Plus, a tale for Tu B'Av: matchmaking meets machines
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President Donald Trump prepares to leave after speaking during an event at Verst Logistics on March 11, 2026 in Hebron, Kentucky.
Add JewishInsider on GoogleGood 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.
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SHUL POLITICS
‘These are not ordinary times’: Inside Jewish Detroit’s get-out-the-vote campaign for Haley Stevens
Leading rabbis across the state are urging their congregants to vote for Stevens — even if they’re not saying so explicitly
AID ARGUMENTS
Auchincloss faces skeptical reception from Jewish voters upset over his vote to cut off Israel funding
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
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
Rep. Jake Auchincloss
Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) appeared in conversation with Jeremy Burton, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, at Temple Emanuel in Newton, Mass., July 27, 2026.
Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) appeared before a packed house of more than 700 Jewish constituents at a major Conservative synagogue in the heart of his district on Monday evening, facing a barrage of questions from attendees skeptical over his vote to cut U.S. military aid to Israel.
Auchincloss appeared in conversation with Jeremy Burton, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, at Temple Emanuel in Newton, Mass., before taking around two-dozen questions from the audience, attendees said.
Those in the audience said that most of the crowd was not supportive of Auchincloss’ vote and was not persuaded by his explanation, but most of those who spoke to Jewish Insider came away expecting that he’ll maintain significant Jewish community support and were appreciative of his engagement.
Auchincloss’s explanation for his vote, attendees said, was largely consistent with those he offered in statements and in an interview with Jewish Insider last week, that he viewed the vote as a way to block further taxpayer support for the Iran war he opposes. The congressman is expected to make similar appearances at other synagogues around the district in the coming weeks.
“I really think that there was worry and skepticism about the vote, about what it says about the future of support for Israel,” Barry Shrage, the longtime former president of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston, the local Jewish federation, told JI.
He said that he and others in the crowd were concerned about the impact of the amendment on Israeli security. “A majority of people in that audience were very skeptical about what he did and worried about what he did.”
One attendee who requested anonymity to speak candidly estimated that between 70 and 80% of attendees opposed the stance Auchincloss had taken on the issue.
Auchincloss declined to comment.
Lisa Coll, a former board chair of Prizmah who said she’s known and supported Auchincloss for years, said she was “shocked and surprised and slightly hurt and a little angry,” having expected Auchincloss would vote against the amendment based on his pro-Israel record and the fact that the amendment was led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), an anti-Israel Republican who has a history of making antisemitic comments.
She said that Auchincloss offered a clear and reasoned explanation for his vote, but felt that he didn’t grasp the concerns in the Jewish community or why the community was so concerned. There’s “very much a lot of surprise and hurt going around,” Coll said.
Coll said that she emerged from the event still feeling the same shock and frustration with Auchincloss’s vote. “It was not an easy evening, it was a very uncomfortable evening for everyone,” Coll said. “Everyone was squirming at some point,” and attendees were “angry and sad.”
Lisa Danetz, who works as an expert and adviser in elections and voting rights, said that she felt, and remains, “conflicted” about Auchincloss’ vote and was surprised that Auchincloss supported the amendment, given his record. But she said she understood his reasoning.
“I ended up thinking, I’m not sure how I feel about this particular vote — but since the amendment didn’t pass and wasn’t going to pass, I didn’t feel like I was going to get too worked up about it and appreciated hearing the reasoning,” Danetz said.
“I think you have to respect him, he did what he thought was right,” she continued. “I don’t know if I agree with it or not. But overall I feel aligned with his underlying values.”
Coll said that she’s concerned that, as a Jewish member viewed as a serious, policy-oriented and pro-Israel lawmaker representing a large Jewish constituency, Auchincloss’s vote has the potential to influence and provide license for other members less engaged on the issue to take anti-Israel positions.
She said that Auchincloss did not share those concerns when she asked him a question on the subject. “I don’t think he is anti-Israel,” Coll said. “I don’t know if he is aware of what I perceive as the consequences of this vote.”
She said she also didn’t think Auchincloss fully understood the community’s concerns about how his vote and comments might perpetuate narratives framing the Iran war as “America fighting Netanyahu’s war” that have fueled antisemitism and antisemitic violence.
Shrage said that Auchincloss repeatedly emphasized that his vote was intended as a repudiation of the Iran war and of President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — both unpopular figures in the district’s Jewish community.
“A bunch of people got up and said, ‘This actually threatens the people of Israel,’” Shrage said. He recounted that one woman said, “‘I have Israeli and American citizenship. I have family in Israel. Your vote endangered them.’ And of course she added … ‘I’ve demonstrated against both Netanyahu and Trump, I have no sympathy for them whatsoever.’”
According to Coll, another attendee, an Israeli-American woman, said that Auchincloss’s vote was punishing the people of Israel for the actions of Netanyahu, and questioned whether he would support other countries punishing Americans the same way over frustration with Trump. Coll said Auchincloss did not offer a clear answer to the question.
A small number of attendees offered thanks and support for Auchincloss’ position in their comments, according to attendees.
Michael Gardener, a prominent area attorney, said he came into the event without having made up his mind on the vote and wanting to know more, while noting that it was out of step with Auchincloss’s prior votes on Israel issues.
Coming out of the event, “I understood his position and I must say I agree with it,” Gardener said. He said that Auchincloss had made clear that he did not seek an arms embargo in Israel and wanted to allow it to continue buying American weapons, but felt that providing U.S. taxpayer money that would facilitate the Iran war was not appropriate at this juncture, “which I agree with.”
Gardener said that views in the room weren’t uniform, but acknowledged that a majority of attendees likely did not agree with Auchincloss “and at the end of the evening probably still didn’t,” but felt that everyone understood Auchincloss’ reasoning and respected him for coming to explain it.
Another attendee, who also requested anonymity to speak candidly, cast a mixed picture of the audience, emphasizing that views in the room were diverse and said that the “audience appreciated him coming out and sitting in the hot seat to answer all of their questions” and “that he gave a lot of thought to all the implications” of the vote.
But, the attendee added, every mainstream Jewish organization in the Boston area had had serious conversations with Auchincloss about the vote expressing a “unanimity of disappointment” with him about it and exploring what his approach to Israel will entail going forward.
Shrage said he’s skeptical of Auchincloss’ claims, repeated throughout the event, that the vote wasn’t motivated by politics, or concerns about shifting Democratic party trends on Israel. Auchincloss similarly denied to JI that the vote was motivated by political considerations.
But, in spite of the concerns he saw in the audience, Shrage said he doesn’t expect any major defections in Auchincloss’ Jewish support base or efforts to oust him from office, predicting that most will “hold their nose and vote for him.” Most of the Democratic party opposition to Auchincloss in the district has come from his left.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to be joining a move to to defeat him in any way, shape or form,” Shrage said. “As a congressman, he still has broad support, but there was a lot of fear, worry and anxiety in this audience about what that vote meant.”
Coll said she wants to maintain her relationship with Auchincloss, and said she believes he’s a “principled and good person” who “in his heart … is very pro-Israel [and] does understand the importance” of the U.S.-Israel relationship and preserving Israel’s security and qualitative military edge.
She predicted that some members of the community will rethink their past support for Auchincloss, but others will likely wait to assess future votes on Israel.
“I’m hoping that we can count on [Auchincloss] to continue his support for Israel in his other votes like he has in the past and I would encourage the congressman to reach out to his constituents more before votes like this to read the room,” Coll said.
Danetz also said that Auchincloss was clear in his remarks that he didn’t take this or any vote based on politics. Asked whether she believes that, she said, “I think he thinks that, I don’t know if that’s humanly possible. He came across as very authentic and honest and wanting to have dialogue and conversation and explain his thinking.”
“I trust in his honest conviction of Israel’s right to exist and in the need for defense and also in concern related to the current government of Israel, a concern I share,” she continued.
Attendees generally said they appreciated Auchincloss coming to address the community and explain his position, and praised Burton’s questioning and the leadership of and comments by the congregation’s rabbi.
“I really respected [Auchincloss] for coming to speak to people. … I thought it showed how important it is to him to engage with his constituents in the district and in understanding that people were upset about his vote and a desire to explain his thinking,” Danetz said. “It seemed to me that whether people agreed with him or not, it would be hard to walk out of there not at least understanding where he was coming from, or where he thought he was coming from.”
She said Auchincloss was clearly knowledgeable about the issue and explained his stance clearly, and that he’d been “emphatic” in his continued support for Israel’s existence and security.
Gardener said that the synagogue was as full as it traditionally is for high holiday services, highlighting the passion that the community has for the subject, which he said can only be a good thing for Israel and the Jewish population.
He said he thinks everyone in the room shares the same passion for Israel and support for its security as a Jewish and Democratic state and “I think the congressman feels the exact same way.”
But, he continued, “I think there are different viewpoints about how you get to that spot.”
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.
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MICHIGAN MATTERS
Israel, AIPAC take center stage in final Michigan Senate primary debate
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
Lapid blames Netanyahu for Israel’s isolation, vows reset if he returns to gov’t
In an address in Washington, the opposition leader sketched a coalition with Bennett and Eisenkot that would mend U.S. and European ties, harden Israel’s line on Iran and shift tone on Gaza
The AIPAC-affiliated super PAC accused El-Sayed of ‘helping Trump win,’ in a continuation of its messaging strategy hitting far-left candidates over their opposition to the Biden administration
Evan Cobb for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed speaks with customers and barbers at Blazin Wade Cuts in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026.
United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-affiliated super PAC, is running a new ad targeting Abdul El-Sayed, a far-left Democrat in Michigan’s closely contested Senate primary, over his past support of the “uncommitted” movement and his criticisms of popular Democratic leaders — a messaging strategy the group has used as an effective attack line against anti-Israel opponents in previous election cycles.
The 30-second TV spot, released on Tuesday in advance of the Aug. 4 contest, cites comments in which El-Sayed had criticized Barack and Michelle Obama while accusing El-Sayed of “helping Trump win” the election in 2024 because of his promotion of the “uncommitted” effort that urged Democratic primary voters to leave their ballots blank as a protest against former President Joe Biden’s support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.
“With our democracy on the line against Donald Trump in 2024, El-Sayed told Democrats to vote ‘uncommitted,’ even after Gov. Whitmer warned those efforts would help elect Donald Trump,” the narrator says, referring to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who last week endorsed El-Sayed’s rival, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a pro-Israel Democrat backed by AIPAC.
“Disrespecting women. Attacking the Obamas. Helping Trump win. That’s the real Abdul El-Sayed,” the ad concludes.
While UDP has invoked similar rhetoric in other ads hitting El-Sayed, the new spot is the first to mention his ties to “uncommitted,” a campaign first launched in Michigan that is emerging as a key point of tension for the insurgent candidate — particularly with Black leaders who believe the movement helped contribute to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat in the battleground state.
An image of Harris is shown in UDP’s new TV ad, but the former vice president is not named directly by the narrator.
UDP is also running two new digital ads — aimed at younger voters ages 18-25 who have been drawn to El-Sayed’s anti-establishment bid — that accuse him of making sexist remarks toward women and saying he was “one of the reasons Trump won,” again referring to his “uncommitted” activism.
Earlier this month, Stevens likewise highlighted El-Sayed’s alignment with “uncommitted,” while alleging he called Harris’ campaign “nauseating.”
El-Sayed, for his part, has sought to downplay his association with the movement, claiming in a recent campaign ad that he was “the first Muslim American leader to endorse Kamala Harris for president,” even as fact-checkers have deemed that statement inaccurate.
In a statement to Jewish Insider on Tuesday, Patrick Dorton, a UDP spokesperson, called El-Sayed “a bad Democrat” who “has repeatedly advocated positions that lose elections for Democrats.”
“That’s why Republicans are desperate to have him be the nominee,” Dorton said. “They know they can beat him.”
A new poll commissioned by the Michigan Education Association, which has not made an endorsement in the primary, found Stevens leading former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the Republican nominee, by two points in a hypothetical general election matchup, making the race a toss-up. El-Sayed, by contrast, was trailing Rogers by seven points in the open-seat race to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), which Democrats see as key to control of the Senate, according to the poll.
El-Sayed, an outspoken critic of Israel, has made AIPAC’s investment in the race a centerpiece of his messaging, as the group has grown increasingly toxic among Democrats. UDP’s spending to help Stevens has so far exceeded $30 million.
The pro-Israel group is also targeting former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who is seeking a rematch in next Tuesday’s House primary in St. Louis against Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) — after he unseated her last cycle with a significant financial boost from UDP.
In recent weeks, UDP has run ads attacking Bush for past comments criticizing Biden and Harris, echoing the messaging it deployed two years ago to help oust the former Squad member who was among the most strident critics of Israel in the House.
A new TV ad released by UDP on Tuesday further dinged Bush as an absentee lawmaker who passed “zero bills” in Congress and called her opposition to the bipartisan infrastructure package in 2021 a vote “against Democrats.”
“Cori Bush has her own agenda, and it hurts St. Louis,” the ad claims.
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.
George Moraitis is running against Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer and businessman Dan Franzese to take on Moskowitz
George Moraitis campaign website
Former Florida state Rep. George Moraitis.
Former Florida state Rep. George Moraitis is hoping that a bipartisan approach and his background in the Statehouse and as a military veteran will make him a formidable candidate to take on Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) in South Florida in November.
Moraitis is running in the Republican primary in Florida’s 25th Congressional District against former Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer, who is Jewish, and businessman Dan Franzese. In the general election, the winner will face Moskowitz — or his socialist primary challenger — in the district redrawn to favor Republicans.
Republicans are also seeking to block a Libertarian candidate from making it onto the ballot in November, fearing that a third-party candidate could strip away some of the GOP vote and hand a victory to Moskowitz.
Moraitis trails Singer and Franceze in fundraising — Singer has raised nearly $2 million to Franzese’s $1.5 million and Moraitis’ $840,000 — but recently picked up the endorsement of the Sun Sentinel, the largest newspaper in the area.
Moraitis told Jewish Insider he spent his “whole life in public service,” serving in the Navy on submarines and as a state representative. He said he wants to work to “restore the American dream,” protect U.S. national security and defend “our God-given freedoms” of worship, speech and assembly, including combating rising antisemitism, as well as what he described as efforts to shut down churches and Christian prayer.
During his time in the Navy, Moraitis was stationed with the 6th Fleet in Naples, Italy, a role that included helping to defend allies such as Israel, which was at the time part of the U.S.’ European Command. He never had the opportunity to travel to Israel while in the Navy but said he would plan to do so as a member of Congress.
He said that Israel is an important part of both Jewish and Christian “shared spiritual heritage.”
“I appreciate that the Israeli government has done so much to protect religious minorities, particularly the Christians,” Moraitis said. “In addition to having a Jewish state, they’ve done more than anyone in history has done, frankly, to protect the Christians.”
He said he’s seeing challenges on the left and “to some extent on the right” to Israel’s status as a Jewish state. He argued that many of those opposing Israel’s right to exist fail to understand Israel’s creation in the aftermath of the Holocaust and centuries of antisemitism.
“I am committed to the Jewish people having a homeland in the nation of Israel. I mean, I think there’s a spiritual component to that. We definitely have a national component … our own national security is tied to being strong in the Middle East. Israel has been our strongest ally in the world,” Moraitis said. “I am 100% committed to Israel existing as a Jewish homeland and being a strong and important ally of the United States.”
Moraitis said he also supports continued U.S. military aid to Israel — increasingly a hot-button issue on both sides of the aisle.
He said he was supportive of the administration’s efforts to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, adding that it was an “open question” whether that goal could be accomplished diplomatically.
He acknowledged that polling has shown the American people would not support an expanded war with Iran but said he supports U.S. efforts to control the Strait of Hormuz and impose a blockade on Iranian ports.
“I do want to give peace a chance. We can’t make this about regime change because we really can’t ultimately control that without huge numbers of casualties and a much bigger effort than what we’re putting into it, and I don’t think the American people are prepared for that,” Moraitis continued.
“I do want to see us get to a peace where Iran gives up their nuclear weapons,” he said. “I do feel that we’ve had to do this. I also feel that we need to move this to a place where we do stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, whether or not this regime continues on.”
He warned that the United States will regret if it fails to take the opportunity to stop Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and continuing to spread terrorism around the region, warning that Iran could attack the United States or Israel if it obtained a nuclear bomb.
In a stance that’s becoming increasingly unpopular among Republicans, Moraitis said he still believes that there will ultimately need to be some form of a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, while emphasizing that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority are equipped to run a Palestinian state and that such a state would need to be demilitarized and might take decades to bring to fruition.
“Israel has to have the right to defend itself. They can’t give up their security to do it, the way they tried to do it … pulling out of Gaza [in 2005]. Obviously it didn’t work because ultimately the vacuum was created and Hamas stepped into it. And so, I think this next effort would have to be something a lot more supervised,” Moraitis said. “But I do ultimately support a transition to an autonomous state.”
In the long run, he said that resolving the continued conflict would be beneficial for both sides.
Asked about addressing antisemitism at home, Moraitis touted the hearings and other efforts by congressional Republicans over the past four years to address antisemitism on college campuses, which he said should continue. He said that the federal government should leverage federal funding to compel schools to take action on antisemitism.
“I just think we need to take a stronger stand on it,” Moraitis continued, specifically raising concerns about Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback, who has campaigned on an openly antisemitic line. “There’s just really no place for that in our party or really even in America.”
He also emphasized the need to call out antisemitism when it appears and to continue to fund security grants for communal institutions.
Moraitis argued that he’d be the best-positioned Republican to win the seat in November given his status as a veteran and his experience in the Statehouse. He also argued that he has a “track record of winning — I’ve never lost an election,” arguing that some of his competitors have underperformed the GOP ticket in the past.
“I do feel like if I get up there, I’m doing this for the right reasons. I want to get things done. I have a record of reaching across the aisle to get things done,” he continued. “There’s a lot of things we can do on a bipartisan basis. I think Washington’s gotten too polarized, and I think some of the candidates, the way they’re running is going to make it difficult to govern with these small majorities that we have.”
And he emphasized that, while he’s not Jewish himself, “there’s really not going to be any daylight between myself and [the Jewish candidates running in the seat] on supporting Israel and fighting antisemitism.”
He also said that the Republican Party is “better positioned to support Israel and fight antisemitism” — a pitch to pro-Israel Jewish voters who have been a strong base of support for Moskowitz in the past.
In an address in Washington, the opposition leader sketched a coalition with Bennett and Eisenkot that would mend U.S. and European ties, harden Israel's line on Iran and shift tone on Gaza
Screenshot
Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid speaks at the Atlantic Council in Washington, July 27, 2026
Addressing one of the leading foreign policy think tanks in the United States, former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid presented his case on Monday for Israel’s diplomatic future should his opposition bloc form the country’s next government after the upcoming elections.
Speaking at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Lapid argued that Israel is increasingly isolated diplomatically and feuding with its allies — which he blamed primarily on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition — and he recommended that Jerusalem adopt a more measured and bipartisan approach going forward.
Lapid is visiting Washington this week, concurrent with Netanyahu; both of them are set to attend the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Tuesday.
Lapid said that a new government, primarily made up of current opposition members, would remove officials who advocate for nuking Gaza or who mock detained activists. He said the government should also apologize for the accidental deaths of children in war and express greater empathy more generally, as well as deploy police and soldiers to address what he characterized as Jewish terrorism in the West Bank.
He also said that Israel can’t act on the world stage with the same impunity that the United States can, that it needs to listen to its friends around the world instead of writing them off, should never fund digital influence operations against American leaders, should stay out of American partisan politics and must rebuild its relationships with Europe.
“Iran is an enemy. Hezbollah is an enemy. Hamas is an enemy,” Lapid said. “France is not the enemy. Sweden is not the enemy. [Sens.] Elizabeth Warren [D-MA], Jon Ossoff [D-GA] and Tim Kaine [D-VA] are not the enemy. The Democratic Party is not the enemy. [Vice President] JD Vance is not the enemy.”
He said that the next Israeli government should communicate to the U.S. and the world that “this was a crazy period, but it is over” and, going forward, “stay out of American politics,” as well as “firmly encourage” both AIPAC and J Street to move away from partisanship.
“To be pro-Israel is to be bipartisan to build a broad coalition of support. Do not boycott people who dislike us. Insist on meeting them and presenting our case,” Lapid said.
Military capabilities and tactics, he continued, cannot stand apart from Israel’s place in the world, its relationship with the United States and its economic situation. Military strikes must come with “a moral, legal and strategic framework that Israel can defend with confidence,” with the ultimate goal of peace, rather than perpetual conflict, he continued.
Lapid asserted that the U.S.-Israel relationship had been damaged primarily by Netanyahu, describing his government as responsible for nearly all of the issues in the relationship. He suggested that the relationship would turn around with the opening provided by a new government.
He claimed that Israelis will vote accordingly in the upcoming elections, realizing that Netanyahu is damaging Israel’s international relations.
Lapid did not substantively address how the unity party led by himself and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett would approach an increasingly likely situation in which Gadi Eisenkot leads the largest opposition party after the election. Instead, he suggested Eisenkot would be the defense minister in a coalition government with Bennett as prime minister and Lapid as foreign minister.
Bennett and Lapid announced in April that they had decided to merge their parties and run as a joint party called “Together,” led by Bennett.
Though Lapid’s previous governing coalition included the Arab party Ra’am, he predicted that his bloc would not need the support of Arab parties to form a government after the next election and claimed that MK Mansour Abbas, who leads Ra’am, “seems to understand this better than some of my Jewish friends, the fact that maybe it’s time for a coalition that will be made only of Zionist parties.”
But he said that such a government would address the needs of Arab citizens and address “Jewish racism against peaceful Arab citizens of Israel.”
Lapid said Israel should pursue direct negotiations with as many regional states as possible, including Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia and leverage various regional forums to pursue greater ties and to isolate Iran.
He also said that Israel should work with the Palestinian Authority, arguing that doing so doesn’t necessitate recognizing a Palestinian state or ignoring issues inside the PA.
“It was almost ridiculous to me the fact that the current government was … incapable to admit the fact that they’re doing business with the Palestinian Authority — as they do in the West Bank and as they do in Gaza now,” Lapid said.
He said Israel will, over time, need to work to make Gaza livable, and that the Israeli government’s failure to show empathy over the situation in Gaza had “destroyed our international stature in huge groups” as well as stymied necessary and honest conversations in Israel about the costs of the war. But he rejected the idea that the war in Gaza had been a genocide.
Lapid took a hard line toward the Haredim, saying that they should not receive financial support if they do not serve in the military, that their schools should not receive government support if they do not provide a basic education and that they should not receive public assistance if they do not work.
“When you live in a democracy, you don’t only have rights; you also have duties, and these have to do with each other,” Lapid said.
Lapid also sought to position himself in a more hawkish stance on Iran than the current government, arguing that Israel should have, as early as 2024, bombed Iranian energy facilities, including Kharg Island. He said he still supports such a course of action.
He acknowledged that such an approach would carry political and economic pain for the United States ahead of the midterms, but said that it would be the “right thing to do in the long term” and would lead the Iranian regime to collapse.
Though he praised Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and expressed hope for expanding the Abraham Accords, Lapid raised serious concerns over the Trump administration’s recent deal with Saudi Arabia that would allow nuclear enrichment on Saudi soil — an effort that Trump, after signing the deal, conditioned on the Gulf state joining the Abraham Accords.
Lapid said he’d clashed with Graham, who worked for years to secure normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia, over the subject, calling it “unacceptable” and “a huge mistake.”
A Saudi enrichment program, Lapid warned, would prompt a nuclear proliferation race throughout the Middle East and beyond. And he said any Saudi-U.S. deal should include Israel as well.
Lapid, once one of the Israeli leaders more amenable to the idea of a two-state solution, said that the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and the support for them in the West Bank had changed his view of the situation. He said that any Palestinian state under the current circumstances would immediately become a launching pad for Hamas.
“Politics or policies are not a zero-sum game. There are so many things we can do in order to improve the lives of everybody, of Palestinians, of Israelis, of the security of everybody,” Lapid continued.
Lapid said that the pilot effort to turn over territory in Lebanon to the Lebanese Armed Forces to disarm Hezbollah is a strong idea in concept, but requires that Hezbollah actually be disarmed. He said Israel should continue to fight Hezbollah as necessary but also pursue diplomatic efforts with the Lebanese government.
He declined to back a full Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, saying that Israel should not withdraw from areas where it knows Hezbollah would immediately return to because the terrorist group had been preparing to carry out an Oct. 7-style attack on northern Israel.
He also said he was disappointed that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa had begun discussing reclaiming the Golan Heights from Israel, explaining that he’d initially seen the new Syrian government as “an opportunity to solve a problem that looked unsolvable for a long time.”
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
(Robin Buckson/Detroit News via AP, Pool)
Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed, left, and Rep. Haley Stevens participate in a televised debate moderated by Roop Raj, Monday, July 27, 2026, in Southfield, Mich.
If Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary has become a test case for the saliency of AIPAC and Israel as a political issue for Democratic voters, then Monday night’s debate between Abdul El-Sayed, a far-left former public health official, and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) served as the ultimate battlefield — and illustrated the gulf between the two candidates on the issue.
Over the course of an hourlong debate, El-Sayed made clear that he believes his opposition to AIPAC and to Israel will help him win next week’s election. Stevens, meanwhile, did not even utter the word “AIPAC.”
Stevens outlined her views on the Middle East, arguing that she and El-Sayed diverge because she supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict while he has not acknowledged Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. She touted her support for Michigan’s Jewish community and mentioned the work she did to advocate for the hostages after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.
Debate moderator Roop Raj, an anchor on FOX 2 News, prodded Stevens on her support from AIPAC, pushing her to discuss the group’s spending in the race, but she largely avoided doing so.
“Absolutely not,” Stevens said when asked by Raj whether voters should be concerned that she will do AIPAC’s “bidding” when she wins the seat.
Mostly, she turned the transparency questions on her opponent, attacking El-Sayed for not releasing all of his financial disclosure forms and for benefitting from a super PAC to which his father-in-law has contributed $200,000.
“I don’t think there’s much difference between super PACs going in for Abdul or super PACs going in for me,” Stevens said, when asked about AIPAC spending $46 million in the race. “We have a problem with campaign finance reform in this country.”
El-Sayed did the same, but in reverse: When she called out his lack of personal financial transparency, he went after her for benefiting from outside spending in the race.
The first question of the debate, to El-Sayed, was about how he would work to make Michigan more affordable. His answer: eschewing campaign donations “from the corporations who are jacking up your prices in the first place,” a category in which he placed AIPAC.
“Just last week, our friend here voted to send 3.3 billion of your tax dollars to a foreign government. That is the pro quo that comes with the quid of $30 million spent by AIPAC,” El-Sayed said. “It really comes down to how are you funded.”
Stevens, when asked about affordability, talked about regulating utilities in the state and promising to be a “proven fighter.”
When Stevens described being “robbed by Washington, D.C., and [President] Donald Trump,” and pledged to fight corruption in public office, El-Sayed said he agreed that Michiganders are being robbed — but by AIPAC, not Trump.
“The money that we should have to invest in our schools is being sent to foreign governments to destroy other people’s schools instead of investing in our own, and that is exactly what AIPAC wants you to do, and why they’re spending so much money to get the congresswoman elected,” El-Sayed said.
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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MICHIGAN MATTERS
Jewish leaders worried about Michigan’s prime position on Dems’ 2028 calendar
The state has been the epicenter of the anti-Israel movement, and will play a key role in nominating the next Democratic presidential candidate
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The NYC mayor wouldn’t respond to criticism from fellow Democrats or Netanyahu, or explain why he continued toying with the notion of arresting the Israeli prime minister
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani speaks at a food distribution center on July 27, 2026 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
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 de-escalate his rhetoric around Israel — or speak to why he continued publicly toying with arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu well after city attorneys told him he couldn’t.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Raul Morales with multiple hate crimes for stabbing first an Asian American and then a Jewish man on the Upper West Side last Thursday — the latter attack allegedly preceded by Morales shouting “Allahu Akbar” and “justice for Islam” outside an Orthodox synagogue displaying American and Israeli flags.
A number of Jewish leaders linked the attack to the mayor’s recent denunciations of Netanyahu and the Jewish state, and even a fellow Democrat signaled at a press conference on Friday morning that Mamdani should “take the temperature down.”
Netanyahu himself, whom Mamdani excoriated in a widely watched video last week as “the architect of a horrific genocide,” accused the mayor of “fomenting hate” in a Sunday appearance on Fox News.
But the mayor declined to substantively engage with any of these criticisms when pressed by reporters on Monday.
“I’m not interested in getting into a back and forth with Prime Minister Netanyahu,” the mayor said when asked about Netanyahu’s comments at an unrelated press conference, though he immediately pivoted back to attacking the Israeli leader when asked moments afterward about other New York elected officials suggesting his commentary might negatively impact Jewish New Yorkers. “When I make criticisms of Prime Minister Netanyahu, they are criticisms of Prime Minister Netanyahu. And what I shared were not even, frankly, personal assessments. They were objective facts.”
Still, the democratic socialist acknowledged that the majority of the city’s hate crimes fall upon its Jewish minority, and pledged his administration would protect them. He also praised the police for quickly arresting Morales, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him.
“One of my top priorities is keeping Jewish New Yorkers safe, keeping every single New Yorker safe,” he said. “My responsibility as a New Yorker and as a mayor of this city is a responsibility to take care of each and every person who calls the city their home. And that is not based upon whether or not they agree with me, how they feel about me. My job is to make sure that they are safe, that they are thriving, and they continue to call this city home.”
Asked why he continued to publicly suggest there was a possibility he might honor his campaign promise to arrest Netanyahu well after — according to The New York Times — city attorneys told him he had no power to do so, the mayor refused to explain.
“I’ve said all that I have to say on that topic,” he answered.
The state has been the epicenter of the anti-Israel movement, and will play a key role in nominating the next Democratic presidential candidate
Kristen Norman/AP
Michigan U.S. Senate candidates, Abdul El-Sayed, left, and Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., are displayed on a television during a debate inside the spin room at WoodTV studios on Tuesday, July 7, 2026, in Grand Rapids, Mich.
The selection of Michigan as an early Democratic primary state in the 2028 presidential nominating contest, approved on Friday by a panel of the Democratic National Committee, is prompting some concerns among Jewish and pro-Israel activists who fear the party’s sharp divisions over Israel and its recent controversies over antisemitism could create a volatile political landscape during the key contest.
In recent years, Michigan has been at the center of some of the fiercest fights over Israel animating the Democratic Party. In the 2024 presidential race, for instance, the battleground state first laid the ground for the “uncommitted” movement that urged primary voters not to vote for former President Joe Biden as a protest against his support for Israel during the war in Gaza.
At Michigan’s state party convention in April, meanwhile, pro-Israel candidates were heckled by far-left activists, while an attorney with a history of praising Hezbollah was nominated for a position on the University of Michigan Board of Regents, episodes that left Jewish voters questioning if they belonged in a party they had long called home.
The state’s Democratic Senate primary, set for Aug. 4, has emerged as the latest high-profile proxy battle between the party’s mainstream and far-left factions. The most heated clashes have revolved around Israel and AIPAC, the pro-Israel advocacy group that is now spending millions to help Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a close ally, in a bitter race against Abdul El-Sayed — whose rhetoric targeting Israel and ongoing refusal to recognize its right to exist has alarmed Jewish voters.
Michigan’s presidential primary will now tentatively go fifth among the six states chosen for early primaries, on Feb. 22 — a week after New Mexico and a week before Virginia. South Carolina will kick off the nominating contest on Jan. 22, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire. The newly proposed calendar will need to be ratified by DNC members at a meeting in Austin next month.
If the schedule is officially locked in, Michigan, which has the most delegates of the states chosen, “figures to be one of the first anti-Israel or antisemitic states that has a vote,” Dennis Bernard, a Jewish leader in Michigan who helps advise members of both parties, said in an interview with Jewish Insider on Sunday.
“I do think we will be very much a bellwether state” that “could be the first true test of the Democratic Party and how big their tent is,” added Bernard, the national chair of government relations for the Jewish Federations of North America. “You will potentially see a continuation of that war going on right now.”
Several Jewish leaders in Michigan said the Senate primary outcome would likely help crystallize their expectations about the degree to which Democratic conflict over Israel, and the state’s role in elevating that battle to the forefront, may end up influencing the presidential election.
“Those results will give us a better indication of 2028,” said Michael Horowitz, one such Jewish leader in Michigan, noting the positions espoused by El-Sayed are not a “national trend yet,” despite a recent series of primary wins by anti-Israel Democrats who ran in progressive House districts. “We’ll see how deep this well is. I’m not naive, but I don’t know.”
Still, the Democratic Party and pro-Israel community “have to get together and take control of the narrative again, because they’re winning the narrative,” he told JI, referring to the far left. “We have got our work cut out for us. We’ve lost the narrative.”
“If you talk to major Democratic donors, they’re concerned about Michigan because the moderate wing of the party is disappearing,” Ed Sarpolus, a Democratic pollster in the state, told JI. “Democrats could be worse off in 2028 if they don’t get back to the issues.”
By contrast, Asher Lopatin, a rabbi who serves as director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, cited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s endorsement of Stevens last week as a sign that “may indicate the direction Michigan Democrats are going in for 2028,” which he called “not falling into the anti-Israel obsession trap.”
“I realize it’s a rosy scenario, but I am hopeful,” he told JI.
Political strategists who spoke with JI shared mixed predictions about Michigan’s early place on the 2028 primary calendar. Ed Sarpolus, a Democratic pollster in the state, said it could “exacerbate tensions within the Democratic Party” over Israel, disrupting a fragile effort to show unity ahead of what is expected to be a bruising general election to reclaim the White House.
“If you talk to major Democratic donors, they’re concerned about Michigan because the moderate wing of the party is disappearing,” Sarpolus told JI. “Democrats could be worse off in 2028 if they don’t get back to the issues.”
But Adrian Hemond, a Democratic strategist in Michigan, said it “is way too early to predict with confidence” how Israel “will play as an issue” in the 2028 Michigan presidential primary, arguing that “a lot will depend on how hard candidates lean into the issue.”
“If the situation in the Middle East deteriorates further,” he explained to JI, “this issue could look very different.”
Some experts have also speculated that Michigan’s position could lead to uncomfortable confrontations for pro-Israel centrists like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Jewish Democrat who is frequently cited as a prospective presidential candidate and who has faced antisemitism over his views on the Middle East.
Some Jewish leaders, however, said a pro-Israel win in Michigan could help defang the far left at what may be a key inflection point in the race. If an openly pro-Israel candidate emerged in the state, “I think it would be a surprise as to the traction they got,” since it “would stand out as authentic,” said one prominent pro-Israel activist in Michigan, granted anonymity to speak candidly about a sensitive issue.
He was not hopeful that such a candidate would step up. “I don’t see why Michigan is the venue in which someone does a complete paradigm shift” on Israel, he told JI, citing the existing political headwinds. “I think we are kind of a laboratory for the Democratic Party across the nation.”
One pro-Israel strategist in Michigan, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that several potential 2028 contenders have already visited the state and have had private meetings with Jewish donors and groups — including Rahm Emanuel, the Democratic operative and former Chicago mayor, and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.
“A couple others have had meetings with prominent Jews while in Michigan, but I can’t say for sure if the reason for meetings was to lean into the Jewish vote,” the strategist told JI.
While Michigan also went fifth in 2024 after it had lobbied for an early slot, the state promises to play a more consequential role in the next election because it will be a competitive primary, as opposed to the last cycle in which Biden faced no serious opposition before dropping out of the race.
Anti-Israel activists have insisted that former Vice President Kamala Harris lost Michigan, home to the largest concentration of Arab American voters in Dearborn, due to her alignment with Biden’s support for Israel during the war in Gaza.
But many Jewish Democrats in Michigan, who make up a sizable and politically engaged constituency, say the left’s vilification of Israel as well as AIPAC is not only misguided but also a distraction from more urgent concerns that are much more relevant to swing voters who will ultimately decide the election. Some suggested that Michigan’s status in 2028 as an early nominating state could stoke those tensions and overshadow other issues, in a repeat of the last cycle.
“The antisemitic rhetoric that we have observed on the right and the left, the attacks on Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, are, sadly, going to be issues that both parties have to address in 2028,” Robert Zimmerman, a longtime DNC member, told JI while assessing the 2028 primary landscape. “Democrats have to do a much better job of standing up to that hateful rhetoric.”
“It means that the real issues facing Michigan will continue to be less important” than the hostility to Israel now energizing the activist left, Hannan Lis, a Democratic fundraiser and Jewish community leader in the state, told JI. “I cannot tell you I’m optimistic. I’m a realist,” he said.
Even as he acknowledged “two years is a long time,” he voiced anxiety that “support for Israel has become a litmus test for a lot of Democratic candidates,” as it has grown increasingly politicized in party primaries.
“The antisemitic rhetoric that we have observed on the right and the left, the attacks on Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, are, sadly, going to be issues that both parties have to address in 2028,” Robert Zimmerman, a longtime DNC member, told JI while assessing the 2028 primary landscape. “Democrats have to do a much better job of standing up to that hateful rhetoric.”
Despite reservations about Michigan’s potentially divisive role in the presidential race, some Jewish leaders in the state and beyond said they were still staying positive.
In a statement to JI, Jessica Alexander, chair of the Michigan Democratic Jewish caucus and a vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said party activists had “worked hard to make the case for Michigan to be an early primary state, because the state reflects the country’s diverse demographics culturally and geographically.”
“Yes, there is a vocal virtual subset of folks who want to make not the Middle East, but Israel and the U.S.’s engagement in and with it the center” or “soul” of the campaign, she said, “but the reality on the ground is that it’s not the most formidable issue no matter how the press skews it.”
Noah Arbit, a Jewish Michigan state representative who has been outspoken against rising antisemitism in his own party, said that the Democratic Socialists of America and other groups “seem to feel that Israel is a galvanizing wedge issue they can employ to take over the Democratic Party” and for now “seem intent on putting it at the forefront of the primary debate in 2028, regardless of Michigan’s place in the calendar.”
“I’m resigned to the issue being at the forefront of the primary conversation,” he told JI last week, “despite the fact that I would argue Americans have far more pressing concerns about the state of and future of our country than an interminable conflict 5,000 miles away.”
Dahlia Scheindlin also said polling shows both the Israeli government and the opposition face political challenges in the upcoming elections
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Dahlia Scheindlin speaks at Aspen Security Forum, July 17, 2026
ASPEN, Colo. — Israelis generally don’t grasp the extent of the growing anti-Israel sentiment in the United States, Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli public opinion researcher and columnist, told Jewish Insider.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum this month hours before more than 100 House Democrats voted to cut U.S. military aid to Israel, Scheindlin said that most Israelis feel that warnings of slipping U.S. support have been repeated for years but haven’t come to fruition.
“Israelis for a long time have been told ‘you have to worry about the America-Israel relationship’ and nothing ever really happened — they sort of took it for granted that the relationship would always be there, and in many ways they still do,” Scheindlin said. “From the Israeli perspective, there’s a little bit of a sense of crying wolf. We see that in the 53% who still think that the relationship will be fine.”
She said most Israelis today view Republicans as pro-Israel and Democrats as anti-Israel and have little understanding of the range of views within both parties. And she said they don’t believe Israel’s own actions have any bearing on U.S. criticism of Israel.
Supporters of opposition parties, she continued, believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “personally has undermined the relationship” — but that the issues in the relationship largely end with Netanyahu.
She said that the strong support in Israel for President Donald Trump took a nosedive with the ceasefires in Iran and Lebanon, with many Jewish Israelis feeling that Trump had forced a premature end to the wars and didn’t let the U.S. and Israel carry them to their conclusion or fulfill their main objectives.
But she said that most Israelis still see issues in the relationship as a “disagreement that will pass” rather than a true crisis or turning point. She said a majority of Israelis still feel the U.S.-Israel relationship will survive — and many are too concerned with their own daily lives and the ongoing impacts of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon to give the relationship much thought.
“When you ask about the U.S.-Israel relationship, it’s somewhere between repressing it and complacent and fearful — but also they have been told year after year for quite a long time, ‘Watch out for this relationship,’ and then America continues to come through in so many ways,” she said.
Ahead of the Israeli elections in October, Scheindlin said that Israeli public opinion polling has been relatively consistent for several years, with the current governing coalition lacking a majority of 61 Knesset seats. At the same time, the coalition has recovered from its post-Oct. 7, 2023, nadir of support, and has sat consistently in most surveys between 49 and 55 seats.
“There’s some instability right now, but the basic breakdown that I just said between opposition and coalition has been really extraordinarily stable for almost two years now,” Scheindlin said. “The basic breakdown, where the current coalition has a minority and the opposition has a majority, but can’t form a coalition of only Zionist parties — those basic contours were in place before Oct. 7.”
Even through the popular 2025 war with Iran and the less-popular 2026 war with Iran and killing of Hezbollah’s leadership, the coalition’s polling has changed little, she continued.
“I don’t know what could happen between now and the elections that would give this coalition the additional six to 10% it would need to make up in order to actually win an outright majority of seats,” she said.
At the same time, given the reluctance of opposition parties to create a coalition with Arab parties, they have “constrained their own options,” she said. “It’s a strange situation where the opposition has such a firm majority in all surveys between 65 and 70 seats, mostly, and yet so much of Israeli society has conditioned itself to look only at the Zionist parties in forming a coalition that they don’t have a majority either in most surveys.”
She noted, however, that Gadi Eisenkot, currently the leading opposition candidate, has seemed to leave the door open to partnering with Arab parties.
The much-hyped merger of the parties led by former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid hasn’t expanded the size of their bloc nor brought them significant new support.
“It was a small boost in the beginning and then it went back down and now it’s heading closer to where Lapid was polling in surveys even before, which means that most of their supporters are probably Lapid supporters,” Scheindlin said. “Bennett didn’t actually bring very much.”
Scheindlin said that the traditional Bennett constituency — center-right or right-leaning voters who oppose Netanyahu — are now supporting Eisenkot instead.
Scheindlin also told JI that she sees parallels between Israel’s current security strategy of fighting enemies on its own turf as similar to Iran’s own strategy of “forward defense” — comments she repeated on an Aspen panel about the U.S.-Israel relationship, to pushback from fellow panelists.
“The issue of reaching agreements or diplomacy has been so diminished, completely gutted for a long time that even now, when we have the beginnings of a negotiating process with Lebanon … Israelis are very skeptical that that can yield anything,” she said.
She called the oft-repeated idea that Israel is surrounded on all sides by enemies “demonstrably untrue,” noting that the country has had peace with both Egypt and Jordan for decades, that Iraq, Lebanon and Syria no longer harbor the same animosity or capability to threaten Israel and that Israel has forged new peace deals with Gulf states.
“Are there militias? Are there terror groups? Absolutely. Those are very real,” Scheindlin continued. “But the idea that Israel is surrounded by enemy states that want to destroy it factually, and yet when that’s what you’re being socialized into all the time, then you come to the conclusion that only war is the way to deal with it — which, after Oct. 7, it’s not hard to convince people that the threat is very material and not theoretical.”
Asked about Israeli views on the path forward in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Scheindlin emphasized that there is no clear consensus view among the Israeli public with “minority support” for a two-state solution, a democratic one-state solution, a Jewish-dominated one-state solution or a continuation of the status quo.
She said the dilemma has been exacerbated by the failure of Israeli political leaders to articulate a clear plan or solution of their own. Even though the current government has been open about its interest in annexing the West Bank, she said that leaders have not been clear about what that would mean for the Palestinians living there.
The Arizona senator, who is weighing a presidential bid, also urged Israelis to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming elections
Eric Lee/Getty Images
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) speaks during a pen and pad briefing with reporters at the U.S. Capitol on June 2, 2026 in Washington, DC. Sen.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press” that he will “always stand by Israel as a nation,” while adding that he hopes Israelis will oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the elections later this year.
“I’m not happy with the decisions that the prime minister of Israel has made over the last few years,” Kelly said in response to a question about whether he agrees with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s recent description of Netanyahu as a war criminal. “The way they conducted the operations in Gaza, there were a lot of mistakes made,” Kelly responded. “That being said, Israel is an ally of ours. We support the Israeli people. I’m going to always stand by Israel as a nation.”
He indicated he did not agree with Mamdani’s call for the U.S. government to arrest Netanyahu during his upcoming visit to the United States.
“The best way to resolve this issue with a prime minister — that, just like our president, is not doing the job they were hired to do — is for him to be defeated at the ballot box,” Kelly said. “So that’s coming up pretty soon here. I hope the Israeli people rally around a candidate that will take Israel in a better direction.”
Asked about the Iran war, Kelly questioned the administration’s $1.5 trillion defense budget and $67 billion supplemental funding request .
“Do we really feel that we’re that threatened, and we need to spend these sums of money for our defense? We’ve got programs that this administration is going to spend money on that aren’t going to work, and things that we don’t need,” Kelly said. “What they’re asking for is not reasonable.”
But he said he hasn’t made a final decision on the supplemental yet, while calling the administration’s handling of the war in Iran a “disaster.”
Kelly also acknowledged that he’s considering a presidential run in 2028.
“We have to see what are the issues that we’re facing after we get on the other side of November here,” Kelly said, emphasizing the need for Democrats to take back the House and Senate. “So this is a discussion I’m going to continue to have with my family, but we’ve got plenty of time.”
He also sounded supportive of the Democratic National Committee’s decision to make South Carolina the first Democratic primary state in the presidential election, praising Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the state’s Senate nominee Annie Andrews as well as Nancy Lacore, the party’s recruit in the open seat of retiring Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC).
‘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.
Plus, Auchincloss on axing Israel aid
Win McNamee/Getty Images
President Donald Trump speaks during bilateral meeting at the Bestepe Presidential Compound, following his arrival to attend the annual NATO Summit on July 7, 2026 in Ankara, Turkey.
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to Rep. Jake Auchincloss about his vote in support of cutting U.S. aid to Israel, and report on yesterday’s attack in Manhattan in which a Jewish man was stabbed by an individual reportedly yelling “Allahu Akbar.” We cover President Donald Trump’s 11th-hour decision to link the just-signed civilian nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia to Riyadh’s joining of the Abraham Accords, and report on the Trump administration’s withdrawal of its subpoena requesting information on Jewish staff at the University of Pennsylvania. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Alma Hernandez, Daryl Messinger, Tevi Troy and Dara Horn.
We have also launched 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 an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik. 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: Ed Miliband’s appointment as U.K. foreign secretary indicates tougher British policy toward Israel to come; Washington state’s Jewish Democrats fight for a place in a party they no longer recognize; and Bernie Sanders’ 2020 Jewish liaison says his old boss is promoting antisemitism. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- We’ll be keeping a close eye over the weekend on the situation in the Middle East amid continued U.S. strikes on Iran and Iranian attacks across the region. President Donald Trump said last night that the U.S. would use frozen Iranian assets to pay for the damage caused to vessels transiting through the Strait of Hormuz that have come under attack by Iranian forces.
- The 125 members of the International Criminal Court are expected to vote today by secret ballot on whether to remove the body’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, over sexual misconduct allegations made against him by a former ICC subordinate. To oust Khan, 63 members — an absolute majority — will have to vote in favor. Khan had taken a leave of absence in May 2025 and was formally suspended by the court last month.
- The rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner — postponed after the annual April event was interrupted by a gunman at the Washington Hilton — will be held tonight at the Waldorf Astoria (formerly the Trump International Hotel). Trump is expected to attend.
- In Maine tomorrow, Democratic delegates will gather in Bangor to formally select a candidate to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in November. Former state Sen. Troy Jackson is expected to handily win the nomination, which comes after former Senate candidate Graham Platner dropped his bid earlier this month.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S GABBY DEUTCH AND JOSH KRAUSHAAR
President Donald Trump’s capture of the Republican Party did not happen at once, and was memorably met with resistance from some lawmakers who would later become his allies.
Many Republicans, during the rise of Trump, cast mostly party-line votes alongside the president and rarely spoke out publicly when they disagreed. But there were notable times when prominent party leaders used their political capital to stand up for their principles on key issues, such as then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) outspoken advocacy for Ukraine funding or Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-ME) decisive vote against repealing Obamacare.
There may be a similar political calculus at play for some typically pro-Israel Democrats, who are facing immense political pressure from loud activists in their party base to turn against the Jewish state. Nearly half of the House Democratic caucus voted to cut off aid to Israel last week, a record number that included 18 lawmakers who had previously been endorsed by AIPAC and were seen as strong allies of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
AIPAC cut off fundraising to their reelection campaigns after the vote, and how these lawmakers will position themselves on Israel policy going forward is now uncertain.
Not all of the Democrats who supported the amendment have adopted an anti-Israel worldview. Some said that they still support Israel, but wanted to make a statement, via a bill that was certain to fail, that they disagree with many recent actions of the Israeli government.
It’s also possible that some of them — especially those in districts where they face a credible primary threat from the left — took the vote to attempt to placate anti-Israel activists without making any real change in policy, like the Republicans who would offer an olive branch to their right-wing base by voting contrary to their longstanding beliefs.
DEM DEBATE
Auchincloss: Voting against aid to Israel was a vote against the Iran war
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’s Marc Rod 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.
War worries: “This president, in conjunction with Prime Minister [Benjamin] 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.”
NEW YORK ATTACK
Jewish man stabbed in Manhattan by assailant allegedly yelling ‘Allahu Akbar’
A Jewish man was stabbed on Thursday afternoon on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, along with one other victim, in what was potentially a hate crime, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman and Haley Cohen report. Jewish groups had warned a day earlier that a video released by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday night railing against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he accused Israel of a litany of war crimes, put Jewish New Yorkers at risk.
Details: The NYPD press office told JI that police responded at 1:31 p.m. to a 911 call near West 84th Street and Central Park West and found a 57-year-old man conscious and alert with a stab wound to the back before attacking a second victim, who was not believed to be Jewish, two blocks away. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch wrote on X, “Detectives are continuing to work the case and determine motive, but according to victim and witness statements, [the suspect] yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ during both attacks.”
Bonus: The New York Times reports that Mamdani had already consulted with attorneys over Netanyahu’s potential arrest — who determined that Mamdani lacked the authority to order the Israeli leader’s arrest — prior to the mayor’s public comments that he was in “active conversation” over the legality of such a move.
U-TURN
Trump administration withdraws UPenn subpoena requesting information on Jewish
The Trump administration withdrew its controversial subpoena requesting that the University of Pennsylvania provide lists of Jewish university affiliates and their personal contact information, according to a Thursday court filing, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
University statement: “With the support of many members of the community who have stood with Penn throughout, the University has been able to protect its employees’ rights and none of the subpoenaed personal contact information was disclosed,” a university spokesperson told JI. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had requested, as part of its investigation into antisemitism at Penn, lists of Jewish-related organizations on campus, their membership rosters and contact information for the employees involved, among other information.
TUCSON TUSSLE
Pro-Israel stalwart Alma Hernandez wins Arizona state Senate race despite antisemitic attacks
Alma Hernandez, a Jewish Democratic legislator in Arizona who is known as an outspoken supporter of Israel, claimed victory on Wednesday in a bitterly contested primary for an open state Senate seat in Tucson, hailing the win as a repudiation of the far left, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. With all votes counted in Arizona’s 20th Legislative District, Hernandez pulled in 54% of the vote share, defeating Perez by 8 points, according to unofficial results on the secretary of state’s website.
Victory message: “The voters in my district rejected antisemitism and rejected the DSA’s agenda, and clearly rejected what the mayor, the congresswoman and the county attorney wanted,” Hernandez, a term-limited House member, said in a statement to JI, referring to the Democratic Socialists of America. “We proved that elections are won by knocking on doors and talking to voters, not by social media or online outrage and your friends’ endorsements.”
Endorsement diaries: Connie Chan, a progressive member of the San Francisco board of supervisors running to succeed retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), claimed an endorsement on Tuesday from Track AIPAC, a virulently anti-Israel group that has faced accusations of spreading antisemitism.
COOPERATION CLAIMS
Boebert claims Hegseth, White House want U.S.-Israel cooperation provision stripped from NDAA
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) claimed this week that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the White House want to see a provision on U.S.-Israel defense technology cooperation stripped out of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. Neither the Pentagon nor the White House responded to requests for comment from Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod on whether such claims were accurate.
What she said: “Today, I was in a critical national security meeting with Secretary Hegseth where I helped secure his commitment that Section 219 would be stripped from the NDAA in conference. Protecting America’s intellectual property for future generations is non-negotiable,” Boebert said on X on Wednesday.
Trade tensions: Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East subcommittee, insisted at a Wednesday hearing that Israel could not be excluded from the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor, and called out U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack for apparent efforts to advance an alternative trade corridor through Syria.
11th-hour addition
Trump adds new Abraham Accords provision to Saudi nuclear deal
The new civilian nuclear cooperation agreement already signed between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is now contingent on Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords, President Donald Trump announced on Thursday morning. The president’s Truth Social post — in which he said the deal is “totally subject” to Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel, a provision not previously disclosed by the administration — was quickly affirmed by the White House, Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik reports.
Confirmed condition: “Yes, this deal with Saudi Arabia, the energy deal, is contingent on this condition as far as the president is concerned,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing on Thursday. “So we’ll continue to talk with our Saudi counterparts to get the deal finalized, and hopefully see them joining the Abraham Accords very soon.”
View from the Hill: Congressional Democrats are lining up in opposition to the Trump administration’s reported nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia that could allow Riyadh to enrich uranium for civilian purposes, while Republicans are mostly supportive of the effort, JI’s Marc Rod and Christina Sher report.
Worthy Reads
Language Lesson: In The Wall Street Journal, Adam Louis Klein examines the parallels between those who accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza and the language employed by the Hutus as they conducted a genocide in Rwanda. “As in Rwanda, anticolonialism and genocide inversion have converged. Israel is imagined not only as a state accused of genocide, but as a people whose identity as foreign settlers makes genocide their destiny. … Whether directed against the Tutsis in Rwanda or against Israelis — now cast as genocidal colonizers by a cohort of anti-Zionist academics and nonprofit advocacy groups — portraying a people as foreign usurpers and inherent perpetrators isn’t neutral. It is a well-recognized prelude to violence.” [WSJ]
VP’s Vitriol: The Wall Street Journal‘s Kimberley Strassel reflects on the criticism she faced from both Vice President JD Vance’s office and his supporters following a column she wrote citing legislators in Washington discussing Vance’s absence from Capitol Hill. “One answer is simply that Mr. Vance is a sensitive bunny. If he wants to be president, he’ll need to get over that. But the other answer is that Mr. Vance knows his ‘national conservative’ ambitions for the GOP aren’t landing. Republicans are increasingly up in arms over a Vance agenda that sounds like Bernie Sanders. Hence his Vance team’s need to invalidate anyone who disagrees as a ‘RINO’ or a ‘tool’ of special interests or an ‘elite’ — the better to allow them to define what counts as a ‘real’ Republican.” [WSJ]
Going Nuclear: In his Substack, “It’s Noon in Israel,” Israeli journalist Amit Segal considers President Donald Trump’s decision to agree to a deal that would allow Saudi Arabia to have a civilian nuclear program. “Trump is a compartmental thinker. It has served Israel before — the Abraham Accords worked precisely because he declined to treat the Palestinian question as the gate through which everything else must pass. It has also cost Israel. In May 2025, he asked Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to normalize relations with Jerusalem in exchange for sanctions relief, then lifted the sanctions anyway, squandering the leverage and ending the Israeli-Syrian talks that were ongoing.” [ItsNooninIsrael]
A larger selection of Worthy Reads is available in our Live Briefing.
Word on the Street
The Treasury Department announced sanctions on a U.K.-based Muslim Brotherhood official as well as several organizations based in Gaza, Indonesia and Turkey that provided financial support for Hamas…
The Defense Department lowered the number of U.S. service member fatalities during the war with Iran from 18 to 14, with officials telling The New York Times that the four soldiers killed last week were removed from the list because those troops were killed during the ceasefire with Tehran…
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, JI’s Marc Rod reports…
The State Department summoned Malaysia’s ambassador in Washington over the decision by Kuala Lumpur to deport a dual Israeli American citizen traveling to the Southeast Asian nation for a digital nomad program; the meeting came after a group of House Democrats called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to push back on Malaysia’s efforts to deport Israelis…
U.S. representatives to the United Nations slammed Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories who has faced repeated accusations of antisemitism, and said at a hearing on Wednesday that the next U.N. secretary-general will be faced with a choice of whether to turn the page on the institution’s antisemitic and anti-Israel bias, JI’s Marc Rod reports…
Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Mike Lawler (R-NY), Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ), Andy Barr (R-KY), Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), Young Kim (R-CA), Maria Salazar (R-FL), Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Randy Fine (R-FL) reintroduced a bill to permanently prevent any U.S. contributions to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency…
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and 14 other Senate Democrats introduced a resolution demanding that the Senate’s legal counsel bring a lawsuit against the Trump administration, alleging that the gift of a Qatari 747 jet to serve as Air Force One constitutes an illegal foreign emolument banned by the constitution…
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) named presidential historian Tevi Troy and author Dara Horn to a commission established to study the possible transfer of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History to the Smithsonian Institution…
In The Wall Street Journal, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, who is mulling a 2028 presidential bid, warns of the damage that the rise of Democratic Socialists of America-affiliated candidates are doing to Democratic efforts to flip the House and Senate in November…
The Republican Jewish Coalition announced its endorsement of Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) in the state’s upcoming special election to replace her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who died earlier this month, on the November ballot…
Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) said she will back far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in the state’s Democratic primary…
U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner — who is currently residing in Paris — told the New York Post that he doesn’t want to “live in a city with a blatantly antisemitic mayor and his antisemitic wife” — in a reference to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and First Lady Rama Duwaji — and planned to relocate his primary residence from New York City to Florida, while maintaining his Manhattan apartment…
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law and the Anti-Defamation League reached a settlement with Reed College, in which the school agreed to adopt a range of measures, including an updated discrimination policy detailing how anti-Zionist conduct can constitute unlawful discrimination…
Hillel International is withdrawing an amicus brief it filed in support of Harvard University in the school’s legal fight against the Trump administration; a spokesperson for the group said the brief, which praised Harvard’s efforts to combat antisemitism as the university works to keep roughly $2.7 billion in federal funding that had previously been frozen by the government, was “filed without having gone through our internal review process”…
eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross interviews Daryl Messinger, who last month was tapped as chair of the Israel Policy Forum, about shifting sentiment on Israel and efforts to advance the two-state solution…
The World Climbing Association blocked a motion to suspend Israel from the international climbing body following pushback from the climbing federations in the U.S., Australia, and Cyprus…
A Sydney man who wore a shirt with a swastika outside a hearing in which survivors of the Bondi Beach Hanukkah attack testified before Australia’s royal commission investigating antisemitism was fined $1,500, with a judge ruling that the man was “frustrated with the horrific events [in the Middle East] as he perceives them”…
A U.K. government spokesperson said the country was “ready 24/7 to defend itself” following threats from Tehran to target British military bases that London is allowing the U.S. to use for defensive attacks against Iran…
Satellite images obtained by The Wall Street Journal indicate that Iran is quickly rebuilding infrastructure damaged by the U.S. and Israel earlier this year…
Zehava Shaul, the mother of slain Israeli Staff Sgt. Oren Shaul, whose body was held by Hamas for more than a decade after he was killed in 2014, died at 71…
Wine of the Week
JI wine columnist Yitz Applbaum reviews the Alavida Malbec 2025:
Except for a small ownership stake in the Stuttgart Kickers, soccer never held much claim on me. Argentina changed that. Israel’s great friend and ally reignited my passion for the game this summer, and I watched nearly every match the team played, cheering as though they wore blue and white, which, come to think of it, they do. The final did not end the way I had hoped. But this year Tisha B’Av ended on a Thursday night, and with Shabbat around the corner, wine returned to my table early. The choice made itself: a great bottle from Argentina, to honor a friendship and to raise a glass to a team that fell just short, yet made a whole nation, and one distant admirer, proud.
The Alavida Malbec 2025 is equal to the moment. The opening is not a sip but a full meal: blueberries and raspberries pour across the palate and refuse to leave. The mid-palate mellows just enough to let you catch your breath. Then the finish arrives, deep, thunderous, and altogether alive. It will keep you up all night, and you will not mind at all. The wine will hold gracefully for several years yet. Pair it with a whole trout grilled over open flame, its skin crackling and bronzed, its flesh sweet and smoky with lemon and char, and let the evening unfold slowly.
Pic of the Day
Israelis gathered on Thursday at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on Tisha B’Av, the day that commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples and is marked by fasting and reading from the Book of Lamentations.
Birthdays
Screenwriter, director and producer, best known for creating “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Sex and the City,” Darren Star turns 65 on Saturday…
FRIDAY: Former U.S. ambassador to Romania, now senior counsel at Covington and Burling, Alfred H. Moses turns 97… Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who worked for ABC News and CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Lowell Bergman turns 81… Israeli physician, author and playwright, he is the younger brother of PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Iddo Netanyahu turns 74… Political consultant known for his role in both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns, Joel Benenson turns 74… Retired Los Angeles-based business and real estate attorney, Michael Jeffrey Bordy… Radio anchor and reporter on both CBS nationally and NYC’s WCBS, Michael Sugerman… Member of Congress (D-FL) until 2022, he previously served as the governor of Florida, Charlie Crist turns 70… Russian businessman, one of the largest real estate investors in Russia, he is a member of the Board of Patrons of The Conference of European Rabbis, Boris Mints turns 68… Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Judge Patty Shwartz turns 65… Presidential historian, professor at McGill and senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute, Gil Troy turns 65… Director of donor development for AIPAC, he is a retired NFL player who played for the Packers and the Cowboys where he won in Super Bowl XXVII, Alan “Shlomo” Veingrad turns 63… Founder of the Migdal Oz seminary for women in Gush Etzion, she is a granddaughter of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Esti Rosenberg turns 61… Film director and producer, Douglas Eric Liman turns 61… Partner in Frost Brown Todd and author of The Liberal Case for Israel, he was the first-ever Jewish statewide elected official in Kentucky (state treasurer), Jonathan Miller turns 59… Author, he wrote roughly 600 stories for the “My Ride” column on exotic cars for The Wall Street Journal, A.J. Baime turns 55… Mayor of Asheville, N.C., she was elected in 2013, 2017 and 2022, Esther E. Manheimer turns 55… Actor, writer, podcaster and comedian, Jamie Denbo turns 53… President of Access Computer Technology in West Bloomfield, Mich., he is a rabbi, entrepreneur and social media expert, Jason Miller turns 50… Member of Congress (D-MI) and a founding member of “The Squad,” Rashida Harbi Tlaib turns 50… President and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, Rabbi Noah Zvi Farkas… EVP and CFO of Morgan Stanley, Sharon Yeshaya turns 47… Actor, screenwriter and director, she is married to Seth Rogen, Lauren Miller Rogen turns 44… Former member of the board of directors of the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester, Aviva M. Futerman Schochat… Co-founder and partner at Orfin Ventures, an incubator and deep-tech venture fund, Adam Finkel… Public relations manager at The Avon Company, Sarah Citrenbaum… Actor, best known for her role as Nomi Segal on the Freeform comedy drama “Grown-ish,” Emily Taryn Arlook turns 36… 2020 graduate of Yale Law School, he is the CEO and founder of Learned Hand, building AI tools for judges, Shlomo Klapper…
SATURDAY: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising participant and Holocaust survivor, she is the subject of the 2021 documentary “I am Here,” Ella Blumenthal turns 105… Former publisher and editor-in-chief of Jewish Lights Publishing, he is an economist and religious scholar best known for his interfaith work, Stuart M. Matlins turns 86… Cinematographer, whose work includes “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “The Empire Strikes Back,” Peter Suschitzky turns 85… Member of the New York City Council from 2014 to 2021, Alan N. Maisel turns 80… Born in Casablanca, nightclub owner, entrepreneur and film producer, he produced “The Woman in Red” and “Weekend at Bernie’s,” Victor Drai turns 79… Former IDF brigadier general (he was part of Operation Entebbe in 1976), then a member of Knesset, Efraim “Effi” Eitam turns 74… Voiceover artist, he is also the writer, producer, director and narrator of a documentary about the restoration of a NYC synagogue, Peter Grossman… Chairman of Vibrant Capital Partners and chair emeritus of the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, Philip Darivoff… Pulitzer Prize winning author and journalist, she is a staff writer at The Atlantic, Anne Applebaum turns 62… Retired MLB pitcher from a small Jewish community in the Dominican Republic, he maintains a kosher home, José Bautista turns 62… Israeli journalist, former news anchor and author of a non-fiction book and a novel, Oshrat Kotler turns 61… Former CEO of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, Rabbi Steven Weil… Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, he is a NYC-based criminal defense attorney in many high-profile cases, especially involving Russian-born defendants, Arkady L. Bukh turns 54… Head coach of the men’s basketball team at Kent State University since 2011, Rob Senderoff turns 53… Radio personality on Baltimore’s WBAL and 98 Rock, Josh Spiegel turns 51… Senior communications lead at the National Association for Healthcare Quality, Erin Seidler… Experimental electronic music producer, composer and singer, known professionally as Oneohtrix Point Never, Daniel Lopatin turns 44… Film and television actor, Michael Welch turns 39… Pitcher for Team Israel at the 2020 Olympics and at the 2023 World Baseball Classic, he is also a real estate broker at CBRE, Joseph “Joey” Samuel Wagman turns 35…
SUNDAY: Former mayor of Las Vegas for 12 years, where he was succeeded by his wife, Oscar Goodman turns 87… Former administrator at the University of Illinois and the University of Houston, chancellor of the California State University system and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, Barry Munitz turns 85… Journalist and author or co-author of nearly two dozen books, both of her parents were killed in Auschwitz, Paulette Cooper turns 84… Author, podcaster, columnist and rabbi, Shammai Engelmayer turns 81… Member of the Florida House of Representatives from 2012 to 2020, Richard Stark turns 74… Chief medical officer at F|42, Alan H. Spiro, MD, MBA… Film and television director, she is best known for her work on the Showtime drama series “Homeland,” Lesli Linka Glatter turns 73… Sports columnist, author, television and radio personality, he works for ESPN’s Charlotte-based SEC Network, Paul Finebaum turns 71… Venture capitalist, until his wife died in 2024 he was a brother-in-law of Sen. Mitch McConnell, James W. Breyer turns 65… Actor, comedian and producer, Jeremy Samuel Piven turns 61… Former correspondent at ABC News for 23 years, now a founder at Ten Percent Media, Daniel B. “Dan” Harris turns 55… Physician and attorney, he is the founder and chairman of the D.C.-based consulting firm Stonington Global, Nicholas Muzin turns 51… Secretary of homeland security, Markwayne Mullin turns 49… Actor best known for her role in the Spider-Man trilogy, Mageina Tovah Begtrup turns 47… Partner of the D.C. office of ColdSpark, Nachama Soloveichik… Senior Reporter at CNN’s Jerusalem bureau, Tal Shalev… Israeli born classical music composer, Gilad Hochman turns 44… Israeli born R&B singer and songwriter, Hila Bronstein turns 43… Communications manager at Cetera Financial Group, Lauren Garfield-Herrin… Actor and filmmaker, Hallie Meyers-Shyer turns 39… Member of the comedy group “The Try Guys,” Zachary Andrew “Zach” Kornfeld turns 36… Associate policy director for complex care at United Healthcare , Drew Gerber… NFL running back who retired in 2024, despite his last name he is not an MOT, Tarik Cohen turns 31… Pitcher on the Israeli Women’s National Softball Team, now a curriculum designer at Great Hearts Academies, Tamara “T” Statman Schoen turns 29… President at B&B Digital Media, Tomer Barazani…
‘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.
The provision includes language to protect American intellectual property and sensitive secrets and technology
(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., attends the House Oversight and Government Reform Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee hearing titled "Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian's Efforts to Reshape the Past," in Rayburn building on Tuesday, July 21, 2026.
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) claimed this week that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and the White House want to see a provision on U.S.-Israel defense technology cooperation stripped out of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.
Neither the Pentagon nor the White House responded to requests for comment from Jewish Insider on whether such claims were accurate.
The provision, which critics falsely assert would merge the U.S. and Israeli militaries or otherwise compromise U.S. sovereignty and control of the U.S. military, has become the subject of significant opposition from both the far left and far right. But House Republicans did not allow an amendment, spearheaded by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), to remove the provision to come to a House vote.
The narrative against the provision was first launched in an article in the magazine Responsible Statecraft, published by the isolationist Quincy Institute.
“Today, I was in a critical national security meeting with Secretary Hegseth where I helped secure his commitment that Section 219 would be stripped from the NDAA in conference. Protecting America’s intellectual property for future generations is non-negotiable,” Boebert said on X on Wednesday.
The provision includes language to protect American intellectual property and sensitive secrets and technology, and focuses on technologies jointly developed by both countries — in part with the goal of allowing the U.S. to benefit from Israeli defense technology breakthroughs.
“My concerns about Section 219 and authorizing bureaucrats to give away America’s secrets are well known, so these talks and getting a commitment to get that stripped out were important,” Boebert continued. “This isn’t the final stop and I’ll have at least one more vote on this bill after it comes out of conference. Congress still has more work to do to shape this legislation and I will continue to be a strong voice in those conversations.”
In an interview with TMZ, Boebert claimed that the White House also wanted the provision removed, and that she’d been waiting on a call from Hegseth on the subject prior to voting on the NDAA. She ultimately did not vote on the bill.
Boebert further suggested, falsely, that the U.S. gave away money and technology to Israel to develop the Iron Dome missile-defense system without receiving any benefit. The countries developed the system together, and the U.S. possesses Iron Dome batteries but has chosen not to deploy them in combat zones.
The attack comes after Jewish groups warned of heightened risk to New York Jews in the aftermath of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s viral video accusing Israel of war crimes
Sruli Fruchter
Scene of a stabbing attack on Manhattan's Upper West Side on July 23, 2026.
A Jewish man was stabbed on Thursday afternoon on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, along with one other victim, in what was potentially a hate crime, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
“Detectives are continuing to work the case and determine motive, but according to victim and witness statements, [the suspect] yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ during both attacks,” Tisch wrote on X.
The NYPD press office told Jewish Insider that police responded at 1:31 p.m. to a 911 call near West 84th Street and Central Park West and found a 57-year-old man conscious and alert with a stab wound to the back. Officers then encountered a 50-year-old man two blocks away with a stab wound to the chest, who was also awake and responsive. The other victim was Asian, Tisch said. Medics transported both men in stable condition to a nearby hospital.
The NYPD has arrested 51-year-old Raul Morales in connection with both assaults, Tisch announced, and the NYPD is investigating the incident as a potential hate crime.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani condemned the stabbings on X on Thursday evening, saying, “These hateful and despicable attacks have no place in our city,” but he did not mention antisemitism.
Mamdani added that the NYPD’s initial investigation “suggests that mental health may have been a factor. They are also evaluating these stabbings as potential hate crimes.”
The attack occurred on the Tisha B’Av holiday just outside of The Jewish Center, a Modern Orthodox congregation. New York assemblymember and congressional nominee Micah Lasher, who is Jewish and represents the area, told The Times of Israel that the Jewish victim was wearing a kippah.
The Jewish victim is a member of Congregation Ohab Zedek, another Modern Orthodox synagogue on the Upper West Side, a source familiar with him told JI.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin wrote on X that the attack “appears to be an antisemitic stabbing.”
“While we await additional details to be confirmed, we know that what is happening in our city is abhorrent,” wrote Menin, the first Jewish person to ever serve in her role. “The fear in the Jewish community is real. Every New Yorker deserves to feel safe in their neighborhood, regardless of their faith or identity.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul similarly called the incident “what appears to be another senseless attack on New Yorkers simply because they’re Jewish.”
Jewish groups had warned a day earlier that a video released by Mamdani on Tuesday night railing against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he accused Israel of a litany of war crimes, put Jewish New Yorkers at risk.
A 64-year-old Jewish man was injured in a separate incident in Brooklyn on Tuesday morning when a man shouting antisemitic slurs shoved him to the ground, injuring his back and hip, police said. The NYPD is investigating the attack as a hate crime.
This is a developing story.
Jewish leaders in the area had raised concerns that messaging from Hernandez’s opponent, including calling her an enabler of genocide, was not addressed by Democratic Party leaders
Samantha Chow/AP
State Rep. Alma Hernandez, D-Tucson, speaks during a House session, Wednesday, April 23, 2025, at the state Capitol in Phoenix.
Alma Hernandez, a Jewish Democratic legislator in Arizona who is known as an outspoken supporter of Israel, claimed victory on Wednesday in a bitterly contested primary for an open state Senate seat in Tucson, hailing the win as a repudiation of the far left.
Hernandez, who is 33 and identifies as a “proud Zionist,” faced off against Rocque Perez, a former Tucson City Council member, whom she accused of using rhetoric that crossed a line into antisemitism with no pushback from the range of elected officials supporting his campaign.
With all votes counted in Arizona’s 20th Legislative District, Hernandez pulled in 54% of the vote share, defeating Perez by 8 points, according to unofficial results on the secretary of state’s website. The election results have yet to be officially certified.
“The voters in my district rejected antisemitism and rejected the DSA’s agenda, and clearly rejected what the mayor, the congresswoman and the county attorney wanted,” Hernandez, a term-limited House member, said in a statement to Jewish Insider, referring to the Democratic Socialists of America. “We proved that elections are won by knocking on doors and talking to voters, not by social media or online outrage and your friends’ endorsements.”
Throughout the campaign, Perez, who had been endorsed by Tucson Mayor Regina Romero, Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) and Pima County Attorney Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, among others, had fixated on Hernandez’s pro-Israel views, casting her as having been influenced by “foreign” and “overseas interests” and labeling her an enabler of “genocide” and “bankrolled” by AIPAC, which does not engage in state-level races.
In one fundraising message, Perez asked his supporters to contribute $5 to “unseat a Zionist!”
Jewish leaders in Arizona had raised concerns about Perez’s messaging, saying that his attacks were an example of how rising anti-Zionism on the far left has intersected with antisemitism and is met with silence from Democratic Party leaders.
Before Tuesday’s primary, the Center for Jewish Resilience at Jewish Philanthropies of Southern Arizona, which monitors incidents of antisemitism in the area, distributed a letter to city council members backing Perez that highlighted what the group called his “repeated pattern of public rhetoric” espousing “longstanding antisemitic tropes and narratives.” It did not receive responses.
“It was our hope that these concerns would be taken seriously,” Carina Bien-Willner, the center’s director of public affairs, said in a statement to JI last month.
Perez, who has not yet conceded, did not return a request for comment on Thursday.
Hernandez, whose pro-Israel sentiments and votes with Republicans in the state legislature have fueled tensions with Democrats, said her victory had made “clear that running a campaign centered on attacking a Jewish elected official and making ‘genocide’ the defining issue is not a winning message in Arizona.”
“Despite not being the establishment candidate, we won by staying authentic, working hard and focusing on delivering results,” she told JI.
Hernandez is all but certain to prevail in November in the safe blue seat.
The outcome of Hernandez’s race also represented a counternarrative to broader national voting trends that have seen left-wing populists make inroads in recent congressional primaries across the country, including in Colorado this month and New York last month.
Rep. Greg Stanton (D-AZ) likewise fended off a left-wing challenger in Arizona’s primaries this week, winning a decisive 62% of the vote over Kai Newkirk, who lost by 25 points with most of the results tallied.
“I’ll continue to be unapologetically myself, and I look forward to serving the people of LD20 in the Arizona Senate,” Hernandez said in her statement.
The New York Republican said Turkey envoy Tom Barrack’s efforts to route trade through Syria instead were ‘unacceptable’
Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) during a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, DC, on June 24, 2025.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Middle East subcommittee, insisted at a Wednesday hearing that Israel could not be excluded from the India-Middle East-Europe Corridor, and called out U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack for apparent efforts to advance an alternative trade corridor through Syria.
The hearing was called to focus on efforts to expand the Abraham Accords. The IMEC corridor, a proposed regional trade route that would connect Europe to India through Israel, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations, was repeatedly raised by witnesses and lawmakers as a key next step in expanding existing normalization agreements and moving toward future ones.
“Unfortunately, reporting came out recently that anonymous Saudi officials were considering connecting these two countries through Syria instead, and just the other day it came out that Ambassador Barrack out in Turkey was also supporting this,” Lawler said. “In my mind, that is unacceptable.”
Barrack last week announced and promoted plans for a Middle East trade route through Iraq, Turkey and Syria.
Lawler previously wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio asking him to ensure that Israel remains part of IMEC.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, noted in his testimony that Iran’s ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz highlighted the potential value of the IMEC corridor.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said that the IMEC corridor would be “integral to a more peaceful and cooperative Middle East” and was dismissive of the idea that a pipeline through Syria could be a practical solution in the near-to-medium term, given the recent and continued instability in the country.
He argued that the pipeline should run through the West Bank as a job-creation opportunity for Palestinians that he said would help advance the prospects of peace.
Asher Fredman, the executive director of the Misgav Institute for National Security, said that even short of full Saudi-Israeli normalization, there were ways that the IMEC corridor and Saudi-Israeli ties could be advanced, such as allowing the transit of goods to or from Israel though Saudi Arabia, similar to how Saudi Arabia permitted airlines to fly over Saudi territory going to and from Tel Aviv beginning in 2022.
Highlighting and advancing such steps that serve Riyadh’s own interests could be a way to expand ties and move in the direction of normalization even short of an immediate agreement, Fredman said.
Witnesses and lawmakers also emphasized the importance of appointing a dedicated special envoy for the Abraham Accords, an ambassador-rank position established by Congress that neither the Biden nor Trump administrations have filled.
Shapiro also called on the administration to fill ambassador and other senior diplomatic posts in the region that the Trump administration has left absent while vesting significant responsibilities in envoys including White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
The former Biden administration official told lawmakers that efforts to normalize Saudi-Israeli relations had continued even following the disruptions of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel, which would have been paired with an end to the war in Gaza and a release of hostages.
He said that Saudi demands for a component related to advancing a two-state solution have also remained consistent — repeatedly referencing comments to that effect by former Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who had long worked on Saudi-Israel normalization.
President Donald Trump announced the morning after the hearing that a new civil nuclear cooperation agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia is “totally subject” to Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords. Shapiro and Democratic lawmakers had criticized the administration for reportedly inking that ideal without connecting it to normalization, but Friedman suggested there might be more at play that had not been reported.
Friedman argued that Saudi Arabia’s core security interests in normalization, for the purpose of countering Iran and its proxies, remains the same. And he emphasized that no new Israeli government is likely to take a more positive stance toward a two-state solution, highlighting widespread support among the Palestinian population for Hamas and the Oct. 7 attacks.
Friedman said that other countries won’t be interested in pursuing normalization without a durable, bipartisan U.S. consensus in support of Israel, which he said is slipping on the extreme fringes of both parties.
“These countries are watching this every single day. … Until we know who we are, where we stand as a country with regard to Israel, no one’s going to take a gamble,” Friedman said.
Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), a founder and co-chair of the House Abraham Accords Caucus, also warned that politicization of the U.S.-Israel relationship at home is counterproductive to the cause of normalization.
“We risk squandering the opportunity to help lead the region of the Middle East — critical to the United States — we risk squandering the opportunity to lead them to a more stable, secure, prosperous and, ultimately, more peaceful future,” Schneider said. “We have to be united in our commitment to that vision of regional integration, the vision of a safe and secure Jewish democratic state of Israel, living collectively integrated with the 21 Arab [states], the states of the Arab League, and the Palestinians and their aspirations to self-determination and peace with Israel.”
Shapiro repeatedly warned that the Iran war is a major stumbling block toward further normalization, arguing that the conflict is making Gulf states doubt their long-term alliances with the U.S. and see Israel and, to an extent, the U.S. as destabilizing actors. He said that further Israeli action against violent settlers in the West Bank would also be an important step.
Friedman said that settler violence should be opposed but argued that the scope of the problem has been significantly overstated and Palestinian violence in the West Bank has been overlooked.
In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks and the ensuing war in Gaza, Shapiro argued that Arab publics in the region are less interested in normalization, and the Israeli public has likewise grown more aggressive toward potential security threats, neither of which are conducive to further normalization.
But he pointed to the governmental changes in Syria and Lebanon as providing opportunities for normalization.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), another co-chair of the Abraham Accords Caucus, warned that the Accords currently lack grassroots buy-in and also emphasized the need to work to maintain and strengthen the current agreements, in addition to looking for ways to expand them. She criticized moves by the Trump administration to cut funding for people-to-people peacebuilding programs.
Fredman laid out a multi-point strategy for expanding the Accords, which received praise on both sides of the aisle, including advancing IMEC, pursuing a coordinated roadmap and strategy to advance projects and other economic harmonization efforts, advancing technology and security partnerships and pursuing people-to-people connections through expansions of existing U.S. scientific, leadership and education programs.
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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MICHIGAN MATTERS
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Matt Maasdam is gaining late momentum running on his national security credentials, but Bernie Sanders-backed William Lawrence is winning over the base
CAMPUS CLASH
College Democrats’ Jewish Caucus condemns the group’s hosting of Hasan Piker
In a statement, the caucus said the speaker selection ‘sent Jewish students a clear message that they were not welcome’
The anti-Israel activists have certainly captured a faction of the Democratic Party, but their ties to so many unpopular views and causes make the whole movement politically toxic in middle America
(Sarah Rice/Getty Images)
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Michigan Democratic candidate for Senate Abdul El-Sayed and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) greet the crowd after El-Sayed spoke at The People V. The Powerful rally at the Detroit Opera House on July 18, 2026 in Detroit, Michigan.
So far, the success of far-left, anti-Israel candidates has been confined to Democratic primaries in deep-blue districts largely in big cities or college towns. The biggest test ahead for the socialist movement is whether it can prevail in primaries outside its geographic base, and more importantly, if such candidates can win general elections in battleground states or districts.
All of the available evidence and recent history suggests that nominating extreme candidates in enough key races would threaten Democrats’ chances of winning a Senate majority and would dampen the party’s pickup potential in the House.
Indeed, the victories by radical nominees in recent House primaries — combined with the high-profile collapse of the like-minded Graham Platner’s Maine Senate campaign — are already doing damage to the Democratic Party’s brand.
Looking at the big picture: In poll after poll, Democrats are now underperforming expectations on the generic congressional ballot — and have lost notable ground over Republicans in the last month alone.
In his analysis of congressional polling, Nate Silver documented that the Democrats’ advantage on the generic ballot in the polling average declined by one point since June, from seven points to six. At this point in the 2018 cycle, the Democrats’ generic ballot advantage was close to eight points, according to Silver’s analysis.
Democrats still hold a decided edge, but the massive blue wave that could have emerged in this year’s midterms is now looking a bit more modest. That means it’s much more difficult for Democrats to overcome their partisan disadvantage in the red states they need to retake the Senate, while Republicans may have some outside hope that redistricting and enough flawed Democratic candidates could keep the House majority in play.
CNN political analyst Ron Brownstein also notes that Democrats are failing to win over as many voters who disapprove of President Donald Trump as they did during the 2018 midterms — another signal that the party’s negative image and leftward lurch is costing them among the swing-voting suburbanites who formed a critical mass of the anti-Trump movement in the president’s first term.
Recent history also points to candidates significantly underperforming if they are ideologically out of step with their constituents. In the 2018 midterms, Democrats swept the vast majority of competitive battlegrounds, riding the wave of anti-Trump sentiment even in some districts that had long been held by Republicans.
There were two notable outliers in that year’s Democratic wave — very winnable races that Democrats lost because they nominated progressives in swing districts. In that election, Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) faced a challenger (Kara Eastman) who ran what Politico called a “Brooklyn-style campaign” in the Omaha-based district that former President Joe Biden comfortably carried. Bacon prevailed by three points.
The other missed opportunity that year for Democrats was in a Syracuse-area district that favored their party. Despite the blue wave, the party’s decision to nominate an outspoken progressive (Dana Balter) cost them a victory against a vulnerable House Republican, former Rep. John Katko.
This year, the party has lurched further to the left and is likely to nominate more ideologically extreme candidates in even bigger races.
Michigan is a swing state, but Democrats are at risk of handing their Senate nomination to Abdul El-Sayed, a Bernie Sanders acolyte whose incessant animus against Israel has defined his campaign message. If he’s the nominee, some Democrats believe their shot at a Senate majority could be lost. (The RealClearPolitics polling average shows that El-Sayed, in a general election, is statistically tied with expected GOP nominee Mike Rogers — a notable underperformance given the national environment.)
In the state’s biggest swing district, which is currently held by Rep. Tom Barrett (R-MI), Democrats are so concerned about the far-left candidacy of Will Lawrence that even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) snubbed him at the El-Sayed rally this past weekend. Two other mainstream candidates — former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink and former Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam — are splitting the moderate vote.
And there are numerous other contests, from the Senate races in Maine and Minnesota to House races in California, Colorado and Maine, where left-wing candidates threaten to jeopardize the party’s prospects.
Ultimately, the most consequential political test of the anti-Israel movement will come in this November’s general election. The anti-Israel activists have certainly captured a faction of the Democratic Party, but their ties to so many unpopular views and causes make the whole movement politically toxic in middle America.
The new award will be given at the group’s yearly leadership summit in August
(Amir Levy/Getty Images)
US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) attends a press conference on US-Israel relations on February 17, 2025 at the Kempinski Hotel in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, announced on Tuesday evening that the RJC would award the inaugural Lindsey Graham Statesman Award at the group’s yearly leadership summit in August, which will be dedicated to the late South Carolina senator after his death earlier this month.
Coleman, a former colleague and longtime friend of Graham’s, made the comments at a virtual event organized by the Israeli-American Council to pay tribute to the late senator’s support for Israel and the Jewish people. The former Minnesota senator was one of several prominent Jewish and pro-Israel figures who gathered to honor Graham’s record of support for the Jewish community.
“To our Jewish community, Lindsey was more than an ally. He was family and he said so himself. Reflecting once on how our community had rallied around him, he put it simply, ‘We are family,’ and he meant it,” Coleman said. “At the RJC leadership summit taking place next month in Las Vegas, we will be dedicating the event in his memory and awarding the first annual Lindsey Graham Statesman Award.”
Coleman said that Graham’s sudden death was a loss for the Jewish community and for the U.S. as a whole, telling attendees, “Our hearts break because Lindsey had so much left to give. He was not finished. There were more fights he wanted to win, more people he wanted to lift up, more good he wanted to do. We were not ready to lose him.”
“Our community is diminished tonight. The United States is diminished tonight, but every one of us who knew Lindsey Graham is richer for it and better for it,” he said.
Attendees at the virtual gathering, which was hosted by IAC CEO Elan Carr, included Dr. Miriam Adelson, the philanthropist and Republican megadonor; Betsy Berns Korn, the former AIPAC president and chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Jewish Federations of North America CEO Eric Fingerhut; American Jewish Committee (AJC) CEO Ted Deutch; Pastor John Hagee, the founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel; and Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch (Chabad).
Ronen and Orna Neutra, the parents of slain Israeli American hostage Omer Neutra, made an unscheduled appearance to speak about Graham’s advocacy for their son and other hostages during their captivity in Gaza. Omer Neutra’s remains were taken by Hamas terrorists into Gaza and held there for more than two years after he was killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.
“Our family came to know Sen. Graham shortly after Oct. 7, when our son, [IDF] Capt. Omer Neutra, was taken hostage,” Orna Neutra said. “From the earliest days of the crisis, Sen. Graham was one of the strongest and most consistent voices in the Senate supporting Israel and calling for the hostages to be released. He spoke clearly about Iran’s role in supporting Hamas and argued that Hamas could not remain in power after the war.”
“Whenever we asked to meet, [Graham] made himself available,” she continued. “He was straightforward and matter of fact. He never told us what we wanted to hear, only what he believed. He offered no false hope. He listened carefully. He asked thoughtful questions, and he treated our concerns with seriousness and respect.”
Orna Neutra recounted a meeting Graham had with several hostage families where he told them, “I wish you were all my constituents. I wish you were all from South Carolina.” She explained that Graham was suggesting “that he wished he could do even more for each and every one of us personally.”
Berns Korn similarly praised Graham for his allyship with the Jewish people and remarked how she would accidentally cross paths with the South Carolina senator almost every time they separately visited the Israeli prime minister’s office.
“To me, to the conference, to the Jewish community, and to the people of Israel, Sen. Graham was more than an ally. He was a true friend,” Berns Korn said. “Friends like Lindsey Graham come along once in a generation.”
“You’d make the long trip, race through the schedule, thinking we’re moving fast, and somehow Lindsey and his staff [were] already there, already briefed, already asking the next question, and already formulating a strategy,” she continued. “That was Lindsey. He was present. He was engaged. He listened carefully and moved with purpose. He built trust with Israeli leaders and American Jewish organizations. He built coalitions across the aisle and developed relationships with communities who valued his wise counsel, judgment, and his leadership.”
Shemtov noted that Norm Brownstein, the veteran Washington lobbyist, was a mutual friend of his and Graham’s, and said that Brownstein “would often tell me that the one thing about Lindsey Graham was that he had a genuine friendship with the Jewish people and a genuine concern for the needs of the Jewish people and for the needs that Israel had, whatever they were, and he always would reiterate that not only in words but in practice.”
“Within darkness, within negativity, there is always the latent opposite. So, as we see dark forces in the political world that are beginning to emerge and expand, sadly, let us not forget the bright ones we’ve been fortunate to know, people like Sen. Lindsey Graham,” Shemtov said. “The Jewish people have survived for millennia through strong faith in God, and through the many agents and messengers that God sent from outside the Jewish community to be our friends, our supporters, and those who reinforced us.”
Deutch, who served in Congress from 2010-2022 as a Democrat, recounted his first experience traveling with Graham after being elected to the House, joining Graham’s delegation to the Munich Security Conference at the invitation of the late Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). Deutch praised Graham for his emphasis on bipartisanship while on the international stage.
“Lindsey always understood why it was so important for us to do that together,” Deutch said in a prerecorded address. “When I think about what we’ll miss about him, the way that he stood up for American leadership, understanding that especially how much that leadership was strengthened when we did it together as Americans, Democrats and Republicans standing together, that’s the way that I’m going to remember him.”
The AJC CEO urged attendees “to think about that and reflect upon that in the way that we go about our work, whether we work in the Jewish world, we work in the government or diplomatic world or whether we’re just American citizens who are thinking about how to make the country better for all of us.”
Fingerhut praised Graham for understanding that, “In times of evil, indifference to evil is evil. Neutrality always helps the killer, not the victim.”
“Lindsey Graham always took seriously all those who threaten other people. Lindsey Graham always took seriously all those who threatened the Jewish people,” Fingerhut said. “Lindsey Graham understood the dangers of indifference and neutrality, and Lindsey Graham understood that neutrality helps the killer, not the victim. Lindsey Graham was not neutral. He took sides. He was not indifferent. He was passionate and committed and relentless.”
In Coleman’s remarks, the RJC chairman highlighted Graham’s close friendships with Adelson and her late husband, Sheldon, telling the audience that, “They were always talking. When he [Graham] went into battle, he was comforted by knowing that they would be with him.”
For her part, Adelson spoke of the friendship that she and her late husband, the billionaire casino mogul, shared with Graham over more than three decades, reminiscing about the South Carolina senator’s aversion to gambling and his daily phone calls with her spouse.
“We met Lindsey and — as a physician, I love to see the brain, the eyes are [the window into] our brain — they were so pure and blue. You could see what he was thinking about. He was so honest, with integrity, and Sheldon and me fell in love with him.”
Adelson said that her late husband’s longtime secretary told her that “there was not a day that” Sheldon did not “talk with Lindsey.”
“They talked about Israel,” Adelson said. “Lindsey gave him advice. Sheldon gave him advice, and they had fun.”
She shared that Graham had once opted to meet tourists in the Adelsons’ Las Vegas Sands property rather than gamble in the VIP room alongside the late Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who had accompanied Graham to visit the couple.
“Instead of playing, he was meeting people,” Adelson said of Graham. “Lindsey loved people, and they loved him from the left, from the right. He was a fantastic person.”
Adelson said that Graham and her late husband were similar in their steadfast commitment to their families, comparing Sheldon Adelson supporting his first wife’s three children from a previous marriage to the late senator adopting his younger sister, Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) after their parents died. Adelson said she hoped to meet Graham’s sister, who was appointed to serve out the remainder of her brother’s term last week and has since announced plans to run for a full term, for dinner in Washington, D.C., in the near future and urged her to “choose life and success” in her new role.
“Know that so many people loved your brother and admired him,” Adelson said before acknowledging that she was tearing up. “He is a good man. Inside the heart, he is such a good man, and I want to tell you, Darline … that I really admired and loved your brother. I miss him.”
Matt Maasdam is gaining late momentum running on his national security credentials, but Bernie Sanders-backed William Lawrence is winning over the base
Campaign website
Matt Maasdam
The Democratic primary in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District — a Lansing-area swing seat key to Democrats’ hopes for taking back the House — has turned into a three-way battle between two moderate Democrats with national security backgrounds and a far-left activist who has emerged as a contender for the nomination despite repeated controversies over extremist comments.
On the campaign trail, Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL, has leaned into his background as a veteran and a military aide to former President Barack Obama who carried the nuclear football. Bridget Brink, a career foreign service officer, is highlighting her service as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2022 to 2025.
William Lawrence, the progressive backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), is a former organizer with the Sunrise Movement, which bills itself as leading “the climate revolution” but also embraces other left-wing causes.
Adrian Hemond, a Michigan political strategist, said he expects the race to be close, predicting that the three candidates could all finish within several points of each other.
He previously told JI that Lawrence holds the progressive lane to himself, which could be an asset if Maasdam and Brink split the moderate vote — but he could lose out on young, progressive-leaning Michigan State University students who won’t return to campus until after the Aug. 4 primary. Lawrence has also struggled with Black and older voters.
The race initially appeared to be a contest between Maasdam and Brink. Lawrence gained momentum and attention by scoring a series of prominent endorsements from Sanders and other progressive leaders.
But Lawrence’s rise hit a stumbling block with the re-emergence of past comments disparaging Black political leadership, which prompted condemnations from Michigan leaders and the Congressional Black Caucus. After those initial revelations, Lawrence subsequently came under fire for past comments disparaging Obama and his administration.
In past comments on the “Hegemonicon” podcast he hosted, first uncovered by Jewish Insider, Lawrence repeatedly argued, for the sake of climate and economic goals, Americans would have to abandon the idea of the American dream and their way of life.
Discussing whether and how ideas of “abundance” or “degrowth” could or should be part of an agenda to fight climate change, Lawrence said on an episode of the podcast release in January 2024, “we’ve experienced the last several years of how that got filtered through the lens of American global competitiveness and geoeconomic dominance and, some of these questions about the role of the American consumer on a global stage and and whether or not we are proposing the continuation of the American consumer way of life and its translation into China and presumably the rest of the globe, is really viable in a climate-changing world.”
“We made that move, and now we need to reckon with the contradictions inherent even in that move,” Lawrence said. “I’m wondering how we can inspire a sense of abundance for people in the United States while, frankly, destroying the American way of life and the negative connotations, and material realities that has come to mean.”
In a statement, Lawrence defended the comments.
“We’ve been told that we would achieve happiness by buying more TVs and taking on a bigger mortgage,” Lawrence said. “Instead, the cost of housing, healthcare, and education is skyrocketing, while Michigan’s land and water is under threat. We need a new version of the American dream in which we can all have economic security while leaving a healthy environment for our kids and grandkids.”
In another episode, released in December 2023, Lawrence said that “there are certain aspects of the American dream that need to die — but maybe that’s another episode,” arguing that most people would not be able to have “the McMansion in the suburbs.”
A senior political advisor close to the Maasdam team said that the endorsements from Sanders and other top progressives catapulted Lawrence toward the front of the field, but the recent revelations of his past comments have stunted that growth.
The advisor said the endorsements from Sanders and others likely earned Lawrence the votes of around a third of the Democratic electorate who will likely vote for the most-left candidate in the race, leaving around two-thirds up for grabs.
Last week, Maasdam picked up an endorsement from Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who subsequently filmed an advertisement supporting him. The freshman senator represented the Lansing-area district before being elected to the Senate.
The advisor close to the Maasdam campaign said that they see the race now largely as a contest between Maasdam and Lawrence, but said they believe Maasdam is well-positioned going into the final weeks of the race and peaking at the right time.
He has been the beneficiary of more than $1.6 million in outside spending by VoteVets, with another outside group, Crush MAGA PAC, spending nearly $1 million to attack Lawrence, and a third group, Michigan Values PAC, spending around $1 million to attack Brink. A nursing union group has spent $400,000 boosting Lawrence.
At the same time, they also acknowledged a real concern that Maasdam and Brink could split the moderate vote, allowing Lawrence to win with a plurality.
Brink has faced criticism from primary rivals for her service under and praise of President Donald Trump — though she ultimately resigned in protest of the administration’s efforts to pressure Ukraine.
The advisor argued that, compared to Brink, Maasdam has a better resume and background as a fighter, and said Maasdam plans to highlight his links to Obama in the wake of the revelation of Lawrence’s comments disparaging the former president.
Maasdam posted an X video on Monday highlighting his support for and ties to Obama, while calling out Lawrence’s criticism of him.
In spite of their moderate and national security focused backgrounds, neither Maasdam nor Brink appears to have spoken much about Israel policy during the campaign, and neither campaign provided comment to JI on their stances.
Lawrence has attacked the two for declining to describe the war in Gaza as a genocide, and has made cutting off arms sales to Israel a major plank of his campaign.
All three have been critical of the war with Iran.
Plus, direct flights to Beirut cleared for takeoff
Satellite image (c) 2026 Vantor
Vantor satellite image shows tunnel construction activity and road infrastructure near the Natanz nuclear facility in the mountainous area around Pickaxe Mountain.
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
Meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the Oval Office today, President Donald Trump warned that the U.S. would “pretty soon” strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, the underground facility suspected of housing components of Tehran’s nuclear program, Jewish Insider’sEmily Jacobs reports.
“We’ll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily,” he said, following a Wall Street Journal report that Israeli intelligence indicates Iran moved thousands of centrifuges into the site last fall…
Trump added in his comments that Iran “wants to meet desperately” with the U.S. to end the war, but “until they’re ready to meet in a meaningful way, we have no interest in meeting with them”…
Trump announced after his meeting with Aoun that he is directing his administration toallow all U.S. airlines to fly directly between the U.S. and Lebanon. The Reagan administration suspended direct flights in 1985 after Hezbollah-linked hijackers seized TWA Flight 847 and killed a U.S. service member aboard…
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said at a conference today that Israel has “no interest” in joining the renewed U.S. campaign against Iran. “The best way to bring about the regime’s downfall is to crush it economically,” he said, pointing to the U.S. blockade on Iranian ports…
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Appropriations Committee during a hearing this afternoon that the estimated cost of the Iran war thus far is $37.5 billion, up from $29 billion estimated by Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst in May.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the top Democrat on the committee, indicated that Democrats do not intend to support the Pentagon’s $88 billion supplemental funding request. The administration’s “expectation that Americans will just pay for [the war in Iran] without any explanation or transparency is disrespectful,” she said…
The IDF said its soldiers operating in southern Lebanon fired warning shots today as personnel from the Lebanese Armed Forces crossed into Israeli-controlled territory, an area the IDF said was not included in the pilot zones the LAF is meant to control. The LAF called the incident “an act of aggression” that could hinder the broader deployment plan…
A senior White House official told JI that a report that Vice President JD Vance was attempting to scuttle a potential White House meeting between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “completely false.”
“The idea that the vice president’s team, or any official in the administration for that matter, would try or even be able to interfere with a visit by a foreign leader with the president is laughable,” the official said…
A group of Jewish House Democrats asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio today to pressure Malaysia to walk back plans to deport Israeli citizens, JI’s Marc Rod reports, urging him to leverage U.S. military assistance to the Southeast Asian nation…
The Senate Intelligence Committee voted to advance the nomination of Jay Clayton to be director of national intelligence, Committee Chair Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) announced, sending his nomination to the full Senate for approval. Democrats who had previously wanted to see Clayton confirmed said they were disappointed by his refusal to affirm at his hearing that former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election…
The Jewish Caucus of the College Democrats of America condemned the CDA’s decision to host far-left streamer Hasan Piker at its convention over the weekend and claimed in a statement that attendees were prevented from conducting a walkout during Piker’s speech. The caucus called on CDA leadership to issue a formal apology and to publicly condemn Piker’s previous antisemitic comments, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…
Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI), the leading Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin, appeared on a podcast hosted by an individual who defended Hitler and joked about the Holocaust, the Milwaukee Courier reports. Tiffany had previously criticized his likely Democratic opponent, Francesca Hong, for going on Piker’s podcast…
The now-former treasurer of the New York Young Republican Club, Nicholas T. Rafael Jr., appeared to operate an anonymous X account that posted Hitler images and antisemitic caricatures, according to New York Magazine, which also obtained a photo of Rafael making what appears to be a Nazi salute while wearing German military attire. It’s the latest scandal regarding far-right extremism for the once-influential club…
The University of New Hampshire released a new poll of the race for U.S. Senate in Maine showing former state Sen. Troy Jackson, the presumed replacement for former Democratic nominee Graham Platner, leading Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) 49-46% in the general election…
New York Assemblymember Micah Lasher, the presumed successor to retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), strongly defended his ongoing relationship with Morris Katz and said he’ll continue to work with the consultant who was behind Platner‘s failed Senate bid, a week after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said the same…
⏩ 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 Democratic primary in Michigan‘s battleground 7th Congressional District, where two Democrats with national security backgrounds are facing off against a far-left activist.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing on U.N. accountability and reform with U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz and U.S. Representative to the U.N. for Management and Reform Jeff Bartos.
Later, the committee’s Middle East subcommittee will hold a hearing on the “next phase of the Abraham Accords” with former U.S. Ambassadors to Israel David Friedman and Dan Shapiro as well as Asher Fredman, executive director of the Misgav Institute for National Security.
The House Ways and Means Committee will mark up several bills including the Foreign Funding Transparency Act, which would make nonprofits disclose foreign donors; the Fiscal Sponsorship Transparency Act, which would require charities to report the groups they fund; and the Fair Treatment of Religious Organizations Act, which would shield religious groups’ tax-exempt status.
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Joel Rubin: Sanders has endorsed ‘the most categorically anti-Israel, antisemitic candidates that we’ve seen in a generation, if ever’
BLUE STATE BLUES
Washington state’s Jewish Democrats fight for a place in a party they no longer recognize
In one of the bluest states in the country, Jewish Democrats feel increasingly estranged from a party they helped build — but the answer, they say, is to lean in
The lawmakers said the U.S. should leverage its economic and military assistance to Malaysia to ensure that the relationship ‘is serving the best interests of the United States’
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Rep. Greg Landsman (D-OH) leaves the U.S. Capitol after the last votes of the week on Thursday, September 4, 2025.
A group of House Democrats urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday to pressure Malaysia to walk back plans to deport Israeli citizens by leveraging U.S. military assistance to the Southeast Asian nation.
Malaysia’s prime minister said last week that the country, which does not recognize Israel and does not permit Israeli passport holders to enter the country, would immediately deport any Israeli nationals in the country. The comments came in response to a report that Israeli dual citizens were participating in a technology retreat in the country, having entered using other passports.
“For millennia, Jews around the world have seen this playbook. The demonization and expulsion of Jews eventually leads to the worst case outcomes. It is necessary that the United States push back on this antisemitism,” the Democrats, led by Reps. Greg Landsman (D-OH) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), said in a letter to Rubio.
“Malaysia’s refusal to recognize Israel is troubling enough. But, it is totally unacceptable that a head of government has publicly declared that his country will hunt down and expel citizens of our close ally based solely on their nationality. It should not be underwritten by the American taxpayer,” the letter continues, further noting that Malaysia maintains ties with Hamas and that the terrorist group’s fighters have trained in Malaysia.
The lawmakers urged Rubio to make clear that the U.S. won’t tolerate the targeting of “the nationals of one of our closest allies” in light of U.S. security assistance to and military training for the Malaysian military, as well as Malaysian access to U.S. technology and markets.
“We, therefore, urge you to undertake a review of our security and economic relationship with Malaysia to ensure that it is serving the best interests of the United States,” the lawmakers said. “Should Malaysia refuse to reverse this discriminatory policy within 15 days, we urge you to suspend [International Military Education and Training] funding.”
They asked the State Department to articulate what steps it plans to take in response to the Malaysian policy and to “use every tool at your disposal to make clear that this conduct carries consequences.”
The letter was co-signed by Reps. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), Dan Goldman (D-NY), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Jake Auchincloss (D-MA).
Landsman issued a statement last week condemning the Malaysian government’s plans.
“We’ve seen this all before. The purge of Jews has begun. Predictable, and just the beginning. We know where this leads,” Landsman said. “There is only one country in the world that will take all Jews kicked out of another country, and that’s Israel. The same people targeting Jews in their countries are also working to destroy Israel.”
He said that the U.S. “should make it clear that our aid comes with the expectation they won’t brazenly discriminate against our allies, and our office is reaching out directly to the Malaysian embassy.”
In one of the bluest states in the country, Jewish Democrats feel increasingly estranged from a party they helped build — but the answer, they say, is to lean in
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Seattle Skyline with the Space Needle and Mount Rainier, Washington
SEATTLE — David Kaplan has been attending Washington state Democratic conventions since he was 6 years old.
He was brought to his first convention in 1960 by his mother, who was, as Kaplan put it, a “Warren Magnuson Democrat,” while his father was a “Henry Jackson Democrat.” The two legendary former Washington senators who served from roughly the 1940s to the ‘80s differed on several issues, including Cold War and defense policy, “but one common denominator has always been support for Israel,” Kaplan said.
Six decades later, that consensus feels to him like a relic of a bygone era.
The past few years of rising tensions in the Democratic Party over Israel and antisemitism have been marked for many Jewish Democrats in Washington — one of the country’s bluest states, which has a Jewish population of about 90,000 — by disappointment, anger and a growing sense of isolation within a party they have spent decades supporting.
But the answer, they say, is not to walk away; rather, it’s to try to reclaim influence from within.
That effort begins with rebuilding the party’s own Jewish infrastructure. The Washington State Democratic Party’s Jewish caucus has gone “by the wayside, because it takes a lot of organizing and energy to keep it up,” said Linda Clifton, a longtime member of the caucus.
“It’s all volunteer [work], and people had other jobs and other things they had to pay attention to. I think we need to revive it, and there’s been some effort to do that … but I think people are so disheartened that that becomes very difficult,” she continued.
At the state party’s June convention, delegates adopted a resolution condemning “genocide and apartheid in Palestine” and calling for an arms embargo on Israel. They also adopted a plank in their party platform calling out a “dramatic resurgence in antisemitism in recent years on all sides of the political spectrum” while claiming it has risen “due in part to actions taken by the Israeli government.”
And in its foreign policy section, dedicated overwhelmingly to Israel and Palestinian issues, the platform states that the party “reject[s] racist political ideologies rooted in supremacy, including forms of Zionism,” and calls for an end to the “mass civilian casualties, destruction, displacement and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza and [the] West Bank,” among other stances critical of Israel.
“My only issue with the platform, honestly, was that it singles one country out and that, to me, crosses the line,” said Kaplan, a founding member of the party’s Jewish caucus. “But I can tell you that I was not one of the volunteers for the platform committee, so I can’t point fingers.”
Kaplan’s deep engagement in the party has provided him a front row seat to its shift over time. These days, “I have my local Democrats piling on,” he said, referencing his representative in Congress, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the former chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “On many levels, I admire her courage and her principles. But I get her emails where AIPAC becomes the straw man for everything that’s evil.”
Kaplan is no apologist for AIPAC, though he once served on its regional board, nor Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — “I actually think he’s evil,” he said — but “in a world that contains all sorts of bad sh*t, why [Israel] is singled out … It transcends policy differences. It becomes less-than-subtle antisemitism, and I’m struggling with it mightily as a Democrat.”
“I’ve been as active as you can be in Washington Democratic politics. I never before had to worry about whether my local [representatives] harbored antisemitic beliefs or had them use AIPAC as a straw man,” he said.
Clifton, too, is dismayed by the rising hostility in a party that she’s been engaged in for decades. She said she sees it most clearly in her home 43rd Legislative District, which is based in some of the most progressive neighborhoods of Seattle, including the University of Washington campus.
“The [Democratic Socialists of America] has really organized here, and one of the main impetuses for that organization was [former] Councilwoman Kshama Sawant,” Clifton said. Sawant, a far-left socialist who promoted several anti-Israel measures during her tenure on the Seattle City Council, is now running as a long-shot independent candidate against Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA).
“She’s been very effective in building a constituency within the 43rd that is pretty young and pretty hostile to the interests of the Jewish community,” Clifton said of Sawant, “so it’s been much, much more difficult to remain an active member of the 43rd. It just hurts.”
Where she used to regularly attend the organizing meetings for the 43rd District Democrats, “I just got really tired of being the only vote on one side of an issue on a Zoom call. So I’ve really pulled back,” she said.
The Washington State Democratic Party begins at the most local level with precinct committee officers (PCOs), who are elected every two years — oftentimes uncontested — to represent a voting precinct. Democratic PCOs are officers of their party and vote on a wide range of party business, including endorsements, resolutions, local party leadership and convention delegates.
About organizing efforts at the state party convention, another longtime activist said the state’s Jewish Democrats “are not in the room, or not noticeably so as Jews,” instead focusing their advocacy on other policy priorities like education, healthcare and housing. “As Jews and as an organized Jewish community, we need to decide if the party platform matters, and if so, we need to be involved in the grassroots of the Democratic Party.”
“It doesn’t take many people, but it does take some,” the activist added. They emphasized the ease with which people can run for and be elected as a PCO. “If 100 Jews signed up as PCOs, that would change the party over the next two years and the next decade,” they said.
Kaplan had similar advice for his fellow Jewish activists: “In terms of getting involved, I recommend people become PCOs. It’s actually a relatively easy gig. Just join. Just show up!”
As far as the Jewish caucus goes, he said, “I wish we could be more proactive, you know, as a formally recognized constituency caucus within the Washington State Democratic Party.”
The Jewish caucus activists spoke highly of the state Democratic Party chair, Shasti Conrad, praising her outreach efforts. “She is doing the best she can to thread this needle and have differing opinions come together under a bigger tent to hash things out,” Kaplan said.
Conrad told JI in an interview, “I have always strived to try to build a party that is as inclusive as it can be, and it’s been really important to me, particularly as our first woman of color chair, that we build a party that does feel like it has people from diverse backgrounds who are able to be their full selves in the party.”
“Especially since Oct. 7, 2023, that really has focused largely on the Jewish community, alongside the Muslim community and Palestinians as well. We have really tried to sort of hold space for people that have been impacted on all sides of the conflict,” she continued.
Since she became chair in 2023, Conrad said she realized that the state party structure, which is broken into 49 legislative districts, “may have made it a little bit more challenging for particular communities” to organize and promote their priorities “because they get sort of split across geographic lines.” To help alleviate these issues, the party will look to “make sure that we are including the constituency caucuses in the drafting of the platform” for the 2028 convention.
Conrad said antisemitism is “something that I want to disavow as loudly and clearly as possible.”
“There is no room for antisemitism in our party. We have been trying to fight against it as it has really become a sort of central organizing point, I believe, for the Republican Party.”
Conrad said that at the Democratic National Committee, where she also currently serves as one of five vice chairs, she was one of the first officers to co-sponsor the creation of a DNC Jewish caucus. “I’ve done a lot of organizing alongside our Jewish caucus, and I’ve learned a lot and grown, and it’s been one of the most important parts of my learning.”
Asked about the state party’s inclusion of foreign policy in its platform, Conrad said the party is “responsive to what our delegates feel strongly about,” emphasizing that the platform is drafted before every convention by the relevant committees made of local activists and voted on by delegates. “I don’t feel like many international leaders are looking to see, you know, ‘What do the Washington state Democrats think about X, Y and Z?’ I don’t think that’s often the case, but I do think that we hear from our delegates and from our grassroots members that these are issues that are very important to them.”
Outside the party structure, some Jewish community members have turned to electoral politics to advance their priorities. Washingtonians for a Brighter Future, a PAC formed in 2024, calls itself the “political action arm of the Jewish community and its allies in Washington state.”
“The Jewish community in Washington state is under attack,” said Nevet Basker, one of the PAC’s co-chairs. “It’s under attack from many, many places, including by people who are hostile to Israel, but they take it out on the Jews here,” she said, referencing the November 2023 vandalism of Herzl-Ner Tamid Conservative Congregation on Mercer Island, an area that serves as a hub of Jewish life in the state.
She also raised the forthcoming 20th anniversary on July 28 of the deadly shooting at the Seattle Jewish Federation — an event that still weighs heavily on the area’s Jewish community — which was carried out by a man who reportedly shouted during the attack, “I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel.”
In order to receive WBF’s endorsement, candidates must “make a public statement supporting the Jewish community and opposing antisemitism … We have a lot of friends who are shy, who will say, ‘Oh yes, I heard about the attack in Colorado, and I called the rabbi to express my support.’ And we say, ‘That’s lovely of you. Thank you for calling the rabbi. Will you put out a public statement?’ And they will say, ‘No, that’s not my lane.’”
Basker’s message to these candidates? “We’re not interested in being the person that you are secretly dating, but won’t introduce to your friends.”
Sam Jefferies, chair of The Kids Table, a PAC created in 2025 to support “pro-Jewish” candidates in the state, told JI, “Jews helped build the Democratic Party and contributed to political and policy victories at every level of government for more than a century. At this moment of crisis, the party should be standing firmly and unequivocally with Jews across Washington state and rejecting extremism at every turn. It isn’t.”
For all their efforts to organize, reclaiming a place in the party is not simply a matter of Jewish Democrats showing up. It requires them to navigate a political environment where they often feel both committed to the process and isolated within it. Kaplan recalled the 2024 state party convention, where he said the Jewish caucus was “not prepared.”
“As we walked in, we were given pieces of paper or leaflets from, you know, white college kids in keffiyehs, and there were three resolutions” targeting Israel. As the discussion around the resolutions began, “I came to the realization, quite honestly, that half the people that I would work with and have known for years, even Jewish ones — I wouldn’t trust them to know where Anne Frank lived.”
Taking matters into his own hands, Kaplan stood to speak against one resolution calling on the Democratic Party to support restoring funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency — funding which the Biden administration had paused earlier that year due to findings that some UNRWA employees had participated in the Oct. 7 attacks.
“I remember it’s the first time I’ve ever been afraid to speak, so I was really nervous,” Kaplan said. “I remember not getting the reaction that I would have expected to get, not being heard, and it was very painful at that moment. I vowed I was never coming back.”
The resolution passed, but Kaplan went back for this year’s convention anyway. “I still believe the Democratic Party is the best place to be,” he said.
For now, Israel’s restraint is less about hesitation, and more of a calculation that deterrence, rather than direct military engagement, will serve Jerusalem’s interests in the long term
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A cargo ship anchoring near the Strait of Hormuz off the eastern coast of the United Arab Emirates on July 12, 2026.
In recent weeks, following the collapse of the memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has fired dozens of times on Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
At the same time, it has sustained fire from the U.S., whose military bases across the region have been targeted by the Islamic Republic, with several service members killed. And all the while, Tehran has targeted commercial ships transiting through the strait.
But as focus on the conflict with Iran has shifted from addressing the Islamic Republic’s nuclear ambitions to the Strait of Hormuz, Israel has stayed out of the fighting — despite Iranian threats earlier this month to target the Jewish state if the U.S. attacks did not cease.
There is no upside for Israel to reenter the fight, especially when the issue of the Strait of Hormuz falls outside of the objectives set by Israel at the start of the war earlier this year. (This, despite the widespread sentiment among Israelis that this year’s war did not improve Israel’s security situation, according to polling last month from the Israel Democracy Institute.)
Key among the goals laid out by Israel was degrading Iran’s ballistic missile program and setting back elements of its nuclear program. Reopening Hormuz is an American objective, not an Israeli one. With Israel having made the calculus that the most immediate Iranian threats have been blunted — at least in the short term — the current mission has become an American one.
“Israel’s best move is to not move — yet,” Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Jewish Insider this morning. “Washington does the striking. Israel keeps its fire and its threats in reserve, waiting for one of two triggers: a U.S. request to join, or an Iranian regime foolish enough to hit Israel and invite the reprisal that has been promised.”
Despite Iran’s threats to target Israel, such a move would likely be a strategic misstep for the Islamic Republic. Iran’s blockade of the strait and its attacks on Arab and Gulf states are an attempt to reassert its dominance over the region and demonstrate its ability to impact the global energy market. Tehran also appears to be betting that sustained attacks across the region will push Arab states to pressure the U.S. to accept an agreement to reopen the strait, handing the Islamic Republic a win.
In that sense, Tehran is calibrating its escalation according to the expected retaliation, knowing that Arab states are, unlike Israel, hesitant to respond with military action.
One week ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking in Dimona, drew a line in the sand. “I have one message for Iran’s leaders: Do not count on there being calm if you attack us,” Netanyahu said. “Do not expect a repeat of what happened before, because there will be no repeat. The previous response was powerful enough, but any further attempt to harm us will be met with a different response — far more powerful.”
Thus far, the Arab states have shown little indication that they intend to escalate to match Iran’s attacks, and will not retaliate with a proportional response (or even a disproportionate response). But with the intermittent fire, Iran keeps the region on edge and Hormuz closed for business.
The question many Israelis are asking is how much longer the domestic quiet will continue. But unless Iran directly strikes Israel or acts in a way that compromises Jerusalem’s interests, there is little appetite in Israel to transform what has become a U.S. effort to reopen shipping routes into another round of intensive fighting between Iran and Israel. For now, Israel’s restraint is less about hesitation, and more of a calculation that deterrence, rather than direct military engagement, will serve Jerusalem’s interests in the long term.
Joel Rubin: Sanders has endorsed ‘the most categorically anti-Israel, antisemitic candidates that we've seen in a generation, if ever’
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Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) speaks to guests during the first stop on his "Fighting Oligarchy" tour, Midwest swing, at the RiverCenter on August 22, 2025 in Davenport, Iowa.
ASPEN, Colo. — Joel Rubin, a former State Department official who led Jewish outreach for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) 2020 presidential campaign, is now excoriating his former boss and the movement he has built for elevating stridently anti-Israel candidates — most notably former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.
The anti-Israel and antisemitic wave that’s taken hold on the left as a result of the efforts of Sanders and his allies, Rubin said, is bad for the Jewish community and politically unwise for the Democratic Party and for the U.S.’ own strategic interests.
“I think what Sanders and the Sanders operation have done is shove into our system the most categorically anti-Israel, antisemitic candidates that we’ve seen in a generation — if ever, certainly within the Democratic Party — and it’s by design,” Rubin said in an interview with Jewish Insider last week on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum. “It’s not by accident, and it’s very disruptive intentionally. The goal is to undermine Democratic unity and even rationality on Israel at this stage.”
He said that Sanders and his allies have directed anger and frustration toward Israel into a “highly unproductive debate about whether or not Israel should exist and whether or not we should support it or have any relationship” — rather than a “constructive” discussion of how the U.S. can work to resolve issues with a longtime ally and partner that plays an important role in American national security.
Sanders, Rubin said, has become an “outright hostile actor.”
Sanders did not respond to a request for comment.
Rubin has been particularly critical of Sanders and progressive strategists for the “creation” and promotion of Platner, whom Rubin called a manufactured “fake test tube [candidate]” out of “central casting for the left.”
He said that he’s angry with Sanders, as well as other Platner backers including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), for continuing to promote Platner even through a litany of controversies, starting with his Nazi tattoo.
Khanna declined to comment.
Rubin said Sanders and his allies, and the candidates they have promoted, have taken a similar approach in campaigns around the country, counting on a backlash toward Israel and the pro-Israel Jewish community to launch them into office.
“I’m extremely disappointed. I feel like it violates the goals of promoting peace in the Middle East and the two-state solution, and I believe that it exacerbates the pain and distress that the American Jewish community is experiencing right now in Israel policy,” Rubin said. “I had higher hopes for a senator who is Jewish, and his team who knows very well what’s out there.”
He said that the American left is now following the model of former Labour party leader in Britain, Jeremy Corbyn — who faced a damning Equality and Human Rights Commission finding of antisemitism within the party under his leadership — and the movement is “no longer progressive — it’s something much darker.”
“It’s a hate-based narrative they’re promoting,” Rubin said. He said that Sanders and others on the left are on a mission to break the Democratic Party’s ties to the Jewish state and the U.S.-Israel relationship, with no argument for how that would produce a positive outcome.
When he worked for Sanders’ 2020 campaign, Rubin said that he was “given latitude to communicate messages about him and his views on Israel and peace and antisemitism that were positive,” with a focus on solving issues and creating solutions, while disassociating from “the most hateful voices.”
“That’s no longer the case. I don’t know what’s going on inside that operation. There is no line. There is no bottom. There is no low,” Rubin said. “And what it’s doing now is gutting American Jewish confidence in the Democratic Party, which is not a way to win elections, and it’s unethical as well, considering American Jews have been a bedrock community supporting the Democratic Party.”
He said the party should be pushing for policies that move toward peace, which is “not what these people are advocating for.” He said that the effort is also playing into the hands of conservatives, allowing them to frame themselves as the only ones taking action against antisemitism.
“We need leadership, and the progressive community needs to stop scapegoating Jews for all problems in the world,” Rubin said.
Progressives like congressional candidates Scott Wiener in California and Brad Lander in New York as well as Khanna are “desperately afraid of saying anything somewhat rational about Jews and Israel for fear of being attacked” — but are facing attacks anyway, discovering that it’s impossible to satisfy far-left voices while they are pushed to take ever more extreme positions.
Rubin argued that policymakers and advocacy groups like J Street, for which he was the founding political director, have a responsibility to lead and to set boundaries of what is and is not acceptable discourse on Israel, to stand up to the extremes and to strongly reject antisemitism. “Right now, nobody’s stepping up,” Rubin said.
J Street did not respond to a request for comment.
Rubin said that President Barack Obama, under whom he served, understood the importance of continuing the U.S.-Israel relationship and of treating pro-Israel American Jews as patriotic and leaders within the Democratic Party, even as he supported policies like diplomacy with Iran. He said that level of nuance and respect has vanished.
Rubin has never been aligned with AIPAC, and was critical of its strategies in this year’s primaries, but said that the left is targeting American Jews and supporters of Israel writ large through attacks on AIPAC — a phenomenon he has personally experienced. He compared it to the targeting and marginalization of Jews in a variety of professional sectors over the past three years.
“Any person who’s Jewish who expresses any level of support [for Israel], no matter where on the spectrum, is now a Jewish person who needs to be targeted for harassment, and is described as an AIPAC [supporter] trying to insidiously control the American political system for a foreign power,” Rubin said.
“The American Jewish community doesn’t deserve this,” Rubin continued. “The Jewish American community on the Democratic side has been a foundational funder, organizer, elected leader, organizational leader, powerful leading voice of infrastructure in the liberal openness of American life in the last 50, 60 years, and now we’re getting beaten up as if we were the opponent. It’s totally offensive and it’s politically dangerous for the Democratic Party to do that as well.”
Speaking to JI as the House was voting on an amendment to cut $3.3 billion in U.S. aid to Israel, Rubin warned of the “moral hazard” of the vote, arguing that many Democrats in safe blue seats would vote in favor of the amendment for political signaling purposes — “pandering to the base” that is “very much moving into a hostile position” — knowing that the amendment was going to fail.
Rubin predicted, correctly, that moderate Democrats in purple districts, “the majority-makers,” would take a more nuanced view focused on the impacts of the policy and oppose the amendment.
He praised House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for opposing the amendment, but said that the Democratic Party is now in the midst of an “existential fight” over Israel as a result of Sanders and progressive activists making the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a “top-level issue” for the party and the left.
Rubin — who lives in Maryland — was also strongly critical of Van Hollen, saying the senator had “turned his back on the Maryland Jewish community,” despite its strong support for him in the past, particularly in his 2016 Senate race.
“The Jews of Montgomery County — our lane, our world, East Kensington — were his foundation of political and financial support,” Rubin said. “I can’t find a person who isn’t upset about what he’s done to turn his back on us.”
A Van Hollen spokesperson said in a statement, “Our office has heard from constituents from the Jewish community of Maryland who hold a wide array of views – including many that share the Senator’s concerns about the actions of the Netanyahu government. The Senator appreciates the diversity of opinions his constituents hold on these and other issues and will always respect and support their right to express their views and have a dialogue.”
Looking ahead to the 2028 election, Rubin said he’s seeing a shift in the Democratic Party. While candidates used to travel to Israel to show their support for Israel and the Jewish community, he said that candidates are going to Israel for “stunts” and for the purpose of “castigating the Israelis to curry favor with the base,” referring to recent visits by Khanna and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and predicted that other candidates would take a similar approach.
But he warned that this pandering to the Democratic base won’t win Democrats the presidency.
“If we have a candidate that only talks to the base of the party, we are not going to win the middle ground states in the upper Midwest,” Rubin said, arguing that a candidate like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has been criticized by the left for his support for Israel and Jewish identity, is far better positioned to win the White House.
Rubin also said that the U.S. should and must maintain its relationship with Israel going forward, calling it “our best ally in the Middle East” on a range of issues including fighting shared enemies, intelligence sharing and joint development of weapons systems — in addition to a range of economic and non-military benefits that are often overlooked.
He said that Democrats can be leaders in highlighting the non-military benefits of the relationship, from climate technology to a potential trade corridor through the Middle East and broader regional normalization and integration efforts.
He said that a Democratic president should harness those opportunities and move toward a similar relationship that the U.S. has with other allies like France or Japan, “a rich, diverse, legislatively supported, strong relationship that does include military-to-military cooperation, coordination and sales, but that is not the the whole relationship.”
But Rubin said that the left and the Democratic base don’t seem to have the appetite for any of that, and “that’s bad for the United States.”
The Pennsylvania senator told JI his ‘views aren't controversial, or they shouldn't be. What should be controversial is the trash that's coming out from many Democrats and out of J Street’
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is seen after the Senate luncheons in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, April 14, 2026.
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said on Monday that the votes by more than 100 House Democrats last week in favor of an effort to end all U.S. aid to Israel indicates the party is “flirting with” making opposition to Israel the official party stance, something he said would lead him to leave the caucus.
Fetterman, who has dismissed discussions about him leaving the party in recent years despite his increasing isolation from Democratic colleagues on Capitol Hill, said in a series of media appearances last week that he would leave the Democratic Party if it called for opposing offensive or defensive aid to Israel or ending the U.S.-Israel relationship in its official platform.
“It’s very clear, if the Democratic Party becomes the official anti-Israel party, then that forces me to rethink my membership in that party,” Fetterman told Jewish Insider in an interview on Monday. “Candidates run on the platform, on whatever the platform is, any one member of it effectively agrees with it. If they put that in the platform that we will never vote for aid for Israel, or we describe Israel as a genocidal or apartheid state, then yes, you have to rethink it.”
The Pennsylvania senator said that the move by nearly half of the House Democratic caucus to vote for Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)’s measure indicates the party is “flirting with” the idea of shifting its platform.
“It’s absurd. The Democratic Party are increasingly voting not to support the only Democratic state in the entire region,” Fetterman told JI. “I’m saying, effectively, you are flirting with it. You are increasingly making it more official. Inculcate it into our platform, then that’s a fundamental betrayal of the Democratic Party’s core morality.”
“I’ve been warning — I have been. Maybe two years ago I said I’ll be the last man standing if it’s what’s necessary,” he continued. “In July of ‘24, [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu had a joint address [to Congress]. I was the only Democrat that would engage him, shake his hand, get a photo with him, support the decision when every other Democrat was pushing for a ceasefire [in Gaza]. I mean, the Democratic Party was entirely wrong with that approach, and imagine what the security situation would be if Israel was pushed into a ceasefire.”
Fetterman referenced an Axios article published earlier Monday that credited the letter House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) sent to all House Democrats urging them to oppose the amendment with keeping 30 to 40 additional lawmakers from voting for the measure.
“It could have been 150 Democrats to vote against that,” Fetterman said. “I mean, that’s the direction the party’s going. … My views aren’t controversial, or they shouldn’t be. What should be controversial is the trash that’s coming out from many Democrats and out of J Street.”
The Pennsylvania senator took pointed aim at J Street, referring to the progressive Israel advocacy organization as “the embodiment of the suicidal empathy against the Jewish state of Israel” and criticizing the group for associating with Hasan Piker, the far-left streamer who has a record of antisemitic remarks.
“Nothing embodies suicidal empathy like J Street,” Fetterman said. “I wouldn’t describe them as cancer, but it’s vile the views that they are adopting, and they are becoming the useful idiots for the Hamas and Iranian propaganda machine. Are they gonna invite Hasan Piker to be on their board?”
“J Street is the group that said and gave political cover for Democrats so they don’t have to vote for Iron Dome [funding]. That’s a fact,” he continued. “They were trying to provide political cover for Democrats to say, ‘Well, J Street said it, so that seems pretty reasonable.’”
Fetterman had previously brushed off reports that efforts to recruit him to the GOP would be successful, writing in a Washington Post op-ed in May that he would “be a terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats.”
Questions about Fetterman’s future political plans began circulating again earlier this month, however, when he and Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) launched Common Ground PA, a joint fundraising committee combining two of each senator’s PACs and allowing them to fundraise together.
Fetterman warned last week that he could become a deciding swing vote in the next Congress if the Democratic Party wins control of the Senate in November, which Democrats need to flip four seats to accomplish.
“If we flip those four seats, then I would be 51,” Fetterman said Wednesday at The Hill Nation Summit. “Watch what I do.”
The Jewish former Labour leader has supported Israel’s security but has declined to identify as a Zionist
(Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images)
Newly appointed U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband departs Downing Street on July 20, 2026 in London, England.
Ed Miliband’s appointment on Monday as U.K. foreign secretary is raising questions about how the former Labour chief will influence Israel and Middle East policy under Andy Burnham, the country’s new prime minister.
Miliband, 56, had served as energy secretary under former Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who announced his resignation last month and officially departed 10 Downing St. on Monday. As the first Jewish leader of the Labour party, which he helmed from 2010-2015, Miliband has long balanced his commitment to Israel’s security with vocal criticism of the Jewish state that has fueled some tensions with British Jewish leaders.
The naming of Miliband to lead the Foreign Office has been seen as a sign that Burnham plans to adopt a tougher stance toward Israel as prime minister than his predecessor — who had already sought to cut off some arms sales to Israel while imposing sanctions on far-right Israeli ministers and recognizing a Palestinian state in a series of moves that soured ties between the U.K. and Israel.
In the days before his recent election as Labour leader, Burnham, the former mayor of Manchester, apologized for his party’s initial response to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, saying that it had been “too slow to call for a ceasefire,” and suggested he would implement further sanctions on Israel and its government along with a possible trade ban on settlements in the West Bank.
For his part, Miliband, in a statement on Monday, spoke more broadly about his approach to the Middle East, vowing the new government would “seek to end the conflict in Iran,” while “working tirelessly to seek a sustainable peace in Palestine and Israel, including an end to the terrible suffering of the people of Gaza and security for the people of Israel.”
During his past tenure as Labour leader, Miliband “certainly wasn’t an instinctive supporter of Israel, but he also wasn’t as hostile as some expected given his background,” Arieh Kovler, a political analyst in Jerusalem who previously served as the director of policy and research for Britain’s Jewish Leadership Council, told Jewish Insider. “But that was a decade ago. Attitudes to Israel have hardened across British politics and the Labour Party with it.”
Kovler added that he would expect “the Burnham government to be tougher on Israel, and for Ed Miliband as foreign secretary to be quite comfortable moving forward an agenda of, for example, sanctions on settlements and broader arms embargoes while still publicly affirming that Israel’s an ally with a right to defend itself.”
In 2014, Miliband joined most of his party’s lawmakers in what was viewed as a largely symbolic vote calling to unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state — a position formally adopted by the U.K. last September.
Prior to that vote, Miliband had publicly rebuked then-Prime Minister David Cameron, a Conservative, during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, for his “silence on the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians caused by Israel’s military action,” which he called “wrong and unjustifiable.”
Despite his critical stances, Miliband — who drew some praise from the British far left on Monday — has defended Israel’s right to self-defense and said that “there is no place in politics for those who question” the country’s existence, underscoring his personal ties to Israel, where his grandmother took refuge after surviving the Holocaust.
“My relationship with my Jewishness is complex,” he wrote in a 2014 essay. “But whose isn’t?”
While Miliband has called Israel “a homeland for the Jewish people,” he has expressed ambivalence about referring to himself as a Zionist, declining to identify explicitly as such.
“I want you to know that if I become prime minister in less than a year’s time, I will be proud to do so as a friend of Israel, a Jew and, most of all, someone who feels so proud to be part of the community gathered here,” he said in a 2014 speech to Labour Friends of Israel, after he had returned from a trip to Israel.
In his statement posted to social media on Monday, Miliband invoked his family history, noting that his parents “came to Britain as Jewish refugees from the Nazis.” His father, Ralph Miliband, was a renowned Marxist theorist, and his mother, Marion Kozak, who died in May, was a Holocaust survivor who became a staunch supporter of Palestinian rights. His brother, David, was foreign secretary from 2007-2010 under former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Miliband’s new role as foreign secretary provoked barbed reactions from some British Jewish leaders before he was even officially named to the position, replacing Yvette Cooper in part of a broader Cabinet shakeup led by Burnham, who on Monday rose to the prime ministership.
Stephen Pollard, the former longtime editor of The Jewish Chronicle, said in a lengthy post that Miliband’s appointment was the “most nauseating political appointment of my lifetime.” He harshly criticized Miliband for leading the Labour party in a 2013 vote against U.K. military action to oppose former Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad after he had used chemical weapons on his own people, calling it a “disgraceful” effort that emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade and annex Crimea the following year.
Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former British diplomat who is now a senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington, said that Miliband’s “record on Syria suggests that he will be a skeptic on any new military engagements in the region, and that he and Burnham will therefore be even less inclined than” Starmer and Cooper “to join the U.S. in its current campaign against Iran.”
In gauging Miliband’s “leanings regarding Israel, Gaza, Palestine and the Middle East relative to his colleagues and former colleagues,” Fitton-Brown told JI that “he is much less rabid than Jeremy Corbyn,” the former Labour leader who had faced accusations of antisemitism, “but more anti-Israel than either of his predecessors,” including Cooper and David Lammy.
“This may suggest that Andy Burnham, who may be described as left of Keir Starmer on this issue, will shift the U.K. government into a slightly more anti-Israel position than Starmer allowed, although he will want to avoid accusations of being soft on antisemitism,” Fitton-Brown explained.
Jonathan Freedland, a Guardian columnist in London who co-hosts the “Unholy” podcast, which covers Israel and Jewish life, told JI that Miliband “has deep personal and family ties to Israel, and when he was Labour leader more than a decade ago he said those ties informed his view of the region.”
“Clearly,” Freedland said on Monday, “the context now is very different — opinions have hardened against the current Israeli government and I would expect Ed Miliband to reflect that change and to do so trenchantly.”
Plus, Darline Graham heads for the campaign trail
Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images
A U.S. Army carry team moves the flagged-draped coffins containing the remains of the U.S. soldiers killed in an Iranian strike on March 7, 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
U.S. and Iranian leaders continued to escalate their rhetoric as renewed military hostilities entered their second week: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said today that Tehran is in “full-scale war” with the U.S., while President Donald Trump proclaimed that “every time Iran kills an American soldier” — after three service members were killed in Iranian attacks over the weekend — “they will pay for that killing many times over!” Trump said he had conveyed that directive to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine and “every leader in the military”…
U.S. officials told The New York Times that dozens of U.S. service members were injuredand several helicopters damaged in previously undisclosed Iranian strikes in Jordan last week, prior to this weekend’s fatal attacks.
The deadly strikes reportedly hit housing units where U.S. forces live and sleep, with some troops unable to reach bomb shelters before the missiles struck…
The NYT also investigates the deaths of three civilian crewmembers aboard a shadow tanker carrying Iranian oil that was targeted by U.S. strikes on June 10 as part of the American blockade of Iranian ports.
The Strait of Hormuz continues to be a focal point of the conflict, as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed today that two oil tankers had exploded after passing through the waterway…
All the while, the White House posted to its social media feed a three-week-old poll from a right-wing polling firm showing support for the now-defunct U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding signed last month, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani seemed to back away today from a campaign pledge — reiterated in an interview over the weekend — to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits New York for the upcoming U.N. General Assembly, JI’s Will Bredderman reports.
“My administration will follow all applicable local laws. That is our commitment,” the mayor told reporters. Trump, meanwhile, pledged on Truth Social that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America”…
Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) confirmed on Fox News that she will run in the special election next month for U.S. Senate to fill the seat of her late brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Darline Graham already has Trump’s endorsement, given as he encouraged her to run on Friday.
Not to be dissuaded, Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC), who was thought to be a front-runner before Darline Graham came on the scene, also declared his candidacy for the seattoday. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters he is not endorsing anyone “at the moment” in the race…
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) became the latest progressive lawmaker to endorse far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed today, citing the “special interests running millions of dollars in TV ads to buy this seat,” an apparent reference to the AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project super PAC supporting El-Sayed’s opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI)…
Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) pulled family pictures off of his campaign site that feature his son-in-law, who was found to have promoted white nationalism and Nazi ideology online, as he runs for U.S. Senate against Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA)…
The State Departmentannounced today that the Lebanese Armed Forces is assuming control of three villages in southern Lebanon as part of pilot zones established under the trilateral agreement between Israel, Lebanon and the U.S. The IDF, which is coordinating the effort with the LAF and U.S. military, said it will “respond forcefully to any violation of the agreement”…
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia today in retaliation for what the terror group called Riyadh’s “oppressive siege” on Yemen…
Former Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer has rejoined the Jewish Institute for National Security of America as a distinguished fellow, the organization announced…
⏩ 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 Ed Miliband, the member of Parliament who was tapped today by new U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham to serve as foreign secretary, and what his selection could mean for British policy toward Israel.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun will meet President Donald Trump at the White House. The two leaders’ first in-person meeting comes as Lebanon, the U.S. and Israel work to implement their trilateral agreement signed last month and as the Lebanese government seeks to demonstrate its ability to disarm and contain Hezbollah.
On the Hill, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine will appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee for a hearing on the Trump administration’s $88 billion supplemental funding request for the Pentagon.
The House Intelligence Committee will hold a hearing on the terror threat landscape ahead of the upcoming 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks with testimony from former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.
Jewish groups including the Jewish Federation of Columbia South Carolina, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Zionist Organization of America, Young Jewish Conservatives, the Jewish Community Action Network, the Focus Project, ChaiTech and Stop Antisemitism will hold a virtual national tribute to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Stories You May Have Missed
TRUST FALL
House vote on Israel aid forces pro-Israel advocates to reassess trusted allies
After 104 members of the House voted last week in favor of an amendment to eliminate military aid to Israel, pro-Israel activists who have spent years building ties with lawmakers are now wondering how to approach those relationships
NO STRINGS ATTACHED
Lawmakers split on whether Trump should have tied Syria sanctions relief to Israel normalization
Members of Congress acknowledged Israel-Syria normalization is a worthwhile goal, while recognizing the limits of the current geopolitical landscape
The mayor ran on a promise to arrest the Israeli premier but on Monday wouldn’t commit to following through
Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani seemed to shy away on Monday from a campaign vow — referenced in an interview over the weekend — to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even as he continued to lob rhetorical fusillades at the leader of the Jewish state.
The now-mayor promised to arrest Netanyahu in the early days of his run for Gracie Mansion, as he sought to consolidate the far left behind his then-longshot bid, and reiterated the promise after winning the Democratic primary.
“My administration will follow all applicable local laws," Mayor Zohran Mamdani told reporters about arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — what legal experts and Gov. Kathy Hochul say is outside the NYPD's powers.
— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 20, 2026
Read more: https://t.co/xLADaz8fBu pic.twitter.com/hDC8VCtn9p
Legal experts and even Gov. Kathy Hochul have asserted this lies outside the powers of the NYPD. But the democratic socialist maintained in a weekend interview with The New York Times that an “active conversation” remained ongoing in the city’s law department about his ability to enforce a warrant from the International Criminal Court — of which the U.S. is not a member — to take the Israeli prime minister into custody if he comes to New York for the upcoming U.N. General Assembly meeting.
But Mamdani seemed to acknowledge on Monday that such a move might exceed his authority.
“My administration will follow all applicable local laws, that is our commitment, that is something will follow through on, when it comes to adherence to local laws,” the mayor told reporters after an unrelated event, stressing again when pressed: “We will follow our local laws.”
“I believe that when someone is charged with an International Criminal Court warrant, it’s something that should be taken seriously, whether it’s Benjamin Netanyahu or it’s [Russian President] Vladimir Putin or whomever else,” the mayor said.
Nonetheless, the mayor criticized Netanyahu as the “architect of the genocide of Palestinians” and affirmed his earlier assertion that the Israeli leader is a “war criminal.”
President Donald Trump, for his part, took to Truth Social after Mamdani’s sitdown with the Times to promise that Netanyahu “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”
The former ambassador told JI a Netanyahu loss in October’s elections would be a ‘very healthy thing’ for the U.S.-Israel relationship
(Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
Former US ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro speaks at a Conference of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), in Tel Aviv, on February 25, 2025.
ASPEN, Colo. — Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro argued on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum last week that without new leadership in Israel — meaning a defeat for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel’s elections — he does not know how Israel can repair its reputation in the United States.
“I don’t see a path to repairing Israel’s deteriorating standing in the United States on both sides of the aisle without a change of leadership in Israel,” Shapiro told Jewish Insider in an interview, a sentiment he repeated during a panel on Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship at the conference.
Shapiro said that a “wise Israeli government” would pay attention to its “deteriorating standing in the United States” and that the “Israeli public might want to bear that in mind too as they prepare to go to the polls in October.”
Asked whether he thinks some in the U.S. are pinning broader criticisms of Israel on Netanyahu personally, Shapiro emphasized that there’s “a lot of history and a lot of emotion and a lot of associations with the prime minister,” who is “very present in our media, in our politics.”
Netanyahu, he said, is associated with many of the biggest flashpoints in U.S.-Israel relations including opposition to former President Barack Obama and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the wars in Gaza and Iran and the rise of his far-right Cabinet ministers.
“Probably a very healthy thing for the U.S.-Israel relationship would be if 95% of Americans do not know the name of the Israeli prime minister, and that’s a possible outcome out of this election,” Shapiro said. “That doesn’t guarantee it fixes everything by any stretch. There’s work to do, but that’s a different starting point.”
Israel, he continued, won’t be able to placate all of the critics of its continued efforts to defend itself, but he said there are other steps it can take to improve attitudes in the U.S., including cracking down on “the Jewish terror wave against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank,” providing withheld funds to the Palestinian Authority, stopping settlement expansion and moving more assertively to implement the U.S.-led 20-point peace plan for Gaza.
Speaking to JI shortly after more than 100 House Democrats voted to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel, Shapiro said that, while there’s “legitimate ground for concern and for criticism” of Israel’s operations in Gaza, cutting off all $3.3 billion wholesale is not “a very thoughtful way” to address concerns about civilian harm. He also emphasized the responsibility Hamas bears for intentionally endangering Palestinian civilians.
“We have an ongoing U.S. interest in ensuring Israel can defend itself from a lot of very dangerous enemies who are also our enemies,” Shapiro said. “There are much more thoughtful and much more careful and nuanced ways of trying to get at the real problem, which is ensuring that U.S. equipment — which Israel may need, and which we’ve made some commitment to, to defend themselves where they legitimately have a need to do so — is not used in a way that produces unacceptable civilian casualties.”
He said the current debate, at its heart, touches on the fundamental question of whether the U.S.-Israel relationship continues to serve American interests, which he strongly believes it does.
“If we were to see a real deterioration and distancing of the U.S. and Israel, for the long term, we’d find that our own interests and our own ability to defend our own influence and our own ability to defend our interests in the Middle East would be significantly compromised,” Shapiro said.
He said that severing the U.S.-Israel relationship would embolden Iran and its proxies — which are also enemies of America — to undermine the regional defense architecture that the U.S. has spent years building, leading U.S. allies to pull away from the Washington and hedge with Iran.
Shapiro said during the panel that those calling for a total dismantling from the U.S.-Israel relationship should be asked to address that policy’s second-order effects on U.S. interests and American influence in the region.
While Shapiro acknowledged that polling has shown that many in the U.S. have a negative impression of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, he does not necessarily believe that means that most Americans want to see the U.S.-Israel relationship severed entirely.
Shapiro argued to JI that there’s a “broad middle” of the Democratic Party, on both sides of the Israel aid vote, that continues to support Israel’s right to exist and has reasonable conversations about the future of the party. On the extremes, however, there are some, including prominent leaders, who do not believe Israel has a right to exist, which Shapiro called strategically wrong, morally wrong and a political mistake.
“I think we’ll end up losing in the swing areas and swing districts and states if we marry ourselves to that most extreme attitude on this issue,” Shapiro, who served under former President Barack Obama, said, emphasizing that extreme anti-Israel candidates have so far only succeeded in deep-blue districts.
Shapiro predicted that the U.S. looks to be on the path toward ending assistance to Israel, whether that be immediately or over time, depending on negotiations between the two sides over the next memorandum of understanding.
“If there’s going to be an MOU, that should [include] some sort of review process or some sort of consultation process to ensure that [U.S.] standards are met, as well as the regular enforcement of U.S. law and U.S. requirements,” Shapiro said.
He predicted that ending U.S. aid to Israel would also lead to an end to the U.S.’ financial support for the Egyptian and Jordanian militaries — other top recipients of U.S. military financing — which could lead those countries to look elsewhere for military weapons, including U.S. adversaries.
Shapiro was critical of the Trump administration’s approach to the war in Iran — in contrast with his support for the strikes in 2025 on Iran’s nuclear program — describing the administration as stuck in a spiral of repeated threats without a focused or sustained strategy.
He said that the U.S. could plausibly have claimed victory in the first few weeks of the war, but missed the opportunity to do so, and “all the leverage swung over” to Iran once it closed the Strait of Hormuz.
“I knew that to end it would require a very weak deal, and I supported a very weak deal to end a very dumb war. I just didn’t expect the MOU to be as weak as it was,” Shapiro said. “It was absurdly so. It gave away massive sanctions relief even before beginning discussions on the nuclear program. It left Iran with the clear impression that they did have permanent authority to control the strait.”
He said there is no clear end strategy for the conflict now, adding that he generally agrees with the basic strategy laid out at the Security Forum by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice — to “let the Iranians stew in the juice of the sanctions.”
On the panel, Shapiro also argued that Vice President JD Vance’s comments on Joe Rogan’s podcast blaming an Israeli influence campaign for undermining the MOU with Iran leaned into antisemitic tropes.
“It was frankly an attempt to cast blame on somebody else for the really unsuccessful MOU following an unsuccessful war and trying to blame it on a third party — who was a party to the war, but not really to the negotiation on the MOU,” Shapiro said. “I really think that was uncalled for.”
Members of Congress acknowledged Israel-Syria normalization is a worthwhile goal, while recognizing the limits of the current geopolitical landscape
Syrian Presidency/Anadolu via Getty Images
President Donald Trump meets with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa at the White House on Nov. 10, 2025.
As the Trump administration moves to end the diplomatic isolation of Syria, dismantling decades of U.S. sanctions in the process, lawmakers are offering mixed assessments of whether Washington should have conditioned that relief on steps toward normalizing relations with Israel.
Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) told Jewish Insider the Trump administration “should be urging” Damascus to improve economic and political relations with Jerusalem in exchange for sanctions relief, “but I would say that you’ve got to have a consistent standard.”
Sherman noted he would “like to see Syria move in that direction,” toward joining the Abraham Accords, “even if they can’t join the accords yet.” However, he cautioned that the administration’s leverage depends on what Damascus is seeking, drawing a distinction between whether Syria is asking for direct U.S. aid or “if they’re simply asking for the same normal treatment” that the U.S. provides to other sovereign nations.
“We need to do everything we can to see Syria succeed and write a new chapter, and our support needs to come with expectations and accountability,” Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) told JI. “The United States has an opportunity to work to bring Syrians and Israelis together to an agreement that will not just improve the lives of people living on each side of the border, but help pave the path towards better stability throughout the region.”
Congress and the Treasury Department lifted the U.S.’ longstanding sanctions on Syria unconditionally in June 2025.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) agreed that the Trump administration should be pursuing normalization as part of its efforts with Damascus, but said the current focus on prioritizing stability is a “worthwhile objective” and “positive” effort.
“I think a stable, democratic [Syria] may be too much of a hope, but a stable and non-terrorist-supporting Syria is important to the Middle East and to the United States of America and to some type of global stability,” Hoyer said to JI. “Efforts to normalize the government are positive and part of that will ultimately involve normalizing relations between their neighbor Israel and themselves, and I think that will be determined by [Syria’s] performance.”
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-TX), meanwhile, deferred to the White House’s diplomatic strategy. “I would let the administration do the negotiations as it relates to Syria. I’m not part of those discussions, but Trump is trying to make the world a safer and a better place for everybody, and so if he can find a way to cut some deals, I support it.”
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) told JI he would like to see relations between Syria and Israel improve, but did not push back on the White House lifting sanctions before that progress was made.
“No, I just think it’s something we look at. It’s always going to be a variable, but words are cheap, actions are where we got to see it,” Burchett said. “I haven’t trusted Syria as far as I can throw them, so we’ll just see what happens. I’d prefer they normalize relations with Israel, but I mean that fight has been going on since before the time of Christ. I don’t know that we’re going to solve it by signing a piece of paper.”
Foreign policy experts told JI that normalization between Israel and Syria remains stalled by highly complex territorial and political issues, making it unrealistic to leverage relief on such progress.
“Normalization between Israel and Syria is not remotely close and shouldn’t even be on anyone’s radar,” said Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at the Israel Policy Forum. “Expecting any imminent normalization between Syria and Israel given decades of enmity, an ongoing IDF presence in southern Syria and severe disagreements over Syrian policy toward its Druze and Kurdish minorities is not realistic.”
Koplow explained that the administration is focused on “taking advantage of the end of the Assad regime” to give the nascent government “a chance to succeed,” while pulling Damascus toward Washington and away from hostile regional actors.
“U.S. policy towards Syria should not be judged on whether it is going to normalize with Israel, but over other more pressing and imminent concerns that impact U.S. priorities,” Koplow said.
John Hannah, a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, agreed that normalization with Israel “hasn’t been on the agenda.”
“In Syria’s eyes, and certainly in the eyes of [Syrian President Ahmad al-]Sharaa and the ex-jihadists who came to power with him, normalization without recovering the Golan Heights is an absolute non-starter and would be widely viewed as abject and unacceptable surrender and capitulation,” Hannah said. “Of course, it goes without saying that any discussion about withdrawing from the Golan is equally anathema in Israel. So I just don’t see normalization as being in the cards right now.”
Israel formally annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, after capturing the territory from Syria in the 1967 War. The IDF has held additional territory in southern Syria as a security zone since the collapse of the Assad regime.
President Donald Trump reportedly asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this month to pull back IDF troops from Syria.
Still, Hannah noted that al-Sharaa has shown “no interest whatsoever in fighting with Israel” since rising to power and has taken positive steps toward Jerusalem.
“On the contrary, for most of 2025 [al-Sharaa] was practically begging Israel to resurrect, update and strengthen the Israel-Syria disengagement agreement of 1974,” Hannah said. “Indeed, for the first time in 25 years, al-Sharaa, the former Al-Qaida leader, authorized direct Israel-Syria negotiations under U.S. auspices to reach a new security agreement.”
Hannah suggested the U.S. still has an opportunity to “play some hardball” and use rolling back Syria’s State Sponsor of Terrorism designation as leverage. Trump formally initiated the process to lift the designation, which has been applied to Syria since 1979, earlier this month.
The White House could press “for an expansion of security, economic and social relations with Israel,” Hannah said. “That’s separate from a demand for full normalization, which I just don’t see as realistic under present circumstances.”
Al-Sharaa has worked to earn the overtures from Washington by cooperating with U.S. priorities, Hannah argued.
“He ensured Iran and Hezbollah’s eviction from Syria and has systematically fought their efforts to maintain Iran’s land bridge to Lebanon, engaging in several firefights with Hezbollah units trying to smuggle weapons across the border,” Hannah said. “He directed his security forces to work closely with CENTCOM in combating ISIS, cooperated with the U.N. to come clean on Assad’s chemical weapons program and constrained the ability of Palestinian terrorist groups to operate from Syrian soil.”
Despite these positive security developments, analysts warn that serious issues remain about al-Sharaa’s governance.
“There should be concerns about ongoing extremism within the ranks of Syrian leadership and the military, and the al-Sharaa government’s ties to Turkey and to what extent Syria is going to trade Iranian domination for Turkish domination,” Koplow said.
Hannah raised similar alarms regarding the internal makeup of the transitional government and its growing reliance on neighboring powers.
“There is definitely a legitimate question of whether Trump surrendered America’s overwhelming economic leverage too cheaply by not demanding even more from Sharaa,” Hannah said. “For example, by requiring the decommissioning of radical jihadist groups that he incorporated wholesale into his new army, holding to account those forces in his service that committed massacres against Alawites and Druze civilians in 2025 and guaranteeing full rights and protections to Syria’s disparate religious and ethnic minorities, including the Kurds who fought alongside the U.S. against ISIS for more than a decade.”
After 104 members of the House voted last week in favor of an amendment to eliminate military aid to Israel, pro-Israel activists who have spent years building ties with lawmakers are now wondering how to approach those relationships
(Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu via Getty Images)
A group of demonstrators hold a noise protest outside the Democratic National Committee Headquarters in Washington D.C., United States on October 31, 2024.
Before AIPAC began spending tens of millions of dollars per election cycle on campaigns, back when it was purely an advocacy organization that touted its relationships with many of the 535 members of Congress, the pro-Israel group used to describe its approach to Capitol Hill with a cheeky, upbeat motto: “You have friends, and you have potential friends.”
But when former Bay Area AIPAC leader Naomi Lauter used to invoke the slogan, she added a third category: “Friends who have a little less potential than others.” Lauter died in 2017, but the saying still resonates with her son, Sam, who is a major Democratic donor and pro-Israel activist in his own right — and who is now wondering whether that third category might be growing even larger.
After 104 members of the House voted last week in favor of an amendment to eliminate all $3.3 billion in annual military aid to Israel, pro-Israel activists across the country who have spent years building ties with lawmakers are now wondering how to approach those relationships following a vote that some see as a betrayal. Even many longtime Israel supporters — including Reps. Jack Auchincloss (D-MA), Glenn Ivey (D-MD), Laura Friedman (D-CA), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Pat Ryan (D-NY) — voted for the amendment, which did not pass. Pro-Israel activists who spent years building trust and gaining access to these lawmakers are now grappling with whether whether those relationships are still worth their continued investment.
To borrow from AIPAC’s old slogan: Are the lawmakers who voted for the amendment still considered friends — or potential friends — of the U.S.-Israel relationship? Or was their vote against the annual aid package to Israel, and against a bill that was opposed by a wide swath of nonpartisan and Democratic Jewish groups, a crossing-the-Rubicon moment that cannot be undone?
Friends and backers of the members of Congress who voted for the amendment are struggling to answer those questions. Several who spoke to Jewish Insider said that a single vote on a measure that was sure to fail should not spell the end of years of friendship. But even as they acknowledged the seismic reverberations of the vote, many also spoke of the need to tread carefully at a politically uncertain moment.
“Our issues are too important to not hold onto the ability to have a conversation with the person, because the votes are not going to end. It’s not going to all of a sudden stop,” Sam Lauter said. He talked to several members of Congress in the days before the vote, including Pelosi, urging them to vote no.
“It’s not a good trend line, but also this idea that we’ve lost the Democrats — let’s not create self-fulfilling prophecies here. There’s an opportunity for us to turn some of this around,” Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, said. “I am optimistic that several of them could be flipped if the vote had actual consequences, and I think that’s the job ahead of us.”
“Now, if someone said to me, ‘You know what, I voted yes, and my reasoning was because actually I don’t think we should be allies with Israel anymore, and I have no interest in the friendship with the community or the country, I’m done.’ Well, OK, that friendship’s done,” said Lauter.
This vote was destined to fail, but Tyler Gregory, CEO of the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, called it “a dress rehearsal.” It will not be the last time U.S. aid to Israel comes up for a vote, and Gregory said he will need to lean on those lawmaker relationships in the future when the vote is more consequential.
“It’s not a good trend line, but also this idea that we’ve lost the Democrats — let’s not create self-fulfilling prophecies here. There’s an opportunity for us to turn some of this around,” Gregory said. “I am optimistic that several of them could be flipped if the vote had actual consequences, and I think that’s the job ahead of us.”
Halie Soifer, who served as an advisor to then-Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), now leads the Jewish Democratic Council of America, which urged members to vote against the amendment — as did Democratic Majority for Israel and the more liberal J Street. She called the vote “an inflection point,” but said the group is not considering removing its endorsements of lawmakers who supported the amendment.
“We’ve maintained a very consistent, principled position with regard to aid for Israel, and it’s not us that shifted,” Soifer said. “There is clearly a fast-moving shift within the Democratic Party itself, and we’re considering what that means.”
When asked whether she had ever seen so many candidates shift their positions on an issue within a single two-year election cycle, Soifer answered directly: “Absolutely not.”
AIPAC responded to the vote by no longer allowing donations, through its political action committee, to the 18 lawmakers it endorsed who voted for the measure.
“AIPAC members across the country watched this vote closely and are making sure their representatives in Congress who stood on principle hear that they’re appreciated,” AIPAC spokesperson Deryn Sousa told JI.
“The reality is these are our representatives. There is a relationship that we have with most of them, and they continue to be our representatives today, tomorrow, next week,” said Jeremy Burton, the CEO of the Greater Boston Jewish Community Relations Council. “The ones who say, ‘No, I’m still committed to Israel’s security and the Jewish community,’ things like that — and I’m not going to quote any one of them — but the ones who are saying that in these private conversations, it’s incumbent upon them now to show what that means.”
Many activists who have relationships with lawmakers are taking the long view, arguing that cutting ties now will not help in future battles. For a lot of them, Israel is not the only issue about which they are concerned.
Jeremy Burton, the CEO of the Greater Boston Jewish Community Relations Council, said he knows that some Jewish Bostonians have told Massachusetts’ congressional representatives, all of whom voted for the amendment, that this moment represents a “break point.” But as the leader of a nonpartisan organization, he cannot end relationships over a disagreement on one vote. He has other issues — such as nonprofit security funding and cooperation on fighting antisemitism — to consider.
“The reality is these are our representatives. There is a relationship that we have with most of them, and they continue to be our representatives today, tomorrow, next week,” said Burton. “The ones who say, ‘No, I’m still committed to Israel’s security and the Jewish community,’ things like that — and I’m not going to quote any one of them — but the ones who are saying that in these private conversations, it’s incumbent upon them now to show what that means.”
For one Jewish former Biden administration staffer, voting to cut off security aid to Israel must be the red line.
“They’re like, ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s just symbolic.’ Well, no, you’re telling us not to care about it, but clearly other people care about it, and that’s why you’re voting in that way,” said the staffer, who requested anonymity to speak about communal organizations they support. “I don’t think the Jewish community should be giving these people a pass right now, and I believe that’s actually creating an incentive for them to actually take these votes against us and against our interests, because there’s no political consequence or repercussions for them.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Thursday that Democrats will adopt a new approach to Israel if the party regains control of the House in November. “The current status quo is unsustainable,” said Jeffries, who voted no on the amendment.
“On one hand, I am really disappointed to see some true friends of mine and Israel vote for the [amendment] or vote ‘present,’” said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, a Jewish philanthropist and disability rights advocate in Maryland. “On the other hand, as an American and as a Jew, I am horrified by how Netanyahu and his administration treat Palestinians in the West Bank, give Haredim the ability to be draft-dodgers and don’t show empathy when legitimate security operations accidentally kill an innocent child.”
Many of the 103 Democrats who voted “yes” released statements saying that they still support America’s relationship with Israel, but that they viewed the amendment as a symbolic way to tell Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that they disagreed with his handling of the wars in Gaza and Iran.
In doing so, they tapped into a difficult reality for many of the Jewish activists who wanted to see the measure defeated. Many of those activists also wish Netanyahu would do more to take the concerns of Democrats and liberal Jews into account, even as they think Washington should continue supporting Jerusalem’s security needs.
“On one hand, I am really disappointed to see some true friends of mine and Israel vote for the [amendment] or vote ‘present,’” said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, a Jewish philanthropist and disability rights advocate in Maryland. “On the other hand, as an American and as a Jew, I am horrified by how Netanyahu and his administration treat Palestinians in the West Bank, give Haredim the ability to be draft-dodgers and don’t show empathy when legitimate security operations accidentally kill an innocent child.”
In Los Angeles, Democratic donor and pro-Israel activist Howard Welinsky said many of the “yes” votes were a result of political “noise” — namely, concerns about current or future primary challengers from the left. “It’s the volume of the noise, and some members of Congress have more intellectual capacity to withstand it, and others have less,” said Welinsky.
So he is holding out hope that a change in Israel’s political leadership might help rectify Israel’s plummeting support among Democrats. “I just pray that Oct. 27” — the day Israel goes to elections — “gives Israel a new prime minister, and we can turn a page,” said Welinsky.
The retiring liberal Democrat also pointed out the contingent of anti-Israel lawmakers in the caucus
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) speaks during a Congressional briefing on Iran held by the Organization of Iranian American Communities on Capitol Hill on April 16, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) told CNN he left the Congressional Progressive Caucus last year — and decided not to run for reelection this year — in part because of the rise in socialist leadership in the caucus.
“I just found it to be not the same caucus I joined in 2007. It had become more the socialist caucus, and most of the leadership was socialist Democrats,” Cohen, a longtime progressive, said in an interview with the outlet. “I didn’t feel comfortable in it.”
The Democrat said there’s now a growing contingent of anti-Israel Democrats as well within the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which he said was not present when he first came to the Hill.
“There certainly were not people who were so anti-Israel when I started, and there are within the progressive caucus now,” Cohen said.
The chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus is Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), who won his seat in 2022 on an anti-Israel platform. The caucus’ vice-chair is Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who has long been one of the most outspoken detractors of Israel in Congress and has been subject to censures over allegations of antisemitism.
Cohen, who announced his retirement after Tennessee Republicans carved up his congressional district, predicted that he would have faced antisemitic attacks over his stance on Israel if he had run for reelection.
Before redistricting, Cohen was facing a challenge from far-left state Sen. Justin Pearson, who was campaigning on an anti-Israel platform.
“I foresaw it getting really nasty and antisemitism getting into it,” Cohen said.
Cohen also told CNN that Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) had not spoken to him since he voted to censure her for sharing a video that included the slogan “from the river to the sea” and after she accused former President Joe Biden of supporting genocide.
The pro-Israel advocacy group now allows its supporters to donate to 178 Republicans and 72 Democrats running for Congress
Alex Wong/Getty Images
A visitor holds an AIPAC folder in an elevator in Rayburn House Office Building on March 12, 2024 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
Days after 104 members of Congress voted in favor of a measure that sought to end U.S. aid to Israel, AIPAC will no longer allow donations through its political action committee to 18 lawmakers it endorsed who voted in favor of the legislation.
The group did not announce the change. But the endorsement page on AIPAC’s political giving portal — where supporters can donate to candidates who have been endorsed by AIPAC — removed the option for individuals to route money to those lawmakers.
AIPAC now allows its supporters to donate to 72 Democratic candidates in the House and Senate, compared to 178 Republican candidates — meaning 71% of the candidates the group is now actively supporting are Republicans, and just 29% are Democrats.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), an anti-Israel Republican who was defeated this year in a GOP primary, introduced the amendment to a State Department funding bill knowing it would fail, which it did: 314 members voted against it.
He was the only Republican to support it, along with 103 Democrats. Ten Democrats voted present on the amendment, which would have eliminated the $3.3 billion in annual foreign military financing provided by the U.S. to Israel, according to the terms of the 2016 memorandum of understanding between the two countries.
The 18 AIPAC endorsees who voted in favor of the measure were Reps. Gabe Amo (D-RI), Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Julia Brownley (D-CA), Katherine Clark (D-MA), Laura Friedman (D-CA), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Josh Harder (D-CA), Steven Horsford (D-NV), Glenn Ivey (D-MD), Julie Johnson (D-TX), Bill Keating (D-MA), Seth Magaziner (D-RI), Richard Neal (D-MA), Joe Neguse (D-CO), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Brittany Pettersen (D-CO), Pat Ryan (D-NY) and Adam Smith (D-WA).
On its website, AIPAC delineates retiring lawmakers, who are no longer raising money, with a brief explanation thanking them for their “ongoing support for the U.S.-Israel relationship.” On the profiles of retiring Reps. Brownley, Pelosi and Johnson, AIPAC removed the line expressing thanks.
Three AIPAC-endorsed lawmakers — Reps. Shontel Brown (D-OH), Sarah Elfreth (D-MD) and Chris Pappas (D-NH) — voted “present” on the measure. AIPAC is still supporting them.
The group did not formally rescind its endorsement of any lawmakers after the vote, according to an AIPAC source, even though they are no longer going to receive financial support from the organization.
An AIPAC spokesperson declined to comment.
Plus, Lindsey's legislative legacy
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) speaks during a Democratic Steering and Policy Committee hearing in the U.S. Capitol on April 10, 2025 in Washington, DC
Good Friday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we cover Rep. Adam Smith’s comments that he was pressured to vote to end U.S. aid to Israel by violent, far-left activists, and report on Rep. Pat Ryan’s offer to return donations from individuals who oppose his vote against Israel aid. We do a deep dive into how anti-Israel candidates raised and spent money ahead of their primaries, and look at how Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sudden death has left the South Carolina Republican’s legislative priorities in limbo. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ted Deutch, Hakeem Jeffries and Marco Rubio.
We have also launched 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: Tributes pour in after death of Lindsey Graham, Israel’s staunch defender in the Senate; Vance alleges Israeli influence campaigns ‘manipulating’ American opinion on Iran war; In Georgia’s Senate race, tough choices ahead for the state’s Jewish community. Print the latest edition here.
What We’re Watching
- The Aspen Security Forum concludes this afternoon. This morning, Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and John Cornyn (R-TX) will join former NSA Director Timothy Haugh for a panel on American leadership in an era of advancing technologies.
- The Knesset voted this morning to dissolve itself, sending the body into recess until after the Oct. 27 election.
- We’ll be watching the situation in the Middle East as the U.S. continues to expand its campaign against Iran. Tehran for the first time on Friday acknowledged that the U.S. had struck the Islamic Republic’s energy infrastructure, with the country’s energy ministry calling for residents of the southern provinces to conserve electricity as the area is “currently experiencing extreme heat and attacks on power infrastructure.”
- Meanwhile, Chevron is expected to sign deals today that would see the company invest in two Iraqi oil fields and join a broader consortium looking to build a pipeline to connect Iraq to the Syrian coast as it looks for alternatives to the Strait of Hormuz.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S JOSH KRAUSHAAR
The second-quarter congressional fundraising reports, which were posted on Wednesday, paint a picture of far-left, anti-Israel candidates drawing financial fuel from a growing small-dollar donor network of like-minded individuals.
Nearly all of the Democratic Socialists of America-aligned or virulently anti-Israel candidates were among the Democrats’ leading fundraisers, including lawmakers (like Reps. Rashida Tlaib [D-MI] and Ilhan Omar [D-MN]) who are not facing particularly competitive races.
The highlights: Abdul El-Sayed raised $4.6 million between April and June in the Michigan Senate primary, more than double the $2.1 million that Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) brought in. Disgraced former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner took in a whopping $9.1 million before dropping out amid allegations of rape, outpacing Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-ME) $5.7 million haul.
On the House side, the DSA duo who won New York City congressional nominations last month — doctoral student Darializa Avila Chevalier and state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez — nearly hit the million-dollar mark in fundraising.
Avila Chevalier raised $952,000 in the run-up to her primary against Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), coming close to matching the Congressional Hispanic Caucus chairman’s fundraising. Meanwhile, Valdez brought in $942,000 for the quarter, significantly more than the party-backed progressive favorite Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president.
The list goes on: Adam Hamawy’s past ties to Islamist radicals didn’t prevent him from winning the nomination in New Jersey’s 12th District, and certainly didn’t stunt his fundraising. Hamawy raised $987,000 in the second quarter, a staggering sum for a low-profile open-seat race. That’s well more than double the total of his nearest fundraising rival.
Melat Kiros, the 29-year-old DSA-backed insurgent who ousted Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), also outraised the longtime lawmaker in the homestretch of the campaign. Kiros brought in $712,000 between April and June, while DeGette only raised $694,000.
What does this say about the state of our politics?
PRESSURE COOKER
Smith says he was pressured to vote against Israel aid by violent, far-left activists
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, indicated he voted to cut off military aid to Israel in part because of sustained personal threats against his family and his staff, part of what he described as a violent and relentless campaign of intimidation by far-left anti-Israel activists, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
U-turn: Smith voted on Wednesday to support an amendment introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to strip $3.3 billion in U.S. aid to Israel from the 2027 State Department appropriations bill — a major reversal by the hawkish Democrat after he previously told JI he planned to oppose the measure. In a statement explaining his vote in favor, the high-ranking defense lawmaker said it was a “very close vote.” He said that despite voting to cut off U.S. aid, he was “deeply concerned” about the tactics used by far left activists to pressure him to support such a measure.
Letter of the law: Several House Republicans sent a letter on Thursday to the Department of Justice calling for an investigation into whether New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his international affairs commissioner, Ana María Archila, violated the Logan Act by scheduling a meeting with the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations.
RETURN POLICY
Pat Ryan says he’ll refund AIPAC donors who ask following vote to end U.S. aid to Israel
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) said on Thursday that he no longer wants AIPAC’s endorsement and would be “returning the funds” the group’s PAC had sent his campaign, following his vote on Wednesday, along with 102 other Democrats, to cut off all aid to Israel. The Hudson Valley Democrat also said he would refund individual donors who had previously supported his campaign if they made the request, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
No thanks: “I expect groups like AIPAC will not support me in my future elections and frankly, I don’t want their support,” he wrote in a social media post explaining his vote, saying he would no longer back $3.3 billion in annual military aid to Israel. In a separate post, Ryan confirmed he did not want AIPAC’s endorsement and would be “returning the funds” sent to his campaign. A spokesperson for Ryan clarified that he was returning AIPAC’s “PAC funds.” Ryan added, “I am grateful for any individual donor who has supported my campaign. My position is clear and if an individual requests a refund, I will happily provide it.”
Changing course: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Thursday that should Democrats regain control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections, the party will adopt a “broadly inclusive” but fundamentally new approach to policy on Israel, JI’s Matthew Shea reports.
HEARD AT ASPEN
Turkish national security advisor shrugs off Iranian nuclear program, sidesteps questions on Russian missile system
Akif Çağatay Kılıç, a top foreign policy and security advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, downplayed the threat posed to the region by Iran’s nuclear program, while also repeatedly sidestepping questions about the status of Turkey’s Russian S-400 missile-defense system and efforts to acquire F-35 fighter jets, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports from the Aspen Security Forum.
Nothing to see here: “I don’t perceive that we have a nuclear threat to the level that is being talked about, but we are closely monitoring it, and we’re talking to our Iranian colleagues and friends on how they perceive to be working on their nuclear program — civil nuclear program,” Kılıç said.
Alternative view: Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Ayman Safadi repeatedly emphasized on Wednesday that any deal with Iran should be comprehensive and ensure an end to Iran’s support for proxy groups and confront its efforts to destabilize the region.
TED TALK
Ted Deutch criticizes ex-colleagues’ votes on ‘meaningless,’ ‘ridiculous’ Massie amendment
American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch, who served as a Democratic member of Congress from 2010-2022, expressed frustration and disappointment with the decision of half of his former caucus to vote this week for an amendment to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel. The issue, Deutch told Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod in an interview Thursday on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum, is too important and too sensitive for what some supporters characterized as a show vote on an amendment, led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), that even many of its supporters saw as deeply flawed.
What he said: Deutch said that he was “glad to see” that many of his colleagues acknowledged that the amendment was “bad policy” and “indirectly acknowledg[ed] that it would damage American interests.” Deutch added, “And yet [they] turned around to vote for it anyway. That was just a really disappointing reflection of the moment.”
Also at Aspen: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) argued on a panel that the war with Iran had irreparably damaged the U.S.’ reputation and capacity in the Middle East, and that Gulf states would now need to take the lead and negotiate with Iran over the region’s future. On a separate panel, Herro Mustafa Garg, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt, said the rift between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hurts U.S. interests in the region and Washington should work to bring the countries and other Gulf Cooperation Council states back together.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Lindsey Graham’s sudden death leaves his legislative priorities in limbo
Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) sudden death last weekend is complicating an already difficult dynamic between Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump, as legislators try to muster enough support in the caucus to pass the president’s key legislative priorities, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
The gap left by Graham: Graham’s committee chairmanships, vast donor network and his close relationship with Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio made him a critical leader in Washington whose presence helped move forward multiple bipartisan efforts, especially on foreign policy. He became one of the most geopolitically connected members of Congress, with world leaders and captains of industry on speed dial. “It’s impossible to fill that void, No. 1, so I’ll just take that off the table,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told JI at a press conference on Wednesday at NRSC headquarters on Capitol Hill.
analysis
How socialist candidates cashed in during the left-wing wave
The latest fundraising filing period highlighted the diverse donor bases backing some of the most outspoken critics of Israel and capitalism, with candidates raking in hundreds of thousands from executives and entrepreneurs in tech, medicine and finance. Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman looked into how ascendant anti-Israel candidates raised and spent money just before and after their primaries.
Doctors’ notes: Darializa Avila Chevalier, the radical grad student who defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), reported nearly $350,000 in donations in the last three weeks of June. Among the many medical professionals to cut checks to Avila Chevalier was Dr. Mohammed Hadi, a Long Island-based physician charged in 2015 with conspiring to defraud Medicare and distribute oxycodone. Hadi ultimately pleaded guilty in 2024 to misdemeanor theft of government funds.
Read the full round-up here of how some of the most prominent figures got that windfall — and what they did with it.
Worthy Reads
Take This Sabbath Day: In The Wall Street Journal, David Bashevkin reflects on the benefits of unplugging during Shabbat. “The modern world desperately needs a weekly rhythm of rest. But if unplugging promises greater focus, stronger families and richer communities, why has it proved so difficult? The answer isn’t simply that we’re addicted to our phones. It’s that unplugging isn’t enough. A Sabbath isn’t merely the absence of technology. It is the presence of something richer. … The world doesn’t need more reminders to turn off its phones. We’re already receiving plenty of those. What we need is a culture capable of making that unplugging last. In racing toward the future, we are searching for something the ancient world never stopped handing down.” [WSJ]
Echoes of Weimar: In The Free Press, Rod Dreher, who is working on a book about the parallels between Weimar Germany and the present, looks at Vice President JD Vance’s embrace of antisemitic elements of the GOP and recent comments suggesting an Israeli role in scuttling talks with Iran. “As in Weimar Germany and the early years of Nazi rule, Jews were the canary in the cultural, political, and religious coal mine. They still are. Von Papen conservatism, in which respectable right-wing leaders seek to hold on to power by accommodating themselves to extremists, is a dangerous game, and a losing one. Of course criticism of Israel should not be taboo in American political discourse, but that is not what stab-in-the-back scapegoating of the Jewish state and its supporters for decisions made by the commander in chief amounts to.” [FreePress]
Does He Have Any Trump Cards?: Tablet’s Lee Smith considers President Donald Trump’s options vis-a-vis Iran amid stalled talks with Tehran. “The Trump team spent down prestige by negotiating with a side determined to humiliate it, while it stiff-armed domestic allies on whom it depends for political support. And that support could come in especially handy now as the administration returns to a war that is likely to become increasingly unpopular as long as the president fails to devise a strategy to win it. Perhaps even more consequentially, the vice president, ever keen to highlight how U.S. interests diverge from Israel’s, beat up on a partner it is likely to need if it decides to win the war.” [Tablet]
A larger selection of Worthy Reads is available in our Live Briefing.
Word on the Street
Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted representatives from 67 countries at the State Department on Thursday for a conference focused on far-left political terrorism…
Axios reports that President Donald Trump was angered by comments Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made to Fox News ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara earlier this month, in which the Israeli leader criticized the U.S.’ potential sale of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey; the flare-up came amid a weekslong push by Netanyahu for a White House meeting with the president, which has yet to materialize…
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said that while he has “no plans” to leave the Democratic Party, he would do so “if our party ever becomes — and just makes it official — the anti-Israel party,” adding that the issue would be one of “moral clarity”…
CNN reports that the son-in-law of Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), who faces Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in November, is a social media influencer who has used his platform to promote antisemitic conspiracy theories, Nazi imagery and the white nationalist group Patriot Front on social media; David Alan Scheer II, who is married to Collins’ daughter Summer, also shared an antisemitic infographic that he attributed to his wife…
Shanghai-based financier Neville Roy Singham is facing a federal criminal investigation into whether he illegally funnelled funds through the far-left nonprofit groups he supports; the probe comes nearly a year after GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill called for the Trump administration to investigate Singham’s bankrolling of “extremist organizations fueling division and civil unrest”…
The interim vice chancellor of Australian National University apologized to Jewish students and faculty for the school’s environment during the 2024 anti-Israel encampment on the campus, referring to a risk assessment commissioned by the school that in July 2024 found that Jewish members of the ANU community had faced a “high risk of psychosocial harm” associated with the demonstrations…
Hilton will terminate two of its contracts in Frankfurt, Germany, after the Treasury Department sanctioned the owner of the properties, calling him a “key financier” for Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei…
The Jewish News spotlights “Nabatele,” an inflatable synagogue hovering above the Venice Lagoon that its creator, Jewish Ukrainian artist and architect Anna Kamyshan, said is modeled on the wooden shtetl synagogues of Europe but is airborne to evoke the centuries when Jews had no nation of their own in which to build…
Israel Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar’s office said that Colombia plans to open an embassy in Jerusalem, following the victory of President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella, a right-wing lawyer who beat left-wing Sen. Iván Cepeda in last month’s election…
The Marcus Foundation is making a three-year, $27 million investment in Hillel International in a bid to bolster professional and student leaders on college campuses, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports…
Wine of the Week
JI wine columnist Yitz Applbaum reviews the 2023 Terra Gratia Red:
After three days sampling single-malt casks with Tod Bradbury, head of rare and collectible whiskies at Diageo, the London-based beverage distributor, I was certain my palate would refuse to fall in love with any wine worth writing about this week. Boy, was I wrong. I brought a small group up to Marciano Estate in St. Helena, Calif., where the vineyards sit among the oaks in the quiet northern stretch of Napa Valley. We tasted through a spectacular flight of big reds, and weary as it was, my tongue found its favorite: the 2023 Terra Gratia.
The wine is predominantly cabernet sauvignon, but the 10% cabernet franc is what makes it sing. It opens with soft, supple tannins and moves quickly into a lively dance of pear and plum, closing with one of my favorite finishes: strawberry sorbet. The name means “land of gratitude,” and it fits. Pair it with melt-away miso black cod, its sweet-savory glaze a lovely echo of the wine’s fruit. It drinks beautifully now and will age gracefully for 20 years.
Pic of the Day
U.S., Israeli and Central and Eastern Europe leadership attended their second annual regional strategic dialogue this week, which wrapped up on Wednesday in Belgrade, Serbia. The event, hosted by the Serbian-American Friendship Congress and the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, featured speakers including AIPAC President Emeritus Lee Rosenberg, Serbian Assembly Speaker Ana Brnabić, Start-up Nation co-author Saul Singer and Startup Nation Central founder Wendy Singer.
Birthdays
Hotelier and real estate developer, the creator of the boutique hotel concept, he was the co-founder of NYC’s Studio 54 in 1977, Ian Schrager turns 80 on Sunday…
FRIDAY: Chef and two-time James Beard Foundation Award winner, now a consultant to the restaurant and food industries, Joyce Goldstein turns 91… Retired executive director of the North American Association of Synagogue Executives, Harry Hauser turns 83… Professor emeritus at Tel Aviv U, he served as a member of Knesset, minister of foreign affairs and ambassador to Spain, Shlomo Ben-Ami turns 83… Emmy Award-winning play-by-play announcer on radio for the Los Angeles Dodgers, Charley Steiner turns 77… Co-editor of the classic The Big Book of Jewish Humor, Rabbi Moshe Waldoks turns 77… Civil rights and criminal defense attorney, he is the co-founder with Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project, Peter J. Neufeld turns 76… Former chairman of the Board of the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford, he is now a lecturer at UConn law school, Robert K. Yass… Rabbi emeritus at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park, Pa., Lance Jonathan Sussman, Ph.D. turns 72… Managing GP and co-founder of Pitango Venture Capital, he serves as chairman of The Peres Center for Peace & Innovation, Nechemia “Chemi” J. Peres turns 68… CEO of Samson Energy Company, co-founder of Granite Properties and chair of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Stacy Helen Schusterman… Business development team lead at Quorum, Steven Lebowitz… Television and film director, Joshua Seftel turns 58… Actor best known for playing Sharona in the television series “Monk,” Elizabeth Natalie “Bitty” Schram turns 58… Rabbi of the Young Israel of Woodmere (Nassau County, N.Y.), Rabbi Shalom Axelrod turns 57… Founder and CEO of Zeta Global, David A. Steinberg turns 57… Stand-up comedian, he was a finalist on the NBC reality-talent show “Last Comic Standing” in two seasons, Gary Gulman turns 56… Treasurer of Australia until 2022, now chairman of the Australian arm of Goldman Sachs, Joshua Anthony “Josh” Frydenberg turns 55… Blogger, journalist and science fiction author, Cory Efram Doctorow turns 55… Chief impact officer at the Jewish Federation of Northern New Jersey, Naomi Knopf… President and CEO of Mashber Strategies, developing campaigns to fight antisemitism and respond to different types of hate, Matthew E. Berger… Public television host, Shannan Butler Adler… Former member of the Knesset for the Yesh Atid party, Boaz Toporovsky turns 46… Emmy Award-winning actor, comedian, podcaster and writer, Brett Goldstein turns 46… News director at Jewish Currents, previously at Barron’s and the Forward, Josh Nathan-Kazis… Senior account manager at Red Banyan, Jared Sorhaindo… Growth strategy and operations lead and executive director at JPMorgan Chase, Melanie Ettleson… Para table tennis player, he won medals at the 2020 (gold) and 2024 (bronze) Summer Paralympics, Ian Seidenfeld turns 25… Daughter of Jared and Ivanka, Arabella Rose Kushner turns 15…
SATURDAY: Israeli nuclear physicist and professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University, Jonas Alster turns 93… Theoretical chemist, 1981 Nobel laureate in chemistry, he has also published plays and poetry, born Roald Safran, Roald Hoffmann turns 89… President of the Jewish Genealogical Society of the Conejo Valley and Ventura County, Calif., Jan Meisels Allen… Former three-term mayor of Edmonton, Alberta, Stephen Mandel turns 81… Former prime minister of Peru, Yehude Simon Munaro turns 79… Longtime executive director of the MLB Players Association and then the NHL Players Association, Donald Fehr turns 78… Beverly Hills resident, Felisa Bluwal Pivko… Finance, real estate and nursing home executive, Leonard Grunstein turns 74… Antisemitism scholar and one of the authors of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, he is the COO of the World Jewish Restitution Organization, Mark Weitzman… Former Israeli Police spokesman, he is now a senior national radio broadcaster in Israel and an international talk-show host, Elihu Ben-Onn turns 72… Seattle-area consultant, Elihu Rubin… Former finance chairman of the RNC, Elliott B. Broidy turns 69… Former minister for congressional affairs at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, he was previously the Israeli ambassador to Belarus, Martin Peled-Flax turns 68… Partner at Clifford Chance, Philip Wagman… CEO and co-founder at Let’s Bench, a publisher of customized keepsake prayer books and benchers, Yitz Woolf… Associate professor of cybersecurity law at the U.S. Naval Academy and formerly an attorney at Covington & Burling, Jeffrey Michael Kosseff turns 48… Deputy director of the White House National Economic Council until 2022, now a professor at NYU law school, David Kamin… Wellness specialist at the Central Conference of American Rabbis, Rabbi Joui Hessel… Co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, Alexander Ryvchin turns 43… Reporter for “NBC Nightly News” and “Today,” Gadi Schwartz turns 43… Editorial director for culture and lifestyle at 70 Faces Media, Molly Tolsky… Freelance graphic designer, Lauren Friedlander… CEO of Moving Traditions, Shuli Karkowsky… Senior spokesperson at the U.S. Treasury until 2023, now the head of U.S. public affairs at Coinbase, Julia Krieger… Deputy editor for crypto at SoFi, Philip Rosenstein… Foil fencer who competed for the U.S. at the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympic Games, she won a team gold medal at the 2024 games, Jacqueline Dubrovich turns 32… Freelance Jewish education consultant for BBYO, Yosef Tarshish… Istanbul resident, Izi Doenyas… Ted Rosenberg…
SUNDAY: Retired Israeli airline pilot, he successfully thwarted an in-flight hijacking by Leila Khaled in 1970, Uri Bar-Lev turns 95… Interactive designer, author and artist, in 1986 he married Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late JFK, Edwin Arthur “Ed” Schlossberg turns 81… Retired professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam and Leiden University, he served in the Dutch Senate and then as the minister of foreign affairs of the Netherlands, Uriel “Uri” Rosenthal turns 81… Co-founder of Limmud FSU, she co-founded UJA-Federation of New York’s Women’s Executive Circle, Sandra F. Cahn… Jewish communal activist in Connecticut, Linda Meyer Russ… Sportswriter for The Athletic and author of three books on baseball, Jayson Stark turns 75… Former CEO of Starbucks Coffee Company, he owned the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics from 2001 to 2006, Howard Schultz turns 73… Retired judicial assistant at the Montgomery County (Pa.) Court of Common Pleas, Deenie Silow… Rabbi of Congregation Beth Abraham in Bergenfield, N.J., and rosh yeshiva at Yeshiva University in NYC, Rabbi Yaakov Neuburger turns 71… Former chairman and CEO of Sears Holdings (owner of retailers Sears and Kmart), Edward Scott “Eddie” Lampert turns 64… Israel’s ambassador to Canada until 2023, Ronen Pinchas Hoffman turns 63… Pulitzer Prize-winning NY Times reporter until 2017 and author of The Nazis Next Door: How America Became a Safe Haven for Hitler’s Men, Eric Lichtblau turns 61… Israeli actor, model and film producer, Yael Abecassis turns 59… Spokesperson to the Arab media in the Israel Prime Minister’s Office, Ofir Gendelman turns 55… Member of Congress (D-IL-8), Raja Krishnamoorthi turns 53… Co-chairman and CEO of CheckAlt, an independent provider of treasury and lockbox solutions, Shai Stern… Senior writer and NBA Insider for ESPN, Ramona Leor Shelburne turns 47… Former soccer star at the University of Virginia, now working in the healthcare industry, Chad Prince turns 47… Former deputy mayor of the city of Haifa, now a real estate developer, Shai Abuhatsira turns 46… Ultra-marathon runner, he performs as a mentalist and magician, Oz Pearlman turns 44… Associate partner at McKinsey & Company, Alexis Blair Wolfer… CEO of Clever Bee Academy in Hewlett, N.Y., Ezra David Beren… Israel editor at Jewish Insider, Tamara Zieve turns 41… Director of operations at Tide Realty Capital, Yanky Schorr… White House bureau chief at The Washington Post, Isaac Arnsdorf… Venue coordinator at JW3 London, a UK-based charity engaged in Jewish arts, culture and community, Caroline Mendelsohn Lawrence… First-ever Orthodox Jewish player selected in the MLB Draft, picked No. 77 overall in 2021, now on the minor league injured list, Jacob Steinmetz turns 23… Former EVP and CEO of the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation, Dr. George Ban… Zach Houghton…
In our decentralized political environment, it’s easier than ever for a critical mass of ideologically committed small-dollar donors to power insurgent, ideologically driven campaigns
GETTY IMAGES
Large amount of US dollar cash
The second-quarter congressional fundraising reports, which were posted on Wednesday, paint a picture of far-left, anti-Israel candidates drawing financial fuel from a growing small-dollar donor network of like-minded individuals.
Nearly all of the Democratic Socialists of America-aligned or virulently anti-Israel candidates were among the Democrats’ leading fundraisers, including lawmakers (like Reps. Rashida Tlaib [D-MI] and Ilhan Omar [D-MN]) who are not facing particularly competitive races.
The highlights: Abdul El-Sayed raised $4.6 million between April and June in the Michigan Senate primary, more than double the $2.1 million that Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) brought in. Disgraced former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner took in a whopping $9.1 million before dropping out amid allegations of rape, outpacing Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-ME) $5.7 million haul.
On the House side, the DSA duo who won New York City congressional nominations last month — doctoral student Darializa Avila Chevalier and state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez — nearly hit the million-dollar mark in fundraising.
Avila Chevalier raised $952,000 in the run-up to her primary against Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), coming close to matching the Congressional Hispanic Caucus chairman’s fundraising. Meanwhile, Valdez brought in $942,000 for the quarter, significantly more than the party-backed progressive favorite Antonio Reynoso, the Brooklyn borough president.
The list goes on: Adam Hamawy’s past ties to Islamist radicals didn’t prevent him from winning the nomination in New Jersey’s 12th District, and certainly didn’t stunt his fundraising. Hamawy raised $987,000 in the second quarter, a staggering sum for a low-profile open-seat race. That’s well more than double the total of his nearest fundraising rival.
Melat Kiros, the 29-year-old DSA-backed insurgent who ousted Rep. Diana DeGette (D-CO), also outraised the longtime lawmaker in the homestretch of the campaign. Kiros brought in $712,000 between April and June, while DeGette only raised $694,000.
What does this say about the state of our politics?
In the recent past, radical candidates faced significant hurdles, not just because their message generally turned off moderate-minded voters but because they lacked institutional support, which limited their ability to raise money and be financially viable.
It was once common for party leaders and other aligned outside groups to flood favored candidates with donations and leverage their financial advantage to create institutional guardrails.
But in our decentralized political environment, it’s easier than ever for a critical mass of ideologically committed small-dollar donors to power insurgent, ideologically driven campaigns. And with party-aligned organizations (like labor unions and EMILY’s List) atrophied and the impact of pro-Israel money diminished in Democratic primaries as the party turns against the Jewish state in the wake of the war in Gaza, the establishment has lost a lot of its juice.
As important, the victory of Mayor Zohran Mamdani in New York City opened up the pocketbooks of a growing roster of Muslim and Arab donors whose top political issues include their deep antipathy towards Israel.
The notion of a socialist, anti-Israel candidate winning in New York City sounded fanciful before the rise of Mamdani. His victory proved that if like-minded individuals mobilize behind favored candidates, they can have an outsized impact in the political process — especially given the Democratic public’s declining support for the Jewish state.
The rise of an anti-Israel super PAC like American Priorities to compete against AIPAC in Democratic primaries wouldn’t have been possible without Mamdani’s victory. The time when pro-Israel groups could rely on their financial firepower — without facing a countering force in competitive primaries — is now over.
It’s a reminder that money alone can only go so far in politics, and that strategy, tactics and message are just as important in determining electoral success. If the far-left forces face their comeuppance, it’s going to be because their message is unappealing to average Americans, not because they’re going to be outspent by the establishment.
The statement came after the New York congressman voted to cut off all U.S. aid to Israel
Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) visits the Purple Heart Museum during a campaign event on November 2, 2022 in New Windsor, New York.
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) said that he no longer wants AIPAC’s endorsement and would be “returning the funds” the group’s PAC had sent his campaign, following his vote on Wednesday, along with 102 other Democrats, to cut off all aid to Israel. The New York Democrat also said he would refund individual donors who had previously supported his campaign if they made the request.
“I expect groups like AIPAC will not support me in my future elections and frankly, I don’t want their support,” he wrote in a social media post explaining his vote, saying he would no longer back $3.3 billion in annual military aid to “a corrupt and increasingly dangerous Netanyahu regime.”
In a separate post responding to a question from AIPAC Tracker, an extremist account accused of fomenting antisemitism, Ryan confirmed he did not want AIPAC’s endorsement and would be “returning the funds” sent to his campaign.
A spokesperson for Ryan clarified that Ryan is returning AIPAC’s “PAC funds.” Ryan added, “I am grateful for any individual donor who has supported my campaign. My position is clear and if an individual requests a refund, I will happily provide it.”
Ryan, a mainstream Democrat who holds a swing seat in New York’s Hudson Valley home to a sizable Jewish voting constituency, has cultivated a profile as a moderate economic populist. At the same time, he has been building ties to a growing range of leading left-wing Israel detractors such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and congressional nominee Brad Lander, who last month defeated a pro-Israel House Democrat in a district spanning Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan.
Ryan’s about-face, and his broader recent evolution on Middle East policy, illustrates the extent to which even moderate Democrats are now spurning Israel as well as AIPAC amid a marked shift in voter sentiment against the Jewish state in the wake of the Gaza war. It also demonstrates the rising popularity of the far-left flank of the Democratic Party scoring several notable victories in a string of congressional primaries this election cycle.
Deryn Sousa, a spokesperson for AIPAC, said on Thursday it was “unfortunate” that “Ryan has turned his disagreement with this Israeli government into an attack on American citizens, vilifying their beliefs and participation in our democracy.”
“We trust he’ll uphold his word and immediately refund all the support he has received from many individual AIPAC members since he first ran for Congress,” she told Jewish Insider in a statement.
In a statement to JI, Ryan said his vote “does not represent an abandonment of the state of Israel or the Jewish people. It does not deny the fact that Hamas is a terrorist organization. It does not neglect the profound grief of Oct. 7, nor the devastation in the years that followed.”
“What this vote does represent is a reset,” he continued. “An opportunity to step back and rebuild towards a better future for Israelis, Palestinians and the Middle East and to send a message to Netanyahu’s government that the status quo is unacceptable. I stand ready to work with an allied Israeli government that recommits itself to democratic values and meaningful progress toward a two-state solution.”
Ryan was still listed as an AIPAC endorsee on the group’s online political portal as of Thursday night, but the option to donate to his campaign had been deactivated.
The AJC CEO told JI on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum that he was ‘glad to see’ that many of his colleagues acknowledged that the amendment to cut military aid to Israel was ‘bad policy’
Aryeh Schwartz/AJC
Ted Deutch
ASPEN, Colo. — American Jewish Committee CEO Ted Deutch, who served as a Democratic member of Congress from 2010-2022, expressed frustration and disappointment with the decision of half of his former caucus to vote this week for an amendment to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel.
The issue, Deutch argued, is too important and too sensitive for what some supporters characterized as a show vote on an amendment, led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), that even many of its supporters saw as deeply flawed.
Deutch told Jewish Insider in an interview Thursday on the sidelines of the Aspen Security Forum that he was “glad to see” that many of his colleagues acknowledged that the amendment was “bad policy” and “indirectly acknowledg[ed] that it would damage American interests.”
“And yet [they] turned around to vote for it anyway. That was just a really disappointing reflection of the moment,” Deutch said.
He said that members of Congress have a “responsibility” to “lead” and to “stake out positions that help advance good policy,” not only to follow trends and pressure.
“If the reason that people voted for the Massie amendment was because they see the way some of these primaries have gone — the worst part is the refusal to stand up against what we’ve seen happening,” he said, asserting that the Massie amendment and the arguments over Israel policy that have pervaded this year’s Democratic primaries don’t advance American interests or true conversations about peace for Palestinians and Israelis.
He said that members appeared to feel obligated to vote for the amendment to signal support for an “absolutist” wing of the party that, Deutch said, wants to exclude anyone who supports Israel’s existence.
“I understand that … members of Congress make decisions, they want to make a statement with a vote. But the future of the Middle East, our support for Israel, our interest in advancing the prospects for peace between Israel and Palestinians, is far too important to fall prey to a meaningless and, I would argue, ridiculous show vote,” Deutch told JI.
He took aim at candidates who have made opposition to Israel a centerpiece of their campaigns, arguing that they’re not interested in real solutions but instead in “demonizing Israel” and “undermining the very existence of Israel.” Walking away from the U.S.-Israel relationship or advocating against Israel’s existence will not advance peace, he reiterated.
Those opposing Israel’s existence are not only hurting the Jewish community but also risk “undermining pluralism in America and the ability to actually have a functioning democratic society.”
But he also drew distinctions among those who supported the Massie amendment. Some, he said, are anti-Israel and want to push supporters of Israel out of the political mainstream. Others, he said, decided to “vote for terrible policy because they thought that maybe that would help them politically.”
He said that supporters of Israel need to find opportunities for “the majority of those people” who supported the amendment to understand that, even if they are frustrated with the Israeli government, taking an “absolutist approach” is not necessary or productive.
Deutch said that AJC and other supporters of Israel can’t write off the Democratic Party or the lawmakers who voted for the Massie amendment.
“We’re doubling down on the work that we do on the Hill and the conversations that we have on helping people understand … the future of the region, especially when the Iran war ends,” Deutch said. “When the war ends, the opportunities to help our elected officials take another look at the region and how to achieve regional peace and the critical role that Israel plays in that — that’s one of the things that we’re doing now.”
Deutch said during a panel discussion on Israel and U.S.-Israel relations that it’s also important to emphasize that Israel does not bear sole responsibility for the situation in the Middle East and that other actors bear agency and responsibility for the current state of affairs.
“This is not Israel’s burden to fix all of the problems in the Middle East on their own,” Deutch said. “There are responsibilities for the Palestinians, certainly disarming Hamas, the responsibility for the Arab countries, responsibility for the U.S.”
He told JI that discussions over Israel policy can’t be divorced from talking about antisemitism and the rising demonization of Israel and the Jewish community. Members who voted for the Massie amendment “have a really important role to play in fighting antisemitism, and we’re working doubly hard to make sure they understand what the connection is here, and how the anti-Zionism and hatred of Israel leads to real-world violence.”
On the panel, he likewise warned that characterizations of people who support Israel or AIPAC as “monster[s]” — invoking comments by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — could lead to real-world violence.
Regardless of his frustration over Democratic support for the Massie amendment, Deutch told JI he still wants to work with members who are serious about issues of Middle East peace and representing the Jewish community.
Deutch also said that there are many politicians outside of Washington with whom he has engaged who don’t want to be “defined by a group” of what he described as “DSA extremists” that “sets these absolutist positions that are contrary to the way that they view the world, and it’s important to know that that those leaders exist, and we’re doing as much as we can to help lift up their voices.”
In statements about the vote, even Democratic leaders who opposed the Massie amendment said that they believed that major changes to the U.S.-Israel relationship would be necessary going forward.
Asked what a responsible and reasonable approach to the future of the relationship should look like, Deutch said that it should start with “mutual respect” for each other and recognition of “the importance of the other” — things he said were lacking in the debate around the amendment.
“With that respect comes the ability to have frank discussions about what the future looks like and how to achieve it” on a range of subjects, Deutch said.
On the panel and in his conversation with JI, Deutch also criticized Vice President JD Vance’s comments earlier this week about Israel on Joe Rogan’s podcast.
While he praised Vance for pushing back against the “most extreme” conspiracy theories Rogan presented, he said he wished the vice president would have made a case for why the U.S.-Israel relationship is in the U.S.’ interests, instead of only saying that he acts in the U.S.’ best interests.
“When you put it the way that he did, it suggests that somehow it’s not the case [that the U.S.-Israel relationship serves the U.S.]. It plays into the memes of and the conspiracy theories of Israel and the Jews pulling strings,” Deutch said.
“I respect very much the vice president is working to do what he believes is in the best interest of America, and I want him to understand that for me, that that means engaging in these conversations about the future of Israel and the Middle East, without suggesting that somehow doing that work and standing up for Israel’s right to defend itself and pushing back against Iranian aggression is somehow contrary to the responsibilities that he has,” Deutch continued.
He didn’t impute ill-intent to the vice president, but said Vance’s comments could be weaponized by others who will interpret them to mean that supporting Israel is bad for the United States.
Throughout the panel, Deutch emphasized that discussion about the U.S.-Israel relationship must recognize that Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship, and the state of affairs in the Middle East transcend and are much larger than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his individual decisions.
“There’s much more at stake in the relationship between the United States and Israel than any one prime minister,” Deutch said.
Asked by JI about comments by a fellow panelist, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, that the U.S.-Israel relationship would be difficult to repair on both sides of the aisle if Netanyahu remains in power after the upcoming Israeli elections, Deutch rejected that line of thinking.
“We have to reject this idea that somehow, whatever any individual may want to happen in the Israeli election, that there is only one outcome that can ensure the continued viability of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Deutch said. “I reject that completely out of hand, and I think those of us who are committed to the relationship have to make sure that in the policy debates that are happening, that it doesn’t become a dominant narrative. There’s too much at risk.”
JI looked into how ascendant anti-Israel candidates raised and spent money just before and after their primaries
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Illustrative
Left-wing candidates, including several members of the Democratic Socialists of America, rode a wave of anti-Israel sentiment — and donor cash — to victory in primaries in New York and New Jersey in June.
The latest fundraising filing period highlighted the diverse donor bases backing some of the most outspoken critics of Israel and capitalism, with candidates raking in hundreds of thousands from executives and entrepreneurs in tech, medicine and finance:
Here’s a round-up of how some of the most prominent figures got that windfall — and what they did with it:
- Darializa Avila Chevalier, the radical grad student who defeated Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), reported nearly $350,000 in donations in the last three weeks of June. Among the many medical professionals to cut checks to Avila Chevalier was Dr. Mohammed Hadi, a Long Island-based physician charged in 2015 with conspiring to defraud Medicare and distribute oxycodone. Hadi ultimately pleaded guilty in 2024 to misdemeanor theft of government funds. Another filing the former Columbia encampment leader submitted on Wednesday lists among the campaign’s expenses $7,000 in compensation to Avila Chevalier herself on June 1. Federal law allows for candidates to pay themselves salaries out of their donor dollars.
- Another candidate getting revenue from their campaign is Adam Hamawy, who in early June became the Democratic nominee to succeed Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ). The candidate paid $23,700 of the $504,855 his campaign brought in during the latest filing period to his own plastic surgery practice, continuing a pattern Jewish Insider first reported on in May. The Federal Election Commission also allows candidates to purchase goods, services and working space from themselves and family members so long as the transactions are market-rate. The Hamawy campaign — which has leaned into the candidate’s military record and fierce criticism of Israel while downplaying his past ties to Islamist figures — told JI in May that an outside consulting firm arrived at the $7,900 monthly rent paid to Princeton Plastic Surgeons.
- Assemblymember Claire Valdez reported just shy of $293,000 in campaign contributions for her bid to succeed Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-NY). One of her most notable donors was Shanti Singham, the sister of Shanghai-based Maoist tech mogul Neville “Roy” Singham, currently under federal investigation in connection to his bankrolling of far-left nonprofits that promote pro-Iran, pro-Russia and pro-Chinese propaganda. Shanti Singham — who gave Valdez $2,000 in the most recent filing period, bringing her total contributions to her fellow DSA member to $3,500 — has her own ties to China, having held a post at state-run East China Normal University and promoted the country’s controversial Confucius Institutes in Africa. The Marxist academic’s daughter, Alicia Singham Goodwin, served as political director for the anti-Zionist group Jews for Racial and Economic Justice and is a leading activist in DSA’s electoral efforts, having even helped shape New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s platform in 2025.
- A key cash-raising tool for both Avila Chevalier and Valdez has been their joint fundraising committee, which raised $165,551 in less than a month, and disbursed most of it to their campaigns. One of its largest contributors was prominent Jewish Democratic donor Morris Pearl, chairman of Patriotic Millionaires, a group that advocates heavier taxes on high earners such as himself. The former BlackRock managing director, who has in past years advocated for peace processes in the Middle East, donated $7,000 to the fundraising committee.
- The biggest winner of all this cycle may be Mamdani himself: not just for getting his slate of House candidates elected, but for raising more than $300,000 for his reelection campaign, even though he is three years away from a reelection bid. The haul was big enough that the campaign told local outlet City & State that it will abstain from the city’s matching funds program, which provides public cash to amplify small-dollar donations but caps donation size and spending. And Mamdani is already spending his war chest, contributors to which include tech investor Omer Hasan, who also underwrote his 2025 super PAC and new anti-AIPAC super PAC American Priorities. On July 10, the campaign paid more than $9,500 to longtime DSA activist Nadia Tykulsker. In 2023, it fell to Tykulsker to defend her organization’s decision to promote a celebratory rally in Times Square one day after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks — a gathering even Mamdani, then a state lawmaker, condemned.
The House Armed Services Committee Democrat said his family’s home was vandalized and a staffer was assaulted over his stance on Israel policy
Eric Lee/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, during a hearing on May 14, 2026.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, indicated he voted to cut off military aid to Israel in part because of sustained personal threats against his family and his staff, part of what he described as a violent and relentless campaign of intimidation by far-left anti-Israel activists.
Smith voted on Wednesday to support an amendment introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to strip $3.3 billion in U.S. aid to Israel from the 2027 State Department appropriations bill — a major reversal by the hawkish Democrat after he previously told Jewish Insider he planned to oppose the measure.
In a statement explaining his vote in favor, the high-ranking defense lawmaker said it was a “very close vote.” He said that despite voting to cut off U.S. aid, he was “deeply concerned” about the tactics used by far left activists to pressure him to support such a measure.
“To date, my family and I have had our home vandalized, a fire has been set in my driveway, my neighbors’ lives have been disrupted by demonstrations in the middle of the night, town halls meant to be forums for dialogue have been shut down, and a staff member has been physically assaulted,” Smith said in a statement on X.
Smith, who is facing Aug. 4 primary challenges from two anti-Israel activists, said that those who “engage in this type of behavior model a dangerous form of corrosive politics that seeks to intimidate those who disagree with them.” He argued that the moment instead calls for “civil discourse” and “respectful engagement” in order to solve difficult problems.
“I also recognize that many of those who want the U.S. to completely abandon Israel do not support Israel’s right to exist and are willfully blind to the dangerous, violent, extremist beliefs of Hamas and others who threaten Israel,” he said.
Smith, who has been a vocal critic of the actions of the Israeli government, also said his vote was an effort to “get the attention of the Netanyahu government” in hopes they may “change their actions.” The Washington lawmaker noted in his statement that he disagreed with Israel’s approach to the war in Gaza, as well as its actions in the West Bank and Lebanon.
“I still support Israel. I recognize the threats they face. But after nearly two years of me raising these concerns with the Israeli government and U.S. supporters of Israel, nothing has changed,” he continued. “Many express sympathy for my views and assure me things will change, but that has not happened. I take this vote to try once more to get the attention of the Israeli government.”
“I understand that Israel has to confront threats to their existence and cannot let them go unchecked,” Smith wrote. “But Israel does not have to fight the way they have chosen to do so — a way that has caused enormous suffering and led to endless war.”
Plus, Jeffries vows change to Israel policy under Dems
(Photo by Nathan Howard - Pool/Getty Images)
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance arrives at Ben Gurion airport on October 21, 2025 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
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
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) vowed today that should Democrats regain control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections, the party will adopt a “broadly inclusive” but fundamentally new approach to policy on Israel, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
“The situation relative to the United States’ relationship with Israel, the Palestinian people and policy in the Middle East has to change because the current status quo is unsustainable,” Jeffries said at a press conference, following yesterday’s vote by more than 100 House Democrats to cut aid to Israel…
Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement about his “very close” vote in support of the amendment to end aid to Israel that he’s “deeply concerned” about hostile actions taken by those on the far left to pressure him to support such a measure, including having his home vandalized, a staff member assaulted and a fire set in his driveway.
He insisted he still supports the Jewish state but said he voted in favor “to try once more to get the attention of the Israeli government,” with which he disagrees…
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) again insisted that he has no plans to leave the Democratic Party, but said he would do so if it “officially” becomes “the anti-Israel party,” during an appearance at the Hill Nation Summit in Washington yesterday…
Even as CENTCOM initiated a sixth straight day of strikes on Iran this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Tehran “very much continues to talk to the United States of America and express that they want to make a deal with us”…
Leavitt declined to address directly if President Donald Trump agrees with the assessment shared by Vice President JD Vance on a podcast yesterday that Israeli actors are engaged in influence campaigns to change U.S. public opinion on the Iran war: “The president would certainly agree that foreign countries certainly try to persuade American public opinion. There’s no doubt about that. I think it’s just a basic fact,” she said, without addressing Israel…
Israel’s Foreign Ministry denounced as “defamatory” a story in Time magazine referenced by Vance as evidenceof his allegations about Israeli influence campaigns: “All of our activities are transparent and are conducted in strict compliance with U.S. law. … We certainly do not interfere in any U.S. foreign or domestic policy,” the Foreign Ministry stated, without referring to Vance by name.
The ministry said it had “lawfully contracted with an experienced digital agency” to work to combat antisemitism and strengthen support for the U.S.-Israel relationship…
David Alan Scheer II, the son-in-law of U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), has built a following as a pro-white nationalist social media influencer and has shared antisemitic and pro-Nazi material online, CNN reports.
Scheer has promoted conspiracies that Jews are responsible for the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy and the 9/11 terror attacks, among other claims, and said one antisemitic graphic he shared was made by his wife, Collins’ daughter. It’s the latest incident of Collins being closely tied to far-right figures as he attempts to unseat Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA)…
Ossoff called on Collins to “apologize immediately for his and his office’s disqualifying ties to neo-Nazi ideology and notorious white supremacists,” calling him a “known bigot and antisemite.” Georgia state Rep. Esther Panitch, a Jewish Democrat, said of Collins, “Being pro-Israel is not a hall pass for antisemitism”…
The Wall Street Journal examines what is known about Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, amid reports that Trump is looking into striking the highly fortified underground facility. Experts believe the site could be large enough to “hold a centrifuge enrichment plant capable of producing weapon-grade uranium” and potentially manufacture nuclear weapon delivery components…
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthis in Yemen, warned today that the terror group will target “all Saudi oil installations and highly vital facilities” with drone and missile attacks if Saudi Arabia escalates its operations in Yemen, the latest sign of a potential breakdown in the yearslong truce between the Houthis and Riyadh…
⏩ 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 gaps left in the Republican Party by the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and the jockeying in the Senate to fill them.
The Aspen Security Forum wraps up in Colorado tomorrow with a live taping of the “Pod Save the World” podcast with former Obama administration staffers Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor, in conversation with Annalena Baerbock, president of the U.N. General Assembly.
American Friends of Magen David Adom is hosting a summer conversation series across the country with “Fauda” star Lior Raz, kicking off tomorrow in Long Branch, N.J.
We’ll be back with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!
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The leading House Democrat said U.S. policy in the Middle East ‘has to change’ and is ‘unsustainable’ but would be ‘broadly inclusive’ in its new iteration
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol Building on July 13, 2026 in Washington, DC.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Thursday that should Democrats regain control of the House in the upcoming midterm elections, the party will adopt a “broadly inclusive” but fundamentally new approach to policy on Israel.
Jeffries’ comments follow a historic, highly divisive floor vote on Wednesday where nearly half of House Democrats broke with him to support an amendment cutting off $3.3 billion in U.S. foreign military aid to Israel. The amendment to the 2027 State Department appropriations bill, introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), ultimately failed, but laid bare a continuing erosion of support for Israel within the Democratic caucus.
“The situation relative to the United States’ relationship with Israel, the Palestinian people and policy in the Middle East has to change because the current status quo is unsustainable,” Jeffries said at a press conference. “Our approach will be one that is broadly inclusive … [and will include] dialogue across the entire spectrum of the House Democratic Caucus and then be able to land on the highest common denominator, but being guided by the effort to actually create a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinian people.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that should Democrats retake the House, the party will adopt a “broadly inclusive” but fundamentally new approach to policy on Israel.
— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 16, 2026
"The situation relative to the United States' relationship with Israel, the Palestinian people and… pic.twitter.com/AELh50as7i
Jeffries outlined that the future Democratic approach will be “anchored in several different principles,” including a renewed commitment to a two-state solution.
“[It will include] Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state and homeland for the Jewish people, and at the same time, pressing the urgent need to establish an independent Palestinian state that allows the Palestinian people to live with dignity, respect, and self-determination — and that needs to be dealt with urgently.”
Jeffries also noted that the Democratic Party under his leadership will support all necessary measures to allow for the “prosperity” of the Palestinian people and the alleviation of “suffering,” including calling for a surge of humanitarian assistance into Gaza.
“It means not just the reconstruction of Gaza, but the modernization of Gaza and investing, along with our partners in the Gulf states and moderate Arab nations, in a path toward prosperity for the Palestinian people,” Jeffries said. “Hamas needs to be disarmed and completely removed from power, and we need to deal with the out-of-control settler violence that the Netanyahu administration has allowed to take place in the West Bank, and perpetrators of that violence should be sanctioned and criminally prosecuted.”
Still, Jeffries noted that Israel remains a valuable ally.
“[The Democratic policy approach also includes] recognizing that Israel is an ally of the United States of America in the fight against terrorism, whether that’s Iranian-backed proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas or the Houthis,” Jeffries said.
‘Without oil, they're nothing,’ the former national security adviser said at the Aspen Security Forum, adding that by cutting it off, the U.S. could ‘turn them into a ‘stan, turn them into a nonentity’
(David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Robert O'Brien, former national security adviser, at an interview during the Republican National Convention (RNC) near the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, on Wednesday, July 17, 2024.
ASPEN, Colo. — Robert O’Brien, who served as national security advisor during President Donald Trump’s first term, said on Wednesday that the U.S. should target Iran’s oil infrastructure with the goal of choking off its economy — and predicted that the president is moving in that direction.
The former national security advisor said on a panel at the Aspen Security Forum that Trump had been “very, very generous” with Iran but he believes that Trump’s “patience” with Iran is running thin. The next steps, he predicted, would be for the U.S. to “hit them hard” and “finish the job” by targeting sites connected with Iran’s oil infrastructure, including the facilities at Kharg Island, in order to deprive Iran of its ability to produce and export oil.
“Without oil, they’re nothing. With oil, the regime thinks if they can survive, they can just buy more kit,” O’Brien said. “I think President Trump will finish the job. The Iranians are using the old playbook of extend, pretend and snowball. … They’re dealing with a whole new administration with Donald Trump. They don’t understand it, and I think that they’ll pay a heavy penalty for their lack of understanding.”
The first Trump administration’s strategy of maximum pressure through economic sanctions is “not enough” without strikes on Iran’s oil production, he continued.
O’Brien said that cutting short Iran’s oil exports would be the skeleton key to deafening the regime — cutting off its ability to build missiles, support terrorism or rebuild its nuclear program, and said that the U.S. could “turn them into a ‘stan, turn them into a nonentity” and prevent it from ever rebuilding.
The former national security advisor acknowledged that targeting Iranian oil production would hurt the world economy, but made the case that there are other oil producers that would be able to fill the gap with the right support, including Venezuela, Guyana and Mozambique, along with increased production in the U.S.
Asked after the panel by Jewish Insider about how he views the future of Israel policy among conservatives — and about comments by Vice President JD Vance accusing Israel of running a cover influence campaign to undermine the Iran deal and of having ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — O’Brien insisted that support for Israel among conservatives, including Vance, remains strong.
O’Brien said he hadn’t heard Vance’s comments but called him a “supporter” and “friend of Israel.” He added that Trump is “a very good friend of Israel. President Trump has Jewish grandkids, I mean, so he cares deeply about it. He got the Abraham Accords for us and sent me to Jerusalem many times. And I can tell you, after Oct. 7, he was very concerned about Israel and has remained so ever since. No better friend to Israel than President Trump.”
He argued that recent polling indicates that support for Israel remains strong among Republicans in general, even among young people, and predicted that issues among “some conservatives — or people who claim to be conservatives” will not “hold.”
“Those of us who value the partnership, love our Jewish friends, our Israeli colleagues, just need to be forthright and stand up for Israel,” O’Brien said. “Israel, I’ve always said throughout my career, is a canary in the coal mine. If people are attacking Israel, the next country they’re going to attack is America, and so we need to stand strong with our allies in Israel, stand strong with Jerusalem, and I think it’s going to be a relationship that lasts long into the future.“
Stephen Hadley, who served as national security advisor in the Bush administration, said on the panel that the U.S. “can do better in terms of an outcome” with Iran, urging the administration to “stop chasing after the Iranians for an agreement on the nuclear issue,” adding that the U.S.’ operations have done significant damage to Iran’s nuclear program and can hit Iran again if it attempts to reconstitute the program.
It’s a similar strategy to that outlined by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, also a Bush administration alumnus, a day prior at the Aspen conference.
Hadley said the U.S. should be open to nuclear talks if Iran seeks them out — but with the preconditions of no enrichment and no financial paydays for Iran.
He said that with continued sanctions, facilitation of trade along the Omani side of the Strait of Hormuz, strikes on Iranian capabilities threatening trade in the strait and assistance to countries in the region to diversify their export channels in the longer term, the U.S. could erode Iran’s ability to hold the global economy hostage and reach a stable situation.
“Hopefully, someday an Iranian regime will come forward and decide that their pursuit of nuclear weapons and support for Hezbollah and the like has been a dead end, and they will join the countries in the region to try to build a more prosperous and secure Iran for their people,” Hadley said. “If that happens, great. If it does not happen, the kind of arrangement I think I’ve described will protect our interests, protect the interests of our allies. “
At the same time, he emphasized that regime change through air power alone is likely off the table.
“[Trump] has to be clear that his objectives are consistent with the tools and means he has at his disposal,” Hadley said. “I think that’s a mistake he made in Iran initially when he was talking about regime change.”
Former Undersecretary of Defense Michèle Flournoy, who served under President Barack Obama, praised the U.S.’ Operation Midnight Hammer last June as “very targeted, very specific and very effective” — something few Democrats said at the time.
She contrasted her praise of that operation to the war this year, which she said started with unclear objectives, priorities and strategy, a lack of appreciation of the risks and a failure to appreciate the Iranian regime’s durability.
“I don’t know how this is going to conclude,” Flournoy said. “But the most likely outcome is we’re going to have a new normal. Even if the Strait opens, Iran is still going to have a few drones, a few mines to jerk the chain of the international economy when it’s unhappy.”
She said that, even if one agrees with the objectives of the war, “the way it’s been done has not paid enough attention to managing the risks, having a clear strategy, and ensuring you want to translate the military campaign into political outcomes.”
Over a dozen Democrats recently supported by AIPAC swung to support the amendment by far-right GOP Rep. Massie in a move that would have been unimaginable not long ago
Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images
The sun sets behind the U.S. Capitol Building on July 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C.
More than 100 House Democrats — just under half of the party’s caucus — voted to cut off all U.S. aid to Israel on Wednesday, marking another flashpoint in the party’s growing disillusionment with the Jewish state. It’s a result that would have been almost unimaginable even a year ago.
The fact that the number of anti-Israel votes included several longtime pro-Israel Democrats who had previously been endorsed by AIPAC — like Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Glenn Ivey (D-MD), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH) and Pat Ryan (D-NY) — is a sign that even some members in the mainstream wing of the party are running scared of a potential primary threat from the left.
Combined with the Senate vote earlier this year in which 40 Democrats voted for a measure led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to block shipments of some weapons to the Jewish state, the message is clear: Israel can no longer count on reliable support from the Democratic Party.
And voting for the equivalent of a wrecking ball to the U.S.-Israel relationship — an amendment that even vocal critics of Israel described as flawed and a calculated political stunt by Republicans — is no longer a nonstarter for congressional Democrats. With a more carefully crafted amendment presented by a member without Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) baggage, the margin in support could have been greater.
Despite the significance of the Democratic defections on Israel, it’s also notable that nearly all of the Democrats in swing districts or running in closely watched battleground Senate races stood by their support of Israel and voted against the amendment.
Only two of the 16 House Democrats facing the most competitive races — districts the Cook Political Report rates as “Lean Democratic,” “Toss Up” or favoring Republicans — voted for the Massie amendment.
Those lawmakers were Reps. Derek Tran (D-CA) and Gabe Vasquez (D-NM). Rep. Don Davis (D-NC) was absent, but would have opposed the amendment.
Expand that out to include “Likely Democratic” districts, and only two of those 10 lawmakers voted for the amendment: Goodlander and Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV). Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-OR) voted present.
And nearly all of the Democratic candidates facing challenges from their left over their support for Israel stood their ground, even those running in deep-blue districts. That list includes Reps. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Angie Craig (D-MN), who are both running for the Senate and facing fierce challenges from anti-Israel challengers. It also includes Reps. Wesley Bell (D-MO), Shri Thanedar (D-MI) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who have faced strong pushback from their opponents over their pro-Israel stances, but held firm on the issue.
The results mark a significant setback for AIPAC, which is struggling to maintain influence within the Democratic Party as support for Israel becomes a more partisan issue. More than a dozen of its endorsed candidates voted against its most central policy priority, including lawmakers like Ivey who won their House seats with significant AIPAC backing and had been seen as close to the group. A handful of others voted present.
Ryan, a onetime moderate who has drifted toward the left, also publicly went on the attack against AIPAC, engaging with the anti-Israel account TrackAIPAC, which has faced accusations of antisemitism, to declare that he no longer wants AIPAC’s support and plans to return donations from the group.
“We are deeply appreciative of the 314 Republicans and Democrats who voted to reject Thomas Massie’s latest anti-Israel effort and are disappointed by the 103 Democrats who voted with Massie to weaken America and our ally Israel,” AIPAC said in a statement.
AIPAC also warned that it and its members aren’t backing down and “will be actively engaged throughout this election cycle, and future election cycles, to support members of Congress of both parties who support a strong U.S.-Israel alliance and oppose those who don’t.”
It’s important to keep in mind that lawmakers’ stated rationale for supporting the amendment varies: some do seek to cut off any U.S. support for Israel and sever the relationship as we know it; some seek changes to how the relationship functions; and others sought to send a signal of their frustration with the current Israeli government and its prosecution of the war in Gaza with a largely symbolic vote they knew would not pass.
By the same token, many Democrats who voted against the amendment made clear that their votes were in part a reflection of their concerns with Massie’s approach, rather than a full-throated endorsement of the U.S.-Israel relationship as it currently exists. That was the position held by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), whose opposition to the amendment belied his overall concerns about the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Many Democrats called for changes in the relationship going forward, with Jeffries and other party leaders indicating they want direct military aid to end at the expiration of the current memorandum of understanding.
Observers also noted that the Congressional Black Caucus, which has traditionally held strong relationships with the Jewish community and pro-Israel world, was closely divided on the vote. Many of the caucus’ older or longer-tenured members voted to preserve aid to Israel, while newer and younger members for the most part voted against it.
The vote also underscored just how much of a role extreme voices have played within both parties in undermining relationships with allies under military threat. The right-wing grassroots hostility to Ukraine led to a number of party leaders — including a few Senate hawks — to vote against a 2024 funding bill for aid to Ukraine and Israel.
But even as there has been a strain of GOP opposition to Ukraine assistance, the Democrats’ turn against Israel has been more widespread. The fact that relatively few of the Democratic lawmakers who voted against the amendment offered a clear-throated defense of U.S. aid to Israel is a sign of just how politically toxic Israel has become within the party.
“This vote should serve as a wake-up call [to Israel] that significant work is needed to repair its relationship with Democrats — not only to preserve bipartisan support in the United States, but also to protect Israel’s long-term security and prosperity,” Democratic Majority For Israel CEO Brian Romick said in a statement.
Even as the amendment was overwhelmingly rejected, the vote underscores the anti-Israel mood within the Democratic Party is growing
Kevin Carter/Getty Images
U.S. Capitol building on July 12, 2026 in Washington, DC.
The House voted 314-104 on Wednesday to reject an amendment to the 2027 State Department appropriations bill that would have cut all $3.3 billion in annual U.S. aid to Israel. However, 103 Democrats, a near-majority of the caucus, voted in favor of the measure, with 98 others voting no and 10 voting present.
The record number of Democrats voting in favor of cutting off U.S. aid to Israel highlights the extent to which Democratic support for the Jewish state has eroded, and comes months after a vote in which 40 Senate Democrats backed blocking some weapons sales to Israel.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) introduced the amendment last month to eliminate the $3.3 billion in annual foreign military financing provided by the U.S. to Israel as laid out in the 2016 memorandum of understanding between the two countries. The Kentucky lawmaker, who was defeated in his GOP primary this year, was the only Republican member to support the amendment.
Some Democratic officials — on both sides of the issue — described Massie’s amendment as poorly drafted and overly broad, warning that it would also impact non-military aid as well as U.S. Embassy operations in Israel. Democratic leadership ultimately did not whip members for or against the vote.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in a letter on Tuesday that he planned to oppose the amendment and efforts to strip all U.S. aid to Israel, despite also noting that the relationship between the two countries requires “urgent change.”
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) also voted no on the amendment. Aguilar told Jewish Insider last month that support for Israel’s right to exist in safety and security should continue to be a policy position of the Democratic Party, but cautioned that support for Israeli government policies would not be unconditional.
Meanwhile, House Minority Whip Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), in announcing she would vote yes, noted that the measure was “overly broad” and “not an attempt to have a serious and necessary debate about offensive military aid to Israel.” Despite her criticisms, she said her vote was a signal that the relationship needs to change.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), once a reliable supporter of Israel, supported the Massie amendment, but called it an “unfortunate choice.”
“The United States must be a force for security and stability. The American people are rightly demanding an end to a perpetual cycle of war, and the Netanyahu government cannot maintain its current course,” Pelosi said. “Therefore, while this amendment is ill-conceived, I vote yes for the message that it sends.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a critic of Israel who is a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2028, called the vote a “very important moment.”
“A majority of Democrats voted in favor of this Massie amendment. To me what this says is that the majority of the Democratic party is most in touch with the American electorate writ large … and the Republicans are not,” Cortez said. “This has been an issue where both parties have been resistant to change.”
Ocasio-Cortez said lawmakers who voted against the amendment are “stuck in the past.”
Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), who chairs the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement on Tuesday that he would support the amendment because the “American people are crying out for an end to U.S. tax dollars subsidizing Israel’s military.” Casar and the CPC whipped Democrats to support the amendment.
“At a time when millions are struggling to make ends meet, we are sending billions of dollars to a military that has killed tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon,” Casar wrote. “I am aware House Democratic leadership has a different position on this amendment … I respect their leadership.”
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the former No. 2 House Democrat and a staunch supporter of Israel, opposed the amendment and argued it would “dangerously undermine America’s national security,” limit the U.S.’ ability to counter terrorist organizations and make it harder to leverage the U.S. relationship with Israel toward peace.
“I understand the frustration many members feel with some of the policies and actions of the current Israeli government — as well as their concerns about its commitment to the peace process and a two-state solution,” Hoyer said. “However, this amendment would embolden the enemies of peace, those who seek the complete elimination of Israel, and those looking for an excuse to murder Jews. It is a vote to weaken our ability to engage in the region, and it is a vote against American security, against American interests, and against Americans’ safety.”
Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), who voted no, lambasted the amendment as having no legislative impact or role in helping the prospects for Middle East peace.
“This cynical Republican amendment was put forward to stoke division and divide people here in the United States, not end the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians or provide a path forward,” Schneider said. “I will seek to understand how such a flawed legislative proposal — one that would hurt Israelis and Palestinians, as well as America’s standing in the world — generated support.”
He said that supporters of Israel must work to “rebuild a bipartisan consensus” in support of Israel as well as Palestinian self-determination.
Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA), who ultimately voted against the amendment, said that under Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “Israel has lost its way,” suggesting that Netanyahu had undermined Israeli security and damaged the U.S.-Israel alliance.
“Yet, as a Jewish refugee who fled oppression in the Soviet Union, I have long believed that Israel is a refuge for many families like mine,” Vindman said. “These convictions made this one of the most difficult votes I’ve cast because Israel needs to change course. However, I could not support an amendment as poorly written as this one that would eliminate key funding provisions that support Palestinian security forces, humanitarian aid, and defensive systems to protect innocent civilians.”
Key Democratic committee leaders, including the ranking members of the Appropriations, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees, all voted against the amendment, while Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, voted in favor.
Several pro-Israel House Democrats who are facing contentious primary challenges in which Israel has become a key issue — including Reps. Wesley Bell (D-MO), Shri Thanedar (D-MI) and Ed Case (D-HI) — voted against the amendment.
Reps. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Angie Craig (D-MN) also voted against the amendment, while Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) voted present. All three are running for the Senate.
But Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), who is running against Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) in Massachusetts and has tried to tack to the progressive Markey’s left, said in a statement released prior to the vote that he would support the amendment, writing, “We simply cannot continue to condone Netanyahu’s actions that are against our moral conscience and our own national security interests by perpetuating the status quo.”
Other lawmakers who have generally been reliable supporters of Israel — including Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Glenn Ivey (D-MD), Pat Ryan (D-NY), Laura Friedman (D-CA) and Brittany Pettersen (D-CO) — voted for the amendment.
“I just voted to block sending $3.3 billion of our taxpayer dollars to Netanyahu’s government. It’s wrong on every level,” Ryan said. “I expect groups like AIPAC will not support me in my future elections and frankly, I don’t want their support. Hardline stances that refuse to stand up to a corrupt and increasingly dangerous Netanyahu regime have no place in our politics.”
Auchincloss said that his vote to cut funding to Israel was designed to send a message to both President Donald Trump and Netanyahu.
“With their disastrous war against Iran, their empowerment of settler violence in the West Bank, and their strategic incoherence against Islamist terrorism, both President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu have sacrificed [Congress’] trust,” Auchincloss said.
He said that the amendment is “not the ideal mechanism of action,” and raised concerns about Massie’s use of antisemitic tropes in his reelection campaign.
“I have weighed these problems against the central thrust of the amendment: there must be consequences for Trump and Netanyahu,” Auchincloss continued. “Those consequences should not impair the State of Israel’s right to defend itself against the atrocities of the terrorist regimes that threaten it. Israel and the United States have common interests, shared values, and a long history. Israel and the United States are allies.”
He also said that upcoming Israeli elections, the next memorandum of understanding with Israel and the long-term impacts of the Iran war offer “an opportunity to renew the U.S.-Israel alliance on shared principles and a bipartisan basis going into the 2027 appropriations process.”
Groups including AIPAC, J Street, the Jewish Democratic Council of America, Democratic Majority for Israel and the American Jewish Committee all opposed the amendment, though J Street said the result sent a “strong message” that Democrats agree that the party should pursue a “fundamentally different American approach to the U.S.-Israel relationship and the region.”
Over a dozen Democrats previously endorsed by AIPAC, including Auchincloss, Clark, Friedman, Pelosi, Pettersen, Ryan, Smith and Reps. Gabe Amo (D-RI), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Julia Brownley (D-CA), Josh Harder (D-CA), Steven Horsford (D-NV), Julie Johnson (D-TX), Bill Keating (D-MA), Seth Magaziner (D-RI), Richard Neal (D-MA) and Joe Neguse (D-CO), voted for the amendment.
Plus, Vance alleges Israeli influence campaign to extend Iran war
Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images
The sun sets behind the U.S. Capitol Building on July 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C.
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
More than 100 House Democrats, about half of the caucus, voted in favorof Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) amendment to strip all U.S. aid to Israel out of the State Department appropriations bill this afternoon, including several leaders of the caucus such as Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), the No. 2 House Democrat, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).
While the amendment was overwhelmingly defeated, 314-104, the large segment of Democrats supporting the measure indicates a growing shift away from the party’s historic support for Israel…
Vice President JD Vance, in an episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience” released today, stated repeatedly that Israeli actors are engaged in a “very discreet, very well-funded” influence campaign to extend the war in Iran: “There are some people within their system we know beyond a shadow of a doubt who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely. Again, not towards any objective, but just indefinitely,” he alleged.
Vance also said that the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein “clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence” and to “elements of the Israeli deep state that were left of center”…
The U.S., Israel and Lebanon, wrapping up talks in Rome this week, agreed on the structure and guidelines for implementing the two pilot zones the parties agreed to create in southern Lebanon, a State Department official said today, without specifying a timeline for the IDF’s withdrawal. The parties will now engage in expanded technical talks to implement the trilateral agreement reached in the last round of negotiations…
CENTCOM began another round of strikes against Iran this afternoon; coming after strikes earlier in the day, the pace of the operations appears to be gaining momentum. President Donald Trump is reportedly considering expanding U.S. military efforts to include more airstrikes, utilizing ground forces and targeting nuclear sites again, according to The Wall Street Journal…
Three senior U.S. officials connected to the Board of Peace, the Trump-led body created to resolve the conflict in Gaza, have been meeting with congressional offices this week to request $200 million for the International Stabilization Force, two people with knowledge of the meetings told Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch. The meetings mark the first time that Board of Peace representatives have approached Congress with a funding request…
Ahead of today’s deadline, candidates have begun releasing their fundraising reports for the second quarter. In Georgia, where some in the Jewish community have felt torn between two less-than-ideal options in Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and his opponent, Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), Ossoff holds a commanding fundraising advantage: The senator reported raising$20 million this quarter with $42 million in the bank, while Collins raised $2.1 million, leaving him with $2.2 million in cash on hand…
Meanwhile, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed released his 2025 tax returns, which he is not legally obligated to do but was pressured to do by his opponent in the Democratic primary, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). El-Sayed’s reported total income was over $680,000, nearly $300,000 of which was unspecified as to its source…
The anti-Israel American Priorities super PAC made an initial investment of $375,000 to boost El-Sayed in the race; El-Sayed has repeatedly railed against super PAC involvement in politics — particularly that of AIPAC’s United Democracy Project, which is spending heavily in favor of Stevens…
Rep. Hilary Scholten (D-MI), speaking to Semafor about electability concerns in the Democratic Party, criticized progressives who “prop up other candidates who have said really problematic things.” The moderate congresswoman added that El-Sayed, who has been criticized for comments about Stevens seen as misogynistic, “has a problematic record with women”…
A new Quinnipiac poll of Pennsylvania voters found Gov. Josh Shapiro leading his Republican opponent in his reelection race by 13 points, 53-40%, with a 56% overall approval rating. Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) had a 77% approval rating among Republicans, but only 19% among voters in his own party. Nearly half (49%) of voters said the Democratic Party has moved too far to the left, while 42% said the Republican Party has moved too far to the right…
Former White House senior official Brett McGurk is releasing a book, Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7 Hostages, on his role leading U.S. efforts under former President Joe Biden to secure the release of hostages held by Hamas after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, due out on Oct. 6 to coincide with the third anniversary of the attacks…
The New York Times examines the role that Hollywood superagent Ari Emanuel could play in the potential presidential run of his brother, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, as politicians increasingly seek access to media as part of their campaigns; among those close to Ari Emanuel are the UFC’s Dana White, commentator Joe Rogan, pundit Stephen A. Smith as well as Elon Musk…
⏩ 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 what this afternoon’s vote on Massie‘s amendment to cut all U.S. aid to Israel means for the future of Israel policy in the Democratic Party.
At least eight Democratic candidates vying to replace former nominee Graham Platner on the ballotfor U.S. Senate in Maine will take the debate stage tomorrow evening in their first chance to pitch themselves to voters, ahead of the state Democratic Party’s nominating convention later this month.
President Donald Trump will give an address to the nation in the evening, which he has said will largely focus on American election security.
The American Federation of Teachers’ annual convention will kick off in Washington. The second largest teachers’ union in the U.S., the AFT has previously featured anti-Israel resolutions at its gatherings.
The Aspen Security Forum continues with several panels on the Middle East, including speakers such as Akif Çağatay Kılıç, top advisor to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan; Ayman Safadi, Jordan’s foreign minister; Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT); Ted Deutch, CEO of the American Jewish Committee; Dan Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel; Rahm Emanuel; Anne Neuberger, former deputy national security advisor; and Salam Fayyad, former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority.
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Harvard professor Avi Loeb believes his research, which propelled him to the White House, could usher in a ‘new messianic era’
LITMUS TEST
Khanna pressed to support Oct. 7 attacks in Drop Site interview
The congressman angered Drop Site co-founder Jeremy Scahill by refusing to condone the attacks; Scahill accused Khanna of promoting a ‘double standard’
The VP warned of a ‘very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign’ by Israeli actors who want to see the war extended ‘not towards any objective, but just indefinitely’
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks during a Turning Point USA event at Akins Ford Arena at the Classic Center on April 14, 2026 in Athens, Georgia.
Vice President JD Vance told podcaster Joe Rogan on Wednesday that he is worried American politicians are being swayed by Israeli “influence campaigns.”
In the three-hour interview on “The Joe Rogan Experience,” Vance warned of a “very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign” to derail negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.
“What does bother me is when those operations, those influence campaigns, actually affect American political judgment, because they shouldn’t. Because we should be thinking, What is in the best interest of the United States of America?”
Vice President JD Vance told Joe Rogan he is worried American politicians are being swayed by Israeli “influence campaigns" and warned of a “very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign” to derail negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.
— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 15, 2026
Read more: https://t.co/yN72h76DSY pic.twitter.com/eAeh8eAJNm
The interview comes after a series of recent statements in which Vance has criticized Israel’s handling of the Iran war. Last month, he issued a rebuke to Israeli leaders critical of President Donald Trump’s decision to negotiate with Iran, urging them against “attacking the only powerful ally” they have left.
“[Israel is] a country of 9 million people. We have 330 million people. And so, of course, they’re going to try to persuade Americans. They’re going to try to move Americans in one direction or another,” Vance told Rogan. He noted that Israel’s efforts to influence American foreign policy are not themselves suspect — “a lot of other countries do [it],” Vance said — but, rather, that American officials will act in ways that do not serve the American public as a result of Israel’s urging.
Vance compared these alleged Israeli efforts to influence campaigns by Qatar and Russia. “It doesn’t bother me that Qatar tries to influence the United States …. I like a lot of the Qataris, just like I like a lot of the Israelis …. It frankly doesn’t even bother me that Russia or some of these other countries do it. It’s just the nature of being a political leader in 2026,” he said.
He also claimed such Israeli influence campaigns are supportive of war for its own sake: “There are some people within their system we know beyond a shadow of a doubt who are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely. Again, not towards any objective, but just indefinitely,” he said.
In the interview, Vance described an ongoing “massive pro-Israel, anti-Israel debate in the United States of America,” and painted himself as the “reasonable moderate” in that conversation. For that reason, Vance said, he has “been accused of being an antisemite.”
“I guess some people say that I’ve insulted the Jewish religion, which is insane. Like, I have a ton of respect for the Jewish religion,” said Vance. But even as he defended himself against charges of antisemitism, he suggested that his accusers need to acknowledge that American political support for Israel is receding.
“I’ve never heard a good, compelling argument for why I’m an antisemite, even though I’ve been accused of being an antisemite by many people. But what I say to these guys is, look at public opinion, look at the way young Republicans versus Republicans over the age of 65 approach this issue,” said Vance. “Right now, Israel is losing the public opinion battle in the United States of America. It is a simple and obvious fact. Donald Trump has said that publicly.”
What he supports instead is a reevaluation of the U.S.-Israel relationship, he said.
“Israel is an ally like France or like the United Kingdom. We’re going to have disagreements with them. We’re going to have agreements with them,” said Vance. “So my approach to this is to say, you know what? When we’re partnered, great, let’s work together. When we’re not, let’s just be honest about it. And for that, people attack me for being an antisemite or anti-Israel, and they don’t see the writing on the wall, that I’m actually just the guy advocating for a normal relationship with a normal country that’s based around shared interests, as opposed to based around something else.”
It’s a position that sounds similar to recent policy positions adopted by J Street, the progressive Israel advocacy group. J Street said in April, when it announced that the U.S. should no longer support any foreign military aid to Israel, that the country should be treated as a “normal ally — not an exception that receives unquestioning, blank check support from the United States.”
Later in the interview, in a lengthy discussion about disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, Vance agreed with Rogan’s comments that some have claimed that Epstein may have been connected to the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service.
“He clearly had connections to the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of Israeli intelligence,” said Vance.
Clark called the amendment a Republican stunt and ‘overly broad,’ but said she’ll support it anyway because the U.S. ‘must change course’
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) conducts a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center on Wednesday, July 23, 2025.
Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), the No. 2 House Democrat, said she plans to vote for an amendment by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to cut off U.S. aid to Israel next year — breaking with other members of Democratic leadership on the issue.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said Tuesday that he plans to vote against the amendment but said Democratic leadership will not be whipping the vote, set for Wednesday afternoon. Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA), the No. 3 House Democrat, is also opposing the amendment.
Clark, in a statement, called the amendment “overly broad” and “not an attempt to have a serious and necessary debate about offensive military aid to Israel” and a Republican stunt. But she said that she’ll support it anyway as a signal that the U.S.-Israel relationship needs to change.
“I will be voting yes, not because I agree with the entirety of the amendment, or the GOP’s cynical motivations for its consideration, but because I believe we must change course,” Clark said, accusing Israel of failing to comply with “U.S. law, interests, and values” and arguing that the U.S. should not provide a “blank check.”
Clark called for a “new and sustainable path for true security in the Middle East,” including increased aid to Gaza, a halt to settlement construction in the West Bank, an end to settler violence and the Palestinian right to self determination.
She also said that Israel has a “right to exist as a sovereign, secure, and democratic Jewish state” and to “defend their people and their territory.” She said the U.S. should “continue to have a strong strategic alliance with Israel and support its defense,” as well as continue to support missile-defense systems, which fall outside the scope of the Massie amendment. She also called for fighting “the scourge of antisemitism whenever and wherever it appears.”
Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, also said on Tuesday that he would vote in favor of the amendment and is encouraging other Democratic lawmakers to do the same.
“At its best, the Progressive Caucus’ role is to be an independent voice and lead on important issues of peace and human rights,” Casar said in a letter to colleagues. The Democratic Party needs a new approach to Israel and Palestine. When Democrats retake the majority in November, I hope the Progressive Caucus can help lead our Party towards a position that secures safety, dignity, and self determination for Palestinian and Israeli civilians alike.”
He emphasized that the portion of non-military funding being blocked is small, and that “the American people are crying out for an end to US tax dollars subsidizing Israel’s military.”
Aguilar said on Tuesday that he plans to oppose the Massie amendment but echoed Jeffries in saying, “I strongly believe that we need a change in posture in the region,” and calling the upcoming end of the current U.S.-Israel memorandum of understanding “an opportunity to review what our relationship looks like.”
“We need an Israel that believes in free and fair elections. We need to ensure that they have a right to defend themselves, but we also need to do everything we can to have a Palestinian state,” Aguilar said.
He accused the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of having “done everything they can to isolate Israel, and we need to ensure that we are building new friends in the region, not having fewer.”
Harvard professor Avi Loeb believes his research, which propelled him to the White House, could usher in a ‘new messianic era’
Ilan Fisher
Avi Loeb at the CISO summit at 1440 Multiversity, June 17, 2024
President Donald Trump has a border czar, a government official leading the crackdown on undocumented immigrants — whom the White House calls “illegal aliens” — crossing the southern border. The president, who likes to go big, now also has a UFO czar, a Harvard astrophysicist who is scanning the cosmos in search of aliens of the science-fiction variety.
It’s a stunning if improbable career highlight for Avi Loeb, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor who fled Nazi Germany and settled in a moshav, a cooperative agricultural community, in central Israel. As a child, Loeb had a lot of time alone with his thoughts — walking around to collect eggs from the chickens, or driving a tractor to the surrounding hills, where he would sit and read philosophy books.
“I was deeply interested in the most fundamental questions of our existence,” Loeb told Jewish Insider in a recent interview.
Loeb still studies life’s big questions, but from a different perspective. A series of small but ultimately life-changing pivots led him to study astronomy instead of philosophy, setting him on the path toward becoming one of America’s best known, and most controversial, scientists.
He now has a new benefactor supporting his quest to discover whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe: Trump, who tapped him in June to lead the White House’s new effort on the issue.
“That’s why I’m doing astrophysics, because I was offered things that I couldn’t decline, but at the end of the process it’s like an arranged marriage, and I realized that I’m married to my true love,” Loeb said. “Because in astrophysics we can ask fundamental questions about the universe, which was pretty much what I was aiming to do in philosophy. But I can address it with the scientific method.”
Decades before Loeb would be tapped to lead the Trump administration’s unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) science advisory council — an updated scientific term for what are colloquially known as unidentified flying objects, or UFOs — he got his start in the Israeli military.
Loeb served in the Israel Defense Forces’ elite Talpiot unit, where he pursued a doctorate in astrophysics in order to advance Israel’s scientific research and development needs. After earning his doctorate at Hebrew University, a project he pursued in the 1980s through his military service led him on a trip to Washington, where he met someone who helped him get a job at Princeton. A position at Harvard opened up a few years later. He has been there for 34 years.
At Harvard, Loeb was granted tenure after just three years and spent more than two decades researching major cosmological questions, seeking to understand the formation of the universe and early stars and galaxies. He was named to a Time magazine list of the 25 most influential people in space in 2012. Loeb chaired Harvard’s astronomy department for nine years.
The last decade of Loeb’s career has been less straightforward. His public appearances skyrocketed, even as other astronomers sought to keep him closer to earth. In 2017, an interstellar object — meaning an object that was believed to have come from another solar system — was captured on astronomers’ telescopes for the first time. It had an unusual shape and exhibited motion unlike asteroids or comets. No one seemed able to explain what the object was or where it had come from.
One year later, Loeb and a Harvard colleague argued in a scientific journal that the object was “humanity’s first contact with an artifact of extraterrestrial intelligence.”
Loeb believed the interstellar object was likely an alien craft, a UFO of the science-fiction variety. Except he argued that it was real — or, at least, it could be. The argument he has honed over the past decade, which has now launched him into the president’s orbit, is that astronomers have a duty to explore the possibility that extraterrestrial life might exist, and that scientists should not preemptively shut down the debate. Many other astronomers say he’s tilting at windmills, pursuing a quixotic quest for answers when no evidence exists for his attention-grabbing claims.
“I get attacked from both sides, from people who are skeptics who say we don’t want to look at the data, because there is nothing there. They ridicule the actual dealing with the anomalies that the government talks about,” said Loeb. “Then you have people on the other side who say, ‘We already know the answer, he’s wasting his time, and how dare he even consider other possibilities other than we are being visited by aliens.’”
After decades of silence from the federal government on extraterrestrial matters, Congress held a hearing on UAP in 2022. It came after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a report that found that UAP posed a risk to national security.
At the hearing, lawmakers explored whether the unidentified objects were drones or weapons from adversaries like Russia or China; whether they were the result of American pilots observing other American technology they did not know about; whether the UAP were really just glitches on radar or camera screens; and, lastly, whether the UAP were extraterrestrial in nature. Scientists have not seen any evidence of aliens.
Whether life exists outside of earth has long been one of the most energizing and heretofore unanswerable questions facing scientists. It has spurred movies and TV shows and books and Reddit rabbit holes. And it has captured Trump’s attention. Earlier this year, he directed the government to release files related to the unexplained objects that have been spotted by military craft.
Loeb thinks that the advisory body he now leads, composed mostly of his Harvard colleagues, stands the best chance of definitively identifying the UAP once and for all. He sees two options: either the group determines that the UAP are a national security threat, which would further American interests — or the body finds that UAP are evidence of an alien civilization. Loeb is not modest about the stakes.
“Altogether I think the partnership between science and government is a blessing. It will bring us to a better place: either improve national security in this context of UAP, or reveal the most important discovery ever made,” he told JI. “This may be a naive expectation, but it could bring cooperation among all humans on earth, and in that sense it will reflect the new messianic era of more peace on earth, but the messiah will not arrive from earth. It will arrive from another star.”
Loeb’s dramatic claims may put him at odds with many of his peers in academia. But he says their immediate skepticism toward his conclusions is “not in tune” with the interests of the public, which he sees as just one area of many where he believes academia is failing the American people. He has also been frustrated to see Harvard tilt towards “a particular political direction,” which he thinks is a mistake. And after the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in Israel, Loeb watched the university “allow protests to disrupt scholarship,” some of which were antisemitic in nature.
“Definitely something is wrong within academia,” said Loeb.
Despite his frustrations, Loeb remains at Harvard. He publishes fewer academic papers now, and focuses more on blog posts on Medium, but his research has not slowed down. He oversees the Galileo Project, which searches for evidence of extraterrestrial technology. His work has made its way to the highest reaches of the American government.
Next month, he’ll face his biggest audience yet: a Major League Baseball game. He’ll be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a Houston Astros game in Space City, U.S.A.
Plus, Dem leaders split on Israel aid
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) questions U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as he testifies before the House Armed Services Committee April 29, 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 issued a warning to Iranian leaders, as military hostilities escalate between Iran and the U.S.: “Do not count on there being calm if you attack us,” Netanyahu addressed Tehran, while speaking today at a conference in southern Israel. “Do not expect a repeat of what happened before, because there will be no repeat. … Any further attempt to harm us will be met with a different response — far more powerful”…
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump walked back his announcement that the U.S. would institute a 20% toll on all cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz, saying in a post on Truth Social that Middle East leaders had agreed to additional trade and investment deals with the U.S. to replace the fee…
CENTCOM announced it began launching an additional round of strikes against Iran this afternoon “to continue degrading Iranian capabilities used to attack commercial shipping” in the strait, and officially reinstated a blockade on Iranian ports. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it launched missile and drone attacks in retaliation against bases in Kuwait and Bahrain…
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said he would oppose an amendment led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to strip all aid to Israel out of the 2027 State Department appropriations bill, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. But Jeffries also argued for “urgent change” to the U.S.-Israel relationship, including suggesting that direct U.S. military aid to Israel should end when the current memorandum of understanding expires.
Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), on the other hand, said he plans to vote yes on Massie’s amendment, writing in a “Dear Colleague” letter that the “American people are crying out for an end to US tax dollars subsidizing Israel’s military”…
Israeli Transportation Minister Miri Regev announced today that the U.S. will only be permitted to station 20 military refueling aircraft at Ben Gurion Airport, while the rest must be parked at Israeli Air Force bases, in order to facilitate commercial travel for Israelis over the summer…
U.N. official Ramiz Alakbarov accused Hamas forces of interfering at a humanitarian aid distribution site in Gaza, saying armed men had entered a warehouse and “endangered humanitarian personnel,” leading the organization to suspend its operations at the site. “These incidents are not isolated. They are completely unacceptable and reflect an increasingly dangerous pattern of intimidation, violence and obstruction,” Alakbarov said…
Trump asked Netanyahu in a phone call last week to pull IDF forces back from Syria and Lebanon, Axios reports; the Prime Minister’s Office said Netanyahu in turn emphasized Israel’s need for security zones along its borders…
The Jewish Community Relations Council Bay Area issued a statement today on Rep. Ro Khanna’s (D-CA) recent encounter in the West Bank, where he claims he was detained by violent settlers as well as the IDF. The group said it has “conveyed our concerns to the Congressman in how he is representing the district and our community on foreign policy issues” and called on Khanna “to exercise the same urgency he has brought to criticizing Israel to address the hostile climate many Jewish Americans face every day”…
Pressed repeatedly by writers with the Hamas-sympathetic outlet Drop Site News to offer support for the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks and Palestinians’ “right to kill Israeli soldiers,” Khanna said he is “not for violence in any way”…
Asked about legislation imposing sanctions on Russia that was championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Trump said in the Oval Office today that lawmakers “may be adding Iran to it … They may add Hezbollah, too.” He said there’s a “good chance” it will pass “in honor of Lindsey”…
White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were spotted in the Senate chamber during the swearing-in this afternoon of Darline Graham Nordone to fill Graham’s seat…
The AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project super PAC sent direct mail to voters in Michigan highlighting far-left Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s refusal to condemn extreme rhetoric from antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker and El-Sayed’s efforts to “rationalize” the attack on Michigan’s Temple Israel earlier this year…
Columbia University anti-Israel protest leader Mahmoud Khalil filed a civil rights lawsuit against Trump administration officials, the Heritage Foundation and pro-Israel groups Canary Mission and Betar, alleging they “sought to terrorize” him to “intimidate and silence the growing movement for Palestinian rights”…
⏩ 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 Avi Loeb, the Israeli Harvard scientist leading Trump’s search for answers that may be out of this world.
Trump will headline the last day of Sen. Dave McCormick’s (R-PA) Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit at the U.S. Army War College, with additional remarks from Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.
The Aspen Security Forum in Colorado will feature fireside chats with former Navy Secretary John Phelan and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. Also on tomorrow’s agenda: a live taping of the “What the Hell is Going On?” podcast hosted by the American Enterprise Institute’s Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen, in conversation with former National Security Advisors Stephen Hadley and Robert O’Brien as well as Michèle Flournoy, former under secretary of defense for policy.
Jay Clayton will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee for his confirmation hearing to be director of national intelligence, after Trump abruptly canceled his hearing originally scheduled for last month.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) will speak at the Hudson Institute on the future of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East..
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The House minority leader stopped short of backing a total aid cutoff while suggesting direct military aid should end when the current MOU expires
(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) speaks during the March for Israel on the National Mall November 14, 2023 in Washington, DC.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said in a “Dear Colleague” letter on Tuesday that he opposes an effort to strip all U.S. aid to Israel out of the 2027 State Department appropriations bill, but also argued for “urgent change” to the U.S.-Israel relationship, including changes to U.S. aid going forward.
Addressing the amendment led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Jeffries cited concerns raised by Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Greg Meeks (D-NY), respectively the ranking members of the Appropriations and Foreign Affairs Committees, as well as J Street, calling the amendment “overly broad” and suggesting that it would impact nonmilitary aid and U.S. Embassy operations.
Jeffries also argued that the amendment would “restrict our country’s ability to confront Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations in the region who are sworn enemies of both the United States and Israel.”
The New York Democrat accused Republicans of advancing the amendment “for nakedly partisan reasons,” but said that Democratic leadership would not whip members on the issue and that “there are good faith reasons” for lawmakers to vote either way.
He went on to argue that an “urgent change” is needed in the U.S. relationship with the “far-right Netanyahu government” and Middle East policy in general, calling for a “major reset” based on support for Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state and strong support for a Palestinian state. He added that a “meaningful change in direction is needed” on U.S. aid to Israel at the conclusion of the current memorandum of understanding in 2028.
“Israel has an advanced economy and is capable of paying for its own sophisticated weapons, as the Prime Minister recently acknowledged,” Jeffries said, suggesting he supports an end to direct military aid at the end of the current MOU — a shorter timeline than has been advocated for by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “Accordingly, any future security arrangement between our two countries should be structured consistently with defense agreements that exist with our other Western allies and strictly adhere to our human rights laws and values.”
He also said that the next MOU should continue to protect Israel’s qualitative military edge and advance “mutually beneficial joint technology, innovation, research and further development of defensive programs” — something that some in his party have sought to end.
Jeffries lambasted Netanyahu, accusing him of damaging Israel’s reputation and standing in the U.S. and around the world, harming normalization efforts and undermining peace efforts. He called for sanctions and criminal liability for Israelis involved in violent activity in the West Bank.
With Graham’s death, one chapter in U.S.-Israel relations has closed. Now, Rahm Emanuel and Ro Khanna are jockeying to write the next
(Amir Levy/Getty Images)
US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) attends a press conference on US-Israel relations on February 17, 2025 at the Kempinski Hotel in Tel Aviv, Israel.
In the span of five days, one of Washington’s most vocal champions of the U.S. relationship with Israel died, while two prospective 2028 Democratic presidential contenders traveled to the Jewish state to define their approaches to the country. Though a coincidence of timing, those events, when taken together, underscored something much more significant: the passing of one generation of American politics vis-a-vis Israel and the opening contest over what will succeed it.
The events of the last week have distilled concerns that have repeatedly emerged at Jewish and Israeli gatherings, over Shabbat meals and in breakfast meetings: As the far left gains traction within the Democratic Party, and as the isolationist right increasingly finds support among Republicans, what does that mean for American Jews and U.S. support for Israel?
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who died suddenly on Saturday, represented a generation of politicians — across the political spectrum — for whom support for Israel was tied to deep, long-standing relationships with the Jewish state’s leaders, the belief in the country’s strategic positioning as a key ally and the ability of Israel’s friends in Washington to challenge Jerusalem without imperiling the relationship.
His death sent shockwaves across the Jewish community at a time when U.S. support for Israel — including among Republicans — is on the decline.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), speaking to JI earlier this week, described Graham as “a passionate and formidable defender of Israel” and noted that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “trusted Lindsey and listened to him.”
Cruz pointed out that “Lindsey would sometimes tell his friends messages they didn’t want to hear. Lindsey was not one to just blow smoke. He would tell people exactly what he thought, but that made him an incredibly effective advocate for Israel.”
Days before Graham died, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel was in Israel, where he delivered a speech — his own version of tough talk to Israelis — at Tel Aviv University on the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship. Speaking to reporters ahead of his speech, Emanuel, who served as White House chief of staff from 2009-2010, said that declining U.S. support for Israel “is not a Democratic Party problem. This is an American problem, and a generational problem.”
Emanuel pointed to an Associated Press/NORC Research poll released last week that showed declining support for Israel across both parties in the wake of the war in Gaza — though the erosion was considerably more pronounced among Democrats. The survey, which was conducted last month, also found that 3 in 10 Americans — including 2 in 10 Republicans under the age of 45 — believe Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
Meanwhile, a new survey from the Pew Research Center released on Friday found Israel underwater with young Americans across the political spectrum. Just 12% of Democrats between the ages of 18-29 have a favorable view of Israel, the survey found. Among young Republicans, that number is higher — but not by much. Twenty-eight percent of Republicans ages 18-29 had a favorable view of Israel. Contrast that with the 75% of Republicans (and 47% of Democrats) above the age of 65 who have favorable views of Israel.
Views of Israelis themselves are only somewhat less negative, with 33% of those surveyed between the ages of 18-29 having a favorable view of the people of Israel — not the government. Among young Republicans, that figure is 42% — something that should trigger flashing warning lights among those who have long relied on the support of an aging generation of politicians and voters who share Graham’s pro-Israel disposition.
While the shift among Republicans is happening at a slower rate, movement in the GOP regarding Israel is apparent as the party’s “restrainers,” led by Vice President JD Vance, gain traction among young conservatives. As if to underscore the changing party dynamics, Politico yesterday reported on concerns among Republican Jewish donors over Vance’s approach to the Jewish state, citing his tough rhetoric toward Israeli leaders and support for diplomacy with Iran.
Separate from Emanuel’s trip, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) also traveled to Israel last week, gaining attention for an incident in the West Bank in which local security forces stopped Khanna, who was accompanied by two aides and an activist with Breaking the Silence, after the congressman entered what had been until recently a closed military zone. He has since called for Israel to investigate the incident, even as Israeli officials denied elements of the congressman’s account. Khanna has not provided any evidence to back up his claim of being detained by settlers.
Speaking to The New York Times after he returned to the U.S., Khanna said, “Free advice to the Israelis: It’s not a good idea to detain long-shot presidential candidates. Not how you’re going to build good will with the next American president, whoever that is.”
In his public comments and meetings, Emanuel conveyed a desire to halt the growing daylight between future generations of Israelis and Americans. Khanna, who a decade ago was a staunch supporter of close ties with Jerusalem, has adopted a different political calculation, leaning into the growing anti-Israel sentiment in his party as a launching pad for a national campaign.
It’s no coincidence that two 2028 hopefuls chose to soft-launch their campaigns in Israel, conveying caution rather than camaraderie. It’s a sharp pivot from 18 years ago, when Barack Obama and John McCain — then their parties’ respective presidential nominees — each visited Israel in the run-up to the election, meeting with Israeli leaders and expressing support with the Israeli people.
If candidates used to travel to Israel to reassure both their constituencies and the Israeli populace of the strength of the U.S.-Israel relationship, the candidates traveling to Israel in 2026 are doing so to define themselves, and in the process treating the Jewish state as a test of political identity.
The sort of stalwart support of generations past is rapidly eroding, leaving pro-Israel Americans on both sides of the aisle battling strong headwinds as those who represent the future of their parties shift their approaches to the Jewish state. With Graham’s death, one chapter in U.S.-Israel relations has closed. Now, Emanuel and Khanna are jockeying to write the next.
Plus, Graham's Senate seat kept in the family
Shady Alassar/Anadolu via Getty Images
Commercial vessels and oil tankers preparing to transit through the Strait of Hormuz maintain their wait in the Gulf of Oman, on June 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 declared today that the U.S. will take control of the Strait of Hormuz and will institute a 20% fee on all cargo passing through the waterway “for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World,” Jewish Insider’s Christina Sher reports. The move comes after Trump and his administration insisted for months that no country is permitted to charge fees to transiting ships…
Trump also announced he is reinstating a blockade of Iranian ports, which was lifted when the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding last month. CENTCOM said the blockade will resume tomorrow at 4 p.m. ET and will be enforced “against vessels transiting to or from Iranian ports and coastal areas.”
CENTCOM also revealed that it successfully deployed sea drones in combat operations for the first time yesterday, using the unmanned vessels to strike an Iranian submarine at the Bandar Abbas Naval Base…
Trump notified Congress on Friday that fighting with Iran officially resumed last week, further stoking tensions between the executive and legislative branches as lawmakers already approved a war powers resolution calling for an end to American operations in Iran.
Trump’s letter to congressional leadership said U.S. “ground forces are not involved in these strikes” — which he described as “limited, measured, planned, and executed in a manner designed to minimize civilian casualties” — and said he is acting “pursuant to [his] constitutional authority as Commander in Chief”…
The Mossad spent years grooming former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an intelligence asset to be installed as Iran’s leader after a post-Khamenei regime change, including paying for his housing and travel and arranging a meeting with then-Mossad chief David Barnea under cover of a climate conference in Budapest in 2024, American and Iranian officials told The New York Times.
As the Iran war broke out on Feb. 28, Mossad operatives rescued Ahmadinejad from an Israeli airstrike on his Tehran compound and took him to a safe house, but he balked and left — Ahmadinejad is now reportedly under house arrest by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps…
The Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of bombing Yemen’s international airport today, with a spokesperson saying the action “will not go unanswered,” threatening a tenuous truce enacted several years ago between the terror group and the Saudis. A spokesperson for the internationally recognized Yemeni government, which is backed by Riyadh, said the Houthis subsequently fired ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia…
U.K. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood announced on Monday that the country designated the IRGC as a terror organization, with those found guilty of supporting the group facing up to 14 years in prison. The government also banned the Islamic Movement of Companions of the Right, which No. 10 Downing St. said was behind a number of attacks on British Jewish sites…
South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster announced at a press conference this afternoon that he is appointing Darline Graham Nordone, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) sister, to serve out the rest of Graham’s term. Trump had voiced his support for Nordone, who shared an exceptionally close bond with her brother, as “a fabulous tribute to Lindsey.” Fox Newsreported that Nordone could be sworn in as soon as Wednesday…
The Trump administration plans to launch a major diplomatic offensive against the International Criminal Court, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced today, the latest move in the White House’s longtime battle against the international organization.
The push appears to be rooted in concerns that the ICC will seek to prosecute American servicemembers, JI’s Gabby Deutch reports. Such actions would not only be “a grave overreach of its purported authorities,” Rubio wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, “it would mean the death of the U.S. as a sovereign and independent nation”…
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani vowed that he would maintain ties with Morris Katz, the controversial political operative behind Mamdani’s own victory as well as the imploded campaign of former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, JI’s Will Bredderman reports, despite calls from members of the Democratic Socialists of America to boycott the consultant’s services…
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a member of the Squad and a vocal detractor of Israel, endorsed far-left Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed today, joining fellow Squad members Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Summer Lee (D-PA) and Delia Ramirez (D-IL) in backing him less than a month before the primary…
⏩ 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 surging anti-Israel candidate in the Democratic primary for Michigan‘s swing 7th Congressional District.
The sixth round of talks between Israel and Lebanon are slated to begin tomorrow in Rome, despite Beirut’s reported threat not to attend if the IDF did not vacate two pilot zones in southern Lebanon before the discussions. Israeli media reported that this week’s talks will focus on the timeline for the withdrawal.
The Aspen Security Forum, the high-profile annual gathering of national security leaders, policymakers and foreign policy experts, begins tomorrow afternoon in Colorado. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and former Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker will speak on a panel on the “state of the world.”
The two-day Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit, hosted by Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA), will kick off at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., with a keynote address from Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine.
Some House Republicans were invited to a dinner tomorrow night with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to Punchbowl News, as the Trump administration is seeking more than $67 billion for the Pentagon in its supplemental funding request.
Stories You May Have Missed
REMEMBERING
Tributes pour in after death of Lindsey Graham, Israel’s staunch defender in the Senate
Trump, Cruz, Fetterman, Coons and Jewish organizations remembered the South Carolina Republican, who died suddenly at 71
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Radical GOP governor hopeful got cash from backers of far-left Dems
Top contributors to Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback are also bankrolling Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, Abdul El-Sayed and Andre Carson
Plus, Georgia Jews’ Senate quandary
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on July 30, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Good Monday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to friends and colleagues of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who died on Saturday, and spotlight how Georgia’s Jewish community is approaching the state’s Senate race. We report on the confrontation between Rep. Ro Khanna and a group of West Bank settlers during his trip to Israel last week, and cover New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s response to an attempt by top staffers to meet with Iran’s envoy to the United Nations. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. Mitch McConnell, Dennis Baum and French President Emmanuel Macron.
We have also launched 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.
What We’re Watching
- Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi arrives in Washington today, where he is slated to meet this week with President Donald Trump and other senior administration officials. The trip comes as Washington has sought to pressure Baghdad to crack down on Iranian militias operating in the country, and as the U.S. and Iran continued to trade fire over the weekend, with the U.S. striking Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz overnight after Iran hit a Cyprus-flagged container ship, prompting Iran to fire barrages of drones and missiles at Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.
- Current and former government officials and policy wonks are arriving in Aspen, Colo., today ahead of the start of the Aspen Security Forum tomorrow. Will you be in Aspen? Say hello to JI’s Marc Rod, who will be covering the forum this week.
- Israelis will go to the polls in new elections on Oct. 27, MK Ofir Katz, the head of the Knesset’s House Committee, announced on Sunday. Katz’s announcement kicks off the official countdown to elections, even as candidates have for months been campaigning as the date has remained uncertain.
- The House Rules Committee is meeting today to discuss the Sunshine Protection Act, legislation that would make Daylight Saving Time permanent and has been opposed by Orthodox Jewish groups. The committee is also set to discuss legislation about State Department funding when it meets at 4 p.m.
- The Justice Department’s Leo Terrell, Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Greg Stanton (R-AZ), author Dara Horn and the Philos Project’s Luke Moon are among those slated to speak today at the National Coalition Against Antisemitism & Hate Conference, hosted by the American Muslim and Multifaith Women’s Empowerment Council at the National Press Club.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S EMILY JACOBS
Following the sudden death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who was 71, this weekend, tributes poured in from lawmakers, administration officials and Jewish organizations, while Republicans and Democrats alike predicted Graham would be remembered as a legendary American political figure known for his ability to take political risks and find common ground in unexpected places.
Morgan Ortagus, the former deputy presidential envoy for Middle East peace in the second Trump administration and one of Graham’s closest confidantes in Washington, spoke to the senator on Saturday afternoon, hours before paramedics were called to his Capitol Hill home after he experienced an aortic dissection caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.
“He was extremely jazzed up in our last conversation,” Ortagus told JI. “He had just gotten off the phone with the president, and he was super excited about the Russia sanctions bill and the president deciding to go back into Iran. He could not have been happier when I spoke to him last night. He was in the best mood and in a great place. He spoke about how he felt like he was doing consequential work.”
“Nobody was expecting this. That’s for sure. Not even Lindsey was, or he wouldn’t have been running for another term,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), who has had close relationships with both Graham and President Donald Trump, said of the senator’s sudden passing. “When a person cuts as wide a swath as Lindsey cuts, it is shocking. It will take some time to process the reality of it. It should really hit on Monday when we show up for work.”
“He was not afraid to be critical and he was never uncritical of friends. He believed that friends owe it to each other to try to enable them to do better,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said. “He had a vision, which was in effect the normalization of relationships throughout the Middle East, an extension of the Abraham Accords. He pursued it relentlessly.”
Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) credited Graham with doing “a masterful job of pulling” senators from across the ideological spectrum “in the same direction” in the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, swiftly organizing a bipartisan congressional delegation alongside former Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) to Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt as he sought to salvage his long-standing efforts to achieve Saudi-Israeli normalization.
PEACH STATE PROBLEMS
In Georgia’s Senate race, tough choices ahead for the state’s Jewish community
For some Jewish voters in Georgia, this year’s Senate race offers no comfortable choice. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) votes to block weapons shipments to Israel have alienated some longtime supporters, while Republican nominee Rep. Mike Collins’ (R-GA) history of inflammatory rhetoric and controversial staffing choices has made him a nonstarter for others, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
The dilemma: The Jewish community remains divided on the race — some prominent community leaders, including prominent longtime Democrats, say they can’t see themselves voting for Ossoff given his record. But they also say that Collins is an unpalatable choice for them given his own history. Yet, both candidates also maintain strong supporters: Ossoff supporters argue that the response to his votes against weapons shipments have been overblown, or support the stances he’s taken. Collins supporters say that, despite past controversies, he’s the more reliable advocate for Israel and the Jewish community, in part because of his evangelical Christian background.
‘Rogue’ rhetoric
Abdul El-Sayed calls Israel a ‘rogue state’
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan running in the race’s far-left lane, on Sunday described Israel as a “rogue state” that has committed genocide and apartheid. El-Sayed made the comments in an interview with Manu Raju on CNN’s “Inside Politics Sunday,” Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
What he said: Asked whether he thought the Israeli government should be considered by the U.S. to be a foreign terrorist organization, El-Sayed answered, “It’s certainly a rogue state.” He continued, “I mean, they did a genocide. What about doing a genocide is not evil in your book? At baseline they do apartheid.”
Endorsement alert: Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) endorsed Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) over El-Sayed for the seat he is vacating, touting Stevens’ having demonstrated “time and time again that she’s a fighter” and adding that the U.S. Senate “is not a place for on-the-job training.”
SETTLER SCRUTINY
Khanna calls for investigation into West Bank altercation
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) on Sunday called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch an investigation after the lawmaker said he was harassed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank last week, an incident Netanyahu attributed to a small group of “vigilantes,” Jewish Insider’s Matthew Shea reports.
Khanna’s claim: During his first known trip to Israel and the West Bank since October 2024, Khanna said that his delegation’s van had been surrounded, stopped and taunted last Wednesday by Israeli settlers. Israel Police said that officers on the scene did not witness any violence and that the group was stopped in a restricted zone. Police added that Khanna’s tour group leader was warned of a possible arrest and that the group was told that civilians were not permitted in the area, before being released.
Bonus: The New York Post reports that Khanna ignored efforts by the Israeli Embassy in Washington to arrange a meeting with former hostages and survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks.
MEETING MISHAP
Mamdani pleads ignorance of commissioner’s plan to meet Iranian ambassador
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani told reporters on Friday that he had been unaware that top officials in his administration planned to meet with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations earlier this month — calling the decision “an error” on the part of one of his most prominent and politically active commissioners, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports.
Mayor’s comments: Speaking after an unrelated event, the mayor maintained he only learned from a request for comment from City Journal that International Affairs Commissioner Ana Maria Archila and what the publication described as “two other senior officials” working under her had planned to sit down on Tuesday with Amir-Saeid Iravani of the Iranian Mission to the U.N. City Journal, affiliated with the right-of-center Manhattan Institute, reported that the State Department stepped in to preempt the meeting.
FOLLOW THE MONEY
Radical GOP governor hopeful got cash from backers of far-left Dems
James Fishback, the GOP candidate for Florida governor whom critics call “openly racist” and “openly antisemitic,” ostensibly sits at the opposite end of the political spectrum from the likes of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. But the far-right and far-left politicians share more than just an aversion to Israel — they also overlap in donors, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman has found.
Money matters: Among the 27 donors to give the maximum $3,000 contribution to Fishback’s bid for Tallahassee is New York-based philanthropist and financier Amed Khan. A longtime associate of the Clinton family and contributor to former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as well as to the Democratic National Committee, Khan’s public commentary and political giving has pivoted leftward since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. Besides maxing out to Fishback, this cycle the investment banker and Quincy Institute board member has donated $7,000 to former Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner, the progressive Democrat whose tirades against “oligarchs” and “the establishment” — not to mention his rhetoric on Israel — made him a favorite of the online left before a rape allegation derailed his campaign.
Targeting Fishback: The Front Line, a newly launched political nonprofit group aligned with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), is making a $400,000 ad buy in Florida targeting Fishback over his past antisemitic comments and suggestion that he would not enforce the state’s antisemitism law if elected.
Worthy Reads
AWOL on Antisemitism: In The Hill, Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK), the co-chairs of the Senate’s antisemitism task force, call on Congress to pass the Jewish American Security Act. “Every single attack represents a violation of Americans’ freedom to safely practice their religion. Failing to confront the moral rot of antisemitism in our country is an abdication of our responsibility to uphold this fundamental right. We cannot continue to allow discrimination and violence to go unchecked. Yet despite the disturbing rise in antisemitism, not a single piece of federal legislation focused solely and directly on combating it has been passed into law since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.” [TheHill]
Lindsey’s Legacy: In The Atlantic, Mark Leibovich reflects on Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) death, looking at how the South Carolina Republican navigated the Beltway bubble, local politics and his relationship with President Donald Trump. “It is perfectly on the nose that Graham’s departure would occur just a few hours before he was supposed to appear on Meet the Press. It would have been his 64th appearance on America’s longest-running public-affairs program. In the Meet the Press greenroom there used to be a prominent photo of Graham yapping away alongside his Senate sidekick, John McCain. McCain, for his part, appeared 73 times on Meet the Press, more than any other guest in history — something McCain was especially proud of. In early 2019, a few months after McCain died, Graham joked to me that his main goal in his remaining time on God’s green Earth (or God’s greenroom) was to beat McCain’s record. He never will.” [TheAtlantic]
White House Inc.: Tablet’s Armin Rosen spotlights the overlap between business and personal dealings among members of the Trump administration, using as an example Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany who serves as a senior advisor to the president on Middle East and African affairs despite his business interests in Africa. “The blurring boundaries between individual personalities and the basic functioning of the American government are characteristic of the second Trump administration, where jobs at the top of the system have been turned into prizes given out to allies and loyalists deemed worthy of having a shot at 10-figure prosperity. … But the result of this new ethos is that the pursuits of personal and public interest now bleed into one another with desensitizing frequency.” [Tablet]
A larger selection of Worthy Reads is available in our Live Briefing.
Word on the Street
In The Atlantic, former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, now the head of the country’s opposition, reflects on what he has learned about the American ethos during his time traveling the country, finding that “America is the place where the individual precedes the tribe and the story precedes history,” and as a place where loneliness “is not a glitch in the system; it is the raw material from which the system was built”…
Politico looks at how Vice President JD Vance’s rhetoric on Israel is alienating some Jewish Republican donors…
Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has been hospitalized and has not made any public statements since a fall that he said left him “briefly unconscious” last month, released a photo of himself amid speculation over the extent of his illness, saying that he developed pneumonia while recovering from the fall…
The Washington State Democratic Party is facing criticism from Jewish communal leaders over a change to its party platform that linked rising antisemitism in part to the actions of the Israeli government…
The New York Times looks at the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America in smaller cities in upstate New York as the group seeks to extend its footprint around the state…
Graham Platner officially withdrew his candidacy for U.S. Senate in Maine, clearing the way for the Maine Democratic Party to replace him on the November ballot…
The Anti-Defamation League took out a full-page ad in the Maine Sunday Telegram, declaring of Platner, “The tattoo should have been enough” and warning that those who “traffic in antisemitism” often are associated with other “misconduct”; ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told JI, “At this pivotal moment, antisemitism is not only being normalized in our politics, it is at risk of becoming mainstreamed across society. When conspiracy theories, Nazi-linked symbols, ties to extremists or hatred toward Jews are excused or minimized, leaders cannot look away”…
PEN America President Dinaw Mengestu resigned after seven months in the role, following the organization’s publication of an article describing the harassment and isolation faced by Jewish and Israeli writers in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks and ensuing war in Gaza; Mengestu said that the decision was in part because of the group’s opposition to cultural boycotts by pro-Palestinian activists…
The Atlantic explores efforts by the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to learn the truth about their parents, who were executed in 1953 after being convicted of spying for the Soviet Union…
The U.K.’s Home Office announced it will spend £250 million ($335 million) over the next three years to increase security and policing at Jewish institutions…
The Australian royal commission of inquiry into antisemitism heard from students and faculty about the antisemitism they experienced at universities in the country that predated the Oct. 7 attacks…
Australia’s education minister announced an overhaul of the country’s education standards that will now require universities to adopt a definition of antisemitism and develop transparent processes for reporting incidents of racism…
Politico does a deep dive into efforts by Norway, led by a former national team star player-turned-activist, to oust Israel from FIFA…
European foreign ministers gathered in Brussels today to discuss a potential ban on the importing of goods from West Bank settlements…
Deutsche Welle spotlights efforts by Dennis Baum, the Jewish heir to the Simson automobile manufacturing empire, to fight back against the use of Simson vehicles in political materials distributed by the far-right Alternative for Germany party…
Counterterrorism officials in France are investigating after a military-grade weapon was discovered in a vehicle in a heavily Jewish neighborhood in the north of Paris…
The Qatar Investment Authority, which owns a 10% stake in Volkswagen AG, blocked a deal between the German automaker and Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems that would have seen Volkswagen produce vehicles supporting the Iron Dome missile-defense system….
Bloomberg looks at the challenges posed to global financial institutions by the growing rift between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia that “has the potential to upend global investment flows”…
Former Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, who oversaw the Gulf state’s transition into an era of massive growth that also saw Doha deepen ties with Iran, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and establish Al Jazeera, died at 74; The New York Times’ obituary of Sheikh Hamad included a photo of the former emir with senior Hamas officials…
Find on-demand Live Briefing updates throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Pic of the Day
French President Emmanuel Macron and Charles Dreyfus, a grandson of Alfred Dreyfus, on Sunday inaugurated a statue of the military captain, who was the target of the antisemitic campaign known as the Dreyfus Affair. The Paris ceremony marking Dreyfus’ 1906 exoneration was held on the country’s first national day dedicated to the recognition of his innocence.
Speaking at the ceremony, Macron acknowledged that “the old demons of antisemitism have never completely disappeared from our country.”
Birthdays
Television writer, David X. Cohen turns 60…
Scottsdale, Ariz., resident, retired teacher, Howie K. Kipnes… Actor whose films have grossed more than $10 billion, his maternal grandmother was Anna Lifschutz, a Jewish immigrant from Minsk, Harrison Ford turns 84… Ridgefield, Conn., resident, Louis Panzer… Lecturer on the federal budget process following 37 years at various federal agencies, Johnny Cahn… Co-host of “Pardon the Interruption” on ESPN since 2001, Anthony Irwin “Tony” Kornheiser turns 78… Actor, best known for her role as Frenchy in “Grease,” Edith “Didi” Conn turns 75… Author of crime and suspense novels, he is also a conservative commentator, Andrew Klavan turns 72… Guide and educator at Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Rabbi Dr. Eric Marshall Lankin… Senior manager of regulatory and legislative affairs at PJM Interconnection, Stuart Widom… Country music artist, Victoria Lynn Shaw turns 64… Television executive and producer, she was the president of HBO’s network’s entertainment division until 2008 and was responsible for commissioning “The Sopranos,” “The Wire” and other hit shows, Carolyn Strauss turns 63… Film director and screenwriter, Shari Springer Berman turns 63… Author and journalist, Katie Roiphe turns 58… Chief legal officer and chief policy officer at HackerOne, Ilona Cohen… Owner of the D.C. area franchises of SafeSplash Swim Schools, Jennifer Rebecca Goodman Lilintahl… Founder of Omanut Collective, Sarah Persitz… Director of major gifts for the Southeast region at American Friends of Magen David Adom, Yishai Mizrahi… Creator, writer and producer of the TV show “Casual,” which ran from 2015 to 2018, Alexander “Zander” Sutton Lehmann turns 39… Former CEO at Art of Air Events and Entertainment, Ariana Gradow… Managing director at BDT & MSD Partners, Nicholas Avery Newburger… Managing partner at Surround Ventures, Jared Kash… Television and film actor, Wyatt Jess Oleff (family name was Olefsky) turns 23… Technology investor and executive, Eric A. Kohlmann… Reporter at Punchbowl News, Max Cohen…
Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter said Khanna had declined a request to coordinate with the embassy for the trip where he was stopped by Israeli settlers in the West Bank
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) questions U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as he testifies before the House Armed Services Committee April 29, 2026.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) on Sunday called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch an investigation after the lawmaker said he was harassed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank last week, an incident Netanyahu attributed to a small group of “vigilantes.”
During his first known trip to Israel and the West Bank since October 2024, Khanna said that his delegation’s van had been surrounded, stopped and taunted last Wednesday by Israeli settlers armed with U.S.-made M4 rifles during a tour of the southern West Bank, an incident that a New York Times photographer traveling in a different vehicle said he witnessed.
Khanna claimed IDF vehicles then appeared, and the soldiers spoke amiably with the settlers and continued to block the road themselves after the settlers departed. The IDF denied that the visitors were detained by military personnel.
Cameron Kasky, an aide to Khanna, said the group was held for over an hour and appealed to the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem for assistance. Kasky previously ran in the Democratic primary in New York’s 12th Congressional District on an explicitly anti-Israel platform.
Khanna told NBC News the incident had made him “more resolved” to consider a presidential run in 2028.
“I have something unique to offer about the injustices of Palestinians,” he told the Times. “I’m going to go to every corner of America, regardless of whether I run or not, and tell their stories and tell the story of what is happening in the West Bank.”
An IDF spokesperson told NBC that troops and police officers were dispatched to the scene in a “closed military zone” after a “report was received regarding Israeli civilians who were unlawfully blocking the vehicle of foreign nationals.” The military said the soldiers reopened the road and let the delegation through.
Israel Police said that officers on the scene did not witness any violence and that the group was stopped in a restricted zone. Israel prohibits its citizens from entering certain areas of the West Bank without an IDF permit, particularly Palestinian Authority-controlled Area A, which are typically marked with warning signs. Foreign civilians are generally not legally barred from these areas, though they may be subject to security advisories or temporary restrictions.
Police added that Khanna’s tour group leader was warned of a possible arrest and that the group was told that civilians were not permitted in the area, before being released. Khanna said that his office had alerted the Israeli Embassy in Washington of his visit — a claim that was denied by the Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter.
Speaking on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Leiter said that Khanna’s team did not alert Israeli authorities, saying instead that the California lawmaker had ignored a request from officials to allow them to assist in coordinating the trip.
“We reached out to him [Khanna] when we heard he was going to Israel … We suggested he visit with survivors of the Oct. 7 [2023] massacre, that he visit the borders so he understands the issues that we have on our borders and so on,” Leiter said. “He [Khanna] ignored that and he decided to coordinate his trip not with Israel, but with Palestinian activists and with J Street.”
“There was a question about visas, that’s all,” Leiter added of Khanna’s outreach to the embassy. “But when we requested that he coordinate the trip with us, he rejected that by basically staying silent.”
J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami on Sunday denied that J Street had any involvement in organizing Khanna’s visit.
Speaking on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Khanna called the encounter “unprecedented” and accused the IDF of “lying.”
“They had violent settlers detain American citizens, including an American government official,” Khanna said. “You had these settlers brandishing M4s, kicking the tires of our van, laughing at us, mocking us, videotaping us. We were detained for about 20 minutes, fearful for our lives. Then the IDF comes, four soldiers, they tell our translator that they’re on the side of the settlers.”
Also appearing on NBC on Sunday, Netanyahu insisted that Israel is “a country of laws” and blamed the confrontation on a fringe group of “vigilantes.”
“We’re a country of laws, and people who break the law, we take them to court,” Netanyahu said. “There is a vigilante effort, not by the settler community … There are 150 juvenile delinquents that are not part of that community. They come from other parts of Israel. I don’t want vigilantes of any kind, and we are working to put them under the law.”
Responding to Netanyahu’s remarks, Khanna pushed the Israeli leader to further investigate the matter.
“The prime minister needs to open an investigation on these violent settlers,” Khanna said. “They need to be prosecuted … their outpost needs to be investigated, and he [Netanyahu] needs to have an investigation on these four IDF officers.”
“Security cameras can see that they were involved in the detention of American citizens,” he added. “How dare they mistreat people with an American passport that way?”
The far-left Senate candidate is facing off in the Aug. 4 primary against Rep. Haley Stevens
Sarah Rice/Getty Images
Abdul El-Sayed, candidate for US Senate in Michigan, speaks at Mumford High School on May 3, 2026 in Detroit, Michigan.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan running in the race’s far-left lane, on Sunday described Israel as a “rogue state” that has committed genocide and apartheid. El-Sayed made the comments in an interview with Manu Raju on CNN’s “Inside Politics Sunday.”
Asked whether he thought the Israeli government should be considered by the U.S. to be a foreign terrorist organization, El-Sayed answered, “It’s certainly a rogue state.”
“I mean, they did a genocide,” he continued. “What about doing a genocide is not evil in your book? At baseline they do apartheid.”
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan running in the race’s far-left lane, on Sunday described Israel as a “rogue state” that has committed genocide and apartheid.@HaleyCohen19 reports: https://t.co/9BELSWPMXQ pic.twitter.com/vSYVTTRZJZ
— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 12, 2026
El-Sayed’s comments come as Michigan’s heated Democratic Senate primary enters its final stretch. He is facing off in the Aug. 4 primary against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) — a moderate lawmaker who has been supported by AIPAC and pro-Israel donors.
Last week, El-Sayed told CNN that he did not believe that a Democratic politician’s support for Israel could be about anything other than money. Earlier in the race, El-Sayed said he struggled to answer questions about whether he believed Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state and that he believed the Israeli government was just as “evil” as Hamas.
The South Carolina Republican had recently returned from a trip to Kyiv, Ukraine, and Ankara, Turkey
Amir Levy/Getty Images
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks at a press conference on US-Israel relations on February 17, 2025
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who represented South Carolina in the Senate for more than two decades and was a stalwart supporter of Israel during his time in office, died on Saturday, his office announced. He was 71.
Graham, who served in the House of Representatives for more than a decade before being elected to the Senate in 2002, had recently returned from Ukraine, where he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Prior to Ukraine, he had been part of a bipartisan U.S. delegation in Ankara, Turkey, for the NATO summit.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) @LindseyGrahamSC died Saturday following what his office described as “a brief and sudden illness.”
— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) July 12, 2026
Israeli Prime Minister @netanyahu called him “a great American patriot and a great champion of the Israel-American alliance.”
President Donald Trump… pic.twitter.com/sKzQc2XnmT
NBC News reported that emergency personnel had responded on Saturday evening to a call regarding a cardiac arrest at Graham’s home on Capitol Hill.
A longtime advocate for Israel, Graham traveled to the country in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks, making at least 10 trips to the region since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war. He last traveled to Israel days before the outbreak of the Iran war in February 2026, during which he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Graham was openly critical of Iran and skeptical of Western engagement with the Islamic Republic. He was a vocal opponent of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and favored military engagement to address the threats posed by the Islamic Republic. He defended the Trump administration’s recent negotiations with Tehran, but said in June that he thought those talks were “going to fail.”
The South Carolina Republican had been up for reelection in November after easily clearing the GOP field in the state’s primary last month. Graham’s death is expected to trigger a special primary in the state to determine who will replace him on the ballot.
The Republican lawmaker was swiftly eulogized by top Israeli political figures.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had “lost one of its greatest friends.” Graham, Netanyahu said, “understood that the security of Israel and America are inseparable. He devoted his life to defending America, strengthening our alliance and standing up for the free world.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said in a statement that he was “shocked and heartbroken” to learn of Graham’s death, calling the senator a “dear friend” and a “great American patriot, a great friend of Israel.”
“Senator Graham was a beacon of moral clarity and a true leader of the U.S.-Israel partnership,” Herzog said. “We will never forget how he stood by the people of Israel in our most difficult moments, and we will remain eternally grateful for his sense of justice, truth, and loyalty.”
In a social media post, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who is running in the current election, mourned Graham as one of the country’s “greatest friends,” who “stood with Israel through our darkest hours, with courage.”
Israeli officials have increasingly indicated that Jerusalem is ready to return to military action if it determines that circumstances demand it
Ma'ayan Toaf (GPO)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the graduation ceremony of the IAF pilots' course, July 9th, 2026
After several days of watching from the wings as the United States has conducted strikes against Iran, Israeli officials have increasingly indicated that Jerusalem is ready to return to military action if it determines that circumstances demand it.
Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter told CNN on Thursday that Jerusalem is “supportive of the position of the United States” and would “fly alongside U.S. aircraft” if called on to do so.
At an Israeli Air Force graduation ceremony the same day, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF is prepared to “regain air superiority and carry out ‘blue-and-white’ [Israeli] strikes in Iran to remove threats — even for a third time,” warning that it would be with “even greater force” than before. Meanwhile, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir told graduates that “on the drawing board are new plans. Major operations are still expected to lie ahead of us. Be prepared.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reinforced that message in his remarks at the ceremony. While celebrating the outcome of Operations Rising Lion and Roaring Lion, he made clear that Israel does not view the conflict with Iran as settled. “Our policy is clear: With an agreement or without an agreement, Iran will not have nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said. He added: “The war is not yet over. Alongside old challenges, new ones are emerging. Axes fall, and axes rise. We are turning our attention to this. We are prepared for any scenario.”
Security analysts say the messaging reflects a desire to preserve military pressure without committing to another immediate campaign. Yoni Tobin, a senior political analyst at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told Jewish Insider, “While Israel isn’t exactly clamoring for more combat with Iran, particularly after nearly three years of multifront war, it is certainly ready for it.” Tobin noted that “Israel will likely feel comfortable acting against Iran if the United States does so as well, and if the two countries are aligned on objectives and strategy.”
David May, a senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the memorandum of understanding “should be seen as part of the process of ending the fighting between the United States and Iran, not the final agreement.”
“Washington needed the Strait of Hormuz opened urgently, but Iranian provocations have prevented the strait’s return to normal. Iran has always tried to cheat on the margins of deals with the United States — even with favorable agreements — to test American resolve,” May continued. “With the terms of the MOU so favorable to Iran, Tehran would have been wise to abide by the deal but didn’t, thanks in part to internal divisions. The renewed fighting will hopefully lead to the MOU being scrapped and replaced by a more reasonable peace agreement.”
“Israel has enjoyed the relative quiet and is feeling a bit shaky over its exclusion from ceasefire talks,” May posited. “But open conflict with the Islamic Republic remains a likely possibility.”
At the same time, the current situation may be more complicated than the public rhetoric suggests. Ran Zimmt, director of the Iran and Shiite Axis research program at the Institute for National Security Studies, wrote in an op-ed for Ynet that both Washington and Tehran would prefer to avoid a return to full-scale war.
“In this reality, the most likely scenario at this stage appears to be a continuation of the current situation: not a full-scale war, but also not a long-term diplomatic arrangement,” Zimmt wrote. “From Israel’s perspective, this reality seemingly has clear advantages. The military option remains on the table, and Iran does not enjoy a broad package of economic benefits that could strengthen the regime and allow it to invest significant resources in rebuilding its power.”
Zimmt warned, however, that while the status quo “may be preferable in the short term,” it does not “provide a stable solution, but at most a temporary pause,” during which Iran can rebuild its military capabilities.
Jordan Wood, a former Katie Porter staffer, says he supports the U.S.-Israel relationship but opposes 'a blank check' for the Israeli government
Campaign website
Jordan Wood
As Maine Democrats jump at the chance to replace Graham Platner on the ballot against Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), one of the issues where candidates are staking their claim early is U.S. foreign policy — and Israel and Gaza in particular.
Jordan Wood, a former chief of staff to Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA), shared his views on the U.S.-Israel relationship with Jewish Insider on Thursday. He entered the race after placing third in last month’s congressional primary to replace retiring Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME).
He told JI that he considers Israel “our strongest ally in the Middle East” but that its government must be reined in.
“The United States should absolutely have a cooperative relationship with Israel, and I want that relationship to work. But a real partnership is not a blank check,” said Wood. “It comes with honesty and accountability. The United States has enormous leverage with the Israeli government, and we’ve been refusing to use it.” He pledged to “push America to actually use that leverage to stop the genocide in Gaza.”
Wood spent a decade in Washington as a political staffer, with stints as a vice president at End Citizens United and executive director at a pro-democracy nonprofit.
Shortly after announcing his campaign, he said in his first official statement that he would not accept support from AIPAC. In a post on X hours later, he said that the U.S. “can’t continue to fund Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” and that he would support the Block the Bombs Act.
Still, he told JI, he believes that “Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East.”
“But there’s a difference between the Israeli people and the Netanyahu government, and nothing about self-defense justifies waging a war without limits,” said Wood. “Starving children and flattened hospitals don’t make Israel safer, and they don’t make America safer.” He referred to the family members of the Israelis taken hostage after Oct. 7, many of whom protested in Tel Aviv for two years, and said “they deserve leaders, in Israel and in America, with the courage to deliver the peace they’ve been asking for.”
Wood said Hamas should have no role in governing Gaza and called for the group to disarm. “The Oct. 7 terrorist attack was a horrific crime that shocked the world’s conscience,” said Wood.
Despite his pledge to eschew any support from AIPAC, he said that AIPAC supporters are still welcome in the party, even as he said AIPAC’s “agenda is not aligned with our values.”
“Jewish Democrats, and Democrats who care deeply about Israel’s security, are part of this party and always will be,” said Wood. “What’s not welcome is AIPAC’s agenda, which demands unconditional support for the Netanyahu government’s genocide in Gaza no matter the cost in innocent lives.”
Plus, Labour's leftward turn on Israel
Israeli Ministry of Defense/Anadolu via Getty Images
Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz holds a security situation assessment meeting with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir and other senior commanders in Tel Aviv, Israel, on March 07, 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
Appearing on CNN this morning, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter said Jerusalem is “supportive of the position of the United States” regarding renewed strikes on Iran, and said Israel would “fly alongside U.S. aircraft” if called on to do so.
He added that Iran had violated its “only obligation” under the memorandum of understanding — to keep the Strait of Hormuz open — and that if the Iranians “persist in their malign intentions,” the war could resume “in full swing”…
Israeli military leaders are also hinting at potential Israeli involvement: At an Israeli Air Force graduation ceremony, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF is prepared to carry out independent strikes “to remove threats” in Iran. Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, the IDF’s chief of staff, told the graduates that “new plans” are “on the drawing board” and that “major operations are still expected to lie ahead of us. Be prepared”…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he spoke with President Donald Trump today and was updated by the president “on American moves in the Gulf.” According to a statement from the PMO, Netanyahu again raised the issue of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan‘s hostile rhetoric toward Israel…
The Wall Street Journal examines the “root of the dispute” over the Strait of Hormuz — the “poorly worded” fifth article in the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding that says Tehran will “make arrangements” to restore shipping in the waterway and then work with Oman on a plan to administer it going forward.
“Notably, the paragraph says nothing about the U.S. making arrangements for the safe passage of vessels, which Iran has seized on to attack ships that use a U.S.-coordinated route,” a U.S. official told the outlet…
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is in Israel and the West Bank this week while Congress is in recess, according to two individuals with knowledge of the trip. Khanna has not posted publicly about his visit, which is scheduled to conclude tonight, JI’s Melissa Weiss reports…
While wrapping up his trip, Khanna, who was one of Senate candidate Graham Platner’s most vociferous defenders until a rape allegation was made against the Maine Democrat earlier this week, told MS NOW that he’s endorsing former state Sen. Troy Jackson to take Platner’s place on the ballot. Jackson, who previously ran for governor, is a progressive seen as aligned with Platner…
But Platner’s potential replacements will have to wait a few more days: The candidate told campaign staff he intends to wait until the very last day — Monday — to officially file his paperwork to drop out of the race, Axios reports…
The Journal profiles Cheyenne Hunt, the progressive influencer and activist who played a key role in bringing to light the sexual assault and misconduct allegations that ultimately saw the ouster of Platner and the resignation of former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA)…
Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) withdrew as co-chair of the Congressional Friends of Spain Caucus due to what he called Madrid’s “escalating, hostile crusade” against Israel…
Andy Burnham, widely expected to become Britain’s next prime minister, told The Guardian that the response of his Labour party to Israel’s military actions in Gaza “has too often not been good enough” and that the U.K. has “got to do more to put pressure on the Israeli government,” including sanctions and potentially banning trade in goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Burnham also said there is “increasing evidence” that Israel committed war crimes, though he did not use the word genocide, and said the determination should be left to international courts. His comments mark a shift to the left of Labour’s outgoing leader, Keir Starmer, who was slower than other European leaders to back a ceasefire and recognize Palestinian statehood…
Among those speaking at the closed-door Allen & Company retreat in Sun Valley, Idaho, today were Jared Kushner, UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Dave McCormick (R-PA) as well as Ken Griffin, the hedge fund manager and GOP megadonor.
Asked whether he would support Vice President JD Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the 2028 presidential election, Griffin said he’d be inclined to back Rubio…
⏩ 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 Platner’s potential replacements, as a handful of Maine Democrats are already jockeying for the position less than 24 hours after Platner announced he intends to drop out of the race for U.S. Senate.
We’ll be watching to see if U.S. and Iranian strikes continue into the weekend, or if the current flare-up has run its course. Prior to the outbreak in hostilities, Saudi media had reported that talks between Washington and Iran would restart on July 11, after the dayslong funeral of late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wraps up today. Trump said this morning that the Iranians had called and “want to make a deal so badly,” but it’s unclear whether the two sides intend to meet.
We’ll be back in your inbox with the Daily Overtime on Monday. Shabbat shalom!
Stories You May Have Missed
SCOOP
New Ted Cruz-aligned organization takes aim at right-wing antisemitism
Allies of the Texas senator are launching The Front Line, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit aimed at making antisemitism ‘disqualifying’ for GOP candidates
BELL BOUY
Wesley Bell sees surge of outside spending ahead of rematch with Cori Bush
As of this week, UDP has reserved $865,000 in ad time for the race and New Democrat Majority has reserved $500,000, ahead of the Aug. 4 primary
The California Democrat, one of the most vocal Israel critics in the House, last traveled to the Jewish state in October 2024
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) speaks at a rally near the U.S. Capitol on June 29, 2021, in Washington, D.C.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) traveled to Israel and the West Bank this week while Congress is in recess, according to two individuals with knowledge of the trip.
Khanna has not posted publicly about his trip, which is scheduled to conclude Thursday night. His office did not respond to requests for comment from JI.
The California Democrat has become increasingly critical of Israel since the onset of the Israel-Hamas war following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks. In September 2025, he accused Israel of having committed genocide in Gaza.
His last known trip to the country was with a bipartisan delegation in October 2024 that also included stops in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. On that trip, the delegation met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In a statement about the trip, Khanna noted that the group had also met with Jordanian King Abdullah II earlier in the day.
A spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office said that Netanyahu did not meet with Khanna during this trip.
Plus, Maine Dems back to square one
Meg Kinnard/AP
Former U.S. ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel speaks to voters as he participates in the South Carolina Democratic Party's "On the Road" series on Thursday, April 2, 2026, in Abbeville, S.C.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we report on former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s remarks yesterday in Tel Aviv on Israel and the Democratic Party, and have the scoop on a new 501(c)(4) launched by allies of Sen. Ted Cruz with the goal of combating antisemitism among Republicans. We report on the influx of cash from the United Democracy Project and another super PAC boosting Rep. Wesley Bell ahead of his rematch against former Rep. Cori Bush in Missouri, and spotlight the media moguls and tech titans attending the annual Sun Valley conference in Idaho this week. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Rep. Ed Case, Jillian Segal and Sen. Lindsey Graham.
We have also launched 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 an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.
What We’re Watching
- President Donald Trump is back in Washington today following the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. The president, who traveled to Ankara earlier this week aboard the plane recently gifted to him by Qatar for use as a new Air Force One, told reporters before he departed that he would be traveling on one of the older aircraft, while the new plane will be flown to a U.S. airbase in the U.K. The change-up came amid questions about the plane’s security features, as well heightened concerns regarding Iran following the resumption of strikes between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic.
- Before departing Turkey, Trump reiterated his threat to Iran that he would “finish the job,” telling reporters that he was no longer sure if he was interested in a peace deal with Iran and was questioning if the country’s leadership was rational enough to work with. The comments came as the U.S. and Iran traded strikes in the region, with CENTCOM saying it struck approximately 90 new military targets across Iran on Wednesday night — including air-defense systems, coastal surveillance assets, missile and drone storage sites, naval capabilities and military logistics infrastructure. Iranian media reported additional explosions in the Bushehr province this morning. Read more here.
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio is slated to meet at noon today at the White House with Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud.
- Elsewhere stateside, we’re keeping an eye on Maine Democrats as the party looks to pick a new candidate to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) following Graham Platner’s announcement last night that he was suspending his campaign after a former girlfriend accused him earlier this week of having raped her. More below.
- The Contemporary Antisemitism conference at the University of Haifa wraps up today with a keynote speech from philosopher and author Bernard-Henri Lévy.
What You Should Know
A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S emily jacobs
Allies of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) are launching a new political organization aimed at countering antisemitism within the Republican Party, Jewish Insider has learned, led by Arielle F. Klepach, a former assistant U.S. attorney and senior counsel for the National Jewish Advocacy Center.
The Front Line (TFL) will operate as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, meaning the group will not have to disclose its donors and can spend unlimited sums toward political activity, provided campaign finance is not its primary purpose and it does not contribute directly to campaigns.
A source familiar with the matter told JI that those behind the organization, which Cruz is not directly involved with, raised several million dollars to fund the operation. Klepach will run the operation as executive director.
“There has been a surge of antisemitism across America, which first engulfed the left and is now threatening the moral integrity and political unity of the conservative movement and the Republican Party,” Klepach said. “I am excited to lead The Front Line’s efforts to defeat right-wing antisemitism before it takes conservatives down the same path of anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and pro-Sharia advocacy that has taken the left.”
RAHM’S RHETORIC
Rahm Emanuel, in Tel Aviv, says he is ‘not impressed’ by far-left wing of the Democratic Party
Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel, speaking in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, criticized the “moral bankruptcy” of “those that paraded, celebrated and cheered” in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. Emanuel, who served as White House chief of staff from 2009 to 2010 in the Obama administration, made the comments as part of a broader address on his vision for the future of U.S.-Israel relations as he mulls a potential presidential bid, Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss reports.
What he said: Speaking to JI prior to his speech at Tel Aviv University, Emanuel responded to a question about Democrats, including Darializa Avila Chevalier, the presumptive winner in New York’s 13th Congressional District, who attended a Times Square rally the day after Hamas launched its attacks on southern Israel. “I have no place for the moral bankruptcy of those that found Oct. 8 as the day to cheer 1,200 people not only killed but sexually abused, and for taking hostage 250 people. They’re morally bankrupt.”
Tough talk: In his speech, Emanuel called for a reassessment of the relationship between the U.S. and Israel. “American policy towards Israel operated under the assumption that the best thing Washington could do for Jerusalem is to blindly, to silently stand behind your government without conditions, without demands, without consequences, even when we disagree,” Emanuel said. “That has been our mistake, and it’s been not a favor to you.”
In the room: In his Substack, Michael Granoff, who attended Emanuel’s talk at TAU, said he was “disappointed” by Emanuel’s remarks. “You spoke of Israel’s growing isolation. As someone who runs a venture capital fund based here, with investors from the US, Europe and Asia, I would contend that you did so in a greatly exaggerated way. But worse, you said this: ‘Your scientists face exclusion from international conferences and research networks. Your artists and academics are shut out of exhibits and meetings.’ Rahm, you are describing discriminatory boycotts by anti-Zionists. And your implication is that we are to be blamed. You think those trying to exclude Israeli performers from Eurovision are protesting building homes in East Jerusalem?”
CALLING IT QUITS
Platner suspends campaign, blames organized conspiracy for forcing him out
Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, the scandal-plagued progressive insurgent, announced on Wednesday evening that he plans to drop out of the race amid intense pressure, two days after a former romantic partner accused him of rape. Even as he announced his withdrawal, Platner remained defiant, claiming that the allegations against him were a conspiracy aimed at forcing him out of the race, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch and Marc Rod report.
Blame game: “We live in a political system that is not built for normal people,” Platner asserted. “It is a system that is built structurally to make sure that movements like ours cannot flourish, that if they begin to succeed, they can be crushed. … We did it the way that we were told we are supposed to make change, and we won, and now they are not going to let us have it, not if it’s me.”
Bonus: The New York Times does a deep dive into the slow unraveling of Platner’s campaign, finding it “was messy, disorganized and ultimately doomed by a steady drip of scandal.”
BELL BUOY
Wesley Bell sees surge of outside spending ahead of rematch with Cori Bush
A month ahead of Missouri’s primary elections, Rep. Wesley Bell’s (D-MO) campaign is being buoyed by an influx of outside spending from the AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project super PAC and another super PAC affiliated with the moderate New Democrat Coalition, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Money matters: As of this week, UDP has reserved $865,000 in ad time for the race, while New Democrat Majority has reserved $500,000 ahead of the Aug. 4 primary. In at least one advertisement, UDP is taking a similar approach as it did in its attacks against Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) in 2024 when the group helped Bell unseat her, hitting her as an absentee and ineffective lawmaker and for voting against the bipartisan infrastructure package in 2021. UDP’s ad features clips accusing Bush of having betrayed and disappointed organized labor and workers who supported her in her initial campaign.
CASE STUDY
Ed Case, pro-Israel moderate from Hawaii, faces primary challenge from progressive state senator
Rep. Ed Case (D-HI), a longtime pro-Israel moderate in the House, is facing his first serious primary challenge in years from state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, arguing — as other insurgent Democrats around the country have — that the district needs a new generation of leadership, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Israel record: Keohokalole’s campaign site makes little mention of Middle East policy, broadly calling for “reimagining the United States’ role on the world stage as a global peace leader by working to end unnecessary and costly conflicts, including opposing escalation toward war with Iran, and strengthening congressional oversight over military action and executive war powers.” But the state senator, who is 42, said in late 2025 he supported efforts led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to stop U.S. military sales to Israel, arguing that the small size of Gaza “all but guarantees that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s campaign of ‘targeted’ airstrikes will kill innocent adults, children, and infants. Hamas was wrong. So is this.”
ADVOCACY OUTCOMES
Jewish orgs cite ‘reason for optimism’ as NEA works to address union antisemitism
Major Jewish organizations expressed “reason for optimism” that the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union, is taking meaningful steps to address rising antisemitism following its annual Representative Assembly, which concluded in Denver on Tuesday, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.
Noted progress: The Jewish groups noted a safer and more inclusive environment for Jewish members at this year’s gathering, marking a stark contrast from last year, when delegates voted to boycott Anti-Defamation League materials in a measure Jewish groups condemned as antisemitic, among other disruptive events. The changes also come following the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission opening an investigation into NEA in June over alleged failure to address antisemitism.
Curriculum wars: With summer break offering teachers a chance to level up their skills for the year ahead, Illinois educators will be able to spend three days in Chicago this month learning about “the dangers of the ADL’s influence in our schools” — and earn credit toward the professional development needed to renew their teaching licenses, JI’s Gabby Deutch reports.
MOGUL ROLLCALL
New, and seasoned, faces show out for Sun Valley 2026
More than 300 of the world’s most powerful executives have trickled into Idaho for Allen & Co’s invite-only, closed-door Sun Valley conference, where media moguls, tech titans and financiers gather every year, Jewish Insider’s Christina Sher reports.
Spotted: Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA), former CIA Director David Petraeus, former Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE), Dina Powell McCormick, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Joshua Kushner, Karlie Kloss, Robert Kraft, Marc Andreessen, Sam Altman, Alex Karp, Bari Weiss, Sheryl Sandberg, David Zaslav, Bob Iger, Michael Eisner, Barry Diller, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Evan Spiegel, Josh Silverman, Marne Levine, Brian Grazer, Reid Hoffman, Adam Silver, Mitch Rales, Andy Jassy and Bobby Kotick were among those seen in Sun Valley this week.
Read the full story and see photos of Sun Valley attendees here.
Dinner dish: Puck’s Dylan Byers reports that Jassy and Kraft were seen dining at Enoteca in nearby Ketchum on Tuesday night.
Worthy Reads
Battlefield Blues: Bloomberg’s Max Hastings looks at the challenges facing the U.S. as other countries more quickly evolve their weapons production systems and increasingly rely on AI to quickly produce advanced weaponry. “Warfare, strategy and weapons systems are morphing at extraordinary speed. The US still possesses by far the most capable military. But its ability to dominate a battlefield, never mind an entire region, is under threat in a fashion that military men and women understand better than do many national leaders.” [Bloomberg]
F-35 Fears: In the Greek daily Ekathimerini, Reps. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL), the co-chairs of the Congressional Hellenic Israel Alliance, warn of the risks to the alliance formed by Greece, Cyprus and Israel posed by the potential sale of advanced U.S. weaponry to Ankara. “Turkey’s expansive maritime claims, continued tensions in the Aegean, military overflights and provocations affecting Greece, Turkey’s continued occupation of Cyprus, and increasing demonization of Israel have contributed to instability at a time when the region has an opportunity to move in a different direction. … Advanced military capabilities should strengthen alliances and regional stability – not create uncertainty among the partners who have worked alongside the United States to build a more secure Eastern Mediterranean.” [Ekathimerini]
Forgetting ‘Never Forget’: The Wall Street Journal’s Bertrand Benoit observes that Germany is at an “inflection point” some eight decades after the Holocaust, as memory of the Shoah fades and both the far right and the far left are on the ascendance. “Can a democracy that was built on a sense of responsibility for the Holocaust survive without it? What does it mean for Europe if the country that set the modern standard for combating antisemitism across the continent chooses to move on at a time of rising Jew-hatred? And last, can a country that twice set the world ablaze — and is now engaged in the largest rearmament effort in decades as Russia threatens the continent — be trusted by neighbors if it abandons what has for eight decades served as its moral compass?” [WSJ]
Word on the Street
In a change of tone, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Wednesday that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa deserves a chance to rebuild the war-torn country, arguing that his efforts to curb Iran’s influence in Syria should prompt Israel to reassess its approach to the new government, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports…
Axios looks at how the U.S.-Iran war has increasingly shifted to focus on the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that the White House “is preparing for what could become a multi-day or even multi-week exchange of fire”…
The Wall Street Journal spotlights how Jewish Democrats mulling 2028 presidential bids are navigating the party’s leftward shift on Israel…
The governing body of the Football Association of Ireland voted 75-32 to proceed with the national team’s upcoming matches against Israel, following calls for the FAI to boycott the games, slated to take place in Dublin’s Aviva Stadium…
The hate crimes unit of Montreal’s police department is investigating a series of attacks targeting members of the city’s Hasidic community last Friday night in which the attackers drove through a heavily Jewish neighborhood, shouting antisemitic slurs and throwing cans at people walking home from Shabbat services…
Australia’s antisemitism envoy, Jillian Segal, testifying before the government’s royal commission into antisemitism, called for the creation of an independent oversight committee to monitor the Australian public broadcaster’s compliance with its charter obligations; her comments came after numerous complaints over the broadcaster’s airing of falsities around the Israel-Hamas war and slowness to issue corrections…
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz pushed back against President Donald Trump’s suggestion this week that Israel would withdraw from Lebanon, saying, “We didn’t ask for anyone’s approval to enter Lebanon, and we don’t need approval to stay in Lebanon”…
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency downgraded its risk classification for Israel and the Gulf, opting against extending its high-risk conflict zone advisory for the region when the warning expired on Wednesday…
Attorney William Zabel, a prolific celebrity divorce lawyer who was instrumental in distributing some $2.2 billion to the victims of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, died at 89…
Find on-demand Live Briefing updates throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and website.
Pic of the Day
Agudath Israel held a meet-and-greet event with New York officials on Wednesday in Manhattan. The group presented Julie Menin and Mark Levine, respectively the speaker of the City Council and the city’s comptroller, with mezuzot.
Menin decried what she called the “shameful and unconscionable” crisis of antisemitic incidents in New York. She touted the council’s passage of buffer zone bills for religious institutions and schools, asking rhetorically, “What could be controversial about that?” to a crowd that included Jason Binderman, the deputy director for the Mayor’s Office to Combat Antisemitism — an apparent dig at Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who opposed the bills.
Pictured from left: Assemblymember David Weprin, Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), Councilmember Mercedes Narcisse, Menin, Levine, Councilmember Chris Banks, Rabbi Yeruchim Silber, Rabbi Ephraim Gurell and state Sen. Lester Chang.
Birthdays
Co-founder of Netscape and co-founder and general partner of Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, he is celebrating his birthday at the Sun Valley conference, Marc Lowell Andreessen turns 55…
Former Soviet refusenik, prisoner of conscience, human rights activist, author and translator, Iosif Begun turns 94… Constitutional law expert focused on the First Amendment and free speech, senior counsel at Cahill Gordon & Reindel where he has practiced since 1963, Floyd Abrams turns 90… Retired conductor and music director of symphony orchestras in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, Rochester, N.Y., Baltimore and Zurich, David Zinman turns 90… Huntington Woods, Mich., resident, Robert Morris Rubin… Arizona resident, Howard Cohen… Play-by-play announcer for the MLB’s San Diego Padres from 1980 to 2020, Theodore “Ted” Leitner turns 79… Tikvah “Tiki” Stern Lyons… Rabbi of Congregation Beth Jacob of Atlanta, Rabbi Ilan D. Feldman turns 72… U.S. senator (R-SC) since 2003, Lindsey Graham turns 71… Author, motivational speaker and former stockbroker, his autobiographical memoir, The Wolf of Wall Street, was adapted into a film and released in 2013, Jordan Ross Belfort turns 64… Mortgage professional and owner of D.C.’s Char Bar, Michael Alan Chelst… Public radio personality, former producer of “This American Life” and the host and executive producer of the “Serial” podcast, Sarah Koenig turns 57… Activist short seller, author and editor of the online investment newsletter Citron Research, Andrew Edward Left turns 56… Actor, tour guide, poet, speaker, philosopher and author, Timothy “Speed” Levitch turns 56… Host of The Free Press’ “Breaking History” podcast, Eli Jon Lake turns 54… Anchor and reporter for Fox Business Network, Lori Rothman turns 53… Member of the URJ North American board of trustees, Peter Webb… Co-founder and executive director of Nefesh B’Nefesh, Yehoshua Fass turns 53… Brigadier general (res.) in the IDF, he held many military leadership positions in digital transformation and computer science, Omer Dagan turns 50… Israeli documentary filmmaker, Guy Davidi turns 48… Retired poker player, now an options trader, she is the only woman to ever reach the No. 1 ranking on the Global Poker Index, Vanessa K. Selbst turns 42… Tony Award-winning theater, film and television actor, Brandon Uranowitz turns 40… Renewable energy and climate specialist, Samantha Hea Marks… Pitcher for Team Israel at the 2017 and 2023 World Baseball Classics, Jake Kalish turns 35… Pitcher in the Los Angeles Angels organization through 2024, now a free agent, Kenny Rosenberg turns 31… Spokeswoman and communications specialist for foreign media in the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel, Shoshana Bedrosian turns 29…
State Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole criticized Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and has called out Case’s support from AIPAC, but analysts say he has more work to do to take down the veteran lawmaker
Alex Brandon/AP
Rep. Ed Case (D-HI) questions Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at a House Appropriations subcommittee budget hearing for the Department of Defense, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Washington.
Rep. Ed Case (D-HI), a longtime pro-Israel moderate in the House, is facing his first serious primary challenge in years from state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole, arguing — as other insurgent Democrats around the country have — that the district needs a new generation of leadership.
Case, 73, has long been a political institution in Hawaii. He has represented the 1st Congressional District in the heart of Honolulu since 2019, after previously serving the state’s 2nd District — which covers all areas outside of Honolulu — from 2002 to 2007, following several years in the Statehouse. He ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate before making his return to the House.
As one of the most moderate Democrats in the chamber — siding at times against the Biden administration and with Republicans — he has been something of an unusual fit for the strongly Democratic district.
Hawaii’s primary is set for Aug. 8.
Keohokalole’s campaign site makes little mention of Middle East policy, broadly calling for “reimagining the United States’ role on the world stage as a global peace leader by working to end unnecessary and costly conflicts, including opposing escalation toward war with Iran, and strengthening congressional oversight over military action and executive war powers.”
But the state senator, who is 42, said in late 2025 he supported efforts led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to stop U.S. military sales to Israel, arguing that the small size of Gaza “all but guarantees that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s campaign of ‘targeted’ airstrikes will kill innocent adults, children, and infants. Hamas was wrong. So is this.”
Keohokalole said Israel has an inherent right to defend its sovereign territory “but for this to keep going the way it’s going, I think it reflects poorly on everyone involved in the campaign there, and this is going to persist for decades. People are not going to forget this, and I don’t think we should be associated with the carnage.”
He has also called out Case for receiving support from AIPAC.
But Colin Moore, an associate professor at the University of Hawaii, said that the subject has not been a central issue on the campaign to the extent that it has been in other recent Democratic primaries. “Maybe at the margins, but it’s not been an issue that either campaign has made central,” Moore said.
Case, at the beginning of the cycle, faced another challenge as well from a state representative, but that candidate dropped out of the race, consolidating the anti-Case vote, Moore explained.
Moore said that Keohokalole has been stepping up his outreach, making a strong push on social media and garnering national media attention. “It’s still likely that Ed Case will win, but I think it will be closer than I expected it to be a couple of months ago,” Moore said.
Limited polling has made it difficult to assess the state of the race, however. Case maintains a significant fundraising advantage, with $890,000 on hand to Keohokalole’s $252,000 as of the end of March.
“Ed Case has always been the most vulnerable of the four members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation,” Moore continued. “He’s … somewhat of an unusual figure to represent urban Honolulu, which is one of the most democratic districts in the country, to be a Blue Dog centrist Democrat.”
Case left the centrist Blue Dog coalition in 2023, but has remained a moderate.
Some of Case’s breaks with his party during the Biden and Trump administrations have angered local voters and the Hawaii Democratic Party, making him increasingly vulnerable to a challenger, something Moore said “has been a long time coming.”
The recent far-left victories against older, more moderate lawmakers in New York City and Denver are also driving enthusiasm and interest in Keohokalole’s campaign, Moore added. “That, I think is at least contributing to the vibes shift here, in a sense that the race might be tightening a little bit.”
But Moore also warned from drawing too many conclusions from the New York and Colorado results. “Hawaii is a Democratic state, [but] it’s not necessarily a progressive state, and it doesn’t always follow those trends all that closely,” he said.
Case remains very well known in the district and popular with center-left voters and unions, and he has played to his strengths, highlighting his seniority, his track record in delivering results for the district and his support for the military, “and that resonates a lot.”
Moore said that this style of politics — emphasizing seniority and delivering federal funding — has long been successful in Hawaii politics, perhaps more so than in other parts of the country.
In order for Keohokalole to win, he’d need a significant fundraising boost in the final weeks of the campaign so that he could make a larger media push, Moore said, explaining that the race is still largely flying under the radar for most voters and Keohokalole has more work to do to convince voters that he poses a serious challenge to Case.
The senator credited al-Sharaa with diminishing Iran’s influence in Syria and urged Israel to recognize how the move could benefit the region
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on July 30, 2021 in Washington, DC.
In a change of tone, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Wednesday that Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa deserves a chance to rebuild the war-torn country, arguing that his efforts to curb Iran’s influence in Syria should prompt Israel to reassess its approach to the new government.
Graham, who has long been skeptical of Syria’s new government, released a statement at the conclusion of his visit to Ankara, Turkey, this week for the NATO summit, where he took part in several bipartisan meetings between U.S. lawmakers and world leaders including al-Sharaa.
The South Carolina senator said he left his meeting with the Syrian president feeling encouraged, saying the Syrian leader has earned U.S. backing as he seeks to rebuild the war ravaged country.
Graham’s latest statement came hours after President Donald Trump notified Congress that he’s moving to remove Syria from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list, which the president had been publicly considering.
“I believe it is in America’s national security interest to work with him and give him a chance to see if he can put together a lasting, functioning government in Syria,” Graham said of al-Sharaa. “A fractured Syria, on the other hand, plays into the hands of our enemies. I think President al-Sharaa presents the best chance for a functioning, united Syria over time.”
“I very much understand Israel’s concerns, but President al-Sharaa has been a true thorn in the side of Iran. He has dramatically reduced Iran’s influence in Syria, which is a giant step forward for the Syrian people and a blow to Iran,” he continued. “It is time to recognize what he’s done regarding Iran and give him the capability to improve the lives of the Syrian people, realizing that the status quo is unacceptable for all.”
The comments mark a notable shift for the South Carolina senator, who has been among the most vocal skeptics of the new Syrian government since it took power in March 2025. Graham had tried to convince the Trump administration to place binding conditions on the repeal of Caesar Act sanctions on Syria last year, which the White House and Syrian diaspora groups successfully pushed congressional Republicans to lift unconditionally.
Graham vowed to “do everything in my power to revive the Caesar Act sanctions, making them even more bone crushing” in response to the Syrian government’s military offensive in January against territory held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. He introduced legislation that month imposing sanctions on any government or group involved in targeting Kurdish forces in Syria.
Plus, Rahm Emanuel on the ‘moral bankruptcy’ of far-left Dems
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
President Donald Trump during the press conference at the NATO Summit in Ankara, Turkiye on July 8, 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
CENTCOM began conducting additional strikes against Iran this afternoon, after President Donald Trump continued to escalate his rhetoric against the regime in his remarks today at the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey.
Trump said he wasn’t sure he wanted to make a deal with the Iranians any longer and reiterated his threat to “finish the job,” but still denied the strikes mark a return to full-scale war: “I think anything that happens is going to be over very quickly,” he said…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had scrapped a planned trip to Israel, saying in an interview that the defense chief had been “called back home” from the summit in Ankara. Meanwhile, Israeli media reports that American military refueling planes have begun to return to the region…
Trump is likely to face pushback from lawmakers over the renewed strikes: Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY), the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said he’s already “in conversations with the Senate to explore any and all legal pathways to hold Trump accountable,” given that both chambers of Congress already passed a war powers resolution seeking an end to U.S. military action in Iran…
Trump also informed Congress today that he intends to rescind Syria’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism following a 45-day pre-notification period, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced, shortly after Trump held a friendly meeting with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa on the sidelines of the NATO summit…
Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, speaking to Jewish Insider’s Melissa Weiss prior to his speech at Tel Aviv University today, criticized the “moral bankruptcy” of “those that paraded, celebrated and cheered” in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.
Responding to a question about Democrats who did so — including New York City congressional candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, who attended an anti-Israel rally in Times Square on Oct. 8, 2023 — Emanuel said, “I have no place for the moral bankruptcy of those that found Oct. 8 as the day to cheer 1,200 people not only killed but sexually abused, and for taking hostage 250 people”…
In an interview on Israel’s Channel 12, Emanuel confirmed he’s “thinking about” running for president in 2028 and said he believes Americans could elect a Jewish president. “I believe people will evaluate me based on my character and my background,” he said…
Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner still remains in the race two days after Politico published an account from a former romantic partner accusing him of rape, though the candidate’s feud with the Maine Democratic Party continues. Platner’s campaign manager, Ben Chin, sent a message to supporters today accusing the MDP of allowing the national Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to orchestrate Platner’s replacement “behind closed doors.”
In response, the MDP, which was reportedly set to hold a meeting on the issue this afternoon, said Platner’s campaign is “distracting from the job of defeating [Sen.] Susan Collins (R-ME) in November with false accusations” and pledged to develop “a representative, transparent and inclusive process to select a new nominee when he chooses to withdraw from the race”…
A new Politico survey of Democratic primary voters in Michigan, conducted in the two days after state Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the race for U.S. Senate, found the two remaining candidates — Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Abdul El-Sayed — in a statistical tie at 42-41%, with nearly 20% of voters undecided…
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear sent a letter to Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) requesting that he “fully update Kentuckians regarding the current status of your health,” as McConnell has been hospitalized for nearly a month…
A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 44% of American Jews hold a favorable view of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani — a higher percentage than Netanyahu, who received a 32% favorability rating…
Jewish groups — including the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Hadassah and StandWithUs — celebrated several steps taken at the National Education Association’s Representative Assembly, which wrapped up yesterday in Denver, including the Jewish Affairs Caucus’ work in advancing three amendments to the NEA Constitution and a resolution on Jewish education…
Bertrand Benoit, The Wall Street Journal’s bureau chief in Germany, explores what it means for Germany’s identity as its citizens begin to lose their living connection to the Holocaust, including how the fading of survivor testimony, rising antisemitism and challenges from both the political right and left are reshaping the country’s culture of remembrance…
⏩ 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 choice ahead for Georgia’s Jewish community in the race between Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and his opponent, Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA).
The Contemporary Antisemitism conference at the University of Haifa will wrap up with a keynote speech by philosopher and author Bernard-Henri Lévy.
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SANCTIONS STANDOFF
Lawmakers divided over Trump’s plan to lift sanctions on Turkey
Members from both parties warned lifting penalties would reward Erdoğan’s destabilizing actions, while senators at NATO summit said Turkey could rejoin F-35 program if concerns over Russian S-400 system are resolved
