanitarian aid and reconstruction issues…
Former Mossad head Yossi Cohen said at a conference in Israel today that Israeli operatives have “toured” Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility “many times” in order to “understand” it, and called the U.S. operation to bomb the site during the 12-day war in June 2025 “the fulfillment of all my dreams”…
The NYPD denied that its officers will be accompanying New York City First Lady Rama Duwaji on a trip to Lebanon and Syria next month after City Hall said that, “upon the strong recommendation of the NYPD, the First Lady’s security detail will be joining her” on the trip.
“The NYPD does not send officers to countries with level four travel advisories for discretionary reasons,” the NYPD said today, referring to the State Department’s ranking system that currently designates the two countries as “do not travel” locations. Mayor Zohran Mamdani later said the diverging statements stemmed from a “miscommunication,” and that when his wife makes the trip “it will be without any NYPD detail”…
Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed has made private over 100 YouTube videos from his time as a podcaster and commentator, CNN reports, including videos in which he lambasted fireworks on the Fourth of July, floated replacing the Second Amendment and voiced support for prison abolition…
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Brian Poindexter, the Democratic nominee in Ohio’s 7th Congressional District, to its “Red to Blue” program as he aims to unseat Rep. Max Miller (R-OH). Democratic leadership will offer Poindexter strategic support as the district, previously considered a long shot for Democrats given its GOP leanings, is now seen as a key flip opportunity as Miller navigates accusations of domestic violence by his ex-wife…
The campaign of Francesca Hong, the socialist seen as the front-runner in today’s Democratic primary election for governor of Wisconsin, was rebuffed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as she sought his endorsement due to her perceived weaknesses as a candidate, Politico reports; her campaign is planning to overhaul its staff to address such issues if she proceeds to the general…
⏩ 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 for results from key primaries taking place today in Minnesota, South Carolina, Connecticut and Wisconsin.
Stories You May Have Missed
THE CAPITAL’S KOSHER CONUNDRUM
D.C. has a kosher restaurant problem. Owners say to blame the math
DSA UNFILTERED
‘If you put people in an open-air concentration camp … you have to expect that they are going to not take that for that long,’ Megan Romer said of the Oct. 7 attacks
Plus, new app offers Shabbat experience ‘with training wheels’
Aaron Schwartz / AFP via Getty Images
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David in Maryland, on July 31, 2026.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Responding to a recent demand from Iran that the U.S. fully compensate it for its war costs in order to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump issued his own demand today that Tehran compensate the U.S. “for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts,” as well as pay reparations to the “families of the hundreds of thousands of innocent protestors that Iran has killed over the last 50 years.” Trump said he instructed U.S. representatives to “put this firmly into any, and all, future negotiations” with Tehran…
Shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that Israel rejects the Hamas disarmament deal, Board of Peace head Nickolay Mladenov told Israel’s Channel 12 that the deal is “the only way” that “guarantees” that the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, “will not occur again.”
“Nobody is required to do anything — last of all Israel — before we actually have verified steps on the ground,” Mladenov said, referring to the IDF’s eventual withdrawal from Gaza after all of Hamas’ weapons are “stored, and ultimately rendered unusable,” by the Palestinian technocratic government…
The International Atomic Energy Agency will remove nuclear material stored at a secret site in Syria tied to the fallen Assad regime, Axios reports, per an agreement reached between Trump, Jerusalem and Damascus…
Megan Romer, a national co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, said in a podcast interview last week that the Oct. 7 attacks were “largely inevitable” — “If you put people in an open-air concentration camp and you deprive them of rights, of dignity, of food, of the ability to live in safety, you have to expect that they are going to not take that for that long,” she said — and that she would have attended the anti-Israel Times Square rally on Oct. 8 had she been in the area, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports…
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said on MS NOW today that Abdul El-Sayed, the state’s Democratic nominee for Senate, should “tone down his rhetoric” about Israel and AIPAC in order to help combat antisemitism in the Democratic Party.
“Not everything is about AIPAC, not everything is about Israel. … Even if we wiped Israel off the face of the earth tomorrow, you know, everyday Michiganders’ lives wouldn’t be better on” issues such as housing and healthcare, Nessel said…
The University of Washington on Friday reversed its decision to host far-left, antisemitic influencer Hasan Piker, citing a flawed planning process, JI’s Haley Cohen reports.
The event listing, which has since been removed from the university website, described Piker as a “journalist and wildly popular content creator” who has “become an authoritative voice for millennials and Gen Z,” and as someone who is “armed with sharp analysis and an irreverent wit”…
The new conservative government in Colombia, which recently returned its ambassador to Israel, today recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, becoming the second country to do so after the U.S.
Colombia’s Foreign Ministry announced the move shortly after a powerful earthquake struck the country, killing over 100 people…
A new app called Sabbath is selling an ancient pitch to a modern, phone-addicted crowd: lock technology away for one sacred day a week. The app — which founder Ben Springwater calls “Shabbat with training wheels” — is “trying to make a bigger tent, get more people to experience some of the benefits and virtues of what Shabbat offers,” he told JI’s Haley Cohen, by allowing users to block certain apps from sundown to sundown on either Saturday or Sunday…
The Cook Political Report updated its rating of Rep. Max Miller’s (R-OH) district from “Likely Republican” to “Toss Up” after the deadline passed for Miller to drop out of his reelection race, which he declined to do despite facing serious domestic abuse allegations. Miller has denied the accusations levied against him by his ex-wife and her father, Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH)…
Politico explores how Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is using her political clout to boost her preferred successor, San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, over Chan’s opponent, state Sen. Scott Wiener, including lining up endorsements and hosting major fundraisers…
“Fauda” star Lior Raz announced that the fifth season of the series, set two years after the Oct. 7 attacks, is coming to Netflix on Sept. 8…
⏩ 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 for a look at D.C.’sever-evolving kosher food scene.
Connecticut, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin will hold primary elections tomorrow, with South Carolina and Alabama holding special elections as well.
We’ll be watching the outcomes in Minnesota’s Senate race, where Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan are neck-and-neck, as well as the Wisconsin governor’s race, where democratic socialist Francesca Hong is favored to win the Democratic nomination.
In the South Carolina special Republican Senate primary, Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) is trying to hold her late brother’s seat in a race widely expected to head to an Aug. 25 runoff. And in Connecticut’s 1st District, longtime Rep. John Larson (D-CT) faces his first serious primary challenge in decades from former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin.
Kenneth Marcus, the chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, will testify before a hearing of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission tomorrow, urging the commission to repeal rules requiring employers to keep and submit yearly reports breaking down their workforce by race, sex and ethnicity.
Marcus argued to JI that the practice has “created the impression that the agency is pushing them to use racial preferences in order to improve their numbers.” He said the situation has left Jews either “invisible because we’re not counted, or potentially stigmatized because we are,” and that “counting by race or ethnicity has never been helpful for the Jewish people and has sometimes been dangerous.” He said that eliminating these requirements would allow the EEOC to focus more fully on specific complaints of alleged discrimination.
Stories You May Have Missed
GOPHER BROKE
Left-wing Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s anti-Israel message is being complicated by her outreach to AIPAC earlier in the campaign
CONNECTICUT COMPETITION
Rep. John Larson, a Democrat, supports continued U.S. aid to Israel, while former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin has said he would not back further offensive aid but does support Iron Dome
Plus, Jewish authors write their own ending
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while aboard Air Force One on June 5, 2026 en route to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at concerns that President Donald Trump is ceding oversight to Iran as issues related to the Strait of Hormuz remain unresolved, and report on the opening of several literary houses that will focus on publishing Jewish authors. We interview Ludo Hood, who retired from the State Department last week after more than two decades of service, and report on the United Democracy Project’s involvement in the special election runoff in California’s 14th Congressional District to succeed Rep. Eric Swalwell. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Gov. Mikie Sherrill, Yoav Segalovitz and Lele Yutzy.
We also have a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.
Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.
For less-distracted reading over the weekend, browse this week’s edition of The Weekly Print, a curated print-friendly PDF featuring a selection of recent Jewish Insider and eJewishPhilanthropy stories, including: Jewish Democrats in Michigan weigh crossing party lines after El-Sayed’s Senate primary win; Dara Horn’s shocking new title hides a serious argument about fighting antisemitism; and Darline Graham, backed by Trump, still faces obstacles in bid to succeed brother in the Senate. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is meeting today with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Riyadh, where the three are slated to sign a joint defense agreement.
- We’re keeping an eye out for a public statement from Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) after his primary defeat last night. The far-right lawmaker, who had the backing of President Donald Trump, was ousted by Charlie Hatcher, the state’s former agriculture commissioner. In his remarks at his victory party last night, Hatcher said Ogles had called to concede.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS
A meme circulated on social media earlier this week depicting a cartoon version of President Donald Trump addressing different stages of negotiations with Iran. In it, the president cycles between “We’re going to bomb their power plants,” “They called us begging for a deal,” “They’re giving us everything we want” and “They’re scum, you can’t negotiate with these people.”
It’s perhaps the most accurate commentary on the situation that has unfolded since early July, as the U.S. and Iran have continued to exchange fire, with Iran striking Arab states around the region. Every few days, the stage resets. The endless loop of diplomacy and military strikes has thrown the countries into a situation that is equal parts “Groundhog Day” and “The Apprentice” — military strikes on loop, with a major breakthrough soon to come.
Indeed, Trump suggested on Tuesday that “a lot of progress had been made” in negotiations that would see the Strait of Hormuz reopened and signaled a deal on the strategic waterway could be announced as soon as this week.
His rhetoric echoes comments he has made in recent weeks teasing a diplomatic breakthrough that is right around the corner, while the consistent reality is that diplomacy has been cyclical, devoid of significant progress and increasingly beneficial to Tehran, which has learned that it only needs to wait out the situation — at least until the midterms, if not until 2029.
It also raises questions about the limits of American deterrence — especially when taken alongside recent reports of dwindling American weapons stockpiles.
Trump understands optics (and markets) perhaps better than any other world leader, hence his constant claims that a major diplomatic breakthrough could be days away — whereas Iran, unburdened by looming midterms and the realities that come with living in a democracy, can afford to wait it out as Washington runs through the endless narrative loop.
Almost as cyclical as Trump’s pronouncements are Iran’s near-immediate denials of the president’s claims: the regular insistence that a deal is far off and unlikely to happen without significant American and Israeli concessions.
STRAIT TALK
Experts are expressing growing concern over reports that an emerging deal between Iran and Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could grant Tehran unprecedented oversight over the international shipping route, ceding control to Iran that it did not possess prior to the conflict, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports. Under the proposed terms, inbound commercial vessels would be directed through a northern route in Iranian waters, while outbound ships would traverse a southern route in Omani waters, managed in coordination with Iran.
Waterway worries: Although a U.S. official told the Associated Press that such a deal would preclude Iran from issuing formal approvals for transiting ships, tolls or service fees, regional analysts warn that formalizing Iranian oversight over the chokepoint represents a significant strategic concession. Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told JI, “President Trump is very eager for a deal that reopens the strait, and seems inclined to accept a deal under which Iran has greater oversight of ships entering and exiting the strait. The key is denying Iran any way of monetizing the flow of traffic through this international waterway.”
REGIONAL RIFT
A coalition of foreign ministers from Arab and Muslim countries met in Jordan on Wednesday to launch a coordinated campaign against Israeli policies in Jerusalem — a gathering marked both by the notable absence of key regional players and rhetoric that dismissed Jewish ties to the city, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
The meeting brought together diplomats from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Algeria, Iraq, Tunisia, Somalia and Morocco, alongside representatives from the Arab League, Indonesia, Details: Pakistan, Turkey and Malaysia. Missing from the Amman summit were several close U.S. allies including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. In a joint statement, the group denounced what it called an “unprecedented Israeli escalation in occupied Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy sites,” accusing Israel of trying to alter “the Arab Islamic and Christian identity of occupied Jerusalem and its legal and demographic status” — omitting any mention of Jewish historical or religious ties to the city.
PEOPLE OF THE BOOK
A number of literary professionals have announced in recent weeks the launch of their own Jewish publishing companies, aimed at fulfilling a need for frustrated authors who say they’ve hit the same wall: agents advising them to cut Jewish names and references to Israel, editors going silent on submissions that once would have been fast sales and a mounting sense that the industry’s embrace of the #ownvoices storytelling trend — a hashtag used to amplify the work of diverse and minority voices — has an unspoken exception for Jewish writers, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Elevating voices: Meg Keene, an established nonfiction author who has sold more than 150,000 copies of her two books offering tips for wedding planning, recently announced the launch of Meg Keene Books, her own imprint at Wicked Son Press, a Jewish publisher known mostly for right-leaning nonfiction. “Earlier this year I got to the point where I realized I didn’t have anything left to lose,” Keene told JI. “Jews were having all these conversations behind the scenes but it felt like whoever came forward was going to destroy their career. I felt like I was in a position — because of my past in digital publishing and connection to editors, I knew how to do it. So many authors couldn’t sell their first book.”
PAC PLAY
After a night of mixed results in Tuesday’s primary elections, AIPAC’s United Democracy Project super PAC is turning its eyes toward the special election runoff in California’s 14th Congressional District, where progressive state Sen. Aisha Wahab and a moderate local mayor, Melissa Hernandez, are competing to replace disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
About the race: Wahab, seen as the heavy favorite, brings a record raises concerns for some members of the Jewish community — she has not been supportive of numerous priority bills and resolutions aimed at tackling antisemitism and has been a vocal critic of Israel, including describing the war in Gaza as a genocide and championing legislation in the state Senate on the issue. But one Jewish leader in the district expressed skepticism that UDP’s spending would defeat her, and warned that it risked pushing her further left.
BILL BUFFERING
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) joined Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Reps. Brad Knott (R-NC) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) on Thursday in introducing the Right to Worship Act, a federal bill that would ban activity that knowingly disrupts or impedes access to scheduled religious services within 100 feet of the entrance to a house of worship during that time, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Details: The bill would ban activity that “meaningfully interferes with the ability of people to participate in the scheduled religious service, to the extent that the conduct causes a substantial interruption to the service’s normal operation” or “unreasonably hinders or deters a person from entering a house of worship, or threatens or intimidates a person, in a manner that prevents participation at a scheduled religious service.” The bill would carry escalating civil fines for repeated offenses, as well as allow impacted individuals, the U.S. attorney general or a state attorney general to commence a civil suit under the law.
LIFTING THE HOOD
After a career in the foreign service, where officers are obliged to keep their political views to themselves and promote the positions of the current U.S. administration, some retiring diplomats have a hard time getting used to speaking their minds. Ludo Hood is not one of those people. The 53-year-old retired from the U.S. Foreign Service last week after two decades of service. Hood sat down with Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch this week to reflect on a career representing the U.S. that included stints working on Iran policy during negotiations for the 2015 nuclear deal, relations with Gulf states during the fraught Arab Spring and antisemitism policy in the tense aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in 2023.
Exception to the rule: Through all those foreign postings and geopolitical flashpoints, one of the most “alarming and shocking” moments of Hood’s time as a foreign service officer came within the halls of Foggy Bottom — when, in the months after Oct. 7, the State Department hosted listening sessions for staffers to express anti-Israel views and bash the policies espoused by the federal government. “It was the only time in my career where active dissent against the elected president’s overall policy and strategic direction was allowed to be aired in the open, and was actually in many ways encouraged,” Hood told JI.
Worthy Reads
Sanders’ Sensibilities: In The New York Times, Matthew Yglesias raises concerns about the “political judgments” of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as the Vermont senator has sought to boost the insurgent left — causing damage to the Democratic Party along the way. “The very top electoral performers among Democrats — lawmakers who have a record of results in districts most liberals would lose, like Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington State, Tom Suozzi of New York and Don Davis of North Carolina — are independent thinkers who are critical of Democratic Party leaders and the establishment. The difference is that rather than positioning themselves even further left than a party that most Americans think is too left-wing, they pick issues and rhetoric that are heterodox and often more restrained.” [NYTimes]
Back to School: In Fox News Opinion, Teach Coalition CEO Sydney Altfield calls for a “whole-of-society response” to mounting antisemitism as students head back to school, following an NYPD report indicating a significant increase in antisemitic hate crimes since the start of the year. “Administrators should say plainly that antisemitism is unacceptable, whether it appears as a threat, a slur, a swastika, harassment over Jewish identity or intimidation tied to Israel or Zionism. Further, education must be more than a one-off assembly after an incident. Students should learn what antisemitism is, how it mutates across political movements, conspiracy theories and social media trends and why targeting Jews corrodes civic life for everyone.” [FoxNews]
Find more Worthy Reads in our Live Briefing via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Word on the Street
Vice President JD Vance was pressed by Senate Republicans at a lunch on Thursday to provide more transparency into the Trump administration’s decision-making on Iran…
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said he was discharged from a rehabilitation center nearly two months after he was first hospitalized following a fall…
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) demanded that U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee step down over his handling of incidents in which U.S. citizens have allegedly been injured by the IDF and other Israelis…
Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) joined Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) in calling on Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), Moreno’s former son-in-law, to drop out of his reelection race and resign from Congress amid growing scrutiny of domestic violence allegations against Miller, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports…
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said on Wednesday that he believes Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan has put the state in play for Republicans in November. “He will quickly discover a primary is a much different situation in this state [than the general election], when you’re accountable for winning the other side. I can’t wait to see him campaign for the general. I have got my popcorn for that,” Fetterman told JI’s Emily Jacobs…
El-Sayed gave an extensive interview to The New York Times, in which he declined to say whether he’d continue to campaign with antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker, with whom he had appeared during the primary…
Politico looks at Republican efforts to win over disaffected Jewish and Black voters in Michigan following El-Sayed‘s primary win as the Michigan Democrat seeks to shore up support from the party’s base; El-Sayed has already reached out to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore as he looks to make inroads with Black voters…
In her first cable news interview since her Senate primary loss on Tuesday, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) told CNN that she identifies as “a Zionist Democrat in Michigan” and suggested that voters concerned about El-Sayed’s stance on Israel and rhetoric about the Jewish state “need to make a personal and private decision” as to who to support in November…
Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and 16 Democratic colleagues introduced the Honoring the Sacrifice of Troops in War Act, which aims to prevent the administration from manipulating Iran war casualty data and protects benefits for troops involved in the effort; Fetterman, who supports the Iran war and has broken with Democrats on other measures relating to it, is supporting the bill…
The Atlantic does a deep dive into how the U.S. “squandered” its advantage in the war with Iran, as Washington finds itself facing weapons shortages…
Reps. Derek Tran (D-CA), Ami Bera (D-CA) and Salud Carbajal (D-CA) led 65 House Democrats raising concerns about Israeli restrictions they said are preventing the entry of medical supplies and other humanitarian goods into Gaza…
Jonathan Cowan, president of the center-left group Third Way, told The New York Times that the group plans to spend $15 million ahead of the 2028 presidential election to target the Democratic Socialists of America after El-Sayed’s primary win in the Michigan Senate race…
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill‘s Mission to Deliver PAC endorsed a series of Democratic candidates with national security or military backgrounds, including Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) in his primary campaign to oust Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA)…
The Education Department announced probes into anti-Israel protests at San Jose State University and San Francisco State University, citing complaints alleging the schools’ administrators failed to adequately address antisemitism on campus…
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz sold his Hawaii estate for $36 million, 11 years after purchasing the property for $25 million…
Nazi warships deliberately sunk by the Germans as they retreated from Romania in 1944 are emerging in the Danube River in Serbia as the waterway faces dropping water levels due to drought and recent heat waves…
The United Arab Emirates has successfully transported more oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the last two months than any other country despite ongoing military hostilities in the area, Bloomberg reports, by utilizing tankers that switch off their transponders during the risky crossing…
Israel charged Israeli settler activist Yinon Levy with reckless homicide following the death last month of a Palestinian activist in the West Bank who was killed in a confrontation that occurred when Levy allegedly directed settlers to enter a private property and then shot at a group of Palestinians at the site…
Yesh Atid head Yair Lapid announced that MK Yoav Segalovitz is departing the party; the announcement came amid reports that Segalovitz is considering joining the Ra’am party, a move that would make him the first Jewish official on the Arab party’s ticket. In his new Substack, former crime reporter Ben Hartman examines how Segalovitz, formerly the head of Israel’s police intelligence and investigations branch, could shake up Israeli politics if he joins Ra’am…
Longtime former Likud MKs Gilad Erdan, a former Israeli ambassador to the U.N., and Yuli Edelstein announced the creation of a new, as-yet-unnamed party; the two former MKs said that they hoped to attract Likud voters disillusioned with the party’s direction under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with a special focus on military conscription…
Israeli media reported that Mossad head Roman Gofman dismissed the agency’s intelligence directorate head as well as the head of the Mossad’s Iran division over Israel’s failure to topple the Iranian regime earlier this year…
The Yemeni Defense Ministry said the Iran-backed Houthis attacked the internationally recognized government’s military forces in several locations — reportedly killing dozens of soldiers and officers — and that the military would retaliate against the terror group “at the appropriate time and place”…
Two former members of Iran’s national women’s soccer team were granted citizenship in Australia, where they sought humanitarian asylum earlier this year during a tournament in Melbourne…
California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Lele Yutzy as the state’s first director of its Office of Civil Rights, which was created under a bill enacted last year that acknowledged the prevalence of antisemitism in the state’s public schools and pledged to tackle discrimination…
The Simon Wiesenthal Center announced that Steve Gamer was joining the organization as chief development officer…
Find on-demand Live Briefing updates throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Pic of the Day
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar met on Thursday with Colombia’s incoming president, Abelardo de la Espriella, in Barranquilla, Colombia, one day before his official inauguration. According to a readout from Sa’ar’s office, the two discussed steps to strengthen diplomatic, security and economic relations between their countries.
Birthdays
Former professional soccer player, he played for the U.S. in the 2009 Maccabiah Games in Israel, Zac MacMath turns 35 today…
FRIDAY: Brooklyn resident, Esther Holler… Former U.S. trade representative and then U.S. secretary of commerce, both positions during the Clinton administration, Michael “Mickey” Kantor turns 87… Co-founder of the world-wide chain of Hard Rock Café, Peter Morton turns 79… Retired lieutenant general in the Israeli Air Force, he also served as chief of staff of the IDF, Dan Halutz turns 78… Former PR director for the New York Yankees and author of more than 20 books, Marty Appel turns 78… President of private equity firm Palisades Associates, former CEO of Empire Kosher Poultry, Greg Rosenbaum turns 74… Former U.S. intelligence analyst, he pled guilty to espionage in 1986 and was released from prison in 2015 and moved to Israel in 2020, Jonathan Pollard turns 72… Spiritual leader of Agudas Israel of St. Louis since 1986, Rabbi Menachem Greenblatt… Founder of the Cayton Children’s Museum in Santa Monica, Esther Netter… Former comptroller of the city of Rockville Centre, N.Y., Michael Schussheim turns 68… Television cook, YouTuber, restaurateur and cookbook author, known as Sam the Cooking Guy, Samuel D. Zien turns 67… City council president of Westlake, Ohio, David S. Greenspan turns 61… Professor of computational biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Liran Carmel turns 55… CEO at Capital Camps & Retreat Center after 14 years at AIPAC, Havi Arbeter Goldscher… Governor of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger turns 47… Financial news anchor for CNBC, Sara Aliza Eisen turns 42… Emmy Award-winning political reporter for The New York Times, Jonathan V. Swan turns 41… Public address announcer for both MLB’s Athletics and the AHL’s San Jose Barracuda, Amelia Schimmel… Former MLB catcher, he batted .350 with two home runs for Team Israel at the 2020 Olympics, he is now a catching instructor for the Chicago Cubs, Ryan Lavarnway turns 39… Senior faculty at Ariel University, Anna Harwood-Gross… Product management director at Signify Health, Estee Goldschmidt… Professional Super Smash Bros. player, known as Dabuz, Samuel Robert Buzby turns 33… Founder of Love For Our Elders, a global nonprofit organization in dozens of countries, Jacob Cramer turns 26… Scott Harrison…
SATURDAY: Actor and director, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1980 for “Kramer vs. Kramer” and in 1989 for “Rain Man,” Dustin Hoffman turns 89… Arlington Heights, Ill., resident, Elizabeth Gordon… Dutch diplomat and politician, he served as the speaker of the Dutch House of Representatives, Frans Weisglas turns 80… Greenwood Village, Colo., resident, Robert M. Schwartz… Tampa, Fla., resident, Roy D. Pulliam… Retired U.S. Army four-star general, who then served as the secretary of defense during the Biden administration, Lloyd James Austin III turns 73… Vancouver, Wash., resident, Juliana E. Miles Bagherpour… U.S. ambassador to Israel throughout the Trump 45 administration, David Melech Friedman turns 68… Former CEO of BusinessGhost, a ghostwriting firm that has written and published over 700 books, Michael Graubart Levin turns 68… Former managing general partner of MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays, Stuart L. Sternberg turns 67… Chess grandmaster, once ranked 8th in the world, he is the director of the Brooklyn Chess Academy, Leonid Yudasin turns 67… White House chief of staff for the first two years of the Biden administration, Ron Klain turns 65… Film director whose works include nine Disney films, Jon Turteltaub turns 63… Former chief justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, she continues to serve as a justice, Elissa F. Cadish turns 62… Digital strategist, he is the founding partner of Fuse, a consultancy, Jonah Seiger… Former book editor of the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Action magazine, Rabbi Gil Ofer Student turns 54… Lead guitarist of the mathcore band the Dillinger Escape Plan, also playing rhythm guitar with the crossover thrash band Suicidal Tendencies, Benjamin A. Weinman turns 51… Film and television actor, Lindsay Sloane turns 49… MLB pitcher for 12 seasons and now chief baseball officer of the Boston Red Sox, Craig Breslow turns 46… Author, freelance writer and editor, she is a former dancer with the New York City Ballet, Sophie Flack turns 43… Managing principal at Rocktower Capital, Bara Lane… Canadian film, television and stage actor, Jacob Benjamin “Jake” Goldsbie turns 38… Digital director at the Jewish Democratic Council of America, Sarah Garfinkel… Founder and managing partner at Avid Ventures, Addie Lerner Katz… Director of marketing and communications at Alpha Epsilon Pi, Zachary Pellish… Creative producer for Airbnb, Morgan Furlong… Internet celebrity and fitness model, Jennifer Leigh “Jen” Selter turns 33… Jack Baum… Rob Schwartz…
SUNDAY: Prominent Sephardic rabbi in Tel Aviv, he was a member of the Knesset for the Shas party, Rabbi Moshe Maya turns 88… Physicist and venture capitalist, co-founder and senior advisor at New Markets Venture Partners, Donald M. “Don” Spero, Ph.D. turns 87… Comedian, actor, writer, director and author, son of a rabbi, he appeared 140 times on Johnny Carson’s “Tonight Show,” David Steinberg turns 84… Romance novelist with 25 books on the NYT bestseller lists, Barbara Delinsky (born Barbara Ruth Greenberg) turns 81… Author of more than 33 Jewish-themed books, he is an ordained rabbi as are two of his daughters, Seymour Rossel turns 81… Telecommunications consultant based in Chattanooga, Tenn., Mark Shapiro turns 80… Psychologist and bestselling suspense novelist, Jonathan Kellerman turns 77… Southern California resident, Faith Schames… Brigadier general (res.) in the Israeli Air Force, Amir Abraham Haskel turns 73… Executive director of the Steinhardt Family Foundation in Israel and executive director of the Henry S. and Mala Dorfman Family Foundation, Tova Dorfman… U.S. senator (R-KS), Roger Marshall, M.D. turns 66… Member of the Minnesota state Senate since 2007, Ronald Steven “Ron” Latz turns 63… Professor of French at Yale University, he is the inaugural director of the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism, Maurice Samuels turns 58… Chief of staff for Representative Jerrold Nadler for 25 years, she started a consulting practice in 2024, Amy Beth Rutkin… Founder of Tannenbaum Capital Group, Leonard M. Tannenbaum turns 55… Two-time Grammy Award-winning operatic soprano, songwriter and actor, Hila Plitmann turns 53… Assistant secretary for inter-departmental data integration for the Maryland Department of Human Services, Kirill Reznik turns 52… Reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times, he covers the confluence of money, politics and influence, Kenneth P. Vogel turns 51… Democratic political strategist, Rebecca Kirszner Katz… Chair of JEWELS (Jewish Education Where Every Level Succeeds), Jules Friedman turns 51… Drummer, popular on YouTube with over 300 million views, Meytal Cohen turns 43… CEO of the Israel on Campus Coalition since 2013, Jacob Baime… Real estate investor based in Cleveland, Ohio, Amanda Isaacson… Associate at K&L Gates LLP, Isaac Lederman… Israeli actor, best known for his role as Yanky Shapiro in the 2020 Netflix miniseries “Unorthodox,” Amit Rahav turns 31… SVP at Dezenhall Resources, he was previously communications director for the Republican Jewish Coalition and an RNC alum, Fred Brown… Elise Aronson… Dan Zimerman…
Trump understands optics (and markets) perhaps better than any other world leader, hence his constant claims that a major diplomatic breakthrough could be days away
Aaron Schwartz / AFP via Getty Images
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at Camp David in Maryland, on July 31, 2026.
A meme circulated on social media earlier this week depicting a cartoon version of President Donald Trump addressing different stages of negotiations with Iran. In it, the president cycles between “We’re going to bomb their power plants,” “They called us begging for a deal,” “They’re giving us everything we want” and “They’re scum, you can’t negotiate with these people.”
It’s perhaps the most accurate commentary on the situation that has unfolded since early July, as the U.S. and Iran have continued to exchange fire, with Iran striking Arab states around the region. Every few days, the stage resets. The endless loop of diplomacy and military strikes has thrown the countries into a situation that is equal parts “Groundhog Day” and “The Apprentice” — military strikes on loop, with a major breakthrough soon to come.
Indeed, Trump suggested on Tuesday that “a lot of progress had been made” in negotiations that would see the Strait of Hormuz reopened and signaled a deal on the strategic waterway could be announced as soon as this week.
His rhetoric echoes comments he has made in recent weeks teasing a diplomatic breakthrough that is right around the corner, while the consistent reality is that diplomacy has been cyclical, devoid of significant progress and increasingly beneficial to Tehran, which has learned that it only needs to wait out the situation — at least until the midterms, if not until 2029.
It also raises questions about the limits of American deterrence — especially when taken alongside recent reports of dwindling American weapons stockpiles.
Trump understands optics (and markets) perhaps better than any other world leader, hence his constant claims that a major diplomatic breakthrough could be days away — whereas Iran, unburdened by looming midterms and the realities that come with living in a democracy, can afford to wait it out as Washington runs through the endless narrative loop.
Almost as cyclical as Trump’s pronouncements are Iran’s near-immediate denials of the president’s claims: the regular insistence that a deal is far off and unlikely to happen without significant American and Israeli concessions.
Such a move would not be the kind of diplomatic victory to be celebrated — unless you’re Iran — which will likely now extract greater authority and stand to benefit from control of the Strait of Hormuz. A return to the status quo — largely unfettered transit through the strait — appears unlikely, as even Trump praises ongoing talks between Oman and Iran.
It’s this low-level exchange of fire that keeps the pot from bubbling over and full-scale war from again breaking out. But as the cycle refreshes itself, the U.S. is increasingly drawn into a longer war that is more persistence than persuasion — a game for which Tehran holds the cheat codes.
Plus, Israel and Turkey trade barbs over Syria
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) talks with reporters after the Senate luncheons in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, March 11, 2025.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump disputed reports that the U.S. is running low on critical munitions as a result of the Iran war, claiming on Truth Social last night that the country has “massive amounts of ‘munitions,’ especially of certain types” and that more are being manufactured and shipped to the U.S. “as needed”…
The IDF struck several targets in southern Lebanon again today “in response to the incident yesterday” during which two IDF soldiers were killed and four severely injured in an explosion that the army attributed to Hezbollah.
The strikes came during the last day of Israel-Lebanon talks in Rome, which a State Department official said were “productive on the technical and expert levels” and brought the parties “a lot closer on what needs to be done to advance and expand the pilot zone process”…
Jonathan Cowan, president of the center-left group Third Way, told The New York Times that the group plans to spend $15 million ahead of the 2028 presidential election to target the Democratic Socialists of America after Abdul El-Sayed’s primary win in the Michigan Senate race. “It is deeply troubling to see radical, far-left candidates winning in places that are potentially presidential swing states,” Cowan said. El-Sayed was not endorsed by the DSA, though he was championed by the far left…
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) told Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs that he believes El-Sayed’s victory has put Michigan in play for Republicans to win in November. “[El-Sayed] will quickly discover a primary is a much different situation in this state [than the general election], when you’re accountable for winning the other side. I can’t wait to see him campaign for the general. I have got my popcorn for that,” Fetterman said…
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) joined Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Reps. Brad Knott (R-NC) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) today in introducing the Right to Worship Act, a federal bill that would ban activity that knowingly disrupts or impedes access to scheduled religious services within 100 feet of the entrance of a house of worship, JI’s Marc Rod reports…
California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Lele Yutzy as the state’s first director of its Office of Civil Rights, which was created under a bill enacted last year that acknowledged the prevalence of antisemitism in the state’s public schools and pledged to tackle discrimination. The office is also required to appoint an antisemitism prevention coordinator…
Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) joined Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) in calling on Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), Moreno’s former son-in-law, to drop out of his reelection race and resign from Congress amid growing scrutiny of domestic violence allegations made against Miller, JI’s Marc Rod reports…
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill‘s Mission to Deliver PAC endorsed a series of Democratic candidates with national security or military backgrounds, including Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) in his primary campaign to oust Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA).
Asked in a debate on local news earlier this week if Israel committed war crimes in Gaza, Markey answered an emphatic “yes” and called to end all military aid to Israel, while Moulton called the conflict an “absolute moral atrocity” and highlighted his rejection of AIPAC’s support but did not answer in the affirmative…
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said in a statement today that he has been discharged from the hospital after a fall in Juneand will continue his recovery at home, without indication of when he will return to Capitol Hill…
The feud between Jerusalem and Ankara continued today as Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan claimed Israel’s “attacks targeting Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” are “among the greatest threats to the country’s stability.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar in turnaccused Fidan of hypocrisy, arguing that Turkey currently occupies 5% of Syria while the IDF holds a buffer zone “that comprises just one-tenth of one percent of Syrian territory”…
An extremist Israeli settler, Yinon Levi, was charged by the Israeli State Attorney’s Office with reckless homicide over the July 2025 killing of Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen, who had been featured in the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” about home demolitions in the West Bank…
The Yemeni Defense Ministry said the Houthis attacked the internationally recognized government’s military forces in several locations — reportedly killing dozens of soldiers — and that the military would retaliate against the terror group “at the appropriate time and place.”
The hostilities mark Yemen’s latest potential slide back towards its brutal civil war that devastated the country from 2014 until the Houthis and the Saudi-backed government reached a ceasefire in 2022…
The United Arab Emirates has successfully transported more oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the last two months than any other country despite ongoing military hostilities in the area, Bloomberg reports, by utilizing tankers that switch off their transponders during the risky crossing…
⏩ 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 for a look at the special election to replace former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), where AIPAC’s United Democracy Project super PAC is working to boost Dublin, Calif., Mayor Melissa Hernandez over state Sen. Aisha Wahab.
A deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz may still emerge, though its reported contours are raising concerns among experts that it could grant Tehran unprecedented oversight over the international shipping route, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
In the latest development, Iranian state media reported today that the country’s parliament is considering a preliminary bill to bar American, Israeli and other “hostile” vessels from utilizing the strait.
We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!
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Analysts warn the proposed 60-day arrangement, if signed as reported, would mark the first time Iran formally directs shipping through the international waterway, setting a dangerous precedent
Amirhossein KHORGOOEI / ISNA / AFP via Getty Images
Vessels are pictured anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas in southern Iran on May 5, 2026.
Experts are expressing growing concern over reports that an emerging deal between Iran and Oman to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could grant Tehran unprecedented oversight over the international shipping route, ceding control to Iran that it did not possess prior to the conflict.
The potential agreement comes as President Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday that “a lot of progress had been made” in negotiations and signaled a deal on the strategic waterway could be announced as soon as this week. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei confirmed on Wednesday that an arrangement with Oman had reached the “final stage.”
Iran’s deputy foreign minister has denied direct negotiations with the U.S. and warned that an agreement would not automatically reopen the waterway. Iranian state media also reported that, under a draft bill currently being reviewed by an Iranian parliamentary committee, U.S. and Israeli ships may also be barred from crossing the strait.
Reports indicate any agreement would likely last for 60 days and require the U.S. to lift its naval blockade on Iranian ports. A deal would potentially initiate the clearing of naval mines in the strait, a return to a broader ceasefire and resumption of talks with the U.S. on Tehran’s nuclear program.
Under the proposed terms, inbound commercial vessels would be directed through a northern route in Iranian waters, while outbound ships would traverse a southern route in Omani waters, managed in coordination with Iran. Although a U.S. official told the Associated Press that such a deal would preclude Iran from issuing formal approvals for transiting ships, tolls or service fees, regional analysts warn that formalizing Iranian oversight over the chokepoint represents a significant strategic concession.
Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Jewish Insider that Washington’s drive for a resolution with Iran may be driving it to agree to a less-than-ideal scenario.
“President Trump is very eager for a deal that reopens the strait, and seems inclined to accept a deal under which Iran has greater oversight of ships entering and exiting the strait,” Levitt said. “The key is denying Iran any way of monetizing the flow of traffic through this international waterway.”
Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Barack Obama who also served as President Joe Biden’s Iran liaison to Israel, told JI that “if the deal that is being described comes into effect, it is a strategic win for Iran.”
“[Iran] will emerge with effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, which was a fully open international waterway before the war,” Shapiro said. “The United States will be strategically worse off with this outcome than we were before the war, but it is almost certainly the only way to prevent an escalation that would produce even greater global economic disruption than we have already seen.”
Shapiro noted that even after a deal is made, Iran “will probably receive early sanctions relief … and they will only be expected to start negotiations on their nuclear program, which could turn out to be fruitless and endless.”
Analysts emphasized that the disconnect between Washington and Tehran regarding the scope of the agreement poses risks to maritime security.
Jonathan Ruhe, director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America , pointed out that much like the June U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding, the potential deal means vastly different things to each side. While the U.S. expects international shipping to resume unencumbered, Tehran views the arrangement as a vehicle to establish long-term authority.
“Iran expects much more, including at least de facto ability to toll and veto passage through Hormuz,” Ruhe said. “Tehran’s redline for a deal is recognition of its ‘right’ to determine and deter shipping in Hormuz, as the spoils of its victory and a key counterweight to further U.S. pressure.”
“Combined with the complications of gaining signoff from Iran’s Supreme Leader, and Iran’s predictable tendency to seek additional U.S. concessions, these differences explain the lack of a deal so far – despite U.S. anticipation of an imminent announcement,” he continued.
Ruhe said that even if the Trump administration secures a deal that reopens the strait, the precedent set by such an agreement could remain dangerous.
“It would affirm that the fate of this critical waterway is subject to Iran’s approval, and undermine America’s abiding interest in free navigation,” he said. “By cementing a key wartime gain, it would embolden Tehran to take the hardest possible line in any follow-on talks.”
Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Trump administration official, cautioned that the final structure of the deal will determine whether Washington is conceding leverage or calling Tehran’s bluff.
“I find it difficult to believe we would ever cede formal control over a critical international waterway to a terrorist group, or otherwise tolerate that group collecting tolls or fees for what is already an international right to freedom of navigation,” Goldberg said.
Goldberg noted that Iran’s rhetoric may ultimately be bluster.
“Oftentimes the reality of a situation might differ from Iran’s propaganda — that is, in this case, Iran might claim it’s ‘allowing’ ships to pass through its claimed ‘territorial waters’ but in practice it could mean ships are just moving through the strait as they always used to without taking drone or missile fire,” Goldberg explained. “If we see formal control, tolls or fees, that’s a terrible outcome; if we see Iran just making claims that it’s allowing something to happen but there is no formalized control, no extortion payments being made, that could very well be a propaganda-disguised-victory for the United States.”
Plus, Israel-Lebanon talks wrap early after IDF strikes
Sarah Rice/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Abdul El-Sayed speaks during a primary election night watch party at The Majestic Theatre in Detroit, Michigan early on Aug. 5, 2026.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Abdul El-Sayed’s victory today in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan rattled Jewish groups, who raised concerns about his rhetoric on Israel and the broader rise of the far left, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
The Jewish Democratic Council of America congratulated El-Sayed but said it was “disappointed” by the result and stopped short of endorsing him, while AIPAC said its members “remain determined to ensure that voters reject Dr. El-Sayed and his radical anti-Israel agenda in November”…
The Republican Jewish Coalition is urging Jewish Democrats to support the GOP nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), in the general election, calling El-Sayed “a direct threat to Michigan’s Jewish community.”
A Democratic fundraiser in Michigan told JI’s Matthew Kassel it is “absolutely certain” that “several large Jewish Democratic donors” will be backing Rogers. “I would guarantee there will be fundraisers for him hosted by high-profile Jewish Democrats,” they said…
Shortly after his win, El-Sayed previewed his evolving message to Jewish voters, saying he welcomes the opportunity to “break bread with you at Seder” and to “worship with you at shul.” He spoke of his “sisters and brothers who said, you know, ‘I want to join this movement because AIPAC doesn’t speak for me’” and vowed he would prioritize Jewish safety…
But just before he was declared the victor, El-Sayed appeared on MS NOW where he called Israel “bloodthirsty,” JI’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports. He said that “we’ve been talking about an illegal apartheid regime” in reference to Israel since before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to power, though “Netanyahu is a big reason why they’ve gotten so aggressive and frankly so bloodthirsty”…
Democrats, meanwhile, are quickly coalescing behind the new Senate nominee, JI’s Marc Rod reports. El-Sayed’s opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), promptly endorsed him upon conceding the race; Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) offered their joint support; and former Vice President Kamala Harris is fundraising for El-Sayed’s campaign alongside her PAC.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is also backing his ideological ally and left open the possibility that he’ll travel to Michigan to campaign with El-Sayed ahead of the general election, per JI’s Will Bredderman…
In another consequential Michigan race, pro-Israel Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) was ousted in his primary, losing to state Rep. Donavan McKinney, a democratic socialist who cross-endorsed with El-Sayed, campaigned alongside him and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and ran on ending U.S. military aid to Israel…
Talks between Israel and Lebanon ended several hours early today “due to events on the ground,” the State Department said, but were “extremely productive” and are slated to restart tomorrow. The move came after the IDF conducted strikes in southern Lebanon due to what it said were “blatant violations“of the ongoing ceasefire by Hezbollah.
An Israeli source told The Times of Israel that the talks were cut off after Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter accused Lebanese representatives of leaking false information to the media…
The Israeli Foreign Ministry denounced a joint statement adopted by Arab states who convened in Jordan today to discuss Israel’s policies over Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem, which asserted that Israel “has no sovereignty” over the city and accused Israel of “altering the Arab Islamic and Christian identity of occupied Jerusalem.”
The countries also pledged to launch a “media platform to document and expose Israeli violations against the holy sites and worshipers” and hold a meeting at the U.N. General Assembly to further discuss the issue. Israel said the statement was “built on false accusations, historical distortions, and a complete disregard for the facts”…
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio today renewing its call for the Trump administration to press Jordan to honor its extradition treaty obligations and send Ahlam Aref Ahmad al-Tamimi to the United States.
Al-Tamimi was convicted in Israel for her role in the 2001 bombing of the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem, which killed 16 people, including three Americans. She has been charged by the Justice Department and remains on the FBI’s Most Wanted list…
⏩ 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 for a look at Rep. Ed Case‘s (D-HI) reelection race, a primary that has largely flown under the radar but could pose a threat to one of the House’s more reliably pro-Israel moderates. While the contest has not centered on Middle East policy, it reflects the pattern seen in several recent Democratic primaries where well-established pro-Israel incumbents have faced increasingly competitive challenges from their left.
It remains to be seen if a deal will materialize between Iran, Oman and the U.S. to reopen the Strait of Hormuz (again), after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said today that Tehran and Muscat were finalizing a bilateral agreement without Washington. The latest reporting indicates that such an agreement would preclude any fees or tolls for a temporary period of time.
Tennessee will hold its primary elections tomorrow, where Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and Rep. John Rose (R-TN) are the front-runners for the open governorship, Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) is expected to win renomination and Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) is running in the redrawn 5th Congressional District.
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Nathan Howard-Pool/Getty Images
Delegation staff members meet in the lobby during a quadrilateral meeting between the U.S., Iran, Pakistan, and Qatar at the Lake Lucerne Summit, aimed at advancing a deal to end the Middle East conflict at the Buergenstock Resort, Lake Lucerne on June 21, 2026 near Stansstad, Switzerland.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed today that the IDF will “not withdraw from the current lines in Gaza until Hamas is completely disarmed.” President Donald Trump “thinks, and his team thinks, that Hamas can be totally disarmed and Gaza demilitarized. We’re looking into it,” Netanyahu continued in a video posted to Facebook in Hebrew. “They sent us a draft, we didn’t agree. It wasn’t our draft. We sent our responses”…
Evoking a sense of déjà vu, U.S. and Iranian officials are signaling a deal over the Strait of Hormuz is near at hand: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on CNBC this morning that “there is a chance” the U.S. and Iran “may have a deal today or tomorrow to open” the strait, while Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari told reporters that talks are in “very progressive stages” and that draft agreement language has been “circulated among the parties.”
Trump called Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani this afternoon to discuss “ongoing efforts to deescalate tensions” between Washington and Tehran, the emir’s office said, in order “to bring their views closer together”…
Reuters reports that the U.S. Army has depleted“virtually all” of its long-range surface-to-surface missiles in the course of the war with Iran, raising concerns about readiness for future conflicts and the potential need to carry out riskier missions if hostilities with Iran escalate. The White House disputed the report, with Trump insisting that the U.S. has “far more munitions than anyone in the world”…
A brewery in Michigan apologized for hosting an event last night for Rep. Haley Stevens’ (D-MI) campaign for Senate ahead of today’s primary election due to her support for Israel, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
“We DO NOT endorse Haley Stevens,” Pux Taphouse wrote on Instagram, claiming it was not aware the event was being hosted by the campaign. “We are heartbroken as we pride ourselves on being not only a queer friendly space but also have advocated and continue to call for a Free Palestine,” the company said…
A Florida man accused of hurling a brick through the front window of a Sarasota Chabad house shared New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s video labeling Netanyahu a “war criminal” just days before the crime, JI’s Will Bredderman reports.
The Sarasota Police Department stated that the alleged perpetrator, Brayton Laschinger, had admitted to targeting the synagogue in an attack last week “because it was a Jewish place of worship” — and had blamed “propaganda on social media” for enraging him in the hours before the vandalism. An Instagram account bearing Laschinger’s name, and featuring photos of him dating back more than a decade, reposted the clip, which Mamdani had published the week prior to the attack…
The Anti-Defamation League called out far-left streamer Hasan Piker for promoting a conspiracy theory claiming Israel is behind the recent migration crisis in Ceuta, Spain, going as far as to claim on his Twitch stream that Israel is working to make the antisemitic text The Protocols of the Elders of Zion“come true.”
“Saying Israel looks at those conspiracy theories and decides to make them ‘come true’ shifts responsibility for antisemitism onto the Jewish state,” the ADL said…
The Colorado Democratic Party called on Victor Marx, the GOP nominee for governor, and other state Republicans to denounce an image that Marx and others have boosted of Phil Weiser, the state’s Jewish attorney general who is Marx’s opponent, depicting Weiser with devil horns, which critics have said evokes a classic antisemitic trope.
Montrose County Commissioner Sean Pond, who created the image, claimed he was unaware Weiser is Jewish and said, “Weiser does not receive immunity from political satire because of a personal fact I did not even know”…
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined a request by the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization to pause a $656 million judgment won by families of American victims of Palestinian terror attacks during the Second Intifada. The PA and PLO had argued that paying the sum now would “destabilize” government services in the West Bank as the bodies appeal the ruling…
Ellen Germain ended her five-year tenure as the State Department’s special envoy for Holocaust issues last week; it remains unclear if someone else will be tapped to lead the office — which deals with issues including restitution of Holocaust-era assets, Holocaust remembrance and combating Holocaust denial around the world — or if its remit will be wrapped into the Office of the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism, currently headed by Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun. Jewish communal organizations have advocated both for and against the prospect of the consolidation…
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison spoke out in a New York Times op-ed against those who oppose Paramount‘s ongoing acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, which he argued is at its core a concern about his own political views. “I have regularly voted for candidates of both parties; I hold some views that would be called conservative and others that would be called liberal, just like most Americans; and when it comes to our news operations, I do not aspire to lead these companies to bend their newsrooms to my views,” he wrote…
⏩ Tomorrow’s Agenda, Today
An early look at tomorrow’s storylines and schedule to keep you a step ahead
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Talks between Israel and Lebanon will continue in Rome, where technical teams are working to advance the pilot zone process, Hezbollah’s disarmament and the IDF’s redeployment from southern Lebanon, the State Department said today.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Federal Courts subcommittee are planning to boycott a hearing tomorrow set to examine Muslim Brotherhood networks in the United States, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports, calling the hearing a “political creepshow” designed to attack Muslims broadly.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will receive a classified update on the ongoing civil war in Sudan.
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Robert Greenway predicted that reduced Iranian threat would make it easier for Arab states to join the Abraham Accords
Aspen Security Forum
Robert Greenway speaks at Aspen Security Forum, July 17, 2026.
ASPEN, Colo. — Robert Greenway, who led the Middle East and North Africa portfolio on the National Security Council during President Donald Trump’s first administration, predicted to Jewish Insider in an interview last month that the Iranian regime would not “make it” to the end of Trump’s time in office.
Greenway’s comments came amid the resumption of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran in late July, following the collapse of the countries’ memorandum of understanding, prior to the latest pause in U.S. strikes.
“We’ve really put ourselves in a position where we’ve got massive leverage. Their economy is virtually non-existent. I think it’s dead. We’re just waiting for the funeral, I think their political leadership is in turmoil,” Greenway said in an interview on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum. “The military has been decimated, and very little capacity remains to threaten the United States and our interests. That’s the reality of it. Despite claims to the contrary — those are not serious claims. They’re not supported by the facts.”
Greenway said that the administration’s military success had allowed it to “indulge a potential diplomatic path” that it knew was “unlikely” to actually succeed.
After the war, Greenway said that the U.S.’ regional approach should include working to contain Iran, building on the burgeoning regional security architecture developed with other Middle East allies and expanding the Abraham Accords. He was bullish about the chances for expanded normalization in spite of the apparent obstacles created by the wars in Gaza and Iran.
“The destruction [and] the attrition [in] Iran lowers the price of admission” for the Abraham Accords, Greenway said. “The math equation works here because we’ve reduced the Iranian threat. So there isn’t a massive requirement for us to provide enormous capabilities” to Arab states as a price for normalization.
Greenway was involved in negotiating the Abraham Accords during Trump’s first administration and continued to work to promote normalization after leaving the administration, first as the executive director of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute and later as the director of the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation.
“Getting Saudi Arabia and the other states integrated into the region with Israel and expanding the accords is different now than it was a year or four years ago,” Greenway continued. “But it is still, I think, practical, necessary and achievable.”
He was dismissive of Saudi statements that the kingdom intends to condition normalization on a path to a two-state solution, arguing that such statements are a “public rhetorical mechanism that serves a purpose” but won’t be enforced in practice.
Greenway was a member of the Heritage Foundation when the group issued a report last year — which was controversial at the time — calling for the gradual phasing out of U.S. military aid to Israel. In the months since, the concept has been endorsed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some American supporters of Israel, and most observers expect that a drawdown of direct financial support will be a component of the next U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding.
He said that phasing out U.S. aid would insulate Israel from American attempts to exert leverage over Jerusalem, such as that undertaken by the Biden administration. He said that the threat of growing Democratic shifts against Israel are a key reason for the U.S. to work to ensure that Israel no longer needs aid.
“Let’s improve Israel’s economy, let’s improve the trade that exists between our two countries, the security cooperation that exists between our two countries and our industries, and let’s improve Israel’s relationship to its neighbors, and if we can, reduce the threat,” Greenway said of the path to phasing out aid.
But he also said that aid should only be phased out “if Israel was in a financial position to do it, and its security relative to its neighbors was increased.”
He argued that Israel “doesn’t want” the U.S. involved in its relations with the Palestinians. Instead, he said the U.S. can best help Israel through economic ties and working to broker relationships with its neighbors, things Israel “can’t do … for itself.”
Greenway — as a Trump ally — was something of an outlier at the Aspen conference, which has generally attracted more traditional internationalist voices on the left and right. He said he wanted to urge the attendees to judge Trump and his administration by their results, rather than by rhetoric.
He pointed to the administration’s policy on Russia as one example. He argued that, while Trump has been accused of “coddling” Russia, he’s managed to severely damage Russia’s economy as well as press European countries to curtail their energy purchases that had been fueling Russia’s war machine.
“That actually, concrete, matters, right? And again, if you’re using a different lens and arbiter to look at how policies actually succeed or prevail or not, you can get to dangerous places,” Greenway said.
Greenway was also involved in crafting the Project Esther antisemitism strategy at the Heritage Foundation. Asked about how to avoid the encroachment of antisemitism on the right, Greenway pointed back to that strategy, and argued that Republicans have been more successful in fighting antisemitism in their party than Democrats.
“Republicans aren’t electing high officials that hold antisemitic principles and anti-Israel positions,” Greenway said. “I can’t say the same for the Democratic Party. … You cannot, as a Republican, stand up and make antisemitic comments and expect to survive, much less win an election or even become a candidate representing the party. It just isn’t going to happen.”
But he also said that there is a “very real struggle” to resist those trends and the problem of growing youth antisemitism crosses party lines, a phenomenon he blamed on conservatives “losing control of curricula and institutions and education.”
He said conservatives should work to reform educational systems and have zero tolerance for antisemitism.
Plus, Iran’s ‘unbelievably duplicitous’ leaders irk Trump
Amir Levy/Getty Images
Israeli tanks stationed near the border with the Gaza Strip on September 17, 2025 in southern Israel.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump lambasted Iranian leadership today, calling the regime “unbelievably duplicitous” for contradicting his claim that Washington and Tehran are currently conducting negotiations, after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said that Tehran was only in discussion with Oman about the Strait of Hormuz and had no plans to speak to the U.S.
Trump claimed in his Truth Social post that the regime had “begged” for a meeting, “with more scheduled in the immediate future,” adding, “whether Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking of a solution to a problem that they have caused, for decades.” Trump later told reporters that the talks were “a last chance for Iran to sign a good document” and that he wants to give Iran “every last chance before decapitation”…
Board of Peace head Nickolay Mladenov held a “constructive and detailed” meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today, the board said, after the IDF continued to strike targets in Gaza over the weekend — in contravention of the Board of Peace’s Hamas disarmament plan, which called for the immediate cessation of hostilities in the enclave.
The board clarified that the IDF’s withdrawal beyond the yellow line in Gaza “will take place only once decommissioning [of Hamas’ weapons] is complete,” including all light and heavy weapons as well as terror tunnels. Netanyahu has yet to officially comment on the deal, but a senior Israeli spokesman said earlier today that the agreement “does not reflect Israel’s positions” and another Israeli official declared that the IDF “will not withdraw from the current line in the Gaza Strip”…
Israeli President Isaac Herzog received the credentials of the new ambassadors from Chile and Honduras today; the two Latin American countries had pulled their ambassadors from the Jewish state shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks in protest of the war in Gaza but have since elected new conservative governments that have sought to strengthen ties with Jerusalem…
Education Secretary Linda McMahon sent a letter to every university in the country today asking their leadership to publish by the end of the year a statement committing to principles including transparency in admissions, free speech, diversity of thought and keeping foreign influence out of academics.
Yeshiva University President Rabbi Ari Berman applauded the initiative, which came after most universities rejected a compact from the Trump administration last year that had asked them to agree to a set of ideological principles in order to receive federal funding, and said YU would participate in the effort to rebuild public trust of higher education…
Brown University President Christina Paxson announced today that she will step down at the end of the 2026-27 academic year, concluding her 15-year tenure at the Ivy League, during which the school increased Jewish student enrollment even as most peer institutions experienced significant drops, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…
As the Israel on Campus Coalition’s National Summit continues in Washington, Noah Pollak, a senior advisor at the Education Department, debated Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, on whether the Trump administration’s crackdown on campus antisemitism has protected or threatened America’s liberal norms. After the debate, where Pollak argued in favor of the policy and Rauch argued against, students who were polled in the audience shifted their views to align more with Rauch, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…
New hate crime data released by the NYPD shows an uptick of 8.5% in hate crimes against Jews in New York City this year so far, accounting for more than half of all hate crimes in the city, despite Jewish New Yorkers only accounting for 10% of the city’s population…
A New York man was indicted on hate crimes charges on Friday for repeatedly vandalizing a kosher bagel shop, weeks after he was indicted for manslaughter for killing a prominent Jewish community member in a car crash…
Author Alyssa Rosenheck pushed back on arguments raised by Bell Bird Books, a local bookstore in Nashville, Tenn., that canceled a book launch event for Rosenheck’s White. Blond. Jew.,which the bookstore claimed was due to security concerns. Rosenheck said she had personally paid for a private firm to secure the event and was told there were no outstanding security concerns, alleging that the event was canceled “because I’m an unapologetic Jewish voice … and it provokes an online mob of hate”…
Trump is considering removing Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, according to CNN, after he said today that she “folded like an umbrella” when she withdrew a case against an alleged vandal of the Reflecting Pool and instead blamed the Interior Department for its botched renovation…
⏩ 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 for a look at Sen. Darline Graham’s (R-SC) bid for a full term in the Senate, where she is facing headwinds despite having secured President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
We’ll be watching tomorrow’s Democratic primaries in Michigan and Missouri — the sharpest tests yet of the party’s divide over Israel. In Michigan’s Senate race, far-left Abdul El-Sayed seems the favorite in recent polling over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI); in Missouri, Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) faces a rematch with former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO). Also on the Michigan ballot: the battleground 7th District, where DSA-backed William Lawrence is the front-runner, and the 11th District, where Jewish state Sen. Jeremy Moss is running to succeed Stevens. Kansas, Virginia and Washington state will also hold their primaries tomorrow.
Israeli and Lebanese representatives will meet tomorrow to begin another round of U.S.-led negotiations in Rome. U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michel Issa sounded a cautious note today on the ongoing trilateral agreement, as the Lebanese Armed Forces and the IDF continue to work toward establishing the fragile pilot zones in southern Lebanon: “A great deal of technical work remains to ensure civilian safety on the ground,” Issa said. “There is a meaningful difference between drafting an agreement on paper and implementing it responsibly — moving too quickly risks jeopardizing the very civilians this process is meant to protect.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote tomorrow on whether to advance acting Attorney General Todd Blanche‘s nomination to lead the Justice Department, after Sens. John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) dropped their opposition to his nomination when the administration agreed to rescind its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund.
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Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel speaks on stage during the third day of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center on August 21, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. Delegates, politicians, and Democratic Party supporters are in Chicago for the convention, concluding with current Vice President Kamala Harris accepting her party's presidential nomination.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, said today at an antisemitism roundtable with local Jewish community leaders that she will not be attending the Michigan state Democratic Party convention in August because she would not feel safe there…
A new Emerson College pollof the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan found far-left candidate Abdul El-Sayed surging ahead of Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) by 15 points, 54-39%…
The American Association of University Professors issued its first-ever political endorsement in its 110-year history today, backing El-Sayed ahead of next week’s primary. The professional organization has repeatedly faced criticism from Jewish groups and faculty members for straying from its mission by engaging in anti-Israel advocacy…
An Emerson College poll of next month’s special primary election to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on the ballot in South Carolina found Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) at the top of the pack, leading Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) 22-19%, with a quarter of likely primary voters still undecided. If no candidate receives a majority, the top two vote-getters will advance to a runoff…
Columbia University’s student workers’ union dropped its demand that the university divest from Israel during a bargaining session on Tuesday, the Columbia Spectator reports, in a significant reversal of the union’s pro-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions advocacy. Union President Grant Miner claimed the move was a natural part of the negotiation process: “As you bargain, you have to face the realities of where you are.”
Columbia is also set to open its global center in Tel Aviv this summer, professor Nadav Eyal said on an episode of Dan Senor’s “Call Me Back” podcast earlier this week. Plans for the center were announced in April 2023, but have been on hold since the Oct. 7 attacks…
Former Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes dropped out of the Democratic primary for governor today. Barnes said in his announcement video that it’s “very clear who our nominee is going to be,” in an apparent reference to Democratic Socialists of America-backed Francesca Hong, though he did not offer her his endorsement.
Barnes dropped out shortly before The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the Wisconsin Democratic Party had investigated allegations in 2025 that he had taken advantage of his role in the party for sexual encounters with young women…
Negotiations between mediators and Hamas, taking place on Thursday in Cairo, are “making progress” on disarmament, a diplomatic official told The Times of Israel. The plan under discussion would see “all weapons decommissioned” as well as “the elimination of all tunnels, depots of weapons and any weapons production facilities” in Gaza, the official said…
Iranian hackers may have been behind a cyberattack on dozens of municipal water systems this week in Minnesota, state and federal officials told The New York Times…
The Iran-backed Houthi terror group, which is based in Yemen, reportedly attacked Saudi Arabia this week from Iraqi territory. The group may have operated with the assistance of militias in the country working with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in an indication of the growing coordination between Tehran’s proxies…
Amid the renewed attacks it has faced from both Iran and the Houthis, Saudi Arabia hosted dozens of military officials from around the world, including the U.S., for a meeting today to establish a maritime defense alliance. Thirteen countries joined Riyadh in signing a statement of support for the effort: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia…
The Senate narrowly blockedanother push by Democrats today to force an end to the Iran war, 50-49, with Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Rand Paul (R-KY) again breaking with their party to vote for the war powers resolution and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voting against it…
The share of Israelis who believe President Donald Trump is “highly committed” to protecting Israel’s security interests has dropped to a new low, according to a survey from Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.
The organization’s July 2026 National Security Survey found that only 14% of Israelis believe the country’s security interests are a top concern for Trump, representing a significant drop from the 35% recorded in March, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports…
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) argued today at the Hudson Institute that, without regime change in Iran, the U.S. will likely need to continue to conduct periodic military operations against Iran’s nuclear program to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, JI’s Marc Rod reports…
⏩ 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 for a look at the dynamics in the Democratic primary for the congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), where Jewish state Sen. Jeremy Moss’ challengers are targeting him for his ties to pro-Israel donors.
President Donald Trump is expected to hold a Cabinet meeting tomorrow at the historic Camp David retreat in Maryland.
The Democratic Socialists of America will hold its annual organizing conference this weekend in Chicago, where some programming will focus on “anti-imperialist and pro-Palestine organizing strategy” to end the “U.S.-Israeli genocide in Palestine.”
We’ll be back with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!
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‘If there's not a regime change, then maybe we don't have to do this every day, but we're going to have to do this every so often,’ Scott said at the Hudson Institute
Screenshot
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) speaks at the Hudson Institute on July 30, 2026.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) argued on Thursday that, without regime change in Iran, the U.S. will likely need to continue to conduct periodic military operations against Iran’s nuclear program to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“One of two things is going to happen: We are forever going to have to continue to make sure they don’t have a nuclear weapon, or they’re going to have a regime change,” Scott said during an event at the Hudson Institute. “One or the other. If there’s not a regime change, then maybe we don’t have to do this every day, but we’re going to have to do this every so often.”
He also argued that past U.S. administrations have been “stupid” by not recognizing that the Iranian regime has been engaging in an ongoing war against the United States since the rise of the Islamic Republic in 1979. President Donald Trump, he continued, is trying to end that 47-year war.
Scott described Trump as reluctant to go to war with Iran, but said the president views the conflict as necessary.
“If you’re the president of the United States, you have a responsibility to protect Americans. That’s your job. So whether he likes it or not — and he doesn’t like war, he ran on getting out of forever wars, he doesn’t want to put American troops in harm’s way … he wants to sit down and negotiate everything,” Scott said.
But, he continued, Trump also knows that Iran would use a nuclear weapon if it had one and that appeasement was not a viable strategy.
“He did the hard thing,” Scott said. “He knew he was going to get criticized, but he decided freedom was and safety to Americans is important enough that he was going to go defend us.”
Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul again broke with their party to vote for the resolution with most Democrats, while Sen. John Fetterman voted against it
Kevin Carter/Getty Images
U.S. Capitol building on July 12, 2026 in Washington, DC.
The Senate narrowly blocked another push by Democrats to force an end to the Iran war, 50-49, with the vote falling along now-predictable lines.
Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Rand Paul (R-KY) broke with their party to vote for the resolution with most Democrats, while Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voted against it.
The resolution comes as the Trump administration is debating how to proceed in the war, including whether to ramp up military operations or seek a renewed diplomatic arrangement with Tehran.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the lead sponsor of the latest resolution, accused Republicans of having “abandoned their duties as elected officials and refus[ing] to keep President Trump in check,” highlighting rising gas prices and the deaths of U.S. service members.
Analysts say Tehran is exploiting the country’s civil war to deepen ties with Islamist factions, threatening regional security and maritime trade routes
AFP via Getty Images
Sudanese army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan visits the Flamingo Marine Base in Port Sudan on August 28, 2023.
As Sudan’s devastating civil war drags through its third year, experts warn the conflict could become an arena for Iranian strategic expansion and Islamist extremism in Africa, as Tehran and the Sudanese branch of the Muslim Brotherhood revive a long-standing alliance and threaten to turn the embattled nation into a staging ground for transnational jihadist operations.
Under the cover of Sudan’s official military, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), armed Islamist brigades — most notably the U.S.-sanctioned Al-Bara ibn Malik Battalion (the armed wing of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood) — have mobilized to fight alongside state forces led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Supported by funding, weaponry and training pipelines linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), these factions have effectively embedded themselves within the state apparatus, raising alarm among counterterrorism officials and regional foreign policy experts.
“Iran’s involvement in Sudan serves multiple goals, even amid all the larger wartime changes regionwide and inside Iran,” said Jonathan Ruhe, a fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA). “Because Sudan is so far from its own borders, Iran ultimately benefits from fomenting instability for countries that are much closer to the [Sudanese] conflict. Sudan is one more arena for tensions among Iran’s Arab rivals, challenging their ability to form a united front against Tehran.”
“Even if Iran-backed forces don’t ‘win’ [in the Sudanese civil war], Iran wins by threatening to encircle U.S.-aligned Arab countries with its proxy forces, worsening Sudan’s power vacuum, and triggering refugee outflows that stoke tensions with, and inside, neighboring countries,” Ruhe said.
The war in Sudan has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with an estimated 150,000 deaths and nearly 12 million people displaced. Both the SAF and the RSF stand accused of widespread war crimes, including mass atrocities against civilians, systematic sexual violence and forced blockades.
The convergence of Iranian strategic ambitions with local Islamist networks threatens not only to prolong Sudan’s humanitarian crisis, but also to turn the African country into a hub for extremist recruitment and operational planning. Experts warn it may also disrupt global maritime routes in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, where Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen are already threatening international shipping.
“Even before [the Iran war], but especially now with the reopening of the Houthi front in Yemen and recent attacks near the Suez Canal, the Sudan conflict is one more way Iran can threaten regional shipping and pressure the United States by ratcheting up Red Sea instability,” Ruhe said.
The alliance between Tehran and the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood is not a sudden emergence, but rather the reactivation of infrastructure established decades ago during the regime of ousted Sudanese dictator Omar al-Bashir. When Bashir was overthrown in 2019, the country’s Islamist movement lost political power, but the outbreak of civil war in April 2023 provided an opportunity for reconstitution.
Arieg Elhag, Arabic content editor at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, emphasized that unlike groups built from the ground up, the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood offered ready-made operational architecture for Iran to utilize.
“Unlike Hezbollah, which Iran built from scratch, Sudan already had a governing Muslim Brotherhood with existing networks — the Popular Defense Forces and tribal ‘Emirs of Jihad’ — that Iran could simply reactivate, saving time and cost,” Elhag explained, adding that operating through official army channels provides Tehran with a unique layer of state-level legitimacy. “MB officers operating within the regular army give Iran ‘state’ cover rather than ‘faction’ cover, making targeted sanctions difficult without hitting the military itself.”
According to Elhag, Iranian entrenchment at the junction of the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa creates a danger for future escalation. “Any future Iran-Israel or Iran-Gulf escalation would no longer stay confined to the Levant — Sudan could become a logistics hub, a maritime threat point on a major trade route, or a base exporting ideological mobilization across Africa.”
While the growth of Islamist influence inside the SAF is clear, some analysts view the military leadership’s embrace of Tehran as a marriage of convenience driven by battlefield desperation rather than shared ideological conviction. Facing an existential struggle against the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — a paramilitary group backed by the United Arab Emirates — Burhan has sought military assistance from various external actors, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran.
“I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Iran is turning Sudan, or specifically the SAF, into one of its full-on proxies, like Hezbollah or the Houthis or Hamas,” said Joshua Meservey, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. “This is opportunism. Burhan is trying to win this war, which is an existential struggle with the RSF, and so he is willing to ally with just about anybody.”
Meservey noted that while Burhan himself is not an Islamist, the exigencies of the war have made him reliant on Islamist fighters to maintain parity on the battlefield.
“If you presented Burhan with a choice and said, ‘Look, you can win the war, but you have to get rid of the Islamists,’ he would take that deal 100 times out of 100,” Meservey said. “But the problem is right now he likely can’t win the war without the Islamists. To Burhan, the bottom line issue is winning this war and surviving it.”
However, he warned that the longer the war drags on without a decisive victory, the more these radical factions could become enmeshed in Sudan’s defense architecture.
“The fear is: the longer this goes, the more embedded they will become,” Meservey warned. “They will burrow in deeper and deeper and deeper, and then maybe eventually the Islamists do succeed in totally seizing the SAF, or at least gaining a preponderance of power where they can run things.” He pointed to Sudan’s historic role hosting transnational terrorist organizations in the 1990s, including al-Qaida, as a cautionary precedent for what a prolonged security vacuum could invite.
“It’s not just Iranian influence. It’s also other terrorist groups that are drawn to this type of instability, especially in a country that has a strong Islamist population, or a strong percentage of the population is Islamist itself,” he added. “Then you can see the potential for terrorist networks embedding themselves or finding safe harbor.”
Still, Meservey cautioned that such a scenario is not “inevitable.”
“The Islamists very much want to be back in power. They want to be running that government. That’s their long-term goal, and I’m sure the Iranians would be very happy for that to happen,” Meservey said. “However, I don’t believe that they hold the current balance of power within the SAF. They are powerful, but they can’t just take over the SAF. That’s not what the situation is.”
The INSS survey found that only 14% of Israelis now believe the country’s security interests are a top concern for the U.S. president — down 12 points since earlier this month
AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP via Getty Images
A photograph shows a banner depicting US President Donald Trump with the slogan "The Deliverer" in Jerusalem on April 20, 2026. Iran is not currently planning to attend talks with the United States, state media said, after the US president ordered US negotiators to travel to Pakistan on April 20, just days before a ceasefire in the Middle East expires.
The share of Israelis who believe President Donald Trump is “highly committed” to protecting Israel’s security interests has dropped to a new low, according to a new survey from Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies.
The organization’s July 2026 National Security Survey found that only 14% of Israelis believe the country’s security interests are a top concern for Trump, representing a significant drop from the 35% recorded in March. This continues a downward trend observed as the conflict with Iran drags on, following an Israel Democracy Institute poll released earlier this month that found just 26% of Jewish Israelis believed Israel’s security was a key consideration for Trump – another record low at the time.
The results reflected a broader decline in Israeli faith in Trump, with 60% of respondents indicating that they believe Trump only supports Israel when it serves his own interests, while 23% view him as unpredictable and unreliable on security matters.
The survey also highlighted deep divisions over whether Israel should launch another offensive military campaign against Iran, with 42% of respondents favoring such a move and 46% opposing it.
Public optimism that another military offensive would achieve key strategic objectives remains low.
A majority of respondents, 64%, believed another campaign against Iran would only partially dismantle its nuclear program or fail to do so at all, compared to a combined 29% who believed it would fully or mostly dismantle the program.
Similarly, 65% of respondents said another offensive would yield only partial or negligible results against Iran’s ballistic missile program, while 72% stated that renewed military action would be unlikely to trigger the full collapse of the Iranian regime.
The results represent a major shift from the start of the Iran war, when a large majority of respondents indicated a strong belief that military action would fulfill those objectives. At the onset, 63% of Israelis said they believed Iran’s nuclear program would be significantly damaged or fully dismantled, and 73% held the belief that Iran’s missile program would be severely damaged or taken apart.
‘The Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies are working overtime to open a new front against the United States and our allies, and the Polisario Front has become one of their instruments,’ Rep. Josh Gottheimer said
Billel Bensalem/APP/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The president of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Ghali, greets soldiers during the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the Sahrawi Republic upon his arrival to attend the military parade in Aousserd, Tindouf, in southwestern Algeria, on April 8, 2026.
Reps. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) and Ronny Jackson (R-TX) are set to introduce legislation on Friday to investigate whether the Iran-linked Polisario Front, a paramilitary group that claims sovereignty over parts of the Western Sahara, can be designated as a terrorist organization.
The “Polisario Front Terrorist Designation Act” is a companion bill to legislation introduced in the Senate by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and would require the administration to assess whether the Polisario Front is cooperating with Iran or its proxies and, if it is, designate it as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. The administration would be required to submit an annual report to Congress on the extent of such cooperation.
The legislation is cosponsored by Reps. Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Greg Landsman (D-OH), Don Bacon (R-NE) and Jared Moskowitz (D-FL).
“The Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies are working overtime to open a new front against the United States and our allies, and the Polisario Front has become one of their instruments,” Gottheimer said in a statement.
“When a group takes drones and weapons from the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and coordinates with Iranian-backed terrorists, we should call it exactly what it is: a terrorist organization,” Gottheimer continued. “This bipartisan bill makes sure that once that cooperation is confirmed, we can bring the full weight of America’s counterterrorism sanctions down on the Polisario Front and cut its leaders off from the global financial system, international travel, and the resources they use to threaten us and our allies.”
The legislation is also backed by FDD Action.
“FDD Action supports efforts to designate the Polisario Front which has been armed and trained by elements of Iran’s IRGC and Hezbollah. This important legislation would require the State Department to report on the Polisario Front’s activities including weapons trafficking and the use of armed drones against civilian targets,” Tyler Stapleton, the group’s senior director of government relations, said in a statement.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) separately introduced a similar bill last year that aims to designate the Polisario Front as a terrorist group, which currently has 13 Republican and 2 Democratic cosponsors.
Plus, a tale for Tu B'Av: matchmaking meets machines
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
President Donald Trump prepares to leave after speaking during an event at Verst Logistics on March 11, 2026 in Hebron, Kentucky.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump warned this morning that the U.S. would “beat the f**king sh*t out of” Iran following an attempted surprise ballistic missile attack yesterday by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on U.S. forces, even as the president signaled a willingness to keep diplomatic channels open, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
Asked later if Iran was involved in a drone attack today on a U.S.-owned gas storage tanker at a shipping terminal in Egypt, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the incident was “a little more of the same. … We’re going to be hitting [Iran] very hard ’cause it’s our turn to hit them. They know it’s coming,” he continued…
A U.S. official said last night’s retaliation by the U.S. and Saudi militaries against Iran-backed militias in Iraq resulted in the deaths of 20 Iran-linked individuals, who were a mix of IRGC members and technical advisors…
Before the latest escalation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump discussed in their Oval Office meeting yesterday several potential next steps in Iran: reaching a diplomatic agreement, increasing economic pressure or intensifying military strikes, Axios reports.
The two leaders also spoke about Netanyahu’s continued insistence that the U.S. wind down aid to Israel — an effort the Israeli prime minister wants to lead publicly to give GOP lawmakers cover to support it — as well as the IDF’s continued presence in Syria…
Wrapping up his trip in Washington, Netanyahu met with Vice President JD Vance last night and hosted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at Blair House this morning…
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met today in Ankara with new Hamas head Khalil Al-Hayya…
The Treasury Department sanctioned the Persian Gulf Marine Insurance Company and Hormuz Safe Marine Services Authority, which are backed by the IRGC, for running “insurance” schemes in the Strait of Hormuz, whereby the terror group creates threats to commercial shipping and then charges vessels for insurance coverage…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani continued to face questions today about his decision to appoint a judicial advisory committee that did not include any Jews, which critics have noted is at stark odds with the large population of Jewish attorneys working in the five boroughs, JI’s Will Bredderman reports.
“Any suggestion that there would be any decision made or motivated by religion, it does bother me,” Mamdani told reporters today. “Any suggestion that the composition of the advisory committee was motivated by religion is false”…
Mamdani’s communications director disputed an account by former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel of his September 2025 meeting with Mamdani in which Emanuel said he told him, “You chant ‘[from the] river to the sea,’ and that means there will never be a homeland for Jews who had faced the Holocaust. I want you to hear this: Over my dead body.”
Anna Bahr, Mamdani’s staffer, said in a post replying to the clip of Emanuel on the “Unholy” podcast: “can confirm this … did not happen”…
A new pollof Michigan’s battleground 7th Congressional District shows progressive William Lawrence, a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, leading the Democratic primary with a 38% plurality, followed by former Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam (27%) and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink (19%). The survey, which was commissioned by a group backing Maasdam, also found 16% of voters are still undecided ahead of next week’s primary…
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) predicted Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro would be a “formidable” opponent if both men run in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary and told the Washington Examiner that Shapiro “very graciously” called him after Khanna claimed he was detained by Israeli settlers in the West Bank earlier this month…
A read for Tu B’Av, the Jewish holiday of love, happening today: A new Jewish dating app combining the benefits of traditional matchmakers with technology, set to launch in the coming weeks, is exclusively made for Jewish day school grads to find their bashert, founder Erica Schwartz told JI’s Haley Cohen. The app — called The Well, in a nod to the biblical story of Eliezer finding Isaac’s wife, Rebecca — utilizes a chatbot, human intuition and no swiping at all…
CBS News announced that Wall Street Journal correspondent Dov Lieber will join its team in September as a senior reporter based in Israel…
⏩ 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 for a look into the reported far-right dynamics now at play among the new employees of the Heritage Foundation, following an exodus of the organization’s traditionally conservative staff under President Kevin Roberts.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel will co-host an antisemitism roundtable with the Anti-Defamation League to hear from Jewish community leaders about the impacts of recent antisemitic incidents in the state.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a nomination hearing for Sarah Rogers, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, to be CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Rogers was nominated for the role by President Donald Trump after a federal judge ruled that Kari Lake had been unlawfully serving as the agency’s acting chief executive, invalidating many of the actions she took while leading the agency.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) will appear at the Hudson Institute for a conversation on the global threat environment.
Stories You May Have Missed
SHUL POLITICS
Leading rabbis across the state are urging their congregants to vote for Stevens — even if they’re not saying so explicitly
AID ARGUMENTS
Many of the attendees at Temple Emanuel who listened to the congressman defend his position appeared critical of the stance he’d taken and unconvinced by his explanation, Jewish constituents said
The rare public interaction between a top MBS confidant and the Iranian regime’s most prominent opponent comes as Saudi Arabia attacks Iran-backed militias
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the powerful head of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund and a close associate of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, was seen greeting and conversing with Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s former shah, during Tuesday’s funeral service in Washington for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
In video footage first published Tuesday by the Christian Broadcasting Network, the two men shared an embrace and spoke briefly during the service. The interaction marked a rare public exchange between a top Saudi official and one of the most prominent Iranian opposition figures.
Al-Rumayyan holds several key leadership roles across Saudi state interests, including as governor of the Saudi Public Investment fund and chair of oil giant Saudi Aramco, English football club Newcastle United and Riyadh Air.
The meeting also comes against a backdrop of escalating regional hostilities: On Tuesday, the Saudi Arabian armed forces joined U.S. Central Command to conduct joint strikes against Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq in response to drone strikes by the militias targeting U.S. forces and energy infrastructure.
Saudi Arabia and Iran have historically had a tense relationship as competing Sunni and Shiite powers, with both nations vying for regional influence including in Yemen and Syria. Throughout the Iran war, Riyadh has faced repeated targeting by Iranian missiles and drones.
Pahlavi, a vocal opponent of the Tehran regime, has actively advocated for a transition to a democratic government in Iran. Following the onset of the war, Pahlavi asserted that the Iranian people had “called on me to lead the transition after the regime is gone.” In an interview with Reuters this week, Pahlavi claimed that Iran’s current government is “very close” to collapse.
However, the regime in Tehran has thus far survived the war, and Pahlavi has yet to successfully consolidate power or unite opposition factions. Furthermore, both President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have expressed skepticism regarding Pahlavi’s viability as a future Iranian leader and have withheld official U.S. backing of him.
The president made the comments on Fox News after the IRGC attempted a surprise ballistic missile attack on U.S. forces in the region
Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP via Getty Images
US President Donald Trump speaks about the conflict in Iran in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House on April 6, 2026, in Washington, DC.
President Donald Trump warned on Wednesday that the U.S. would “beat the f**king sh*t out of” Iran following an attempted surprise ballistic missile attack by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on American forces in the region, even as he signaled a willingness to keep diplomatic channels open.
“We’ll be hitting them hard,” Trump told Fox News’ Trey Yingst. “They’re going to get a beating.”
But Trump added that he’s “going to let them keep talking,” referring to ongoing indirect U.S.-Iran negotiations.
The president’s comments followed a spate of attacks on Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning by Iran and its proxies. In addition to the IRGC surprise attack, Iran also directed more than 30 drone attacks by its proxies in Iraq over several days on “U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure,” CENTCOM said, leading the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to conduct joint strikes on logistics and weapons sites in eastern Iraq early Wednesday. The Jordanian military also announced that it had intercepted five missiles launched from Iran on Tuesday night.
The attacks ended a pause in hostilities between the parties, which began last Friday, and came after Trump’s disclosure on Monday that the U.S. remains engaged in “very deep talks” with Iran. But the president has repeatedly threatened to reengage in military action if diplomacy collapses.
Plus, Washington bids farewell to Lindsey Graham
Prime Minister's Office
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on July 28, 2026.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed his sit-down with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office this morning as “one of the best conversations I’ve ever had with a president of the United States,” saying in a video statement that the two leaders were completely aligned “on the shared goal that Iran will not have nuclear weapons.”
Caroline Glick, Netanyahu’s international affairs advisor, also described the meeting, which was closed to the press, as “extremely positive” and pushed back against reports of a rift between Jerusalem and Washington. Netanyahu and Trump “have arguments from time to time … but they are on the same page 100% with everything relating to the goal of all operations regarding Iran,” Glick told Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea…
That rift was on display just hours before the meeting, when Trump expressed frustration with Netanyahu over reports that he planned to share with him Israeli intelligence regarding Iranian nuclear activity at Pickaxe Mountain.
“I don’t need Bibi to tell me that. Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved [in Iran],” Trump alleged in an interview on Fox News. “I know exactly what’s happening at Pickaxe, it’s not a big problem,” he said…
And in another indication of daylight emerging between the two countries, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told Israel’s Channel 14 today that Jerusalem “very much want[s] to strike Iran’s energy targets,” but Washington “is not approving it at the moment because of the concern that Iran would attack neighboring countries, causing a global oil crisis”…
The funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at the Washington National Cathedral this afternoon drew his friends and supporters from all walks of life. Among those spotted in the sanctuary were Netanyahu; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine; Miriam Adelson; former Vice President Mike Pence; Ron Dermer, Israel’s former minister of strategic affairs; the parents of slain American Israeli hostage Omer Neutra; Reza Pahlavi, the exiled former crown prince of Iran; and a host of administration officials and members of Congress…
Despite both being in Washington today for the same reasons — White House meetings with Trump and Graham’s funeral — Netanyahu and Zelensky will not hold an official meeting, The Times of Israel reports, though the two leaders were spotted speaking in person for the first time in several years at the National Cathedral ahead of the funeral proceedings.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also spoke by phone today, where Sa’ar invited Sybiha to visit Israel…
The Senate added a provision extending long-standing sanctions on Iran, currently set to expire at the end of the year, into a major Russia sanctions package negotiated and championed by Graham before his death, JI’s Marc Rod reports. The bill is expected to receive its first procedural vote later today, after its sponsors meet with Zelensky…
Lebanese businessman Antoun Sehnaoui and former U.S. Middle East envoy Morgan Ortagus hosted a dinner in honor of Graham last night at the Four Seasons hotel in Washington, Axios reports. Netanyahu, who attended the event with his wife, Sara, told those gathered, “America has lost a great patriot, Israel has lost one of its greatest friends and supporters, and I have lost a dear friend”…
A man armed with a hammer today entered the premises of the Lev Leviev School in Queens, N.Y., where a Jewish day camp was operating and shoved a child into a fence before being subdued by camp personnel.
Queens Shmira, a local public safety organization, told JI that the incident was not a hate crime but was rather perpetrated by an “emotionally disturbed individual.” The NYPD took a person of interest into custody and the child was treated for a laceration on site before being transported to a hospital…
A new poll shows Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) leading former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers by two points if she wins next week’s closely watched Senate Democratic primary — with her opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, trailing Rogers by seven points, JI’s Gabby Deutch reports.
United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-affiliated super PAC, is meanwhile running a new ad hitting El-Sayed over his past support of the “uncommitted” movement and his criticisms of popular Democratic leaders…
CENTCOM announced today that it has signed an agreement with the UAE to establish the first bilateral task force focused on developing military artificial intelligence. The group, named Task Force Talon Synapse, will formally launch in the coming weeks and will be based in Abu Dhabi, with around 20 American and Emirati personnel with expertise in AI, data and cybersecurity…
⏩ 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 for a look at Jewish organizing efforts in Michigan ahead of the state’s Senate Democratic primary election next week.
Graham’s funeral will continue tomorrow in South Carolina, where he will receive a public procession at the Statehouse in Columbia and a private burial.
Stories You May Have Missed
MICHIGAN MATTERS
Haley Stevens touted her support for a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, while Abdul El-Sayed lambasted U.S. aid to the Jewish state
COALITION CALCULUS
In an address in Washington, the opposition leader sketched a coalition with Bennett and Eisenkot that would mend U.S. and European ties, harden Israel’s line on Iran and shift tone on Gaza
The five-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 was included into the hard-fought bill at Trump’s urging
Tim Graham/ Getty Images
U.S. Capitol Building
The Senate on Tuesday advanced a major Russia sanctions package, negotiated and championed by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) before his death, to which lawmakers added a provision extending longstanding sanctions on Iran, currently set to expire at the end of the year.
The addition of the five-year extension of the Iran Sanctions Act of 1996 to the package is a relatively minor change to the hard-fought bill, which will extend a key piece of the U.S. economic pressure campaign on Iran and address President Donald Trump’s late-stage demands that threatened to upend a bipartisan agreement.
Lawmakers have been working for years on a bipartisan basis to extend the Iran sanctions past 2026 and they have been extended on a bipartisan basis in the past.
“We are proud to announce an agreement on legislation to stop purchasers of Russian oil and gas from fueling Putin’s war machine and to continue restricting the Iranian regime’s ability to support terrorism and build its nuclear program,” Sens. Jim Risch (R-ID), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Darline Graham (R-SC), Katie Britt (R-AL), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Roger Wicker (R-MS) said in a joint statement on Tuesday. “There is no greater way to honor Senator Graham’s legacy than to move forward with this bipartisan agreement, and we look forward to today’s vote.”
The bill advanced by an 86-12 procedural vote. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE), Andy Kim (D-NJ), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY) voted no.
Blumenthal, the lead Democrat on the bill, had initially reacted negatively to Trump’s efforts to include Iran sanctions, warning against further changes to the bill, which took months to negotiate.
The bill “was the result of painstaking, sometimes painful negotiation involving leadership here, the White House, the U.S. trade representative over many months. I personally would like to see it passed as is,” Blumenthal said earlier this month after Trump initially began pushing for changes. “There may be other provisions that are worthwhile which should be passed separately.”
Asked Tuesday about the decision to add the Iran sanctions provisions, Blumenthal told Jewish Insider, “Darline Graham asked us — asked me — to do it. And by the way, that Iran provision was in the bill as originally written, so restoring it was a pretty simple yes.”
Blumenthal also told reporters that, during a closed-door meeting with senators shortly before the vote, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky emphasized the role that Ukrainian drone technology has been playing in assisting the U.S. with defending its bases from Iranian attacks.
Prominent House Democrats have raised concerns about the bill, which provides tariff authority to the administration to target importers of Russian oil, concerns shared by some of the bill’s Senate opponents, even as some of them expressed strong support for Ukraine. Critics worry that the bill would allow Trump to impose punishing tariffs on the U.S.’ European allies, but Democratic supporters insist that the authority is carefully tailored and limited.
Alexandria Paolozzi Moore, the senior director of government relations at FDD Action, said the extension is “a critical, bipartisan win. ISA is a foundational tool for countering Iran’s WMD proliferation, ballistic missile program, and support for terrorism.”
Caroline Glick, an advisor to Netanyahu, pushed back on reports of a rift between the two leaders
Prime Minister's Office
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on July 28, 2026.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed his sit-down with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday as “one of the best conversations I’ve ever had with a president of the United States, our friend Donald Trump.”
The Israeli prime minister called the meeting “excellent.”
“When I say excellent, I don’t mean it lightly,” he added, speaking in a video statement after the summit. It was “a conversation with full partnership, mutual support, with understanding on the shared goal that Iran will not have nuclear weapons and also other goals,” he said.
Caroline Glick, Netanyahu’s international affairs advisor, similarly described the meeting as “extremely positive” and pushed back against reports of a rift between Jerusalem and Washington.
“The two sides continue to be totally committed to our shared goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and that was obviously the focus of the discussion, but we discussed a whole range of regional issues,” Glick told Jewish Insider.
Glick said the Israeli delegation left the meeting feeling “terrific” about the strategic alignment between Washington and Jerusalem.
Addressing reports of friction between the two leaders over strategy in the Iran war and Trump’s proposed sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, Glick said “nothing specific” on the jet deal came up during the meeting. She added that Trump and Netanyahu “have an incredible relationship,” dismissing talk of tension as a “media-manufactured crisis.”
“They have arguments from time to time… but they are on the same page 100% with everything relating to the goal of all operations regarding Iran,” Glick said. “The discussion was what you would expect from an alliance. You had two leaders who know each other very well, have enormous amounts of respect for one another and share common goals that they are completely committed to achieving.”
Hours before the meeting, Trump had expressed frustration with Netanyahu’s reported intention to raise with him Israeli intelligence regarding Iranian nuclear activity, saying in an interview on Fox News, “I don’t need Bibi to tell me that. Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved.”
While analysts framed the Oval Office meeting as a key opportunity for Netanyahu to gauge where Trump stands on Iran, Glick declined to say where the administration truly prefers diplomacy or resuming strikes, stressing instead that both nations are moving toward a unified outcome.
“All the trends are moving towards the achievement of our joint goal, which is to prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons,” Glick said. “So if it’s the hard way, the easy way, the middle way, the side way, it’s all geared towards moving the ball into that goal. I don’t think you can characterize it one way or another. It’s not a linear process.”
Hostilities between the U.S. and Iran remain paused as the U.S. is in “very deep talks” with Iran, Trump said on Monday, though the president has repeatedly threatened to return to military action if talks fail.
Glick said the trilateral agreement between the U.S., Israel and Lebanon was “touched on” but “wasn’t the focus,” saying that it will be left to the meetings between the parties set to take place in Rome next week.
She also noted that the two leaders briefly discussed the issue of expanding the Abraham Accords, with both remaining committed to bringing additional nations into the normalization framework.
“We believe that the prospects for expanding them are very high and look forward to doing so,” Glick said. “But as the prime minister always says, if we discuss which specific country, it will only undermine the process.”
‘Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved,’ Trump said of reported Israeli intelligence about Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, ahead his Oval Office meeting with Netanyahu
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
President Donald Trump speaks with reporters while aboard Air Force One on June 5, 2026 en route to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
President Donald Trump expressed discontent with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reported forthcoming warnings regarding Iranian nuclear activity at Pickaxe Mountain, dismissing the issue as “not a big problem” in a sharp public split hours ahead of their high-stakes Oval Office meeting.
“I don’t need Bibi to tell me that. Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved [in Iran],” Trump alleged in an interview on Fox News on Tuesday morning.
Netanyahu is reportedly expected to brief Trump on Iran’s activities at Pickaxe Mountain during their meeting, attempting to demonstrate that Tehran is undermining diplomatic talks by relocating its nuclear infrastructure underground.
Commenting on reports that Netanyahu intends to raise with him Israeli intelligence demonstrating that Iran moved nuclear centrifuges into Pickaxe following the 12-day war in June 2025, Trump said: “Why don’t you [Netanyahu] just tell it to me? Why do you have to announce it to the world? I know exactly what’s happening at Pickaxe, it’s not a big problem.” Trump has previously downplayed such reports, saying earlier this month that the U.S. has not seen evidence of nuclear activity at the site.
Trump insisted on Tuesday that U.S. intelligence is monitoring Pickaxe Mountain closely, while renewing threats to launch military strikes if a diplomatic agreement falls through.
“We have the greatest cameras in the world focused on it,” Trump said. “We took out their nuclear sites, and we’ll have to take out Pickaxe if we don’t make a deal … We’ll take it out very easily.”
The complex, which Tehran is believed to have begun constructing in 2020, is located roughly a mile south of Iran’s primary Natanz nuclear facility, a site struck multiple times during the 12-day war.
While Trump has previously noted that Pickaxe Mountain was spared amid the current U.S.-Iran war due to a lack of evidence that nuclear enrichment was taking place there, he warned during a meeting last week with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun that the U.S. could target the area “pretty soon.”
Tuesday’s Oval Office meeting marks the eighth between Trump and Netanyahu during Trump’s second term, and their first face-to-face sit-down since the current Iran war began in February. Once closely aligned, the two leaders enter the talks divided over key strategic decisions, including how to conclude the war and Trump’s proposed sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey.
The numbers demonstrate the degree to which opinions on Israel and Iran — and the U.S. role in the region — have shifted in the five months since the war began
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club on December 29, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida.
For watchers of the U.S.-Israel relationship, the events of the last few days have had a familiar feel. On Friday, President Donald Trump suggested at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that Iran would “love to make a deal. I don’t think they’re ready to. I don’t think it’s time yet, but I’m willing to listen.” Today, the president will meet at the White House with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the countries weigh a military escalation with Iran.
The similarities to the dialogue surrounding Iran earlier this year are striking. In early February, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “Iran looks like it wants to make a deal very badly.” Days later, Trump would meet at the White House with Netanyahu for talks focused on Iran. Weeks after that meeting, the U.S. and Israel launched joint military strikes against the Islamic Republic, kicking off a six-week war.
And despite the similarities around today’s meeting — which comes hours before the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) — much has changed.
In the U.S., there is growing opposition among Americans to renewed military action against Iran — a sentiment that extends to some top military officials, including, reportedly, CENTCOM head Adm. Brad Cooper.
Public perception of Israel — and Israelis — has hit its most negative point in years, with Gen Z Americans across the political spectrum having significantly more favorable views of Palestinians than Israelis.
The numbers demonstrate the degree to which opinions on Israel and Iran — and the U.S. role in the region — have shifted in the five months since the war began. The domestic politics in the U.S. vis-a-vis Iran look very different than they did during the last Trump-Netanyahu meeting.
Among Israelis, there is little confidence that Trump is acting with Israel’s security needs in mind, with just 28% of those surveyed in an Israel Democracy Institute poll last month saying that they believed the country’s security was a central consideration for Trump.
When Trump and Netanyahu last met, elections in both countries were still a far-off prospect. But with less than four months before both the midterms and Israel’s first election in nearly four years, the calculus has changed.
In Israel, Netanyahu is facing a tough reelection battle as recent polls show former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and his Yashar party making gains on the prime minister and his Likud party. Netanyahu had reportedly spent weeks seeking a meeting with Trump as the memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran fell apart and both sides resumed attacks before confirming he’d attend Graham’s funeral — with a Trump meeting to boot.
The meeting also offers Netanyahu an opportunity to remind Israeli voters of his close relationship with Trump — something no other Israeli candidate can boast. And he’s also seeking a more permanent solution on Iran leading into the election — a tangible win he can tout to Israeli voters, who are overall unhappy with the outcome of the war.
For Trump, the outcome of the midterms is less threatening to his standing, but will likely serve as a referendum on American attitudes toward the war with repercussions extending well into the 2028 presidential race.
And even as Trump has claimed that he doesn’t care about voter opinions about the war with Iran, the rest of his party — and those looking to shape its direction — will be waiting to see the outcome of the Netanyahu meeting.
With the region on edge, today’s meeting is likely to offer one of the clearest indications as to whether Trump and Netanyahu share the same vision for the future of the Middle East — or whether they’re on increasingly divergent paths.
Plus, El-Sayed defends leaked 'ogre' remarks
Emir of Qatar
Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani met with Rabbi Mendy Chitrik on July 27, 2026.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump decided to pause military strikes on Iran because the U.S. and Tehran are “in very deep talks,” he told Axios today, but if the discussions “don’t work out, we will go back to very strong military action.”
Negotiations are thus far indirect, reportedly taking place primarily between Iran and Oman, though Trump told reporters today that Iran had requested a meeting directly with the U.S…
Asked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to the U.S.’ planned sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, Trump said, “Turkey’s been a great ally — for me. … Nobody tells me what we should be selling,” a clip that the White House’s rapid response social media account posted to X…
Saudi Arabia intercepted drones launched by Iran-backed militias in Iraq today which were targeting oil facilities in the country’s Eastern Province and in Riyadh, according to the Saudi Defense Ministry…
The U.S. Embassy in Israel temporarily restricted travel by U.S. government employees and their families into the West Bank due to “heightened security concerns and increased volatility” in the area…
Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani publicized a meeting in Doha today with a delegation of rabbis — led by Rabbi Mendy Chitrik, chair of the Alliance of Rabbis in Islamic States — who came to offer their condolences on the death of the emir’s father and predecessor, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…
Days after an alleged hate crime against a Jewish person in Manhattan, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani refused to engage with suggestions from various corners that he tone down his rhetoric around Israel — or to address why he continued publicly toying with arresting Netanyahu well after city attorneys told him he couldn’t, JI’s Will Bredderman reports…
The New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America is planning to lobby state lawmakers to pass the “Not on Our Dime” bill, which would revoke the tax-exempt status of New York nonprofits that support Israeli settlement activity, as well as a bill that would impose penalties on airlines that move arms shipments to Israel from JFK Airport, The New York Times reports…
Conservative writer Rod Dreher said Vice President JD Vance, with whom he used to be friends, “cut me off” after a meeting in which Dreher asked him to push back against rising antisemitism among young people on the right.
Dreher recalled on an episode of “The Jeremy Boreing Show”: “I pointed out to [Vance] these people — [neo-Nazi Nick] Fuentes, the groypers, all of them — are going to destroy conservatism and the Republican Party, and I said to him, ‘Because of your background, because of your age, you are uniquely positioned to draw a red line there’ … but he hasn’t chosen to do it”…
Far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed came under fire for leaked audio in which he said about his potential primary win, “You put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message,” comments which some understood to refer to his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI).
El-Sayed disputed the interpretation, telling The 19th that he was “clearly referring to supporting a primary against [Sen.] John Fetterman (D-PA), who I’ve called an ogre many, many times”…
Troy Jackson, the newly minted U.S. Senate candidate in Maine, announced he’s raised $2 million since he replaced Graham Platner as the Democratic nominee over the weekend…
The Office of the Attending Physician in Congress said in a statement today that Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has been hospitalized since he fell in June, is still not medically cleared to leave the rehabilitation facility and return to office…
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore appeared separately at The Hampton Synagogue on Long Island over the weekend, where they both “affirmed their commitment to Israel and to combating antisemitism,” founding Rabbi Marc Schneier said…
⏩ 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 for an interview with George Moraitis, a former Florida state representative who is running in the Republican primary for the 23rd Congressional District, hoping to unseat Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL).
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet at the White House tomorrow with President Donald Trump for the eighth time in Trump’s second term, the most of any international leader. Before departing for Washington earlier today, Netanyahu said he and Trump would “discuss all the issues on the agenda — first and foremost, Iran.”
The two leaders will also attend the funeral of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), which will begin at the U.S. Capitol and then move to a service at the National Cathedral, where Trump is slated to give remarks. Other world leaders are also expected to be in attendance, including Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who landed in the U.S. this morning, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Central Synagogue in Manhattan will hold a memorial service for Wesley LePatner, one year after the Blackstone executive and Jewish philanthropist was killed in a shooting at the firm’s Midtown headquarters.
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‘They are talking to us right now. They’d love to make a deal. … I don’t think it’s time yet, but I’m willing to listen,’ the president said at the White House Correspondents' Dinner
Mandel NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
President Donald Trump speaks during the 2026 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, D.C., on July 24, 2026.
President Donald Trump said in remarks at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Friday that the U.S. is continuing to negotiate with Tehran even amid U.S. strikes on Iran, but added that he didn’t think that Iranian leaders were ready to make a deal.
“They are talking to us right now. They’d love to make a deal. I don’t think they’re ready to. I don’t think it’s time yet, but I’m willing to listen,” Trump said at the dinner, held at Washington’s Waldorf Astoria after being rescheduled following a shootout at the annual April dinner between a lone gunman and Secret Service agents at the Washington Hilton.
Trump added that if Iran were to obtain a nuclear weapon, the country “would use it,” potentially targeting the U.S., Israel or elsewhere in the Middle East.
‘I represent a pro-Israel, anti-Netanyahu district and this is a pro-Israel, anti-Netanyahu vote,’ Rep. Jake Auchincloss told JI
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) participates in the House Transportation Committee hearing on Thursday, June 27, 2024.
Of the 103 House Democrats who voted to cut off the $3.3 billion in U.S. aid to Israel last week, few came as more of a surprise than Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), a Jewish Democrat who has generally been a reliable pro-Israel vote in the House.
Auchincloss, in an interview with Jewish Insider this week, said that he approached the vote as a protest of the war with Iran, and argued that the vote wasn’t anti-Israel.
“This president, in conjunction with Prime Minister Netanyahu, has launched an illegal, catastrophic war that nine out of 10 Israelis think has led to Iranian gains, and that even fewer of my constituents support,” Auchincloss said. “And foreign military financing is a form of appropriations for a war I believe to be illegal and unwise.”
He also pointed to comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling for the U.S. to phase out aid to Israel over the next 10 years, arguing that Democrats can’t be expected to take a position on aid “to the right of Netanyahu” — though the Israeli prime minister hasn’t called for an immediate halt to aid.
“That grant of foreign military financing is a privilege that Congress grants annually to both our head of government and to counterparty heads of government,” Auchincloss said. “Every year, Congress has the right — Congress has the responsibility — to determine whether that privilege is warranted. Given Trump and Netanyahu’s decision-making about this debacle with Iran, I do not think it is warranted.”
He said he would evaluate his position on future FMF to Israel on a year-by-year basis depending on whether he believes such aid is deserved. “That’s not only my right as a member of Congress, that’s my responsibility — particularly when 18 Americans have died overseas.”
But he said that he continues to support the U.S-Israel relationship and said the U.S. should continue to work to preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME), and suggested he would not, at this point, support a cutoff of support for Israeli missile-defense systems or an embargo on Israel buying U.S. systems with its own funds.
He said he also believes in continued U.S. support for the Abraham Accords and other efforts to bring Israel and the region closer together, including through the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor (IMEC).
Some observers have seen Auchincloss’ vote as a concession to left-wing Democrats in his suburban Massachusetts district, in light of the party’s shifting stance on Israel and primary challenges to other pro-Israel Democrats. The district includes a substantial Jewish population.
Auchincloss himself won his first primary in 2020 with 22% of the vote, scoring a narrow victory over a divided field that included several candidates to his left. Some on the left still see him as vulnerable to a one-on-one challenge in a future race — or as a potential candidate for higher office in deep-blue Massachusetts.
“I represent a pro-Israel, anti-Netanyahu district and this is a pro-Israel, anti-Netanyahu vote,” Auchincloss asserted, arguing that he’s “confident … a majority of my Jewish constituents would agree with me.”
“I hear why people see this vote through the lens of primaries and the national Democratic scene,” Auchincloss said. “I represent about 100,000 Jewish constituents. They are super smart and engaged on this issue. If I try to take political votes or symbolic votes or too-clever-by-half 4D-chess votes, it doesn’t hang together. I have to be able to defend the internal logic of each and every vote to this community, and I am confident that I can say to this community on this vote: This is a rejection of Trump and Netanyahu’s decision-making to take away the credit card.”
Asked whether the U.S.-Israel relationship can be sustained and repaired while Netanyahu continues to lead Israel — as some prominent U.S. figures have suggested that Netanyahu being ousted in the upcoming Israeli elections is necessary to continued bilateral relations — Auchincloss said that the relationship should be bigger than any one leader.
“The U.S.-Israel alliance is deeper than personalities,” he said. “Certainly, you know, Congress and our decisions about appropriations and policy need to be calibrated to the individuals who are going to be executing that policy, right? But the U.S.-Israel alliance is based on shared interests, on common values, and a long history.”
He suggested he was unconcerned by AIPAC’s decision to halt fundraising for him following the vote, explaining that his votes aren’t shaped by endorsements or contributions and that he’s taken votes both supported and opposed by AIPAC over the course of his career.
Though he diverged from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on the Israel aid vote, Auchincloss praised the Democratic leader’s approach to the issue and called it a model for how the party as a whole should approach Israel policy going forward.
“Hakeem is pointing the way with a steady hand, which is to say, ‘We’re a party that supports qualitative military edge for Israel, which is surrounded by terrorists and the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism, and has a right to defend itself against those terrorists and needs QME to be able to do that, but we’re not a party that yields congressional oversight to Trump and Netanyahu as Republicans have,”’ Auchincloss said.
Asked about the possibility of conditions on further U.S. aid to Israel, Auchincloss said that the next U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding should be crafted around supporting Israel’s QME, expanding and supporting normalization and, critically, provisions that can garner support from both chambers of Congress and both parties.
Even as he sided with progressives in the party on the Israel aid vote, Auchincloss has also found himself vocally at odds with the left over his criticisms of former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.
Auchincloss long opposed Platner and faced strong backlash from the party in late May for saying that Platner’s tattoo and comments about it were “disqualifying” and saying he would support another candidate in the primary if he were a Maine voter.
“Character should matter in politics,” Auchincloss told JI. “Ten years ago, Republicans decided that it doesn’t. They’ve become a cult of personality, and Platner demonstrates to Democrats the hazards of agreeing that character doesn’t matter.”
“And I think it’s a problem for the Democratic Party to wrestle with [the fact] that it would have been more politically damaging for him to have a Star of David tattoo than to have a Totenkopf tattoo,” Auchincloss continued, an apparent reference to comments from a Platner supporter on the campaign trail earlier this year.
Auchincloss also said he remains concerned about surging antisemitism globally, and continues to be involved in other efforts to combat antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment, including as one of a handful of Democrats who signed a letter earlier this week condemning plans by Malaysia to round up and expel Israeli citizens.
He said he’s been in discussions with Jewish community groups about the role of social media in promulgating antisemitism and is working on legislation to combat it, while also arguing that it will require a “multifaceted approach.”
“Antisemitism tends to mushroom in failed societies, and social media has become a failed society as one big online toxic brew. And politics is downstream of media and information and culture,” Auchincloss said.
He said that even as political leadership is necessary to call out and reject antisemitic candidates, leaders also need to look “upstream to media and culture and information,” particularly on antisemitism.
Auchincloss is making his own efforts to steer the direction of the Democratic Party, including as the chair of Majority Democrats, a new campaign group backing moderate and liberal Democratic lawmakers and candidates around the country.
In his view, Auchincloss said that he sees himself and the group as occupying a third corner of the party, separate from the left and the establishment. “There is the opportunity for a faction that will redefine the center of American politics and be disruptive of the establishment without being socialist,” Auchincloss said.
He said he believes his faction and the party as a whole should be focused on “the new American dream” — a robust primary and secondary education, the ability to own a home by age 30 and retire by 65 — as “partners to help you achieve that economic security.” Auchincloss said the party should also be aggressive about confronting corruption across the political spectrum and should not yield “faith, family and the flag” to conservatives.
“I don’t think Americans are going to vote for Democrats to lead this country if they don’t think Democrats like this country,” Auchincloss said. “And so we have to be the party of patriotism — not of blood and soil nationalism, but of true constitutional patriotism. And then, finally, we need a cross-ideological governing platform that is willing, even self-consciously celebratory, of dragging and dropping good ideas from across factions of American life.”
He also said that Democrats should be strongly supportive of public safety, including cracking down on petty crime, and support a national wealth tax.
Auchincloss pointed to Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), increasingly seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, as someone who he believes is a strong leader for the party, particularly on anticorruption issues.
He said that he sees an anti-establishment mood across the party — which he said will look different in deep-blue and purple seats, while emphasizing that Democratic Socialists of America members have won “about 1%” of Democratic Party primaries.” He said he believes that the extremism problem is much more severe on the GOP side, asserting that 2020 election deniers have won more than half of GOP primaries to date.
“American politics is horseshoeing, but it’s not horseshoeing symmetrically,” Auchincloss alleged.
Asked whether he’s comfortable being in the same political coalition as those DSA members, Auchincloss said that he’s “not a bouncer” and doesn’t have the capability to police who’s winning Democratic primaries.
“What I’m concerned about is less about being a bouncer at the door and more about do we have music at this party that people want to come and dance to? Like, are we filling the room? Because enrollments for Democratic Party are going down,” Auchincloss said.
He said that, as with Platner, character matters, but that Democrats also shouldn’t be fixated on a “checklist at the door” for who can and can’t be part of the party, and should instead concentrate on a “governing vision” that will attract voters.
Hours later, the Senate rejected a similar measure
Kevin Carter/Getty Images
The U.S. Capitol Building is seen at sunset on May 31, 2025 in Washington, DC.
The House passed a second Iran war powers resolution on Thursday following the resumption of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran, with a handful of Republicans who have argued that continued operations violate the War Powers Act again siding with Democrats on the measure.
But hours later, the Senate blocked a separate resolution, also along narrow margins.
Reps. Tom Barrett (R-MI), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Warren Davidson (R-OH) again sided with all House Democrats to pass the resolution by a 214-208 vote.
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) said prior to the vote that she planned to support the war powers resolution but ultimately did not.
The Senate resolution was blocked by a 49-47 vote, with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) voting with most Democrats in support of the resolution and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) voting against it.
The House and Senate previously passed a similar resolution attempting to end the war, which Democrats have cited to describe the renewed hostilities as illegal.
The measure passed in the House on Thursday was in the form of a concurrent resolution — as was the previous resolution passed by Congress — which is not presented to the president and is generally not seen as carrying the force of law, though Democrats have been working to explore avenues to enforce it.
Also on Thursday, Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced a resolution demanding that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) initiate civil action in federal courts to enforce the previously passed war powers resolution directing the removal of U.S. forces from the Iran war.
Plus, Jewish groups sound the alarm on Mamdani
Win McNamee/Getty Images
President Donald Trump (R) meets with Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia during a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on November 18, 2025.
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.
Today’s Daily Overtime was curated by JI U.S. Editor Danielle Cohen-Kanik.
📡On Our Radar
Notable developments and interesting tidbits we’re tracking
President Donald Trump set a new red line on Iran today: Any time the Islamic Republic fires on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz going forward, the U.S. will “bomb and destroy one bridge or power plant,” including ones located in or near Tehran, he wrote on Truth Social.
But the president’s threat didn’t seem to sway the regime: Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in turn warned on X that “in a region where we do not sell oil, no one will sell oil,” and said Iran would further target ships in the strait…
Congressional Democrats are lining up in opposition to the Trump administration’s reported nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that would allow Riyadh to enrich uranium for civilian purposes, while Republicans are mostly supportive of the effort, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod and Christina Sher report.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) warned that the nuclear enrichment technology could eventually fall into the hands of a malign regime — as U.S. weapons did with the fall of the shah in Iran in 1979. “We have no idea who’s going to be running Saudi Arabia ten years from now,” Sherman told JI…
In a narrow vote, largely along partisan lines, the House passed its version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act this afternoon. All but six Democrats, as well as seven Republicans, voted against the bill in protest of issues including the continued Iran war and the proposed Defense Department budget of more than $1 trillion.
Some lawmakers, including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), had sought to strip a provision on U.S.-Israel cooperation out of the bill, though Massie’s amendment on the issue ultimately didn’t receive a vote…
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani announced that the country will host another round of U.S.-led talks between Israel and Lebanon on Aug. 4…
Roman Gofman, the new head of the Mossad, reportedly traveled to Washington earlier this month for talks with CIA Director John Ratcliffe and White House officials on the Iran war and the Iranian nuclear program…
At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing today on U.N. reform, Jeff Bartos, the U.S. representative for U.N. management and reform, derided Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, as an “absolute lunatic” and an “anti-America, anti-capitalist, anti-West, anti-Judeo-Christian, anti-Jew, anti-Israel bigot”…
Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to walk back the idea previously floated by Trump that Syria could take Israel’s place in fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon: “Well, the Syrian authorities are not big fans of Hezbollah. But what we’ve encouraged Syria to do is to focus on its own internal challenges that it has in sort of building a nation state,” Rubio said when asked about the concept…
A new Politico poll found a 13-point drop in support for the Iran war among Trump’s MAGA base: In May, 50% of MAGA voters said the war was worth the economic cost, down to just over a third who say the same now…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s video released last night — in which he railed against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu but confessed he couldn’t honor his campaign pledge to arrest the Israeli leader — triggered a wave of warnings from mainstream Jewish organizations that Mamdani excoriating Israel from his official platforms places Jewish New Yorkers at risk, JI’s Will Bredderman reports.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) also slammed Mamdani for “parroting Hamas talking points” in his video and said the mayor should be “a little less obsessed with foreign policy, and a little more obsessed with cleaning up his streets”…
The Republican Jewish Coalition endorsed Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) in the special election next month as she seeks a full term to succeed her late brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The RJC, which last night announced the creation of an award in Lindsey Graham’s memory, said he was “the best friend of the Jewish people” in the Senate and that the group “trust[s] his beloved sister to carry the fight forward”…
Connie Chan, a member of San Francisco County Board of Supervisors who is running for the seat of retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), received the endorsement yesterday of Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption, the political arm of the group TrackAIPAC, and pledged to “oppose any aid to Israel and do everything in our power to stop their government’s genocidal actions.” Chan, who is endorsed by Pelosi as well as Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), is seeking to defeat state Sen. Scott Wiener in the Democrat-on-Democrat general election…
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League reached a settlement today with Reed College, which agreed to implement “one of the nation’s most comprehensive sets of reforms addressing campus antisemitism,” the groups said in a statement.
As part of the agreement — negotiated over allegations of Title VI civil rights violations, including a Jewish student who was struck in the head by a rock — Reed will adopt a “first-of-its-kind FAQ” into its discrimination policy detailing how anti-Zionist conduct can constitute unlawful discrimination…
California Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Scott Galloway, the Jewish UCLA and UC Berkeley alum who is now a business professor and commentator, to serve on the University of California Board of Regents, pending state Senate confirmation. Galloway has emerged as a leading voice against campus antisemitism in the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas 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 for a look at comments by Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) on the “Breaking Points” podcast as he becomes more outspoken against far-left activists who continue to harass him, even as he takes increasingly critical stances on Israel.
The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions will vote to advance acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling’s nomination to assume his role permanently. Read more about Sonderling’s Jewish family history, which he invoked during his confirmation hearing.
The International Criminal Court‘s 125 member states will hold a vote on Friday in a special session at U.N. headquarters in New York on whether to remove chief prosecutor Karim Khan over sexual misconduct allegations, which he denies. An absolute majority of 63 states would have to vote on the secret ballot in favor of ousting Khan — who took a leave of absence last May and was formally suspended in June — in order to remove him. The vote lands amid a renewed U.S. push, announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week, to dismantle the court.
The White House Correspondents’ Association will hold its rescheduled annual dinner on Friday at the Waldorf Astoria in Washington, three months after the original gala was cut short when a gunman stormed a security checkpoint and allegedly attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump. (Read JI senior congressional reporter Marc Rod’s first-hand account of the experience here.) The president is once again expected to attend and speak at the dinner.
In observance of Tisha B’Av, the Daily Overtime will be back in your inbox on Monday, July 27.
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